Latinos may not be to blame for Trump’s win, but they will surely bear the brunt of his bad policies | In Conversation

In the days since Donald Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election, it has become increasingly clear that Latino voters — and particularly Latino voters in Pennsylvania — played a crucial role in sending him back to the White House.

Nationally, nearly half of all voters who identified as Latino — about 46% — cast ballots for Trump, up from about a third of Latino voters in 2020. In Philadelphia, Trump’s share of the vote in the city’s majority Latino precincts rose from about 6% in the 2016 election to roughly 21% on Tuesday.

Trump’s popularity among Latino voters is particularly noteworthy given his disparaging comments about Mexicans, immigrants, and others.

Luis F. Carrasco, deputy opinion editor, asked Inquirer columnist Helen Ubiñas and Sabrina Vourvoulias, senior editor for commentary, ideas, and community engagement, to help make sense of the strong Latino support for the once and future president.

Luis F. Carrasco: Donald Trump will be back in the White House come January, and Latinos helped put him there. At least that was the conventional wisdom going into Election Day. That Latino communities, particularly men (my apologies), were turning away from Kamala Harris. No matter if their friends, neighbors, and family members were being demonized and threatened with deportation, machos have to stick together, I guess. But is that what happened? Do I have to start making some angry phone calls to some tíos back home?

Helen Ubiñas: I mean, yes — and no. But the first thing I’m gonna need is for people who give Latinos exactly zero thought on most days to keep us out of their mouths — because we did not lose this election for Harris. In fact, while Trump admittedly made inroads with Latinos, the majority of Latinos in Philly and Pennsylvania and elsewhere (boo, Florida and Texas!) voted against him. But, oh … now you see us!? Cool, cool — while I have all your fleeting attention, let’s do this: If you want to have a conversation about more Latino men breaking for Trump, fair. If you want to have a conversation about the issues that made the Tangerine Tyrant attractive to our community, let’s do that. If you want to have a conversation about sexism and misogyny and racism within Latino communities, by all means. But then let’s go beyond stereotypes and also have a discussion about how many of these generalizations don’t seem to play out when Latin American countries vote for female presidents, something we can’t seem to do here in the good ol’ US of A because of one constant: white supremacy.

Sabrina Vourvoulias: Well, finding someone to scapegoat does seem to have been a leitmotif of this electoral season … But it is an infuriating deflection — if you look at a map of how the vote broke in Philadelphia, for example. The majority of Latino neighborhoods voted blue, not red. And according to the Latino civil rights and advocacy group UnidosUS, it wasn’t only Philadelphia. “Latino support for Harris was highest in Pennsylvania (72% to 26%) among the battlegrounds,” the organization posted on Tuesday. The engine driving Trump’s victory has always been, and remains, white voters. Fret about that.

“We will be first in line to feel the brunt of the consequences of this election.”

Ubiñas: Ah, yes, white men and women voters, henceforth known as Trump’s ride-or-dies. And, as usual, before we became scapegoats, we were invisible. Well, mostly invisible until we became “the monolith,” as if a Puerto Rican born and raised in NYC (like me) is the same as one born on the island, is the same as a Mexican American from the Texas border (like Luis) or a U.S. citizen who moved here from Latin America (like Sabrina). The attention feels, once again, like too little, too late, and based on a superficial understanding of us, at best. Oh, look, the Latinos are here … only long enough to switch to, Oh my God, look at what the Latinos did.

Carrasco: It looks like there’s plenty of blame to go around for Harris’ loss — and to Helen’s point, it begins with a Democratic Party that routinely ignores us — but even if Latinos aren’t to blame, we are likely to be disproportionately impacted by Trump’s policies of callousness and cruelty. A large swath of Latinos in the U.S. and here in Philadelphia live in low-income households, stuck in low-wage jobs without health insurance. Many live in mixed-status families. Much as we did when the pandemic rolled around under Trump’s watch, and many Latino “essential workers” essentially started dying on the job, we will be first in line to feel the brunt of the consequences of this election.

Ubiñas: Exactly. So what in Papa Dios’ name are we doing acting and voting as if Trump’s racism won’t touch us? (A note to my fellow Puerto Ricans: Do you think these racists care that we are U.S. citizens? They don’t.) These are the kinds of conversations we should be having within our communities, but also demanding of politicians — and not just right before we head into the polls or when a certain political party that needs our votes suddenly rediscovers us. And I stress the word need here: A 50-year review of exit polls by Axios found that when Democratic presidential candidates get less than 64% of the Latino vote, they usually lose. Why is it, for example, that Puerto Ricans are the largest Latino group in Philadelphia, and yet we’re underrepresented, if represented at all, in just about every space where decisions are made in this city? I’m tired of the “sleeping giant” narrative I’ve been hearing since I was a señorita. This señora knows we are informed and independent and engaged, it’s the political systems that are sleeping on us.

“We need to challenge ourselves to not allow this conversation to end here.”

Vourvoulias: I definitely think we have to have these conversations, Helen, no matter how difficult. Trump’s fixation with repealing the Affordable Care Act, his promised appointment of an anti-vaxxer to head up the FDA, and any move away from a federal cap on the costs of common medications are going to have a huge impact on the health and well-being of Latinos here and across the nation. What do we need to plan to meet the challenge that presents? Also, one of the most distressing parts of the Trump victory is that immigrants will likely experience grave oppression. How can we work to ensure that our city and commonwealth stand firmly on the side of protecting human and civil rights?

Carrasco: Helen’s point about political power is probably the best way to answer that question, Sabrina. I don’t want to be cynical, because I like to believe that any civil human should be ready to step up for those rights, but as we saw with the vote, a lot of people have a very myopic vision of what prosperity means. As long as the price of eggs is low, and I can fill up my giant SUV without wincing at the pump, who cares who gets deported?

Ubiñas: I’m pretty sure I’m the most cynical one in this group, but I need to believe — now more than ever — that humanity wins this one in the end. So I have a proposal. We need to challenge ourselves to not allow this conversation to end here. We have to commit to not just taking part in these discussions, but to lead them at our own tables, in our own communities and workplaces — and for us, that means our newsroom. And then to act — intentionally and consistently and sin miedo. Who’s in?

Vourvoulias: To quote St. Óscar Romero: It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity.

Carrasco: A challenge, an opportunity — sounds like hard work. But if you’ll excuse some selective stereotyping, it also sounds like a job for Latinos. Both parties have shown they’re not willing to put in the time or the effort. After Mitt Romney lost in 2012, the GOP establishment concluded that it would take a more inclusive vision for the party to win, that Republicans would have to broaden their outreach to communities of color. Turns out, it’s much easier to claim Haitians eat dogs than to craft comprehensive immigration reform. As for Democrats, every election cycle they get an intern to run their playbook through Google Translate en español and call it a day. So, if we are indeed el cambio que estábamos esperando, then it’s time to stop waiting. We were born for this.