Photo: Aurelia Ventura / Aurelia Ventura/Impremedia/Real America News
By: Maribel Hastings Updated 08 Sea 2022, 26: 26 pm EST
In view of the intermediate elections in November of this year and with an eye on the general elections of 2022, the Democrats have a tough task ahead of them in trying to excite the voters that make up their base. This is largely because the economic impact of the pandemic, inflation and the paralysis in Congress have prevented them from presenting a list of achievements that translate into votes in their favor.
Some will say that much of what hasn’t happened in Congress is due in part to Republican filibuster. But when the White House and both houses of Congress are Democrats, it stands to reason that they are blamed for not delivering what they promised.
It’s the year electoral campaign and the hornet’s nest of polls and polling groups is stirring to take the temperature of voters, find out how they feel, what bothers them, what worries them and how all this will influence their decision to go out or not to vote in the next elections.
And as in every electoral cycle (although they are later ignored), the usual search for the so-called Latino vote begins, which according to various polls has shown that their support for the Democrats is not written in stone; that he may lean toward Republican candidates and that even former President Donald J. Trump improved his support rates among Latinos by 2020 compared to 2016.
Whenever an election is approaching I wonder if both parties, but especially the Democratic Party, will finally realize that they have to refine their electoral message based on the premise that the Latino vote is not uniform and that, therefore, apply a uniform message towards that community will help you with some, but drive others away. In other words, just as they develop messages for the various types of voters, be they women, African-Americans, the LGBTQ+ community, people with a university education, those without a university education, among others, they also have to see Latinos with their wide range of historical backgrounds. , cultural, nationalities, some US citizens by birth, others by naturalization.
Latinos can be progressive, liberal, moderate, conservative; Catholics, evangelicals or atheists; for and against abortion, for and against the legalization of undocumented immigrants; pro-government and anti-government; fiscally conservative, capitalist or socialist; inclusive or racist; for or against equality between men and women; for or against the LGBTQ+ community. In short, if there are white supremacists who are Latino, that should be proof enough that under the umbrella of what is Latino there is everything like in a pharmacy.
This ignorance of our diversity is what may have led politicians to apply the same strategy to Latino voters of various nationalities, making us more of a caricature of what a Latino voter is and not who we really are.
It shouldn’t be so complicated because all of us, Latinos or not, are concerned about inflation, the high cost of gasoline, having a job that covers our needs and those of our families, to have access to medical coverage when we need it, to be able to buy and maintain a home, to give our children the best education, including paying for a college education; we want safety in our neighborhoods; go out without fear of being mugged or becoming another crime statistic. We want to live without being victims of racism or prejudice; we want to open our own businesses. And for many of our brothers, it is vital that an immigration reform that legalizes them be carried out in order to advance towards their official integration into this nation to which they have given so much.
In other words, as difficult as it may seem, fine-tuning an effective message for our diverse Latino community is complicated, but not impossible. Of course, Democrats must also take into account that although our interests are diverse, something we have in common is that we understand perfectly when they want to give us a pig in a poke and that it is clear to us that there are many things that have been promised to us and not have complied, as is the case with immigration reform.
That has disenchanted many Latino voters, so the Democrats have an arduous task before them to tell those Hispanics to continue supporting them. And to the apathy should be added the wave of misinformation on social platforms in Spanish, as happened in 2020 when, among other madness, spread like wildfire among Latino communities, particularly in South Florida, that President Joe Biden was a “socialist” and had ties to leftist regimes in Latin America, including Venezuela.
In short, the Latino vote is not a bloc. It is quite oscillating. Democrats remain the main recipients of that vote, although Republicans have made some gains, and many Latinos, particularly young people, identify more as independents than married to the two traditional parties. However, the main challenge for the Democrats is to maintain that support. Breaking your campaign promises is not a winning formula to achieve it.