11-08-2024, 02:52 AM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-08/these-voters-were-once-democrats-but-trump-changed-everything/104575626
Quote:"We are not homogenous and that is something political leaders have not understood for too long," said Monica Ramirez, a Latino campaigner and activist.
"We as a community we have different interests, we have different histories, we have different immigration backgrounds, and political parties have treated us like we are the same," she said.
"Political leaders and parties need to take a better look at who Latinos are in this country and understand our differences to be able to engage all of us.
"We have such different lived experiences, different immigration contexts, different histories we bring from our home countries … some of us have been here in the US for much longer."
Adriana was raised in Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico. About a third of the population here identify as Latino or Hispanic.
"Our parents and grandparents came to this country with the dream of starting businesses, to better themselves, now we are the ones who live the American dream," she said.
Many within her community have family living in central and southern America, but there is still a desire for tough border restrictions, she said.
"People who have gained citizenship or a right to be in the country legally, they know the struggle they went through to get there, they feel kind of cheated by someone skipping all those steps."
Adriana supported Harris, even hosting the Democrat at her restaurant during a campaign stop in August.
"It was such an elated moment … I was so excited for a female president but I'm now accepting the new reality."
Exit polling from the presidential election revealed Trump gained ground among Black voters, particularly Black men.
Sewell said Democratic politicians have spent decades courting Black voters but have failed to deliver any meaningful change to the communities who elected them.
He believes it's led many Black voters to cast their ballot for a Republican candidate for the first time.
"They don't care about us. They don't know what it means to live on this side of Detroit. They have no idea what it means to live here," he said.
Rick Wilcoxon, another member of Sewell's church, argued Democrats had become out of touch with the Black community.
Still, he was the only member of his family to vote for Donald Trump.
"My ethnicity has been voting for Democrat for 40 years and every blue state you could imagine is crime-ridden, the poverty rate is high and heavy taxation and just pure chaos," he said.
"Yet they sell us on the fact that they are better for us than the Republicans. Black Lives don't matter to them, Black votes matter to them."
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