Posted on Dec . 6 for Dec. 7

News reports in the weeks leading up to the election in November about obstacles being placed to obstruct HispanicLatinos and other minorities from voting terrified a  friend of mine in New York.  I assured him that the Obama people were on top of the situation.  Of course, the Obama team had a lot of it covered, filing lawsuits left and right.  More important, though, minority voters reacted and voted in greater numbers than in 2008.  Does that mean that efforts to intimidate minority voters will stop?  Of course not.  The Obama campaign is not going to prosecute the issue, and the individuals who ramrodded these unnecessary, nonsensical laws, aided and abetted by simplistic slogans about drivers’ licenses and boarding airplanes, are motivated not by civic sensitives as they are by racial and ethnic animosities.  And that is a lasting feature  of life in America today.

 
That kind of accusatory statement seems to be as pejorative as the unkind statements Tea party types make about minorities.  But the anti-voter laws became an avalanche as a reaction to Barack Obama’s win in 2008.  Previous superficial social conventions were the products of a belief that the country would never elect a black man President in the first place.  So, after his victiry, disappointment gave rise to strategies intended to prevent his re-election by taking aim at all minotities.  The motivation of the voter-intimidators was made evident by the fact that these anti-discriminatory laws were enacted not just in swing states but in states that Obama had no chance of carrying.  So voter intimidation laws also are aimed at HispanicLatinos who live in swing states and in states that in due time will feel their states pulled into a new political orbit.  HispanicLatinos have to be on guard.  Maximizing their political power is critical for their social and economic advancement.

 
But beyond keeping these tactical imperatives in mind and keeping Republicans’ — especially HispanicLatino Republicans’ — feet to the fire, what are the larger issues that HispanicLatinos should dog?

The fiscal abyss and the long-term debt are evident concerns and so are Medicare and the future of Social Security.  Many HispanicLatinos work in body-debilitating jobs. Extension of the retirement age and reduction of benefits are worrisome concerns.  That is not to say that retirement age and other benefits cannot be discussed; they just should not be re-litigated in a way that harms those most in need.  From this kind of distinction made by those who want to increase the retirement age and cut Medicare comes by far the highest concern for the HispanicLatino population going forward: The actual existence of the belief within too many Republican circles that the new demography is going to ruin the country financially instead of sparking a successful renaissance.  From this kind of thinking, of course, stems the infamous “47 percent” remark made by the highest representative of the party’s beliefs, its presidential nominee.

 
It is hard to quantify how ubiquitous this belief pervades important sectors of the country’s government, institutions, corporations and other important organizations.  But its existence has never been more obvious and, unfortunately, more portentuous. Pulling back the veil of what millions of individuals think about HispanicLatinos shatters the niceties that give birth to meaningless social conventions.  But its defrocking complicates the politics of the future that ideologically tempestuous times already have made difficult.
How do socially responsible HispanicLatinos who might or not be members of the 47 percent deal with this new brutal reality that is now part of the political lexicon and part of the actual political agenda of so important a part of American society that is part of its government and the nation’s governance?

 
The only answer is to defeat it at every turn, which brings us back to the voter registration and participation obstacles that must be superseded.  Not only must those challenges be overcome, HispanicLatinos must raise their game at all levels.  If they do not, my friend in New York will have a lot more to worry about.

 
Jesse Trevino is the former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman.