Former ESPN commentator Jemele Hill denigrated Cubans and Latinos for shifting rightward over the past decade, saying they are “soft targets of misinformation.”
Hill attacked the Latino communities in response to Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) losing her Senate primary bid to Democrat James Talarico in Texas.
“The Cubans, as we know, that are in Miami – the ‘I will vote for Donald Trumps’ – they are very soft targets for misinformation,” she said.
Hill acted as if Latino and Hispanic communities simply vote on buzzwords like “Socialism” and “Communism” so long as Republicans keep uttering them every election cycle.
“A lot of Latino and Hispanic communities are, to be frank, and especially if you’re from Cuba. Cubans here, socialism, Communism, and as long as the Republicans use those words to describe Democratic policies, they will vote Republican every time, even if they’re voting for themselves to be put out of America,” she said.
Hill then blamed Spanish-language channels like Univision for this misinformation.
“They would do it every time. So, that’s something that requires a level of sophistication to understand, and one of the main platforms for the disinformation is Univision, and many of the Spanish-language newspapers,” she said. “Many of them are owned by conservative, right-leaning people. So they constantly are a group that is filtered full of misinformation.”
According to Politico, Latino voters overwhelmingly voted for Talarico, who positioned himself as a moderate, versus the more hard-left Crocket, with some signs that they may not be quite as monolithic as Hill paints them out to be; similar mistakes were made by Republicans when President Obama won the Latino vote in the 2012 election.
“The turnout surge among Hispanic and Latino voters helped power state Rep. James Talarico’s Senate primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, setting him up for a general election that has ignited Democrats’ fever dream of finally flipping Texas,” noted Politico. “In counties that are majority-Latino, Talarico won by roughly 22 points, according to preliminary results, compared to a roughly 3-point margin of victory over Crockett in the rest of the state.”
“Democratic candidates put up strong numbers in predominantly Latino areas in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey last November, as well as a smattering of special elections, including a state senate race in Fort Worth just last month,” it added.
