“He doesn’t like us”
by digby
The Donald may be sweeping up the all the xenophobes in the land but there’s a backlash brewing:
Donald J. Trump’s harsh campaign rhetoric against Mexican immigrants has helped him win a substantial delegate lead in the Republican primary, but it is also mobilizing a different set of likely voters — six of them alone in the family of Hortensia Villegas.
A legal immigrant from Mexico, Ms. Villegas is a mother of two who has been living in the United States for nearly a decade but never felt compelled to become a citizen. But as Mr. Trump has surged toward the Republican nomination, Ms. Villegas — along with her sister, her parents and her husband’s parents — has joined a rush by many Latino immigrants to naturalize in time to vote in November.
“I want to vote so Donald Trump won’t win,” said Ms. Villegas, 32, one of several hundred legal residents, mostly Mexicans, who crowded one recent Saturday into a Denver union hall. Volunteers helped them fill out applications for citizenship, which this year are taking about five months for federal officials to approve. “He doesn’t like us,” she said.
I tried to warn them. All they had to do was look at California to see that this effect would happen. Backlashes aren’t only for white people.
As Lindsey Graham put it (as only he can)
“We’re doubling down on the problem we have with Hispanics. We went from self-deportation to forced deportation. Have you ever heard the statement too big to fail? We’re too stubborn to win. So here’s what I’m going to say in November when we lose: I told you so…please quite beating up on the Hispanic community, please quit saying that most illegal immigrants are rapists and drug dealers because they’re not.
We are losing because we are in a demographic death spiral with Hispanics and young voters.”
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