A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: President Trump won 46% of Latinos who voted in the 2024 election. That's the highest support any Republican has ever gotten with this group. Our next guest has some ideas on the why behind Trump's gains among this voting bloc and how the shift in this electorate might be playing out months into the new administration. Paola Ramos is the author of "Defectors: The Rise Of The Latino Far Right And What It Means To America."
So you wrote this book before the 2024 election. So how has your understanding of Latinos and the right evolved since publication?
PAOLA RAMOS: The question that I think about every day is - and we think of a place like Miami-Dade County, you know, that has a significant amount of Cubans and Venezuelans, and the majority of whom voted for Trump. I'm thinking about the family members that are now subjects of deportations and the people that are now looking around in their neighborhoods and that are seeing ICE in various Miami neighborhoods. And so the question that I have is, do they feel any remorse? I'm not 100% sure that we have a definite answer, but I do start to see a community that is starting to question their choice. Now, how that manifests in 2026 is the question. But I think a lot of the conversations that I've been having is, what if I made a mistake? And I think it all comes down to this one reflection, which is, this entire time that Donald Trump was talking about them - them being those immigrant criminals - perhaps he was also talking about us.
MARTÍNEZ: You think it's one of these things that is a slow drip, drip kind of realization?
RAMOS: I think so. On the one hand, I think you're starting to see, yes, a Latino community that is, you know, second-, third-, fourth-generation at this point. They don't have those roots as connected as, you know, their parents did. But at the same time, they are still being pulled into what we're hearing from the White House, you know, which is still a narrative that is casting immigrants in a very negative way. And that is just very contagious.
MARTÍNEZ: How many people do you think, though, Paola, have this idea of, like, well, that's not me that they're talking about? Because I'll give you an example. I mean, my family came from Ecuador, and...
RAMOS: Right.
MARTÍNEZ: ...They're all very conservative and very Republican. And when they see things that are happening, like, say, in downtown Los Angeles or even ICE raids all across the country, they're saying, well, I waited my turn in line. These people didn't.
RAMOS: Right.
MARTÍNEZ: And that's what happens to people who don't wait their turn.
RAMOS: You know, I think what the polls indicated right before the election is exactly what you're describing - right? - which is that a majority of Latinos did not believe that Donald Trump was talking about them when he was referring to immigrants. And it is true, right? Like, when you look at the Latino community, its third generation's Latinos are the fastest-growing segment. And so there is a massive degree of separation between how most Latinos feel towards themselves and immigrants. Now, I think in practice, what is happening is very different.
MARTÍNEZ: Do they have to, like, wait and see before they realize, hey, maybe I was lied to or maybe I was misled, or maybe I just made a mistake?
RAMOS: Where I think some Latinos are having a deeper, more profound reckoning is that, for instance, the protests in LA, the show of force that we're seeing with the National Guard and the Marines, that - what I'm getting the sense is that takes a lot of people back to Venezuela, you know, and what Maduro was doing in the streets to the protesters. That takes a lot of people back to Cuba and to what Castro was doing to crush the dissent, to El Salvador and what Bukele was doing through all of these emergency declarations that then suspended civil rights. And so I think what's happening is that through this story of immigration, people are starting to see signs of a type of authoritarianism that is very familiar to Latinos.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, I've heard you speak on the linked faith phenomenon. Can you tell us more about what that means and the perception that Latino Trump supporters can be at odds sometimes with their own self-interest?
RAMOS: Yeah. I mean, like, the linked fate phenomenon is simply based on this idea, you know, Latinos and truly, like, communities of color are supposed to vote in a certain way. It turns out that this election, we saw very clearly, you know, in 2024 that that was not the case - that there was a large and growing number of Latinos that were "defecting," quote-unquote, from that pattern. And I think that's kind of the moment that we're in - you know, understanding that to be Latino is a very complicated, nuanced community that is full of Democrats, but it is also full of Republicans. And what is happening now, I think, will define the next election. How Latinos react to Donald Trump now and how Latinos react to the ICE raids and to this evolving immigration story will be really telling, you know, and will tell us whether or not we continue to evolve towards the right or not. And I think that has huge consequences for American politics.
MARTÍNEZ: That is journalist and author Paola Ramos. Thank you very much for your time.
RAMOS: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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