Will Hispanics Love El Cheeto?

Posted on January 5, 2018 | Comments Off on Will Hispanics Love El Cheeto?

At this point, while real lives are at stake, Trump and the Republicans have made the issue of the DACA-fix and DREAMers a political game. In other words, not much has changed. But El Cheeto seems to think brown folks are going to finally fall for him as the DACA-fix talk starts up again.

El Cheeto has been pretty clear about what will effect some sort of DACA fix with this attempt at a policy statement.

And, with this known, his ultimatums will be pretty solid and quite political.

Because the offer is on the table:  A wall for some sort of fix. It’s something the Republicans can run on through 2018, while it’s something the Democrats can either cave on or put up a real fight against.

Unfortunately, the Republicans will have the bragger’s rights of offering something–as awful as it will be and is–during the campaign season. And they’ll be able to paint Dems as uncooperative if they vote against what is offered. And Dems will have the issue, as always, about how mean and nasty the Republicans are on DREAMers and immigrants. Will it work for either side?

That Republicans are mean and bad isn’t anything new. I’ve been talking about it since I started this site 13 years ago–even when some Dem experts told many of us to ignore the GOP’s anti-immigrant bigotry because it would just go away. Actually, the weaker the fight put up by the Democrats and the more deportations and imprisonment by a Democratic administration, the worse the Republicans have become.

Republicans have always offered up the worse policies in exchange for some sort of reform:  A wall, a fence, increased deportations, lesser number of work visas, a bracero program (temporary workers), not citizenship, but legalized status, but not for parents, but only for DREAMers, and now probably less of them. And Democrats have given away the store at every turn during negotiations only for everything to fall apart because Republicans are just that awful and Democrats fall for it.

I’ll add the reminder that everything revolving around immigration reform doesn’t just affect immigrants. Laws like Texas’ SB4 or anything that federalizes law enforcement or rounds up whole families and imprisons them affects citizen Latinos, too. Most of us don’t like the threat of racial profiling or accidental detainment on account of what clothes any of us decided to wear that day. And it happens.

The political games may be fun for political consultants and ad men on both sides who’ll make a pretty penny off the issue, but these games take an emotional toll on those at risk of deportation and the voters who support them. For many of us, voter excitement levels could increase if a political party actually puts up a fight for what’s right, no matter the outcome. Not putting up a fight affects voter excitement, too. In reverse!. All these years later, the question isn’t about why Latinos may not be voting, but why aren’t you fighting for Latinos?

So, if the numbers ultimately show that Hispanics will end up loving El Cheeto, as predicted by El Cheeto, it’s not because more of us are voting for him. It’s just that less of us might be voting. I’ve said it before: On this particular issue, Latinos overwhelmingly want a Party and candidates that will fight for us, that will run into (and tear down) walls (so to speak) for us. Not candidates that will negotiate us into political nothingness to save a few bad Dems in November.

Well, now we’re at this point where Republicans are in charge and a mad man gets to sign legislation. Imagine if the Democratic Party and a Democratic President had kept 5 of their Senators in line back in 2010.

Another reminder to candidates and party operations:  The political season doesn’t start three weeks before election day anymore. Fight!

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