Community organizing: The GOP’s Hispanic opportunity
Hispanics come to America for the American Dream. They are “trabajadores,” and you would be hard pressed to find an American farmer, contractor, or restaurant owner who would not testify to their work ethic. Unfortunately, the communities in which they live and work are teeming with liberal activists: farm and service-industry labor unions, well-intentioned community-based social services providers and more radical and racially motivated Latino groups such as La Raza, LULAC, and Mecha. In addition, the curricula their kids encounter in public schools are either hostile or silent on the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and ideas that are the foundation of conservative thinking. All of these activist groups and institutions have a common ideology and an affinity for big and centralized government, and of course, entitlements. They go out of their way to sign folks up and to begin the cycle of government dependency. Once hooked to the IV of government handouts, a steady drip of ideology, and a heavy dose of raunchy pop culture, the once vibrant American Dreams and traditional family values of Hispanics drift into a slow, deep coma.
The sad fact is that these activists operate unimpeded. The voices of economic freedom, personal responsibility, and self-determination are virtually nonexistent in Hispanic communities and media. The Catholic Church, a potential counter to these secular and socialist ideas, tends to place its most liberal priests in these communities. Thus, the “social justice” mantra so effectively co-opted by the Left in the Obama/Soros era is often reinforced in the churches Latinos attend.
Meanwhile, since Republicans and conservatives prefer D.C. think tanks and expensive ad buys to the long, hard, dowdy work of community organizing, we’ve effectively ceded these communities and the culture that surrounds them to the Left. We simply aren’t playing. And we’re either too lazy, or enamored with quick fixes, or overwhelmed by the task, to begin the work.
On Election Day, the Left won more than the presidency and the Senate. It won the battle of ideas through dogged persistence and a long-term financial commitment to community organizing.
Blowback
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No problem with legal immigrants. It’s the illegals, no matter how valuable they are, who are illegal.
“Hey, the Doctor does good work. So what if he scammed Medicare a million bucks?”
davidk on November 14, 2012 at 12:41 PM
She’s right — we need to out-organize the socialists. Democrats pay kids coming out of school around 30-34$ to be trained to politically agitate and shore up the Democrat party with fresh votes. We need to do the same and catch up.
Punchenko on November 14, 2012 at 12:46 PM
Waiting for the mostly-white “betters” in the Establishment to call Duffy whatever the Hispanic equivalent of “Uncle Tom” is in 5, 4, 3….
Steve Eggleston on November 14, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Back in 2007, I was an un-registered Hot Air commenter with a dream: One day I would join this community, work hard, educate myself and contribute interesting thoughts on the issues of the day.
Now that I’m registered, I post one or two sarcastic comments per week, written at a 9th-grade level of intellect.
Make of that what you will.
Mr. Wednesday Night on November 14, 2012 at 12:59 PM
In that regard you will always have a smaller talent pool. Either way, as hardworking as Latinos are, we don’t get this notion that being poor makes you less deserving of quality education or health care. And besides, one of the easiest ways to make entrepeneurship more viable for more people is to remove the burden of health insurance to the state – single payer would make the hiring and firing of employees so much easier.
ernesto on November 14, 2012 at 1:00 PM
You live in a dream world. Poor people always get worse education and health care, and poor people know this very well.
alwaysfiredup on November 14, 2012 at 1:02 PM
Basic economics classes. It’s what we need. It’s what’s not being taught.
alwaysfiredup on November 14, 2012 at 1:04 PM
The GOP does need to establish a more organic ground operation but it is pointless to invest in people and infrastructure without having economic policies that resonate with working people.
lexhamfox on November 14, 2012 at 1:09 PM
I know this bcs I’m a HS teacher.
ernesto, you have your head in a cloud, as usual, intent on smelling only the best smelling farts available.
My poor students, on avg, overwhelmingly, come to me the most ignorant & unprepared of all students I encounter.
Do you know why that is?
IT is bcs of their parents.
You see, a large number of poor people in this country are dependent upon the government to live instead of themselves.
And so they do not actually raise their own children well at all bcs of this.
You see, their disgusting WILLFULL dependency is what makes them horrible parents.
The poor person who has not lived in generational poverty is not like this.
The liberal mindset has destroyed the family.
And that is why poor children remain poor. They have been taught to have no values worth anything & they are taught to become dependent parasites of the community.
Bcs as you should know, the PARENTS/GUARDIANS are the people who have the most influence over a child.
Badger40 on November 14, 2012 at 1:39 PM
What part of the Republican party platform supports bad education for the poor?
More Republicans than Democrats support vouchers that would allow people in bad areas to take the $10,000+ that the failing public school gets for their kid and take their kid to another school that performs better. They support this because they don’t believe that only wealthy people should have the luxury of choosing better schools for their kids.
You can be intellectually honest and argue whether or not vouchers would work to improve the quality of education that students receive.
You can be intellectually honest and argue whether or not there are better, cheaper, etc options to achieve the same thing.
However, when you start implying that Dems care about education for the poor and Republicans don’t it appears to be completely unfounded and coming out of partisan hackery rather than any real desire to have an intellectual discussion about the solutions to the current state of public education.
As for your single-payer comment, I would agree that health insurance and jobs should be divorced from one another. However, I’m not convinced that taking that power from the employer and further consolidating it with the government is a great idea. Rather than making a one-size-fits-all health plan under the control of the feds that you are part of whether you like it or not, why not allow an open market to offer different shapes and sizes of health plans custom-made for people? You’d be more likely to find a plan that suits you and you take away a big stick that the government could wield to get you to do what they want. Seems like a win-win to me.
JadeNYU on November 14, 2012 at 1:58 PM
FF was the GOP’s Hispanic opportunity, but Romney squandered it.
besser tot als rot on November 14, 2012 at 2:32 PM
I just can’t donate money this year. I already got fingered. I don’t need the full-service.
But I will give time to all sorts of Hispanic-outreach. I will use currently posted party platform. I am bilingual in the most comedic way. Perhaps I can win some people over out of sheer curiosity of what exactly I’m trying to say in Spanish.
I love business owners. Repeat, I love business owners. Hispanic culture embraces entrepreneurship. I am not afraid of low-income neighborhoods or mentality. There are many, many, many Republicans out there like me.
I am committed to this. I welcome naysayers and sh*t-talkers to put-up or shut up. If you can’t stand up for the current party-platform then what exactly are you standing up for?
Let me guess, the US Constitution, right? Roger that Thomas Paine.
But, but don’t tread on me! Whatever. The Tea Party is no party without the Republican Party. Remember that.
I feel cheated so my money is on hold for 2013. But I think this outreach effort has to begin now. I don’t have to Waltz to Bluegrass with Lindsey Graham just because we’re at the same dance.
I have my own funky little chicken-walk thing going on anyway. Turn up the mariachi music! Blare your banda! Rock out en espanol! I will just tell you or tu to put on your RED SHOES and dance.
Let’s dance.
Capitalist Hog on November 14, 2012 at 2:44 PM
The whole Hispanic topic is getting old. What does it mean to be Hispanic anyhow? Hispanic is certainly not a race. There are white Hispanics, black Hispanics, Indians, and a variety of combinations from there. In fact, the number of people in Latin America that identify themselves as white is over 50%. All it means to be Hispanic is that a person can trace their roots to Latin America, a region that covers one and a half continents. The idea that all Hispanics are culturally identical is ridiculous. Argentina and Mexico have very little in common with each other, outside of a common language. Canadians and Americans all speak English, but are we culturally the same? What about England or Australia? We don’t lump everyone who came to America from Europe into one group and assume that they all share the same culture and values, so why are we trying to do that with people from Latin America?
HarryBackside on November 14, 2012 at 3:01 PM
I am a supporter of vouchers. I
dodid business with a voucher-funded academy. They were defunded.I was a bit leery of your facts. On second glance I mostly concur. $10k seemed high to me from what I recall. But I checked here.
Whether or not a charter or voucher-funded school gets fully-funded is another thing. But most private schools would do WONDERS with 10k.
WOW.
Capitalist Hog on November 14, 2012 at 3:04 PM
If both sides were committed there would be a period wherein there was equal goverment and private market competition. Private providers would have to compete with government providers in their ramp-up.
Maybe a sunset period of 5-7 years would give assure fearful citizens (read old people) that they would not be lost in the mix trying to pay out of pocket for necessary maintenance.
Republicans need to be realistic. Private health care has other costs involved that people are going to have learn to accept. Convenience and quality are usually better. But it will take a long time for the public to understand that and deal with the new bills in their lives.
Eventually people will pay for their own medical like they do with their cable bill.
Capitalist Hog on November 14, 2012 at 3:10 PM
I have a better idea abolish the INS and let everyone in…maybe we can run to the abandoned places and make a functioning economy.
harlekwin15 on November 14, 2012 at 3:10 PM
And how is the end result of this not poor people being denied access to quality health care?
ernesto on November 14, 2012 at 3:24 PM
Are poor people being denied access to cable?
HarryBackside on November 14, 2012 at 3:31 PM
Completely ignored in most of our discussion on “the Latino vote” is the fact that every Latin American country is left-leaning. Every last one. The more moderate ones, like Chile and Colombia, are still the US-equivalent of Democratic (capital D) controlled, one party is usually more Clinton-DLC and the other(s) are farther to the left.
This is the culture, with deep roots, that Latinos come from. It isn’t like they show up in the US, go to Mass and then get bombarded with La Raza propaganda and decide to vote Dem.
BocaJuniors on November 14, 2012 at 3:35 PM
Exactly.
People accomodate themselves pretty damn well in our wonderful country. When health care becomes a primary fiscal asset/liability/responsibility for every family, most people will have it.
Capitalist Hog on November 14, 2012 at 4:59 PM