Political piñata.

  By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc. / LMMiami.com

Question: how are we supposed to get CEOs and CMOs to allocate higher marketing & advertising budgets to the US Hispanic market in the current state of affairs?

On one side there is the GOP, a ruling party intent on delivering on its central campaign promise: that it will build a wall to prevent rapists, drug-dealers, cheap labor, welfare freeloaders and terrorists (otherwise known as Univision & Telemundo prime time viewers) from coming into the country.

They will appoint Jeff Sessions to the seat of Attorney General: a notorious fringe element within the party ranks and a single-issue politician who has made banning immigration the one and only obsession of his entire career.

Please note that Mr. Sessions is on the record opposing immigration as a whole, illegal & LEGAL TOO.

JEFF SESSIONS BELIEVES LEGAL IMMIGRATION SHOULD BE CURTAILED TOO BECAUSE IT “DEPRESSES WAGES”.

• And this guy calls himself a conservative.
• #facepalm
• On the other side, there’s the Dems, a party who pretty much cast its lot with the Hispanic vote and ended up empty-handed.
• Literally empty-handed, in every possible sense of the word.
• Think of it: the GOP won total control of Washington DC using México and Mexicans as its political piñata.
• It was pretty much an invitation for the bitter, wounded Dems to copy them.
• Next thing you know, Obama killed the “dry foot wet foot” policy that allowed Cuban refugees to remain legally on US soil.
• Why?
• Because who cares.
• Darn.
• If it was difficult already to get advertisers to loosen the purse strings to reach Hispanic consumers through Spanish-language media outlets, imagine how friggin’ hard it will be now.
• What the heck does politics have to do with the disposable income, purchase power and shopping habits of Hispanic households, you might ask.
• A lot.
• An awful lot.
• Psychologically and factually.
• We are in the worst of both worlds.
• We as in the US Hispanic media & marketing industries.
• Let’s face it: our business model, our livelihood, depends on a robust influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants mostly from three nationalities: Mexican, Cuban and Puerto Rican (should you consider the latter immigrants, which technically they are not).
• Organic in-country growth is insufficient.
• The longer a Hispanic immigrant remains on US soil, the more acculturated he or she becomes and, hence, the less impacted he or she is by Spanish-language media.
• Duh.
• Without a steady stream of foreign-born Latinos our audiences will plateau, shrink and ultimately dilute into the mainstream.
• Mind you, the cheap labor and voracious purchase power Hispanic immigrants contribute to the US economy will also disappear if immigration is blocked.
• Retail, automotive, agriculture, construction, hospitality AND tax revenue will take a massive hit.
• Contrary to popular belief, hard data indicates that undocumented immigrants pay a shitload of indirect taxes and use very little government services in return.
• The myth that Latinos are welfare freeloaders is absolutely unsubstantiated.
• In fact, it is quite the opposite.
• And this doesn’t even take into account the vast contributions of legal Latinos (LOL).
• In short: the US economy needs immigration like it needs oxygen.
• Particularly (taboo alert) of the undocumented kind.
• Immigration exists because there’s a market for it.
• Supply and demand.
• Immigration prevents inflation and puts much needed cash in the government’s coffers.
• Duh. Duh. Duh.
• Of course, the Trump legions will have none of it.
• Coming around to these realities would create a paralyzing cognitive dissonance in their minds.
• Life is simpler with four letter words and four word slogans.
• The Trump constituency is about to experience the oh-so Third World delusion of confusing protectionism and inflation with prosperity.
• Whatev.
• Let’s not waste our time with facts.
• Facts don’t matter anymore.
• Votes and ratings seem to be all that matters these days.
• Anyhoo.
• Is there a political solution to a racially charged issue that, strictly speaking, is 100% an economic misunderstanding?
• Let’s see: we are the lowest hanging political piñata.
• We not only are an irrelevant voting block.
• We are toxic.
• And toothless.
• Let me remind you that politicians operate on one premise and one premise alone: what do I need to do to win the next election?
• What would you do if you were a garden variety American AngloSaxon Protestan politician today?
• Simple: when in need of a political football to kick hard, a sitting scapegoat, go for the Hispanics.
• Holy f***k.
• Not too long ago Mayor Bloomberg took Spanish lessons every morning and closed his press conferences in Spanish.
• He did so because he is a gentleman and a very smart one at that*.
• But he also did so because his advisors had told him that no politician can aspire to higher office in the five boroughs without a considerable support of the Hispanic vote, so it was critical for him or her to be featured every night in the news on Spanish-speaking TV.
• Of course, the five boroughs are not the 50 states.
• In any case, how did we go from king makers to political afterthought?
• We were supposed to be the demographic block that’d tip the scale and now we’re just political kryptonite.
• What the f**k happened?
• Well, I have some theories.
• To be continued next week.

*Way way way richer than the POTUS, if net worth happens to be your idea of the measure of a man.