The coming post-mortem

We saw it from Republicans in 2013, following their 2012 losses. We'll see it again in 2023, this time from Democrats.

Have you ever read an article, highlighted some text that you wanted to pull and post on social media, kept scrolling, kept reading, thought, oh, no, this is a better quote, and then repeated that process several times until you simply decided to give up, because there were too many?

I had that experience this morning, while reading Tim Alberta’s essay for The Atlantic, “Why Democrats Are Losing Hispanic Voters.” As much as anything I’ve read over the past couple of years, this article makes me think that the slippage we’ve seen—by Latinos, away from the Democratic Party—is real, and it could be lasting.

(Also, there are great insights from Carlos Odio of Equis Research. Always listen to what he says. The man is a metaphor magician, with his talk of coin tosses and tugs of war.)

When the dust settles after Tuesday’s elections, I suspect we’ll spend the next few months (maybe, hopefully, years) dissecting what happened. This time, hopefully it’ll lead to real changes in how both parties approach Latino voters.

I don’t think we’ll wake up on Wednesday talking about the red wave that crashed on our heads, propelled by Latinos. Not at all. Enough talk of waves. I think it’ll be a murkier picture than that; one that won’t feed our sense that we’re living in an age of extremes. But I do expect that it’ll lead to much handwringing and head-scratching about what Democrats have gotten wrong.

I’ve said that we need to understand Latinos as more than voters. I still believe that to be true. In order to better understand Latinos, all Americans need to know more about Latino history, which, in turn, perhaps counterintuitively, will teach us about the diversity of Latino politics.

At the same time, it’s undeniable that BOTH parties need to do better with Latinos. Alberta’s essay points toward what Democrats need to do better—self-examination when it comes to immigration and border policies, proving that the Democratic Party is the party for the working class.

But Republicans have a lot of work to do, too. As Mike Madrid has put it, Republicans have performed better among Latinos despite themselves, largely benefitting from the foibles of Democrats rather than their own visionary strategies.

To wit, Republicans: are you going to deal with your party’s white power problem? You’ve made significant investments in Latino outreach this election cycle, largely, I believe, as a kind of test balloon in order to see whether the gains you made among Latinos in 2020 was real—not necessarily because you knew it to be true. But will you maintain those investments and maintain your presence in Latino communities, working to convince them that your policies will make their lives better? Will you do so continuously from November 2022 to November 2024 and beyond?

My only criticisms of Alberta’s article have to do not with anything he said, but with what he left out. Taking a step back from the words on the page, you’ll notice that the article is still about Arizona, Florida, and Texas—three places where we’re always paying attention to what Latinos are up to. Likewise, you’ll notice that the issues Alberta focuses on are the ones we always hear about: immigration, border security, policing, socialism, and Latino aspirations. In this sense, the essay confirms much of what we already knew, even if with greater force because of its greater detail.

But you could tell similar stories about Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all places with tight races right now, and all places with more than enough Latino voters to swing elections. I even think you could tell similar stories about solidly liberal places like California, Illinois, or New York, where Democratic seats might not be at risk, but where you’d see many of the same dynamics playing out.

I also think the focus could have been on other issues, like churches and charter schools, as I’ve written before. These aren’t necessarily issues that are pushing Latinos away from Democrats, and that’s the focus of this article. But they are drawing Latinos to Republican candidates.

I guess one more thing I’ll point out is that the article reflects an emerging discourse pitting the “economy” and “social justice” (which, let’s be honest, means racial justice) against one another. Republicans will continue to talk about them as separate issues, and if Democrats have any hope of making up lost ground, they’ll have to convince Americans that social justice and the economy are in fact intertwined.

I’ve told you that I was going to intrude on your inboxes only on Mondays and Thursdays. I still generally anticipate that will be true. Maybe Fridays will be my day for short missives, or maybe I’m just worked up because the election is only days away. Regardless, thank you for reading.

UPDATE: I love this snark from Alberta’s article, or at least I read it as snark:

There’s a professor from Arizona State, [Earl Wilcox] tells me, who comes by often. One recent morning, after overhearing some of Earl’s regulars sounding off on the Democratic Party over breakfast, the professor pulled him aside. He could sense that Earl was anxious, and told him not to worry. Whatever gains the GOP was making were bound to be temporary. Hispanics, the professor told him, would never abandon the Democratic Party.

Earl shakes his head. “I’m not so sure anymore,” he says.

I read this to mean that maybe, just maybe, scholars who study the Latino vote, or who feel that, because of their smarts, they have some knowing insight, also need to develop new paradigms that are more attentive to what folks on the ground are witnessing and telling them.