NiLP Commentary

Latino Strategies for Survival in Trump's Bizarro World

By Angelo Falcon

"Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!"

---Credo of DC Comics' "Bizarro World"

In the Trump Presidency, we find the mirror image of what we have come to know as American politics. There is the Secretary of Education who doesn't support public education, a failed Labor Secretary nominee who didn't support the minimum wage, an EPA Secretary who sues the EPA and a HUD Secretary who admitted he doesn't know how to run a government agency, not to speak of a President who praises Russia and disses friends like Australia.

As we enter into Trump's bizarro world, it is not clear how one gets out of it. Do strategies that influence "normal" politics work as well in a Trump regime? While in general, this is a major challenge for the Trump opposition, it is especially problematic for a historically marginalized group like Latinos.

Columnist Ruben Navarrette recently argued that "The relationship between Trump and Latinos is in bad shape, but it's not yet beyond repair. It can get better over time if both sides are willing to put in the effort to improve it. Let's get started." On the other hand, others are arguing for the need for a total resistance against Trump. Trump's vicious campaign attacks on Mexicans and immigrants, the current deportation campaign and reference to DACA student as gang members and drug dealers unambiguously defines a basic oppositional frame for Latinos regarding Trump.

The current tendency by Trump's critics seems to largely rest on focusing on him personally. This was the basic strategy of the Clinton campaign and, well, it didn't seem to work. This, therefore, raises the question of why it would work following this approach's defeat at the polls? Will calling him "authoritarian," the chaos candidate, a perpetual liar or a nut case (which I would consider stating the obvious) have an impact on his millions of supporters who already know this and unabashedly embrace these qualities.

As it is obvious at this point, Trump has continued his campaigning at a time when he should be governing. He has basically taken Sidney Blumenthal's notion of a "permanent campaign" to an extreme, which political scientists have largely seen as detrimental to effective) governing. The big question is whether Trump's current approach is sustainable over time and its implications for strategies to hold him and his people accountable.

This creates a particularly challenging political environment for the Latino community. What are some of the strategies Latinos need to develop to effectively hold Trump's feet to the fire?

Increase State and Local Political Representation. The Latino community will need to place a greater priority to participating in the redistricting process at all levels of government, but especially at the state and local levels. This will require greater attention to the development of the 2020 Census, carefully monitoring the Census Bureau's plans to change the way they plan to collect Hispanic data. This may include the need to defend the collection of racial-ethnic Census data vital to the promotion of civil rights.

Legal Strategies. Given Trump's penchant for ignoring the rules of the American constitutional system, the role of legal defense organizations becomes more critical than ever. For Latinos, this means giving exponentially greater financial and political support to groups like LatinoJustice PRLDEFandMALDEFas well as the ACLU (all three headed, by the way, by Latinos). These organizations represent the first line of defense of Latino rights. The federal courts' role in blocking the Trump Muslim travel ban is a good example.

Reinvent or Abandon the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has historically taken the Latino community for granted despite this community's voters being so loyal to this party). This didn't change in 2016, and despite Tom Perez' consideration as DNC Chair as the Obama/Clinton candidate, this continues to be a problem. It is clear that there is an urgent need for Latino leaders and activists to focus on either making the Democratic Party more accountable and progressive or simply abandon it for a third party. The extremism of the Trump Administration should not result in an unreflective position that presents the Democratic Party as the automatic political savior of Latinos and other communities of color.

Strengthen Policy Analysis at Federal and Local Levels. The Latino community needs to hold Trump accountable for the many promises he made during the campaign that would retain or further promote rights and benefits that Latinos and other poor and working people have earned historically. This will require the strengthening of the Latino organizational infrastructure that monitors and analyzed public policies at the federal and local levels of government. This includes initiatives like the one being led in part by NYC Council SpeakerMelissa Mark-Viverito to form a national coalition of sanctuary cities to provide a united front against Trumpian aggression. There is also a need for coalitions like the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) and progressive national Latino organizations will need to be supported and greatly expand their capacity to reach out much more broadly to their community outside of the Beltway. Part of this will require holding the philanthropic community accountable for providing much greater support for these efforts within the Latino community.

Holding Republicans Accountable. As the Tea Party-type of town hall meetings protesting the repeal of Obamacare and growing anti-Trump protests point to, strategies need to be developed to hold the Republic Party accountable to the Latino community along the lines followed by the Koch brothers and thier ilk. Too often the Latino community has placed most of its support with the Democratic Party opening the Republicans to more extreme rightwing Latino players or leaving a vacuum filled by non-Latino controlled rightwing think tanks and operatives. This is also necessary to take advanrage of potential conservative Republican Party conflicts with the Trump Administration over policy and political issues.

More Militant Latino Congress Members. The current Latino Congressional delegation is the largest in history. Although it is largely Democratic, it also includes some Republicans, It is important that Latinos press these Congresspersons to be more creative and aggressive, more along the style of Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez, in raising issues with the Trump Administration as well as with their respective party organizations. Despite being the minority party, the Democrats in Congress were able to derail Tump's nominee for Labor Secretary that resulted in the substitute nomination of the way more acceptable Alexander Acosta to this labor post as the first Latino on the Trump Cabine (although clearly as an afterthought). The exclusion this past week of Latino Democrats from a Congressional meeting with the Department of Homeland Security helps put their current politically marginalized role in perspective. During their next Hispanic Heritage Month public policy conference in September, for example, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute should be encouraged to promote more concrete organizing strategies beyond the generic policy discussions they usually present.

More Latino-Inclusive Media, Given the dramatically growing role of the mainstream media as a foil to the Trump Administration, it becomes ever more critical for Latinos to greater increase their representation as reporters, commentators, experts and executives on the major news programs and organizations. This makes the role of media advocacy organizations like the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists increases in significance in promoting a more representative media,

These strategies must be based on the understanding that Trump's election revealed a fundamental weakening of the role of basic American institutions in stabilizing the country's politics. These range from the weakening of the major political parties, the dealignment of the Electoral College from the popular vote, the volatility of the political impacts of demographic and social class changes, and so on. It is from such a deeper understanding of the 2016 electoral malfunction that can point to the most effective ways that Latinos can survive the Age of Trump. President Agent Orange has raised our people's political consciousness, promoting greater coalition-building between labor, community, faith-based groups, gays and communities of color, making the consequences of nonparticipation clearer than ever. Will this finally awake this "napping giant"? The Trump Presidency makes this, of course, merely a rhetorical question.

Angelo Falcón is President of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), for which he edits The NiLP Report on Latino Policy & Politics. He can be reached at afalcon@latinopolicy.org.

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