Bernie Sanders and the Mexicans

>More than half the 800,000 Latinos in Nevada, that’s 19% of the electorate, voted for “Tío Bernie” (Uncle Bernie), convinced he is what they need to sort out Donald Trump’s mess.

Something extraordinary happened in Nevada. Hundreds of thousands of new Latino voters cast their votes at the Nevada caucuses. Let me make it clear here that when we say “Latino” we’re referring to someone who has family ties to Latin America. It’s clearly an arbitrary term to describe people who live in Latin America because it applies just as much to someone who arrived last week as it does to a family who has been here since before 1848, when Mexico ceded Nevada.

For further clarification, in Nevada these Latinos are really American Mexicans. Some 80% of the nearly 1 million Latinos currently living in Nevada are the children or grandchildren of Mexicans, or they’re Mexicans born in Mexico who have become American citizens.

What was extraordinary was that, for the first time, so many Mexicans registered and came out to vote during the heavy rainfall in Nevada on Saturday. Why? Because Latinos want Donald Trump out of the White House.

The other phenomenon is Bernie Sanders, winner of the Democratic primary, the Independent senator from Vermont whose siren song is offering free college education and health care, and legalization of immigrant status for those who have undocumented family members and are employed in the same jobs that were going to Mexico.

Above all, Bernie offers to redistribute wealth. Millionaires and billionaires will pay more in taxes, and that money in turn will then be given to those who have none.

It turned out that more than half the 800,000 Latinos in Nevada, that’s 19% of the electorate, voted for “Tío Bernie,” convinced he is what they need to extinguish the fire started by Trump four years ago.

In 2016, Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in 10 out of the 11 states where Latinos had the power to sway the election, including Nevada. But Sanders learned that to reach these American Latinos, he needed the guidance of other Latinos, which is why his campaign hired Latino strategists. These strategists are behind campaigns like “Tamales for Tío Bernie,” festivals with soccer tournaments, music and taquizas (taco parties) which featured appearances and speeches from respected liberal politicians, like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a highly respected New York congresswoman. It was Ocasio-Cortez who baptized Bernie as the “uncle” of the Latino community.

Sanders and his Latino strategists have already passed through California, Texas and Colorado, which, with their enormous Latino populations, will be crucial on the coming Super Tuesday primaries, March 3.

But in conclusion, by voting against the new free trade agreement, Sanders has proven that he’s not Mexico’s friend. His rhetoric is like Trump’s when he says “enough with the trade deals, jobs should be created in the United States, not in Mexico.” This, together with his democratic socialist label, means many people aren’t buying into the tamale gimmick. They see him as a danger … another socialist dressed in sheep’s clothing.