UK Guardian: 'Inexcusable' language on immigration alienating Latino voters, Republicans told

[pampango]

Senior Republicans including the brother of the former president George Bush have warned the party to avoid using "harsh, intolerable and inexcusable" language about illegal immigration or risk alienating Latino voters.

"We must admit there are those among us that have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable and inexcusable," (Marco) Rubio said in a speech at the Hispanic Leadership Network in Miami on Friday. "And we must admit, myself included, that sometimes we've been too slow to condemn that language for what it is."

Some Republican leaders have introduced legislation to prevent the provision of services to illegal immigrants, the majority of whom are Hispanic.

(Jeb) Bush also urged Republicans to temper their comments. "Hispanic people hear these debates and I think you turn them off. It's not a good thing," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/28/senior-republicans-latino-voters-immigration

Hey, dude. The reason that some "have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable and inexcusable" on immigration is that they are trying to appeal the republican base, particularly to teabaggers. If one thinks the candidates really believe their own "intolerable" rhetoric, we will see how much that rhetoric changes when they decide that they need Hispanic votes.

We all know that the republican candidate will eventually try to pivot to a more "Hispanic-friendly" style since they need their votes in the general election. The only real question is how and when the "pivot" will occur and how well will it work after a primary season filled with immigrant bashing. I'm sure the candidates and their strategists are considering this question every day.

[ananda]

1. Duh.

nt

[randr]

2. Latinos, especially our Cuban immigrant friends,

need to understand that, while the Republicans share their hatred of Castro, they do not share the other values common to those working hard to achieve the American Dream.
In their case, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily their friend.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. I Think There's A Class Difference

I think there's a class difference in immigrant Cuban attitudes that makes many of them tone-deaf when "Anglo" Republicans start using dog-whistle code words regarding Hispanics. My impression from reading a lot of the more outspoken right-wing Cuban output in cyber space is that when it comes down to it, right-wing Cubans have much the same attitudes towards the "brown masses" as southern US whites have towards Afro-Americans. It's the same sort of plantation-veranda attitude as the mint-julep white plantation-owner of American mythos.

Moreover, I've come to the conclusion that a LOT of Cuban emigres are racists themselves. They seem to believe that those Native-American and African-descended parts of Latin America are a large, unreasoning mob, unfit to govern themselves and would choose "communists" like Hugo Chavez if allowed to vote in free and fair elections. They also fear that brown-skinned Latinos might go after them here, too.

I'm talking mostly about the older Cuban emigres, the ones that left Cuba in the first decade of the Castro Revolution and many of their descendants. I suspect that the newer arrivals have much more of a social-democrat attitude than the ones who've been here half a lifetime.

I suspect that many of the older Cuban emigres have lingering issues with Fulgencio Batista, the pre-1959 dictator of Cuba, (a mixed-race fellow himself), that they haven't dealt with and that they project a lot of their stuff on President Obama. But that would be a separate topic of discussion.

[pampango]

5. Interesting observations on older Cuban emigres and republicans' dog-whistle code words

regarding Hispanics.

[MisterP]

6. Louis Pérez's "On Becoming Cuban" covers the early 20th century and how upper-class

Cubans saw themselves more as American than as Cuban, and also said that traffic accidents were an acceptable price to pay for becoming CivilizedTM

[Odin2005]

7. Yep. White Latinos tend to very racist an bigoted to black and Amerindian Latinos.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. That Won't Stop Them

That won't stop them. Today's right-wing Republican base is addicted to immigrant-bashing memes as a low-bottom drunk is to booze. "Illegal immigrant" is a right-wing dog-whistle code-word for anyone clearly of Hispanic heritage. The politicians that pander that mindset won't stop until their majority-Hispanic (or majority mixed-parentage) constituents throw them out of office.

[randr]

8. All in all, the white republican people

Whom I now refer to as "Neo-Confederates", will never accept any Cuban or otherwise immigrants as "American".
No more than the Zionists in Israel who will never accept the Palestinian state, claiming that they are immigrants to their own land. But that is another story with interesting parallels to our own.