It is generally accepted that Democrats, if they hope to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, are going to need to harness the Hispanic vote; which is partly why Democrat Party candidate Elizabeth Warren recently engaged in a bit of pandering by referring to the Hispanic community as the genderless and politically correct “latinx”.
But that pandering is not likely to have the desired effect, and not just because Hispanics themselves have not adopted the term to describe themselves Warren and progressives prefer. The truth — one likely contributing to progressive worries that Democrats may not appeal to Hispanic voters — is that the Trump administration has implemented policies that have directly benefited the Hispanic community as the most recent jobs report highlights in unwavering detail.
According to the new jobs report, Latino-Hispanic employment his a record high of 28,282,000 in October, which broke the record set the previous month. That comes out to 130,000 more Hispanics with jobs in October. Other positive data points include:
Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population (16+ years old): 43,814,000 up from 43,722,000 in September
Number Participating in Labor Force: 29,486,000, up from 29,287,000 in September
Labor Force Participation: 67.3%, up from 67.0% in September
Number Employed: 28,282,000 up from 28,152,000 in September
Alfredo Ortiz, President and CEO of The Job Creators Network — a small business advocacy group — said in a statement that the numbers speak to policy decisions enacted under the Trump administration.
“Hispanics, in particular, have reason to cheer,” Ortiz’s statement read in part. “They are experiencing the lowest unemployment rate in history and they were responsible for nearly two-thirds of the net homeownership gains in 2018…Our economy has made tremendous strides under President Trump, but we cannot get complacent. We need the Fed and Congress to work with the Administration to put the pedal to the metal on smart, pro-growth policies.”
These numbers lend weight to the concern published earlier in October by a Columbia University professor that Democrats may be facing a very serious uphill climb with Hispanic voters — and not just in the 2020 election.
[T]roubling for Democrats [is] their assumption that the vast majority of Hispanics are inherently repelled by conservative politicians and policies is not being borne out by the evidence.
2018 was a stellar midterm election year for Democrats, and yet Hispanic-Americans voted for many Republican candidates in huge numbers, and indeed helped tip the scales in key Republican Senate and Gubernatorial wins in the increasingly diverse states of Florida, Texas, and Arizona. Yes, Hispanics overall voted strongly Democratic in 2018 - in some cases by more than 2-1. But 2018 also made it clear the Hispanic vote nationwide - even in the age of Trump - is very much up for grabs.
And that is what should be most terrifying for today's Democrats. If well over 40 percent of Hispanics in some very important states are willing to vote for Republican candidates during the darkest days of the Trump era, imagine what might happen if and when the GOP nominates candidates more overtly welcoming to Hispanic communities.
And the Democrats’ probable frontrunner’s response to these concerns? The adoption of a term to describe them lauded by white progressives but shunned by Hispanics themselves: “LatinX”.
“Despite its usage by academics and cultural influencers, 98 percent of Latinos prefer other terms to describe their ethnicity. Only 2 percent of our respondents said the label accurately describes them, making it the least popular ethnic label among Latinos," according to ThinkNow Research.
If Democrats hope to compete with Trump by winning a bloc of voters they have always been assumed to control — and they most assuredly need to win — they’ll need to come up with a better tactic than progressive-sanctioned political correctness. Rhetoric doesn’t stand a chance against employment.
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