Despite what he says, Donald Trump stokes fear against Latinos

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

This won’t come as a surprise to Latinos who’ve been following the presidential election.  Donald Trump doesn’t like us, despite the many times he says we love him, believe me.

This is where I need to make a full-stop to clarify what I’m not saying. I’m not saying we’re Trump’s victims, this is not a woe-is-we testimony. Neither am I saying that Trump hates Latinos – I have no idea what’s in his heart. But judging by what he’s been saying – and by how he doubled-down in his nomination acceptance speech – it sounds like I’d need one of those spelunker head lights to find my way in the darkness he projects.

That speech.

It was laden with fear. It was meant to instill fear in the hearts of the conservative base and it provoked fear in the minds of many Americans who heard in his words the ranting of a man riding a thin rail, intent on flying off.

The Republican Party faithful will say they didn’t hear the fear, they’ll say that their candidate was reflecting the anger and frustration felt by many people in “real” America. But there’s no logical way for Trump to sell himself as the “law and order” candidate unless he first sells the idea that the country is in the devil’s hand-basket: that Muslims are a threat, that immigrants are a nuisance and a threat, that criminal immigrants are running wild in our cities, that America is under attack from the outside and from within because cops are gunned-down and crime is on the rise (by the way, this only works if you yell it from the podium, emphatic, urgent.)

This is my theory:

Trump needs to paint a dark, dystopian world in order to position himself as the saving light, and the world he paints needs to be darker than him. That story only sells in the part of America that regards itself as “real” (or legitimate) and sees itself surrounded by dark threats – Southern, Midwestern, white, no college, Christian.

The truth is that crime is not on the rise, immigrants aren’t flooding the border, Muslims aren’t dangerous – my next-door neighbors for 16 years are Muslim. They’re a wonderful family whose customs are very familiar – strong family ties, respectful kids, hard working, terrific back yard parties with BBQ and music and loud children running about.

But Trump’s world scares me.

Not because it’s real, but because so many people think it is and they fear what they don’t know and their fear is strong enough to create a terrifying world. I fear ignorant people, not because they’re ignorant, but because there seems to be so many of them and they vote.

Trump is a smart man.

He knows that Latinos in the U.S. won’t buy his dystopic version of the country and the world because we’ve got a vision of our own that’s optimistic and bright. So despite what he says we don’t love him, we can’t relate to the world he describes.

That’s why I say he doesn’t like us.

We’re not expedient for him. We’re of no political value to him, because he can rile the fears of “real America” without us, regardless of what the demographic charts and the electoral maps say. He holds us in such low regard that he lies to his base about us, telling them we “love Trump;” ignoring what the GOP strategists said four years ago in their now infamous “autopsy report.” (What backroom dusty shelf did that thing end up on?) Trump doesn’t like what he can’t use to get what he wants. So he’s written us off saying “the Hispanics love me.”

That, if you’re paying attention, is a loss he figures he can take.



[Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore/Flickr]

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