Why Trump and Bernie didn’t catch on with Latino voters

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco (4 minute read)

Roberto Suro, professor of Communications at USC and Director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, wrote a good piece for Politico titled Clinton’s Latino Firewall, where he explains how the current anti-establishment surge that has the country knee-deep in discontent never really caught on in the Latino community, not enough to make a difference anyway.

Latino millennials took to Bernie’s “anti-the man” message as did many other Latinos who are fed-up with being fed-up.

Discontent is a fickle thing.

But it turns out that there’s a fed-up threshold and Suro says Latinos, by and large, aren’t there yet. Bernie’s message didn’t stick because Latinos don’t have enough anti-establishment anger, and Trump’s anti-establishment schtick didn’t sell among Latinos because, well, Trump.

[pullquote]”The perception among middle-class Latinos that they are on an upward trajectory is critical to understanding their mindset this election year.”[/pullquote]

Here’s how Suro begins to explain it:

“What’s emerging is a realization that the people least likely to want upheaval are those who have struggled to gain access to the status quo, and who have succeeded at least a bit. With fierce political storms on the horizon, many Americans are genuinely worried about the future of the republic. The onetime-outsiders who make up America’s minority vote may end up providing the ballast that keeps the nation steady: Americans who have experienced exclusion and feel they have something to lose.”

Latinos have struggled to attain the staus-quo, climbing up, struggling for “normalcy.”

So the anti-establishment message sounds a lot like upseting their hard-earned applecart.

Suro says Latino voters are “As a group,  . . .better off than the Latino population as a whole, which includes many recent immigrants and many who are unauthorized. And the affluence of Latino voters is on the rise. This year, about half of all Latino eligible voters have at least some college education compared to about one-third in 2000. Among high-propensity voters especially, that translates into solid standing in the American middle class.”

Many White voters are trying to reclaim somethning they think they’ve lost, while Latinos are interesteed in protecting their success.

Politics is perception . . .

. . .and Suro says “The perception among middle-class Latinos that they are on an upward trajectory is critical to understanding their mindset this election year. A recent Pew survey found that Latinos nationwide are much more optimistic about their personal finances than the general public . . .”

I like this article becasue I look for stories that have somthing new to share and something that has a transformative quality. Suro’s idea is new to me, I hadn’t seen it in readily available media.

Here’s the link again, it’s about a 6 minute read.

Tell us what you think, go to our Facebook page, that’s where we have most of the NewsTaco dicussions.



[Photo by Jason Karsh/Flickr]

Suggested reading

Arturo Rosales
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Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement is the most comprehensive account of the arduous struggle by Mexican Americans to secure and protect their civil rights. It is also a companion volume to the critically acclaimed, four-part documentary series of the same title. This volume is a testament to the Mexican American community’s hard-fought battle for social and legal equality as well as political and cultural identity.
Since the United States-Mexico War in 1846-1848, Mexican Americans have striven to achieve full rights as citizens. From peaceful resistance and violent demonstrations, when their rights were ignored or abused, to the establishment of support organizations to carry on the struggle and the formation of labor unions to provide a united voice, the movement grew in strength and numbers. However, it was during the 1960s and 1970s that the campaign exploded into a nationwide groundswell of Mexican Americans laying claim, once and for all, to their civil rights and asserting their cultural heritage. They took a name that had been used disparagingly against them for years—Chicano—and fashioned it into a battle cry, a term of pride, affirmation and struggle.
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