Univision anchor Jorge Ramos recently sat down for an interview with the Los Angeles Times, which was later rebroadcast in podcast format. Part of his responses are more of the same, but there are statements that should raise a huge red flag.
The interview, intended in part to promote Ramos' latest book, contains many of the talking points that have been exposed, and should now be familiar to, readers of this byline. As always, there was the complaining over Trump's response to his staged heckling at the infamous Iowa press conference.
But then, the conversation shifted to the sort of racial politics that Ramos trafficks in. Ramos then proceeded to open a window into his future vision for America:
PATT MORRISON, REPORTER, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: As we approach the primary, we know that California is a majority-minority state; talk a little bit about the demographic changes in California and in the country.
JORGE RAMOS, UNIVISION ANCHOR:
I call it the Latino wave, and it’s changing absolutely everything. 2055 is going to be a great year for me, because if I’m still alive I’ll be 97, and in 2055, the country will look like California. In 2055, non-Hispanic whites will be another minority. In 2055, every single group in this country – Latinos, African Americans and non-Hispanic whites -- will be a minority. That’s the trend.
Now, having said that, I would assume that values like tolerance, like the acceptance of immigrants, generosity and solidarity, would be relevant and important nowadays. And what I’m hearing in the presidential election is exactly the opposite. But that change, that enormous demographic change is well underway, and we Latinos, I think, we are changing everything. For instance, the new rule in politics is that no one can make it to the White House without the Latino vote. And that’s new.
Ramos goes on to advocate for unfettered open-borders policies in his usual manner, and to discuss the effect of immigration politics on 2016 and beyond. However, the quote above is the one that requires further scrutiny.
Ramos' willful inability to see matters beyond the lens of race is nothing new, so no one should be shocked at his gleeful anticipation of the day that America becomes a majority-minority country (not that there's anything inherently wrong with that). However, his wish that America resemble California should be a cause of concern to reasonable people from all walks of life.
Recall that California is where Jorge Ramos cut his teeth as an anchor, right in the midst of the Prop 187 wars. 1980s California is where the news media initially coined the term "anti-immigrant" as a radicalizing descriptor of any sort of policy intended to curb or control illegal immigration post-Reagan-amnesty. The result of that tumultuous era was a dramatic shift in political power that resounds to this day.
History will note that California has subsequently become a bastion of the hard-left. All branches of government are now under the boot of progressivism, and the policies enacted since have had a devastating effect on the once-Golden state, both in terms of economic growth and personal liberty (take, for example, yesterday's awful anti-Second Amendment ruling from the Ninth Circuit of Appeals in Peruta v. San Diego). Political opposition to the prevailing policy preference (whether on immigration or otherwise) is met with violence and rioting, as we saw during Donald Trump's recent swing through California.
And this is, precisely, the danger lurking behind Jorge Ramos' noxious brand of advocacy journalism. When he asserts that Latinos are indispensable to making it to the White House, he reflects his apparent tunnel vision about a monolithic Latino vote, and makes it solely about immigration. This approach threatens to Balkanize Hispanic immigrants and their born progeny from the rest of American society, rather than encourage integration, assimilation and acculturation.
When Ramos claims to want the rest of the country to resemble California, there's more to that than simple diversity. In word and deed, Ramos (and, by extension, Univision) also pines for an America that resembles California in terms of partisan ideology and enacted policies.
Here's hoping that Jorge Ramos lives a very long life, way past 97, without ever actually seeing the Prop 187-ing of America.
