Today, there is an avalanche of comments floating in the media landscape with analysts of all colors trying to explain why Latinos recently, against all expectations, especially in the Trump era, began to mass desert the Democratic Party.
By Dr. Gonzalo Santos | NorteAmerica.mx | NOV. 6, 2022 | Translation by Google
A fashionable explanation is that Latinos are moving away from the Democrats by becoming too progressive, for being out of the air by clinging to the issues of "social justice" and fighting "cultural wars" that only attract white people with university education, instead of focusing on the main economic interests that today directly affect Latinos, their working class interests and even their middle-class priorities.
Another favorite explanation highlights the supposed traditional social conservatism of Latinos that does not agree with the exaggerated cultural progressivism of the Democrats.
As for the latest explanation, a recent exhaustive survey on the attitudes of Latinos with respect to abortion showed that, contrary to the superficial assumptions regarding this mostly Catholic demographic group, Latinos are significantly more LEFT than whites on this issue.
And, firstly, if we review the list of economic policy priorities that would benefit the Latino working class, Latinos again register preferences that are much more LEFT than whites in things like universal health insurance, free university tuition, affordable housing, and living wages.
Suggesting that Latinos are indifferent or repelled by issues such as climate change and LGBTQ rights is simply absurd, especially among young Latinos, under 45 years of age. The issue of police brutality is also something that deeply worries Latinos, but the progressive side of establishing strong community controls rather than the conservative side of "law and order."
It is an erroneous interpretation to say that Latinos are abandoning the Democrats because they are becoming or have been conservative. The fact that the main drivers of this thesis - that the mentality of Latinos has already gone from focusing on social justice, has a lower social awareness, and focuses on more selfish interests - seanthink tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, should not surprise anyone.
These sources have been postulating this type of nonsense for decades, since Ronald Reagan said, "Hispanic people are Republicans, they just don't know it."
What explains the Latin electorate's increasingly strong rejection of the Democratic Party has more to do with the FAILURE by the democrats elected by them to produce results and fulfill the PROMISES they made in the campaign - to provide justice to the millions of undocumented migrants above all - than anything else.
This distance has occurred because Democrats stubbornly (and naively) insist on looking for "bipartisanship" for everything and cling to their centrism (actually pro-corporate) at all costs, in front of an increasingly obstructive Republican Party since Obama won the election in 2008 and the Democrats controlled Congress in vain for two years.
Instead of Obama fulfilling his promises made to Latinos, the hardening "results" he delivered were more than 3 million deportations of immigrants (apart from the limited executive action in 2012 to create the DACA temporary program, which required great pressure from the Dreamers to issue it).
The same can be said about all other vital and urgent issues for working-class communities throughout the country. In addition to approving Obamacare, the Democrats were simply "carved by the nose" by the Republicans and their false promises of bipartisanship, at the expense of Latinos and the working class in general, including the white workers left behind.
It is THIS betrayal of immigrants and the working classes - for decades already run over and impoverished by the insatiable American plutocracy and its agents in the American duopoly that has really taken Latinos away from the alleged Democratic allies, who again and again promised to defend them only to betray them.
It is not then that the Democrats are too progressive for today's Latinos, but quite the opposite: their progressive rhetoric has been from the teeth to the outside; it has not been matched by any bold action or tangible results, thus exhibiting more their opportunism and political cowardice than their leadership. Test A: the Clintons, Test B: Obama, Test C: Biden.
In fact, when the opportunity has arisen, Latinos have embraced any genuinely progressive campaign that comes their way.Latinos opted enthusiastically for the social-democratic Bernie Sanders during the 2020 primaries (except the Cubans and their rabidly "anti-socialist" positions).
The fact that blacks and whites were too cautious and sadly chose to support Biden's lukewarm campaign in 2020 is their historical responsibility, not the Latinos, who were ready to fight! It was sadly shown that the Latinos were right, Biden has not kept any of his promises, more or less following in Obama's footsteps.
It is this deceptive centrism of the Democrats in these dangerous times of aggressive and runaway trumpism, and their reluctance and pusillanimity to confront them with strong policies and courageous, bold and progressive actions, that has deeply disappointed Latinos.
The direct result of this centrism is visible today in the economic disorder, the lack of mitigation of climate change and the deterioration and polarization of social relations. And we are witnessing the continuation of systemic chaos along the border.
The total lack of an orderly regulation of migration on the U.S. southern border is not due to any Biden's "open border" policy, as Republicans claim, but is the result of Congress' inability to approve a rational, fair and sustainable migration regime over the Republicans' block opposition, something that would have required Democrats to abolish filibusterism if they were to act Democrats had the opportunity to fix fair, safe, and orderly immigration regulation in the last 2 years on their own, but they did not dare to do so, just as they did not do in 2009-10 and 2013-14.
If North America needs anything, it is a radical structural renewal of its broken migratory regime: a new regime focused on humanity and the social rights of all migrant and refugee workers, whose work benefits both the nations of origin and destination. Migration is not an issue of "national security", it is the greatest challenge of regional integration to build an expanded regional social contract that harmonizes economic integration with fair and equitable social integration. Europe did it, North America didn't.
That the entire political class in the United States is deeply denied about this social imperative of regional integration - and that the Democrats let themselves be blackmailed by this demagoguery - is enrageling the diasporas of immigrants and their already settled Latin allies!
That Latino voters are disgusted with the duopoly should not surprise anyone. That, in the absence of a powerful social movement, Latino voters even act to "cut their noses to get their faces screwed" - abstaining or even voting for racist Republicans and white nationalists - can be surprising and shocking, but it is explained by their deep frustration at not having viable options.
But, to the extent that Latinos feel alienated and even act against their own interests, that does not mean that it is irreversible, but rather that it is temporary. A silent Latin American social rebellion is underway to remake North America, in order to build a fair and European social contract for all its inhabitants, not only for "citizens with rights" within each nation-state, but also for all transnational diasporas.
This silent rebellion can be seen in the continuation of the flows of unauthorized refugees, despite all the barriers put in its way by collaborating governments in transit countries, such as Mexico and Guatemala; it can be seen in the determination of millions of families living in the shadows in the United States. USA to resist deportations.
The social rebellion will have to seek ties with its true allies - not the false ones in the corrupt and broken duopoly, but among the other social components of what is already, in fact, a transnational, multinational working class in itself, to become in the course of its struggles to come in a class for itself. This is the new historical subject that has appeared on the scene since 2006 and is destined to change North America.
Returning to the midterm elections in the United States. In the United States that will take place in a few days, we are about to record where the Latinos will place their votes in this round of elections, even how many will bother to go to vote given the iron control that the US plutocracy continues to have over the corrupt duopoly.
Latinos are not to blame for the next "beating" that the Democrats are going to experience at the polls, the immediate consequence of which will be the takeover of the United States House of Representatives by the deranged Trumpists for the next 2 years, and the reduction of the Biden regime to an even more paralyzed and "lazy" administration (lame duck
They, the centrist democrats, looked for it because they did not dare to really fight for the working classes when they had the opportunity. The Progressive Caucus - Bernie Sanders' wing in the match - implored them to the point of exhaustion that they be bold and pass large laws, but it was in vain.
The table will now be ready to pave the way for a return to power of the Trumpists in two years, with or without Trump - who after all, can be content with simply governing the party from the outside, as he does to date.
In such deteriorated conditions, Latinos, blacks, progressives, the labor movement, women and others, will once again make strong calls for Democrats to put on their pants and take executive measures in the remainder of Biden's time, if they want to avoid defeat in 2024.
Latinos like me have been demanding that Biden issue a Presidential Pardon for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. USA
This bold presidential action, with a broad precedent in jurisprudence, cannot be blocked by Congress, not even by the Supreme Court. It is a constitutional plenary power reserved for the President without restrictions. Will Biden dare to exercise it, but to bring relief to our migrant brothers and sisters, at least for the sake of the self-preservation of the Democrats?
We'll see.
After the beating that the Democrats will receive in a few days, and when the clock begins to run towards the 2024 presidential elections, the Democrats may finally change the course of their strategy of appeasement in the face of Trumpism and adopt a strategy of struggle for the benefit of the working classes so abandoned and hit by the duopoly.
But will they do it? There is no other way for Latinos to remain vigilant, keep us in the fight, and act collectively in the street to push both Democrats and Republicans as much as possible to replace the country's hateful migratory regime with a better one.
In short, far from swearing loyalty to one or the other party after the disastrous last three decades of negligence and betrayal, Latinos today are saying with their erratic and apathetic electoral behavior: It's the duopoly, stupid! And we have abundant reasons to reject it and push it relentlessly until it radically transforms American democracy to fulfill us and provide us with the social justice we deserve.
