We have been informed that Donald Trump is “gaining” among black and Hispanic male voters. Why? Some reports say that they like his “tough” talk and braggadocio. We are told by Politico that Hispanic males whose countries of “origin” were ruled by “socialist strongmen” tended to prefer Trump: “Hispanic men hailing from socialist dictatorships are often leery of the Democratic Party’s veer to the left”—which of course doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since “socialists” are supposed to be “radical leftists” and “communists," and Democratic primary voters picked Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders because he was not a "socialist" or "radical." If anyone in this country is such, it is of the “national socialist” variety, since the Trump administration has been acting like a fascist dictatorship for some time now. There are also some who say that some black and Hispanic male voters are off-put by the Democratic Party seeming to cater more to the female demographic and their “issues.”
Or maybe there are those like that black guy who was walking around a Massachusetts Walmart and “hugging” shoppers, telling them “Just giving you a Covid hug. You now have Covid," or those who share the attitude of a black female employee at a McDonald's who shouted “Trump! Trump!” at a Hispanic woman just because she requested more ketchup. Some are not immune from being infected by far-right conspiracy theories; take for instance former football “great” Herschel Walker, who recently claimed that the BLM movement is trained by “Marxists” and funded by donations from the Democratic Party. He claimed that “But then I also saw that BLM had a subsidiary company that was partnered with a company from China that was giving them money. So, the money goes from China, to the subsidiary, to BLM, to the Democratic Party. Why does it seem like I’m the only that’s coming up with this? Just think about it.” I’m thinking, and I think you’re nuts.
Many black and Hispanic supporters are businesspersons who claim that they are hurt by regulations, red-tape and taxes. Yet they are still complaining despite everything that Trump has supposedly done to “help” them; I mean, there are other reasons why businesses fail, like having a lousy sales department. Trump may be “pro-business,” but he really doesn’t know anything about “business”; he is just a glorified real estate agent and seller of his name “brand”—as if that means anything but “mud” these days.
For me there are very good reasons not to want Trump in office for another four years, although they are more of the philosophical nature than of substance, the latter of the nature of not being “accidentally” detained and deported by crazed ICE terrorists, murdered by a Trump Nazi, having my future Social Security and Medicare endangered by the elimination of the payroll tax, or the Affordable Care Act struck down with no replacement that offers the same benefits and protections that it does (come to think of it, those are very good reasons not to vote for Trump). But in the long view, the important thing is preventing Trump and his familiars from locking in dangerous precedents that will be difficult to undo, like the acceptance of serial lying, obstruction, lawlessness and just plain contempt for ethical and moral behavior. Oh, and, uh, permanently dividing this country into two separate universes where there is no sense of common purpose.
It is also about the social and political “tone” that is set, and this is what concerns me most as an “ethnic” person who sees ignorance, prejudice, stereotyping and scapegoating everywhere—and this includes by white “liberals,” especially women. In regard to Hispanic voters, NBC News recently pointed out that despite the fact that Hispanics represent the second largest voting block behind non-Hispanic whites, the country (and the media) still views the world in essentially black and white terms. Northwestern University historian Geraldo Cadava noted that “many Hispanics felt they'd been ignored by Democrats, who saw civil rights primarily in black and white, while Californians like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan reached out to them.” Cadava pointed out that the Republican Party seemed like a “fit” for Hispanics because they were a “natural” constituency for a party that allegedly “valued family, church and work so highly."
But Trump has turned all of that on its head. He opened his presidential bid in June, 2015 with these words: "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting." He also said they all come from “shithole” countries, and he doesn’t want anymore of them. NBC noted that “Trump has built up an impressive body of insults and racist slurs directed at Latinos,” rivaling that of the Washington Post’s count of his lies which continue to rise any hour of the day that Trump is conscious. And that isn’t all, far from it. As talked about before, Trump, Stephen Miller, the Justice Department and the DHS have instituted policies that making it next to impossible for Hispanic immigrants to legally enter the country, for those who are in the country by other means, there are of course ways of dealing with them—like infesting as many as possible with the COVID-19 (who cares if a “few” die of it) or sterilization experiments on women (the Georgia ICE facility may not have been the only doing this).
Yet even a Trump-influenced white nationalist killing 26 Hispanics in an El Paso Walmart is not enough to deter many. “But none of it seems to have hurt him (Trump) significantly among Latino Republicans,” according to NBC. “In 2016, he won 28 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, and published by outlets including NBC News…Today, national polls show Trump set get around 30 percent of the Latino vote.”
The “explanations” for this slight rise are there, even “logical” ones. “It's a difficult question, but there are logical explanations,” Eduardo Gamarra, professor of politics at Florida International University, said. And pray tell what are those? Well, Latinos are not a monolithic group, like, say, blacks supposedly are. "They have distinct political postures and come from different national politics. They don't vote the same, think the same or have similar histories. There are liberal Latinos, conservative Latinos, poor Latinos, rich Latinos." There are also “ethnic” differences. White Cubans tend to be more conservative than non-white Cubans; white Cubans also tended to be racist, the ones who oppressed the indigenous and former slave population in pre-Castro Cuba—and non-white Cubans can’t help but note that this hasn’t changed much in America. Gamarra confirmed that “racism exists in many Latin American countries and communities in which lighter-skinned people and those with Spanish ancestry are favored over darker-skinned, indigenous groups, the result of centuries of conquistadors and slavery. ‘We are racists. We come from racist societies. Latinos agree with him. They don't see it as racism.’"
Of course, Gamarra is talking about Hispanics who are, or see themselves, as part of the “Euro-elite” class. They hate indigenous peoples and “mestizos” just as much as white nationalists in this country do, although like Jews in Germany who thought of themselves as German nationalist first, their presence is still just as much resented. Even with a demographic Biden should be doing well with, Puerto Ricans, he has just a bare lead with, surprising given Trump’s behavior toward the island and its people in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, in which over 3,000 islanders died directly or indirectly from. NBC quoted a Puerto Rican business owner in Miami, who still claimed that Trump wasn’t racist. "I don't believe in systemic racism. It's not a problem. The problem is the media."
The NBC report also noted that one reason that this Puerto Rican man gave for backing Trump “was his immigration policy, which is another dividing line for Hispanic voters. Though some are repelled by Trump's rhetoric, others feel they are unfairly lumped together with undocumented immigrants and resent those who cross illegally because they believe they damage the Latino image.” First, all Puerto Ricans are automatically U.S. citizens, although Trump tends to forget that; thus the immigration issue isn’t one that Puerto Ricans have much cause to criticize others with. Secondly, the problem is that these people are going to be “lumped” whether they like it or not. “Illegal” Hispanics are just a convenient cover excuse to despise Hispanics and not to want them around. If there were no illegal immigrants, Hispanics would still be “rapists,” drug-dealers” and “violent criminals” when they are not “stealing jobs” from “real Americans.”
In another NBC News story, “There is an ingrained perception among many white people that all Latinos are foreign no matter how long they’ve been in the United States or how ‘assimilated’ they are,” said Ian Haney López, an expert on racism and a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Many whites view us as 'foreign' when measured against white people, both in terms of physical and cultural differences, and then collapse that into the assumption that we're foreign in the national sense as well," said López. Most Hispanics in this country today were born in this country, yet most of them are made to feel like “foreigners” in own country. “Disparities do remain,” writes Gamboa, “but those who tell Latinos to assimilate often fail to acknowledge the centuries of exclusion, racism and systemic discrimination that have slowed Latinos’ economic and social mobility. Racism puts up practical roadblocks to integration and participation, preventing Latinos from being accepted as ‘assimilated.’”
I was working at a temp job years ago when a “white” Hispanic woman who was a “lead” and had an extremely high opinion of herself asked me where I was from—meaning what “country” I was from; I had never thought of myself as anything but an “American” until people started making assumptions that I was from somewhere else. I told her I was “from” Cleveland, Ohio where I was born; she and the other Hispanic women there howled with sarcasm. This reminded me when I was in basic training in the Army, when a drill sergeant asked me “Is this how you fold your socks, you Mexican?” before proceeding on to “Cuban” and “Puerto Rican” before settling on “whatever you are.” Just not an American. I had a temp job at a logistic warehouse called Expeditors, in Kent. I was the only there who wasn’t white or black. One day we were waiting outside for the place to open when a white male starting telling ugly “jokes” about “Mexicans.” I told him I thought his “jokes” were racist, to which he responded that no one else there thought his “jokes” were racist. I told him I thought that they were racist and that was all it took. I complained to a supervisor, and after that I wasn’t assigned to any work details, and the next day I was told I was no longer needed.
It goes on and on. Hispanic farm workers suffered devastating personal and property losses after the wildfires in Washington State and Oregon, yet the only “help” they have received from state officials—or at in least in Washington—was maggot-infested apples from the orchards of the governor. Thus for many Hispanics in this country, it isn’t easy to see any daylight between the good, bad and indifferent. But it has to take more than if a candidate “smiles” at you are not, because it doesn’t actually mean that he actually “likes” you.
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