I agree with the tone of other comments here. The reason Democrats are doing poorly is illustrated by this article. People from some 30+ countries with different histories are lumped together under the recently coined “Hispanic “. It’s insulting and not reflective of the breadth of views among people of latin descent any more than those of Northern European descent.
If you have read any of our other writing, you would know that we generally agree with that sentiment. At the same time, when trying to understand the electorate, race and ethnicity continue to be relevant fault lines in America to some extent. There's a reason why until only recently Hispanics and Asians voted overwhelmingly Democratic and black voters continue to do so. Hopefully one day that won't be the case, and as I said in the piece it's already becoming less meaningful for a population like Hispanic Americans. But it would be malpractice for any analyst to just pretend like race and ethnicity don't play at least some role in our society and, consequently, people's vote choices.
Perhaps you are right. My own view is that the Media, experts etc contribute to these generalizations by emphasizing race and ethnicity. It’s so much easier to put people in boxes, but it results in mischaracterizations and pandering, to no one’s benefit.
It is worth noting that Ruy refers to this voting bloc as 'Hispanic' in practically every other article he pens, and treats it analytically as it is treated here, and most commenters here don't ever complain. (One of the most popular articles he's ever published on the TLP was about the Democrats' 'Hispanic problem'). One wonders why.
Aggregation makes sense when you’re trying to see macro-trends, as long as you're properly careful with it. For example, If you're trying to assess, say,the performance of capital markets, and the major stock and bond indices are all collapsing, you can probably conclude those markets are generally not in good health, even if it's true that 'the market' includes short-sellers and gold-bugs, and they are making a killing.
Last time I looked a couple hours ago, the S&P 500 hit a new all-time high, and in round numbers is +10% year to date and +21% from a year ago. Some collapse.
You may have misunderstood me--I didn't mean to imply that I thought the market was collapsing right now. Just that looking at the stock and bond indices would be an adequate way to assess whether it was or wasn't.
In fact, what you just posted above actually kind of supports my point--you're saying we can assess that the market isn't collapsing right now by looking at the relative performance of the S&P 500, the Dow Jones, etc. I agree.
It's true that these indices are all aggregates of very diverse markets, though, and because the markets are diverse, that they will include participants that don't fit the trend--Charter Communications or Centene Corporation may be doing very poorly right now, for example, even though most major participants are in relatively good shape. (https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/best-worst-performing-stocks) However, the indices nonetheless provide a good tool for judging the overall health of the capital markets and discerning major trends.
Aggregating the Hispanic population, despite its internal diversity, to point out some broad political/electoral trends, I think is similar to this. As long as you always remember that the aggregate is an analytical synthesis and there's always some underlying heterogeneity behind it, using it for analysis is perfectly rational.
I had two careers, one in journalism and the other in finance. Commonalities were they both revolved around stories and facts (at least when I was a reporter before that business nosedived), and especially in finance, bullshit really doesn't survive for very long. There is always a reckoning. The markets are like Mother Nature: an alluring, heartless bitch who couldn't possibly care less if you live or die.
It's a market of stocks, not a stock market. Of course some will go up and others will go down. The S&P 500 has been the average to watch for 50+ years, not the DJIA. There are other aggregates, and of course when you separate them by sectors you'll see varying performance, but for a general indicator of stocks, the SP5 works well.
Bond markets are a different animal, and that would take too long here. One (and only one) point to make is that the media will always look at yield, but bonds are bought and sold on price, which is the inverse of yield. This is not some abstraction or tautology, any appearances to the contrary. When I look at bond commentary, I often laugh.
In any case, the markets are doing well. I'm skeptical of Trump's pressing the Fed to "cut rates," meaning create more money. He's a real estate guy, and real estate guys always want lower rates. Problem there is that the Fed only controls the Fed funds (overnight) rate, unless they start buying long-term Treasuries, which has all kinds of issues.
We have a MAJOR issue with federal debt, actually more than one MAJOR issue, but this comment is already too long plus I doubt that most people here are equipped to discuss it. This doesn't mean that I denigrate anyone's intelligence; I used to call finance a language, like German. You learn it if you have to, but otherwise it's boring as hell and I don't blame anyone for not being fluent. LOL
Yeah the bond market is hard to cover, because the activity there is way more complex—straightforward ‘value’ investing and simply figuring what to bet *for* don’t drive trading there quite as much. The average bond trader is a financial professional whose interested in the directional change of yields and prices more than anything else—they’re looking to make as much money in hedged trading against certain movements in price/yield as they are in staking out the right long positions. In the stock market, there’s a lot more ‘average’ retail investors who are just using hedges and short positions as a cushion against volatility, not an active money-making strategy. And even legendary professionals like Buffet often make their fortunes through relatively simple ‘buy-and-hold’ strategies.
But to me what’s important about bond market indicators like the 30-year yield is that they tell you the real story about the state of interest rates. The Fed can manipulate short-run interest rates through the discount window and ‘bend the yield curve’ to try and push the market in a certain direction, but ultimately it doesn’t control long-run interest rates. Those are set by market fundamentals, and things like the value of long-dated government securities are indicators as to what those fundamentals are. In that way, Trump (or any other president) is likely to do more damage than good by bullying the Fed to respond to short-run political directives. Such a strategy doesn’t have a great track record—Nixon’s successful pressure campaign against Arthur Burns in the 70s to lower interest rates to benefit him politically poured a huge amount of fuel onto the fire of the stagflation crisis of that period. (Although the end of Bretton Woods and the gold standard was the main driver, IMO)
I also cannot grasp the logic behind the idea that if your ancestors came to the new world from every European country except Spain you’re a white majority oppressor. But if they came here from Spain then you are a blessed oppressed minority.
Not so with respect to Spain. The blessed opportunity minority you implicitly mention came from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America hundreds of years after the Spaniards left. We have hardly any actual Spanish immigrants, or their recent descendants, in this country.
If TLP’s goal is to rebuild the old Democratic coalition, then you really should stop characterizing blue collar voters who went from voting for Democrats to voting for Republicans as having “moved right”. They didn’t move at all. The Democrats just went so far left that they found themselves more closely aligned with the GOP. Trump moving the GOP to more pro-American worker on trade and immigration also helped. With regard to the latter Baharaeen also seems to gloss over the idea of voters both thinking Trump has gone to far and still seeing him/the GOP as the lesser evil when compared to the Democrats.
I read TLP mainly for the analysis, not for any putative "goal to rebuild the old Democratic coalition," even if the analysis usually proceeds from that focal point. Past that, yes, I agree that it's the Democrats that lurched leftward, not the "old Democratic coalition" that moved rightward.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, looking at the recent history of the parties, the most sensible conclusion is that Republicans have moved right and the Democrats have moved left, as the electorate as a whole has grown more and more polarized.
The Democrats' identity politics gig makes the predictably wrong assumption of classifying people by national origin more than religion, perhaps because the Democratic Party is more obsessed with the former and too indifferent toward the latter.
Baharaeen touches on this when he writes "Hispanics who are ideologically moderate or conservative are starting to vote more in line with their beliefs than their ethnicity (the second of which has historically aligned them more with the Democrats)."
Essentially this means, like American Jews, Hispanics are turning away from the Democratic Party for its reckless disregard if not hostility toward their deeply held religious beliefs. Overwhelmingly Catholic Hispanics, like devout Catholic Americans regardless of national origin, will probably never buy into the Democratic Party's casual embrace of abortion and cavalier negligence toward religious freedom.
Absolutely possible. However, Richard Baris pointed out the movement of Hispanics a couple of years BEFORE Trump. Don't take AZ's midterm as evidence of anything. The McTurdites were still hostile to Lake; Lake was a particular candidate who did not play well with Hispanic men. But
here we go again. The voter registration does NOT support your POV. AZ now has shot up to a GOP lead of 328,000 GAINING EVERY MONTH or more than 228,000 from where it was in 2020. Believe me, that ain't all whites and Navajos. PIMA, a heavily Hispanic Co., LOST almost a full point since the last # posting. EVERY county save one in AZ is moving R. If Democrats are counting on Hispanics to save them, good luck.
I'm sticking with my estimate of the GOP holding the House by 5 seats to 10 seats, but after that there will be a very, very big steady erosion of D voters. I don't care if you are black, white, Hispanic, or Martian, "I hate America, I hate beauty, I hate life" are not winning positions.
Dems assuming Hispanics would vote their ethnicity, not their interests, cost Dems the election. That is more than a bit karmically appropriate, because it is insulting at best, and racist, at worst. Dems assumed all Hispanics would be thrilled with an open border, because many people pouring over it, might resemble them. In Texas, they expected Hispanic US citizens to be so grateful, the would vote Dem, en mass, finally handing Texas and the WH, to Dems permanently.
To that end, Dems flooded Hispanic neighborhoods, hospitals and schools. They drove down working class wages, while driving up the cost of housing, and expected any American Hispanic citizens to just happily endure the hit to their living standards. None of that has changed, except Dems now agree violent migrant violent criminals can be deported.
Blue collar and low skilled wages are still taking a hit. The problem is likely to get worse, before it gets better. Mostly Hispanic schools are still swimming in non English speaking, new arrivals. ER wait times in Hispanic neighborhoods still run 4-5 hours, or worse. No one has constructed more affordable housing, or expanded the social safety net, even though more than 1/2 of all new arrivals are enrolled in welfare.
Hispanics are not Martians. Their reaction is both logical and expected. Drop millions of new Asian and Indian software and hardware engineers into the Bay Area ,willing to work for 1/2 the prevailing wage, and SV techies, many Asian and Indian, will be far from excited to welcome new arrivals. Ditto for dropping millions of German factory workers into the Midwest, willing to take a 33% pay cut from the going rate, and all in need of housing. They will resemble many of the the Midwest locals, but the Germans are unlikely to be happily received.
Hispanics want good jobs, low taxes, safe streets, good schools, enough disposable income to enjoy life, and a ladder up for their kids, just like everyone else. Dems didn't just make that harder. In many places, flooded with millions of new arrivals, Dems made that darn near impossible. Now Dems expect Hispanic voters to swing back Left, having changed nothing but deporting violent migrant criminals. That might be a stretch.
It would be worthwhile to compare the voting patterns of Mexican-Americans to those of other major immigrant groups in the past, i.e. Italians, Polish, and Irish.
Parsing voting blocs does nothing to get Democrats a program
I agree with the tone of other comments here. The reason Democrats are doing poorly is illustrated by this article. People from some 30+ countries with different histories are lumped together under the recently coined “Hispanic “. It’s insulting and not reflective of the breadth of views among people of latin descent any more than those of Northern European descent.
If you have read any of our other writing, you would know that we generally agree with that sentiment. At the same time, when trying to understand the electorate, race and ethnicity continue to be relevant fault lines in America to some extent. There's a reason why until only recently Hispanics and Asians voted overwhelmingly Democratic and black voters continue to do so. Hopefully one day that won't be the case, and as I said in the piece it's already becoming less meaningful for a population like Hispanic Americans. But it would be malpractice for any analyst to just pretend like race and ethnicity don't play at least some role in our society and, consequently, people's vote choices.
Perhaps you are right. My own view is that the Media, experts etc contribute to these generalizations by emphasizing race and ethnicity. It’s so much easier to put people in boxes, but it results in mischaracterizations and pandering, to no one’s benefit.
I would agree with that!
It is worth noting that Ruy refers to this voting bloc as 'Hispanic' in practically every other article he pens, and treats it analytically as it is treated here, and most commenters here don't ever complain. (One of the most popular articles he's ever published on the TLP was about the Democrats' 'Hispanic problem'). One wonders why.
Aggregation makes sense when you’re trying to see macro-trends, as long as you're properly careful with it. For example, If you're trying to assess, say,the performance of capital markets, and the major stock and bond indices are all collapsing, you can probably conclude those markets are generally not in good health, even if it's true that 'the market' includes short-sellers and gold-bugs, and they are making a killing.
Last time I looked a couple hours ago, the S&P 500 hit a new all-time high, and in round numbers is +10% year to date and +21% from a year ago. Some collapse.
You may have misunderstood me--I didn't mean to imply that I thought the market was collapsing right now. Just that looking at the stock and bond indices would be an adequate way to assess whether it was or wasn't.
In fact, what you just posted above actually kind of supports my point--you're saying we can assess that the market isn't collapsing right now by looking at the relative performance of the S&P 500, the Dow Jones, etc. I agree.
It's true that these indices are all aggregates of very diverse markets, though, and because the markets are diverse, that they will include participants that don't fit the trend--Charter Communications or Centene Corporation may be doing very poorly right now, for example, even though most major participants are in relatively good shape. (https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/best-worst-performing-stocks) However, the indices nonetheless provide a good tool for judging the overall health of the capital markets and discerning major trends.
Aggregating the Hispanic population, despite its internal diversity, to point out some broad political/electoral trends, I think is similar to this. As long as you always remember that the aggregate is an analytical synthesis and there's always some underlying heterogeneity behind it, using it for analysis is perfectly rational.
I had two careers, one in journalism and the other in finance. Commonalities were they both revolved around stories and facts (at least when I was a reporter before that business nosedived), and especially in finance, bullshit really doesn't survive for very long. There is always a reckoning. The markets are like Mother Nature: an alluring, heartless bitch who couldn't possibly care less if you live or die.
It's a market of stocks, not a stock market. Of course some will go up and others will go down. The S&P 500 has been the average to watch for 50+ years, not the DJIA. There are other aggregates, and of course when you separate them by sectors you'll see varying performance, but for a general indicator of stocks, the SP5 works well.
Bond markets are a different animal, and that would take too long here. One (and only one) point to make is that the media will always look at yield, but bonds are bought and sold on price, which is the inverse of yield. This is not some abstraction or tautology, any appearances to the contrary. When I look at bond commentary, I often laugh.
In any case, the markets are doing well. I'm skeptical of Trump's pressing the Fed to "cut rates," meaning create more money. He's a real estate guy, and real estate guys always want lower rates. Problem there is that the Fed only controls the Fed funds (overnight) rate, unless they start buying long-term Treasuries, which has all kinds of issues.
We have a MAJOR issue with federal debt, actually more than one MAJOR issue, but this comment is already too long plus I doubt that most people here are equipped to discuss it. This doesn't mean that I denigrate anyone's intelligence; I used to call finance a language, like German. You learn it if you have to, but otherwise it's boring as hell and I don't blame anyone for not being fluent. LOL
Yeah the bond market is hard to cover, because the activity there is way more complex—straightforward ‘value’ investing and simply figuring what to bet *for* don’t drive trading there quite as much. The average bond trader is a financial professional whose interested in the directional change of yields and prices more than anything else—they’re looking to make as much money in hedged trading against certain movements in price/yield as they are in staking out the right long positions. In the stock market, there’s a lot more ‘average’ retail investors who are just using hedges and short positions as a cushion against volatility, not an active money-making strategy. And even legendary professionals like Buffet often make their fortunes through relatively simple ‘buy-and-hold’ strategies.
But to me what’s important about bond market indicators like the 30-year yield is that they tell you the real story about the state of interest rates. The Fed can manipulate short-run interest rates through the discount window and ‘bend the yield curve’ to try and push the market in a certain direction, but ultimately it doesn’t control long-run interest rates. Those are set by market fundamentals, and things like the value of long-dated government securities are indicators as to what those fundamentals are. In that way, Trump (or any other president) is likely to do more damage than good by bullying the Fed to respond to short-run political directives. Such a strategy doesn’t have a great track record—Nixon’s successful pressure campaign against Arthur Burns in the 70s to lower interest rates to benefit him politically poured a huge amount of fuel onto the fire of the stagflation crisis of that period. (Although the end of Bretton Woods and the gold standard was the main driver, IMO)
I am tempted to go there, and then remember how boring it all is. Especially bonds. LOL
I also cannot grasp the logic behind the idea that if your ancestors came to the new world from every European country except Spain you’re a white majority oppressor. But if they came here from Spain then you are a blessed oppressed minority.
Not so with respect to Spain. The blessed opportunity minority you implicitly mention came from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America hundreds of years after the Spaniards left. We have hardly any actual Spanish immigrants, or their recent descendants, in this country.
If TLP’s goal is to rebuild the old Democratic coalition, then you really should stop characterizing blue collar voters who went from voting for Democrats to voting for Republicans as having “moved right”. They didn’t move at all. The Democrats just went so far left that they found themselves more closely aligned with the GOP. Trump moving the GOP to more pro-American worker on trade and immigration also helped. With regard to the latter Baharaeen also seems to gloss over the idea of voters both thinking Trump has gone to far and still seeing him/the GOP as the lesser evil when compared to the Democrats.
I read TLP mainly for the analysis, not for any putative "goal to rebuild the old Democratic coalition," even if the analysis usually proceeds from that focal point. Past that, yes, I agree that it's the Democrats that lurched leftward, not the "old Democratic coalition" that moved rightward.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, looking at the recent history of the parties, the most sensible conclusion is that Republicans have moved right and the Democrats have moved left, as the electorate as a whole has grown more and more polarized.
The Democrats' identity politics gig makes the predictably wrong assumption of classifying people by national origin more than religion, perhaps because the Democratic Party is more obsessed with the former and too indifferent toward the latter.
Baharaeen touches on this when he writes "Hispanics who are ideologically moderate or conservative are starting to vote more in line with their beliefs than their ethnicity (the second of which has historically aligned them more with the Democrats)."
Essentially this means, like American Jews, Hispanics are turning away from the Democratic Party for its reckless disregard if not hostility toward their deeply held religious beliefs. Overwhelmingly Catholic Hispanics, like devout Catholic Americans regardless of national origin, will probably never buy into the Democratic Party's casual embrace of abortion and cavalier negligence toward religious freedom.
Absolutely possible. However, Richard Baris pointed out the movement of Hispanics a couple of years BEFORE Trump. Don't take AZ's midterm as evidence of anything. The McTurdites were still hostile to Lake; Lake was a particular candidate who did not play well with Hispanic men. But
here we go again. The voter registration does NOT support your POV. AZ now has shot up to a GOP lead of 328,000 GAINING EVERY MONTH or more than 228,000 from where it was in 2020. Believe me, that ain't all whites and Navajos. PIMA, a heavily Hispanic Co., LOST almost a full point since the last # posting. EVERY county save one in AZ is moving R. If Democrats are counting on Hispanics to save them, good luck.
I'm sticking with my estimate of the GOP holding the House by 5 seats to 10 seats, but after that there will be a very, very big steady erosion of D voters. I don't care if you are black, white, Hispanic, or Martian, "I hate America, I hate beauty, I hate life" are not winning positions.
Dems assuming Hispanics would vote their ethnicity, not their interests, cost Dems the election. That is more than a bit karmically appropriate, because it is insulting at best, and racist, at worst. Dems assumed all Hispanics would be thrilled with an open border, because many people pouring over it, might resemble them. In Texas, they expected Hispanic US citizens to be so grateful, the would vote Dem, en mass, finally handing Texas and the WH, to Dems permanently.
To that end, Dems flooded Hispanic neighborhoods, hospitals and schools. They drove down working class wages, while driving up the cost of housing, and expected any American Hispanic citizens to just happily endure the hit to their living standards. None of that has changed, except Dems now agree violent migrant violent criminals can be deported.
Blue collar and low skilled wages are still taking a hit. The problem is likely to get worse, before it gets better. Mostly Hispanic schools are still swimming in non English speaking, new arrivals. ER wait times in Hispanic neighborhoods still run 4-5 hours, or worse. No one has constructed more affordable housing, or expanded the social safety net, even though more than 1/2 of all new arrivals are enrolled in welfare.
Hispanics are not Martians. Their reaction is both logical and expected. Drop millions of new Asian and Indian software and hardware engineers into the Bay Area ,willing to work for 1/2 the prevailing wage, and SV techies, many Asian and Indian, will be far from excited to welcome new arrivals. Ditto for dropping millions of German factory workers into the Midwest, willing to take a 33% pay cut from the going rate, and all in need of housing. They will resemble many of the the Midwest locals, but the Germans are unlikely to be happily received.
Hispanics want good jobs, low taxes, safe streets, good schools, enough disposable income to enjoy life, and a ladder up for their kids, just like everyone else. Dems didn't just make that harder. In many places, flooded with millions of new arrivals, Dems made that darn near impossible. Now Dems expect Hispanic voters to swing back Left, having changed nothing but deporting violent migrant criminals. That might be a stretch.
Possibly true but it will be offset by a loss of Jewish Voters and Jewish Money by the Democrat Party !
It would be worthwhile to compare the voting patterns of Mexican-Americans to those of other major immigrant groups in the past, i.e. Italians, Polish, and Irish.