Jamelle Bouie: It Lost Black Voters. Now It’s Losing Latinos. What’s Left Is a Broken, White GOP.

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/trump_and_the_gop_are_openly_attacking_the_legitimacy_of_black_voting.html

It Lost Black Voters. Now It’s Losing Latinos. What’s Left Is a Broken, White GOP.
Donald Trump is accelerating a process that began half a century ago.
By Jamelle Bouie

snip//

What’s popular with the Republican base has been poisonous with Latino voters. The latest tracking poll from Latino Decisions shows Republican nominee Donald Trump with 16 percent support, versus 74 percent for Hillary Clinton. Looking ahead to November, the group expects that electorate to cast the vast majority of its votes for Clinton, 82 percent to 15 percent for Trump, which would be the most lopsided total in history. If this happens, Latino Americans will join blacks as one of the most Democratic groups in the country, and at 57 million strong (including 27.3 million eligible voters), one of the largest, too. According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, 69 percent of Latino registered voters say they are “absolutely certain” to vote, and 44 percent say they are voting to oppose Trump.

Both voting and party affiliation are habits. Once set, they tend not to change. And looking forward from the present, there’s a real chance that Latino voting takes the same path as black voting, with routine and overwhelming support going to Democratic presidential candidates. Again, California gives us a glimpse of what this looks like. Following Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant crusades in the 1990s, Latino Californians moved decisively into the Democratic column. By the end of the last decade, the state was a Democratic stronghold, with Democratic officeholders at almost every level of government. The once-dominant California Republican Party, by contrast, was a rump force, with little power or influence outside of its historic strongholds in the state’s interior.

In the wake of Obama’s election, the national Republican Party was already on this path. But Trump has been an accelerant, driving Latino Americans away from the GOP with xenophobia and unyielding hostility. And in fact, this has had an unintended side effect: Asian Americans are leaving the Republican Party, too, in record numbers, and for similar reasons. A GOP that nominates Trump—and embraces nativism—is one that lacks room for all immigrant and nonwhite groups.

Black Republicans resisted Barry Goldwater and his brand of doctrinaire, ideological conservatism. They backed moderate candidates for president, built alliances, and formed organizations meant to roll back the rising tide of movement conservatism. In its manifesto, one of those organizations—the Negro Republican Organization—promised to “oppose any attempt to give the public any impression that Negro Republicans can unite behind Goldwater” and “make every effort to defeat the minority segment which appears determined to establish a lily-white Republican Party.”

The NRO lost its fight. That “minority segment” is now a majority, and in the past 10 years, it has finally established a lily-white Republican Party. It’s tempting to say that this GOP won’t survive—that it’s too homogeneous to succeed in a modern, diverse America. But if Donald Trump loses this election, he will likely lose by just a few points. With a nicer suit, steadier hands, and a better attitude, Trump—or at least Trumpism—could succeed nationally.

And for those Republicans who don’t want Trump or Trumpism? It may be too late. The thing about a lily-white Republican Party is that it doesn’t have the diversity it needs to resist white resentment and white rage. Republicans crossed a point of no return. Raw ethnonationalism is their future, even if they don’t want it.

[nopence2020]

1. I can't imangine any black or Latino voters...

going for Trump at this point. The man is vile. The Republicans are delusional.