For Hispanic voters, even worse is the devastating discovery that everything Democrats warned would happen to them under Trump II is happening. Suddenly, America has become a place where it’s not safe to have brown skin or speak Spanish with your family, even if you’re a citizen.
So Tuesday showed that the Hispanic vote has re-realigned. And my prediction is that this won’t be a pendulum. Republicans had their chance to win over a new bloc of voters; but by indulging Trump’s violent racism and nativism, they have lost them and will probably never get them back.
Why do I feel confident in saying that? By analogy with the Jewish vote. Bear with me here.
One of the longstanding anomalies of U.S. politics has been the consistent support of Jewish Americans for Democrats, despite the fact that as a relatively high income group Jews are more likely than the average voter to benefit from tax cuts. Granted, Republicans have peeled off a few votes among Jews who strongly support the Netanyahu government. But even so Kamala Harris received 71 percent of the Jewish vote.
What explains this persistence? Historical memory. Jews have many generations’ worth of experience with right-wing antisemitism. Many of us understand, I believe, that whenever bigotry of any kind is given free rein, we’re always next in line.
And sure enough, rabid antisemitism is surging within MAGA, which should surprise absolutely nobody.
As I see it, Hispanic voters are now learning a similar lesson. Until this year many of them could brush off evidence of right-wing racism, including Trump’s tirades about Mexican rapists, as unlikely to affect their lives. Now they’re seeing friends and family grabbed on the street by masked government thugs. Many will never trust the right again.
I’d be the first to admit that I am neither a political strategist nor a political scientist. But I don’t think I’m wrong about this. As I see it, the G.O.P. didn’t just lose the Hispanic vote for one election. It has lost that vote for good.
If Trump’s SS ICE continues doing what they are doing, I think that many Hispanics will realize that Republicans are not suitable for their health or well-being, no matter what they promise. So we may become the new Jews.
Many Hispanics are first-generation or second-generation; their parents were not here in the 1950s or the 1930s when they were rounded up, skinned folks, and put them on trains, buses, and boats and sent them home. American citizens didn’t care. They certainly were not here when hanging and shooting Mexicans was a common practice; often, the Texas Rangers were the ones doing the hanging and killing. Maybe if you had relatives here, your ancestors would have passed down some of the stories.
But as I wrote before, it is never too late the animosity that way too many White people have for those that are different. It became clear to me when the Racist Donald Trump came down those escalators that the Mexicans were going to see what it used to be like.
During the mid-1800s to early 1900s, thousands of Mexican men, women, and children were murdered by the White Anglos, who hated Catholics, who wanted to steal their lands, for speaking Spanish.
Welcome to Trump’s America.
