Journalist and MSNBC contributor Paola Ramos, daughter of Jorge Ramos, blamed “internalized racism” for why Latinos are leaving the Democratic Party and supporting former President Trump.
Ramos appeared on PBS’ “Amanpour & Company” this week to address the trend covered in her new book, “Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means.”
Trump appears to be outperforming his 2020 support among Latinos who prefer the Republican over Vice President Kamala Harris on handling the economy and immigration.
The Democratic Party’s advantage with these voters is shrinking, according to NBC News, whose poll last week found the Democrats’ edge is at its lowest level in the past four presidential election cycles.
In discussions with Trump-supporting Latinos for her book, Ramos said she found that “tribalism, traditionalism, and political trauma” were the three driving forces behind this growing trend.
“Really understanding the sort of racial baggage that I believe a lot of Latinos, including myself, and a lot of us are carrying from Latin America. What it means to sort of been colonized for so many years, the weight of colonization, that, in of itself, I believe, creates a lot of internalized racism, a lot of colorism, that then manifests in American politics in so many ways,” Ramos began.
“And that’s then how you can explain the fact that even someone like Donald Trump feels so comfortable going to the Bronx, talking to a group of Black Latinos, and Latino Trump supporters, because he believes that he can sort of tap into a racial and ethnic grievance that is very familiar,” she continued.
Ramos told USA Today that traditionalism and trauma also play into the trend.
“There’s traditionalism which is just breaking down what centuries of colonization have done to us and has led us to be so fixated on certain gender norms and sexual norms and then also leads us to this slippery slope of admiring things like Christian nationalism and then the trauma of this sort of admiration and a lot of Latinos flirting with the strongman rule and where that comes from,” she said.