The MeidasTouch Podcast - The LATINO VOTE for Trump and WTF Happened?!!! Interview with Mike Madrid

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Mike Madrid, Latino political consultant, who wrote the book “The Latino Century,” which warned exactly of what would happen in the Trump v. Harris race. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We have only one option right now, and that is to build to learn the lessons of what went down. And someone screaming from the roof about what was about to happen, who literally wrote the manifesto that predicted the way the Latino vote was going to go. We've had him on the network before. We've tried to get people to listen to him. He tried to get people to going to go. We've had him on the network before. We've tried to get people to listen to him. He tried to get people to listen to him. He convinced some, but I don't think people fully heard the message, but he's been very vindicated. Perhaps the fact that he was so

vindicated in the warnings, wish people would have heeded his call earlier. It's Mike Madrid, of course, a consultant, political consultant, but the author of The Latino Century, How America's Largest Minority is Transforming Democracy. Mike, you've been saying this was going to happen. You warned about it. You said this would be the difference in the election. And what we saw is basically the Biden lead amongst Latinos in 2020, essentially just flipped. And that plus a few other things were, you know, flipped in favor of Trump, that plus a few other things, that was the difference maker and where Trump found those votes and how he was able to turn this election. So I want to get your initial thoughts, then let's talk about what we can do. But let's start with just your initial thoughts. Yeah, well, first, thoughts yeah well first Ben always man love being with you love what you build the show you're just the tip

of the spear on all of this and so thank you for everything that you've done and it's great to build kind of a friendship with you virtually anyway over the years um look um I was taken aback uh myself as somebody who's been saying, you know, this is the potential, this could be coming, red flags, let's pay attention to this. And again, we're looking at exits right now. I think when we do finally get the final numbers, it'll tighten up a little bit, and it won't be as dramatic, but obviously it played a critical role in the outcome of the election, this Latino shift I'm talking about. what will run through the nuances in just a moment but I want everybody to know something and hear and listen to me really really closely this is all fixable this is all fixable

there's very very very little data that I have looked at over the past decade and that's how long this has been happening by the way we'll get to that too but there's very little data saying this is becoming more conservative. The Latinos are becoming more conservative. That's not happening. That's not happening. Latinos in many ways are becoming more populist. That is happening.

It's why I mentioned in the book, in the conversations that we've had, that Bernie Sanders was one of the only other American politician who drew huge numbers and big numbers and big shifts and big supports away from the Democratic Party was Bernie Sanders. And it wasn't necessarily because of the policy prescriptions. It was because of the anti-party messaging. And that's going to have to be part of what I think the Democratic Party emerges as. But there's no

question that there's a lot of angst and this was overwhelmingly economic driven the data is pretty overwhelming we can get into the sexism racism misogyny conservative religious stuff most of that in the book you know anticipated and went in great detail to sort of dispel all that and say don't don't get caught up with that if you focus on the economy and make these adjustments there's a good chance you can get back into this but that's that's the broad that's those are those are the broad strokes is this is gettable it's fixable we didn't this didn't have to happen it did happen now we're either going to be self reflective and learn from it or there will be five

million new Latinos registering to vote in the next four years, or it will move another seven to eight points. And I'll raise the alarm bells again. You heard it here on Midas Touch. If corrections aren't made, you will see Latinos getting upwards of 50%, maybe more in the next election. So we've got to really stay focused. Mike, let me give you the talking point that you've pushed back on. And you've said you're seeing this issue all wrong when people in the political orthodoxy, the consultant class would say, look, of course, the Latinos are going to vote for Democrats and against Trump. trump's talking about mass deportations he's saying he's going to deport their relatives so they're not going to vote for the guy who's

threatening to deport them and their relatives to that you say to that i say um the reason why i wrote the book was to explain why this has been happening for over a decade. And the reason why is demographic. The vast majority, the explosive growth that is happening with the Latino vote is with third and now fourth generation voters. It's very important to understand that these voters, almost all of them under 30 years of age or older, have very little, if any, connection

with the immigrant experience except for their grandparents and i want you to put yourself in these the shoes of these folks if your grandparents were immigrants or maybe even earlier or maybe 100 years ago right there's a lot of people been for a very long time to talk to people exclusively through the lens of immigration or to say you're all going to be deported. It doesn't matter It's falling flat for people that aren't highly engaged voters and that aren't watching a lot of political news all the time They don't believe we can debate whether it is or not I believe you should take a politician as word but the polling data shows overwhelmingly They don't believe that Donald Trump is talking about them

in fact They think they're talking about the issues that they are equally concerned about, which is the rising number of undocumented people coming across the border. The change in Latino public opinion as it relates to the border is for increased border security.

It's not for an increase in the pathway to citizenship or immigration reform. We do support those as a community broadly, but we have to pay attention. Kamala Harris made those adjustments for a reason. She would not have made such a dramatic change, nor Joe Biden in citing the asylum decree, unless the data strongly showed not just that all Americans are there, but Latino voters are there. So we're going to have to start talking to Latino voters less and less through this racial and ethnic lens and get past the idea that everybody is consumed by immigration and how can you vote for somebody who wants to deport you

and your family and your relatives and people in your community and start recognizing this is overwhelmingly a pocketbook voter. This is an affordability problem. That same New York Times poll showed that only 20 percent of Latinos in the New York Times, Daily Times poll a week before the election said that the economy was good or excellent. Twenty percent. So these are people that are struggling. It's not easy. It's not going well for them day to day. And it is a little bit easy, I think, to suggest that Latinos are the overriding factor is going to be these immigration questions or that the S&P 500 is doing really well or that Biden's plans, as he mentioned today, you know, a lot of my plans aren't going to be felt for years from now.

So I get it. I understand the frustration. I completely, I'm frustrated too. I spent two years along with you, you know, fighting. We worked together brothers in arms in 2020. I get the frustration. It's why I wrote the book. I saying guys this is coming this is coming and um but i hope that's a good enough explanation i think i'll be saying that over and over for the next few years so people kind of understand it but this is largely a demographic consideration that the stereotype of who we've known latino voters to be for the last 25, 30 years is wholly different than Latino voters will be for the next 25 and 30 years. You know, and, you know, you've been, again, shouting it from the rooftop. We've had you on multiple times. We've been messaging that as

well. And, you know, while I was hoping to get that message out more, again, it appeared that we were moving against a lot of headwinds within the Democratic Party that was trapped in a mindset that seemed to be completely outdated. It's why you wrote the book. Let's get into a controversial area, though. There are some people who will say, and we should address everything publicly and transparently, look, it was a woman who was running. It was a black woman who was running. And is there something to that in a machismo culture?

I mean, I've heard that before. So for me to ignore that in a discussion would kind of be me leaving out something that are the whispers behind the door. And I don't think that's fair to my community to ignore it, even if it's a controversial topic. And I'll just I'll give this data point, but then I'll throw it to you. While, as you always say, do not think about Latinos as a homogenous group. This Latinx label has been harmful, as can be lumping people together. But you look in Mexico. I mean, Claudia Scheinbaum, you have a Jewish woman in Mexico as the leader. So that at least is one data point that they elected, you know, a Jewish woman. By a wide margin, incidentally. But let me look, these are legitimate questions. And I actually include a chapter in each on my book, because I think that they're that important. Let's talk

about the machismo thing for just a moment here. The idea, and I'm getting this constantly, especially now there's a lot of anger saying, well, it's all machismo culture and you're all misogynist. The two U.S. presidential candidates who did that best in U.S. history were Barack Obama, who got over 70% of the Latino vote, including the Latino male vote, and Hillary Clinton, who got 69% of the Latino vote, including Latino males. So what we're seeing is this movement away or towards the Republican party and towards Trump, as I mentioned earlier, as a function of the third generation, which has the weakest ties to the country of origin. They have the weakest Latino anchor.

Two thirds of them identify primarily as typically American and by wide measures over their country of origin. They're Latino, they're Hispanic, but overwhelmingly they view themselves as typically American. That's when this emerges. So unless machismo is this recessive gene that skips two generations and then reemerges when everybody's identifying more as Americanized, it just doesn't hold water. If you believe that Latino culture was anti-woman and would never vote for a black person or a woman then why when we were a much

more recently immigrated naturalized voter were we setting the high bar for a black man and a white woman it just it defies all rationality moreover and this is important too, Latinos elect women to office at rates higher than any other race or ethnicity in the country. Where we're from, California, there are more Hispanic women in the legislature than there are Hispanic men. Let me say that again. We've elected more women to the legislature than men. That is something that white women have not been able to accomplish since suffrage. And it's not just a blue state phenomenon. Texas is almost at parity. Florida is not too far off. Now, New Jersey,ing women to office at higher rates than any other race or ethnicity. That has to count for something, along with the fact that our highest votes totals have gone towards women. And we don't even need to get into the subjective of the matriarchal culture of Latin American culture, because that's just the way that, as I argue in my book, the Latinization of America is going to lead to the feminization of America.

And again, there's just overwhelming data to suggest that it's not only not true, it's the exact opposite, but I understand these are highly emotional times. And then finally, among the highly emotional times, there is the blame game going around right now. And look, I have TikTok, so I see, you know, what's sometimes being posted about Latinos who voted for Trump. And you see it on social media all the time. warned against is, look, are you in the business of trying to win elections in the future or potentially further alienate groups and push, as you said, there's going to be another 5 million Latino voters in this next election. So if you've done things that were perhaps not ideal, understatement, with the existing voter base of Latinos such that we saw this

massive shift, 5 million more voters. If you're going to alienate and point fingers and push further away, just from a strategic standpoint, number one, you're making a giant misstep. But two, you know, as you said said it's not a conservative shift so much as it is an issue shift but I'll let you I think that's where we should close this and then have you on much more frequently but I think we hit all the key issues there that's right Ben and look what I want what I want and I understand so highly emotional time and there's a lot of you know a wide range of emotions coming out but Benny Ben, you articulated it perfectly. I wanna leave people with this.

This is imminently gettable again. It's absolutely possible to get back to not just the 2020 numbers, which I don't think were particularly great for Democrats, it's entirely possible to bring them back to the high 20s. I'm talking about Republicans, right? That you can move this considerably if we start to address this as the economic populist working class concerns that started the erosion in the first place. Again, remember, this started after the Obama era.

This didn't just happen in 2024. It didn't just happen in 2020. It began years before that. And the good news is this has been, unfortunately, a response to the party's changing coalitions, but it's imminently fixable if we start speaking to those pocketbook concerns. I saw Kamala Harris begin to do that, but you can't fix in 100 days what, you know, a couple of decades worth of messaging in the wrong direction leads you to. So I'm hopeful. I really do feel that the party's going to get this. I think it'll be pretty quick as it goes through this process of trying to understand and learn about the direction to go in. I think you're going to see a lot of Latino leaders, hopefully Ruben Gallego in Arizona, my good friend Alex Padilla in the U.S. Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto.

These are all future leaders. There's a very good bench of elected officials, Latino elected officials that can really meet the moment, step up and rise to the occasion and help the party fix this problem. And I think they will. Everybody, make sure you get the book, The Latino Century by Mike Madrid, How America's Largest Minority is Transforming Democracy. book the latino century by mike madrid how america's largest minority is transforming democracy it was prophetic um i mean i would say i i wish people would have read it in real time um they did but i wish more people would have because you were spot on um but you know look it's it's never too late to acknowledge a problem, learn from it, and then adapt, right? That's exactly right, Ben.

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate you. Absolutely. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million subscribers. And thanks for watching. Real quick, Meta just changed their algorithm to suppress political content. Please follow our Instagram at MidasTouch right now as we head towards 400,000 followers so you don't miss a beat.