While First Lady Jill Biden’s “breakfast taco” debacle from Monday has shined a very unflattering spotlight on the Democratic party’s growing inability to connect with average Hispanic Americans, an opinion piece published at CNN that was critical of GOP Latinas is also raising some eyebrows.
Attorney Raul A. Reyes, an NBC Latino contributor who writes opinion columns for CNN and who is also on the board of contributors for USA Today, penned a piece for CNN Tuesday in which he declared that conservative Latina women like newly elected Texas Congresswoman Mayra Flores are “not the real deal” because their views allegedly are not “an authentic reflection of Latino voters”:
Conservatives are heralding them as “real deal” Republican candidates. These three Latinas are proof the GOP is capable of winning over Latino voters. Three Latinas hail from South Texas are Mayra Flowers, Monica De La Cruz and Cassy Garcia, all of whom are running for Congress in the districts bordering Mexico.
[…]
Flores was the first Mexican-born female to become a member of Congress. The women are proving that Latinos tend to vote Democratic, a fact which has attracted national attention. As Garcia recently told The New York Times, “The red wave is here.”
The rise of Flores De La Cruz, Garcia and Garcia needs to be seen within context. These Latinas are having a moment of fame, but they have views that go beyond the Latino mainstream. They are more of a PR coup for the GOP that reflects Latino voters.
Reyes then proclaimed that Flores, De La Cruz and Garcia were staunchly conservative on issues like abortion, gun control, and immigration before trying to make the case that “most Latinos” think otherwise according to select polls, which in his view meant that the “red wave” among Hispanics was a GOP-generated myth.
In a tweet posted in response to Reyes’ argument, Flores quipped that maybe she wasn’t “the right type of taco”:
CNN says I am not the real deal
Perhaps my tacos are not right for me😅 pic.twitter.com/ORfN9BKtrb
— Mayra Flores (@MayraFlores2022) July 12, 2022
Just last week, the New York Times also hit out at Flores, De La Cruz, and Garcia, all of who the paper called members of the “far-right,” which is media speak for “any member of a minority group who does not march lockstep with Democrat party dogma.”
Flores told Fox News in a statement after the NY Times hit piece was published that she’s used to these kinds of media attacks and that she would not let them deter her from holding Democrat politicos who have failed “my people” to account:
“I am proud of my culture and my beautiful family,” Flores, De La Cruz and Garcia as examples of ” told Fox News Digital in a text. “I was born in Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and raised with strong Conservative values to always put God and Family first. I’ve been subject to hateful comments from liberal media. [been]The left told them to return to Mexico. They don’t support us immigrants, they only use us for political power and don’t care about our well-being. I am here now and I won’t allow them to continue taking advantage of my people.”
In my view, what Reyes seems to not get (whether intentionally or not) is that no one is arguing that “most” Hispanic voters feel one way or another about abortion, gun control, and immigration. The argument is that Hispanic voters don’t have a single viewpoint, as Democrats and other media aides made it out to be.
They have different ideas about what priorities our elected officials should follow. This is happening in Florida and other parts of the nation, where Hispanic voters are abandoning Democrats more frequently.
We’ve also seen it in the southern part of Texas, where concerns about Democrats prioritizing so-called climate change and obsessing over “woke” dogma over jobs and education has turned off a growing number of Hispanic voters.
No, there’s not a Hispanic voter exodus everywhere in this country, but even in places like California they are growing more dissatisfied with what Democrats have to offer, as evidenced by the recall election to replace Gavin Newsom. Though unsuccessful, that election, too, sent warning signs to Democrats that they better stop assuming they’ll always have their votes in their pockets.
Obviously, Democrats like Reyes haven’t listened.
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