NiLP Commentary
Latinos and Trump: A Different Take on His First 100 Days
By Angelo Falcón
This past week, as the 100th day of his administration approached, President
Trump issued some tweets attempting to blame Puerto Rico for the federal
government shutdown because of lobbying for more equitable funding for
its near-bankrupt Medicaid program. Very early Wednesday morning he tweeted:
"Democrats are trying to bail out insurance companies from disastrous
#ObamaCare, and Puerto Rico with your tax dollars. Sad!" He then
followed up 24 minutes later with: " The Democrats want to shut government
if we don't bail out Puerto Rico and give billions to their insurance
companies for OCare failure. NO!"
This was unfortunate because many were waiting to hear at some point from
Trump about the current economic crisis facing Puerto Rico and this is
certainly not what was expected! Then it turns out that the Government
of Puerto Rico had hired Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski,
and his firm, Avenue Strategies, to lobby for them for the increased Medicaid
funding they were seeking from the U.S. Congress!
The government shutdown was, of course, averted, but how do we make sense of this starnge Trump- Lewandowski disagreement? Lewandowski denies he does any lobbying, although he took money from Puerto Rico to lobby for them and seems to have touted his access to Trump, although Puerto Rico needed help from the Congress. Why this particular disagreement and why use Puerto Rico's unfortunate health problems, of all things, to make his argument agains the Democrats? Tthis all seems typical of the disorganization of the Trump Administration and its shadow associates, yet one more indicator of its incoherence and path to complete failure.
In keeping with this view, the media has generally panned Trump's first 100 days for its failures, disorganization and even Trump's apparent lack of knowledge about how government works. While painted as a huge disaster in so many ways, there is also general puzzlement why Trump has retained such strong support from his base --- a recent poll found that only 2 percent of his supporters had an unfavorable view of his record so far.
However, I would argue that it might make more sense if, beyond simply criticizing Trump, we try to also understand how his supporters view him. It is, first of all, important to understand that his support is based on broad and simplistic themes and not on the specifics of this performance. With the overriding theme of providing for the safety of the American people, he has a strong record so far in his attempts to do so and framing his failures as the beginning id his fight against an ineffective federal bureaucracy.
Trump's proposed Muslim travel ban and his attempt to cut funding for so-called "sanctuary cities," while blocked by the courts was seen by his base as at least his attempt to meet campaign promises. These issues also provided Trump with the opportunity to demonstrate to his supporters that he was willing to take on the obstacles presented by liberal elements in the federal courts. While the mainstream media presented these as failures of his first 100 days, they were seen as successes by his base.
This is the case as well of Trump's campaign promise to tackle illegal immigration. Another so-called failure so far has been his inability to get Congressional support for the initial funding for the Mexico border wall, and his lack of ability to get Mexico to agree to pay for it. However, the mere talk of a wall and the rationale behind it (deporting Mexicans as rapists, murderers and drug dealers) and greatly beefing up and publicizing his deportation enforcement have successfully produced a reign a fear in immigrant communities that has apparently slowed the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States.
On the part of these immigrant communities, advocates have been decrying the terror that the Trump Administration is producing in appealing for a change in such policies. I would argue that the whole point of the many initiatives by the Trump Administration on immigration is precisely to instill that fear among Mexican and other undocumented immigrants. No amount appeal to Trump's humanity or documenting of the benefits of immigration will desuade the his regime from curtailing this unjust reign of immigration terror.
Even on issues where Trump has reversed himself, which the media has characterized as flip flops and the breaking of campaign promises, are being viewed by his base in a positive light. These include his failure to pull out of NAFTA, his now positive view of China, his lack of a more aggressive military strategy against ISIS, his inability to get Congress to repeal Obamacare and so on. Rather than flip flops, his base sees these as successes in his strategy of opening deals with strong (and sometimes outrageous) positions that allow him to provoke "anchoring fever" and get subsequent concessions.
This being the case, the Latino community needs to not become too confident that the major media narrative of a Trump Administration in crisis is, in fact, what is occurring, despite his extremely low general approval ratings being the the 40 percent plus or minus range in the polls. It seems that the argument that Trump's failures will soon catch up with him with his base may not be the case because his supporters are interpreting these events from an entirely different perspective than his detractors in the Democaritc Party and the mainstream media. He also has the increasiginly ambivalent general support of a Republican Party in control of the Congress.
The notion that Trump will inevitably fall at some point by the many mistakes he is making is, I would argue, a false one. That means that the Latino community needs to prepare itself to do battle on a number of fronts for the long run. My point, basically, is on the need for progressive Latinos to actively do battle and not hope that Trump will automatically self-destruct.
Angelo Falcón is President of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP). He can be reached at afalcon@latinopolicy.org.