Latino Republicans are sick and tired of The Donald and Ted show, and want to put an end to the notions of mass deportation and ending birthright citizenship.
Months since Donald Trump sparked outrage with his comments about Mexican immigrants, about two dozen of the nation’s top Hispanic conservative activists are joining forces to respond and issue a warning to the Republican Party.
The activists plan to meet on Oct. 27 in Boulder, Colo., the day before GOP presidential candidates meet in the same city for a debate hosted by CNBC. Plans for the “unprecedented gathering” have been in the works for several weeks, according to organizers, who shared the details first with The Washington Post.
Attendees will be “the people and organizations the RNC and GOP campaigns count on to engage the Latino electorate,” said Alfonso Aguilar, head of the American Principles Project’s Latino Partnership and a lead organizer of the meeting. “We’ll discuss the tone of the primary, comments about the Hispanic community and some of the immigration proposals that have been made.”
After the meeting, the group plans to hold a news conference to “identify several candidates that will not have our support and who we are certain that if they become the GOP nominee will not get enough Latino voter support to win the general election,” Aguilar said.
The meeting will include representatives of the LIBRE Initiative, a group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers that is building conservative grassroots support among Hispanics. Also in the room will be leaders of the Latino Coalition, a national organization of Hispanic business leaders; the Hispanic Leadership Fund, a conservative group; the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the nation’s largest Latino evangelical organization that has hosted events with several presidential candidates; and veterans of past GOP campaigns and presidential administrations.
Aguilar said they will focus especially on the comments and proposals of Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) among others. Trump sparked outrage for suggesting in his announcement speech that undocumented immigrants from Mexico are criminals and rapists, while Cruz credited the New York businessman for raising the issue of immigration and refused to condemn the comments.
It’s hysterical (and actually pretty dark) that Latino Republicans actually think they still have any political power whatsoever at the national level, because national Republicans running for President and leading the party in Washington are trying to do everything they can to be as racist as possible in order to get more votes by throwing these same voters under the bus whenever possible.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s working. Right now a majority of Republican primary voters are perfectly okay with candidates that are massively racist and Islamophobic on top of having a completely ignorant view of even the most basic tenets of civics and government, which makes perfect sense because they match the views of your average Republican primary voter.
I wish all the luck in the world to these folks trying to turn the GOP around and who knows, someday we may have two sane political parties again, but it’s sure as hell not going to happen in 2016, even if you do hitch your wagon to the Koch Brothers gravy train.
If you still have difficulties seeing why “I’m going to deport millions of them” is a winning strategy with the party that you want to belong to, then good luck with that, guys. You’re gonna need it.
Face
Somewhere, Log Cabin Republicans are reading this and nodding their head, alternating between lauging and crying.
max
It’s hysterical (and actually pretty dark) that Latino Republicans actually think they still have any political power whatsoever at the national level
‘Latino Republicans’ is the beginning, middle and end of their problems.
max
[‘Perhaps a rethinking is in order.’]
lowercase steve
Conservativism is about conserving the power of the economically and socially privileged . That means white heterosexual males and especially white heterosexual males with money.
These people, the log cabin republicans, whatever seem to think it is about a principled philosophy of how to run government, how to run the economy and so forth. But it is really just about who wins when policy is put into place. Libertarianism, for example, as we can see, vanishes whenever it does something that weakens the power of the currently empowered and is trotted out as window dressing to support policies that “just happen” to further entrench the powerful.
So, umm, good luck I suppose, but you folks are outsiders along several important dimensions even if you have managed to claw your way into the economic elite so you’ll never win over this base.
greennotGreen
Re: Koch brothers gravy train.
Yesterday I heard the first part of a two part Marketplace interview with Charles Koch (Kai Ryssdal pushed back pretty hard on several answers.) Koch said that the Great Recession was caused by ruinous regulations. Charles Koch, at least, may not be an evil person – just one completely out of touch with reality.
Marmot
I’m not sure I wish them any luck at all. I don’t know if it’ll make things worse for us as a country, but I hope the Repubs descend into factionalism and a split.
NonyNony
@greennotGreen:
Stupid vs. Evil is always a question that gets asked. In the case of Charles Koch, his Daddy brainwashed him pretty good:
Fred Koch took a whole lot of money from Stalin to build oil refineries in the USSR, and then became deathly paranoid about Bolsheviks in the US rising up and taking his money. So he devoted his life to crushing working-class people so that they wouldn’t have the free time to foment revolution. The man was a vile nutjob and it’s unsurprising that his sons growing up in that environment turned out to be hateful evil nutjobs too.
greennotGreen
I don’t even know what “conservatism” as an ideal is supposed to mean anymore. I’d like a conservative to make a concise statement of principles that didn’t depend on counterfactuals. For example, “We believe in a balanced budget.” Okay, they’ve never done it, but it’s not impossible. “We believe in lowering taxes on those who pay the most. This will improve the economy.” THAT is a counterfactual.
lowercase steve
@Marmot:
One question is who will eventually be accepted as “honorary white” and who will be embraced into the “white” category. The more expansive each gets and the more quickly it happens the greater the danger of a renewed Republican party engaged in effective class warfare.
So yes, let’s hope their provincial racism and xenophobia relegate them to long-term minority status for the foreseeable future.
Marmot
@lowercase steve: While I mostly agree …
… This is backward. The racism and nationalism and nativism and so forth serves to churn out idiot voters that will give more power and money to the powerful and rich. The Kochs are clear evidence of that.
benw
All of them, Katie. The phrase that keeps on giving.
greennotGreen
And here’s another thing. I went to church when I was a kid, and I paid attention in Sunday school, and despite playing with my little sister to keep her occupied during the service, I listened to the sermon. What part of Christianity are today’s conservatives practicing? The “Love one another” part? ” The “He who is without sin cast the first stone” part? How about “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”?
I just don’t get it.
Marmot
@lowercase steve: I agree they’re more dangerous when they broaden who they’ll accept as a true American.
They’re busy limiting their own effectiveness right now, though, in this effort to whip up the dipshit vote. I worry it’s bad for the country, but I hope a split into Hater Repubs and Whoever-Else Repubs will limit the damage and keep all those bastards out of power.
A guy can dream.
Eric U.
are the Log Cabin Republicans going to regain strength now that homosexuality is no longer an effective political wedge issue? Of course, the republicans have never really shown the ability to learn things like this
kindness
Hispanic Republican conservative activists have to be the most brain dead group of people in the country right now. If they don’t see what is driving the Republican ‘base’ is an extreme xenophobia where all immigrants are painted with the same ugly brush they deserve the electoral defeat they will get.
It’s funny. Here in California we have a large Hispanic population. Through the 70’s and 80’s they reliably voted with Republicans. Then in the ’94 Republicans put prop 187 on the ballot effectively calling all Hispanics the enemy. It won. Republicans lost the Hispanic vote ever since though.
Kylroy
@lowercase steve: I can totally envision an America where, 50 years from now, a conservative party taps into Hispanic Catholic resentment of white elites to push regressive social and economic policies.
I have my doubts whether that party will be the Republicans, however.
NonyNony
@greennotGreen: I could point out a number of horrible passages in the NT (mostly from Paul’s letters, but also in the Gospels) but really that isn’t the answer. They use their religion to justify their actions, not the other way around. They want to be horrible to other people and they find ways to justify doing it by using their scripture.
cmorenc
@Zandar:
Latino Republicans should take notice of how effectively the “Log Cabin” Republicans have earned themselves power and respect by remaining within the party and lobbying for effective inclusion.
greennotGreen
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”
I suggest that until we show ourselves worthy of those words, they should not be on display. We are the country that turned away children traveling alone, fleeing the violence of their homelands. We are the country that grudgingly accepts a fraction of the Syrian refugees that we are in the process of causing to become refugees. We are the country that failed to respond to the pleas of the St. Louis carrying Jews fleeing Germany before WWII to dock.
I don’t know who these conservative Latinos are, but if they aren’t fighting tooth and nail to reform our immigration system that is being blocked by their own party, then they’re wasting their time.
KG
@greennotGreen: they follow the teachings of Paul/Saul not Jesus. Once you grasp that little fact, their version of Christianism makes sense
Tim C.
I often wonder at the logic that lets someone who is non-heteronormative, non-white, or otherwise a member of a group the Republican party uses as a “Those people” target.
Here’s my thinking.
1) They are members of a fundamentalist or some other religious/cultural faction and feel that tribal identity makes them “one of the good ones” and like that special feeling (See: Carson, Ben and Thomas, Clarence)
2) They really really really really hate taxation and buy into the libertopian con and functionally ignore all the contrary evidence.
Patricia Kayden
I’ll give these Conservative Latinos applause for being stronger than African American Conservatives who never criticize Republican racist statements/policies that negatively impact the Black community. At least Conservative Latinos have the balls to get up and speak out against their party when it comes to issues which impact their community. You never hear African American Conservatives criticize their party’s policies, i.e., voter suppression laws. It’s always Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima defending Republican bigotry. Pathetic.
schrodinger's cat
@Tim C.: They are ambitious and know they can rise rapidly through the ranks as the token minority who says the right things.
Shakezula
@Face: Yup. Except the GOP has not one, but two Hispanic Friends it can hide behind.
Kylroy
@Patricia Kayden: ..mostly because Hispanics are generally pretty socially conservative, and *would* have a place in a conservative coalition that wasn’t founded on bone-deep racism. Black Republicans are just the usual IGMFY philosophy taken to an extreme.
Paul in KY
@max: Sorta like Roman Huns or Scots for Edward I or Kulaks for Stalin…
Paul in KY
@greennotGreen: Let me assure you he is EVIL!!! He knows ‘ruinous regulations’ were not the cause. In fact, more regulations were what was needed.
It’s just another version of ‘the big lie’, IMO.
schrodinger's cat
@Patricia Kayden: Don’t worry they have company from the likes Bobby Jindal and Nikkey Haley.
Bill
Hispanic Republicans? I don’t understand people who identify as part of an organization that clearly thinks they are second class citizens.
I have the same questions about Catholic women.
Paul in KY
@greennotGreen: The nutty Baptist/Evangelical versions love to preach the Old Testament. More smiting, etc.
They think Jesus was a naïve, hippy, slacker.
Paul in KY
@Tim C.: They could be very wealthy (guess that would dovetail with the non-taxation crowd).
Paul in KY
@Patricia Kayden: How many African American ‘conservatives’ (supporters of today’s republican Party) are there? 27 or so?
Joe Shabadoo
This is quite the oxymoron.
Tim C.
@Paul in KY: Yeah, I have them mentally in that group. Though that would make a great kind of push-pull algebra equation. How much benefit will you get from a marginal income rate tax cut to override the inherent “otherness” the GOP views you as having. I think the animosity toward African Americans for example would require more of an incentive to overcome than say the comparatively lesser “otherness” that people of east Asian decent face. Though again, YMMV.
NorthLeft12
Up here in Canada this happened;
The issue was the wearing of a niqab, by a very small number of Muslim women.
http://www.cjnews.com/news/100-canadian-jews-unite-support-muslim-women-choose-wear-niqab
People need to understand that the successful targeting of a particular group for discrimination will only embolden the bigots to direct their hate to other groups. It never stops.
Brachiator
Hmm. I wonder how successful these efforts are.
Peale
IDK. When I think of the meeting of Republican Latino activists, I’m thinking of a bunch of older men who thought the anti-hispanic turn would be O.K. as long as it was directed against those without Spanish ancestry. Suddenly they find out that “my family has owned this ranch for 300 years” isn’t enough to be a permanent member of the club.
Up in the air though whether or not the GOP will pay much for it. I’m going to guess not in this cycle. The GOP voters who are probably turned off by anti-mexican hysteria probably left the party in 2010.
craigie
Log Cabin Hispanics?
Paul in KY
@Tim C.: If you are really wealthy, that means you have a huge pile of cash that you get interest income from, plus your investments, etc. Above all, (it appears, as I am no way rich) you want to stop any increase in taxation of that money pile. No matter what.
Princess
@greennotGreen: I heard that too. Ruinous regulation promoted by George W Bush, no less. My jaw dropped.
Tim C.
@Paul in KY: Yeah, and that’s always been a curious thing to me. If I, for example made 5 times my current income, I would be able to meet pretty much any physical need and desire I might have, and in no way would that make me desire to create a Smaug/Scrooge McDuck hybrid money pile free from any and all taxation. Then again, I’ve made a choice to not persue money as the ultimate end-all be-all of my goals and dreams.
The rich are really strange.
Patricia Kayden
@Paul in KY: I see enough of them to know that they don’t speak up against Republican bigotry. Doesn’t matter how many of them exist. Just watch MSNBC or Fox News and you’ll see them running their mouths all the dang time. They have no problems criticizing Democrats but have zero to say about their party’s hurtful and racist policies. It’s amazing.
srv
In contrast, one of those Castro brothers is doing something really important:
Matt McIrvin
@Tim C.: But you don’t make 5 times your current income unless you invest a whole lot of effort into getting and retaining as much money as you possibly can. So there’s a powerful selection effect that means that super-rich people are likely to have this kind of psychology.
Anoniminous
@craigie:
Adobe Hacienda Hispanics.
Mandalay
@Patricia Kayden:
Tea Party congressman Raul Labrador certainly isn’t one of them. He’s a Hispanic version of an Uncle Tom.
He attacked the media for reporting Steve’s King’s “calves the size of cantaloupes” rant:
And what did Labrador say about Trump’s remarks on Mexicans?….
Raul Labrador: a Hispanic lapdog for white racists.
Patricia Kayden
@Peale: “Up in the air though whether or not the GOP will pay much for it.”
The GOP will pay for their anti-immigrant/anti-Latino immigrant stance when Latinos vote for Secretary Clinton or Senator Sanders overwhelmingly like they did for President Obama in 2008 and 2012 (upwards of 70 percent). That’s the payback. Of course, we already know that the White Republican base has no problem with bigotry but how many more White votes can Republicans wring out of the electorate? It’s not as if the White vote is growing in terms of demographics. Quite the opposite.
WereBear
Naw. I’m going with evil.
Watchman
“Black Democrat scolds Latino Republicans for having no political power while hoping that one day Democrats will pay attention to Black Lives Matter.”
Paul in KY
@Tim C.: IMO, a lot of them are very competitive & are always ‘keeping score’ with other richy riches. Lowering their money total hurts their ‘score’.
Major Major Major can now give us some insight here :-)
Archon
@Patricia Kayden:
I assume there are still some Latino Republicans that are true believers, for the majority of high profile black Republicans I’m convinced it’s just a way to get paid.
It’s unprincipled, but then again Juan Williams IS getting paid 2 million a year. If someone wanted to pay me that, I’d be black Rush Limbaugh.
Paul in KY
@Patricia Kayden: I can see a truly rich black person supporting GOP for tax purposes (Cedric Maxwell being a known example), but these talking goobers aren’t up in that air, although I bet they get some good change.
I’m not black & prefer not to psychoanalyze them. Maybe one of our esteemed commenters who happens to be black can give their opinions on them.
Edit: If Juan Williams is getting 2 mil a year, he is up there with ‘truly rich’.
Cervantes
@Patricia Kayden:
Colin Powell?
Lizzy L
@kindness: It’s true, Prop 187 did pass, and the Republicans lost the Latino vote in CA as a result. However, just to clarify: Prop 187 was never enforced in CA. It was immediately (within days) challenged in federal court as unconstitutional, because it attempted to regulate immigration, which is a federal responsibility. In March 1998 a federal court judge ruled that it was indeed unconstitutional, and the Prop 187 supporters gave up.
Patricia Kayden
@Paul in KY: I’m Black. My opinion is that Black Conservatives are completely beholden to Republicans and are their mouth puppets so they can claim that they don’t hate all Black people. They serve no other purpose. They have zero to say when Republicans/Conservatives make blatantly racist comments.
Black Liberals/Progressives, on the other hand, have no problem criticizing Democratic politicians/policies. We understand that not everything Democrats do is beneficial to our community and have no problem voicing that opinion.
@Cervantes: Well yes, Colin Powell would be one example although I wonder how long he’ll remain in the Republican party given their anti-Black/anti-minority stance.
Ed
Latino Republicans hate black people more than they like themselves.
Paul in KY
@Patricia Kayden: Cool! Do understand what the GOP/Fox gets out of them, but besides the tax breaks, what’s in it for the commenters? Getting on TV, by any means necessary?
Frankensteinbeck
@Paul in KY:
You know what really lowers their score? Being told what to do by the government. You know what increases their score, gets them praise from other rich people? Sadistically screwing over their employees for a tiny short-term stock value increase. Yeah, money is involved, but it’s about ego. Money is only one of the ways they feed their ego.
Frankensteinbeck
@Paul in KY:
Isn’t that obvious? Carson gets to be the black guy who’s better than all other blacks, because HE succeeded, and THEY’RE too lazy. It’s a non-stop tongue-bathing. Hell, he’s in second place for the Republican presidential nomination. You’d better believe he’s loving that. Plus, he gets to spew out his own hate and be treated like he’s a hero for it. He’s only the most successful minority commenter. The process remains the same.
Paul in KY
@Frankensteinbeck: Good points on ones running businesses. There are a lot of them, though, that don’t manage anything but their giant pile of money (that they inherited or stole from the proletariat or whatever).
Roger Moore
@NorthLeft12:
Yep. I’m opposed to the idea of there being more than one class of citizen, because as long as there is, my status as a first class citizen is at risk.
kindness
@Lizzy L: Yup you are correct. It is my hope Republicans are doing on a national level what they did to poison the well here in CA with Prop 187 back in 94. I don’t see it any other way.
Paul in KY
@Frankensteinbeck: Quite a racket.
Roger Moore
@Tim C.:
That’s because you earn your money by being gainfully employed. People who are living off inherited wealth know damn well that they don’t know how to earn that money, so they’re committed to making whatever they inherited last forever.
gorram
@Frankensteinbeck: The tell on this is that even when it minimally or actually doesn’t effect them, they don’t want greater availability of economic resources among the poor. That’s leverage in employment/wage negotiations and otherwise a check on the power that comes with having the level of money they do. Their number is just that – a number indexing potential and actual power they wield within the economic and political system.
Roger Moore
@Lizzy L:
I don’t think that is true as such. Prop 187 passed, but the Republicans had already lost the Latino vote, which is why the Republicans saw it as safe to target them, and they were at risk of losing the state as a whole, which is why Pete Wilson pushed so hard to get a red meat issue on the ballot to boost Republican turnout. If Prop 187 hurt Republicans, it wasn’t because it turned Latinos against them, it’s because it encouraged Latinos who were already against them to become more politically involved.
Tim C.
@Roger Moore: Huh….. that makes a hell of a lot of sense now that you said it.
Patricia Kayden
@Paul in KY: Some Black Conservatives probably hate Black people and are ashamed by some of what they perceive as failure within our community. Not sure what they get out of selling out their own community for Republicans. Just seems that they love tearing down their own people and sucking up to Conservatives.
Will be interesting to see how Republicans react to these Conservative Latinos’ concerns. Republicans cannot afford to keep ignoring large swaths of voters.
Paul in KY
@Patricia Kayden: Thank you for your analysis.
Jado
@greennotGreen:
That one’s easy.
All of those are conditional about the recipient being a member of the same church, and ideally the same congregation. So they really rich guys funnel aid and contracts to their fellow travelers in the really rich guy church. That way, they keep the moolah in the church circle, and everyone gets rich off everyone else.
Those other people in those other churches? They don’t count. They are just the source of the moolah. Nothing to do with the holy process of “wash my back I’ll wash yours”
NorthLeft12
@Paul in KY: You can always take the measure of a man/woman by how cheaply they will sell out their fellow human beings for material gain.
If that is not an actual quote by someone, I think I will claim it.
Paul in KY
@NorthLeft12: True.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Paul in KY:
Charles Barkley was a Republican for years, but even he eventually realized that their goal of creating a howling wasteland for everyone who was worth less than $20 million was not the kind of country he wanted to live in.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gorram:
I’ve always heard it said that once you reach a certain amount of wealth, money just becomes a scorecard that you use to measure yourself against others. Say what you will against the Gilded Age millionaires, but at least they started to compete to see who could fund the most number of libraries, colleges, and museums rather than competing to see who could spend the most amount of money on politics through their super PACs.
JosieJ
I know quite a few socially conservative Black folk–older members of my family and their contemporaries–but most of them vote Democratic. Not only because they’re economically more liberal, but they also noted exactly where the Dixiecrats ran after the CRA was enacted.
We’re talking the same “keep an aspirin between your knees,” homophobic, TD Jakes-lovin’ churchy folk you’d think would be a natural fit with the Repubs, absent the virulent racism. They just don’t want to go where they’re hated.
I realize this doesn’t answer the question of “WTF is up with conservative Black folk?!” though!
Tim C.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Somehow…. I’m now seeing John Cole as the Charles Barkley of the blogosphere.
raven
@Tim C.: Boy Gorge
PaulW
Dear Hispanic Republicans:
It’s not the Republican party leadership you have a problem with.
It’s the mass voter base of Republicans being racist a-holes that you have a problem with.
If Trump is in the lead using the offensive crap he’s spewing, it’s because he’s reaching enough Republicans who believe that crap.
You are better off getting Hispanic voters to switch out of the Republicans and go to No Party Affiliate or Democrats. And you are better off talking all of your Anglo Republican allies to do the same.
Do everything possible to get the voter registration for Republicans down to triple digits in every state you can. Maybe then whatever’s left of the GOP will realize how they screwed up this bad.
Ella in NM
Latino Republicans.
Black Republicans.
Gay Republicans.
Seriously, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING IN THE FIRST PLACE?