The Trump Show Gets Panned by California Latinos

SAN DIEGO -- Cinco de Mayo is an insult wrapped in red, white and green crepe paper. It's a faux holiday created by white people who run marketing firms and have no qualms telling Latinos what to celebrate as long as it gets people into bars and restaurants to eat chimichangas and drink margaritas.

So I guess it's appropriate that, in the lead-up to this day, Mr. Insult brought his vitriolic campaign to California -- which is home to many of the people he has spent the last 11 months slamming to score political points elsewhere.

Up to now, many of the attacks have taken place in states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina where few Latinos live. The population of California is 39 percent Latino.

Where Donald Trump goes, trouble follows. And often, violence, division and mayhem are not far behind. And so it was last week in Costa Mesa, about an hour south of Los Angeles, when the snake-oil salesman brought his anti-Mexican carnival show to the nation's most populous state.

California isn't Iowa. There, crowds of white people cheer when Trump vows to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Here, protesters shouted expletives, held placards and waved Mexican flags.

The flag stunt was dumb and counterproductive, and I could have done without it. More on that in a second.

But first, you need to look at the big picture. At this point, many Latinos don't just dislike Trump. We're way past that. They outright loathe him.

Ground zero for this animosity is California, where voters go to the polls on June 7. As a native Californian, I think the anti-Trump hatred among Latinos is strongest in the Golden State because those of us who live here have seen this movie before. One of the most memorable showings was in the mid-1990s, when Republican Gov. Pete Wilson exploited xenophobic fears to win re-election and blew up his own party in the process. This resulted in dark days for Latinos, who wound up neglected, abused and taken for granted by the Democratic Party.

Still, given that Latinos in California have such a distaste for Trump, why would some of the more thickheaded members of my community play into his hands? His supporters say that Mexicans -- and, by extension, Mexican-Americans -- are lawbreakers who don't respect private property, create chaos, and remain loyal to Mexico.

So how do the protesters respond? They break the law, destroy property, create chaos and display their loyalty to Mexico.

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