In Many Ways, Donald Trump Has Been a Boon to Latino Activists

March 28, 2016 by No Comments

Double exposure of saluting soldier on USA grunge flag. Patriotic designWhile Donald Trump’s promise to build a “great” wall separating Mexico from the United States, and to forcibly deport 12 million men, women and children have frightened many Hispanic Americans, the candidate has also reinvigorated many Latino activists.

“A good villain is a terrible thing to waste in Latino politics,” Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, recently told the Los Angeles Times.

In Arizona, Trump’s controversial existence is actually helping Latino activists in their drive to turn the state blue for the 2016 election. Because of a fast-growing Latino population, Arizona will likely one day become a Democrat-majority state, but Trump’s arrival on the political scene may be speeding that process. A coalition of Latino activist groups is trying to register three million new Latino voters before the November presidential election.

What Would a Trump Administration Actually Look Like?

The prospect of Trump in the White House has terrified millions of Americans already, partly because many of his actual policy positions remain entirely unclear. Trump’s position on walls, ISIS, and Making America Great Again are well known, but his actual economic policies are uncertain, to say the least.

It’s difficult to predict how a President Trump would approach important-yet-mundane aspects of governance, like corporate governance or managing federal agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under President Obama regulatory agencies like the SEC have taken a relatively aggressive course; the SEC brought a record 755 enforcement actions in 2014.

According to CFO Magazine, “Whether Donald Trump would appoint liberal or conservative commissioners to the SEC who would pursue an aggressively reformist course, or a studiously status quo one, is anyone’s guess. The signals he has been sending about an eventual Trump Administration agenda have been mixed.” However, the magazine concluded that “the tax proposals he has been willing to share publicly on his campaign website and elsewhere are largely compatible with conventional, conservative economic doctrine.”

The Dump Trump Movement Grows, Pushed Along by Latino Activists

Arizona residents have suffered under some of the strictest and openly anti-immigrant laws in the country, which allowed workplace raids and racial profiling.

If Trump wins the Republican nomination, Arizona Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego truly believes the state could be a competitive blue state in November. It’s a transformation that has already occurred in states like California. Even Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has noticed what’s happening in Arizona.

“The abuelas are like, ‘It’s finally time to become citizens,’ and I think that’s going to be a force in a lot of states, in places like Colorado and places like Arizona, some that have been in play for a long time and some that haven’t,” Garcetti said.

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