What The Daily gets wrong about Texas Latinos

Just because we may look alike does not mean we think the same as our more progressive counterparts from California

One my favorite podcasts to listen to is New York Times’ The Daily. I remember listening to it when it first started, and hearing Michael Barbaro’s dramatic voice, “This is the Daily.” If you have never listened to it, it was one of the first daily news podcasts to listen to on your commute to work or drop your children off to school or whatever else one might do in the morning. You listen to it to keep yourself abreast of what might happen in the day or what to expect in the coming days.

In the July 29th episode, Astead Herndon, who is legitimately one of the best young reporters in the country, talks to Jenny Medina, his colleague from The NY Times.

Relatedly, Herndon once wrote about the segregation of the church on Sundays. I remember being pleasantly surprised to see a byline of his, from all of places, Mason, Texas which again as someone from that area made me chuckle. Also, Herndon’s tweets make me laugh a lot. You should follow him (on Twitter, not real-life).

In the episode, Herndon and Medina talk about his strange new phenomenon, the conservative Latina. Their main focus of the story is on Mayra Flores who recently won a seat in a predominantly Hispanic district that has been blue for decades.

None of this or what the Daily talks about is untrue, and I know for a fact that both Medina and Herndon know this in real life, but the title made me laugh.

Over the years, national democrats have made it a priority to turn Texas blue. In fact, most political pundits I followed just took it as a matter of fact that Texas would turn blue one day because of Latinos. I still remember all of the resources poured into campaigns and GOTV programs way before Beto was national (when he was a little known congressman who was best known for driving in a snowstorm to DC with Will Hurd.) I remember Wendy Davis was going to beat Rick Perry, Letty Van de Putte was going to beat Dan Patrick, and Beto was going to beat Ted Cruz. None of those things happened.

Why am I saying all of this? It's because people from other states or people based in Austin believed that Cubans in Florida are republicans sure but why would Mexican-Americans in Texas not be liberal already? Don't they know they are voting against their self interest?!?

In my experience, some of the strongest conservatives I know are Latinas. I can think of several off the top of my head who post funny memes that either wish Trump was back or says something about cheering some dude named Brandon.

if you look at the other side of the aisle, and take women out of it, public servants like Lloyd Bentson, Phill Gramm, and Bob Bullock were all democrats but in todays Texas GOP would most likely be red.

Even in San Angelo’s congressional district, Charles Stenholm used to represent the area as a democrat until redistricting forced him into an early retirement of being a Well-paid lobbyist.

This brings me back to Latinos, Herndon asked a lot of leading questions about how Flores could win. Well, let me go over a few of my own: most Latinos are devout Catholics who believe in the Right to Life, are family oriented, and spend conservatively.

To anyone who pays attention in Texas, this is common knowledge and one where I see why Texas won't soon turn blue. It's up to you whether you see that as a good or bad thing.

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