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Last week, the Republicans achieved an electoral triumph in Virginia, a state that Joe Biden had won by at least ten points in the presidential elections and that in the last decade was dominated by the Democrats. In light of the Republican Party’s triumph, Vanessa Vallejo, editor-in-chief of El American, analyzed, in El American Live, the results and the influence of the Hispanic vote with experts.
Vallejo spoke with Jorge Bonilla, director of MRC Latino; Daniel Garza, executive director of The Libre Initiative and Jaime Florez, director of Hispanic communications for the GOP. They discussed how the Latino vote has grown in favor of conservatives in the U.S. and how Democrats underestimate Hispanic migrants.
For Jaime Florez, the results of the Virginia elections are a sign of how the Latino vote has changed and he assured that this is likely to have an influence in the next elections because Hispanics feel represented in Republican policies.
“The election results in Virginia show that we are on the right track. Not only that the Republicans are on the right path, but that the Democrats have not been able to find a way to reach out to these minorities that are important,” Florez said.
He explained that the left accuses Republicans of being racist and predominantly white supremacist. But he fails to realize that in Virginia, someone with no political experience won the state governorship and a woman of African descent of Jamaican descent became lieutenant governor. In addition, the Virginia Attorney General’s Office was won by someone of Cuban origin. For Florez, that’s a demonstration of the diversity in the GOP.
Hispanic vote and liberty ideas
Agreeing with Flores was Daniel Garza, who noted that Hispanics have moved toward ideas of liberty as a rejection of the radical policies of the left in which they don’t align themselves. “The non-Latino liberal has gone so far to the left that it has left the Latino community looking to the right.”
He argued that the Latino is embracing those values that are center-right. Just as he highlighted that Republican candidates are devoting more time to minorities. “They are coming around to values like loving God, loving family and country, working hard and self-responsibility. At the same time, the Republican Party is investing more in outreach to Latinos and mobilizing them to get out and vote.”
Jorge Bonilla said that Latinos come to the United States to undertake and get ahead, to fulfill the American dream for their families and that is why they identify with those policies that speak of effort.
“For the left, the Latino is nothing more than a supplicant. And they believe that they should always be dependent on their father’s government to see what benefits are given to them,” Bonilla commented.
Finally, Bonilla assured that the media has played a role in the change of the Latino vote. In his opinion, what they seek is to perpetuate the victimization of the Latino community. He pointed out that this is why we do not see enterprising Hispanics in the news. On the contrary, there are always stories of Hispanic victims.
He gave as an example that five of the people killed during the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan were Hispanics and there were no profiles of them, nor were their stories shown.
“There were not because they are Latinos who were enlivened by this country, who were cultured by this country, who raised their hands and swore to defend the Constitution and this country against any foreign or domestic enemy. That is not a story worth highlighting because they were not victims, but heroes,” Bonilla said.
If they had pride in their heritage they would take their new found education and go back to their countries and clean them up. The United States doesn’t have to be the only prosperous place in the world.