With over 32 million eligible Hispanic voters this year, we are now looking at the largest Hispanic voting bloc ever seen in American history, and this number is only expected to grow in coming years. Nonetheless, Hispanic and Latino voters are far too often treated as either talking points in right-wing fearmongering schemes about immigration, or pawns in the left’s never-ending identity politics race-baiting gambit.
To understand the vastness of the Hispanic vote, just consider that if Texas Hispanics voted Democrat at the rate Hispanics do nationwide, Texas would possibly become a blue state. And as the Hispanic population continues to grow, both parties will have no choice but to pay more attention to their concerns.
Here’s where President Trump comes in. While he will have my support in 2020, he has taken stances that concern millions of Hispanics like me. Trump’s hard-line views on immigration are polarizing and could easily lose him reelection if he doesn’t find a way to reform our current immigration system while alleviating the concerns of millions who are terrified at the thought of ICE breaking into their home and “sending them back.”
While the Democrats are no better on this issue — albeit for opposite reasons — many Hispanics understandably see Trump as singling them out. A more effective way for the president to market himself and appeal to this growing bloc would be to focus on the fact that Hispanic unemployment has reached historic lows under his economic policy, and that Latinos are as well-off as they have ever been in this country’s history. Furthermore, the tax cuts passed in 2017 have increased Latinos overall take home pay.
On the other hand, Democratic presidential aspirants such as Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker have made it obvious that they feel entitled to the Hispanic vote simply because they can (poorly) speak our language and like to eat our food. If this isn’t the purest form of race-baiting, then I don’t know what is.
Candidates must stop attempting to placate us by butchering our language or pretending they understand our culture. Hispanics just want to be seen as Americans like everyone else, and we are tired of dishonest pandering and inflammatory immigration rhetoric alike.
Matthew Castañeda is the Northeast Deputy Regional Director at Young Americans for Liberty. He is a senior at Rutgers University – Newark.
