As we all know, President Obama won reelection only because he promised Hispanics unspecified “gifts,” and we responded by casting more than 70% of our votes for him.
Yet I have not received even a thank-you note. Hmm…
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As everybody knows by now, uber-nerd Nate Silver called the presidential election weeks ago. Lots of progressives, like me, watched the returns with a certain sense of calm, well aware that Obama was going to win.
But for some Republicans, it wasn’t just a disappointing loss. It was also a stomach-churning shocker. Many conservatives are so self-deluded that they believe reality and facts and hard data are secondary to their own hopes and opinions.
For them, Romney’s loss created more than just standard depression. It unleashed an overwrought wailing that, to the rest of us, resembled high comedy.
Honestly, how could they be surprised? For months, people like me have been saying that Latino voters would punish the Republican Party, and that this could be the difference in the swing states.
Indeed, Obama won a startling 71 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Still, some conservatives, even the Latino ones, were predicting a Romney landslide. After the fact, however, even Hispanic members of the GOP had to admit that “Latinos were disillusioned with President Obama, but they were terrified of Mitt Romney.”
Now that the accuracy of that quote has been verified, some of the most xenophobic elements of the conservative movement are saying, “Gee, maybe we should rethink our hatred of immigrants.”
And all it took was getting their asses kicked.
Of course, delusion is still a powerful force within the Republican Party. Many higher-ups in the GOP still insist that Latinos only voted for the president because we’re going to get free stuff.
Well, if that’s their explanation for Romney’s loss, and their plan for the future, I look forward to reading history books about the Republican Party. They will be there, in the section that talks about the Bull Moose Party and the Whigs. And they will be just as relevant.
As we careen, cartwheel, and plummet into the finale of this interminable election season, one refrain we hear many times is that Republicans and Democrats are one and the same.
Indeed, there is ample evidence that both parties are indebted to big business and the status quo. And as Latinos know, Obama’s original immigration policies weren’t much of an improvement over Bush’s approach.
Still, there are differences between the two men running for president— besides the fact that one is a communist Kenyan and the other is a money-grubbing fascist (hey, that’s what the internet told me).
For those who have inexplicably not paid attention, Obama is pro-choice, while Romney is pro-life. Obama is against the death penalty, while Romney is fine with it. The president has come out in support of gay marriage, while Romney believes marriage is a straights-only deal. And Obama doesn’t share Romney’s opinion that the US government is inherently inept, corrupt, and/or evil.
I have to admit, those seem to be fairly large differences to me.
Even progressive icon Daniel Ellsberg, no fan of Obama, thinks the president is substantially different from Romney.
So who are the people yelling that Obama and Romney are clones? I mean, besides Lupe Fiasco?
Well, there are true believers who think a leftist or libertarian chief exec is a possibility (it’s not). Then there are self-proclaimed radicals who dismiss the entire American system as corrupt or bourgeois or just plain icky. And finally, there are voters who simply say, “It don’t matter none.”
But of course it does matter. And for Latino voters, it’s crucial.
Hispanics are the least likely ethnic group to have health insurance, a situation that the infamous Obamacare may alleviate.
On immigration, Obama has endorsed the Dream Act (belatedly, of course), while Romney is still trying to explain how self-deportation would work.
And when it comes to economic policy, Romney’s tax cuts would benefit the upper classes, which are not exactly awash in Latinos. Keep in mind that according to some experts, Romney “cannot deliver all the tax cuts he promised to the wealthy without raising taxes on the middle class.” One can presume that Hispanics will not be among the direct beneficiaries of his tax plan.
However, perhaps some Latinos still believe that it doesn’t matter who wins. Well, think back to those distant days of 2000, when Bush was elected. At the time, many Americans voted for Nader because Gore and Bush were apparently too similar. Therefore, we have to assume that under President Gore, the September 11 attacks, the Great Recession, and FEMA’s horrific response to Hurricane Katrina would have all occurred. Those are rather huge assumptions, to say the least.
But the Iraq War, an obsession unique to neo-cons, certainly would not have happened. So for the families of 4,500 dead US soldiers, there was at least one fundamental, very real difference between the candidates.
By the way, approximately 500 of those soldiers were Latino.
Perhaps it’s appropriate in a week in which the state of Arizona is revving up its police force to shout, “Show us your papers.” And they do mean anyone.
I’m talking about identity and the issues that erupt when we apply that word to ethnicity and or politics.
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As everyone knows, the Republican Party is in serious trouble with Latinos. If Mitt Romney gets any less popular with Hispanics, he’ll disappear from their consciousness altogether.
The reasons for Latinos’ antipathy toward the GOP include the endless insults that Republicans have lobbed at Hispanics, along with the fact that Latinos are not as socially conservative as people think.
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“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”
—The First Amendment
We’ve seen some ugly incidents aimed at Latinos in the past year, such as the racist girls from Arizona and the marching band that chanted slurs.
Incidents such as these provoke outrage from people who point out, rightly, that such behavior is offensive. But then some flustered individual will defend the racist girls or the marching band or whatever by proclaiming, in full-on righteous fury, “Whatever happened to freedom of speech in this country?” The implication is that daring to criticize someone for vile behavior is antithetical to American values, and maybe even illegal.
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Earlier this month, some polls implied that President Obama’s support among Latinos was so high that he was “close to maxing out” his lead over Mitt Romney. Think about that — Obama statistically could not get any more popular with Hispanics. The president might explode or something.
But then Obama went ahead and said that he supported gay marriage, and Republicans shouted that Latinos were so outraged that they were going to abandon the Democratic Party and vote for Romney, who of course, is semi-pseudo-quasi Mexican. The only problem with this GOP wishful thinking is that it is not based in reality.
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OK, the Democratic president who insisted, “Si, Se Puede” hasn’t kept his promise to make immigration reform a top priority. Furthermore, he has deported more Latinos than anybody in history, despite the fact that there are fewer undocumented people to arrest.
So getting the Hispanic vote should be easy for the GOP, which continues to insist that Latinos are Republican but don’t know it. In essence, conservatives say Latinos are voting against their own interests, which is ironic considering that Republicans depend on their rural white base to do exactly that.
There’s just one problem.
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As we all know, there are few absolutes in life.
Yes, water freezes at thirty-two degrees, inertia affects all objects in motion, and the Chicago Cubs will find a way to lose. But most other things are open to exceptions and nuance.
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First off, I’ve been remiss thanking people for their comments. So let me give a quick shout out to Cousin #7, David, Ankhesen Mie, Tara, and Raul for their feedback. I truly appreciate the feedback.
Second, let me tell you about my recent field trip.
I landed at Phoenix airport with more than a little trepidation. After all, we’re talking about Arizona here — the land of SB 1070, hardcore anti-Latino sentiment, general nuttiness, and a strain of social conservatism so intense that anyone to the left of John Boehner has been known to shield his eyes from the xenophobic glare.
According to several Hispanic organizations, I shouldn’t have even been there. The movement to boycott Arizona and everything related to it has been constant and loud.
But I was scheduled to be in the state for all of six hours. My latest client, a company that hired me to rewrite its web content, asked me to fly in to their Phoenix office to get a quick overview of the organization.
Considering that it was a reasonable request, and a good-paying gig, I was hard-pressed to say no. Plus, they were covering all my expenses and paying my hourly fee even while I was sitting on the plane, playing Angry Birds and running up their tab by ordering those little bottles of overpriced wine from chipper flight attendants.
In addition, while I have been ever so antagonistic toward Arizona lately, I never said I was boycotting the state. For starters, I think most such efforts are noble but doomed to failure. More important, however, I’ve always wondered if such a tactic nails innocent bystanders (e.g., Latino business owners) more than it does the powerful instigators of the conflict.
Perhaps this was just self-serving justification, however, so I resolved not to spend any money while I was in the state. This turned out to be pretty damn easy, considering I went right from the airport to the company’s offices and back again, with no chance to stop anywhere to buy anything. How’s that for preserving principles?
Regardless, I am pleased to report that everyone I interacted with in Arizona was perfectly nice to me. Granted, I spoke to only five or six people at my clients’ office and a few more at the airport. But no one in this tiny sample seemed like a fire-breathing racist to me.
As such, maybe even in a place as certifiable as Arizona, the majority of people are reasonable, friendly individuals who don’t seek to harass others just for being different. Perhaps even in this place — the sun-baked ground zero for American rage and fear — there exists a surplus of decency that gets drowned out by the sheer intensity of a self-righteous faction.
I would like to think so.
In any case, it was a bit eerie to finally see the land I had written so many words about, and upon which I had heaped so much mental energy. Yes, I had driven through Arizona twice as an adult, and I spent a couple of days in Tucson when I was a kid.
But this was my first time since all the craziness went down that I trod upon its streets and breathed in its superheated air. I was there, among the cactus and not far from Jan Brewer herself. Now that’s a creepy feeling.
And despite the fact that everything went smoothly, and even with the fresh memories of all the nice Arizonans I met that day, I have to admit that I was happy to leave and get back home.
