- Donald Trump appeared in the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan to face 34 counts of falsehood related to the 2016 presidential campaign.
- The world is watching the legal process, and symbolically, Trump was subjugated by an African-American prosecutor and a Colombian-origin judge.
- The Latino vote in the U.S. is diverse, and it’s essential to understand that not all Latinos are Democrats. Some may vote for the Republican Party based on their interests, such as jobs and access to resources.
The defense wanted a quiet and discreet process that no one would know. However, the news of former President Donald Trump appearing this Tuesday before the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan (New York) grabbed all the spotlights and reached an unimaginable historical dimension on American soil. The name of the also businessman reappeared in history, now as the first US president, active or retired, to sit on the bench of the accused to charge him with 34 counts of falsehood derived from 3 payments to cover up scandals in the 2016 presidential campaign, one of them an extramarital affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The eyes of the world are witnessing yet another chapter in Trump’s race for the 2024 presidential election.
Around 1:30 p.m. (local time), the tycoon arrived at the courthouse, while there were slogans for and against him outside. The immense police device made the image of Trump entering the precinct almost imperceptible. The businessman who during his administration filled the public arena with racist and xenophobic speeches avoided the scene of the arrest, but did not dodge his judicial record. Judge Juan Merchan, of Colombian origin, from the New York State Supreme Court, was already waiting for him in the courtroom to read him his charges, of which he pleaded “not guilty”.
After satisfying a whole series of theories and debates about his legal process, a simple procedure, Trump, once imputed achieved freedom under charges, returned to his Mara Lago mansion in Florida to meet with his supporters and dedicate a message to them. On the other hand, the Manhattan prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, explained that the indictment originated after the detection of falsification of New York accounting records to hide “damaging information and illicit activities to American voters before and after the 2016 elections.” They added that a scheme was implemented to identify, buy and disappear negative information and boost electoral aspirations. The next visit is expected to be on December 4. “Serious conduct cannot be normalized,” Bragg sentenced.
In an interview with El Heraldo Digital, Dr. Mariana Aparicio Ramirez, coordinator of the Observatory of the Binational Relationship Mexico-US of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), shares with us an ABC about the legal process that the former president will go through, how it can influence his political aspirations and what is behind those Latinos who support one of the most popular faces of the Republican Party.
The Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, FLACSO-Mexico, stressed that in the case of Trump, there was not only procedural justice but there was also symbolic justice after the businessman was subjugated by an African-American prosecutor (Bragg) and a judge of Colombian origin (Merchan). “Let’s remember that during his last campaign, he turned against the Latino community, naming them ‘bad men,'” he emphasizes.
According to the specialist in U.S. Trade Policy, it was also shown how the former president capitalizes on “the media show” to reposition himself in public opinion and relaunch the campaign towards 2024 after losing visibility to other contenders.
“Incidentally he also raised funds, they were selling T-shirts for $47 with Trump’s certified photo on the stand. This will help their coffers for a future campaign,” he related.
Neither an indictment nor a conviction would legally prevent him from seeking the presidential nomination. The legal argument is that the U.S. Constitution suggests only the following 3 standards: being born in the United States, having been a country resident for at least 14 years and being over 35. “We are facing political rather than legal issues,” adds Aparicio Ramirez.
There are other issues that could make it possible, and that depends on how the legal process develops, the specialist refers to the progress on the incident at the Capitol in 2021 and how it has not yet been possible to prove to the former president that he was the one who incited the occupation of the Capitol by U.S. citizens. We will have to wait for evidence to be presented.
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The other face of the Latino vote
When asked how to explain the phenomenon of Latino communities that support Trump despite the hate speeches? The also Master in Sociology from the Universidad Iberoamericana explains that we have to get out of our heads, mainly from the collective imagination, that there are only democrat Latinos, there are also conservatives, it is a great diversity, mainly 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos of Cuban and Venezuelan origin.
“It is not the same to be a Latino who comes to the U.S. without documents (1st generation) to an American of Latino origin who does not necessarily speak Spanish and who does not know the culture of his country, but who has all the rights of a citizen”.
Each citizen votes according to his or her interests and reality. Latinos are one of the exponentially growing minority communities in the US, but not everyone can vote. Trump’s speech is aimed at the classes that were affected by globalization, who could not transfer their labor to the market due to the implementation of new technologies. The GOP voter could be described as a person who is concerned about the economy, the effect it has on his or her pocketbook and security, with all these initiatives to label Mexican cartels as “terrorist groups”.
“The Latino who votes for the Republican Party is that citizen who responds to the political discourse, which is very much in line with their interests, and, if those interests have to do with jobs and access to various resources, they will go that way,” our interview states
Regarding the issue of migration, the interviewee comments that, although the figures and numbers place Trump as the president who deported fewer migrants compared to Joe Biden or Barack Obama, the businessman provoked indigent and painful images such as the separation of families through the mass deportation of children or the large migrant caravans from Central America.
What will happen with the relationship with Mexico?
Every two U.S. cycles coincide with the change of presidency in Mexico, which will be “always a coin toss, ” according to the specialist.” In the case of our relationship, it is a union on various issues, such as security, trade, and migration. No matter who is in the presidency, these agendas will remain in force because they are part of the states’ internal politics.
Another issue that will be very important in the next Mexican administration is the Energy Reform and the T-MEC. Lithium has already been nationalized in our country so it will be a latent issue in the campaigns of the political characters and the Environment.
“If he or she is president, we will have to wait, but what is a fact is that every six years we have the chance to know how far the “honeymoon” with the new U.S. administration will take us,” he said.