Tag Archives: Trump

An American Vote Lost

Posted on by

It was one of those coincidences that has happened to me often in life.  Not but two days after Khizr Khan, with his wife, Ghazala, standing by his side in stoic support, delivered his jaw-dropping defense of the Constitution at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, I boarded the Southwest flight home to Austin via Dallas.

I had noticed what seemed to me was an Indian family in the waiting area.  They easily could have been Pakistani like Mr. Khan.  I took my aisle seat and knew the middle seat would not remain empty.  Indeed, while looking out the window for that unseen cloud formation that I always fear is going to force a screw out of the wing and send us plummeting to earth, a young man took the window seat.  And not long after him came another young man who I came to know by his nickname, Nish.  He was part of the family waiting to board in the last group.  He took the middle seat.

I soon learned that Nish, his parents and a brother after landing in Dallas were driving to Oklahoma City for a wedding, well, two weddings, really: the first a Christian ceremony and then another of the same couple he said would be in Hindu.  I immediately warned him to get on Interstate 35 quickly to try to avoid the construction mess near Denton, 30 miles north, where my sister lives, lest they add an hour or two to their trip.

With the plane rising into the clouds, I also learned that this young man was hell-bent on a military career, not unlike Captain Humayun Khan, who had died a hero in Iraq in 2004 helping defend his fellow soldiers and whose valiant legacy as embodied by his father at the convention might have been the turning point of the 2016 presidential race.  I asked Nish if he had watched the Khan speech.  He said yes, and the conversation, of course, quickly careened into all things Trump.

I was intrigued by Nish, who said he works as a paralegal at a law firm in northern Virginia while working to figure out a way to get into the Army’s officer training program.  His youthful earnestness and ambition were endearing, and so knowing something of how these things can be short-circuited, I began to give him some advice about how he might be able to jump-start the process of gaining entry into the military at the officer-training level.  He grew greatly enthused.

As we talked, he confirmed he was Republican at heart but that Trump was beyond the pale.  I got the sense he could easily vote for a Ryan-Rubio ticket in 2020.

I found his enthusiasm ennobling but also troubling.  I usually have not counseled young men or women to pursue careers that might cost them their lives.  But one cannot deny a patriot his calling whatever his political persuasion or his religion, something Trump, who would purport to be Nish’s commander-in-chief, does not.

Nish’s parents were born in India; Nish and his siblings here.  But Nish like so many products of immigrant parents knows instinctively that there is no escaping being labelled an immigrant in a land in which minorities are singled out for attack – even minorities who were here before the founding of the country.

Republicans like Trump and the know-nothing wing of his party do not realize that attacking minorities re-enforces the ethnic, religious and cultural constructs that support their different roots and identities.  Attacks on minorities even overcome sentiments within immigrant groups, for no one should doubt the sometimes real animosity that exists between Indians and Pakistanis.  In the fight against Trump, there is no difference among minorities.  Ask Cuban Americans who year after year increasingly are joining every other Hispanic/Latino group coalescing against recalcitrant Republicans.

Public opinion surveys reveal that an incredibly high number of Americans — as many as 40 percent! — believe most Hispanic/Latinos in the United States are immigrants – and ‘illegal immigrants’ at that.

In today’s toxic environment, Nish will remain ever the son of immigrants – even were he, God forbid, to perish somewhere like Capt. Kahn did for his country.

Were that horrible fate to await him, he with grim coincidence would join the thousands of Hispanic/Latino military service men and women who sacrificed their lives for a country that produces the Trumps of the world.

All of these thoughts were going through my mind as I listened to Nish soberly yet excitedly talk about his future.  What an incredible young man.  Trump does not know what he is losing.

But in Trump losing the American votes cast by Nish and millions more like him, America gains and the legacy of Capt. Khan and thousands of Hispanic/Latinos heroes vouchsafed.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño is the former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman.

As Important as the Khans

Posted on by

Reports that Donald Trump almost matched Hillary Clinton in raising money for the month of August for his campaign should alarm everyone.  In the end, the news could overshadow the events leading up to and after the Republican and Democratic national nominating conventions.

The money Trump raised in July, about $82 million, came mostly from small donors.  If Trump can harness the full potential of his base, he could turn around a race he is currently losing.  If it is about the money, Hispanic/Latinos need to take note.

Trump has made religion and the color of one’s skin a cornerstone of his campaign though he might deny it.  He is close enough to the White House for Hispanic/Latinos to make a trip to the credit union if necessary.  After all, as I have said before, this election is an existential matter.  It was and is for the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan.

Trump as President is an immediate, direct threat to the existence of many in our community.  More so, he endangers the existence of the republic and our democratic form of government that in the end could endanger the very existence of humankind itself were he to get his hands on the handles and gears of war or delay us in making hard decisions about climate change.

Forget the rising oceans for now.  It should be enough for Hispanic/Latino parents to worry about their sons and daughters once again being shipped out to war to return mangled or killed or their skins and minds damaged in more ways than one.

It should be enough for Hispanic/Latinos — especially veterans who have voted Republican — to be repelled by someone who mocked a Gold Star mother; got his hands on a Purple Heart even though he got five deferments from serving in Vietnam; denigrated prisoners of war; and called a general who served all of his life in the military a failed person.

Imagine Donald Trump meeting flag-draped coffins at Dover.  Of what possible comfort could he be to a family in tears, this man for whom empathy is so distant?  Imagine the rage for any war-deaths that result from the decisions of a President who knows nothing about foreign policy but can command troops into battle.  How long before a constitutional crisis would ensue?

Against that backdrop and in tandem with our lower voter and electoral participation rates, Hispanic/Latinos have never contributed in any significant way to political campaigns.  Most Hispanic/Latino households do not have $25 lying around to give to anyone, much less a presidential campaign.  Worse still, high-net-worth Hispanic/Latinos have not been especially supportive either.

It is time for everybody to give.  This race could turn.

Bernie Sanders raised tens of millions of dollars in small sums from millions of contributors, many of whom never had given to a campaign.  Likewise, Trump’s campaign coffers could explode overnight despite his plunging poll numbers.  Hillary Clinton since her convention has opened up a significant lead over Trump in national surveys of registered and likely voters.  But that should neither excuse nor preclude us from giving.  Candidates with larger leads than Clinton’s today have lost.

As a group, Hispanic/Latinos cannot give much, but one million Hispanic/Latinos averaging $25 now and in September and October amounts to $75 million.  That is a lot of money but hardly enough.  Nevertheless, it will be money well spent, especially if the economy and the stock market were to tank were Trump to win.

Instead of giving up two hours of wages or so, many Hispanic/Latinos might have to give up their jobs — or much more.

Like the Khans, we have a lot of skin in the game.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño is the former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman.

THE UNTHINKABLE

Posted on by

Hispanic/Latino leaders at all levels of the community now need to ponder a future few of us imagined only weeks ago:  The election of Donald J. Trump and his ascension to the Presidency and the harrowing horror that awaits.

The summer of 2016 augurs morass for the fall – in more ways than one.  Events in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas and now Baton Rouge again – and by extension Nice – make November fraught with portent, with more terrorist or mass shootings between now and then in the offing.

The crushing victory by Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump that I expected is now in uncharted waters.  Swift currents of hate and anger and reaction are moving Trump’s candidacy, once moored upon the beach of unviability, into larger streams of possibility.  The worst fears of many in the Hispanic/Latino community no longer loom only as nightmare.

Only last week, I assured a group of Hispanic/Latino professionals in Boston at an event hosted by El Planeta and Conexión near MIT that Trump would not win and that Hillary Clinton would be elected unless unforeseen events spilled out of control.  Almost suddenly, with each passing day, civil strife invokes the specter of reaction and disunion.  An increasing number of voters will find in Trump the candidate who intensifies their fears, feeds their hate or stokes their anger – or all three.

I remember the flush of voters in 1972 sweeping Richard Nixon to victory over George McGovern in the wake of violent protests against the war in Vietnam and loud demonstrations on behalf of civil and human rights.  The unrest scared the electorate into the arms of a man whom history would reveal as a threat to our very republic.  Trump needs no unveiling.  What we see is what we get, already jeopardizing the First Amendment.  Nixon is Jefferson in comparison to Trump.

I know we live in a changed nation whose new demography should provide ballast for the Democratic Party.  I also know, however, that floods can inundate and overwhelm.  Still, 1972 is not 2016.  This is not the country of 44 years ago.  I remain confident that Clinton will win but how many more events between now and the election will lift a swell for Trump?  I do not know how to factor into my thinking the specter of police killing citizens and citizens killing police.

But let us assume the worst: that Trump wins.

For the first time, Hispanic/Latinos need to think through – now – how we will react to increased aggressive policing of the streets and whole-scale police operations across the nation seeking to identify individuals not in the country legally.  A Trump Presidency will empower local law enforcement officers to engage – outside of their scope and mission – in actions that will harm the community directly and Hispanic/Latinos individually.  Not to mention that individual non-Hispanic/Latinos will feel encouraged to take matters into their own hands.

When the current Supreme Court started to undercut laws that once protected the civil rights of minorities, it set the stage for re-fighting the battles we thought we had won in the 1970’s and 1980’s – that now could spatter the streets with violence.

It is not out of the question that Trump as President would act against a Supreme Court that might summon the courage to stand up for the Constitution and for America itself if minorities came under direct attack.  Troops in front of the Supreme Court and citizens surging into the streets with easy guns at the ready.

It is no longer unthinkable.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño is the former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman.

Dallas to Debacle

Posted on by

The effect on the 2016 elections by the recent shootings by and against the police underlies the struggle to absorb the horror of what has happened.  If the slayings reverberate in favor of Donald Trump, then this week’s events only presage greater terror.  Trump’s lack of understanding of most topics of any magnitude and his shoot-from-the-belt approach —  seriously, no pun intended — would make matters worse.  He has more than demonstrated his capacity to unleash upon the land the full furies of the hate he already has used to fuel his campaign.

Sadly, the assassination of five law enforcement officers in Dallas by a black man transcends tragedy.  The murders personify the country’s new fragility that changing demographics, a difficult economy and vitriol and corruption in Congress are abetting.

Like the new age of climate change that jeopardizes our very existence, we have entered a new era in which race and other critical social stresses animate the possibility of disunion.  It can’t happen here, we are told.  Yet the greatest and most dangerous moment in this already perilous passage into the immediate future emanates from the social media and 24/7 news platforms that govern the public space today.

Ironically, the very tools shedding light into the continuous and discriminate shootings of black men also are the weapons that will be turned against the development of leaders who could lead us through these times.  Those who would lead will have their heads decapitated on social media before they can finish their statements on how to move us forward.  Social media and 24/7 news will serve to make us increasingly leaderless.

If the new-media normal hamstrings President Obama and Republican leaders at so important a moment as this week represents, then it surely bodes ill for the country.  How can anyone float a vision for the future in this unnerving environment?

In this poisoned mess, the country needs a Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Instead, we hear the voices of angry whites and, justifiably, of angrier black men and women who are tired, tired, tired of the rampant murders inflicted on their community by police officers who almost always face no consequences for their actions.  The question is if reaction to action will breed reaction and put us on the path to an abyss.

We as a nation need to rise above ourselves.  But who can call us to our better angels?  White people finally are beginning to understand that black and Hispanic/Latino complaints about law enforcement are neither bogus nor confection, and so white acceptance of reality must be encouraged.  So, too, minority communities must rein in their rancor.  But who can summon us together as a people to make sure that tomorrow or the next days or year or decade are not the beginning of the civic and internal strife that throughout history impelled empires and nations to self-immolate over time?

It can’t happen here denies the possibility of collapse of democratic rule or the arrival of a new holocaust or increasing disconnection that fosters extended paralysis.  It is a view fast becoming antiquated.  The new environment we have entered makes anything possible – even the election of a man like Trump who makes no bones of admiring dictators and dehumanizing his fellow citizens.

Without the anvils weighing her down, Hillary Clinton could have been the one who could speak directly and persuasively to moderate white voters and spark an electoral landslide to set us towards a better future.  O, what judgment history might render on Clinton and her decision to install a personal computer server in her home!  And this is easy stuff for the social media and the 24/7 menace.  What they have done to her we shortly could rue.  Not perfect, Clinton, compared to Trump, is clearly the way to not increase the chances that the new age ahead will be the history of old.

It really does not have to happen here.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño is the former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman.

Inflection Point for Hillary

Posted on by

Given the announcement by Attorney General Loretta Lynch that she will accept the recommendation of her civil service employees investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and server, the campaign is at an inflection point.  Nothing good is going to come of this, whatever Department of Justice lawyers recommend, mostly because we do not know when their recommendations are going to come.

Timing is everything in politics, and for us not to know when the report will come and what it will say destabilizes the general election environment that favored Clinton.

For me, the inflection point is not constrained solely to the legal issues of the case. Rather, it is within the internal strategic thinking of the campaign itself.  The campaign must prepare for the worst and must consider — now — how to win an election in the most adverse of circumstances against Donald Trump, who is a true danger to the republic.

I have said it again, and I will say it again.  If the Clinton campaign does not make the Hispanic/Latino vote central to its strategy beyond what we have seen so far, we truly are in danger of losing an election that by any other measure should be a historic landslide.

This is the time for Hispanic/Latinos closest to Hillary to speak up.  If they do not, then they are ill-serving Hillary, the Hispanic/Latino community but, most important, the country.  I know some of those people, and I fear that they love Hillary too closely to not step up and say what needs to be said and done.

These individuals face a daunting task:  A fully effective plan to maximize the Hispanic/Latino vote across the board is a very expensive proposition but it is in my mind a necessary insurance policy.  And nothing is as hard to do within a campaign than convince others to spend money on anything – especially if it is out of the ordinary.  And trying to persuade a campaign to spend serious money takes herculean task commitment.  But it is imperative that she carry Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada and think about taking Arizona.

Were Trump to succeed in winning any of the Midwestern states that he covets, then Florida and the Mountain West can save the Democratic ticket, and this, of course, brings to the fore the need to put a Hispanic/Latino on the ticket.

The cost of exploding the Hispanic/Latino vote is by far more expensive than maintaining the high level of African-American support President Obama received in 2008 and 2012.  More expensive by far than expanding the impact of the women’s vote, of the gay and lesbian electorate, of the Asian American vote.

It is absolutely true that the campaign must spend what it must to try to defend the states that Trump — now given fresh ammunition — is targeting by trying to wrest away non-Hispanic/Latino white voters from Clinton.  Were he to succeed, only one group can fill the void: Hispanic/Latino voters.

The immediate consequence of the announcement this morning is that it takes the steam out of the momentum that Hillary was generating.  Her campaign was building — impressively and quickly — an electoral wave that seemed on the verge of swamping Donald Trump weeks ahead of the nominating conventions, much less the general election.

The slow-down now will cause the polls to change, and when polls change, everything begins to change.  Trump will get a second-wind; more Republicans will come home to their party’s nominee;  GOP  donors reluctant to give to Trump now will; states that vote Republican usually but were thought of as potential Democratic pick-ups now revert to the red column; and Clinton supporters will begin to fret and worry and as they fret and worry they cause some to begin to re-think their support.

And that is all before the report is released and any recommendations known.

The new moment serves to paralyze new thinking in a new environment in which the old playbooks no longer suffice.  To me, supporting the usual voter registration organizations is very important but not as important as devising other ways to broaden voter registration efforts, ones that engage average Hispanic/Latinos beyond political activists and paid volunteers in the process of getting Hispanic/Latino voters to the polls in November.

If Clinton’s numbers hold up in the Hispanic/Latino community as the election nears and becomes a tight affair, then still other states might be viable, especially if serious Republican voters cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump to be commander-in-chief.

Current polling suggests that Clinton could breach the 80-percent mark of support among Hispanic/Latinos in November – a historic accomplishment.  Even slightly elevated levels of Hispanic/Latino voter registration and participation can push her electoral-vote margin out of reach.

To not invest heavily in the Hispanic/Latino now is folly –  foolish and perhaps fatal.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño is the former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman.