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This trend is not equally celebrated by both sides of the aisle. As a group, Latino voters have traditionally leaned toward the , fueling hopes that the increasing share of Latinos among the US electorate would translate into growing support for Democratic presidential candidates even in states known for being Republican strongholds, such as Texas. This narrative gained further momentum in the current electoral cycle as many expected Latinos to Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric. However, the results of the 2020 presidential election suggest that changing demographics might not be enough to shield US politics against the next Donald Trump.

Who Are the Latino Voters?

Understanding these voters in their complexity and diversity is no easy task. At times, even establishing who belongs in the Latino category is a matter of contention. For instance, most dictionary definitions of the term “” would encompass Brazilian Americans as they define Latino as “a person of Latin American origin living in the U.S.” However, the US Census Bureau (USCB) — and some — would disagree. The USCB establishes no clear distinction between the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic,” privileging the narrower definition that emphasizes the Spanish rather than geopolitical criteria.

This conflict of definitions is a sample of the challenges facing scholars and analysts who attempt to predict how the Latino vote will shape US elections in the future. Rather than being a monolith, Latinos are a diverse group with distinctive priorities, interests and political views. In fact, only a quarter of Latinos use the term to describe themselves, with most preferring to be identified by the of their families. Among those who have Spanish as the dominant language in the countries of origin, almost 70% claim Hispanics in the US cannot be described as having a .

Diversity is also a hallmark of these communities in the realm of politics. Although minoritarian, some Hispanics have a history of commitment to the Republican Party and were instrumental in securing Republican candidates around a at least since the reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972.

Again, in 2020, electoral results appear to have followed that trend, with voting for Donald Trump, an increase of 4% compared to 2016 results, while Joe Biden performed on par with Hillary Clinton, securing around 66% of the Latino vote. Despite President Trump’s gains this year, most Latinos still vote Democrat and, as they become a greater share of the US electorate, this should benefit Democratic candidates in the future. Nonetheless, given the peculiarities of the US electoral system, projecting the influence of Latino voters on the outcome of an election based solely on national voting trends can be misleading.

Beyond convincing voters of their ideas, candidates must also persuade them to actually cast their ballots as voting in the US is not mandatory and is usually low. Furthermore, as elections are decided by a few battleground states, the candidates’ performance in these is more critical to the outcome of an election than the nationwide popular vote, as we have seen in 2000 with and in 2016 with .

If we account for these two variables, turnout and performance in key states, Latinos have sent a mixed message during the 2020 electoral cycle. In the state of Georgia, turnout among Latinos when compared to 2016, with many of those votes going for Joe Biden. In Gwinnett County, a precinct with a high concentration of Latinos, Biden widened the by 46%, earning 75% of the votes in the county. Young Latinos also helped flip the state of , which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton in 1996; Biden won here by a tight margin of little more than 10,000 votes.

However, Trump made significant inroads among Latino voters in important in southern Florida and in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, two of the states which account for the highest number of electoral votes in the country.

Latinos for Trump

The surge in support for Donald Trump among Latinos in Florida and Texas was received with surprise by many observers of US politics. Prior to the election, expectations were that the would actually increase Democratic margins in those states and potentially flip them in favor of Joe Biden. Yet precisely the occurred. But why did Latino communities in these states vote for Donald Trump, a candidate who made anti-immigration policies a staple of his administration?

As one would expect, the reasons are manifold, and among them, partisanship is one that is often overlooked. Voters in the United States are historically polarized along party lines, and the gap between Democrats and Republicans has in recent years. Latinos are no exception. As the from the University of Texas at Austin shows, Latinos in Texas who identify as Republican are almost twice more likely to forego concerns about Trump’s immigration policies than non-Republican Latinos.

Data from Florida also shows strong partisan identification, in particular among Cuban Americans, who make up the of Latino voters in southern Florida. According to the , 58% of Cuban American registered voters identify as Republicans. In Miami-Dade, the most populous county in Florida, approximately 55% of Cuban Americans in 2020.

In addition to partisanship, Trump’s performance among Latino voters in Florida and Texas can be attributed to effective signaling strategies on issues that resonated with specific groups of voters in these communities. In Miami-Dade, for instance, Trump’s tougher stance against “socialism” was a major driver of engagement and one the president exploited well. Since taking office in 2017, Trump courted Cuban Americans unhappy with the of diplomatic relations with Havana under the Obama administration. He announced the reversal of President Barack Obama’s Cuba policy at a rally in the neighborhood of in 2017, in a clear bid to increase his support among Cuban American voters.

During his presidency, Trump also wooed Venezuelan Americans by posting pictures on Twitter with Lillian Tintori, the wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, and recognizing the shadow government of Juan GuaidĂł. In the days leading up to the 2020 election, in Spanish circulated widely on social platforms like WhatsApp, portraying Joe Biden as a socialist and associating the Democratic candidate with the autocratic regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

In Texas, home of the country’s second-largest Mexican American community, Trump’s message also resonated with Latinos who embraced the state’s conservative ethos. Tejanos, as some prefer to be called, traditionally lean more than their counterparts in other states and seem very much in tune with the attitudes of their fellow when it comes to religion, abortion, support for law enforcement and gun rights.

However, it was in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley, along the border with Mexico, that Trump registered his largest gains. In Zapata, a county dependent on the jobs created by the , claims that Biden would ban fracking helped Trump flip the county red for the first time in almost a century. Trump benefitted greatly from a strong engagement of local Republicans who tailored his message to the issues most affecting these communities. Caravans of pickup trucks, the so-called “Trump Trains,” drove around the region praising Trump’s “pro-business” views and warning against “liberals” who want to “defund the police.”

Those were powerful messages in a region where 14% of local residents, most of them Latinos, are and many others work in law enforcement, including border patrol and immigration enforcement. The result was an astounding loss of in the regions’ four counties, reducing the Democratic margin from Hillary Clinton’s 44% to only 11% for Joe Biden.

This time, Donald Trump’s inroads among Latino voters did not win him reelection. However, his performance showed yet again that the increasingly diverse make-up of the US electorate, when combined with the peculiarities of the US electoral system, is no antidote against far-right trends. For those concerned with the state of US democracy, Democrats and Republicans alike, the 2020 presidential election should sound the alarm against essentializing narratives that take groups as diverse as Latino voters for granted.

*[51łÔąĎ is a  partner of the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The new legislation allows Orban to rule by decree, converting the spread of false information — now punishable by up to five years in prison — and the failure to abide by mandatory lockdown restrictions into criminal offenses. Many fear these new measures will be used beyond the struggle against the COVID-19 crisis to silence Hungary’s opposition. Even more worrying is the absence of any reference to an end date or a requirement for renewal of the emergency legislation, which may de facto allow Orban to maintain his exceptional powers indefinitely.

Enabling Acts

For those familiar with the history of Nazi Germany, the decree evokes a nefarious parallel with Hitler’s . In 1933, Hitler exploited the to pass an emergency law that allowed him to enact legislation without consulting parliament, a step decisive to the consolidation of his rule over Germany. Indeed enabled by the act, Hitler removed the autonomy of German states and outlawed non-Nazi political parties. Hitler’s new powers were supposed to expire in 1937, however, by that time, the Führer had already taken control of German institutions and saw no obstacles to renewing his dictatorial powers.

Although the Hungarian emergency law preserves some parliamentary authority, there is little to inspire certainty that the country would not follow a path similar interwar Germany. Orban has a notorious track record as an opponent of liberal democracy, and throughout his years in office has worked to erode democratic institutions, lifting legal and political constraints to curb press freedom and the activities of civil society organizations.

In 2012, the coalition formed by Fidesz and the Christian Democrats replaced the existing constitution, introducing reformed and systems which, among other measures, limited the power of Hungarian courts, reduced the number of seats in parliament and reshaped constituency boundaries, leading to criticism from the opposition and international observers.

Later amendments, passed in 2013, also regulated to role of the press and granted public media outlets monopoly over political advertising during national and European elections. In 2018, Orban strengthened his control over the media through the consolidation of more than 400 media outlets under the (KESMA), a government-friendly entity chaired by individuals with connections to the prime minister.

In addition to the undermining of constitutional checks and balances, nativist discourse was also instrumentalized in the gradual process of erosion of democratic institutions in Hungary. As the refugee crisis intensified, Orban adopted an explicitly anti-immigration stance antagonizing other European leaders who called for a joint effort to tackle one of the greatest migration crises since World War II. Orban described migrants as a “,” stating that “every single migrant poses a security and terror risk” to Hungary. This form of nativist rhetoric was recently employed to legitimize the persecution of NGOs operating in the country.

In 2018, Orban accused these organizations of promoting and introduced a legislative package that became known as “Stop Soros” — a reference to the Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist George Soros, the founder of the Open Society Foundations and Orban’s nemesis. In addition to criminalizing NGOs that offered support to migrants, a special tax law was introduced to penalize NGOs that “promote illegal immigration.”

Little Room for Optimism

This brief overview of Hungary’s descent into authoritarianism offers some perspective on the role of the coronavirus emergency law being just another piece in a complex chain of events that have cumulatively contributed to the demise of Hungarian democracy. Although one would like to take comfort in the assurance by the Hungarian prime minister and his party that parliament retains the authority to restore democratic normalcy, Orban’s track record since being elected in 2010 leaves little room for optimism.

The passing of the emergency law comes at a moment when Hungarian democracy was finally beginning to show signs of resilience. In the held in 2019, coalitions of opposition parties defeated Orban’s ruling right-wing Fidesz party in 10 of the 23 major cities across the country, including the capital Budapest, scoring their best result in a decade. Under the new law, however, mayors have little power to challenge as any measure adopted by them can now be easily overruled.

For now, one can only hope that, once the COVID-19 crisis is over, the Hungarian opposition will react as it did in 2019, and that the European Union will uphold its values to prevent a dictatorship from taking root in one of its member states.

*[The  is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will the Coronavirus Crisis Bring Down Hungary’s Failing Democracy? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The weaker economic outlook of the eastern states is often blamed for the rise of the AfD in the region. Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, differences between east and west remain, despite the effort of the federal government of Germany to boost the economic development of the new federal states. suggest that, following a dynamic start in the early 1990s, former East German states are now growing at a slower pace. Unemployment remains, on average, higher in the east than in the west and is accompanied by that fail to narrow the gap.

However, polls conducted during the elections in and seem to contradict this assumption. In Saxony — a state which became a stronghold of the AfD since the party’s foundation in 2013 — almost 80% of those interviews described the economic situation as good in 2014, the year when members of the AfD were for the first time elected to the regional parliament. Despite a slight decrease, numbers remain high, reaching 75% of respondents describing the economic situation as good during the recent electoral cycle in 2019.

The poll appears to confirm on the rise of the AfD in the region that found little correlation between citizens’ views on the economy and the vote for the populist radical right. In fact, scholars like have described economic programs as marginal to the agenda of populist radical-right parties not only in Germany but across Europe. The poll also supports the conclusions of these same studies that point to angst toward as a more successful predictor of vote for the AfD.

Four years after the migrant crisis, immigration remains the top priority of AfD voters in both states, followed by security and crime, which some voters associate with the presence of migrants. The fear, nonetheless, is contradicted by the data. Since 2015, the former East German states received systematically than their western counterparts, and while crimes committed by immigrants experienced an in the immediate aftermath of the migrant crisis, this increase occurred at a substantially lower proportion when compared to the number of migrants that entered the country. Besides, in Germany are currently at their lowest since the early 1990s.

The incongruencies between voters’ perception and the data available suggests, therefore, that the causes for the political divide between eastern and western Germany today might neither be explained by differences in material conditions nor by the specific circumstances related to the influx of migrants. Rather, they indicate the permanence of a “Mauer im Kopf”— a wall in the head — a phenomenon that has been discussed among scholars since the mid-1990s. It describes the distinction in attitudes and values which inform former East and West Germans’ perceptions about themselves and about the Other.

Despite acknowledging the improvement in the standard of living, citizens in the east still perceive themselves as in unified Germany. Levels of identification with the former GDR have also since reunification, and a sense of for aspects of life under socialism appears to have survived after almost thirty years.

In states like Brandenburg and Saxony, the permanence of this symbolic barrier fueled in previous elections the favorable results of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and The Left (Die Linke), both successor parties to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the ruling party of the former GDR. However, as dissatisfaction with the outcome of unification was fused with the anxiety produced by the massive inflow of immigrants, former East Germany became a fertile ground for the rise of the AfD.

*[The  is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Germany’s East-West Divide Fuels the Far Right appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.