July 7, 2024 • 62 mins
According to my guest this time, the United States is entering a Latino century, and that might be what saves our democracy.
Mike Madrid is a top expert on Latino voting, and in recent years he’s become a national leader in the bipartisan fight to save democracy.
He’s been the political director for the California Republican Party, a senior adviser to both Republicans and Democrats, and a co-founder of the never-Trump Lincoln Project.
Now Mike has a new book, called The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy.
One of his goals for it is to help the Democratic Party win against MAGA authoritarianism.
He’s worried, though, that Democrats have been slow to get the message about Latinos and their crucial role in the nation’s future. And he thinks that helps explain why so many Latinos have been moving towards the Republican Party, a development many Democrats find baffling.
According to Mike, they’re baffled because they don’t understand Latinos or other minorities nearly as well as they think they do. He says too many Democratic candidates, strategists, and pundits think of minorities as theoretical stereotypes instead of as real people with complex lives. That’s why Democrats tend to assume immigration is the top issue for all Latino voters, for example, or that most want to be talked to in Spanish. Both of those assumptions may seem reasonable theoretically, but are often wrong in reality.
Mike argues that now more than ever, Democrats need to get reality right. That’s because first of all, the Latino vote can make the difference in crucial battleground states this year, including ones that may surprise you, like Wisconsin and North Carolina. And he believes that over the long haul, Latino voters can help revive all Americans’ faith in democratic institutions — and democracy itself.
— Spencer
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I don't think it's almost save.I think it is save.
(00:02):
I think that the salvationand the refreshment,
the renewal of America will comewith this demographic change.
And in fact,I think at this moment in time,
it is the only thing that will savethe American experiment.
Welcome to Dastardly Clevernessin the Service of Good.
I'm Spencer Critchley.
(00:24):
According to my guestthis time, the United States is entering
a Latino century.
And that might bewhat saves our democracy.
Mike Madrid is a top experton Latino voting, and in recent years,
he's become a national leaderin the bipartisan fight to save democracy.
He's been the political directorfor the California Republican Party,
(00:45):
a senior advisor to both Republicansand Democrats,
and a co-founderof the Never Trump Lincoln Project.
Now Mike has a new bookcalled The Latino Century:
How America's LargestMinority Is Transforming Democracy.
One of his goals for itis to help the Democratic Party win.
He's worried, though, that Democratshave been slow to get the message
(01:08):
about Latinos and their crucial rolein the nation's future.
And he thinks this helps explainwhy so many Latinos have been moving
towards the Republican Party,
a development many Democratsfind baffling, according to Mike.
They're baffledbecause they don't understand Latinos
or other minoritiesnearly as well as they think they do.
(01:28):
He says too many Democratic candidates,strategists and pundits
think of minoritiesas theoretical stereotypes
instead of as real peoplewith complex lives.
That's why Democrats tend to assumeimmigration is the top issue
for all Latino voters, for example, orthat most want to be talked to in Spanish.
Both of those assumptionsmay seem reasonable theoretically,
(01:51):
but are often wrong in reality.
Mike argues that now
more than ever, Democratsneed to get reality right.
That's because, first of all,the Latino vote can make the difference
in crucial battleground states.
This year, including onesthat may surprise you like Wisconsin
and North Carolina.
And he believes that over the long haul,Latino voters can help revive
(02:13):
all Americans faith in Democraticinstitutions and democracy itself.
Here now is my conversationwith Mike Madrid about the Latino century.
Mike, thanks so much for joining me.
It's always great toWhy did you write this book
especiallywhy did you write this book? Now?
Well, that's a great question.
(02:33):
and there's kind of two answers to it.
The first is, you know, thisthere's there's always,
I think, been a book inside of mesince I was, on this topic
since I was an undergraduateat Georgetown in the early 1990s,
kind of looking at and watchingthe demographic projections of what
a what America was going to become overthe course of my career, in my lifetime.
And I wanted to be very engagedin that as a political consultant
(02:56):
and answer some big questions that I hadabout American identity, Latino identity,
and bringing these two,concepts together.
and watchingthat unfold has been a real, blessing,
I think, in my career, in my adult life,and hitting this point
where in eight short yearswe will be a nonwhite majority country
(03:16):
for the first time in America's history.
I'll be able to spend the latterpart of my, you know,
life, examining what was right, whatI was right about, what I was wrong about
and why, and hopefully being a bridgeto other people of later generations
to have that perspectiveof what America was before and afterwards.
but but this moment,
the second part of the of the answer isthis moment is of particular importance,
(03:40):
in large part because of my workwith the Lincoln Project.
When you and I first met, each other,I was raising alarm
bells about the sliding Latino vote andthe potential of it moving towards Trump.
in a very big way.
the, Biden campaign at that time in 2020was dismissive of that,
saying it's not happening.
(04:00):
It's not going to happen.
It did, in fact, happenat a historical level.
as I predicted.
And what I realized wasI needed to put something out there
in a higher profile way to, not only raise the alarm bells,
but also provide, a roadmap on how to fix it
and what to do to get it done,hopefully in time to, change course.
(04:22):
And, unfortunately, well, fortunately,I got the book out in time.
Unfortunately, I don't
I don't see a lot of the adjustmentsbeing made that that need to be made,
in order to keep Trumpfrom getting a higher level of Latino
support, and probably as it's looking likewhen, when the white House.
And you really see that as a threat
(04:43):
to not just the Democratic Party,but democracy itself.
That's your primary concern, right?
You've worked for both Democratsand Republicans in your career.
And I know from the many conversationswe've had that your primary concern here
is the future of democracy,
which is why you're raising this alarmso urgently. Now.
Yeah.
(05:03):
And it's also, we use the term kind ofdemocracy sort of broadly, as we should.
it's certainly American style democracythat is, I think, being challenged.
But it's it's really a broader notion,a broader sense of,
who America, Americans think we areand believe ourselves to be.
And the kind of country
(05:23):
and processes and institutionsthat we support and no longer support,
and that the book is, is a bigger thematicabout that.
It's very much about the Latino vote.
But inside the seeds of the Latinovote, really, I think we begin to answer
and address some of these broader,bigger questions about what
America is, who she she's becoming,and how we got here.
(05:45):
And if we're going to make itat least in the way that we've known.
This is one of the thingsthat really strikes me, based on what
I've read so far in the book,and I will be reading the whole book.
I've ordered my signed copy, by the way,which I intend
to pick up at your booktalk at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
One of the, bookstores near me.
(06:08):
and this is one of the major themesthat really struck me.
This is a big book.
people hearing that it's calledthe Latino Century would, you know,
understandably assume you're focusingon the Latino, electorate, which is true.
But in the bigger picture,you see the Latino voting population
as really representingthe future of the country,
(06:30):
not through some,you know, feared takeover of the country
by Latinos as, as, the Trumpist right likes to present
a bit more as a cohortthat could almost save us from ourselves.
Is that about right?
Yeah. I don't think it's almost save.
I think it is save.
I think that the salvationand the refreshment,
(06:50):
the renewal of America will comewith this demographic change.
And in fact,I think at this moment in time,
it is the only thing that will savethe American experiment.
You know, when I wrapped up my workwith the Lincoln Project,
as you know, I went to go, the adviceof some, needing help in Ukraine
to go help the Zelensky administrationand their fight, for for freedom.
(07:14):
I then went
to Brazil to fight against Bolsonaroand help there.
And I was involved with numerous effortshere and all sorts of different reforms
legal, political, to kind of safeguarddemocracies, we've called it.
And one of the things I realized,Spencer, was
there is no constitution that we can writethat can protect itself
from a people that don't want itand don't want to live by it.
(07:37):
It's just not possible.
So that tells us that,these reforms may or may not work.
marginally.
All of them campaignfinance reform, electoral college
reform,all of these reforms that you hear so much
about the course of the past two years,or at least in recent times,
the answer really is cultural
is do we have a cultural problemin this country where we are, have gotten
(08:00):
so far removed from what the foundersenvisioned as a as a pluralistic society.
And again, we were never truly that.
But our mythology set us on the trajectory of,
of of continually generationseeking progress.
Latinos today are the only group
that has a markedly positive,optimistic tone,
(08:22):
and support levels of trustand confidence in our social institutions
broadly, whether it's the churchor whether it's the government
or the university systems,higher education or the media
or the military broadly, it is Latinoswho support social institutions,
where those that are 65 and over,
(08:42):
you know, one of the largest votinggroups, overwhelmingly white, by the way,
a generation of Americanswho have been blessed
with the largesse of Americalike no other generation,
extraordinary privilege.
relative peace,you know, under the global hegemony,
the United States, duringmost of their life
(09:04):
have the most negative viewof the United States of any
generation ever pulled with modernpolling techniques.
And that that's tells ussomething we need to listen to
about what this is really all aboutand what it's not about.
And so I believe very firmlythat every day that we wake up,
we are a closer to we are closerto protecting and preserving,
(09:25):
the, the, American
experiment, literally our democracy, as,
as the natural order of demographic changetakes, takes root.
So that you're saying that because
Latinos tend to trust institutions more.
Although they're skeptical about thepolitical parties, as you also point out.
But in general, they tend to trustthe institutions of American
(09:48):
democracy more, and they tend to believedeeply in the values of democracy.
That's why the
growth of the Latino populationand the relative youth of the Latino,
segment of the population bodeswell for the future
of American democracy, assumingyou know that that's what you want to see.
And at the same time, though, you saythe people who have benefited most so far,
(10:10):
from American democracy are the oneswho have soured on it the most.
I know you are a student of history.
and going back,
you know, not just through the history,the United States, but history generally.
And I wonder how you see thisin civilizational terms,
because it seems to me
this is a common patternwith civilizations that, as they reach
a peak of security and prosperity,is when the decline starts.
(10:32):
And it's often led by the people who know.
This is not to say all whitepeople in America have been doing great.
That's obviously not true.
But in general,the people who have benefited
the most are the ones who tendto lose interest in what's going on.
And they they render the,that country or that civilization,
that empire or whatever vulnerablein various ways is do you see it
(10:54):
in those terms as well, acrossthe sort of larger scale of history?
Yeah.
look, I'm not I'm not ready
or willing to say that, you know,America peaked and it's on the downslide.
I'm not sure I believe that.
What I do believe is that,
a lot of what ails America at
this moment and there's a considerableamount of things,
(11:16):
is almost all a function of our culture
that is coming off of the,
luxury of largesse
and peace time and global hegemony.
One of the ironic things,I suppose it's kind of,
I think commonsensical,but maybe ironic to some, is that
(11:38):
we are losing the exact, fight
and cultural characteristic of our love
for democracy and freedomand our systems and our processes,
because we have not had to fight for themfor a good 30, 40 years.
The decline of the Cold War, the victory,if you will, of the American idea,
(12:01):
I think set us on a course
of, cultural laziness.
And we we began to turn on ourselvesand a lot of social scientists, you know,
have always said this,that the idea of freedom is not enough
as a cultural characteristicto unite the people you have.
The culture is something that's veryimportant to human beings as a species.
(12:23):
It's what keeps us alive.
It keeps us, well, in context
of our ancestorsand the people that will come after us.
And culture is forged over hundreds,if not thousands of years.
America is is 248250 year old experiment.
and and so we're so very young.
And the idea that you caneverybody can come and become Americans
(12:47):
if you just leave the culture,old baggage, your ethnicity at the shore.
And when you get here,quit hyphenated your, your self
and just become quote unquote Americanand let's nation build internally.
That's proving to be kind of a disaster
because there's not there's nothingcoherent that is keeping us together
(13:07):
except for this broad notion of freedom,which means different things
to different people.
And we don't really have much of a commonpurpose or,
or and most importantly,a commitment to one another.
And that's what I thinkis the most dangerous cultural aspect
that has sort of beenthe result of the past 30 years
(13:28):
where this, this freedom,this bastardized notion of freedom
has really meant,I don't care for me and mine.
I'm going to get what's mine.
And I don't care if your kids get sick.
I'm not going to take a vaccine.
I'm going to,you know, send my kids to private schools
rather than invest inor fight for public schools.
(13:49):
I'm going to, you know, our our wealthy
are more likely to go build a bunkerin New Zealand for the end times
and to invest and donate,you know, libraries like Andrew
Carnegie or or,you know, Central Station like Vanderbilt,
the noblesse oblige of our wealthyor gone, the middle class is struggling
to figure out what it means to be Americanin this time of extraordinary change.
(14:13):
And so, there's a lot goingwell for this country, by the way.
A lot.
But in terms of our processesand our culture and our belief
and commitment to one another,that's really what's collapsing.
I often think that this is somethingthat the.
Right, notably the the MAGA right now
understands the the hunger of human beingsfor cultural solidarity,
(14:39):
but they're exploiting itin the most malign possible ways
by by exploiting fear of,
Latinos, black people, gays, transgender,everybody,
you know, every other groupthey can find and,
exploiting fear and using itto generate hatred and resentment.
But the left, for its part,I feel, has made the mistake that dates
(15:01):
to the enlightenmentof assuming you can have a society
based only on a social contract,as if it's just a rational agreement.
And the point of a countryis simply to be a service
delivery mechanism that hopefullyruns efficiently and honestly.
And you're saying thatthat's not going to work,
and I tend to suspectyou're right, but how do you
(15:22):
how do
you have a free societythat also has a shared culture?
Well, I mean, that's thethat's the real challenge
that we've never facedas a country before.
And that's why, in large part,
why I wrote the bookand why it is about pluralism.
It's been easy to say thateverybody can come and become an American.
Like that's our mythology.
Well, that's just not true.
(15:42):
It's just not true. It's never been true.
And we all we we know the founders,you know, we're slavers
that were writing these very prescriptivethings about the universality of of human
rights and human beliefs and what we areall endowed with by our creator.
We clearly were not right,like the imperfection
of the founding is, in and of itself,a very human story.
(16:06):
There's a hypocrisy therethat that at best sets us
on this trajectoryto continually, generationally improve.
What we are finding, though,is that the cohesive
ness of whiteness is reallywhat made that glue hold.
Once we started to become a nonwhitenation, and again in eight short years,
(16:28):
we will be a nonwhite majority countryby ethnicity.
That's really going to test our resolve.
And for the moment,we're not doing well with it.
And we we saw this early in Californiaas we were becoming a nonwhite state,
as the rise of propositionone and 87, anti-immigrant rhetoric,
you know, all these these cultural issues,they're not economic issues.
(16:49):
This was not tax policy.
These are all issuesthat are focused on culture and the the,
you know, the the hidden card thatsubstitutes for culture, which is race.
And these changesare not comfortable for human beings.
now, once you go through it,there are some times in history
you can look back to certain centuriesin Spain that, you know, did okay with it
(17:12):
and, and certain, you know, you know,with Islamic and Christian faiths and,
you know, the Spanish culture is very,you Oddly and oddly enough.
Yes. When.
When Spain was had been taken over, by Muslims.
from the Arab world.
there was a Islamic golden age,you know, a golden age, as you know,
(17:33):
of tolerance and multiculturalismand scholarship and science
and, you know, many people who,associate Islam these days with Islamic
fundamentalism would be shocked to learnthat they were setting a standard,
way back then.
That's exactly right.
So there is a historical precedentfor for pluralism not only working,
(17:53):
but but, blooming.
And that potential existshere at this moment.
And but like I said, I think there's goingto have to be a generational change
because along with generational change,a cultural change comes.
We're not gonna be able to convinceMAGA folks that this is a good thing.
And we failed that test.
It's, you know, it'sbecoming more radicalized and more extreme
(18:17):
as it becomes a smallerpart of our demography.
And and so there's going to have to bea natural transition out,
I mean, just candidly.
And that that I seeis ultimately the saving grace
if and this is the big qualifierI put in the book,
if we can last that long.
Right. Like we've got a really importantelection coming up.
Some very important courtdecisions were just made.
Some very significantchanges are happening where
(18:39):
that may stiflethis regardless of the demographic change.
So so yeah, that's the hope that I see is
and like I saying it's not a policy,you know, framework.
It's not a philosophical, constructthis is happening.
This cultural infusionis literally more true, in my estimation,
(19:00):
to what the founders vision was
than what we have beenfor the last 250 years.
And that transformation
frightens a lot of people,that there's a older, whiter
generation that is, but doesn'tbelieve this is really America.
Which which begs a big questionwhat is America?
(19:21):
Is it more blood and soil,which is the way we're behaving right now?
Or is it just these founding documentswith these kind of, you know,
prophetic,beautiful visions of what we could be,
which has always been our mythology,and we've always said that,
but the rhetoric is notmatching the action at this
Blood in soil.
Referring, of course, to the ideologythat fueled the rise of German
(19:45):
ethnic nationalism.
And then the Nazi Party, and which we seereplicated now in the MAGA movement.
It's essentially the same ideawhen you talk about real America,
so-called real America, and makingthat America great again, supposedly,
you know.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the French Revolution.
(20:05):
Well, we could go. We could go.
I could lead us downall kinds of historical rabbit holes.
So let me just stop myself right there.
but, you know, I the way I see it,
you know, a lot of, a lot of what happenedat the founding was,
of course, what the founders meant by menwhen they said all men are created equal.
And and the assumptionthen was that, well, of course,
(20:29):
we're talking about males.
And of course we're talking about Europeanmales.
I mean, that would have just seemedlike conventional wisdom to many people
back then.
But there were the seeds of the pluralismyou're describing, right?
Because the moment you sayall men are created equal,
and that means that it doesn't matterif they're rich or poor, it doesn't matter
(20:50):
what their religion is, doesn't matterwhat their original nationality was.
That's the seeds of okay,that means women as well.
And that means people
of all races, of all origins,you know, of all creeds and faiths, etc..
So that really is America.
It's just that it existedas the seed at the beginning.
And one thingI'd like to hear your reaction to this,
that I think that because
(21:11):
people on the left tend to be descendedfrom the enlightenment tradition of
rationalism, and I think they overestimatethe power of reason.
It's definitely critically important,but it doesn't explain everything
is they miss that.
That's actually a very inspiring vision.
I mean, that to me works as a culture to
to think about American culturebeing the culture
(21:32):
of blues and jazz, for example,
and Hollywood and rock and roll and,
all of the influences that camefrom Africa and from the Jewish diaspora
people like George Gershwin,who were incorporating African melodies
as well as Jewish, folk melodies in their music.
And then, of course,the influence of the Latinos
(21:55):
coming from Cuba and SouthAmerica and Central America.
all of this.
There is no American culturewithout all of these groups.
Right.
And what comes out of it is a culture
that is so excitingthat it has influenced the entire world.
And I think that from my point of view,
we could do a lot better starting there.
(22:16):
And just recognizing thatthat in itself is inspiring the very,
the verydifferences we see, they don't have to be
fragmentary differencesbecause they are united
by this core set of valuesthat while we are all different,
we are also all equaland all equally free.
How do you see that?
(22:39):
I mean,I think it's an interesting argument.
I don't think.
I think that the timesthat we are experiencing at
the moment would suggest that whatever
cultural remnants that we have,and you clearly point
to, some of them are not sufficientto unite us at all.
At all.
(23:01):
in fact, they're
they're devolving into points of,
fragmentation and disunity
and that,I think, is, is what the problem is.
I don't know that I don't knowthat there's a shared set of values.
I mean, maybethere have been flashes of it,
(23:21):
but I think if that were the case,we would not be at this moment in time,
I think we can have, you know, fusionsof our food and fusions of our music.
I don't see much in termsof the fusions of our faith
or in the confidencein social institutions or belief in them.
I don't believe, for example,that African Americans
(23:42):
have ever really experienced muchin terms of equality in in the way our,
our social institutions have,interacted with them compared to whites.
I don't I mean, there may bea couple of one offs here or there,
but I don't believe that it has createda cohesive culture that allowed us
to be a pluralistic society.
(24:04):
now there's a lot of reason for that.
To the black shows,the population hasn't really increased
since reallysince the Civil War, much about 1920.
It settled in at around 1,112%,spent about 11, 12% over 100 years,
that the rising Latino populationis challenging many of these notions
of what race means and what identity meansand what minority means,
(24:28):
especially as Latinosstart to behave differently
politicallythan what we have come to know.
from from, you know, black voters
since they won suffrage, or at least since
Jim Crow allowed for themto actually attain suffrage in the 50s.
Right.
So, yeah,I mean, we can point to some instances
(24:51):
and say, this food is so much betterbecause it blends all of this or that.
Jazz is this uniquely American music genrebecause of who we are.
That's absolutely true.
Is that a blending of values?
I don't I don't know about that.I don't know about that.
I think we'd like to say that,but I'm not seeing that much in practice.
But I do believe thatthat may be the promise of what
(25:13):
a culturally, racially blended peoplelike Latinos
can bring in a very unique way, in very,very, very demonstrable way.
For example, we have the highestintermarriage rates amongst all groups.
So we have very high endracial marriage rates with whites.
We have very high or higher interracialmarriage rates with with African-Americans
(25:35):
and pretty high interracial marriage rateswith Asians.
Asians and whites actually have higherinterracial marriage rates
than Latinos and Asians.
But you know, this this blending culture
is something that is going to becomeso obvious skated within a generation.
I think that the complexityof trying to disaggregate our uniqueness
racially is actually going to be the gluethat bonds us together is that different?
(26:00):
from the the kinds of fusions
that I was describing thatyou think never really came to fruition.
I think our institutionshave never been equal,
and I don't think we valued it because ifwe valued it, then we would have done it.
So they are our our institutions.
Our social institutions are literallywhat are required for democracy to work.
(26:22):
Social institutionsare those things that we commonly agree
upon as processes, not the outcomes.
So we believe in, government,we believe in higher education,
we believe in the military,we believe in the church.
We believe in the media.
Latinos buy a disproportionate measure,again, have very high levels
of confidence and optimism comparedto every other group and demographic.
(26:45):
But we can't can we can't honestly lookat ourselves and say, African Americans
have been treated the same wayby government or higher education
or by the media,even by the church community.
I mean the largest Protestant denominationin this country is the Southern
Baptist Conference,which was established to justify slavery.
I mean, even our faith communitycan't do it.
(27:07):
Right?
So so I don't know that there's a shared
common valuesthat we've always talked about it.
And it's easywhen whites are 85, 90% of the population,
once it hits 35, you know, 45%.
And the question becomes that, you know,it moves from the abstract
to the existential,that's a different consideration.
(27:28):
Like people start to deal with itdifferently.
It's like affordablehousing in Santa Cruz.
God bless you. Right?
I don't mean this in a pejorative sense,but we don't want to build in Santa Cruz.
That brings
other people.
Well, that's. No.
I think that that's a great point.
And and we've raised that beforein the sort of central coast of Santa Cruz
(27:49):
County, in Monterey County,where I live, incredibly prosperous,
incredibly beautiful place to liveand very, very progressive politically,
and yet try to get affordablehousing built, try to rectify,
you know, the fact that their communities
know farmworker communities that haven'thad safe drinking water for decades,
(28:11):
that should be easywith such a progressive community.
And yet, when it turns outto be inconvenient to people's
own interests,it turns out to be very difficult.
We certainly share values.
Only in so much as they benefit usis what we're realizing when they don't.
When they don't,
then suddenly that value proposition,you know, it doesn't it doesn't work.
(28:35):
And that's I'm sayingit's easy when it's 85% white, Yeah.
I. Yeah.
Your values become real when they when itcosts you something to have those values.
Right.
And like we see if I may say, you know, I,I respect you for being somebody
who when the your values could cost yousomething, you stood up for them
(28:58):
when Trump came along,you know, and potentially
alienated a lot of potential,
clients, you know, and, and, and.
money. Friends. Family.
I mean, yeah, it came at a great cost.
And I'm not saying thatbecause I did anything extraordinary.
I think that's I would hope,
one of the the toughest part.
(29:19):
Sorry about this, but this,
you know, deeply personal,one of the toughest parts about
doing what I did with the Lincoln Projectand working
against everything that I had believedin, when it was clearly not losing
its integrity, was was not thatI felt like I was doing the right thing.
It's just thatnobody else was doing the right thing.
(29:39):
It was not hard to to know where I stood.
It was hard to watch so many otherscapitulate
for so many, what I believed to becosmetic, superficial reasons.
Money.
Money is important,but it's not worth your integrity.
You know, power is important,but but not at the cost of your country.
(30:00):
And and there's just so many peoplefailed that test and continue to
and again,I think that's a cultural proclivity
in a time of extraordinary change,technological, economic
and undeniably demographic.
So I want to make sure
I understand why you're optimistic.
(30:22):
givengiven the things you've just been saying,
that that, with the growth,because Latinos, as a segment, have
rapid population growth and skew youngerthan the population overall.
and because of the valuesyou've been describing,
and they have this high intermarriagerate, which indicates that you think that,
(30:43):
you know, these so-calledracial distinctions become,
a lot blurrier, over time.
How does that lead to, a point whereif things work out well
and we don't end upbecoming an authoritarian country?
the world's most powerful versionof Hungary or something.
(31:03):
how does that end up working out?
Well,can you explain that a little more clear?
It seems to me.
How does a culture emerge from that?
If it is a culture that solvesthis lack of cultural cohesion
that seems to be fragmenting us right now.
Yeah.
Well, one of the, there's a there's
a lot of different ways to approach that,but it's a beautiful question.
I'm going to answer it bygoing to the last point, and that is this.
(31:27):
I'm actually, one of the oneof the peculiar reasons for my optimism.
I say peculiar because people are like,that's a strange reason to be optimistic,
but I'm optimistic because of the,
conflict and tension at the moment.
The struggle.
Struggle defines character,
but it also forges culture.
(31:47):
It is the common trauma of a people
that fight for aspirationally,
for something that creates a future.
I saw this in Ukraine very clearly,and it was in sharp
contrast to what I was seeingin my own country in the 2020 election.
People are fighting for this mythologicalAmerica, make America great again, right?
(32:09):
And protestingand tyranny is like wearing a mask
instead of like what we did in the 1950s,which is line up of kids
get vaccinated to take care of
everybody's kids in our community becausewe're all in this together like that.
That togetherness in Americahas largely been bred out of us
generationally,probably because of our affluence.
But my point is,struggle is required. And,
(32:32):
for a people to maintain unity
and to develop commoncause and common culture.
And that's part of what I was sayingearlier.
This is part of the downsideof winning the Cold War,
and having 2 or 3 generationswithout any struggle or conflict
has left that fight for freedom muscle
(32:54):
that has defined Americanness flaccid
to the point wherewe don't really know what it is anymore.
And so we start to saywe turn on each other,
but moreover, we bastardize freedomto be freedom away from each other.
Like, I don't have a commitmentto anybody else anymore.
(33:14):
That's not a nation.
It's maybe a country,but it's not a nation.
It's not a common people.
And and right now,this generation struggle is a fight
against authoritarianism.
It's a fight against the
this hegemonic
power which has defined human societies.
(33:36):
Almost 95% of societies, 99% of societiesthroughout the course of human
history have been monarchiesor tribal chieftains or strongmen.
Democracy's still such a new thing,
and we are still learning,and we will teach the next generation.
But I think what has become clear for thisgeneration
(33:57):
is the recognitionthat there must be a struggle for it.
There has to be a fight for itbecause you cannot hand off the value
and the passion and the belief in thecommitment to it until you fight for it.
It's like an individualis our own individual struggles
make us better people,hopefully a better character people.
(34:19):
But you can't get wisdom without struggle.
That's the main reason.
right and so and in and so.
I think what you're sayingis, it's not like there's
something magical about Latinosand Latino culture in itself.
Although I know you're a fan.
and of course,there are multiple Latino cultures.
And this is, in my view,another problem is when people assume
(34:42):
that they have a theoretical versionof of groups, right.
Like there are Latinos as one group,or there are black people as one group
or whites as one group.
Yeah, saying that a lot more is,you know, whites are not monolithic.
They're not.
but I think if I understand you right,you're not so much saying
that there's something magicalin Latino culture that's going to save us.
(35:03):
It's the the conditions
that Latinos find themselves inand the trends that are coming together.
and the characteristics that are there,as you say, the faith in institutions
and the openness to intermarriage,that that will help get us out of this
cultural malaise and our fragmentation.
kind of as a stroke of luck,if it works out well, it'll it'll end up
(35:23):
helping the rest of the country realizewhat democracy can really be about.
Is that about right?
I do believe that there are culturalcharacteristics that help, but largely,
yes. I agree with what you just said,
and it is fascinating,if you look at human history,
how much of this stuff is just luckor looks like luck
when it's really just demographic changeand we adjust to those as a species.
So I do believe that the blendednature of Latinos, I'm not saying
(35:47):
it has like some magical superpower,but what I will say is if it is,
it's that it is a blended people.
It is naturally, by definition,
Latino is European and Indigenous.
That's what a Latino as a Hispanic is.
And that that is literally a bridge,at this moment in time when we need it,
(36:09):
in this time of extraordinarydemographic transformation.
And so in many ways,I think Latinos can teach us
about culturallyabout a genuine pluralism.
And that doesn't mean that every Latinois, you know, pro pluralism.
We've got a lot of bad actorsin our community, too.
So, you know, the this issue in LosAngeles, the city council,
with some of these horrificracial comments or things
(36:31):
that I'd never heard in 30 yearsof being in backroom strategic meetings
with old white Republican Yes,
(37:45):
I yeah, I, I mean,
exactly, I, I really agree.
I mean, think about that.
Think about, you know, the populationof all the Asian countries, for example,
who, you know, and, and then, you know,
the Asia Pacific and South Asia,you know, India
(38:05):
and Pakistan and Bangladeshand then Africa and South America.
I mean, is it really is it really doesseem like, well, there's white people
and there's everybody else.
(38:40):
If you associate this developmentwith decline,
of course, you know, which of course,many, many such people do.
But you could see it as exciting as I do.
And as no loss as no loss to you.
No as.
No, no, no, I know, but
no white, you know,white people who see this as decline,
(39:01):
you know, and you can it's so easy to just rethink
that and realize that, well,wait a minute, I don't lose anything,
you know, through this.
And in fact,I stand to gain an enormous amount.
And so in the book,
I make a distinction between what I callpluralism and tribalism.
Do you know what the difference isbetween those Sure.
(39:21):
Well, you explain.
Hmhm right.
Yeah.
(42:24):
And and as you point out,
and not just in California, of course,but in the upcoming
election, Latinos stand to make
a determinative difference acrossbattleground states.
Can you elucidate that a little?
yeah, for 30 years I've always been askedthe question is, will Latinos be,
(42:45):
you know, the deciding factorin this presidential race?
My answer is always been no,because we've largely been concentrated
in California and Texas,which are not swing states.
You know, Arizona's always a red state.
You know, New Mexico was a little bit,you know, Florida was the one swing state.
And it was such an outlier with Latinos,
you know, overwhelmingly Cuban backback at the time.
(43:06):
It no longer is it's more PuertoRican than Cuban.
But but, you know, at a time
when it was a really swingy state,it was because Cubans were so Republican.
Point being,
this year, in every one of the sevenmain swing states
Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin,Pennsylvania, North Carolina,
and every one of those Latinos are larger
(43:30):
than the margin of victoryand in some, considerably.
Arizona, obviously, Nevada, obviouslyWisconsin, there were more Latino voters
and black voters and growing and growingrapidly in North Carolina and Georgia.
So so the answer this year is yes,it will undeniably be a big part of it
unless one side collapses.
one way or the other,there's a landslide.
(43:50):
If it's going to be a close race,
as we expect it will be,Latinos will be the determining factor.
The one big question, Spencer,which is really befuddled most people, is
why California has been an outlierwith this rightward shift.
We started seeing this rightwardshift everywhere but in California,
and the question became, why?
And there are two reasons.
(44:11):
The first is California'sLatino population
is still significantly more foreign bornand foreign born
economic emigres overwhelmingly votewith the Democratic Party.
A few exceptions, but usually it'sa 70% plus Democratic vote.
The other is
we have created such limitedeconomic mobility for immigrants
(44:37):
that they're not attaining middleclass status, largely
because of housing costsand housing prices.
So the Democratic Party in Californiaspecifically, is a party of very wealthy,
home owning, largely collegeeducated white
people and renting,
non-college educated Latinos.
(44:58):
And that coalition has always beena little bit of an unholy alliance,
because there's not much culturallyconnecting them.
There's now not now, there'snot just not a connection economically.
They're actually at odds.
And so you're starting to see a movement
towards, away from the Democratic Partyis a better way to say it.
Then towards the Democrat,towards the Republican Party.
(45:20):
And given that,
it looks like weare facing a choice between
a Democratic win this fall and
a crisis in our democracy.
It's critically importantfor the Democratic Party, in particular,
to understand a voting bloc that couldmake the difference in the election.
(45:43):
What do you feel the Democratic candidates
and the party overallare failing to get about Latinos?
Well, the Democratic Partystill believes in its heart of hearts.
despite all the evidence that they'rea working class party, they're not.
They think they are.
They really do believe that.
but the working.
(46:03):
It's not like Madrid sayingthat's the working
classhas been saying that for ten years now.
They're moving awayand now it's moving away quite rapidly.
And the irony is the working classthat was not whites in America, it's
rapidly becoming nonwhite. So
it's kind of a double whammy for Democratswho are like, well, wait a second.
We've always talked to youthrough this sensitive racial lens
on issues that we thoughtwere most important to you immigration.
(46:27):
You know, you're Latino,so you you care about immigration, right?
And Latinos have been saying,no, we care about the economy,
affordability and jobs.
And those are not reallythey're certainly not
the priorities of Democrats in California.
And that's apparent now.
Like, you know, we've been pushing outblue collar industries for a long time,
(46:48):
gleefully, just methodically
and Latinothe Latino workforce is struggling.
We're not building housing, at all.
And so we're creating this caste systemin this state.
And so there's this pushback.
So what what's going to have to happenis this lack of economic mobility
(47:11):
and the fact that California's Latinopopulation is more immigrant
than everywhere elsemeans they're going to have to.
You've got to declare a marshall planfor housing, like tomorrow.
1 in 5 Hispanic men,
are employed in the residentialconstruction space or related fields.
That is an extraordinary number.
20% of our households are Latinos building
(47:32):
the infrastructureand the homes in this country.
And every year that gets bigger.
So and until those workforces
in The New York Times will focuson, you know, economic anxiety with white,
blue collar workers and diners in WestVirginia, that's not where the problem is.
The problems now in Phenix,Maricopa County, and and Las Vegas,
(47:53):
Clark County, Nevada,Gwinnett to Cobb County in Georgia,
Erie, Pennsylvania, like those are
where Latinos are huge in numbersand they're the ones
that they should be sitting down
attack areas instead of diners and saying,you know what's on your mind.
But our institutionsaren't aren't prepared for it either.
This strikes meas such an important point.
I really want to highlightwhat you just said.
(48:14):
So, you know, the residential constructionindustry.
employing this really large percentage
of, male Latinos
and knowingsomething like that is is the kind.
That's the kind of knowledge you getwhen you actually know the people
you're addressing. Right?
As opposed to seeing themas a theoretical construct, as you
(48:36):
say, the, you know, having assumptionslike, well, you're Latino.
Therefore your top issuemust be immigration.
And especially after people have been herefor a few generations,
you know, they may very well be fairlytough on immigration,
and have some surprising opinionson immigration.
Another assumptionyou highlight is the assumption that
(49:00):
Latinovoters want to be spoken to in Spanish.
Yeah.
This is one of the biggest mythologies
is, you know, and this is where I thinkDemocrats have made a huge tactical error.
Is even even the Biden campaign,the Latinos con Biden.
You know, it's still a Spanish themed,you know, 17 pollsters use about seven.
A good, credible pollsterwill use 17% of its interviews in Spanish.
(49:23):
17 now, this is a voters, by the way,there's a difference between voters
and members of the population.
If it was the populace,it would probably be double that.
But it's not.
Voters are overwhelminglyEnglish speaking.
And so this stereotype,when you play down to the stereotype
of kicking off your campaignat the Mexican restaurant and folklorico
(49:45):
dancing and mariachi music and Spanishlanguage, it's very patronizing.
And I'm not saying that you can'tincorporate some of those themes,
but as you know, Justice PotterStewart said about pornography, you know,
I can't explain it,but I know it when I see it.
Like those cultural,those cultural, gestures
can very easilytip into what we call sombrero politics,
(50:08):
which is this kind of stereotype of like,you're yeah, you may be third generation,
but you like enchiladasand you like mariachi music, right?
And you're worried about kids in cages,and how could you
not be worried about deportation?
And it's like that was that was my, my,my family's history 80 years ago.
You know, like we're not talking aboutpotato famine issues to the Irish anymore.
(50:29):
So why are we doing that?
And, and that's both parties.
Both parties do that.
And again, it'sbecause there's a very desperate need
to caricature izenonwhite people in a certain stereotype.
What is the silver bulletwe can do to to stop the problem
or to speak to voters where they're at?
(50:49):
And the reality isthey're watching Fox News
hanging out at the softball leagueand swinging hammers during the day.
And the construction site,they're blue collar workers.
There is a more sensitivitytowards racial issues,
but they also don't see border,you know, the border as a racial issue.
It's a security issue.
And that shouldn't surprise usbecause it is until it's not
(51:14):
Yeah.
And we see, this,
with Republicans and Democrats,as you say.
I mean, recently,Trump talking about black jobs,
you know, that these immigrants are comingand taking black jobs.
I mean, just betraying his picture
of black people or,you know, assuming that
black people will identify with thembecause he has a mugshot now.
(51:35):
So, again, you know, who are black people?
There are people who have the lowestlevel jobs in society,
and they tend to be criminals.
And and yet on the left, you know,
it just drives me nutswhen I hear people on the left
assuming that black people, first of all,that they all think the same way, that,
(51:56):
you know,
there is a black perspective on things,and then that they will assume that black
people's concerns about police abuses
translate into a sympathy for criminals,
which you also see.
There's a
right the idea that, yeah,let's let's not reform the police.
Let's abolish the police and therebyput the lives of low income, black,
(52:21):
Latino and every other low income personin a dangerous neighborhood at risk
by just doing away, doing thisincredibly reckless experiment.
And let's see what happensif we don't have any police,
which, you know, would make virtuallyno difference
in my life, in my safe neighborhood,but could be a matter of life
and death in other neighborhoods.
(52:53):
A certaina certain a certain kind of left.
I would, you know,and this is something I'd love to talk.
It's a neoliberal left.
Like there's there's a neo liberal,
there's a neo liberal rightand an illiberal left, which, you know.
I'm bringing this up for a very importantreason.
Populism is ascendant on both sides
of the aisle, and it's bigger than we giveit credit for.
(53:16):
It's why we're witnessing the destructionof our institutions.
I just wrote a piece on Latino populismthat was going to run
in the New York Times today, butbecause of the Biden stuff, it got bumped.
Latinos are the only groupthat really surpassed
levels of supportfor both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
despite the polling.
(53:37):
And we have very weak Partizan ties.
But there is an increasing what I callpolitical populism,
which is a rejectionof the two party system.
Not that we're looking for a multipartysystem, but just the Democratic Party
and the Republican Partyare just truly not credible,
believable entities to us anymore.
(53:58):
And there's also this economic populismwhere there's protectionism.
And, you know, if you're increasingly on
and working in the energy patchor the construction site
or in manufacturing, those workforcesare Republican workforces.
And as Latinos occupythose wrong rungs on the ladder,
(54:18):
they see the Democratic Partyas an existential threat to their income,
their livelihoods or abilityto support their families.
So there's both an economicand politically populist
growththat is happening as as the two parties
try to destroyeach each other's institutions.
And is it is it all Republicans?
(54:39):
Are all Democrats? No, of course it's not.
But there are wide swaths, wide swathswhere
Republicansbelieve the media is the enemy.
The government is the enemy.
Higher education is the enemy.
And on the left,they believe churches are an enemy.
They believe the military is an enemy.
They believe that corporationsare the enemy.
(54:59):
And you can hear that language,on both sides, coming
from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sandersor Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.
And it's very, very dangerous,toxic rhetoric
that is destroying our democracy,because you may not agree
with the direction of an institution,
but once you believeit needs to be torn down,
(55:20):
now we're talking about the inabilityto actually live together.
Yeah, I ultimately, I think it's
it comes down to a choicefrom my point of view of.
Are we going to defendliberalism broadly defined, the liberalism
as in liberal democracy,or are we going to just go along
with illiberal versions of the rightand the left,
that see liberalism as somethingthat doesn't need to be torn down?
(55:43):
And unfortunately, liberalsare notoriously bad at figuring out
what they stand for, and being ableto take a clear stand for it
is, as Robert Frost once said,a, a liberalism man is too well mannered
to take his own side in a quarrel,I think is is is the way he put it.
You mentioned, Joe Biden,and that gets me to something.
I wanted to make sure I ask you about,before I, I run out of time with you.
(56:08):
as we record this conversation, JoeBiden's in a great deal of trouble
following his performanceat the debate with Donald Trump.
And I'd love to get your perspective onwhat happened and where we are now.
Boy, I'm really fascinated by this.
And I'm kind of watching it
like so many Americans are,because it's a real crisis point.
And I think it's a crisisfor a number of reasons.
(56:30):
But the main one
that I'm most concerned about isthere has been, at least for the moment,
a very wide dichotomybetween the partizan,
instincts of baseDemocratic voters to stick with Joe Biden,
despite the increasing concernsabout his age
and this panic hysteria
(56:51):
that has overtaken the media and a lot of,pundit, the pundit class, and there's
a wide separationthat looks a hell of a lot like
the Republicans in 2016.
In June of 2016, Donald Trump recorded
the highest negativesof any presidential candidate.
Again in modern polling, two thirds ofAmericans said he should not be running.
(57:14):
That means there was a large swathof Republicans two thirds.
Biden, by the way, is nowhere near that.
But two thirds are sayinghe should not run for president.
The Republicansbase, the voters wanted him.
They stuck with himwhile the Republican media and pundit
class were saying,we need to get rid of him.
We need to get rid of him.
There were editorial calls for himto withdraw that he wasn't capable,
(57:38):
or appropriate to fit in the white House,in the Oval Office.
and it's eerilysimilar to what is happening right now.
with one exception is I think that
the media really wants Biden to go.
And I think that's going to if he does, if
I think the only person that could takehis place is Kamala Harris,
(57:59):
and if she does take his place,I think that there will be a significant
internal battle about whatall of that means in the Democratic Party.
I think, incidentally, both Biden
and Harris and frankly, a doorknob
running under the Democratic ticketwould be just as competitive
because we are so negativelypartizan ized in this climate.
(58:22):
When people when Donald Trump says,I could shoot
somebody on Fifth Avenueand not lose any support, that is true.
He could get sentencing.
There's a criminal sentencing now.
But if you were sentenced and put in jail,he could run without losing any support.
The reverse is also true.
(58:42):
And the Democrats have exhibitedthis behavior before.
We saw it under Bill Clinton.
You know,with the national organization of Women
supported himduring the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Like Partizan, Partizan tribal identity
is is as importantas your religious or patriotic faith.
It is central and core to our identities.
(59:03):
And when we're negatively partizan ized,meaning we are defining ourselves
by who we are against morethan by what we are for.
You don't see a wide variation in supportlevels
dropping off, no matter how flawed eithercandidate is.
So the variance between how Kamala
or Joe Biden does is a delta of maybe
(59:26):
one and a half percentage points,maybe in either direction,
which means you're taking on a hellof a lot of risk by removing a guy
who probably has more upside than downsidefrom from a mathematical perspective,
that's my opinion.
Yeah.
It's a tough one.
And I think where I come down onthis is as I often do.
(59:47):
And it can sound naive topeople, is start with the truth.
And the only people who know the truthreally are
Joe Biden and the people closest to himin his family and
and in the campaign leadership,and then move from there to what's right.
And as I say, that sounds naive to people.
but I actually think it often ends upbeing strategically the smart thing to do,
(01:00:08):
because trying
to spin your way out of a bad situationwhere the truth is not on your side,
just generates more and more entropy,and that you struggle
more and more to manage.
And, you know, people can look like
they're getting away with it,like the Trump Republican Party
seems to be getting away with it,but it always collapses.
So all that by way of saying,you know, if Biden is
(01:00:32):
capable of doing the job
and campaigning effectively,then go for it, you know, commit to it.
And if it if it turned out that he'sactually not capable of.
Well, that's a hard truththat has to be faced,
and proceed from thereto trying your best
to make the right choiceand then commit like hell to that choice.
And I would say, eitherway, Biden on his worst day
(01:00:56):
is orders of magnitude better than Trump
on his best day.
and as you say, I mean,
I would vote for a doorknobinstead of, a Donald Trump.
But as it happens,I believe what I just said about Biden.
So whatever the decision is,
everybodywho's in the pro-democracy coalition
who wants America to continueto be a democracy, I don't see that
(01:01:19):
there's any choice but to vote foreither Biden or the Democratic candidate.
I yeah, I agree, I think that's exactlyright.
Well, my, as always, it'ssuch a pleasure to talk to you.
You're you're one of the most insightful,commentators on politics,
that I know of, let alone know personallyby just that I know of in general.
(01:01:40):
So I really appreciate it.
Anytime you make some time to talk,I wish you all the best with the book.
Which seems not to,need any assistance from my good wishes.
It seems to be doing very well on its own.
That doesn't surprise me.
The book is called The Latino Centuryand the author is my guest, Mike Madrid.
And I heartily recommend, everybody who's,
(01:02:02):
interested in the current stateand future of democracy.
Get yourself a copy of this book.
A lot of our conversation, Spencer.
Love, love spending time with youand and hearing your thoughts.
Thank you. thank you, Mike.
You've been
listening to Dastardly Clevernessin the Service of Good.
If you like this conversation with MikeMadrid, I hope you'll recommend it
(01:02:23):
and give it a rating on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen.
You'll find links and a transcriptat dastardlycleverness.com.
Thanks for listening.
I don't think it's almost save.I think it is save.
(00:02):
I think that the salvationand the refreshment,
the renewal of America will comewith this demographic change.
And in fact,I think at this moment in time,
it is the only thing that will savethe American experiment.
Welcome to Dastardly Clevernessin the Service of Good.
I'm Spencer Critchley.
(00:24):
According to my guestthis time, the United States is entering
a Latino century.
And that might bewhat saves our democracy.
Mike Madrid is a top experton Latino voting, and in recent years,
he's become a national leaderin the bipartisan fight to save democracy.
He's been the political directorfor the California Republican Party,
(00:45):
a senior advisor to both Republicansand Democrats,
and a co-founderof the Never Trump Lincoln Project.
Now Mike has a new bookcalled The Latino Century:
How America's LargestMinority Is Transforming Democracy.
One of his goals for itis to help the Democratic Party win.
He's worried, though, that Democratshave been slow to get the message
(01:08):
about Latinos and their crucial rolein the nation's future.
And he thinks this helps explainwhy so many Latinos have been moving
towards the Republican Party,
a development many Democratsfind baffling, according to Mike.
They're baffledbecause they don't understand Latinos
or other minoritiesnearly as well as they think they do.
(01:28):
He says too many Democratic candidates,strategists and pundits
think of minoritiesas theoretical stereotypes
instead of as real peoplewith complex lives.
That's why Democrats tend to assumeimmigration is the top issue
for all Latino voters, for example, orthat most want to be talked to in Spanish.
Both of those assumptionsmay seem reasonable theoretically,
(01:51):
but are often wrong in reality.
Mike argues that now
more than ever, Democratsneed to get reality right.
That's because, first of all,the Latino vote can make the difference
in crucial battleground states.
This year, including onesthat may surprise you like Wisconsin
and North Carolina.
And he believes that over the long haul,Latino voters can help revive
(02:13):
all Americans faith in Democraticinstitutions and democracy itself.
Here now is my conversationwith Mike Madrid about the Latino century.
Mike, thanks so much for joining me.
It's always great toWhy did you write this book
especiallywhy did you write this book? Now?
Well, that's a great question.
(02:33):
and there's kind of two answers to it.
The first is, you know, thisthere's there's always,
I think, been a book inside of mesince I was, on this topic
since I was an undergraduateat Georgetown in the early 1990s,
kind of looking at and watchingthe demographic projections of what
a what America was going to become overthe course of my career, in my lifetime.
And I wanted to be very engagedin that as a political consultant
(02:56):
and answer some big questions that I hadabout American identity, Latino identity,
and bringing these two,concepts together.
and watchingthat unfold has been a real, blessing,
I think, in my career, in my adult life,and hitting this point
where in eight short yearswe will be a nonwhite majority country
(03:16):
for the first time in America's history.
I'll be able to spend the latterpart of my, you know,
life, examining what was right, whatI was right about, what I was wrong about
and why, and hopefully being a bridgeto other people of later generations
to have that perspectiveof what America was before and afterwards.
but but this moment,
the second part of the of the answer isthis moment is of particular importance,
(03:40):
in large part because of my workwith the Lincoln Project.
When you and I first met, each other,I was raising alarm
bells about the sliding Latino vote andthe potential of it moving towards Trump.
in a very big way.
the, Biden campaign at that time in 2020was dismissive of that,
saying it's not happening.
(04:00):
It's not going to happen.
It did, in fact, happenat a historical level.
as I predicted.
And what I realized wasI needed to put something out there
in a higher profile way to, not only raise the alarm bells,
but also provide, a roadmap on how to fix it
and what to do to get it done,hopefully in time to, change course.
(04:22):
And, unfortunately, well, fortunately,I got the book out in time.
Unfortunately, I don't
I don't see a lot of the adjustmentsbeing made that that need to be made,
in order to keep Trumpfrom getting a higher level of Latino
support, and probably as it's looking likewhen, when the white House.
And you really see that as a threat
(04:43):
to not just the Democratic Party,but democracy itself.
That's your primary concern, right?
You've worked for both Democratsand Republicans in your career.
And I know from the many conversationswe've had that your primary concern here
is the future of democracy,
which is why you're raising this alarmso urgently. Now.
Yeah.
(05:03):
And it's also, we use the term kind ofdemocracy sort of broadly, as we should.
it's certainly American style democracythat is, I think, being challenged.
But it's it's really a broader notion,a broader sense of,
who America, Americans think we areand believe ourselves to be.
And the kind of country
(05:23):
and processes and institutionsthat we support and no longer support,
and that the book is, is a bigger thematicabout that.
It's very much about the Latino vote.
But inside the seeds of the Latinovote, really, I think we begin to answer
and address some of these broader,bigger questions about what
America is, who she she's becoming,and how we got here.
(05:45):
And if we're going to make itat least in the way that we've known.
This is one of the thingsthat really strikes me, based on what
I've read so far in the book,and I will be reading the whole book.
I've ordered my signed copy, by the way,which I intend
to pick up at your booktalk at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
One of the, bookstores near me.
(06:08):
and this is one of the major themesthat really struck me.
This is a big book.
people hearing that it's calledthe Latino Century would, you know,
understandably assume you're focusingon the Latino, electorate, which is true.
But in the bigger picture,you see the Latino voting population
as really representingthe future of the country,
(06:30):
not through some,you know, feared takeover of the country
by Latinos as, as, the Trumpist right likes to present
a bit more as a cohortthat could almost save us from ourselves.
Is that about right?
Yeah. I don't think it's almost save.
I think it is save.
I think that the salvationand the refreshment,
(06:50):
the renewal of America will comewith this demographic change.
And in fact,I think at this moment in time,
it is the only thing that will savethe American experiment.
You know, when I wrapped up my workwith the Lincoln Project,
as you know, I went to go, the adviceof some, needing help in Ukraine
to go help the Zelensky administrationand their fight, for for freedom.
(07:14):
I then went
to Brazil to fight against Bolsonaroand help there.
And I was involved with numerous effortshere and all sorts of different reforms
legal, political, to kind of safeguarddemocracies, we've called it.
And one of the things I realized,Spencer, was
there is no constitution that we can writethat can protect itself
from a people that don't want itand don't want to live by it.
(07:37):
It's just not possible.
So that tells us that,these reforms may or may not work.
marginally.
All of them campaignfinance reform, electoral college
reform,all of these reforms that you hear so much
about the course of the past two years,or at least in recent times,
the answer really is cultural
is do we have a cultural problemin this country where we are, have gotten
(08:00):
so far removed from what the foundersenvisioned as a as a pluralistic society.
And again, we were never truly that.
But our mythology set us on the trajectory of,
of of continually generationseeking progress.
Latinos today are the only group
that has a markedly positive,optimistic tone,
(08:22):
and support levels of trustand confidence in our social institutions
broadly, whether it's the churchor whether it's the government
or the university systems,higher education or the media
or the military broadly, it is Latinoswho support social institutions,
where those that are 65 and over,
(08:42):
you know, one of the largest votinggroups, overwhelmingly white, by the way,
a generation of Americanswho have been blessed
with the largesse of Americalike no other generation,
extraordinary privilege.
relative peace,you know, under the global hegemony,
the United States, duringmost of their life
(09:04):
have the most negative viewof the United States of any
generation ever pulled with modernpolling techniques.
And that that's tells ussomething we need to listen to
about what this is really all aboutand what it's not about.
And so I believe very firmlythat every day that we wake up,
we are a closer to we are closerto protecting and preserving,
(09:25):
the, the, American
experiment, literally our democracy, as,
as the natural order of demographic changetakes, takes root.
So that you're saying that because
Latinos tend to trust institutions more.
Although they're skeptical about thepolitical parties, as you also point out.
But in general, they tend to trustthe institutions of American
(09:48):
democracy more, and they tend to believedeeply in the values of democracy.
That's why the
growth of the Latino populationand the relative youth of the Latino,
segment of the population bodeswell for the future
of American democracy, assumingyou know that that's what you want to see.
And at the same time, though, you saythe people who have benefited most so far,
(10:10):
from American democracy are the oneswho have soured on it the most.
I know you are a student of history.
and going back,
you know, not just through the history,the United States, but history generally.
And I wonder how you see thisin civilizational terms,
because it seems to me
this is a common patternwith civilizations that, as they reach
a peak of security and prosperity,is when the decline starts.
(10:32):
And it's often led by the people who know.
This is not to say all whitepeople in America have been doing great.
That's obviously not true.
But in general,the people who have benefited
the most are the ones who tendto lose interest in what's going on.
And they they render the,that country or that civilization,
that empire or whatever vulnerablein various ways is do you see it
(10:54):
in those terms as well, acrossthe sort of larger scale of history?
Yeah.
look, I'm not I'm not ready
or willing to say that, you know,America peaked and it's on the downslide.
I'm not sure I believe that.
What I do believe is that,
a lot of what ails America at
this moment and there's a considerableamount of things,
(11:16):
is almost all a function of our culture
that is coming off of the,
luxury of largesse
and peace time and global hegemony.
One of the ironic things,I suppose it's kind of,
I think commonsensical,but maybe ironic to some, is that
(11:38):
we are losing the exact, fight
and cultural characteristic of our love
for democracy and freedomand our systems and our processes,
because we have not had to fight for themfor a good 30, 40 years.
The decline of the Cold War, the victory,if you will, of the American idea,
(12:01):
I think set us on a course
of, cultural laziness.
And we we began to turn on ourselvesand a lot of social scientists, you know,
have always said this,that the idea of freedom is not enough
as a cultural characteristicto unite the people you have.
The culture is something that's veryimportant to human beings as a species.
(12:23):
It's what keeps us alive.
It keeps us, well, in context
of our ancestorsand the people that will come after us.
And culture is forged over hundreds,if not thousands of years.
America is is 248250 year old experiment.
and and so we're so very young.
And the idea that you caneverybody can come and become Americans
(12:47):
if you just leave the culture,old baggage, your ethnicity at the shore.
And when you get here,quit hyphenated your, your self
and just become quote unquote Americanand let's nation build internally.
That's proving to be kind of a disaster
because there's not there's nothingcoherent that is keeping us together
(13:07):
except for this broad notion of freedom,which means different things
to different people.
And we don't really have much of a commonpurpose or,
or and most importantly,a commitment to one another.
And that's what I thinkis the most dangerous cultural aspect
that has sort of beenthe result of the past 30 years
(13:28):
where this, this freedom,this bastardized notion of freedom
has really meant,I don't care for me and mine.
I'm going to get what's mine.
And I don't care if your kids get sick.
I'm not going to take a vaccine.
I'm going to,you know, send my kids to private schools
rather than invest inor fight for public schools.
(13:49):
I'm going to, you know, our our wealthy
are more likely to go build a bunkerin New Zealand for the end times
and to invest and donate,you know, libraries like Andrew
Carnegie or or,you know, Central Station like Vanderbilt,
the noblesse oblige of our wealthyor gone, the middle class is struggling
to figure out what it means to be Americanin this time of extraordinary change.
(14:13):
And so, there's a lot goingwell for this country, by the way.
A lot.
But in terms of our processesand our culture and our belief
and commitment to one another,that's really what's collapsing.
I often think that this is somethingthat the.
Right, notably the the MAGA right now
understands the the hunger of human beingsfor cultural solidarity,
(14:39):
but they're exploiting itin the most malign possible ways
by by exploiting fear of,
Latinos, black people, gays, transgender,everybody,
you know, every other groupthey can find and,
exploiting fear and using itto generate hatred and resentment.
But the left, for its part,I feel, has made the mistake that dates
(15:01):
to the enlightenmentof assuming you can have a society
based only on a social contract,as if it's just a rational agreement.
And the point of a countryis simply to be a service
delivery mechanism that hopefullyruns efficiently and honestly.
And you're saying thatthat's not going to work,
and I tend to suspectyou're right, but how do you
(15:22):
how do
you have a free societythat also has a shared culture?
Well, I mean, that's thethat's the real challenge
that we've never facedas a country before.
And that's why, in large part,
why I wrote the bookand why it is about pluralism.
It's been easy to say thateverybody can come and become an American.
Like that's our mythology.
Well, that's just not true.
(15:42):
It's just not true. It's never been true.
And we all we we know the founders,you know, we're slavers
that were writing these very prescriptivethings about the universality of of human
rights and human beliefs and what we areall endowed with by our creator.
We clearly were not right,like the imperfection
of the founding is, in and of itself,a very human story.
(16:06):
There's a hypocrisy therethat that at best sets us
on this trajectoryto continually, generationally improve.
What we are finding, though,is that the cohesive
ness of whiteness is reallywhat made that glue hold.
Once we started to become a nonwhitenation, and again in eight short years,
(16:28):
we will be a nonwhite majority countryby ethnicity.
That's really going to test our resolve.
And for the moment,we're not doing well with it.
And we we saw this early in Californiaas we were becoming a nonwhite state,
as the rise of propositionone and 87, anti-immigrant rhetoric,
you know, all these these cultural issues,they're not economic issues.
(16:49):
This was not tax policy.
These are all issuesthat are focused on culture and the the,
you know, the the hidden card thatsubstitutes for culture, which is race.
And these changesare not comfortable for human beings.
now, once you go through it,there are some times in history
you can look back to certain centuriesin Spain that, you know, did okay with it
(17:12):
and, and certain, you know, you know,with Islamic and Christian faiths and,
you know, the Spanish culture is very,you Oddly and oddly enough.
Yes. When.
When Spain was had been taken over, by Muslims.
from the Arab world.
there was a Islamic golden age,you know, a golden age, as you know,
(17:33):
of tolerance and multiculturalismand scholarship and science
and, you know, many people who,associate Islam these days with Islamic
fundamentalism would be shocked to learnthat they were setting a standard,
way back then.
That's exactly right.
So there is a historical precedentfor for pluralism not only working,
(17:53):
but but, blooming.
And that potential existshere at this moment.
And but like I said, I think there's goingto have to be a generational change
because along with generational change,a cultural change comes.
We're not gonna be able to convinceMAGA folks that this is a good thing.
And we failed that test.
It's, you know, it'sbecoming more radicalized and more extreme
(18:17):
as it becomes a smallerpart of our demography.
And and so there's going to have to bea natural transition out,
I mean, just candidly.
And that that I seeis ultimately the saving grace
if and this is the big qualifierI put in the book,
if we can last that long.
Right. Like we've got a really importantelection coming up.
Some very important courtdecisions were just made.
Some very significantchanges are happening where
(18:39):
that may stiflethis regardless of the demographic change.
So so yeah, that's the hope that I see is
and like I saying it's not a policy,you know, framework.
It's not a philosophical, constructthis is happening.
This cultural infusionis literally more true, in my estimation,
(19:00):
to what the founders vision was
than what we have beenfor the last 250 years.
And that transformation
frightens a lot of people,that there's a older, whiter
generation that is, but doesn'tbelieve this is really America.
Which which begs a big questionwhat is America?
(19:21):
Is it more blood and soil,which is the way we're behaving right now?
Or is it just these founding documentswith these kind of, you know,
prophetic,beautiful visions of what we could be,
which has always been our mythology,and we've always said that,
but the rhetoric is notmatching the action at this
Blood in soil.
Referring, of course, to the ideologythat fueled the rise of German
(19:45):
ethnic nationalism.
And then the Nazi Party, and which we seereplicated now in the MAGA movement.
It's essentially the same ideawhen you talk about real America,
so-called real America, and makingthat America great again, supposedly,
you know.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the French Revolution.
(20:05):
Well, we could go. We could go.
I could lead us downall kinds of historical rabbit holes.
So let me just stop myself right there.
but, you know, I the way I see it,
you know, a lot of, a lot of what happenedat the founding was,
of course, what the founders meant by menwhen they said all men are created equal.
And and the assumptionthen was that, well, of course,
(20:29):
we're talking about males.
And of course we're talking about Europeanmales.
I mean, that would have just seemedlike conventional wisdom to many people
back then.
But there were the seeds of the pluralismyou're describing, right?
Because the moment you sayall men are created equal,
and that means that it doesn't matterif they're rich or poor, it doesn't matter
(20:50):
what their religion is, doesn't matterwhat their original nationality was.
That's the seeds of okay,that means women as well.
And that means people
of all races, of all origins,you know, of all creeds and faiths, etc..
So that really is America.
It's just that it existedas the seed at the beginning.
And one thingI'd like to hear your reaction to this,
that I think that because
(21:11):
people on the left tend to be descendedfrom the enlightenment tradition of
rationalism, and I think they overestimatethe power of reason.
It's definitely critically important,but it doesn't explain everything
is they miss that.
That's actually a very inspiring vision.
I mean, that to me works as a culture to
to think about American culturebeing the culture
(21:32):
of blues and jazz, for example,
and Hollywood and rock and roll and,
all of the influences that camefrom Africa and from the Jewish diaspora
people like George Gershwin,who were incorporating African melodies
as well as Jewish, folk melodies in their music.
And then, of course,the influence of the Latinos
(21:55):
coming from Cuba and SouthAmerica and Central America.
all of this.
There is no American culturewithout all of these groups.
Right.
And what comes out of it is a culture
that is so excitingthat it has influenced the entire world.
And I think that from my point of view,
we could do a lot better starting there.
(22:16):
And just recognizing thatthat in itself is inspiring the very,
the verydifferences we see, they don't have to be
fragmentary differencesbecause they are united
by this core set of valuesthat while we are all different,
we are also all equaland all equally free.
How do you see that?
(22:39):
I mean,I think it's an interesting argument.
I don't think.
I think that the timesthat we are experiencing at
the moment would suggest that whatever
cultural remnants that we have,and you clearly point
to, some of them are not sufficientto unite us at all.
At all.
(23:01):
in fact, they're
they're devolving into points of,
fragmentation and disunity
and that,I think, is, is what the problem is.
I don't know that I don't knowthat there's a shared set of values.
I mean, maybethere have been flashes of it,
(23:21):
but I think if that were the case,we would not be at this moment in time,
I think we can have, you know, fusionsof our food and fusions of our music.
I don't see much in termsof the fusions of our faith
or in the confidencein social institutions or belief in them.
I don't believe, for example,that African Americans
(23:42):
have ever really experienced muchin terms of equality in in the way our,
our social institutions have,interacted with them compared to whites.
I don't I mean, there may bea couple of one offs here or there,
but I don't believe that it has createda cohesive culture that allowed us
to be a pluralistic society.
(24:04):
now there's a lot of reason for that.
To the black shows,the population hasn't really increased
since reallysince the Civil War, much about 1920.
It settled in at around 1,112%,spent about 11, 12% over 100 years,
that the rising Latino populationis challenging many of these notions
of what race means and what identity meansand what minority means,
(24:28):
especially as Latinosstart to behave differently
politicallythan what we have come to know.
from from, you know, black voters
since they won suffrage, or at least since
Jim Crow allowed for themto actually attain suffrage in the 50s.
Right.
So, yeah,I mean, we can point to some instances
(24:51):
and say, this food is so much betterbecause it blends all of this or that.
Jazz is this uniquely American music genrebecause of who we are.
That's absolutely true.
Is that a blending of values?
I don't I don't know about that.I don't know about that.
I think we'd like to say that,but I'm not seeing that much in practice.
But I do believe thatthat may be the promise of what
(25:13):
a culturally, racially blended peoplelike Latinos
can bring in a very unique way, in very,very, very demonstrable way.
For example, we have the highestintermarriage rates amongst all groups.
So we have very high endracial marriage rates with whites.
We have very high or higher interracialmarriage rates with with African-Americans
(25:35):
and pretty high interracial marriage rateswith Asians.
Asians and whites actually have higherinterracial marriage rates
than Latinos and Asians.
But you know, this this blending culture
is something that is going to becomeso obvious skated within a generation.
I think that the complexityof trying to disaggregate our uniqueness
racially is actually going to be the gluethat bonds us together is that different?
(26:00):
from the the kinds of fusions
that I was describing thatyou think never really came to fruition.
I think our institutionshave never been equal,
and I don't think we valued it because ifwe valued it, then we would have done it.
So they are our our institutions.
Our social institutions are literallywhat are required for democracy to work.
(26:22):
Social institutionsare those things that we commonly agree
upon as processes, not the outcomes.
So we believe in, government,we believe in higher education,
we believe in the military,we believe in the church.
We believe in the media.
Latinos buy a disproportionate measure,again, have very high levels
of confidence and optimism comparedto every other group and demographic.
(26:45):
But we can't can we can't honestly lookat ourselves and say, African Americans
have been treated the same wayby government or higher education
or by the media,even by the church community.
I mean the largest Protestant denominationin this country is the Southern
Baptist Conference,which was established to justify slavery.
I mean, even our faith communitycan't do it.
(27:07):
Right?
So so I don't know that there's a shared
common valuesthat we've always talked about it.
And it's easywhen whites are 85, 90% of the population,
once it hits 35, you know, 45%.
And the question becomes that, you know,it moves from the abstract
to the existential,that's a different consideration.
(27:28):
Like people start to deal with itdifferently.
It's like affordablehousing in Santa Cruz.
God bless you. Right?
I don't mean this in a pejorative sense,but we don't want to build in Santa Cruz.
That brings
other people.
Well, that's. No.
I think that that's a great point.
And and we've raised that beforein the sort of central coast of Santa Cruz
(27:49):
County, in Monterey County,where I live, incredibly prosperous,
incredibly beautiful place to liveand very, very progressive politically,
and yet try to get affordablehousing built, try to rectify,
you know, the fact that their communities
know farmworker communities that haven'thad safe drinking water for decades,
(28:11):
that should be easywith such a progressive community.
And yet, when it turns outto be inconvenient to people's
own interests,it turns out to be very difficult.
We certainly share values.
Only in so much as they benefit usis what we're realizing when they don't.
When they don't,
then suddenly that value proposition,you know, it doesn't it doesn't work.
(28:35):
And that's I'm sayingit's easy when it's 85% white, Yeah.
I. Yeah.
Your values become real when they when itcosts you something to have those values.
Right.
And like we see if I may say, you know, I,I respect you for being somebody
who when the your values could cost yousomething, you stood up for them
(28:58):
when Trump came along,you know, and potentially
alienated a lot of potential,
clients, you know, and, and, and.
money. Friends. Family.
I mean, yeah, it came at a great cost.
And I'm not saying thatbecause I did anything extraordinary.
I think that's I would hope,
one of the the toughest part.
(29:19):
Sorry about this, but this,
you know, deeply personal,one of the toughest parts about
doing what I did with the Lincoln Projectand working
against everything that I had believedin, when it was clearly not losing
its integrity, was was not thatI felt like I was doing the right thing.
It's just thatnobody else was doing the right thing.
(29:39):
It was not hard to to know where I stood.
It was hard to watch so many otherscapitulate
for so many, what I believed to becosmetic, superficial reasons.
Money.
Money is important,but it's not worth your integrity.
You know, power is important,but but not at the cost of your country.
(30:00):
And and there's just so many peoplefailed that test and continue to
and again,I think that's a cultural proclivity
in a time of extraordinary change,technological, economic
and undeniably demographic.
So I want to make sure
I understand why you're optimistic.
(30:22):
givengiven the things you've just been saying,
that that, with the growth,because Latinos, as a segment, have
rapid population growth and skew youngerthan the population overall.
and because of the valuesyou've been describing,
and they have this high intermarriagerate, which indicates that you think that,
(30:43):
you know, these so-calledracial distinctions become,
a lot blurrier, over time.
How does that lead to, a point whereif things work out well
and we don't end upbecoming an authoritarian country?
the world's most powerful versionof Hungary or something.
(31:03):
how does that end up working out?
Well,can you explain that a little more clear?
It seems to me.
How does a culture emerge from that?
If it is a culture that solvesthis lack of cultural cohesion
that seems to be fragmenting us right now.
Yeah.
Well, one of the, there's a there's
a lot of different ways to approach that,but it's a beautiful question.
I'm going to answer it bygoing to the last point, and that is this.
(31:27):
I'm actually, one of the oneof the peculiar reasons for my optimism.
I say peculiar because people are like,that's a strange reason to be optimistic,
but I'm optimistic because of the,
conflict and tension at the moment.
The struggle.
Struggle defines character,
but it also forges culture.
(31:47):
It is the common trauma of a people
that fight for aspirationally,
for something that creates a future.
I saw this in Ukraine very clearly,and it was in sharp
contrast to what I was seeingin my own country in the 2020 election.
People are fighting for this mythologicalAmerica, make America great again, right?
(32:09):
And protestingand tyranny is like wearing a mask
instead of like what we did in the 1950s,which is line up of kids
get vaccinated to take care of
everybody's kids in our community becausewe're all in this together like that.
That togetherness in Americahas largely been bred out of us
generationally,probably because of our affluence.
But my point is,struggle is required. And,
(32:32):
for a people to maintain unity
and to develop commoncause and common culture.
And that's part of what I was sayingearlier.
This is part of the downsideof winning the Cold War,
and having 2 or 3 generationswithout any struggle or conflict
has left that fight for freedom muscle
(32:54):
that has defined Americanness flaccid
to the point wherewe don't really know what it is anymore.
And so we start to saywe turn on each other,
but moreover, we bastardize freedomto be freedom away from each other.
Like, I don't have a commitmentto anybody else anymore.
(33:14):
That's not a nation.
It's maybe a country,but it's not a nation.
It's not a common people.
And and right now,this generation struggle is a fight
against authoritarianism.
It's a fight against the
this hegemonic
power which has defined human societies.
(33:36):
Almost 95% of societies, 99% of societiesthroughout the course of human
history have been monarchiesor tribal chieftains or strongmen.
Democracy's still such a new thing,
and we are still learning,and we will teach the next generation.
But I think what has become clear for thisgeneration
(33:57):
is the recognitionthat there must be a struggle for it.
There has to be a fight for itbecause you cannot hand off the value
and the passion and the belief in thecommitment to it until you fight for it.
It's like an individualis our own individual struggles
make us better people,hopefully a better character people.
(34:19):
But you can't get wisdom without struggle.
That's the main reason.
right and so and in and so.
I think what you're sayingis, it's not like there's
something magical about Latinosand Latino culture in itself.
Although I know you're a fan.
and of course,there are multiple Latino cultures.
And this is, in my view,another problem is when people assume
(34:42):
that they have a theoretical versionof of groups, right.
Like there are Latinos as one group,or there are black people as one group
or whites as one group.
Yeah, saying that a lot more is,you know, whites are not monolithic.
They're not.
but I think if I understand you right,you're not so much saying
that there's something magicalin Latino culture that's going to save us.
(35:03):
It's the the conditions
that Latinos find themselves inand the trends that are coming together.
and the characteristics that are there,as you say, the faith in institutions
and the openness to intermarriage,that that will help get us out of this
cultural malaise and our fragmentation.
kind of as a stroke of luck,if it works out well, it'll it'll end up
(35:23):
helping the rest of the country realizewhat democracy can really be about.
Is that about right?
I do believe that there are culturalcharacteristics that help, but largely,
yes. I agree with what you just said,
and it is fascinating,if you look at human history,
how much of this stuff is just luckor looks like luck
when it's really just demographic changeand we adjust to those as a species.
So I do believe that the blendednature of Latinos, I'm not saying
(35:47):
it has like some magical superpower,but what I will say is if it is,
it's that it is a blended people.
It is naturally, by definition,
Latino is European and Indigenous.
That's what a Latino as a Hispanic is.
And that that is literally a bridge,at this moment in time when we need it,
(36:09):
in this time of extraordinarydemographic transformation.
And so in many ways,I think Latinos can teach us
about culturallyabout a genuine pluralism.
And that doesn't mean that every Latinois, you know, pro pluralism.
We've got a lot of bad actorsin our community, too.
So, you know, the this issue in LosAngeles, the city council,
with some of these horrificracial comments or things
(36:31):
that I'd never heard in 30 yearsof being in backroom strategic meetings
with old white Republican Yes,
(37:45):
I yeah, I, I mean,
exactly, I, I really agree.
I mean, think about that.
Think about, you know, the populationof all the Asian countries, for example,
who, you know, and, and then, you know,
the Asia Pacific and South Asia,you know, India
(38:05):
and Pakistan and Bangladeshand then Africa and South America.
I mean, is it really is it really doesseem like, well, there's white people
and there's everybody else.
(38:40):
If you associate this developmentwith decline,
of course, you know, which of course,many, many such people do.
But you could see it as exciting as I do.
And as no loss as no loss to you.
No as.
No, no, no, I know, but
no white, you know,white people who see this as decline,
(39:01):
you know, and you can it's so easy to just rethink
that and realize that, well,wait a minute, I don't lose anything,
you know, through this.
And in fact,I stand to gain an enormous amount.
And so in the book,
I make a distinction between what I callpluralism and tribalism.
Do you know what the difference isbetween those Sure.
(39:21):
Well, you explain.
Hmhm right.
Yeah.
(42:24):
And and as you point out,
and not just in California, of course,but in the upcoming
election, Latinos stand to make
a determinative difference acrossbattleground states.
Can you elucidate that a little?
yeah, for 30 years I've always been askedthe question is, will Latinos be,
(42:45):
you know, the deciding factorin this presidential race?
My answer is always been no,because we've largely been concentrated
in California and Texas,which are not swing states.
You know, Arizona's always a red state.
You know, New Mexico was a little bit,you know, Florida was the one swing state.
And it was such an outlier with Latinos,
you know, overwhelmingly Cuban backback at the time.
(43:06):
It no longer is it's more PuertoRican than Cuban.
But but, you know, at a time
when it was a really swingy state,it was because Cubans were so Republican.
Point being,
this year, in every one of the sevenmain swing states
Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin,Pennsylvania, North Carolina,
and every one of those Latinos are larger
(43:30):
than the margin of victoryand in some, considerably.
Arizona, obviously, Nevada, obviouslyWisconsin, there were more Latino voters
and black voters and growing and growingrapidly in North Carolina and Georgia.
So so the answer this year is yes,it will undeniably be a big part of it
unless one side collapses.
one way or the other,there's a landslide.
(43:50):
If it's going to be a close race,
as we expect it will be,Latinos will be the determining factor.
The one big question, Spencer,which is really befuddled most people, is
why California has been an outlierwith this rightward shift.
We started seeing this rightwardshift everywhere but in California,
and the question became, why?
And there are two reasons.
(44:11):
The first is California'sLatino population
is still significantly more foreign bornand foreign born
economic emigres overwhelmingly votewith the Democratic Party.
A few exceptions, but usually it'sa 70% plus Democratic vote.
The other is
we have created such limitedeconomic mobility for immigrants
(44:37):
that they're not attaining middleclass status, largely
because of housing costsand housing prices.
So the Democratic Party in Californiaspecifically, is a party of very wealthy,
home owning, largely collegeeducated white
people and renting,
non-college educated Latinos.
(44:58):
And that coalition has always beena little bit of an unholy alliance,
because there's not much culturallyconnecting them.
There's now not now, there'snot just not a connection economically.
They're actually at odds.
And so you're starting to see a movement
towards, away from the Democratic Partyis a better way to say it.
Then towards the Democrat,towards the Republican Party.
(45:20):
And given that,
it looks like weare facing a choice between
a Democratic win this fall and
a crisis in our democracy.
It's critically importantfor the Democratic Party, in particular,
to understand a voting bloc that couldmake the difference in the election.
(45:43):
What do you feel the Democratic candidates
and the party overallare failing to get about Latinos?
Well, the Democratic Partystill believes in its heart of hearts.
despite all the evidence that they'rea working class party, they're not.
They think they are.
They really do believe that.
but the working.
(46:03):
It's not like Madrid sayingthat's the working
classhas been saying that for ten years now.
They're moving awayand now it's moving away quite rapidly.
And the irony is the working classthat was not whites in America, it's
rapidly becoming nonwhite. So
it's kind of a double whammy for Democratswho are like, well, wait a second.
We've always talked to youthrough this sensitive racial lens
on issues that we thoughtwere most important to you immigration.
(46:27):
You know, you're Latino,so you you care about immigration, right?
And Latinos have been saying,no, we care about the economy,
affordability and jobs.
And those are not reallythey're certainly not
the priorities of Democrats in California.
And that's apparent now.
Like, you know, we've been pushing outblue collar industries for a long time,
(46:48):
gleefully, just methodically
and Latinothe Latino workforce is struggling.
We're not building housing, at all.
And so we're creating this caste systemin this state.
And so there's this pushback.
So what what's going to have to happenis this lack of economic mobility
(47:11):
and the fact that California's Latinopopulation is more immigrant
than everywhere elsemeans they're going to have to.
You've got to declare a marshall planfor housing, like tomorrow.
1 in 5 Hispanic men,
are employed in the residentialconstruction space or related fields.
That is an extraordinary number.
20% of our households are Latinos building
(47:32):
the infrastructureand the homes in this country.
And every year that gets bigger.
So and until those workforces
in The New York Times will focuson, you know, economic anxiety with white,
blue collar workers and diners in WestVirginia, that's not where the problem is.
The problems now in Phenix,Maricopa County, and and Las Vegas,
(47:53):
Clark County, Nevada,Gwinnett to Cobb County in Georgia,
Erie, Pennsylvania, like those are
where Latinos are huge in numbersand they're the ones
that they should be sitting down
attack areas instead of diners and saying,you know what's on your mind.
But our institutionsaren't aren't prepared for it either.
This strikes meas such an important point.
I really want to highlightwhat you just said.
(48:14):
So, you know, the residential constructionindustry.
employing this really large percentage
of, male Latinos
and knowingsomething like that is is the kind.
That's the kind of knowledge you getwhen you actually know the people
you're addressing. Right?
As opposed to seeing themas a theoretical construct, as you
(48:36):
say, the, you know, having assumptionslike, well, you're Latino.
Therefore your top issuemust be immigration.
And especially after people have been herefor a few generations,
you know, they may very well be fairlytough on immigration,
and have some surprising opinionson immigration.
Another assumptionyou highlight is the assumption that
(49:00):
Latinovoters want to be spoken to in Spanish.
Yeah.
This is one of the biggest mythologies
is, you know, and this is where I thinkDemocrats have made a huge tactical error.
Is even even the Biden campaign,the Latinos con Biden.
You know, it's still a Spanish themed,you know, 17 pollsters use about seven.
A good, credible pollsterwill use 17% of its interviews in Spanish.
(49:23):
17 now, this is a voters, by the way,there's a difference between voters
and members of the population.
If it was the populace,it would probably be double that.
But it's not.
Voters are overwhelminglyEnglish speaking.
And so this stereotype,when you play down to the stereotype
of kicking off your campaignat the Mexican restaurant and folklorico
(49:45):
dancing and mariachi music and Spanishlanguage, it's very patronizing.
And I'm not saying that you can'tincorporate some of those themes,
but as you know, Justice PotterStewart said about pornography, you know,
I can't explain it,but I know it when I see it.
Like those cultural,those cultural, gestures
can very easilytip into what we call sombrero politics,
(50:08):
which is this kind of stereotype of like,you're yeah, you may be third generation,
but you like enchiladasand you like mariachi music, right?
And you're worried about kids in cages,and how could you
not be worried about deportation?
And it's like that was that was my, my,my family's history 80 years ago.
You know, like we're not talking aboutpotato famine issues to the Irish anymore.
(50:29):
So why are we doing that?
And, and that's both parties.
Both parties do that.
And again, it'sbecause there's a very desperate need
to caricature izenonwhite people in a certain stereotype.
What is the silver bulletwe can do to to stop the problem
or to speak to voters where they're at?
(50:49):
And the reality isthey're watching Fox News
hanging out at the softball leagueand swinging hammers during the day.
And the construction site,they're blue collar workers.
There is a more sensitivitytowards racial issues,
but they also don't see border,you know, the border as a racial issue.
It's a security issue.
And that shouldn't surprise usbecause it is until it's not
(51:14):
Yeah.
And we see, this,
with Republicans and Democrats,as you say.
I mean, recently,Trump talking about black jobs,
you know, that these immigrants are comingand taking black jobs.
I mean, just betraying his picture
of black people or,you know, assuming that
black people will identify with thembecause he has a mugshot now.
(51:35):
So, again, you know, who are black people?
There are people who have the lowestlevel jobs in society,
and they tend to be criminals.
And and yet on the left, you know,
it just drives me nutswhen I hear people on the left
assuming that black people, first of all,that they all think the same way, that,
(51:56):
you know,
there is a black perspective on things,and then that they will assume that black
people's concerns about police abuses
translate into a sympathy for criminals,
which you also see.
There's a
right the idea that, yeah,let's let's not reform the police.
Let's abolish the police and therebyput the lives of low income, black,
(52:21):
Latino and every other low income personin a dangerous neighborhood at risk
by just doing away, doing thisincredibly reckless experiment.
And let's see what happensif we don't have any police,
which, you know, would make virtuallyno difference
in my life, in my safe neighborhood,but could be a matter of life
and death in other neighborhoods.
(52:53):
A certaina certain a certain kind of left.
I would, you know,and this is something I'd love to talk.
It's a neoliberal left.
Like there's there's a neo liberal,
there's a neo liberal rightand an illiberal left, which, you know.
I'm bringing this up for a very importantreason.
Populism is ascendant on both sides
of the aisle, and it's bigger than we giveit credit for.
(53:16):
It's why we're witnessing the destructionof our institutions.
I just wrote a piece on Latino populismthat was going to run
in the New York Times today, butbecause of the Biden stuff, it got bumped.
Latinos are the only groupthat really surpassed
levels of supportfor both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
despite the polling.
(53:37):
And we have very weak Partizan ties.
But there is an increasing what I callpolitical populism,
which is a rejectionof the two party system.
Not that we're looking for a multipartysystem, but just the Democratic Party
and the Republican Partyare just truly not credible,
believable entities to us anymore.
(53:58):
And there's also this economic populismwhere there's protectionism.
And, you know, if you're increasingly on
and working in the energy patchor the construction site
or in manufacturing, those workforcesare Republican workforces.
And as Latinos occupythose wrong rungs on the ladder,
(54:18):
they see the Democratic Partyas an existential threat to their income,
their livelihoods or abilityto support their families.
So there's both an economicand politically populist
growththat is happening as as the two parties
try to destroyeach each other's institutions.
And is it is it all Republicans?
(54:39):
Are all Democrats? No, of course it's not.
But there are wide swaths, wide swathswhere
Republicansbelieve the media is the enemy.
The government is the enemy.
Higher education is the enemy.
And on the left,they believe churches are an enemy.
They believe the military is an enemy.
They believe that corporationsare the enemy.
(54:59):
And you can hear that language,on both sides, coming
from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sandersor Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.
And it's very, very dangerous,toxic rhetoric
that is destroying our democracy,because you may not agree
with the direction of an institution,
but once you believeit needs to be torn down,
(55:20):
now we're talking about the inabilityto actually live together.
Yeah, I ultimately, I think it's
it comes down to a choicefrom my point of view of.
Are we going to defendliberalism broadly defined, the liberalism
as in liberal democracy,or are we going to just go along
with illiberal versions of the rightand the left,
that see liberalism as somethingthat doesn't need to be torn down?
(55:43):
And unfortunately, liberalsare notoriously bad at figuring out
what they stand for, and being ableto take a clear stand for it
is, as Robert Frost once said,a, a liberalism man is too well mannered
to take his own side in a quarrel,I think is is is the way he put it.
You mentioned, Joe Biden,and that gets me to something.
I wanted to make sure I ask you about,before I, I run out of time with you.
(56:08):
as we record this conversation, JoeBiden's in a great deal of trouble
following his performanceat the debate with Donald Trump.
And I'd love to get your perspective onwhat happened and where we are now.
Boy, I'm really fascinated by this.
And I'm kind of watching it
like so many Americans are,because it's a real crisis point.
And I think it's a crisisfor a number of reasons.
(56:30):
But the main one
that I'm most concerned about isthere has been, at least for the moment,
a very wide dichotomybetween the partizan,
instincts of baseDemocratic voters to stick with Joe Biden,
despite the increasing concernsabout his age
and this panic hysteria
(56:51):
that has overtaken the media and a lot of,pundit, the pundit class, and there's
a wide separationthat looks a hell of a lot like
the Republicans in 2016.
In June of 2016, Donald Trump recorded
the highest negativesof any presidential candidate.
Again in modern polling, two thirds ofAmericans said he should not be running.
(57:14):
That means there was a large swathof Republicans two thirds.
Biden, by the way, is nowhere near that.
But two thirds are sayinghe should not run for president.
The Republicansbase, the voters wanted him.
They stuck with himwhile the Republican media and pundit
class were saying,we need to get rid of him.
We need to get rid of him.
There were editorial calls for himto withdraw that he wasn't capable,
(57:38):
or appropriate to fit in the white House,in the Oval Office.
and it's eerilysimilar to what is happening right now.
with one exception is I think that
the media really wants Biden to go.
And I think that's going to if he does, if
I think the only person that could takehis place is Kamala Harris,
(57:59):
and if she does take his place,I think that there will be a significant
internal battle about whatall of that means in the Democratic Party.
I think, incidentally, both Biden
and Harris and frankly, a doorknob
running under the Democratic ticketwould be just as competitive
because we are so negativelypartizan ized in this climate.
(58:22):
When people when Donald Trump says,I could shoot
somebody on Fifth Avenueand not lose any support, that is true.
He could get sentencing.
There's a criminal sentencing now.
But if you were sentenced and put in jail,he could run without losing any support.
The reverse is also true.
(58:42):
And the Democrats have exhibitedthis behavior before.
We saw it under Bill Clinton.
You know,with the national organization of Women
supported himduring the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Like Partizan, Partizan tribal identity
is is as importantas your religious or patriotic faith.
It is central and core to our identities.
(59:03):
And when we're negatively partizan ized,meaning we are defining ourselves
by who we are against morethan by what we are for.
You don't see a wide variation in supportlevels
dropping off, no matter how flawed eithercandidate is.
So the variance between how Kamala
or Joe Biden does is a delta of maybe
(59:26):
one and a half percentage points,maybe in either direction,
which means you're taking on a hellof a lot of risk by removing a guy
who probably has more upside than downsidefrom from a mathematical perspective,
that's my opinion.
Yeah.
It's a tough one.
And I think where I come down onthis is as I often do.
(59:47):
And it can sound naive topeople, is start with the truth.
And the only people who know the truthreally are
Joe Biden and the people closest to himin his family and
and in the campaign leadership,and then move from there to what's right.
And as I say, that sounds naive to people.
but I actually think it often ends upbeing strategically the smart thing to do,
(01:00:08):
because trying
to spin your way out of a bad situationwhere the truth is not on your side,
just generates more and more entropy,and that you struggle
more and more to manage.
And, you know, people can look like
they're getting away with it,like the Trump Republican Party
seems to be getting away with it,but it always collapses.
So all that by way of saying,you know, if Biden is
(01:00:32):
capable of doing the job
and campaigning effectively,then go for it, you know, commit to it.
And if it if it turned out that he'sactually not capable of.
Well, that's a hard truththat has to be faced,
and proceed from thereto trying your best
to make the right choiceand then commit like hell to that choice.
And I would say, eitherway, Biden on his worst day
(01:00:56):
is orders of magnitude better than Trump
on his best day.
and as you say, I mean,
I would vote for a doorknobinstead of, a Donald Trump.
But as it happens,I believe what I just said about Biden.
So whatever the decision is,
everybodywho's in the pro-democracy coalition
who wants America to continueto be a democracy, I don't see that
(01:01:19):
there's any choice but to vote foreither Biden or the Democratic candidate.
I yeah, I agree, I think that's exactlyright.
Well, my, as always, it'ssuch a pleasure to talk to you.
You're you're one of the most insightful,commentators on politics,
that I know of, let alone know personallyby just that I know of in general.
(01:01:40):
So I really appreciate it.
Anytime you make some time to talk,I wish you all the best with the book.
Which seems not to,need any assistance from my good wishes.
It seems to be doing very well on its own.
That doesn't surprise me.
The book is called The Latino Centuryand the author is my guest, Mike Madrid.
And I heartily recommend, everybody who's,
(01:02:02):
interested in the current stateand future of democracy.
Get yourself a copy of this book.
A lot of our conversation, Spencer.
Love, love spending time with youand and hearing your thoughts.
Thank you. thank you, Mike.
You've been
listening to Dastardly Clevernessin the Service of Good.
If you like this conversation with MikeMadrid, I hope you'll recommend it
(01:02:23):
and give it a rating on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen.
You'll find links and a transcriptat dastardlycleverness.com.
Thanks for listening.
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