Predictably, in the wake of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s public questioning of the impartiality of the Mexican-American federal judge who is presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos is now off and running with his characterization of Trump as a God-awful racist.
In his latest opinion column (yes, Ramos is the only broadcast network anchor with a weekly opinion column) Ramos accuses Trump of rejecting or disqualifying Judge Gonzalo Curiel “for the simple fact of belonging to a racial or ethnic group.” “Trump doesn’t see how a Latino could be fair with him after he announced he wants to build a wall between Mexico and the United States,” Ramos charges.
To bolster his characterization of Trump as a racist, Ramos naturally leaves out of his column, published in Mexico’s La Reforma on June 11 and Miami’s El Nuevo Herald on June 14, any reference to Trump’s unequivocal June 7 statement that “I do not feel one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial” and that “based on the rulings I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial.”
True to form in advancing his agenda, Ramos does not even broach the possibility that Trump may have some legitimate concerns about Judge Curiel’s impartiality, particularly in light of the Judge’s self-disclosed membership in various amnesty-supporting and openly anti-Trump professional organizations, such as the Hispanic National Bar Association, which following Trump’s presidential campaign announcement speech last year called for a boycott of all Trump businesses.
Just as he has since Trump’s presidential campaign announcement speech a year ago, Ramos also continues to consistently twist Trump’s words into a blanket condemnation of all Mexican origin immigrants in the United States, scoffing in his column that Trump “ingenuously believes that Hispanics are going to vote for him after insulting them – as ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists’ – and saying that he wants to deport millions of immigrants.” “Would you believe someone who first insults you and then promises you a job?” Ramos queries.
Ramos concludes his latest screed by predicting that “the great irony of this election is that the same attacks against Hispanics that gave so much impulse to Trump’s candidacy, will be the ones that will tragically end his presidential aspirations.” On this score, Ramos deceptively refers to an older NBC News/WSJ poll showing Trump only garnering 20% of the Latino vote, omitting a more recent NBC News/Survey Monkey poll that shows the presumptive Republican standard-bearer rocketing to 32%, as well as data from last week that shows Trump more than doubling the positive opinion he receives from Hispanics between January and June of 2016, from 14% to 37%.
The Univision anchor evidently remains convinced that the Hispanic vote is the “make or break” vote in terms of whether Trump makes it to the White House or not, despite important recent analysis by such respected authorities as Nate Cohn, the New York Times’ polling whiz, who as recently as June 9 questioned positions like the ones espoused by Ramos, as well as consistent indications that Trump is poised to significantly outperform the last Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, among black voters.
