I still am shocked when I see POC supporting Trump; I was flabbergasted when a friend, Asian-American, outed himself as a “shy” Trump voter.
But it looks like I probably should get used to it. Trump outperformed his 2016 numbers with Blacks and Latinos alike.
Is this populism, assimilation, or uniquely Trump? The (white) Republicans have wanted to disenfranchise Blacks and restrict (all, but specifically Latin) immigration for decades. Even appalachian coal miners voting against their long-term interests are at least paid lip service. I don’t get it.
maybe Latin-American Trump-voters, who already live in the US, see foreign latin-americans as a competition/threat. Because they are competing probably with the foreigners for the same jobs etc.
I read that LA Times piece last night, debated posting it.
A truism with (many) conservative voters regardless of race or gender seems, “if [it] doesn’t affect me, it doesn’t matter.” Thus the conclusion if the voter did ok economically while trump is President, then check the box for re-election. I don’t know and kinda doubt it’s that simple, but it’s probably true for some portion of the vote.
Latinos fleeing Venezuela to escape Maduro (or maybe even Mexico, although I do not know how their left wing President is doing) are rightly I think afraid of the socialism label as it’s been so grievously abused there (it’s pure authoritarianism, but that’s a topic for a different thread.) The problem being that they voted for our wanna be authoritarian proto fascist. That said, Hispanic voters did like Bernie, and well he’s our (the US) token socialist so there that too.
The other issue is blaming the Biden campaign for its lack of Hispanic outreach. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that; but that also appears to be a function of which state they reside in as AZ and I think NV saw overwhelming support for Biden, but not in FL or TX. I think that rests on the local Democratic party as much as it does on the national one.
The piece however is absolutely right that they should not be taken for granted. No voter bloc should, obviously, but demography is not destiny either. The bottom line is though that in order to be competitive in southern and western states Democrats need to outperform Republicans by wide margins in order to overcome gerrymandering.
That’s going to mean state parties need to vastly improve their outreach programs, GOTV and other operations. In Florida for example, up until this year Democratic party registration outnumbered Republicans by nearly 700,000 people yet Democrats keep losing statewide elections. Even in the so-called liberal bastion of CA, many progressive state wide initiatives went down to defeat.
Many Latino Americans are socially and economically conservative. Things like abortion (because they are Catholic) and socialism (because their roots are in failed economic states) are motivating, and for some of them that motivation trumps the anti-Latino animus directed at them by many whites in the GOP. And, as a party, the GOP has been willing to treat ‘right-thinking’ Latinos as white people, at least for coalition electoral purposes. The GOP opposition to immigration isn’t going to make these Latinos automatically Democrats.
I can see them buying into the “work hard, get rewarded” kind of Republican mantra, and if the (BS) argument that “Dems=welfare for slackers” is heard, it’s the opposite mentality that immigrants will want to associate with. They are the most hard working demographic there is., it just needs to be explained they can work hard, succeed, and also have a healthcare safety net and more caring system for everyone.
Indeed. No Republican does either, to them everyone from south of the border 's “Mexican” as far as I can tell.
As to the topic, and I’m seriously curious about this, are there any numbers on what % of the Jewish population in Germany supported Hitler in the 30’s?
Anecdote alert: I work with and live around lots of folks with roots in Mexico. They hate welfare freeloaders, like guns, and are quite religious. They’re a natural constituency for a socially conservative party. It’s surprising to me that the GOP has made every effort to alienate them and that Democrats have taken them for granted.
No hard numbers on the Asian-American vote yet, but this article from a few days ago is mildly encouraging.
In the last days of the presidential race, the Asian GOP aims to push “the silent majority” of Asian American conservatives toward Biden. Li said the group’s WeChat community has roughly 50,000 to 70,000 people, with a third pledging support for Trump and the rest saying they will not vote for Trump but are unsure who to vote for.
“They do that not because they’re not sure, it’s because they’re shy of saying it, it’s almost saying ‘I made a mistake back in 2016,’ which we did,” Li said. “The purpose of [publishing the statement] is telling people [who are] too shy, ‘It’s OK to vote for Joe Biden, it’s OK to come out to express, it’s OK that you made a mistake in 2016.’”
However, the article doesn’t touch on the hardcore Trumpists in the (specifically) Chinese-American community, notably the exile billionaire collaborating with Steve Bannon, and The Epoch Times. The Chinese Koch and OAN, as it were.
Michael Harriot, historian, wrote this enlightening thread about the history of how noted non-white races like Italians and Irish became white – by finding someone lower on the social ladder to kick around.
I tell this story every time this comes up, but it’s worth retelling because it continues to be relevant.
Back in the 1980s, the GOP noticed the exact same thing - that Latinos matched the GOP on social issues and formed a natural constituency. Buoyed by the success with Cuban immigrants in Florida, the GOP made converting Latinos into Republicans their official plan for demographic dominance in the long-term. Reagan, both Bushes, McCain, Romney - all were on board with making Latinos a major part of the party.
They failed, miserably.
Part of the problem is that it was largely a top-down effort - a plank in a party platform here, an immigration reform bill there - with little ground game outside of Florida. But the biggest problem was that the GOP higher-ups refused to admit their long-term plan conflicted with another constituency, a constituency they had deliberately courted since 1968 and now utterly relied on, even if they didn’t realize it yet: racists. At the same time the GOP expected the Latino vote to fall into their lap, they were paying Lee Atwater to make sure that racists felt the GOP was their party and not that of those people. Because the higher-ups refused to confront the cancer eating away at the party, the racists grew bolder and bolder and eventually took over the party.
Meanwhile, Latinos could see perfectly well what the core constituency of the GOP had become. Most - but not all - stayed away in droves. Hence where we are today.
If the full truth were told, the headlines right now wouldn’t read, “Trump gets surprisingly large share of Latino vote” but rather, “GOP bungles long-term plan for success due to being giant racists, alienates fastest-growing demographic group despite many shared values.”
But you won’t see that. Partly because the media insists on always treating the Republicans as strategic geniuses and the Dems as strategic dunces, regardless of actual outcomes. But it’s also because the Dems are so acutely self-conscious. They’ll agonize over, “Why did we only win 70% of Latinos?” instead of marveling that they won a demographic that, 30 years ago, many experts confidently predicted would be voting GOP.
(Don’t get me wrong, it’s good the Dems agonize over these things. But holy crap I wish we could take the win sometimes.)
I’m just not seeing the win here. This is back to vinraith’s question on Jewish supporters of Hitler. I can guarantee it wasn’t 30%.
From the Gustavo Arellano article:
They’re the Mexican Americans of Zapata County, Texas, which sits right on the U.S.-Mexico border and just voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time since Warren G. Harding.
But I do take glee in seeing the Democratic establishment flap around for answers when it comes to Latinos.
If ever there was a group that needed a stone-cold reckoning with us, it’s them.
This is an ossified institution that continuously banks on Latinos running to it for protection from the mean GOP, then does little to keep us. It’s one that didn’t learn anything from the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, who actually listened to young Latinos, built a campaign that was more than just never-Trump and created an electoral powerhouse that the Biden campaign largely ignored and definitely never energized.
Again, not seeing where Democrats should “take the win” in 2020.
My continuing concern is that this demographic is naturally oriented conservative and the democratic ticket is tilting more progressive over time and further away from their values. This just doesn’t feel like a sustainable situation to me and might cost the Dems big in the near future.
It also suggests to me that some parts of the Democratic “pro-minority values” actually appeal to more to non-immigrant White people than the actual minorities - so if the Democrats are serious about keeping this vote they figure this out soon.
Winning the presidency from this particular incumbent is a win. It’s always hard to defeat an incumbent, and in this case it will probably save hundreds of thousands of lives, save social security and Medicare, and prevent all manner of depredations. It’s a win.
My continuing concern is that this demographic is naturally oriented conservative and the democratic ticket is tilting more progressive over time and further away from their values. This just doesn’t feel like a sustainable situation to me and might cost the Dems big in the near future.
I don’t know, if anyone wanted/needed universal health care, for workers who have no employer-sponsored care, it’s Latinos. Especially if they have big families, which I hope I’m not wrong in thinking they do, compared to the shrinking white demographic.
