meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Gray Area with Sean Illing

What Democrats got wrong about Hispanic voters

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.511.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2020

⏱️ 63 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump has built his presidency on top of racial dog whistles, xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant policies. A core belief among liberals was that this strategy would help Trump with whites but almost certainly hurt him with Latinos, and people of color more broadly. Then the opposite happened: In 2020, Trump gained considerable support among voters of color, particularly Latinos, relative to the 2016 election. What happened? Ian Haney López is a legal scholar at UC Berkeley and the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. In 2017, he partnered with the leftist think tank Demos and various polling groups to better understand the effectiveness of racial dog whistles and how Democrats could combat them. The results were sobering, even to the experts who commissioned the polls. As Haney López documented in his 2019 book Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America, 60 percent of Latinos and 54 percent of African Americans have found Trumpian dog-whistle messages convincing, right in step with the 61 percent of whites who did. This conversation is about the complicated reality of racial politics in America. It’s about the fact that the electorate isn’t divided into racists and non-racists — most voters, including Trump supporters, toggle back and forth between racially reactionary and racially egalitarian views — and a more robust theory of how race operates in American politics that follows. And it’s about the kinds of race- and class-conscious messages that Haney López’s research suggests work best with voters of all backgrounds. Book recommendations: Racial Realignment:The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965 by Eric Schickler The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú Born a Crime by Trevor Noah  Credits: Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld Researcher - Roge Karma Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas. New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere) Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, you.

0:01.6

Listening to your favorite podcast again.

0:04.9

A little predicted beloved you, don't you think?

0:06.7

My latest heartbreak has been a catalyst that has brought me to London.

0:09.9

I spend my days as a professor and my nights with friends.

0:13.2

It's a generous way to describe them, but I have to stay close.

0:15.7

There's a killer out there picking them off,

0:18.7

all while trying to frame me.

0:20.5

I laugh at the irony if it weren't so serious.

0:23.0

Someone is watching me.

0:24.2

I can feel it.

0:25.3

Is it you?

0:26.4

You. You. Now streaming only on Netflix.

0:56.4

I'm Kurt, I'm Kurt, I'm your coach.

1:02.3

Dogwistling is designed to trigger racist fears and resentments

1:09.3

that almost all of us have, but in a way that allows not just plausible

1:14.9

deniability on the part of the politician, but that allows those people

1:19.2

to be repeated by these fears to reassure themselves that they're not racist.

1:37.2

Hello and welcome to the Ezuclan Show on the Vox Media Podcast Network.

1:40.7

So we don't have all of the information we wish we had on the election.

1:44.0

Exopoles are not reliable.

1:45.5

If you currently see punditry being done on exopoles, ignore it.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox Media Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.