I am transgender. When I saw that Trump was winning tonight, I came to a realization.
Which was that I was terrified as there would be people empowered by this election who would want to hurt me.
This is one of the day for our country. It's wonderful day for patriots.
Love constitution.
So my TikTok family. So I just had a very difficult conversation with my daughters. One is crying and I had to keep telling her It's going to be okay.
Dear listener, geig egdy them. This week has been quite a moment that our country is still processing.
NBC News can now project that Donald Trump's he is the winner of this race and returned to the White House, is this country's forty seventh president.
One of the very important keys to Donald Trump's victory was getting a larger share of votes from tinos or CBOs.
Donald Trump will be President of the United States again. This is the same candidate who began his run for the White House by insulting Mexican immigrants in twenty fifteen and allowed Puerto Rico to be called an island full
of garbage just a few days ago. This election cycle, Trump used lies and hate speech to win over voters, survived two assassination attempts, and will return to office as a convicted felon after a stunning victory with an impressive larger support from Latinos and Latina voters than in twenty sixteen and in twenty twenty. But considering what we at Futuro Media have seen on the ground, this result is
not totally unexpected. For the past year, we've been bringing you different stories as part of our special election coverage, which we called the Latino Factor How We Vote. We covered the key issues impacting this election, and with each story we were able to sense that Latinos and Latinas were trending towards the right, towards Donald Trump, and we acknowledged, of course, that our community is not and has never
been a monolith. There are Latinos and Latinas who are overjoyed that Donald Trump will have another term in office, and there are many of us who are in fear, who are angry, and who are preparing for the worst. So today we're going to start off our show by taking you on my very own journey on election Day, and then we're going to analyze just how we got here. Now, while for many people, election day ended on a dark note here in Harlem, in my community, it didn't start
that way. Well, it's five twenty eight and I just woke up two minutes before my alarm is set to go off. Dear listener, It's November fifth, It's election day, and I didn't sleep well because, like many of you across the country, I was anxious. I kept on tossing and turning. But you know, here we are today's day.
It is five point fifty seven.
Walking out the door, so I'm heading off to my Pulling precinct, and you know, I've got a little skip in my walk because i live in Harlem, a historically black community, and a black woman is running for the presidency.
And it's a beautiful day. Oh my gosh, it's beautiful out here. Wow.
Okay, So pulling up to the precinct, which is actually a school, I see that there's like maybe a dozen people ahead of me. Yo, y'all are some serious early birds?
Are you excited about quoting? Today? Everybody up to vote this morning? Love that?
And now it's my turn to vote. We have just in the ballot, so the mission is accomplished, and I'm feeling relieved. I'm feeling excited about the day, and I you know, I want to talk to some of the folks out here, see how they're doing. How are you feeling about today. I'm optimistic Kawana Malloyd, though she's letting on that she's feeling a sense of dread too. You seeing election boxes being blown up and things like that. So, yeah, Kawana is talking about ballot boxes being set on fire
in Washington State and in Oregon. But it didn't mean that that was going to stop her from coming out here to vote. And it didn't stop forty two year old Robert he didn't want to tell us his last name.
Though.
It was about protecting the rights of women, them having a choice of voice in terms of automoy to their own bodies and things like that, most importantly, and it didn't stop Ramon Bargas, who's ninety one years old, who told me that his primary issue for coming out to vote was defending women's rights. He thinks that if a woman's life is in danger, abortion should be a legal option.
So I'm just remaining cool, calm.
So like you, dear listener, you were probably feeling excited, maybe feeling cool and calm on election day, but as the day progressed, that feeling would dissipate and the day would become much darker. From futuro Media and PRX it's Latino Usa, I'm Mariao Hosa Today, a special episode on this week's historic election in collaboration with Futuro Media's In
the Thick podcast, So Dear listener. Around the same time that I was waking up on election Day, so were the concer struction workers in the battleground state of Pennsylvania with its nineteen electoral votes. Whoever gets this state will likely win this election. Sehio, a construction worker, is the father of two US citizens his children, and today he's getting ready to go to work. But on this day, producer Ariel Goodman is visiting him in his home. Seedho
is originally from Mexico. He's worked for twenty years building the city of Philadelphia lane sheet rock, fixing houses. But while his hands have helped build this city, he's actually unable to cast a vote to determine its future, to determine his family's future system we pull up to Sejo's work site today. It's a house that has been gutted
down to the bones. Sehio tells us that he's worried about what a future could look like under Donald Trump, who has promised a sweeping mass deportation campaign.
Reportation poor K's come.
On, Serio says, deportation destroys you psychologically. Then Setio's wife, Maria says the hate from Trump only makes her stronger. Maria says that strength is in our dna. We learn to survive no matter where we are.
Hia, Yes, valor forstems.
As election day unfolds. Another place on people's minds is the state of Florida. This past May, a six week abortion ban went into effect in the state of Florida. Now, that is one of the strictest bands in the nation, and it sparked a political fight in the state that involved a lot of Latinos and Latinas. So I'm calling dere saguzmain at Florida Rising, which is a statewide political organization dedicated to building power in communities of color. So it is now ten thirty nine in the morning on
the East Coast. Can you tell us what that feels like in terms of Saint Petersburg, Florida, where you are right now, We have.
Been able to build a coalition of people that are Latino, Black, all kinds of folk really invested in this idea that we all have bodily autonomy and that we believe that our laws should reflect that.
If Florida voters vote for Amendment four, they would overturn the six week abortion ban. Chiao Balleerro is with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.
She's in Miami.
What we're finding in the work that we're doing in Spanish speaking communities in very conservative areas is that there is overwhelming support for this, regardless of party affiliation.
Back in New York City, it's early afternoon, it's still a gorgeous day, and I'm going over to Columbia University for the encampments. This was an open campus. There were people from the community who would walk through here, parents and kids, people would walk their dogs like me. So students at Columbia Universe built an encampment on the campus to protest Israel's war on Gaza and the university's investment in Israel. And ever since then the campus has become closed.
So we have come to talk to some students see how they're feeling. I ran into Dimitri. He's from the battleground state of Michigan. He voted by absentee ballot.
So how important has what.
Happened on this campus in terms of the encampments influencing.
You as a student.
I would never begrudge anyone for withholding their vote for Harris at this point because of the policies in the Middle East. I don't believe in everything that Harris stands for, but obviously she's getting my vote because the alternative is not an alternative.
During the primaries, Michigan voters sent a strong message to Democrats about their disapproval of the Biden Harris administration stance on the war on Gaza by voting uncommitted in those primaries. It's the middle of election day, and so I called a leader of that movement.
My name is Roe Roman. I'm a Georgia state representative, and I'm speaking to you from Georgia.
Representative Roman is the first Palestinian to ever be elected to the state government of Georgia.
I want to be clear things are not good now, like with student protesters and police departments coming after them and violently arresting them and violently displacing their encampments and stuff. For the difference is that it's not on a federal level. Now, take everything you're seeing and not only federalizing it, but making it even worse. And my worries that under a Trump presidency, that's what's going to happen.
She tells me she voted for Harris, but then says, regardless of who wins.
We're going to keep pressuring our elected officials. For me, voting is the beginning of a conversation.
But in this election, a group that has been central to that conversation, yet perhaps the most misunderstood group is Yes, Latinos and Latiness. So I'm going to call Marisa Franco in Phoenix, Arizona.
I'm the national director from MIHINTA, which is a national LATINX and Chica next organization fighting for economic, racial, gender, climate justice.
Madisa helped to build the coalition of grassroots organizations that flipped Arizona blue in twenty twenty for the first time in decades. But in this election, the state is projected to go for Trump, and Mariisa says that for her community right now, everything is on the line.
What's at stake is a full throttle backwards motion. We'll be fighting to protect things that were won by our predecessors decades ago. We will be fighting to keep reforms one that weren't enough, and we will be really in a fight to defend ourselves to prevent more harm.
Mariisa is saying that she's feeling like there could be a Trump victory and that this for Marisa and her community would be dire.
I understand Trump as a manifestation of a legacy that is ugly in this country, and I think the changes that they'll look to do inside of the executive branch and the judicial branch will damn us for decades to come.
It's now getting darker in New York City. The polls start closing in several states, the results start coming in, and we hear that Florida has been called for Trump, and that Miami Dade County, which was reliably blue, has now gone Republican for the first time since nineteen eighty eight. So my mood is beginning to feel a little bit different. We're making our way now to the Bronx, to the South Bronx, specifically to a restaurant named Sona Deekua.
To go talk to.
Fernandoadeo is a Trump supporter and is the owner of Sonadgo. Fernando Matteo and I met back in the nineteen nineties when I was reporting about his work giving toys for guns, but I haven't seen him in a couple of decades. Tonight, at his restaurant, people can come to the restaurant and either order a blue plate if they're supporting Harris, or they can order a red plate if they're supporting Trump.
So why did you decide to have the red dishes and the blue dishes for Election night?
Trump came to the Bronx a few times, so I wanted to know where he stood right now. And to be quite honest with you, we have so more Trump dishes than we have Camelot dishes.
So what does that say to you about Latinos.
And the Bronx.
I think that Latinos are tired of the same rhetoric. I think that they want something new, they want opportunity, and they believe that Trump is a that's going to bring the opportunity.
So to be clear, for Nanda, you're one hundred percent on board with a nasty importation policy.
No, no, I'm not on board with anything that's going to hurt our community. I'm on board with the direction that I like the country to go in. I'm on board for the economy, I'm on board for opportunity.
Before I leave, Fernando kind of points a finger at me and says he wants to tell me his prediction.
I honestly believe that he is going to be president of the United States, whether.
You like it or not.
It's about ten o'clock.
I'm going to head back home, and it's definitive that Trump is leading now. Of course, nothing feels final, but my excitement from the beginning of the morning. It's definitely changing.
We've got quite a few battlegrounds still pending tonight.
Pennsylvania the biggest prize, eighty four percent of the vote, and it is too close to Colin.
So I'm home now and I'm getting into bed with my three puppies. I feel very unsure of what's gonna happen overnight, and I force myself to close my eyes and get some sleep. Now, at seven point thirty, I finally decided I had to look and see what happened, and I'm.
Scared and I just don't want to live in fear.
Coming up on Latino USA, a much needed roundtable conversation to dissect what happened. I'll be joined by journalist paul Ramos, my co host from In the Thick. Also joining me is Jin Guerrero, an opinion writer for The New York Times, and Jamille Smith, the editor in chief of The Emancipator.
We're gonna look at Trump's victory and how he got here.
Stay with us not by yes, Hey, dear listener, Welcome back to Latino USA. On this special election episode in collaboration with Futuro Media's political podcast In the Thick, We're going to turn out to our roundtable to unpack the results and how and why Trump was able to reclaim the presidency with substantial Latino support. We're joined by Gin Guerrero, journalist and contributing an opinion writer for The New York Times.
Welcome back to the show.
Gen, good to be here, Maria, and by Jamil Smith, editor in chief of The Emancipator.
Welcome back to.
You, Jamil, Thank you for having me.
And we're going to welcome.
Paula Ramo's journalist and author and one of my co anchors at In the Thick, hey, Madia, And by now everybody knows that Donald Trump has been declared the winner. He surpassed the two hundred and seventy electoral votes needed. He's becoming the first US president with a felony conviction and the second one to win a non consecutive reelection. But let's start the way we always start our politics conversations, which is with a temperature check.
I e.
How you're feeling.
This is a challenging question, but we're going to start with you, Jene Gomas. What's your temperature check?
Right now?
I'm feeling that this is a profoundly dark and depressing moment, and I'm clear eyed on the fact that this is a victory for fascism. But I refuse to give in to despair. I wrote a piece recently in response to the racist comments about Puerto Rico at Madison Square Garden, where I wrote that I learned to be American from my Puerto Rican mother, who taught me to love this country and to work hard for this country and to defend the vulnerable in this country. And if I'm being honest, Maddy,
it feels very hard to love this country today. But I am going to choose love, because I know that it's exactly what the demagogues don't want. They don't want us to keep fighting for a vision of America where all people are created equal.
Also, we know, Gene, that you like to dance and you like to get on that skateboard, so I know.
That you'll be doing I'm going to be doing a lot. You'll be doing that a lot. Jamille, what's your temperature check?
Hot?
Very hot? I would say, both in the terms of being hot headed and the fact that it's more than seventy degrees here in Boston in November, so you know, both in a physical sense and a spiritual sense. I would say also that despondent is similarly to my friend Gene. I'm also looking for ways to focus this emotion into
productive outcomes. And today we have to rest, we have to grieve, and we have to rebuild and resist, and the amount of time we spend on each of those things is going to vary depending upon how we feel. But we do need to make sure that we take care of ourselves and those we love and those we care for in those frankly who we represent.
Paula, what's your temperature check?
Loug Maria I spent watching the results with several mixed status families, young Latinos, US born Latinos whose parents aren't documented moms have DAKA, and I have to tell you, within three hours, they went from feeling extremely hopeful from finally believing that in Harris there was the possibility of seeing real changes, and then the mood changed completely, and I think the reality kicked in in a very visceral way, and their faces, some of them, turned into tears because
I think even some people that I spoke to were contemplating the possibility of even self deporting, and parents that were thinking about going back to Mexico, and families that were contemplating separating, moms that were thinking about this question that they hadn't thought since the days of share Jarpaya, which is who will have custody of my children? And so it's a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of mixed emotions.
For me, I'm feeling a lot of responsibility in the sense of, you know, people turned to Latino USA. They turned to in the thick not only to be educated and informed, but also to kind of receive a light from us. And so I'm pretty gutted although this is not. I'm not blindsided because our reporting was basically pointing to this. But I'm giving myself a little bit of grace as we kind of process, because you know, I'm not going anywhere, right,
I mean, what's our lemma here is yes. So we're not going anywhere, and we just have to figure out how we do better journalism over the next four years. Let's talk about some of the results.
Right.
Trump managed to swing back states that Biden had won in twenty twenty, including Yes, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the ever important Pennsylvania. But even in states where Kamala Harris did win, like New Mexico and Virginia, the victory margin was still slimmer than Biden's four years ago, and results from counties wide have indicated the same thing, essentially a shift to the right. I would say, a shift towards believing in what the right is.
Telling you to believe. Jamille, We're going to start with you.
You know, we're hearing that this could be explained by so many things, right, sexism, racism, because Harris didn't break with Biden on certain issues, for example, like the cost of living or GASA. So what's your analysis of how Trump was able to retake power.
Well, first, about Vice President Harris, I certainly think it was unrealistic to expect her to break with President Biden on virtually anything. She's still a part of the administration, She's still trying to achieve the goals of his administration, and we obviously have incredibly sensitive, to put it mildly situation happening in the Middle East, not just with Israel and Gaza, but also not Lebanon and all the other
countries that are involved in these conflicts. So to expect her to radically depart from that, even if it would have been the right right thing to do, certainly I thought was not particularly realistic part of of voters to expect. But I would say this maximizing America's potential as an experiment for me has always been about something that the founders that clearly never envisioned, and that's forming a multicultural society, you know, that embraces and celebrates the ways in which
we are different. So this is an idea that Trump's voters have soundly rejected. This is not twenty sixteen, This is not folks voting for their favorite celebrity. No, this is a person we all know by now, and voters chose him. And listen, the information is out there. There's more information available to human beings that at any other time in the history of the world. And so I do think that that is a challenge for us as journalists.
How do we get the right information in front of people, and how do we help them understand what are facts and not facts? And how do we prevent the next demagogue?
And I got some of this sense from the year long reporting we've been doing for our special coverage here on Latino USA. It's called the Latino Factor, How we Vote. We're talking about specifically the issues that Latinos were saying we're going to impact their vote, abortion, the economy, misinformation, democracy, immigration. We know now from the exit polls that these issues indeed determined the vote for thousands of voters around the country,
of course, including Latinos. So I want to talk about Florida for a second. Now, I did spend some time there just about a month or two before the election, and so it wasn't a surprise that Donald Trump took the state. I mean a little bit of a surprise for Miami Dade to go read. So Trump won Florida in twenty twenty, and we saw from the data that almost every county in the state now actually went more
to the right. So let's listen to some tape when I was in South Florida reporting on misinformation targeting Latino voters in Spanish. As we saw before, when Elon Musk shares a fake photo of Kamala Harris in a communist get up, it passes off as a meme. Some people might laugh, but on the ground it has a real impact from the neighborhoods of Miami a Kamala Harris presidency.
What concerns you about that, well said some socialism.
Yes, I believe that Kamala Harris elected would lead to socialism.
I think so, but I tell you I'm not complete in form.
It happened, actually, Jamille, I remember when I was reporting about this back in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and the misinformation was being really directed at black voters at that time, and the misinformation was like, you don't need to vote, your vote doesn't matter who cares, don't vote.
The turn to really.
Focusing on Latino voters and massively inundating with misinformation has been something that we've witnessed Gene. So, how do you understand the impact of this misinformation this vote in this election.
I think it was one of the main contributing factors to what we're seeing as far as Latino support for Trump, which, by the way, I think it's worth mentioning that a majority of Latino still voted for Harris. But disinformation I think has played a huge role in determining the outcome of this election. I mean, just the other day, I was talking to my Puerto Rican cousin in Pennsylvania because I noticed that she was sharing some misinformation about Kamala
Harris enabling sex trafficking of children at the border. I've reported previously on like this misinformation, this QAnon border variant about sex trafficking at the border, and how it's being hugely overstated. But despite being my family, despite following my reporting, they're still falling victim to this propaganda, to this disinformation. And I think it's a huge challenge, and it speaks to the influence of people like Elon Musk in a selection.
I really do believe that these tech moguls have completely destabilized our democracy and it's become such a challenge for the media to fight back.
So, Baola, let's get into the impact of different voting groups, because while it was white men and women that overwhelmingly came out for Trump, the exit polls showed that Trump did make those real gains with young voters, with Latino voters, black voters. And when it comes to the Latino vote, some voters said that they cast a vote for Trump in order to protect democracy, while others said they saw
him as a threat to democracy. So tell us about your reporting in terms of Latino's moving to the right. How do we understand this Latino vote?
Well, look, I think the point right now as we're sort of taking this in is to be very open and be very curious and have no assumptions. And I think what you said right now is the key.
We believed, we have believed that.
Someone like Donald Trump, with his anti immigrant rhetoric, would sort of push away Latinos and immigrant families. But I think if we've learned anything from this election, is that even that assumption is wrong, right, because what we know at this point is that there is a significant amount
of Latinos that were not insulted by Donald Trump's antimegrant rhetoric. Right, that were not alarmed by his words saying that she wanted mass deportations, and that in fact, perhaps perhaps they see themselves more aligned with white America with this idea of what it means to be American then they do with their immigrant roots. And that is a harsh thing and a hard reality to take in. But that is something I think at this point we have to confront.
And by us, I don't just mean us as journalists, I particularly also mean and I throw this back to the Democratic Party that has to really recognize and understand and listen with curiosity to what Latinos are saying, to how we are evolving to this big difference that really resonated with them, which is that Trump's US versus Them game really really really worked.
You know, Paola, One of the things that we were reporting is that Latinos were really connected to the issue of the economy and President Biden and the notion that President Trump, especially among Latinos and Latinas, is really held up as the example of a great businessman, even though there are six bankruptcies, right, So, how do we understand how deeply connected to the issue of the economy Latino
voters felt. What would you say to the Democratic Party in terms of their missing out the opportunity to talk about the economy in a different way that might have led to a different result.
I think for so long what Democrats were trying to say is like, look, Republicans are trying to really paint a negative picture of the economy. But look at the facts, right, Wages are up, the economy is of Unemployment is down. Inflation has been a persistent issue, but it has come down. And I think they really, really really tried to push
that message. But I think what Donald Trump did was simply sort of break through that noise in a very simple way, with a very simple language that may be hard to understand, but it just went like this, look, I am just like you. This is what he told a group of after Latinos in the Bronx a couple of weeks ago. She walked into a hair salon and he said, I am just like you. Just so wif yo stas right. I am a businessman, but I can help you guys because we all come from the same
same place. That is not true, that is not accurate, but it is simple language that seems to have resonated. And again it's like we're kind of staring at this map that's full of contradictions. But I think what I keep coming down to is the simplicity of his message, right, the simplicity of his radical message broke through.
It worked, Jamille.
In the lead up to the election, there was a lot of talk about black men moving to the right, and in some key swing states, Trump did in fact make gains. Wisconsin, for example, Trump got twenty one percent of the black vote. That's compared to just eight percent in twenty twenty. That's a pretty big jump. Of course,
the group overwhelming these still came out for Harris. But what does all of this signal about the concerns of the electorate and the Democratic Party's ability to connect with their most important base, Black voters.
Well, I mentioned the word toxic earlier, and I think that this is part of it. And speaking as a black man, I feel that obviously I don't speak for all of us, but I do think that there is an element within black male communities, black male groups, where we feel that we can't accept black women in leadership. So I think that that is, let's just go to the heart of it, that's part of it. Then we have the fact that. Frankly, Trump appealed to a lot
of biases. And you know, we heard folks on black radio talking about how well we don't want to have Kamala pain for or a person in prison to get a gender reassignments. Well, actually that was Trump's policy, but he lied about in an ad, played it on every football game for weeks, and lots of folks saw it and bought it without doing any investigation for themselves or any critical thinking. So this is not necessarily about Trump holding a watch and swaying it and hypnotizing a bunch
of folks of color and getting them to vote for him. No, it is about the fact that there is a lot of folks who do not feel that this country serves their interests, do not feel that politics work for them. This is something that Trump feeds upon.
Baula, How do you see this notion of Latinos kind of putting their eggs in the basket with Donald Trump because he represents this image of what America is supposed to be straight, white, wealthy man, businessman, etc. How does this play into what happened?
I mean, isn't that an image that we've been sort of taught to adore and romanticize in the fifteenth century. It is a familiar image to us because that's precisely what the Spanish colonizers did the moment that they walked into Latin America. The institutionalized a cast system and gave place to mestisake, creating the sort of permission structure within our community to always draw a direct line to whiteness, no matter who we are, no matter how dark our
skin color is, no matter our ethnic background. And we've always had the sort of permission structure to draw that direct line to whiteness. And in a United States where we've sort of been taught to see race and these binaries where Latinas have been criminalized, where immigrants have been criminalized, where black people have been criminalized, in the reality of this country, there are a group of Latinas that will resort to that whiteness, that will resort to drawing that
direct line to whiteness. And I think that's one of the things that Trump tapped into, right, He tapped into that racial and ethnic grievance that it is not unfamiliar to us, it is part of our history, and I think that's part of unpacking this conversation right this, this romantization with whiteness is part of what it means to be us in this country.
Coming up on Latino USA, our conversation continues about what the results mean for our democracy.
Stay with us.
Yes, Hey, dear listener, welcome back to our special election episode that we're collaborating with our politics podcast in the Thick. We're going to jump back into our roundtable now with
guest journalists Paula Ramos, Gin Guerrero and Jamille Smith. So the other big issue that came up is abortion right because abortion was on the ballot in ten states right and measures to enshrine abortion rights actually passed in seven of those states Maryland, Arizona, Colorado, New York, Nevada, and even deep Red Misery and Montana, even though Trump wan Missouri and Montana. And in our episode right now, we did hear from two activists from Florida who were organizing
around the abortion initiative. That initiative lost by just two percentage points. It didn't meet the sixty percent threshold needed to pass the measure, which would have protected abortion access. So this issue is a lot more nuanced than the idea that support for abortion protections would equal support for a Kamala Harris presidency. Our reporting on Latino, USA and New Mexico really went into trying to explain these complexities. Let's go to the tape. There's a conservative majority in
the Supreme Court. There is a real chance that the anti abortion movement could get another outcome in their favor, like what we saw with the reversal of Roe v.
Wade and Marklee Dixon. The Texas pastor was also quite blunt about their final goal. When we asked him about this, he said that the final goal for him and his movement is the end of abortion in all fifty states, and that the Comstock Act is for them a means to that end. Maria Dixon also said that he's not afraid of these ordinances ending up before the Supreme Court of the United States.
So, Gene, we have seen wider support for abortion access, but at the same time stricter laws on the local level, and we're entering in an administration that has previously overturned ROV.
Wade.
What is all of this signaling about the future of abortion and abortion writing in our cut, now.
What these abortion referendums, the success of these abortion referendums shows is the influence of Latinas, of black women of women of color, who have resoundingly shown that they will fight for their bodily autonomy, that this is a value that they have. And Latinas are overrepresented in these in states that have abortion bands and are the most likely to suffer the consequences.
They are the lowest paid group in.
The United States, so it's hard for them to find the time and the resources to travel across state lines for abortions, particularly if they are undocumented, because crossing state lines could mean risking deportation. These are the voters who are most you know, urgently need investment. They are the ones who are going to make sure that people who
are being oppressed maintain control of their bodies. And yeah, I think that's large actually what the success of these abortion referendums is reflecting.
Now, Trump also made gains with young voters compared to twenty twenty. Now, this is a group that tends to lean more democratic. Recently in Wisconsin, we reported on a young Latino who was leading the Republican Party of Milwaukee County as a young Latino. Let's go to the tape and here's some of that coverage on Latino USA.
I don't care what I have to do if I have to run through a war zone. He's got my vote, and I'm going to try and get so many other people who join me, friends, family, neighbors, doesn't matter, independence, swing voters, Democrats, anyone and everyone to vote for that man this time around.
Jane, what do we take away from the youth vote in twenty twenty four and the election of Donald Trump.
Well, I think it reflects discontent largely.
It also reflects a failure to come up with an effective counter narrative on immigration, understand immigration as an economic issue that affects their economic prospects, their economic mobility. And I think what Kamala Harris really failed to do was to contrast herself effectively with Trump on his signature issue,
which was immigration. She framed it largely in terms of border security, talking about her support for a border bill that would have increased border patrols resources to try to counter this idea that she's pro open borders, But she really didn't counter his immigrant scapegoating his number one weapon, which was to treat immigrants as the cause of all of American's problems. She failed to frame immigration as an
economic issue that benefits America. These are people who have built America's homes, highways, who harvest our crops, who take care of our elderly in hospitals. She really failed to hammer that home, and I think it was a result of really misunderstanding the power of young voters in the country.
So the question of Kamala Harris differentiating herself both from Donald Trump very specifically on the issue of immigration, let's say we're going to give you a totally different view on immigration, or distancing herself from Joe Biden on the question of Gasa. Jamille, how much do you think the issue of GASA impacted voter turnout and her loss the Democrats' loss.
I do think that certainly, the energy at the DNC in August, as well as what we've seen since, tells us that people want more than calls for Ceaspier. People want more than calls for the war to end when forty thousand people have been killed in retaliatory violence by Israel, people who had nothing to do with what happened during the Hamas attack on October seventh, and frankly, as much as we can debate Vice President Harris's campaign missteps. This begins and ends with Joe Biden to me and the
fact that he had years to court this demographic. He had years to make sure that he was communicating effectively with young people. He had years to make sure that they're not relying upon black and brown electorates simply for the fact that they are Democrats and those guys are the racists over there. He could sail that, and it may be true, but we cannot afford to have a politics on the left where we spend most of our time complimenting our own intelligence.
So I understand that politics and democracy it doesn't start and it doesn't end with going to a polling booth, and it doesn't start to end with an election date.
It's a continuous process.
And yes, acknowledging that right now, we're all just like, oh my god, we need to just take a break for a moment, which is important. We do have to take care of ourselves. I need to get a good night's sleep, example, like that would really help. But when we take that rest, right we're obviously thinking about how we move forward with our country. And so as we wrap up, I'm wondering about la as you process the
state of our democracy. What are you carrying with you as we move into this next phase in our country?
Look, right now, I'm I'm in this mindset of I'm not blaming Trump, I'm not blaming the Democrats. I am simply putting the weight on voters. Right, This is who voters chose. The two stories that we could choose were very clear. Now we're very different. This is the route
that we chose. And so I think I'm just sort of taking that in and processing that that Americans chose someone that is flirting with authoritarianism, that has told us what he will do, that will try so hard to implement these mass deportations, and that is what Americans want. And on top of that, I think for so long, so many of us sort of operated under this assumption that Ladinas would be part of this huge and beautiful, multi racial, multi ethic coalition that would lead this country
towards a more better version of democracy. And now I think we're staring at a reality where perhaps it's going to look very different. And I think, instead of being pessimistic, I think what I learned from spending time with the organizers on the ground here and the immigration activist is that they are going to be fighting no matter what.
They have, the infrastructure, they have, the message, they have the north star, And that was so clear after the election results and came in right that these organizers know how to fight for democracy in a way better way than any political party does. And so that I think is something to hold on to.
Gene, how do you see this state of our democracy today? And what are you carrying with you as you move forward? And where are you reaching to kind of get the inspiration and the energy to pick yourself up and keep on going.
So I think one of the main concerns I have is around the silencing and self censorship that we're going to see among journalists, particularly Latino journalists and journalists of color who are from the communities that Trump plans to target. I've been asking myself, you know, like, if you have an undocumented family member, are you going to want to potentially draw the ire of the Trump administration by reporting
the truth about his policies. So I think it's critical moving forward for all newsrooms to be developing strategies to fix that problem of under representation and to ensure that they have plans in place to mitigate the risks that these journalists will face under a second Trump term. Legal risks, psychological risks, et cetera. And the psychological toll of this kind of reporting is huge on people from these communities.
I can speak from experience as somebody who's received threats of litigation from Trump's closest allies, and so I think one of the the main priorities has to be making sure that newsrooms across the country are creating an environment where people of color feel safe and supported in telling their stories and in continuing to speak truth to power, because it's never.
Been more important than it is right now in this moment.
Jamille, take us out yes your comments on the state of our democracy and what you're carrying with you, and how you're finding the inspiration to pick it up and keep on going.
I actually want to quote a little bit of what Gene wrote for us at the Emancipator. You know that in Trump's America, you're American only if you choose hate, and we have to think about one another. I heard way too many folks talking about their vote as if like, Okay, well, this issue matters the most to me, and I want this and I'm going through this, So I'm going to vote this way. Votes are not about you. Voting is
about everyone but you. It's about everyone else. It's to be the most altruistic thing that and it's also the easiest thing to do as a citizen. You go there and you vote with your own needs in mind. Sure, but you have to vote thinking about everyone else. And frankly, I don't think we're doing that as a country right now. And that's not simply because of the result of this election.
I think that we have a demagogue who has allowed people to embrace their worst selves in a public way that they felt they were restricted by through you know, when people were simply asking folks to be courteous and respectful of cultural, gender difference, all the ways in which we are different, Can you please just be respectful of that? No, they you're asking me to be politically correct, you're asking me to be woke, You're asking me to be all
these things, which actually just mean courteous and respectful. And as long as we have to keep fighting for people to just literally see us and respect us as fellow Americans, this battle, the struggle will continue.
Thank you so much, Jamil for joining me on this edition of In the Thick and Let You Know USA. Thank you, Jamil, Thank you Jeane. Always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me on this episode.
Likewise, thank you so much, Baola.
Thank you for all of your reporting and for your thoughts. And we'll see you on the other side.
Thank you. I'll see you soon.
And may we get some rest, some nature, some good healthy food, some family time, some laughing dancing.
Well meta a man.
Thanks everybody, dear listener, get ego, gety them. Yes, this is absolutely a moment for a reset. One thing is for certain. Our reporting is going to continue. We will continue to bring you the stories and perspectives you might not hear from anywhere else. We do this because of our commitment to our profession, but also because of our commitment to our democracy.
So we won't turn away from.
The most vulnerable, but we will hold the most powerful accountable. That is our commitment to you, and we hope we won't do it alone, because you, dear listener, are the reason why we do it all. This special edition of Latino USA, in collaboration with Fuduro's political podcast In the Thick, was produced by our wonderful team including Renaldo Leanos Junior, Ariel Goodman, Nor Saudi, Ines Renique and JOHNI Man Marquez. It was edited by Andrea Lopez Grussado and Benni Le Ramirez.
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