Why Trump’s Message Worked on Latino Men

Much has been said about who’s to blame—or who’s to thank, depending on your political persuasion—for Trump’s resounding election win. Hispanic men, who flocked to him in unprecedented numbers, might have made the difference in Pennsylvania, giving Trump the shiniest jewel in his crown. Many hoped (myself included) that after calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” and promising to deport millions of immigrants, the Hispanic vote would help lift Kamala Harris to victory. But as I take stock of my feelings, it’s the role that Latino men played that stings most.

There are lessons to learn here, if so obvious it feels silly to name them. Hispanic, working-class men are (gasp!) swayed by the same message that all working-class men are. They are as affected by the economy as other working-class people (and as uninformed about its root causes). They proved as susceptible, if not more, to the fear-mongering of socialism creeping into America (no matter if Harris would be considered center-right in a place like Venezuela, for example). There’s also the underlying stench of misogyny; hard to single out amid the cornucopia of other reasons men backed Trump, but impossible to dismiss. 

And then there’s immigration. Democrats have long banked on it being the chain that linked them to the Hispanic electorate. But in the last 20 years Democrats have let go chance after chance to pass comprehensive immigration reform, breaking a long-held promise. They didn’t seriously pursue it, in part, because it kept Republicans as the enemy. They wanted to be able to tell Latino voters Republicans hated them, and wanted them out. It’s the exact same thing Democrats accused Trump of doing when he blocked the bipartisan border bill the Biden Administration championed earlier this year. Trump wanted to run on the scary immigrants Harris supposedly had failed to keep away.

At the end of the day, Trump’s message (the immigrant as animals here to rape and kill your daughters) won out. And it even worked on—wait for it—Hispanic men. As a Venezuelan American, the first, overwhelming feeling that comes up when I think of Latino men voting for Trump (some of them my Venezuelan compatriots) is shame. I’m ashamed of them. Trump’s threat to deport 20 million people (there are only around 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.) includes loved ones. Stephen Miller is already promising to “turbocharge” denaturalization, taking citizenship away from people that legally, and through years of hard work, waited for their chance to become American (what kind of last names do you think Trump and Miller will target? Beaufort, O’Neill, Müller? or is it Rodriguez, Muñoz, and Gutierrez?). Even birthright citizenship, a hallmark of Americanism, is on the chopping block.

But I also have, and I hate to admit this, some compassion for these voters. Because at the bottom of all of it, they just want to belong. Hispanics have always been easy targets for bigotry; they have been since the U.S. was founded. There’s an ever-present accusation: you will never be American enough. Latino men seemed to have swallowed Trump’s warped idea of patriotism that you are at your most American when you are anti-immigrant.

There’s also the very real trauma of immigrants who escaped failed socialist states. I know what it feels like to have family members in danger of political repression, to see your people go hungry, to see corruption masked as revolution. It is harder for me to accept they would be so magnetically pulled by such an obvious authoritarian; a mirror reflection of what they managed to escape. But that’s the power of trauma—the pain of it is often blinding.

My pity stops, however, when I think of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that have escaped wars, dictatorial regimes, and natural disasters, and benefited from America’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This program will most likely vanish, and the people that found refuge because of it will become just numbers to fill up Trump’s deportation tally.

My anger swells anew when I think of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients, over 500,000 of them, that are now, again, at risk of being deported. They came here as children, through no fault of their own, overcame the most brutal of challenges, and still managed to succeed in America. If Trump and Miller have their way, they will soon be forced to leave the only place they’ve ever known, breaking up families and communities.

Being an immigrant is hard. Even for those of us that came to the U.S. without major economic hardship. I know that every single Latino that voted for Trump knows what it feels like to miss home, be unmoored, out of place. That’s why their vote feels so much like betrayal.  

Experts say that Trump will greatly benefit from inflation rates now down to manageable numbers (relatively speaking, the U.S. has been able to navigate post-COVID inflation much better than its peers). Our economy, and prices at the grocery store and pump, will surely look better in a year, regardless of whatever tariff-led stupidity Trump puts forward. The I told you sos will be heard from every Trump voter’s mouth, some with a strong Spanish accent.

The Democratic Party has a big hill to climb with Latinos in the next four years. But climb they must to remain competitive in elections. That means speaking with Hispanic voters on a community-by-community basis. That means listening to the Hispanic working class. That means taking the plight of our countries of origin seriously. That means investing in our communities, and raising up Hispanic voices inside the Democratic leadership. That means standing up for Latinos during the onslaught we will start facing come January.

Hispanic men as a voting block should now be considered Republican. It is the GOP’s vote to lose. I wonder if Democrats will put in the work to win them back. I hope so. I wonder if the consequences of Trump’s horrific immigration policies, their abject cruelty, will drive Latinos away. I hope so, too. If our democracy holds, we will have a chance to find out in four years.