Divided We Stand — palabra.

Latinos for Trump at a Miami rally in the run-up to the presidential vote. Photo by Shutterstock

Analysis: The presidential vote in Florida reflects a marked drift by Latinos into conservative and progressive camps

Nancy San Martin
@nsanmartin

President-elect Joe Biden has called on all Americans to “restore” the nation’s soul.

“...let’s give each other a chance,” Biden said during his acceptance speech. “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature... To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.”

Whether that sentiment can help bridge a political divide within Hispanic communities across the nation remains to be seen. Miami-Dade County — where support from Latinos helped President Donald Trump win the state and ousted two Democratic congressional incumbents — is a good example.

“I think it’s going to take a while, not only in Florida but in the rest of the nation,” said Aquiles Esté, a political consultant in Miami. “The divide is so deep. It is so profound.”

Biden is the first candidate since 1992 to become “President-elect” without also winning the 29 electoral votes from Florida. Even though South Florida — Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — voted blue, Miami-Dade Hispanics (most notably Cuban Americans) sided with Trump. Those votes were largely due to the Republican Party’s strong outreach program as well as Trump’s hard-line stance on foreign policy issues and domestic concerns that continue to fuel debate among Latinos, experts said.

The rebellious tone emerging from both parties is likely to fester through Inauguration Day, scheduled for Jan. 20.

“To us, it’s not a political divide. To us, it’s a movement in the right direction,” said Maria Peiro, a third grade teacher who served as a team leader for the Trump campaign. “I see it as a new awakening here in Miami-Dade.”

Carmen Peláez, a playwright and filmmaker who helped lead the Cubanos con Biden group, acknowledged that the Democratic Party has a lot of work ahead to get Hispanics on its side. “The Trump camp, to their odious credit, have a field plan,” she said. “It’s ugly and it’s cynical but it’s a plan and it’s effective.”

The Biden-as-socialist message played well with Cuban Americans in Florida. Photo by Daily Mail (UK)

A VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM

Experts point to campaign rhetoric attacking Democrats as socialists as the harbinger of the Republican vote among Hispanics in Miami-Dade.

If the two new Miami-Dade representatives — Cuban Americans Carlos Giménez and María Elvira Salazar — see themselves as having been elected on the anti-socialist agenda, “they are going to try to capitalize on that,” said Lisando Pérez, a longtime Miami-Dade resident and professor who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

The new House members likely will join forces with two current Republican members of that chamber with Cuban roots, including Miami Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who is Cuban American, and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, the daughter of Cuban and Greek immigrants who has said she will stand up to the “Socialist Squad” and preserve the American dream, Pérez said.

Indeed, Trump supporters expect their Republican representatives to battle against any efforts to undo measures implemented by Trump.

“When the other side tries to put in other policies, I want them to fight against it,” Peiro said. “They won through the Trump agenda and that’s the agenda we voted for when we voted for Trump.”

Biden has promised to expand the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) while Trump has said he wants to repeal and replace it. Biden also has said he will do away with tightened immigration restrictions, halt construction of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and reinstate policies to help undocumented immigrants living in the United States — including “dreamers” who arrived as children — obtain a legal path to citizenship.

While many assumed those issues would resonate with Latino voters, the election proved otherwise. That is an important factor for future elections, given the continuing growth of the Latino population.

Joe Biden takes selfies with students at the University of Miami during a campaign stop. Photo by Hunter Crenian/Shutterstock

No ‘minorities’ here

In every U.S. state, the share of non-Hispanic white eligible voters declined between 2000 and 2018, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. During that same period, the share of Hispanic voters grew, most notably in battleground states like Florida and Arizona. In Florida, two of every 10 eligible voters in 2018 were Hispanic, nearly double the share in 2000.

The Latino shift toward Trump got stronger when street protests following the death of George Floyd on May 25, turned violent and led to calls to defund the police, a message that did not sit well with the Latinos who do not identify with the Black Lives Matter movement, experts said. In Miami-Dade, Cuban Americans are predominantly white. Many other Latino émigrés from Venezuela, Colombia and elsewhere come from middle and upper classes and make up a large segment of the community’s entrepreneurs.

“Overall, Cubans — because of their history and how they arrived in this country — they do not have a minority group orientation,” said Pérez, who was born in Havana and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1960. “There is a perception that they do not suffer discrimination and maybe in Miami they don’t. Even the term ‘people of color’ does not apply to us.”

Both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have expressed support for the BLM movement. But they also reached out to diverse voters in their victory speeches.

Harris, the first female to be elected vice president, extolled the contributions of women when she spoke about her late mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, an immigrant from India. “...I’m thinking about her and about the generations of women — Black women. Asian, White, Latina, and Native American women throughout our nation’s history who have paved the way for this moment tonight,” Harris said. “Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality, liberty, and justice for all…”

Cubanos con Biden rally in Florida. Photo by Hola News

Can we talk?

Moving forward, Peláez of Cubanos con Biden said she hopes “the smartest Republicans, independents and Democrats can all come to the table and hash things out in the most constructive way... that people will talk to each other once again and work on ideas that excite people, that bring true social equity to every person in this country.

“I do believe that poor whites are just as disenfranchised as poor Blacks, poor Latinos, poor Native Americans,” she added. “I want us to start looking at issues again and not parties.”

Peiro, the teacher and Trump supporter, remains optimistic that he will prevail in court challenges to the election results.

“And if he doesn’t, he will do the right thing but he is not going to go away. The Republican party is now the party of Trump. It’s the party of America First,” Peiro said. “We’ll be fighting for the next four years to make sure … the Republican party takes over the White House again.

“I feel extremely confident that we are going to turn Miami-Dade red,” she added.

Esté, the political consultant, said the battle among Latinos is now is between conservative and progressive agendas.

“While it is true that Biden is an old-time moderate, many people see the progressive angle as the future of the party,” he said. “It’s going to take a while. Nobody wants to listen. People are living within their own bubble.”