Latinos giving up on Democrats discover GOP clueless, too

With the 2022 midterm election less than a year away, neither Democrats nor Republicans have the foggiest idea about how to get or keep the support of Latino voters.

The fact that both political parties operate within an antiquated black-and-white paradigm doesn’t help.

The ignorance about America’s largest minority — one of the fastest-growing parts of the U.S. electorate — is profound. It’s also bipartisan. So is the arrogance. When trying to figure out why Latinos vote a certain way, the parties are often wrong but never in doubt.

What I despise about Democrats is that many of them don’t go to the trouble of getting to know Latinos because they’re too busy taking our support for granted. They don’t listen to what we want because they’re too busy telling us what they think we need. And they twist whatever support they do get from us to fit whatever agenda they’re pushing.

What I despise about Republicans

is, well, pretty much the same.

Now that some Latinos are migrating away from the Democratic Party because they feel neglected, they’re willing to give the GOP a second look. And that has given some know-it-all Republicans the chance to show us all how little they really know about Latinos.

Although he now lives in Virginia, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt spent much of his life in California — a state that is 39 percent Latino. He should have picked up at least a few insights into this group over the years. He didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t interested. So why pretend to be an expert now?

Last week, Hewitt interviewed Salena Zito, a conservative columnist for the Washington Examiner.

Commenting on Biden’s racially charged speech in Atlanta recently in support of voting rights legislation, Zito voided the president’s race card.

“I think this ‘racist’ (label) that you throw at people every time they don’t agree with you is tired, it’s worn, it’s over,” she said.

That prompted Hewitt to interject.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why Latino votes are moving to the GOP,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Zito chimed in. “They perceive the Democratic Party as not about working people,” Hewitt said. “It’s become about African American agendas, primarily the progressive left’s agenda for African Americans, which isn’t the African American agenda.”

I’m sure my Black friends appreciate — as I do — the willingness of a couple of white people to share their wisdom about how “African American agendas” are chasing off Latinos from the Democratic Party.

But as an actual Latino, I must correct the record. Latinos are not in competition with African Americans. The main reason we’re leaving the Democrats is that the party stopped coming around to ask for our support.

This is no time for ignorance mixed with arrogance. The political stakes are too high.

The 62 million Latinos in this country make up 18 percent of the U.S. population. More than 60 percent of Latinos are Mexican or Mexican American, a subset that is now a “swing vote.” Though we’re more likely to register Democrat — by a 2-to-1 margin — we’ll support Republicans we like.

In 2020, 16.5 million Latinos voted, accounting for 10 percent of the electorate. An estimated 61 percent cast ballots for Biden.

Now, the president is persona non grata. A recent poll by Quinnipiac University found that only 28 percent of Latinos approve of his job performance.

That’s a bad omen for Democrats. In 2024, the “battleground states” are likely to include the heavily Latino states of Arizona, Texas, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

Both parties are out of their depth with Latino voters. I want to help.

To make a serious play for Latinos, Republicans ought to do three things: When talking about immigration, resist the GOP catnip of nativism and racism; stop surrendering issues like education and health care to the opposing side; and focus not on protecting millionaires but on empowering working-class folks who aspire to become millionaires.

And, in the other camp, Democrats who want to make sure Latinos don’t defect to the GOP should do these three things: Don’t take them for granted and actually ask for their support for once; stop trying to be the toughest party on immigration enforcement; and turn your attention away from the causes the elites care about and toward bread-andbutter issues.

In politics, loyalty is overrated. It doesn’t pay dividends. You know what does? Being up for grabs. That’s where Latinos need to be.