Would Kamala Harris have won the 2024 election if Latinos didn't shift hard to the right?
Now that we have final numbers. It appears that Harris had all the white & black support she needed for an EC victory. But Trump outright flipping Latino men and making huge gains with Latino women seems to have made all the difference.
Since Trump’s number one message was about immigration, it makes me wonder how Latinos took that message. A bystanding white person might think that US Latinos should be appalled at the way Trump painted Mexican immigrants as criminals.
But then again, maybe Mexican immigrants who’ve been in the US a while look down on those recently arriving, or don’t want more of them to compete with. After all if you are a Mexican immigrant, you probably compete with other Mexican immigrants for work on some level.
So there again we have the failure of identity politics. It’s about simple “me” economics, not “we” identity.
Of course immigrants don't automatically want more immigration for many reasons. They get more competition on the labor market and the large inflow of new immigrants increases the risk of them being a target of xenophobic policies as well. From a materialistic and egoistic viewpoint it's quite irrational to be pro immigration if you're an immigrant who has already arrived and is doig fine.
I live in the Rio Grande Valley. The prevailing sentiment I've heard from people regarding trump-supporting Latino relatives was that they seem to be of the opinion that trump is only going to go after the undocumented. There's also a fuckton of anger at the word "Latinx."
Mind you, this is anecdote based on my personal observations living in the area, and I make no claims beyond that.
Couple this with the Democratic Party moving to the right on immigration. Now the people who once had common cause with Democrats and would begrudgingly vote for them in spite of their misgivings regarding abortion and trans people had no reason to stick with the party and either voted trump or stayed home.
It also doesn't help that we lost our NPR affiliate a few years back. The valley is really spread out and a lot of people get their news from terrestrial radio on their work commute. Now the only non-music programming is trumpist grievance screaming.
Oh no doubt in my mind it's the same as the stockholm syndrome afflicted gay men who were all over social media supporting Trump. It doesn't matter what the Republican party does or says, men in the US want to support it and delude themselves that they aren't it's targets.