Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s strategy for targeting Latino voters risks collapsing the Latino base he has amassed in the final weeks of the campaign. He and his camp look stupid at best and dangerous at worst.
Let’s start with the silly stuff.
President Trump misgendered Nicky Jam at a Las Vegas rally on Friday in a bid for more celebrity support from the reggaeton star. “Latin music superstar Nicki Jam. Do you know Nicki? She’s hot,” President Trump said. It wasn’t until a male music superstar took the stage that Trump realized his mistake. “Oh, look, I’m glad he came,” the former president said.
Despite the awkward moment, Jam finally declared in Spanish: We need Trump. Let’s make America great again. ”
President Trump’s Latino strategy is broken when it comes to ideas to help the Latino community.
It was another example of President Trump insulting his Latino supporters before receiving praise from them. A few weeks ago in Pennsylvania, President Trump told Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA: Every Puerto Rican is going to vote for Trump right now. I accept. ”
Ignoring criticism of his popularity, Anuel called Trump “the best president the world has ever seen, the best president this country has ever seen,” and urged Puerto Ricans to unite against Trump. urged them to vote.
But many of the Jam’s Latino fans clearly did not vote for Trump. Jam removed his Instagram endorsement after too many online comments criticized him. Legendary Mexican rock band Mana announced on Instagram that a song they collaborated with Jam in 2016 would be removed from the music stream, saying, “Mana does not work with racists.”
Jam also heard this story from Dreamers, who just seven years ago accused her of hypocrisy for publicly supporting undocumented youth. Now, Mr. Jam supported a presidential candidate who openly called for the “largest scale deportation” in U.S. history. “The whole thing feels like a betrayal,” one immigrant rights activist texted me.
It’s no surprise that MAGA superstars in the Latin American community feel that betrayal. In fact, there are Latinos who are moving to the far right based on the same beliefs that other extreme Trump supporters espouse. Yet, at a time when Trump and the Republican Party continue to condemn all immigrants as criminals unworthy of living in this country, it feels like such rhetoric is aimed at all Latinos living in this country. It will be done.
The hostile rhetoric shows no signs of stopping.
This brings us to the dangerous side of conservatives’ chaotic strategy. As Hispanic Heritage Month gets into full swing, a new Spanish-language ad from a Trump ally urges U.S. Latinos to realize that citizens have the right to vote, but non-citizens cannot. It warns that. The ad even emphasizes that noncitizens are at risk of being arrested for committing federal crimes, even though, as the Brennan Center points out, such crimes are “rare.”
This commercial could only have been created by people who have no connection to the Latino electorate, people who believe that all Latinos in the United States are surrounded by non-citizens. If you read the 2024 Republican platform focused on mass deportation, you will walk away with the impression that all Latinos in the United States are alien non-citizens.
Of course, the data will prove it wrong. As Pew Research pointed out just last week, for example, 3 in 10 Latino newlyweds marry a non-Latino, and 41% of those brides and grooms were born in this country. This data slice speaks to a changing demographic that is more British and cross-cultural. Portraying Latinos as foreign invaders is a dehumanizing tactic that is now part of official political campaigns. This country’s Latino community is an integral part of the enduring fabric of this country, and the way Trump and the Republican Party continue to claim otherwise is insulting and politically dangerous.
But Trump is Trump, and his Latino strategy is broken when it comes to ideas that help the Latino community, so this is probably what Latinos can expect until the election. There’s no sign that the hostile comments are going to stop, or that he’s going to bother to find out who the Latinos who support him are. The sense of betrayal in the Latino community is there, and it’s probably going to bring another old idea every day that doesn’t stick to the wall.
For example, after the Nicky Jam scandal and anti-referendum ads, the Trump campaign launched a video in which, in the words of El Pais English, the former president “appears to be dancing to the rhythm of a famous American salsa song.” was published. In the 1990s, we no longer said, “Juliana, que mala eres” (Juliana, you’re so bad), we started saying “camara, que mala erres.” (Goya Foods CEO and Trump supporter) Bob Unanue of the Republican Party also said this in a speech at the national convention in Milwaukee. )
It’s not a new strategy. In 2020, a Spanish-language song about voting for Trump by a Miami-based salsa band became a huge hit on social media. At the time, many Latinos questioned this ruling. Trump lost that election.
President Trump’s overzealous Latino strategy is not only insulting, but also predictable and boring. It’s still unclear how many votes he’ll get from Latinos, but he’s done a good job of pitting them against each other and pushing back against politicians whose main beliefs are xenophobia. He exposed those who worshiped him blindly.
