In his play for Latino voters, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is running the risk that whatever Latino support he’s assembled will crumble in the final weeks of the campaign. He and his campaign are looking silly at best and dangerous at worst.
Let’s start with the silly.
In his quest for more celebrity endorsements from reggaeton stars, Trump misgendered Nicky Jam at a Las Vegas rally Friday. “Latin music superstar Nicky Jam. Do you know Nicky? She’s hot,” Trump said. Only when the music superstar, who’s a man, walked onto the stage, did Trump notice his mistake. “Oh, look, I’m glad he came up,” the former president said.
Despite the awkward moment, Jam eventually proclaimed in Spanish that “it’s been four years and nothing has happened. We need Trump. Let’s make America great again.”
Trump's Latino strategy is bankrupt on ideas that will help Latino communities.
It was yet another instance of Trump insulting a Latino endorser before receiving their praise. A few weeks ago in Pennsylvania, Trump told Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA, “I don’t know if these people know who the hell you are, but it’s good for the Puerto Rican vote. Every Puerto Rican is going to vote for Trump right now. We’ll take it.”
Ignoring the shot at his popularity, Anuel called Trump “the best president the world has seen, this country has ever seen” and urged Puerto Ricans to unite and vote Trump.
Many of Jam’s Latino fans, however, were clearly not voting for Trump. Jam deleted his Instagram endorsement after so many online comments blasted him. The legendary Mexican rock band Maná announced it would remove a 2016 song collaboration with Jam from music streamers, saying on Instagram that “Maná does not work with racists.”
Jam also heard it from "Dreamers," who called him out for what they said was his hypocrisy after publicly supporting undocumented youth just seven years ago. Now, Jam was backing a presidential candidate who openly calls for the “largest deportation” in U.S. history. As one immigrant rights activist texted me, “It all feels like a betrayal.”
That sense of treachery from MAGA-supporting superstars in the Latino community is no surprise. There are indeed Latinos moving to the extreme right based on the same beliefs other extreme Trump supporters espouse. Still, at a time when Trump and Republicans continue to cast all migrants as criminals not worthy of being in this country, such rhetoric feels directed at any Latino living in this country.
There’s no indication that the hostile rhetoric will stop.
That brings us to the dangerous side of conservatives’ chaotic strategy. With Hispanic Heritage Month in full swing, a new Spanish-language ad from a Trump-allied group warns U.S. Latinos that while citizens have a right to vote, they should be aware that noncitizens cannot. The ad even stresses that noncitizens risk getting arrested for committing a federal crime even though, as the Brennan Center notes, such a crime is “vanishingly rare.”
This commercial could only have been made by people entirely out of touch with Latino voters, people who assume that all Latinos in the U.S. are surrounded by noncitizens. Read the 2024 Republican platform with its emphasis on mass deportation and you’ll likely walk away with the impression that all U.S. Latinos are foreign noncitizens.
The data, of course, would prove that wrong. As Pew Research noted just last week, for example, 3 out of every 10 Latino newlyweds are married to non-Latinos, with 41% of those new brides and grooms born in this country. That data slice tells a story of a changing demographic that is more English-dominant and crossing cultures. Painting Latinos as foreign invaders is a dehumanizing tactic now part of an official political campaign. The country’s Latino community is an integral part of the permanent fabric of this country, and the way Trump and Republicans continue to insist otherwise is insulting and politically dangerous.
But because Trump is Trump and his Latino strategy is bankrupt on ideas that will help Latino communities, this is likely what Latinos can expect till the election. There’s no indication that the hostile rhetoric will stop or that he’ll bother to learn who the Latinos who endorse him are. The sense of Latino community betrayal will be there and, each day, it will likely bring another old idea that won’t stick to the wall.
For instance, after the Nicky Jam mess and the noncitizen voting ad, the Trump campaign published a video in which the former president, in the words of El País English, “seems to dance to the rhythm of a well-known salsa song from the 1990s that no longer says ‘Juliana, qué mala eres’ (Juliana, you’re so bad) but rather ‘Kamala, qué mala eres.’” (Goya Foods CEO and Trump supporter Bob Unanue also said this during his remarks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.)
It’s not a new strategy. In 2020, a Spanish-language song about voting for Trump, from a Miami-based salsa band, became a social media smash. Back then, many Latinos questioned the judgment. Trump lost that election.
Trump’s frantic Latino strategy has not only been insulting, but also predictable and dull. While it remains unclear how many Latino votes he’ll get, he has done a good job of pitting Latinos against one another and exposed those who’ve blindly worshipped a politician whose central tenet is xenophobia.