How badly do Democrats fear the new conservative Spanish-language network?
The new network, named Americano, will begin broadcasting on Tuesday on SiriusXM radio and then on streaming TV this summer. It will offer a mix of news programming and commentary, à la Fox News. The network has close ties to both Donald Trump’s campaign and former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.).
Democrats are terrified. They’ve already begun smearing the new network, claiming it will broadcast “right-wing disinformation” and “misleading claims.” The real problem is that the Spanish right is rising, and as more and more Hispanics “come out of the closet” as conservatives, Democrats fear a seismic, generational shift in the political winds.
Americano’s founder and CEO, Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo, bristled at the notion that the privately funded network is going to purvey disinformation or misinformation, and accused Democrats of trying to cancel speech they don’t like.
“They’re scared. And they should be,” Garcia-Hidalgo said of Democrats in an interview. “Democrats took Hispanics for granted for too long, and no one thought to create a home for us in conservative media. There is an appetite for this. You see it on social media. You see it in elections.”
“For those concerned about the disinformation problem harming Democrats’ chances with Hispanics, this is a Defcon 1 moment. We should worry,” pollster Fernand Amandi told NBC. But Amandi added, “Unfortunately, some Democrats are deluding themselves. The ultimate act of disinformation is to pretend that this is not a big problem.”
Related: Hispanic Voters Are Now Evenly Split Between Parties
This is as much a cultural shift as it is a political shift. There has been a flood of new Hispanic immigrants from Central and South America who are escaping the kind of government the Democrats wish to create here. That’s why Trump’s message resonated with Hispanics, and it wasn’t “disinformation” that caused it. It was the fear of what the Democrats were proposing that sounded an awful lot like what many of these new Americans risked their lives to escape.
But if all the Democrats have is to smear the new network as a disinformation mill, they are going to lose — and lose largely.
And it leads to wild, unsubstantiated, and deranged conspiracy theories.
Democratic consultant Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, who first sounded the alarm about the proliferation of Spanish-language disinformation and conspiracy theories in WhatsApp chat groups and on websites in 2020, called the launch of the network “concerning” amid what she says is a fresh wave of false or misleading information ahead of the midterm elections.
A native of Colombia, she said she fears her home country is a major source of right-wing conspiratorial social media content that ricochets across borders, fueling the rise of an international organized right.
“Is this new network going to be one more organization, one more group, that just amplifies what we see right now? That’s really concerning,” Pérez-Verdía said.
Who is being “conspiratorial” when talking about “an international organized right”? Left-wing hysterics who see any organized opposition as a plot, that’s who.
Indeed, right now Democrats hold a still-sizeable advantage with Hispanic voters nationally. But the 2020 election showed that there are several significant regions in the Southwest that are amenable to Republican candidates who campaign on a “freedom agenda” of anti-socialism, pro-capitalism, and anti-COVID lockdown issues.
Democrats will fight tooth and nail to try and keep Hispanics on their minority reservation. They will lie, cheat, smear, and suppress other viewpoints. The reason they will fight dirty is that they are losing on the issues.
And once Hispanic voters realize that, the Hispanic vote will become very competitive, which means the Democrats will lose.
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