To someone campaigning for president in a century projected to see the Hispanic population surge to be the largest ethnic group in the United States, it may seem counterintuitive to come out swinging against that demographic.

Yet that’s exactly what Donald Trump has done, using news conferences to generalize Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists polluting society, and clashing publicly with the Spanish-language media.

This conflict came to a visible head recently, as on August 25 Trump ejected Univision anchor Jorge Ramos from a press conference for trying to ask an immigration question out of turn. The confrontation with Ramos, dubbed the “Latino Walter Cronkite” and arguably the most influential television journalist among all Latin-Americans, feels like a swan song for any hopes of Trump reconciling with the amassed Hispanic voters and activists he can’t afford to have against him.

Aside from vocal disrespect, Trump has loudly favored policies like deportation and the infamous wall across the country’s southern border. Despite bursts of bravado in which he’s claimed he’ll get the Latino vote, Trump seems to be targeting a very different demographic base.

The crowds and focus groups that comprise the suddenly-formed mass of Trump supporters fall into a pretty clearly defined category: white conservatives drawn more to Trump’s Teflon bravado than the cautious early-primary timidity of most Republican candidates. And while Trump seems to believe he can still harness the Latino vote, his continued anti-Latino rhetoric gives evidence to the contrary.

While the rhetoric of men like Scott Walker and Ted Cruz has always borne traces of Trump’s views, they are not quite so overt in their appeals to the hardline, populist white voter base that decides the Republican primaries because they fear the antipathy such forthrightness will earn them in a general election.

While I can see the appeal of Trump’s confidence and his insistence that his wealth makes him impervious to the influences of the oligarchs his competitors answer to, that far-right base doesn’t provide a decisive edge in general elections, a reality Trump will face if he manages to be nominated.

Members of the growing Latino demographic protested Trump’s comments against the population in droves back in June, and pressured several huge companies like Macy’s, NBC and Univision to end their business with him.

“He’s done us a favor,” said Sylvia Puente, a representative of the Latin Policy Forum in a recent ABC report. “He’s mobilized and united the Latino electorate and Latino activists in a way that hasn’t been done before.”

This kind of mobilization points toward a future in which the growing minority group will have much more solidarity in national politics in years to come. Trump and other candidates that will inevitably tap into the old tropes of anti-immigrant resentment will be facing an increasingly influential bloc of strength.

Thomas Beckley-Forest is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at tjbeckle@syr.edu.

Published on September 1, 2015 at 1:21 am