All together now: Good grief!
The other day I shared my frustration with readers, after enduring another elite newsroom story about the “shocking” trends among Hispanic voters in the 2020 elections. It turned out that quite a few Hispanics didn’t vote for Democrats the way that they were supposed to and it wasn’t just Cubans in Miami.
Of course there were economic issues involved. Of course there were efforts to paint Democrats as “socialists” or worse, using labels that really scare lots of voters in conservative Hispanic households (including Cubans, of course).
Of course, there are “religion ghosts” lurking in many of those memories of life in the old country.
Anyway, I wrote a post with this headline: “One more time — Why can't Democrats count on Hispanics, etc., to vote the way they should?” I noted that GetReligion has been running posts on this topic ever since the 2016 campaign in Florida, when there was evidence that evangelical Latinos helped make Donald Trump a winner there. As I said earlier this week:
There’s more to this story than Cubans in Miami. Reporters need to visit megachurches in and around Orlando. Also, if you have ever lived in Texas, you know that the political lives of third- and fourth-generation Hispanics is rather different than those of more recent arrivals. And, again, look for church ties. …
Now the editors need to ponder this truth: Political labels are not enough.
That post was about a New York Times political-desk story that was completely tone deaf to the religion angles in this important topic.
Now, low and behold, that Times team has gone and done it again — this time looking at Miami and its powerful Cuban community, in particular. The double-decker headline states:
How Hispanic Voters Swung Miami Right
Many expected that liberal young Hispanic voters would propel a Democratic wave. But Miami, a city where Hispanics hold the levers of power, confounded expectations.
It was more of the same, of course.