{"id":14564,"date":"2025-06-18T16:54:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T16:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14564"},"modified":"2025-06-18T21:47:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T21:47:05","slug":"this-is-not-about-immigration-its-about-controlling-and-diluting-the-political-power-of-citizens-in-blue-states-and-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14564","title":{"rendered":"This is not about immigration \u2014 it\u2019s about controlling and diluting the political power of citizens in blue states and cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Alex Gonzalez <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Federal agents remove Senator Alex Padilla from a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday. The LA Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump is threatening to deploy the U.S. military to blue states and cities under the pretext of protecting federal buildings during ICE raids. In reality, this appears to be an attempt to harass and intimidate American citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this op-ed,<\/a> Ron Brownstein argues that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extending the pattern I wrote about this morning: defining blue cities and states, and their elected leaders, as outside the core American republic to accustom the public to harsh tactics against them, including arrests of public officials & military deployments on city streets. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Trump portrays Democratic-led states and cities as un-American, aiming to normalize treating them like the enemy.\u201d and \u201c Trump sees militarized immigration enforcement as a way to crack \u201cthe Democrat Power Center\u201d in big blue cities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is right in many ways: Donald Trump is using immigration not merely as a policy platform, but as a pretext to weaken the political influence of blue states and cities that rejected him at the ballot box. The threat of deploying federal forces under the guise of “protecting federal property” masks a deeper, more troubling intent\u2014to intimidate American citizens and concentrate power where it aligns with his political interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the irony is stark. This erosion of democratic norms was enabled, in part, by the very voters who once helped keep it in check. Millions of Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 failed to turn out in 2024, mistakenly believing that Trump\u2019s incendiary rhetoric would target only immigrants, not citizens. They viewed themselves as insulated, protected by citizenship status. They were wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 victory was not a result of overwhelming public support, but rather of voter apathy \u2014 particularly among Democrats and Hispanic voters \u2014 and resistance among some Biden supporters to back a woman candidate. Trump received 77 million votes in 2024, a decline from Biden\u2019s 84 million in 2020, despite the fact that the electorate grew by roughly 10 million eligible voters during that period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In California, Vice President Kamala Harris underperformed Biden\u2019s 2020 tally by 1.8 million votes, even though the state gained 1.5 million more eligible voters and added 600,000 new registered voters. The pattern was similar in Texas: in major Democratic strongholds like Dallas and Houston, Harris received 600,000 fewer votes than Biden, despite 2 million more eligible voters statewide. This trend repeated itself in key battlegrounds across the East Coast, Arizona, and Nevada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latino voter turnout in 2020 was at around 53% \u2014 or 16.5 million voters, but in 2024 it was also 16.5 million, despite the addition of 4 million more eligible Latino voters, or around 36 million. Many Latinos who supported Trump in 2024 cited economic concerns, particularly the rising cost of groceries. Yet under Trump\u2019s policies \u2014 including new tariffs, economic uncertainty, and falling stock markets \u2014 these costs have only increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Democratic voters who helped elect Biden in 2020 stayed home in 2024, convinced that immigration policy wouldn\u2019t impact them. But Trump\u2019s recent actions in California and his rhetoric about federal raids in blue cities reveal the true stakes: this is not simply about immigration. It is about using federal agencies and military force to intimidate, punish, and suppress Americans who disagree with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator Alex Padilla rightly warned last week that immigration is merely the pretext.<\/a> The real agenda is to weaken the rights of states, cities, and citizens who stand in opposition. Republican leadership has largely remained silent as Trump uses the machinery of government to target political opponents and disenfranchise urban and minority voters. The 2024 election outcome was not the result of Trump\u2019s popularity, but of Democratic voters\u2019 failure to appreciate the threats \u2014 underestimating both the risks Trump posed to American citizens and their Constitutional rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many voters – Hispanic, Black, White -who chose not to vote felt safe living in their blue state, or city, bubbles, believing that citizenship alone would protect their rights. They couldn’t have been more wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This outcome was not inevitable. It was the product of voters who underestimated Trump\u2019s threats, dismissed the significance of this election, and believed the consequences would not touch them. But as we are now seeing, the consequences are real \u2014 and they affect us all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Alex Gonzalez is a political Analyst, Founder of Latino Public Policy Foundation (LPPF), and Political Director for Latinos Ready To Vote. Comments to vote@latinosreadytovote.org or <\/em>@AlexGonzTXCA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alex Gonzalez Trump is threatening to deploy the U.S. military to blue states and cities under the pretext of protecting federal buildings during ICE raids. In reality, this appears to be an attempt to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,72],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-slider","8":"category-lrtv-articles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14564"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14574,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14564\/revisions\/14574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}