I’ve posted about my proud Hispanic, former Goldwater Republican mother before. I always assumed that the recent brown hate bothered her, but I learned the depth of her animosity last night. It started with her pulling out this George Will column:
The Republican future without Hispanic support would be bleak. Forty-seven percent of Americans under 18 are minorities, and the largest portion are Hispanics. One in six Americans is Hispanic. In 37 states, the Hispanic population increased at least 50 percent between 2000 and 2010. The four states with the largest Hispanic populations — California, Texas, Florida and New York — have 151 electoral votes.
[…]But, Cruz says, unlike California’s Hispanics, those in Texas “show a willingness to be a swing vote.” Furthermore, the three Hispanics elected to major offices in 2010 — Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio, Nevada’s Gov. Brian Sandoval and New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez — are Republicans.
Mom read that out and said “George Will is wrong – Hispanics will never vote for Republicans again”. Then, she said that she had “maybe” voted for a couple of Republicans “back in the 60s” but she hadn’t voted Republican for years. With all respect to my mom, that’s a story spun from whole cloth: she was active in the local Republican party for decades, voted proudly for Reagan, and reluctantly for GWB in 2000. But, after the treatment that her people have received in the last few years at the hands of the haters in the Republican party — especially Arizona Republicans — she’s formed a grudge that she’ll carry to the grave, along with the rest of her family.
Also, too: She re-iterated her belief that the Mexican Cession of 1848 was an unlawful taking: “Not many people know that most of that land is really the property of Mexico.” So, when I say she’ll hold a grudge, believe it.
alwhite
So what the wingnuts say is true? They want to take the land back & make it part of Mexico! ;)
Culture of Truth
Reminds me that after every election we hear, “discounting the black/hispanic/jewish/gay/youth/female vote, the Democrats did very badly”
dpcap
That’s similar to what I’ve heard before about immigrants in general.
Many immigrants come from conservative back grounds (such as Catholicism) and thus feel inclined to vote (R) because their pastor/bishop/cardinal wants them to oppose gay marriage and abortion.
They often switch after an election or two once they realize that other than those two issues, Republicans do not represent nearly every other Catholic goal (non-violence, charity, anti-death penalty etc.) and they’re racist to boot.
So the question to ask in the upcoming election is how long has any specific immigrant been in the country? 4 years? Democrat.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Welcome to where black people generally are– fuck a Republican with any number of rusty… no, make it a brand new, well-oiled fucking Stihl chainsaw, running at full fucking speed.
The question is– can they successfully blow up the country before the population bomb relegates them to Whiggish obscurity? The power to destroy a thing is the power to control a thing; and those bastards seem to have the power to blow the whole world economy to bits.
geg6
There aren’t a whole lot of Hispanics here in Beaver County, PA (though the population is growing–went from 0 to about 20 or so in my town in the last 4 or 5 years). But those who do live here so loathe the GOP that several of them have told me they will never vote GOP again. Bush 2000 was the end of it for them. I’m guessing that’s the last election that the GOP will see any large numbers from that particular demographic.
Poopyman
Damn, Mistermix! Are you sure she’s not Irish? (Try telling someone with Irish ancestry how great Cromwell was.)
But anyway, as you say a sample of one. Since I’m not on talkin’–politics terms with any Hispanics I can’t add more samples. And while you can never say “never” in politics it’ll be nice to see Republicans hobbled for at least the near term.
Han's Solo
I don’t think the wingnuts can help themselves. The problem they have is that the “Republican Thinkers” (more and more that is becoming an oxymoron) know they need Latino support. But they are a tiny fraction of a party made up largely of xenophobic half wits.
They’ve long relied on the Southern Strategy to win elections. Last election it was New Black Panthers and the Ground Zero Mosque. This works because their base loathes those that don’t look and think and worship the way they do. Unfortunately for the GOP, though the Southern Strategy does help them win short term victories, in the long term it reinforces the xenophobic nature of their troglodyte base. And that, as the demographics of the country shift, will cause them serious long term damage with most people who aren’t white southerners.
You want to know what it will be next election? I can already see one meme starting on the right. It will be, “Obama is an angry black man, and angry black men are scary, don’t vote for the angry black man.” This is, I’m guessing, one of the reasons why Obama has tried not to do what he had to do yesterday.
If the Democrats are smart they will not just defend against this, they will counter attack. How? At this time next year, just a few months from the election and at about the time the GOP will start spewing xenophobic trash, Democrats should start pushing the Dream Act (or comprehensive immigration reform) in earnest. If the Republicans want to play the Southern Strategy, fine, these days, due to shifting demographics, it is entirely likely that the Southern Strategy has morphed into a double edged sword. Obama, for lack of a better term, needs to flip the script and use the racism of the Republicans against them.
lou
His column also shows a lack of understanding about the Latino community. Marco Rubio is Cuban and the Cuban community in Florida is predominantly Republican.That’s why Florida is a swing state. If Cubans in Miami were Democrats, it probably wouldn’t be.
THE
I would also say, as a matter of pragmatic politics, if you want the maximum impact electorally, you have to swing.
If you don’t, your chosen party will soon take you for granted and the rejected party will just ignore you.
But if you’re a swinger then both sides know they have to bid for your loyalty and you find yourself in the powerful center.
Pococurante
Interestingly enough, I don’t recall in my public school history classes that we were ever taught the US occupied Mexico City and stole the Southwest at gunpoint.
The Southern Strategy depends on old white bigots who are nice people when others are watching. Unfortunately for the Southern Strategy, it is running low on fuel.
prufrock
To add to what lou said, has anyone seen pictures of Marco Rubio? The fact that he only vaguely even looks Hispanic (and by this I mean the stereotype of the day laborer from Juarez) does not hurt him among the teabaggers. If he changed his name to Mark Ruby, no one would even know where his ancestors were from.
Valdivia
Rubio is Cuban he will NEVER have national appeal unless he unlearns all the ticks that make Cuban politicians get elected in FL. I have no idea about the other 2, I am assuming they rode the 2010 wave. Given how many Republicans are out in front of the tough immigration/racist laws and cheering them on, I really think your mom is right.
Roger Moore
@Pococurants:
I remember being taught essentially that in my history class. We were taught that the US beat Mexico in the Mexican-American War, took the Southwest, and paid Mexico a pittance to make it look nice. It was made quite clear that the money we paid was nowhere near the real value of the land we took and was there mostly as a cover so we could claim we hadn’t just taken the land. The Gadsen Purchase was presented as a contrast, since buying that one sliver cost as much as the whole Mexican Cession.
pk
I wonder if there are any muslims who vote republicans. Seriously, at this stage I’d be surprised to find even a single one.
Violet
I’ll believe it when I see it. Report from the 2010 election in Texas:
Not saying your mom is wrong, but the Latino population is extremely varied and every state and demographic acts in its own certain way. We’ll see how it plays out I guess.
Roger Moore
@pk:
There are probably a few rich ones. Remember that the racism of the Republican party is mostly a lure for rubes; they’re mostly the party of the rich. For any minority, there are going to be a few rich members who will ignore the xenophobia and vote their pocketbook.
cmorenc
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
The core goal of the GOP is to use their current window of leverage gained in the 2010 elections to render it structurally infeasible for democrats and progressives to take advantage of future periods of electoral dominance. They’re out to wreck, not save, the the financial and institutional foundations for governance, leaving as little discretionary room beyond paying permanent indebtedness as possible. The GOP does NOT truly want governments to pay off indebtedness and balance budgets, because that would free resources to implement progressive notions of social and economic justice. Instead, the GOP wants stark minimalist government (except those activities like defense which generates fat contracts for corporations, and they’d like to privatize education with public finance as well), with a wall of permanent debt sealing off all other options.
What happened after GWB took office in 2000, a rare time when the federal government actually had a balanced budget and enough of a surplus to pay down the national debt within a decade, is instructive of their true goals. Paying down the national debt was actually a very bad thing economically, said Alan Greenspan the Randoid then. Now look what they’re saying about the debt. What a bunch of lying assholes.
Chris
Hell hath no fury like a voter scorned. And I think she’s right about Hispanic voters, at least in the short term. The GOP’s Angry White Conservative base hates their guts, but the country’s becoming more full of them every day. Impasse.
gene108
This paragraph from Will’s piece is interesting simply because Republicans in the past rarely admitted they seek to return to a pre-New Deal America, where the Robber Barons ruled and everyone else eked out a living and being in the middle class was the exception to the living standards of most Americans and not the norm.
I wonder if this sort of admission will ever gain any sort of traction.
Felinious Wench
Texan here. From what I’ve seen, Hispanic Texans are purple. They’re going with whomever they think is going to serve their interests best.
Basically, the Hispanic community is powerful here, and you piss them off at your peril. But, there’s a split between immigrants and Hispanic families that have been here for generations. As long as the “old families” decide to support the new immigrants, it’s all Democrat. But that’s not always the case. There’s a class split.
gene108
@cmorence #18
The more interesting thing to me about Bush, Jr.’s 2000 campaign is he ran as a “compassionate conservative”. He didn’t run a platform of gutting Medicare and other social services. He ran to show conservatism could help the little guy.
He did things Democrats wanted done for a long time, though maybe not how Democrats would’ve done it, like a Rx plan for Medicare and pumping more money into the Department of Education.
The total suckitude of the Bush, Jr. Administration has gotten the Republican Party to decide that Bush, Jr.’s failing was cooperating too much with Democrats, rather than the lax regulations, tax cuts that ballooned the deficit, and two wars, one of which was a war of naked aggression.
To America’s sorrow, the voters rewarded the hard right shift of the Republican Party in 2010.
Look back on the fact Bush, Jr. branded himself a “compassionate conservative”, rather than a Paul Ryan-esque-I’m-going to slash Medicare and every other social program enacted in the last 80 years and give massive tax cuts to the rich-conservative.
The right-wing portion of this country has really really shifted so far to the right that Bush, Jr. really does come off as a moderate. The right-wingers now would not vote for anyone, who proposed crap like expanding Medicare and the Department of Education, the way Bush, Jr. did.
That to me is the really interesting thing about how much things have changed in 10 years.
daveNYC
I could imagine some in NYC voting for Bloomberg if he went for a fourth term, his stand on the ‘Close to Ground Zero Muslim Community Center’ was pretty hard core.
I can’t imagine how much you’d have to hate taxes to be a Muslim and vote Republican for a Federal level gig though.
Roger Moore
@Felinious Wench:
And that’s a key reason bills like Arizona’s SB1070 are so long-term destructive to the Republicans. The second and third generation American born Hispanics are often strongly opposed to illegal immigration, but they’re even more strongly opposed to racial profiling. Bills that concentrate on border security or punishing employers may get their support, but ones that let the cops arrest people for existing while brown are going to drive them to the Democrats.
Adrienne
But, Bloomberg is no longer a Republican. He ran as an independent. The Republican party went a little too far and he didn’t want to be associated with that, at all.
Chris
And their redness might change in time. Younger Cubans are less knee-jerk Republican; the importance of Cuba for the general population’s fading, and the white conservatives in Florida often hate Cubans too (I’ve been told various times how they’ve “ruined Miami,”). Combine those trends and it’s possible they’ll end up alienating Cuban voters too, though not likely at this point.
Cris (without an H)
And of course, there’s some crossover there. Racism blends very well with class warfare.
Beauzeaux
You mom may be a great grudge-holder but no one beats the Irish. Belfast graffiti seen with my own eyes: Remember 1642!
Roger Moore
@Beauzeaux:
Come on, 1642 is recent as these things go. Take a look at Israel for a second. They’re trying to undo 2000 years of history, and basing their claims on stuff that’s over 3000 years old. That’s holding a grudge.
Chris
Which is ironic, because they were a solid Republican constituency all the way through the 2000 election. (If there’d been enough of them to be noticed, they’d have been listed alongside Asian Americans as stereotypical “Good Minorities” who hate communism, uphold family values, have great business instincts, succeed in America, and never complain about their adopted country).
Bush was laid it on very thick about how we weren’t at war with Islam, only terrorism, so I suspect quite a few of them went on voting for him during that time. After the teabagger takeover and the Ground Zero UsVersusThemathon? Never again, methinks. They’re as mad as mistermix’s mom and then some.
Dr. Loveless
The Republicans lost California for at least two generations after Prop. 187 in the early ’90s. The campaign for 187 was so divisive and overtly racist (with TV ads comparing immigrants to cockroaches, among other things) that it prompted a surge of new voting registration among Latinos here as well as compelling those already registered (previously about evenly split between Ds and Rs), to re-register as Democrats in huge numbers. Basically, this state’s version of the Southern Strategy blew up in the GOP’s face, big time, and it will be a long time before they’ve recovered from it.
fasteddie9318
mistermix, I don’t wanna diminish the depth of your mom’s grudge, but I’d imagine you could still find some folks of Indian descent who would say that the territory of the 1848 cession was never really Mexico’s to cede in the first place…
Suffern ACE
Hope so, but Texas might indicate that if the state isn’t taken over by anti-immigrant zealots, folks don’t translate what happens in Arizona or California 20 years ago with Republicans and will then vote to whomever they think will win an election. Like most people, Latinos probably don’t watch political events that aren’t run in their own state where a good republican supporters call them barbarians and cockroaches and aren’t all that specific about the distinction between legal and illegal.
Assuming that immigration is their only issue is probably going to be mistake for you. Are you offering them something else? Or just hosting a latino night where you figure a panel discussion on the DREAM act is the only thing they want to hear about. As voters, your undying committment to the DREAM act probably resonates with fewer of them than you’d hope since the people who the DREAM act helps aren’t actually Latino voters.
If your strategy relies too much on republicans in other states viewing and talking about latinos as the existential threat of the age, you might not hold them long. They can get frustrated and just stay home…that is always an option.
Origuy
Could be some Irish ancestry; there was a lot of Irish immigration to Mexico before the Mexican-American War.
I never learned about the Batallón de San Patricio in school, but I did learn that there was a lot of opposition to it in the US.
Roger Moore
@Dr. Loveless:
Again, it’s a great example of how basic insensitivity is a key Republican weakness. There are a lot of Mexican American voters, especially ones whose families came here a few generations ago, who are sympathetic to the basic idea of cutting down on illegal immigration. They might have voted in favor of a 187-like Proposition if it had been pitched to appeal to them. But the racist wing of the GOP just couldn’t help themselves and pitched it in a way that was guaranteed to turn a potential ally into an enemy. That’s the danger of being the ethnic solidarity party in a country of immigrants. Unless you’re willing to gradually broaden your ethnic coalition, you’re eventually going to be outnumbered.
ruemara
This also works for blacks too. This is why we have black conservative republicans. Money and class issues. However, I’m thinking there will be a few less this election cycle.
Stefan
Reminds me that after every election we hear, “discounting the black/hispanic/jewish/gay/youth/female vote, the Democrats did very badly”
Reflecting an unspoken assumption that the only vote that really counts is a straight white man’s vote…
Stefan
Damn, Mistermix! Are you sure she’s not Irish? (Try telling someone with Irish ancestry how great Cromwell was.)
Cromwell! Sure and I curse the name from now through all eternity!
PTirebiter
Some of my favorite field trips in elementary school were taken to the Spanish Missions and Land Grant Ranchos around Los Angeles. This was back in the late 50’s and early 60’s, but as I recall, it was made fairly clear that Mexico got boned in the deal. That point was somehow reinforced by news images at the time showing L.A. County Sheriffs forcefully dragging families out of their homes in Chavez Ravine. The city had gifted their land to Walter O’Malley in exchange for his bringing the Dodgers to town. After all, no one could have possibly expected us to watch Koufax pitch in the Coliseum. Oddly enough, given the amount of time L.A. schools gave to the subject, it was’t until I moved to Texas that I learned Father Joon-a-pair-o Serra pronounced it, Gwad-a-loop Hildago.
Dr. Loveless
@Roger Moore:
I doubt it with 187. While I agree that there are many Latino voters who support stronger immigration controls, that support usually is combined with support for some kind of amnesty/citizenship path for immigrants already here as well as reforms to ease the process for those who would choose to immigrate legally. The whole thrust of 187 was simply punitive and mean-spirited (and unconstitutional, as it turned out).
But yes, your overall point is well-taken. The GOP here (especially Pete Wilson, who had his eye on a White House bid and knew that no Republican ever lost a primary by hating too hard on brown people) chose to score short-term political points by attacking the fastest-growing segment of the electorate, and they’ve had to sleep in the bed they made ever since.
Gloria from Canada
Wikileaks has said, the NAU is right around the corner. Canada, the U.S. and Mexico will be one large country. We will be, the Mexcanaricans, the currency will be the Amero dollar. From out of these three country’s, they intend to have a large labor pool.
I would ask people to read, P.M. Harper at the Council of Foreign Relations, New York. That article will show, just how long the NAU has been in the works.
The European Union, has already begun. There will be, a South American Union, an Asian Union and so on. The Globe will be sectioned off in Unions. The N.W.O. or Global Governance, will be the giant company’s, such as the huge gas and oil outfits. P.M. Harper said, the N.W.O. has been worked on, since 1945. Google: P.M. Harper, delivers his speech on Global Governance for Canada.
It seems to me there was another dictator, who also had a plan for Global Governance except he called it, the Thousand Year Reich.
I know, the American and the Canadians people, have always been on good terms. Both the American and the Canadians, want to keep our country’s sovereign and free. That is what both country’s citizens value the most, is our freedom.
In Canada, our Civil Tights and Liberties, have been taken away from us. Democracy and Freedom is all but gone. Harper is a fascist dictator. Canada is now, because of Harper, a cesspool of corruption. Canadians don’t believe Harper won the election, on the up and up. Well over half of the Canadian people, did not want Harper as P.M. He is one of the worst monsters, ever to govern Canada.
Chris
And all the language of the GOP base surrounding it, too. The whole push for English-only national-language crap, the demands that citizenship be revoked for the children of illegals who were born here, the various whines about how these *damn* people weren’t becoming “like us” quickly enough, all made it quite clear to Latino voters of all origins that You’re Not Welcome Here.
fuzz
I remember a few years ago Absolut vodka ran an ad in Spanish language markets that had a picture of the SW as part of Mexico in the ad (I think it was a print ad in magazines) and Michelle Malkin and the usual suspects raised hell and actually tried to boycott Absolut. Related to this thread? Barely, but I thought I’d share.
Dr. Loveless
When I was growing up in L.A. in the 1970s, the Chicano movement was still very visible and loud and it didn’t take much to get white suburbanites to freak out over Aztlan or the Reconquista or whatever. For a while, everything from bilingual education programs to printing ballots in Spanish to the opening of a new taco shop in the Valley was a new dire existential threat. Outside of Anglo enclaves in places like Orange County, that shit has (mostly) died down. The fact the rest of America is only just now picking up the Brown Peril meme is both sad and kind of bitterly amusing, actually.
dj spellchecka
New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez lost the Hispanic vote 62-38 and Nevada’s Gov. Brian Sandoval lost it 69-31.
BombIranForChrist
I have another sample of a couple people. My BBQ buddies are from North Mexico, and on both social and economic issues, they trend a little conservative. LGBT folks make them a little nervous and they love the low tax GOP bullshit.
But they are _furious_ about being treated as second class citizens by the GOP. They are legal American citizens now, and they have a fear, irrational or not, that if the GOP had its way, they could be pulled over at any time so that the police could check their papers.
I know this is a tiny sample size, but I really do think that if it wasn’t for the anti-Mexican rhetoric, these guys would be swing voters, if not solidly GOP ….
Carol from CO
I have a Latina friend who is a republican. She says she doesn’t like being thought of as a separate demographic from the rest of America [like the Democrats classify them.)
debbie
They’re definitely not thinking beyond their last move. Have they placated the Georgia farmers with fields’ full of rotting food yet?
Desert Rat
Your grandmother’s story about switching to Democratic as the GOP got more and more hostile to Hispanics is not unique.
Still, I have to say, what part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo does she not get.
I agree that the Mexican-American War was about nothing so much as a landgrab (though the land the US really was trying to grab was Texas, first and foremost. That certainly was illegal by modern rules of war (though not at the time).
Still, the war was one-sided, and the territory was ceded to the US by treaty. It can be called many things…illegal is not one of them.
Desert Rat
@Gloria from Canada.
Where does fluoridation of water and the Kennedy assassination enter the mix in your unified theory of conspiracies.
jl
Not sure how Florida Cuban Americans will solve the GOP’s problem with racism and xenophobia, except to maybe allow some conservative independent white voters to live in denial about about the GOP’s true attitude.
Most Hispanics from other parts of Latin America, particularly Mexico, do not feel any solidarity with Cubans at all. None. And the feeling is mutual from my personal knowledge of those communities. One guy of Mexican heritage simply told me that Cubans are not Hispanics, which sounded odd to me. But I was breezily informed that Cubans are Spanish speaking white people who all either are, or pretend to be, well off, and who won’t give one damn about the (from their perspective) low class Hispanic community at large.
The number of Hispanic citizens from Mexico in California who fear and deeply resent the GOP’s racism vastly outnumber those mildly resent being a Democrat ‘demographic’ or who will be swayed by Cuban American Republicans, whether on a national ticket or not.
Steeplejack
@Gloria from Canada:
Your impassioned post inspired me to do the tedious work to run down one of my favorite Daily Show clips–from May 2003!–in which Jon Stewart name-checks the Canadian mob “monsters” Lou “Even-Handed” Scalsi and Tony “That Seems Reasonable” Zambetti.
ETA: Guess I just (over)reacted to the hilarious idea of “one of the worst monsters ever to govern Canada.”