Prior to the Trump Triumph, we were constantly told by the so-called experts that a successful
Republican candidate needed a big portion of the
Hispanic vote, which could only be
obtained by surrendering on illegal immigration and
campaigning in Spanish. The
“experts” included the Main Stream Media (always eager to “help” the
GOP), the Republican leadership, and well-paid political consultants,
especially
Hispanic political consultants.
Trump ignored all of this. He
didn’t even have a Spanish language section on his website. As Trump declared during the GOP primaries, standing next to
Jeb Bush: “This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.”[
RCP, September 16, 2015]
And not only did Trump win, he apparently got a few more percentage
points of the Hispanic vote than Mitt Romney: 29% vs 27% according to
CNN.
This is disputed by Gary Segura and Matt Barreto, who run the Latino
Decisions website—and who, coincidentally, worked for Hillary. They
claim Hillary Clinton garnered 79% of the Latino vote, which would be
better than Obama did four years ago. [
Lies, Damn Lies, and Exit Polls, Latino Decisions, November 10, 2016] They also assert that Trump only got 18% of the Latino vote:
In record numbers, Latinos voted overwhelmingly against Trump. We did the research, by Gabriel Sanchez and Matt Barreto,
Washington Post, November 11, 2016]. But others on the Left disagree: Harry Enten disputes Latino Decision’s figures—
Trump Probably Did Better With Latino Voters Than Romney Did FiveThirtyEight, November 18, 2016.
But the bottom line: there was not some overwhelming African American-style Latino vote that prevented Trump’s victory.
In other words, among the many victims left behind on Trump’s bloody path to the Presidency was the
entire industry of
GOP Hispanic consultants.
What about Trump’s own Hispanic advisers? They fared little better.
The “National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump” was a joint
creation of the campaign and the political geniuses at the Republican
National Committee. It was “a diverse group of national Hispanic leaders
who are advising the campaign and sharing Mr. Trump’s proposals with
the Hispanic community” .[
RNC And Trump Campaign Meet With National Hispanic Advisory Council For Trump, GOP, August 20, 2016]
Trump, interestingly, assigned them the task of finding “humane, efficient” ways of dealing with illegal immigration [
Trump to Hispanic Advisors: Find ‘Humane, Efficient’ Ways to Address Illegal Immigration, by Todd Beamon,
Newsmax, August 20, 2016]. But why would Hispanic advisers necessarily be experts on that question?
It didn’t really matter. Within two weeks,
after Trump’s speech on immigration policy in Phoenix, members of this group were publicly bailing out and condemning Trump.
Needless to say, the result was an MSM frenzy, with members of the group lovingly quoted.
Jacob Monty [
Email him] an i
mmigration lawyer (!) from Houston who had acted as spokesman, gave several more interviews, with lots of quotes bashing Trump.
- “I couldn’t be part of the charade. I didn’t want to be responsible of leading people astray” [Donald Trump’s Immigration Speech Backfires Among Hispanic Republicans by Priscilla Alvarez, Atlantic, September 1, 2016].
- (On Facebook)
“I gave Donald TRUMP a Plan that would improve border security, remove
hardened criminal aliens and most importantly give work authority to the
millions of honest, hardworking immigrants in
the US. He rejected that tonight and so I must reject him… Tonight he
was not a Republican but a populist, modern day Father Coughlin who
demonized immigrants . He must want to lose…. “Trump’s Hispanic Advisers Ditch Him Over Hard-Right Immigration Plan (Subtitle: “One suggested that Trump might not even want to win”) by Elise Foley, Huffington Post, September 2, 2016
- “There was hope yesterday when he went to Mexico. He looked like a
president. He looked like somebody who was trying to solve the problem.
For him to turn and just disregard everything we talked about a
week-a-half ago and just recite the talking points from FAIR and Numbers
USA [two organizations that favor restrictive immigration policies],
that was disappointing.” [Trump speech costs him backing of Texas Hispanic advisers by Jonathan Tilove, Austin American-Statesman, September 1, 2016]
- [Several Hispanic Trump surrogates reconsider support Katie Glueck and Kyle Cheney, Politico, September 1, 2016]
One Ramiro Pena, a
pastor in Waco, dropped off the group and said, “I am so sorry but I believe Mr. Trump lost the election tonight”. [
Some members of Trump’s Hispanic advisory board consider pulling support by Reena Flores,
CBS, September 1, 2016]
Grace Flores Hughes [
Email her] a
former Bush I official (and the woman who
invented
the term “Hispanic”) stated: “As long as he continues with this sort of
rhetoric, no, none of us are going to support him. He’s too right-wing.
The majority of people who are here illegally are here to seek a
better life. The majority of them are good, hardworking, honest people. I think we need to concentrate on that and talk about that”. [
Donald Trump’s ‘Hispanic Advisory Council’ is falling apart after his brutal immigration speech by Casey Tolan,
Fusion, September 1, 2016]
Massey Villarreal, [
Email him]
former president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and national
Republican Hispanic Assembly, called the Trump speech “awful” and said:
“As a compassionate conservative, I am disappointed with the immigration
speech. I am no longer supporting Trump for president…” .[
Austin American-Statesman]
And
Rick Figueroa, [
Email him] an investment executive also quoted in the
Statesman piece, complained
Trump had ignored “wise counsel” and stated: “I am very disappointed in
Mr. Trump’s immigration mistake. It was a leadership mistake. It was a
political mistake. It was a moral mistake.”
What no one explained, and apparently were not asked: why these
Hispanic “conservative” advisers went along with Trump until this
speech, only to showily betray him afterward. Do they not want Americans
to have a sane immigration policy? Or do they simply identify
more with the Latino movement than the historic American nation?
Either way, they didn’t do much for Trump except bring bad press.

Meanwhile,
on the Democratic side, Latinos were supposed to save the election for
Clinton/Kaine. And the ticket flagrantly appealed to them on the basis
of ethnic solidarity. On November 3rd, just days before the election,
Tim Kaine gave a “historic” speech in Phoenix—‘historic” because it was
entirely in Spanish.
The New York Times crowed
Well, Señor Kaine, Hablaste Español Muy Bien (
“Well, Mr. Kaine, You Spoke Spanish Very Well”) [by Fernanda Santos,
New York Times, November 3, 2016].
Still, the audience was only 150 people. The
New York Times said it was:
“…a mix of elected officials, community activists,
immigration advocates, union leaders and teachers wearing T-shirts that
read “Educators for Hillary” and “Families Fighting Back.”

Hardly a mass movement. All the speakers at the rally spoke in Spanish, including a candidate for the state legislature, and
Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. (Pictured right.)
The
Times didn’t report, but
Breitbart did: in his speech
Sen. Tim Kaine cheered the demographic transformation of
the United States caused by the nation’s federal immigration policies,
telling his Latino audience on Thursday, “You are the future of
America.” “By 2050, communities of color will represent the majority of
our population,” Kaine said.
“So, of course, Latinos will help shape the future of America because you are the future of America.”
[Tim Kaine Cheers End of White Majority in Spanish Address, By Julia Hahn, Breitbart, November 5, 2016]
So in a foreign tongue, an American senator essentially mocked the
American people being driven into minority status by its own government.
Significantly, this treasonous pandering seems to have backfired:
On Monday, Clinton and Trump were in a virtual tie when
the Clinton campaign announced that Democratic Presidential nominee Tim
Kaine would be giving the first ever presidential campaign speech
in Spanish. Clinton actually held a 0.6 percentage point lead,
according to an average of state polls compiled by Real Clear Politics.
But by Friday, a day after Kaine’s speech in Phoenix, Trump had
overtaken her and extended his lead to a more established 4 percentage points.
Tim Kaine’s Spanish rally in Phoenix didn’t help Clinton’s numbers in Arizona, [by Franco Ordoñez, Sun Herald, November 4, 2016.]
And, on November 8th,
Trump carried Arizona with its 11 electoral votes, by a margin of 3 and a half points.

What this shows: as I have
repeatedly said on VDARE.com, pandering to Latinos
as Latinos will not help the GOP win votes. Trump’s
appeal to civic nationalism shows the correct approach.
Note that Trump’s
relative success with Latinos came despite a massive propaganda campaign labeling Trump and his supporters as enemies of all Hispanics.
So why did these
Hispanics vote for Trump?
Is it because they think he can improve the economy? Do they admire
Trump’s leadership qualities? Do they explicitly vote based on
conservative principles? Do they identify with the historic American
nation? Or all of the above and more?
It doesn’t matter. It’s because Hispanic-Americans who think of
themselves as Americans first will respond if they are approached as Americans.
But that means cutting out the
“GOP Hispanic political consultants” who have long claimed that recycled progressivism and Open Borders will somehow win over
La Raza supporters back from the Democrats, and that appealing to American patriotism would somehow alienate Hispanics even further.
The results are now in. The
“GOP Hispanic political consultants” were
utterly, totally and completely wrong.
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after
many years residing in Mexico. Allan`s wife is Mexican, and their two
sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with
the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.