tejanos /why did so many hispanics vote for trump?
elisa chavez
Tío, su casa tiene escalones faltantes. Pero en vez de cambiarlos, ha cambiado si mismo. Toma pasos largos, forma músculo, sabe bootstrapear. Forja carácter ¿y por qué? ¿Para sobrevivir? ¿Porque la vida sin amor no es la vida?
No soy su enemigo. Vengo con mis martillos y medidas, y debe pensar que condeno todo lo suyo– pero no.
Simplemente le quiero. Simplemente pienso en la noche. Pienso en usted, dando un paso en la noche, en la oscuridad. El momento en que espera algo sólido, pero recibe el vapor.
When people say they don’t like Mexicans, they don’t mean me. Immigrants have changed since I came here; now they’re illegal. Handout hagglers. Now they have no desire to better themselves– that’s what people mean. Not me.
You kids are skinned so thin these days– martyrs and measurers, bellyaching battle-drums with all your words for spelling anger.
I simply look at what’s there: Jobs or no jobs. Neighbors at church. The rig bones of a home built solid. The ladder of opportunity rising to heaven rung by rung.
Like white women? Trump’s policies are not helpful or supportive to any women. But he won the majority of the white women vote twice.
For some of them, it’s sheer racism: Sure, you get paid less and attacked more, but keep the fascists in office and you’ll be allowed to take your pain and frustration and kick someone else, who won’t be allowed to strike back.
(…For a lot of them, it’s racism. It’s the belief that some people deserve a country that supports and protects them and other people don’t, and a vote for Trump is a vote for “I’m in the support-and-protect category,” even if it turns out that you’re really not. The leopards-eating-faces party has a strong base because all their press releases are about which otherpeople’s faces they’re going to eat.)
For some, it’s a dream: vote for “family values” and even if they’re not going to actually support anything related to families, you can believe they want to, you can believe you’re supposed to stay at home and raise children and NOT work a job and a half (and do housecleaning and raise children), and that you’re supposed to have a partner who comes home at a reasonable hour and gives you attention and affection. A vote for the “family values” propaganda party is a vote that says “you DESERVE the 50s suburb lifestyle.” And if you know you’re never going to get it (because that is just not how society works anymore), being told you deserve it is a balm to your frazzled nerves. So they vote for the one who tells them they SHOULD have the things they want, instead of the ones who are actually working to make life better for them.
For some, it’s fear: Everyone around you is voting for Those Assholes, and you know you’re a terrible liar; when they ask you who you voted for, you need to be able to say “Those Assholes, of course,” in a voice that doesn’t shake. Besides, what difference does one vote make? You’d just be cancelling out your husband’s/ brother’s/ father’s/boss’s vote anyway, and that’s not worth the stress of having to lie, over and over, about how you filled out your ballot, and risk doing it badly enough that someone decides to punish you over it.
In aggregate, none of us need to know the details. If you voted for him, you’re not welcome in the club or at the party, won’t get an invite to the Discord, block block block with no regrets.
In specific–if there is a Trump voter in your life that you’d like to win over–you need to figure out which myth they believe and which of the lies they believed because it was something they wanted to hear, something that confirms what they already believe to be true.
And then you listen to why that works for them, and ask questions, over and over. You don’t tell them anything. Don’t tell them “it doesn’t work that way” or “but they don’t keep their promises” - you ASK. “Which policy supported that? Do you think that applies to [friend] as well? Are you safer now? Why? How much did that cost?”
It’s slow work and it doesn’t always get results. But we need to do it, one at a time, as we have energy and compassion. The only other option is tragedy.
#don’t mind me just gonna reblog these very good thoughts, #this kind of thing is basically exactly what i was grappling with in this poem, #so it’s very cool to see it sparking that kind of discussion, #i think of the kind of work this commenter describes as counterterrorism
The English poem here is intentionally a mistranslation of the Spanish one for poetic effect, btw. (that link at the beginning to other Miss Translated poems doesn’t seem to work, so here’s a link i found) Rough translation:
