Liberty Expose: El Norte: Roadmaps For A Growing Hispanic Electorate
Yellow Dog Productions
The “American Nations” Series So Far
So far in this “American Nations” series inspired by the work of Colin Woodard, I have drawn from four of his proposed eleven cultural nations: the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, the Midlands, and Yankeedom. The overall aim has been to provide a new contextual layer for understanding the status of conservatism and the Republican Party today, and where both might go.
The first piece argues that the prevailing Republican establishment serves as a vehicle for forwarding an oligarchic program rooted in the values of the Deep South, and that the key to its redirection lies in the latent democratic energy (at once libertarian, populist, and nationalist) of its Appalachian constituencies. The second piece links this thesis to the values of the Yankee and Midlander nations by arguing that these regions contain a latent energy in their own right: a northern conservative inheritance that, if activated, could work with an Appalachian coalition to forward a federal nationalist platform that prioritizes the economic needs of working and middle-class people.
One of the subtexts of these arguments is that a “populist” economic agenda, spearheaded by the invigorated agency of a strong national government, will prove not only truer to the nation’s democratic promise, but politically necessary in the changing landscape of the country. Given the value profiles of many upcoming Millennials and Gen-Zers (also known as Zoomers), and the slew of systemic issues that require bold concerted action, the number of voters who are either dissatisfied or apathetic about the given Party options will only grow, leaving a vacuum of opportunity for any Party ready to forward a genuine program of national revitalization that prioritizes concrete, people-centric economic reform.
I state these points in such emphatic terms because “the Right” currently lags behind “the Left” (for all its shortcomings) on these fronts to an embarrassing degree. Hampered by its ties to an oligarchic minority, its proclivity to sultanism, and its reliance on racial antagonism as a unifying element of Republican identity, the Party has for decades (mainly since the Reagan administration, excepting to an extent that of George H. W. Bush) failed to prioritize the economic needs of its working and middle-class constituents, and has obscured this discrepancy by sustaining its Party image with faux liberty rhetoric.
In consequence, the Right has been met by a Trumpist brand of reactionary populism that, while inflamed by long-standing and legitimate economic concerns, has unfortunately inspired anti-democratic modes of thinking among many Republican voters, and in extreme cases, emboldened both militia and white supremacist groups. We saw these forces come together to an unsettling degree this past week, when many Trump supporters, with his encouragement, mounted an insurrectionary attempt to disrupt the Congressional certification of Biden’s presidential win.
These are hard messages to hear, but it is necessary to reckon with them if we are to cultivate a conservative coalition worthy of the moral imagination of the upcoming generations. To this end, I will now turn to a cultural nation whose example in many ways reflects both the failures of the Republican Party and the future of the nation as a whole. In coming to terms with this nation, the real limits of the prevailing Republican establishment will come into clearer relief, rendering a clearer picture of where we must go.
A REVISED MAP OF THE AMERICAN NATIONS, BY COLIN WOODARD
El Norte: Roadmaps For A More Hispanic America
In American Character, Woodard begins his account of El Norte by explicating its unique origins as a Spanish colony that over time has produced a nation with one foot in America, and another in Mexico:
“The oldest of the Euro-American nations, El Norte dates back to the late sixteenth century, when the Spanish empire founded Monterrey, Saltillo, and other outposts in what are now the Mexican-American borderlands. Today, this resurgent culture spreads from the current frontier for a hundred miles or more in both directions, taking in South and West Texas, Southern California and the Imperial Valley, southern Arizona, most of New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and the six northernmost Mexican states. Most Americans are aware that the region is a place apart, where Hispanic language, culture, and societal norms dominate; few realize that among Mexicans, norteños have a reputation for being more independent, self-sufficient, adaptable, and work-centered than their central and southern countrymen.”
Like the Appalachians, the value profile of Norteños was in part formed by an antagonistic relationship to government authority, which in both cases cultivated a democratic and enterprising disposition at odds with bureaucracy and hierarchical authority. Only whereas the Appalachians inherited an ethic of libertarian independence informed by centuries of war and political upheaval, the Norteños were influenced by the thin overreach of distant despotic government:
“Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spain, unlike England and the Netherlands, was an unenlightened, unreconstructed despotism, a centralized monarchy…[with no] representative legislative bodies of any sort...Most of El Norte, the far-flung frontier of the empire’s already far-flung Mexican viceroyalty, was settled as if it were a lunar base...by military officers or other outsiders appointed by the distant bureaucracy...More than any other part of Mexico, however, the North aspired to a more democratic future. Life on the arid frontier was less stratified than in central Mexico, and individuals had greater opportunities to engage in entrepreneurship, even if they had to do so through illicit trade with their Deep Southern neighbors over the U.S. border.”
In more recent decades, El Norte has grown in population and political power. Its American portion is the most rapidly growing cultural nation in America, and will prove increasingly important in electoral politics. Crucially, its unique value profile offers a swing opportunity in the political landscape, albeit one whose implications neither Party has yet to adequately grasp:
“Since the 1960s, El Norte’s Spanish-speaking majority has reasserted itself, helping topple the region’s caste system and reclaiming its political rights...In El Norte, where family and church ties are strong, and the collectivist impulses of the Catholic Church remain influential, government is seen as the agent of the common good, even if there is little expectation that it will be able to perform its role without prejudice in favor of the region’s elites. El Norte is theoretically a swing region, so long as its nonwhite, Spanish-speaking culture is accepted by the competing political actors.”
Like the Midlands, El Norte is a swing region whose more progressive leanings are balanced by other conservative values. Like Yankeedom, it emphasizes communal interests, although it mediates them through traditional platoons like the family and the church. Furthermore, it sees the role of government through both a democratic (“government should serve the common good”) and a realist (“but government typically skews in favor of the elites”) lens. Like Appalachia, it embodies a frontier spirit of self-reliance, independence, and hard work, along with an aversion to rigid hierarchy. Thus, the opportunities for coalition-building presented by El Norte are vast and variegated.
As a geographical cultural nation with unique American and Mexican influences, El Norte is not synonymous with the Hispanic population writ large, which remains quite plural in character. Cubans, for example, bring a very different (and particularly anti-communist) outlook to the table, and deviate from most Hispanics in their preference for the Republican Party. Regionally, the makeup of Hispanic groups by origin varies considerably; and in terms of economic conditions, median household incomes differ quite a bit by origin group. The flow of immigration has also shifted in terms of national origin, with immigration from the “Northern Triangle” (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) increasing, and immigration from Mexico decreasing since 2007 (though those of Mexican origin remain the largest Hispanic group by far).
That all being said, the growth of El Norte in many ways mirrors the increasing presence of Hispanics in America more broadly. According to Pew research, Hispanics accounted for 52% of U.S. population growth since 2010, and 39% of total U.S. electoral growth since 2000. Moreover, while the percentage of eligible Hispanic voters is increasing across the country, the highest percentages of eligible Hispanic voters, and the greatest percent increases, are found in the Norteño region, making the overlap between these distinct categories considerable. Thus much of the political effect of the growing Hispanic electorate will be felt in El Norte, and potentially mediated by its prevailing culture.
If one considers the priorities of Hispanic voters, this proposed overlap with El Norte seems even less outlandish. When asked to share which life goals rank highest for them, Hispanics reflect the Norteño emphasis on family, with 51% citing “being a good parent” as extremely important, and 49% citing “having the resources to provide for your family” as extremely important (this not including those who list these priorities as “very important”). Furthermore, Hispanics also seem to align with the Norteño ethic of industry and self-reliance, as evidenced by their belief in the American dream. Compared to Americans as a whole, Hispanics are significantly more likely to believe that “most can get ahead with hard work,” and that their children will have a better standard of living than their own.
This evidence suggests that the Republican Party has truly missed out on a promising voter base it could have very feasibly won over. Taking Republican rhetoric at face value, one could hardly think of a cultural dynamic more favorable to basic Republican values than that of El Norte. A family-centric platform committed to self-employment, economic security, and the liberation of entrepreneurial initiative would have mapped onto Norteño values quite seamlessly.
But instead of forwarding a coherent programmatic vision aimed at the expansion of economic opportunity for those with aspirations to the American dream, the Party has instead opted for a faux liberty platform grounded in an oligarchic agenda, and in consequence, has found it necessary to exploit racial antagonism and suspicion of immigrants to sustain its largely white voter base (whose economic interests aren’t actually in alignment with establishment priorities). The most obvious cost of this strategy has been the loss of an increasingly powerful Hispanic coalition whose concerns about immigration policy make the Republican option quite infeasible.
Insofar as the rise of El Norte partially mirrors the growing electoral presence of Hispanics, it also seems to converge with many aspects of the upcoming Millennial generation more generally. For starters, Hispanics constitute a remarkably young demographic, with 61% under 35 as of 2018 (marking 20% growth from a decade ago). In addition, most young Hispanics are U.S. born, meaning their experience is more congruent with other U.S. born constituencies than their foreign born counterparts’ might be. And just as Millennials evince greater concern for systemic issues and a desire for bolder action on the national level, Hispanic voters seem more concerned than U.S. voters in general about healthcare, racial and ethnic inequality, and climate change. In meeting the concerns of one group, one could theoretically address the concerns of the other.
As previously argued, the personality profile of Millennials does not bode well for the future of the Republican establishment as long as it continues in the direction it’s going in. Though their Democratic ties seem relatively elastic, they will not be sympathetic to an agenda that does not forward a bold national platform that prioritizes concrete economic reform over faux liberty, anti-statism, and racial antagonism. For what the analogy is worth, this outcome of Millennial abandonment has already been previewed by the Republican failure to inspire a Hispanic base with favorable value alignment. If the latter couldn’t be won over with business as usual, what makes us think the former would be?
Let the challenge of El Norte stand as both a warning sign for the Right and a challenge to redeem its greatest mistakes.