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Monday, November 10, 2014

Thank You Fernando Espuelas for Saying What Needs to be Said

     He said it-Hispanics are lousy voters. I'm not Hispanic myself-though some think I look it. However ,I might feel a little queasy saying this as I'm not Hispanic. Mr. Espuelas is and he called this well-it does need to be said. 

      "Once again, most of the American Latino community failed to perform its most basic civic duty - voting. Complaining and whining, a majority of Latino voters stayed home. Not helping matters, Spanish-language media, sometimes incapable of decoding and explaining basic American politics, convinced millions of Latinos that President Obama, and by extension all Democrats, could not be trusted any more than the Republicans that have systematically blocked comprehensive immigration reform."

       http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fernando-espuelas/gops-hispanic-problem-onl_b_6129324.html

       As for complaining and whining, that's basically the Jane Hamsher strategy and while Latinos are a vital demographic for the Dems going forward, it afflicts large swathes of the Dem base more generally. I mean, how can we expect to win the midterms when we sit home? By the way, let me be frank: I'm only saying 'we' out of politeness, as I for one never miss an election. 

       I tell you this-I love Latino people, the music, the food, the women-but if there is one group out there I don't mind saying I have a problem with, it's nonvoters. I mean honestly, I want to say that I want as many Hispanics in our country as possible, I wish the nonvoters would self-deport. 

       I mean these folks of what ever ethnicity plague the party, they are parasites in the civic, ,public sphere they do nothing to support. 

       This meme that Espuelas points to wasn't just with Hispanics this election it was with too many Dem voters in general-I call it the Firedoglake strategy because what it comes down to is you blame Democrats who tried but failed to achieve an objective like immigration reform as much as you blame Republicans who did everything to obstruct this objective as being birds of a feather and treat them as morally equivalent. 

       P.S. I'm quite serious-wouldn't it be great if all the nonvoters who declare that 'my vote doesn't count' would just leave this country and start their own country somewhere and see how well that worked for them? They call our political system worthless, let's see how well theirs would work. My guess is it would be a total dysfunctional dystopia. 

      UPDATE: I should add this crucial quote by Espuelas here:

      "Missing from that flawed narrative is the basic fact that Speaker John Boehner, corralled by the Tea Party extremist in his party, was incapable to bringing the bipartisan Senate immigration bill to a vote, effectively exercising the Speaker's legislative veto against immigration reform."

       http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fernando-espuelas/gops-hispanic-problem-onl_b_6129324.html

     

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