Though he is expected to fall short of a victory in the Electoral College, President Donald Trump has been lauded by some for flipping Latino-majority counties in Texas and Florida that voted for then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Giancarlo Sopo, a Cuban-American supporter of Trump, told USA Today he believes the conservative shift among Latino voters is due to the Democratic Party’s embrace of socialist ideals.
“When you have national Democratic leaders praising Fidel Castro’s indoctrination programs and hailing neo-Marxists as ‘the future of the party,’ it communicated to our community that the Democratic Party does not respect our values,” he explained. “We simply voted accordingly, as did many other Latinos — like Colombians and Peruvian — who want nothing to do with socialism and then progressive agenda.”
Sopo, who served as a communication strategist for the Trump campaign, credited the Republican president with delivering “the best economy in history for Hispanic Americans.”
“He also took a very firm stance against socialism, and as the people watching at home know, Cuban Americans like me — Venezuelans, Colombians, Nicaraguans — we don’t really like socialism too much,” he said during an appearance this week on “Fox & Friends.”
The conservative political strategist went on to say the Democratic Party “has been hijacked by neo-Marxists and that’s just the sad reality.”
“There’s not much they can do about it because they’ve really just taken control of the party and also because their allies in the media love to feature them as thought leaders of the Democratic Party, and the more that they do that, the more they’re gonna continue alienating Hispanics not just in Florida but throughout the country,” Sopo added.
His comments came just one day after Politico published a report describing Florida Democrats’ “post-election meltdown” over the party’s identity crisis regarding socialism.
In early November, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to denounce socialism, signaling the mainstreaming of lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is making it increasingly difficult for her to do so. Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez describe themselves as “Democratic socialists.”
Fox News asked Pelosi “several times” — both in person and via “multiple phone calls” to her office — whether she opposes socialism. Rather than denounce the ideology, the House speaker said there is a “difference of opinion” among some Democrats.
“Our caucus has its differences,” she said. “I would not want to lead a caucus that was a rubber stamp — a rubber stamp, lockstep caucus. That’s the Republicans. We are the Democratic Party, and we have several exuberances in our midst, and that is representative of the districts that people come to Congress to serve, and we respect that.”
Pelosi’s failure to reject socialism shows a marked shift from where she was last year, when she explicitly condemned socialism during an interview with “60 Minutes.”
At the time, she said, “I do reject socialism as an economic system,” arguing such an ideology “is not the view of the Democratic Party.”
What else?
On Election Night, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, described Latino voters as “America’s firewall against socialism.”
Echoing a similar refrain to that of Sobo, Rodriguez told CBN News that Latino voters “just said no to socialism” on Election Day.
“The Hispanic community just emerged as the antidote to socialism and abortion,” he continued, noting Latino Americans voted “no to socialism,” “no to late-term abortions,” “no to anarchy,” and “no to the lockdowns.”
In June, Venezuelan activist Elizabeth Rogliani Otaola warned Americans against embracing socialist ideals, arguing she has “already lived through” it and it does not work.