Publicación de Gotham Government Relations

Transcript

Buenas noches y bienvenidos a opini��n p��blica. Soy Patxi Valencia desde Washington DC espero que est��n teniendo un excelente inicio de semana. La reciente elecci��n de noviembre dej�� interrogantes sobre el futuro pol��tico del pa��s y, en especial, sobre las estrategias que los partidos est��n empleando para conectar con nuestra comunidad hispana. Los hispanos, como sabemos, somos una fuerza electoral clave y diversa y tenemos un impacto significativo. O en Estados como Arizona, Nevada y Florida, y ahora, con la llegada de una nueva administraci��n liderada por el expresidente Donald J Trump, el panorama se redefine. ��Esto nos lleva a preguntarnos, qu�� puede hacer el Partido Dem��crata para fortalecer su relaci��n con los votantes hispanos y reconectar de manera m��s efectiva para ayudarnos a analizar estos desaf��os y explorar posibles estrategias que podr��a llevar a cabo el Partido Dem��crata? Nos acompa��a Denis salas, estratega pol��tico y cofundador de Gotham Polin and Analytics. Danny Salas, political strategist and Co founder at Gotham Pauline and Analytics. Thank you for joining Opinion Publica. That's alright. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it. Thanks. So Danny, let me start by asking, what's your overall assessment of what went wrong for Democrats in the November election, particularly with the Latino community? What messages do you think fail to resonate with Hispanics? It's a great question. Like I think there's two. Really big issues that the Democrats failed to convey, or I would say 2 messages that they failed to convey to the Latino population, but even the American population as a whole, one being it's the economy. Stupid, right? That James Carville line that was echoed 30 years ago is always important. And with the Latino community, it is about climbing the socioeconomic ladder so they can achieve the American dream. So they failed to just do that and and not really care about. Trying to make things cheaper for the average Latino worker in this country. So a lot of obviously we saw the increased rise in inflation that really harmed the purchasing power of Latino families. But what they didn't do was try to pass any policies to cut taxes or make things cheaper for them. The other thing that they feel that, which I always say is you should never support something that does harm to the average American. So basically do no harm. And what I mean by that is you shouldn't. Pass any laws or enact any sort of policy or regulation that's gonna lead to an innocent person being hurt. Now, there's multiple, multiple ways that it can be hurt like that individual or in innocent American can be heard or even Latino family can be heard. But one of those things where, you know, we talk about immigration, Latino families were very much in support of stronger border policies. And the reason why is because a lot of them came here legally. They fought for it. They're here and they're trying to do and they're doing everything right. But then they see people that are skipping the lines and then all of a sudden they get castigated and they get stereotyped into a certain in a certain way when all of a sudden you see an illegal immigrant comes to this country and then all of a sudden harm an innocent American. So they do not like feeling the blowback and all of a sudden being felt like they're not American because somebody else came in that may look like them or maybe from the same country as them and then. Did something bad. So I think those are the two main things that the Democrats failed to do. One made like, make like, excuse me, make life cheaper. And number two, do no harm. Those are the two main things they felt that. And after the November elections, which we saw some data that, for example, the Republican Party increase its outreach to Latino voters, particularly in key battleground states. So what strategies do you believe Democrats need to adopt to compete for this growing electorate? You know, it's a great question. I I'll be honest, I'm currently working on an op-ed where I actually piggyback off my daughters at two years old. I have a 2 year old daughter and a six month old son and we listen to all the nursery rhymes and you know, I think of old McDonald E i.e. I/O right now. Part of my, and I'll tell you part of my op-ed is basically setting this agenda based on the old McDonald song and it's. They said calling it going back to the farm E the economy, they need to focus on the economy to not only one, make life cheaper for Latino families and the average American, but also increase economic opportunity. So one of the backlashes and the reason why the Trump administration is seeing the President Trump elect Trump was successful in winning reelection is because he focused on actually bringing back jobs into America. And you can know that that was the number one issue that he focused on. And also making costs of living cheaper. So and so Democrats need to focus on the economy 2. They need to focus on EI. They need to focus on infrastructure. And what I mean by that is like, yes, the President Biden already passed a big infrastructure bill, but that bill itself really focused on trying to increase subsidies for the green economy. It didn't focus a lot and trying to rebuild a lot of these roads and bridges, but additionally didn't focus on one of the things that. Really matters for Latino families and that is getting a great education. So rebuilding some of these old schools. The average age for a school in the United States of America is 50 years old. The average age in New York City is 70 years old. And there's so many studies and so much information out there that tells you that if you do something like increase the amount of sunlight that comes into a school that all of a sudden students are performing around 30% better. So when you're talking about infrastructure, I really want to focus on something like actually modernizing and rebuilding a lot of our school buildings. So then which is important, as we all know, education for education is a big, big issue for Latino families and infrastructure and rebuilding those schools goes right into my next thing E IEEE next, which is education. You know, one of the things that we've seen is especially for the last 30 years, this estimate exponential rise in public taxpayer funds going into a public schools. With no discernible improvements on educational outcomes. So we spent so much more money on actually per pupil funding. So the amount of money that students per students are getting into these schools and yet the school outcomes are not actually getting better, meaning that our students aren't learning and learning anything or actually doing better than they should have been doing about 20-30 years ago. So what does that look like? We need to focus on education and accountability and transparency. We need to hold teachers. Into the fire. So they're actually performing better. We've seen it here in New York City, for example, I'm in right now I'm taking a trip in Florida, but I live in New York City. So you know, that's just like for clarify that. But in New York City where we've seen schools like charter schools, charter schools in New York State, they have to go through a tough rigorous reauthorization process every five years, which means that they have to hit these really tough performance standards before they can get reauthorized in the school doesn't shut down you do that. And implement those type of policies to our public schools. That means that we are actually showing these average leverage Latino families and average Americans that we actually care about the performance of our schools. So we need to focus on immigration, on education to actually improve educational outcomes for a lot of these families. Now mention old McDonald EI, EI second eye I would say is like, look, we have to eliminate identity politics, one of the failures. Of the Democratic Party was focusing on identity politics for the last five years, where instead of actually caring about making the average Latino families or American life better, what they did instead was to focus on identity politics saying like, well, this person is failing because they look like this. I'm like, no, that's not true. It's they they, they're failing because we're not focusing on all these other things that I just talked about. So in that it's in those, those issues while they're all color blind. So we need to eliminate identity politics as a whole. Now, there's no O, I'll be honest with you on old McDonald part, but those four things eat, IE I, it's gonna be the economy, infrastructure, education and eliminating identity politics. Those are the biggest things that the Democratic Party can do now in order to improve going forward and actually win the voters trust, especially Latino families, Latino American families too trust going forward. That's a very interesting perspective. Was actually, I was reading a recent oped by Chuck Rocha, Hispanic Democratic Party strategist who worked on Senator Ruben Gallego's campaign. And actually he said that he withdrew his nomination to run for chair of the DNC because he wants to focus on grassroots efforts to quote UN quote, fix the party. So he said when he joined the party, I'm gonna read you literally what he said. He said he wanted to fight against exporting U.S. jobs. Overseas to drain the Washington DC swamp of rich, powerful people who think they are better than the rest of us and to stop spending taxes on foreign wars when there are plenty of problems at home. And he also said that the party needs to return to the working class values. So do you think this feeling resonates with other Latino Democrats as well? That he is obviously repeating and regurgitating a lot of that Trump kind of Trumpian standards, especially like not getting involved in foreign wars and all those different things. I think what he's missing out on is that Latino families is true about the working class families. That's something that obviously Democrats completely forgot about. But it's what they do need to focus on is like I mentioned, education, infrastructure, the economy, and also eliminating the identity politics because look, I'm first generation in this country. And my family, when we were trying to make it in America and trying to actually achieve the American dream, we knew that nothing was going to be given to us. All we wanted was a level playing field to ensure that we can actually prove ourselves and then become successful because we succeed in the game that's existent. So that's all everybody wants is a level playing field and make sure that you're not getting discriminated or getting knocked down because of how you look like. And I think those values haven't changed in that work ethic with Latino families just trying to achieve. The American dream that hasn't gone anywhere, but the first thing, the First things first, and we all know that it says Latinos, especially the 1st generation come in this country. The number one thing that we want for our families is a great education because we know that baseline. They receive that great education. They know that the world is open for them that they can do anything that they want as long as they receive that great education. So yes, he can talk about some of the Trumpian standards like, you know, focus on working class. Obviously that's true. That's part of my. Might strategy as well about democratic scheme improve going forward, But you know for worrying if weren't about the foreign wars, everything else like that. Again, that doesn't matter as much because Latino families really care about what's going to make my life better today. And right now and, well, another data that came after the elections was how Republicans successfully made gains with Latino men, particularly on economic and public safety. So how should Democrats now address these topics to reclaim this demographic? Hey, look, I I'm gonna sound like a broken record, unfortunate, but I look at see conomy, right? You know, it really is. It's going to be the economy. We know that. I remember when my dad was struggling just to make sure that we keep a roof over our heads when we were trying to work here. He wanted to make sure that his dollar, the amount of work that he's putting in, is able to feed the family, put clothes on our backs and make sure we have a roof over our heads. That's what matters is to make sure that, you know, and you know, there's a little sense of machismo with Latino men where we feel like we actually have to be there and be the main breadwinner and ensure that we are taking care of a family. So anything that causes that stress to us is going to make us feel like we need to look somewhere else, look for support elsewhere. And that's what happened with Democratic Party where they felt, and I think justifiably, they felt they were taking advantage of and Latino men who felt that you weren't caring about me being able to provide where my for my family. And said you were worried about they them pronouns, all these other issues that literally has nothing exactly like landmarks. Exactly. The big one was that left, you know, and that to me, you weren't all about that versus actually what matters to me and making sure I can take care of my family. And as a strategist, what steps should Democrats in Congress take to work more effectively now with the incoming administration of President Donald J Trump? Look, I think. Have an open mind alright, I'll give you a perfect example of something that Trump did for let's say black voters, alright, and for a black collegiate American. So folks are going to historically black colleges and universities or HBC US every year before Trump became president, HB CU would have to go up to Congress and start begging for annual funding in order for them to reach any sort of. That scholarship goals, Anything else? That I should rebuild the campuses, Everything else, right? President Trump made that permanent funding in the budget. Alright, so think about all the stories over here from Democrats against, you know, black Americans and everything else. Well, he made this funding that before then you had eight years of President Obama before they had eight years of George W Bush. Before that he had eight years of President Clinton. And none of them made funding to HBC use permanent. But then President Trump came in and he did. He's like, why are you coming up here on annual annually in order to beg for money, for money on this?