Why Latinos stick with Obama
By Esther J. Cepeda
In a 2011 column, I said President Obama believed that Latino voters were stupid. It pains me to say this, but lately I’ve begun to wonder whether Latino voters indeed aren’t thinking clearly when it comes to immigration.
In that column, I expressed hope that Latino voters would punish Obama at election time for failing to live up to his promise to lead on immigration reform. I observed that he’d been spectacularly insulting in how he’d gone about doing outreach on the issue earlier that year.
Calling on such public policy luminaries as Don Francisco, the host of a weekly variety show and jiggle-fest, “Sabado Gigante,” and Piolin Sotelo, a California-based shock jock, to be part of a group of “influential Hispanics,” Obama got them to publicly state that he must obey the letter of the law and wait for Congress to act. At that time, I also quoted immigrant activists who were trying to get Latinos to the polls, but asking them to not vote for president in order to send Obama a message.
Despite some influential Hispanics actually calling for a no-Obama vote in the days leading up to the election, we know the president won with hefty Latino support. Still, at the end of January, Obama traveled to Las Vegas to deliver his support for a compromise, leaving those who were paying attention to the substance of his remarks to note, as did Julianne Hing in a tweet, “Obama’s very first immigration reform promise is more of the same: enforcement, enforcement, enforcement.”
In mid-February, USA Today reported that last year U.S. immigration officials intentionally increased expulsions of immigrants convicted of minor crimes such as traffic violations in order to meet their criminal deportation targets.
Soon after, when the president’s framework for an immigration reform was leaked, tongues started wagging that Obama was actually hoping to tank a grand immigration bargain so Democrats could have a hammer with which to pummel Republicans during the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race.
The evidence that Obama is not really leading on immigration is incontrovertible, but he’s still got Latinos wrapped around his little finger.
According to a recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center and USA Today: “There has been a complete turnaround in how Hispanics view Obama’s handling of immigration.” Today, 63 percent approve while only 27 percent disapprove.
“In November 2011, that margin was reversed: 28 percent of Hispanics approved of the job Obama was doing on immigration policy while 59 percent disapproved,” Pew reports. Overall, 44 percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling immigration policy, compared with 43 percent who disapprove. “Approval is up 12 points from November 2011 and marks the first time in Obama’s presidency that disapproval has not outweighed approval,” a change that Pew says was “driven in large part by improved ratings from Hispanics.”
Why?!
I’m infuriated that Obama is manipulating voters with this issue and I just don’t understand why other Latinos aren’t angry, too. Are we just that dumb?
“No, it comes down to three things: status, partisanship and trust,” said Stephen A. Nuno, an assistant professor in the department of politics and international affairs at Northern Arizona University. “For one, Latinos are very diverse and they’re as split along class lines as is the rest of the country. You have Latinos that aren’t affected by immigration policy, such as the wealthy Latinos who have been in the U.S. for multiple generations. And, of course, status also can mean citizenship status, which is varied among Latinos as well.
Then there’s partisanship,” Nuno told me. “Party is as important to Latinos as to other folks. Latinos are loyal to Democrats and when your party is doing something wrong, even to the people you empathize with the most, you’re more likely to give them that latitude.
“Last is trust. When you distrust the alternative so much, you’re willing to tolerate a lot more from the one you do trust. It’s kind of like a battered child who still loves their parents — they might beat you but they’re your parents so you still trust them.”
This is what happens when a whole body of voters get dehumanized and demonized by an opposing party: They become unable to realize how disrespected, neglected and taken for granted they are by their own.
It isn’t just gullibility, it’s tragedy.
Esther Cepeda is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.
February 27, 2013 - 8:00 PM
You just completely ignored the fact that the GOP treats Latinos exponentially worse than anything Obama has done. You’ve got a choice of a guy who ignores you but doesn’t run you out of the country, or an entire party that does many things to run you completely out of the country. Half bad isn’t as threatening as is extremely bad.
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You analogy about a child and his parents is incorrect. Obama is the parent who ignores you. The GOP is the parent that continually beats you and berates you.
Non enforcement of immigration law and free stuff is why they stick with Obama,
Ms. Cepeda has a point. The CPUSA/Dem Party is playing the same “woo-em and screw-em” game with the hispanic population as it plays with the black population, and that the GOP/NeoCons play with conservatives. Pay a lot of lip service, denigrate the other guy, throw them an occasional token bone every now and again, and count on their votes. They don’t really give a damn much beyond securing the vote, and people react to promises, whether it’s a black or hispanic voting for the candidate who promises nothing (even if he can’t deliver, it’s not his fault of course) or it’s a republican who thinks his candidate is going to cut taxes and spending (not his fault, of course, dratted democrats).
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The African-American voters started to see through this to the point where the CPUSA/Dems had to elect a black man…though you notice conditions for African Americans have not improved (not Obama’s fault, of course).
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A pox on all their houses.
Oh, no doubt enforcement of the immigration laws, closing the borders and deporting millions of people is big on their list of grievances JimW.
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The self awareness of the GOTP is simply astounding. To me and apparently to many Hispanic Americans as well.
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Like the Log Cabin Republicans, the “Latino” and other minority voters will continue to be the anomaly in the GOTP. Not because of anything the Democrats do or say, but specifically because of what the GOTP does and says.
This fellow gives a much better list of reasons why the Latino vote went to Obama.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/03/3079816/10-reasons-why-latinos-will-vote.html
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Until the GOTP gets real on immigration and inclusion they will remain in the weeds over the Latino vote IMLO.
#2 Your allegations are nothing but hearsay. Dismissed.
#6 The comments made in #2 are worse than hearsay, they’re slurs.
Latinos, by figures I have seen, make up only about 16&% of our population. I am not sure what specific catering they deserve from any political party. What the Democrats have offered and continue to offer, should be sufficient unless you really do adhere to the politics of patronage.
Sandi, if 15% of voters are in a certain group, and two thirds of that group votes for a specific party, then 10% of the votes go to that party, and 5% to the other, just considering the votes of that group. A 5% margin is quite often decisive. And remember it’s not 16% everywhere. The Hispanic vote could turn Texas and Arizona into blue states in a matter of 20 years. There’s plenty of “catering” to go around, and I don’t know why any one group shouldn’t extract its share. That’s how politics works in a Republic.
6. LOL……….Everything is hearsay to an Ostrich.
JimW, the Obama administration has held and deported more illegals than anybody before him, hitting a all-time record in 2012.
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Now who is the ostrich?
12….gdad, they self deported because the economy has gone down the toilet under Obama. With that said, the democrats are still the party of entitlements for votes.
JimW, do you actually have any figures to back up your claims? Links? Here are some links that back up gdad’s comments. http://www.ice.gov/doclib/about/offices/ero/pdf/ero-removals1.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/27/obama-is-deporting-more-immigrants-than-bush-republicans-dont-think-thats-enough/
I would really like to see the facts that state that the illegal immigrants in this country are returning to their country of origins because the economies of said countries are out performing the economy of the US.
JimW, you’re just wrong. I’m not talking about self deportation. Obama has enforced current immigration laws much more rigidly than did Bush.
#10 Then prove your silly little allegations Jim. Waiting for proof….
Waiting….
Waiting…
Waiting…
This conversation actually warms my heart, because what it means is that Republicans just don’t get it, and Democrats can and will take that to the bank in 2016 and beyond.
Liberals and their philosophy are taking America down the same road as Europe. Over half the American citizens (and many non-citizens) have discovered (or convinced themselves) that they can vote for an entitlement life style. That is actually what most liberals will take to the bank “in 2016″ and beyond and it will work well for them until they run out of other people’s money. This is the way most great societies have ended, we are following suit. So keep patting each other on the back about your “superior, enlightened” viewpoints. It will eventually drag you down, and unfortunately the rest of us with you.
@17 JimW, actually it’s capitalism that is causing us the problem.
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I know it’s hard to understand but capitalism acts like an inverted funnel that takes money from the bottom of the economic spectrum and pushes it upward to the already-haves.
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The idea of an ‘entitlement life style’ is simply an attempt to make life more bearable for those at the bottom.
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And since that money will eventually work it’s way back up the economic ladder, you can’t actually run out of “other people’s money”.
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Maybe we should consider redistribution of another sort. There are two sets of people that are idle. They are the wealthy idle and the unemployed idle. Maybe we should consider redistributing some of that idle time? We could lower the work hours from 40 to 30 per week (you’d have to keep the same weekly pay though of course). That would open up job opportunities for the unemployed idle and make it worth their while to work.
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Now we need to figure out a way to put the wealthy idle to work.
Well then JimW, I am sure you will have no trouble articulating what specifically in the safety net, or as you like to call it, the “entitlement lifestyle”, changed from Reagan, or Bush such that your insult bears any resemblance to the truth?
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What changes in Social Security Disability rules after those stalwarts of your America left did those nasty liberals foist on you hard working folk?
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What criteria for the safety net was lowered so that so many more of us could lay in the lap of Section 8 housing in the projects and get free lobster and steak on your dime?
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What did we do to make so many people reach retirement at the same time and too damn many of them sick to boot?
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What changes did the anti-Christ in the White House make to give us all an “Obamaphone”?
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Come on JimW, you make a virtually baseless insult, so I ask you to back it up. PDQ!
Still waiting for that proof of “free stuff”, Jim.
Waiting….
Waiting….
Waiting….
Liberals need to divide America into pieces…gays, Latinos, African Americans, rich, poor, etc
While the conservatives treat all as Americans and we want to enforce the laws.
Obama has done nothing to unite America, instead he seeks to divide and conquer.
Al, do you even realize what you just admitted?
#21Al, much simpler the way conservatives divide: people who are just like me vs. everyone else. We’re all Americans … until someone does something that conservatives think is unamerican, which these days includes stuff that they themselves thought were good ideas when one of theirs was in charge.
Well, it’s been four days since my request, and Jim STILL can’t offer so much as a smidgen of proof of his “free stuff”. Guess he’s decided to throw in the towel. Smart move on his part.