05-30-2015, 04:48 PM
(05-27-2015, 06:19 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: They have been trying to capitalize on it for a couple of decades. But it is problematic for them. W Bush spent a lot of time working to gain Latino votes. Some parts of the GOP have gone away from that now.
One thing is the socio-economic situation new immigrants find themselves in when they come here. Now, to be sure, there are a LOT of immigrants who come to America from other countries to try their hand at the unbridled capitalism and to try and get rich. That is our biggest draw to the world. "They comin' to America"... to get rich. And most of those people identify right away with the neo-conservative values of the Republican Party. But a lot of folks coming from the Latino nations don't have that level of greed. Their ambitions are more middle class.
A second problem is the "close the border" mentality of many on the Right. I'm not being critical of this mentality (personally, I'm for stricter border controls, but only when combined with a reformed immigration/work visa program). I'm only pointing out that to many Latinos, this is viewed as a personal or even racial attack. Many on here may not agree with that assessment. But we are all mostly white males who don't have much experience as minorities. It is common thought in the Latino minority communities, particularly when combined with the "English only" campaigns, bills like SB70 here in AZ, concerns about racial profiling (see Sheriff Joe), and just general comments heard occasionally by Latino American citizens ("wetback", "go home to Mexico", "you're stealing our jobs", etc.) which they generally see as coming from the Right.
The Republican Party has a balancing act: keeping their base happy while trying to reach out to Latinos. Those two interests collide a lot. When they collide, the GOP has almost always sought to keep their base happy first and foremost.
I pretty much agree with everything you've posted here. To me it's crazy that they keep pandering to the ultra religious right, when in the end it would seem that's what keeps them from getting elected in general elections. I guess what I'm seeing is that the country as a whole is becoming a lot more moderate - liberal on a lot of topics. It's why gay marriage has mad so much head way in recent years.
