Chapter 1: What historical context is provided for the Latino voter experience?
Every time there's an election, caravans, migrants, all these criminals are coming across the border.
The trans migrants. That one's the best. They're going to eat you. Yeah, yeah.
right paula ramos is an emmy award-winning journalist contributor for ms now telemundo and author of defectors the rise of the latino far right and what it means for america she also hosts a podcast with her dad jorge ramos called the moment and she joins us today on ihip news paula Did I say it right?
You got it right, actually, yes.
Oh, good, good, good. That's one of my favorite because where I come from, it's Paula.
I know. Look, they call me Paola, Paula, all sorts of things. So you did very well.
Okay, great. I think what we have to... And we don't cover this that much, but... there are segments of the united states where we have people that are here and they're not going anywhere we have an arab muslim population we also have this fabulous growing multicultural latino population that i love that i think is just such an asset to america
and this voting bloc is not a monolith no and everybody's jockeying for their vote everybody's trying to understand so trump got 46 percent of latino voters in the 2024 election what do you think and he's one latino man he won that vote what do you think they see in him
I mean, so right before the election, right before November 2024, when they asked most Latino voters, do you think that Donald Trump is talking about you when he's insulting immigrants? Like, do you think he is criminalizing you? The majority of Latino voters said no. The majority of Latino voters did not make the connection between Trump's words and them.
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Chapter 2: How did Donald Trump resonate with Latino voters in the 2024 election?
That's what Reagan said all the time. Reagan was always the one that was like, well, Latinos are conservative. They just don't know it.
I mean, they might historically lean towards patriarchal tendencies, maybe lean towards some homophobia because the Catholicism is such a ubiquitous presence. And evangelicalism now.
Yes. So Latinos, and I know you talk about this all the time. I do. I hate the Bible thumpers.
I love it.
I've heard. I too am an atheist. But anyways, but that's so, it is interesting because Latinas have the highest rate of conversion to evangelicalism. more than any other group right now. And I think you kind of see an interesting story there.
When someone's interviewing Latinos, whether you recently arrived here or they're migrants, they're mixed status families, and you ask them, what's one of the first things you do? When you come to a country that still feels unfamiliar, oftentimes they find a church. They find a church because it's their way to- Community. And then what happens inside of those churches completely transforms one.
So of course there's, you know, people find community, they find solidarity, but I have spent so much time in these churches that sort of insert these very problematic pastors We know that story. And that then transform, I think, this vulnerability into a political... And I've seen it time and time again. I spent so much time in the Rio Grande Valley and in Arizona and in California.
I've seen the pastors. I've been inside those rooms. And I see the way that they turn this vulnerability into a political message that is all about... the right and the wrong, all about this fight between good and evil. And I see the way that that transforms even immigrants into suddenly then seeing their own and being like, well, no, those other immigrants, they're the evil ones.
Is this intentional? Are they because the right wing evangelicals have been organized for a very long time and they know how powerful this binary, you know, emotional black will is.
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Chapter 3: What psychological factors influence Latino support for Trump?
And the lines between state and church have always been very blurry. And that something about this transphobic, like Christian language would work. And it did. And it did. It worked very, very well. Because beyond the religious aspects, what that language does, which is the same thing that anti-immigrant language does, which is the same thing that fear mongering does,
it essentially inspires a sense of disgust, right? And the disgust is at the heart of what allows a human to dehumanize the other, right? Like if I find you disgusting, like I'm not gonna see you as a human. And that's what the transphobic messaging does very well among us. And the anti-immigrant message is the same thing. But it's all to me and that's why like,
When I write these books or when I try and make sense of the things, I talk to scientists and psychologists because it's not politics. It's the feeling. It's all about this visceral feeling.
It's just disgust. I've read this before. This isn't my original thought. There's a bargain that is pitched to people. Let's talk about the rural white triple Trumpers. The bargain for them is these are capitalists with no capital. But the Republican Party says, if you vote with us, here are immigrants, trans people and gay people and black people that you get to demonize.
We're going to give you a permission structure. So now to the Latino community is that here's the bargain. You come to us. And then here is who you get to be better than, these gay people, these trans people. Because this is, back to the psychology, and I agree with you, a lot of this is psychological. And these powers, really nefarious powers, know this.
And they know how to tap into this weakness. And in the face of the Democratic Party not standing up against genocide, not standing for universal human rights, it leaves this vacuum. Exactly.
Well, yes, but also if you take a step back and you look at who Latinos are today versus who they were, say, when my dad was starting his career in the United States, we've changed so much. The majority of Latinos right now, the majority are U.S. born. The majority speak English, not Spanish. It's third generation Latinas that are the fastest growing segment among us.
And so what that means is that we are so much more Americanized and assimilated than when people think. There was a story 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, that really centered our solidarity among this immigrant story, because it was closer to us. And it made sense that we were a community, we were a tribe, but that kind of is disappearing. And we are more American.
My siblings, my brother barely speaks, or my dad hates it, but he barely speaks Spanish. And so all this to say that I think Trumpism also bets on that idea, that there is a small segment and a growing segment of Latinos that are so Americanized that they too can sort of buy into the us versus them game, to your point. And it is true.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of systemic racism on Latino voters?
I know that there is the same way that they judged Barack Obama, whose mother was from Kansas, a heritage American, if you will.
i know that enrique of the proud boys i know what they think i know they're going to call him a w-e-t-b-a-c-k because i've heard it my entire life i know that they see him as somebody well we'll get this hispanic to do it because we can get him to do this job cheaper that's exactly it i know the way they view him that's it and that's that's it so i was i was in miami when trump
pardons the Proud Boys and pardons the January 6th insurrections. And I was there for Enrique Dario's welcome party, like literally, right? So I was not only- You were at the party? I was at the party, of course. I was at the party, but I was in the press. But I was covering the day before this Latino insurrectionist pardon watch party that they were hosting as Trump was being inaugurated.
Some people were even wearing their, like, court-ordered ankle bracelets. And they were all waiting to be pardoned, and I saw it. And then they were waiting for Enrique Dario's release. And the story will make sense in a second, but essentially Enrique Dario, you know, Trump pardons him.
And to get that, it gets to Miami, where he is essentially seen as this like anti-communist here and was the martyr when that's the way that he was received. He comes down. There's like all these. You know, photos of him in the airport. He finally has a press conference.
What I found interesting is that he is sitting there, you know, with his like little glasses and he was always just like tough guy. But joking, he says, well, you know, maybe Trump is going to call me because maybe I'm going to get a job at the White House. Maybe I'll go to D.C. And there in that voice, and I've covered him for a long time.
There was something in me that said, oh, you really believe that you will be called. Like you really believe that he likes you, that you're in the in-group. No one has ever called him. He's still in Miami. And that's the story of a lot of these people that in the Proud Boys, Enrique saw
boys club that made him feel cool and then suddenly the roger stones of the world call him and trump calls him because they need a latinos for trump warrior and then he becomes radicalized by that power and he feels cool and then he becomes the literal soldier that enlists everyone to go into the capital And then he serves the longest sentence than anyone else. And now he's lonely.
He has nothing. And it goes back to what you said. In 2020, when Trump loses the election, all the Proud Boys look at Enrique Daria and the white men say, The West belongs to the white race and the white race alone, and we owe nothing to you. And they kind of like turn their backs on him. And it's exactly what you're saying. It's all a game. It's all a power game. Totally.
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Chapter 5: How do personal stories of deportation affect Trump supporters?
What do you think the Democrats' message is specific to Latinos, is specific to immigration? What is the message for the Democrats moving forward in the midterms?
I mean, I think there's a lot to learn from Zoran, right? Totally. There's so much to learn from him because he was, and I know you know him, but he was capable of doing, I guess, what, you know, and I met them. He was capable of getting the Trump supporters and getting the Latino immigrants and the Muslim Americans. He was able to build a coalition based on a sense that everyone
is worthy of belonging in a place right and like that is you know then you can get into the immigration stuff but there's no no one is left behind and you don't even have to like call people out but it is it is like everyone is worthy of this thing of this yeah even the universal child care if your child's undocumented they're still getting and everyone can get getting a lunch sure and and you can and if you and i you know i'm not a i'm not a political strategist but i do believe in like if you feel inspired right like if you if you feel like
It's what I felt when I was graduating from college here in New York and I went to go work for Barack Obama. I felt it. People ask me all the time, what does it mean to be a Latino or a Latina? I don't know, but I know that it's a feeling. I know it's something that I feel when I walk into a space. I don't know how politicians think about us, but I know that it feels good.
And I think that's, it's like going back to like the feeling of like, man, yes, like I can get with this.
I don't know, maybe next time I'll have a better answer, but I know- No, I think that, you know, we often say like, oh, I'm not, and I'm not as political strategist. But my podcast has gotten super popular because I think political strategists have kind of failed us.
When we look at how did we lose to Trump twice, two competent, educated women with experience and resumes that are out of this world. And so these are important conversations for us to lean into other perspectives other than just this boring focus group polling. Yeah. type stuff. And I think that, you know, I was so happy to have you on because the Latino, Latinos are here.
They are a part of America. Um, you know, you hear it now, people are talking about, well, we can't have Sharia law and these Muslims all over the place. Arab Americans are here. Muslim Americans are here. They're not going anywhere. Latinos are not going anywhere. Stephen Miller can try all he wants to deport a hundred million people. It's not going to happen.
He's going to deport some and he's going to kill some. That's going to happen. But these policies are widely unpopular. And so I just, every chance we can build coalitions and connect us all, because I really believe we're all so connected.
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Chapter 6: What strategies are discussed for building coalitions among marginalized groups?
Welcome officially.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you.