Codding Blue-Collar Whites

You've no doubt heard about how Latinos are going to elect the next president, and the one after that. Well, don't believe it. Working class whites are the new soccer moms of 2016. Populism is back with a vengeance.

To prove it, last week, on the very day that Donald Trump flew south of the border to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Democrats were on a tour of working-class white enclaves. Hillary Clinton was speaking in Cincinnati, and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Kaine gives new meaning to the term "bilingual." He spent the lunch hour at the Hispanic Center of the Lehigh Valley where he spoke to seniors in Spanish. He talked about Trump's trip to Mexico and his hateful rhetoric on immigration.

But then it was off to a public rally in Bethlehem, where -- surprise, surprise -- Kaine forgot to mention his supposedly kinder and gentler approach to the immigration issue, which includes giving legal status to the undocumented. This is not something that is warmly received by working-class whites -- electricians, plumbers, landscapers, contractors -- who worry about having to compete for better-paying jobs with newly legalized immigrants.

Across the aisle, Trump has built much of his presidential campaign on this worry. In his immigration speech in Phoenix, Trump doubled down on his trademarks: hate-filled language and overly simplistic threats. In the world according to Trump, there are tens of thousands of able-bodied Americans across the country who are chomping at the bit to do the sorts of dangerous and dirty jobs that immigrants now perform.

"Most illegal immigrants are lower-skilled workers with less education who compete directly against vulnerable American workers," Trump told supporters.

To fix things, the Republican nominee wants to get rid of illegal immigrants and change the rules for legal immigrants so that "open jobs are offered to American workers first."

Perfect. More coddling. More excuses. More people playing the victim to cover up for their poor decisions and sense of entitlement. That's not what American workers need. What they could really use is a reprieve from shortsighted politicians who harm them by lowering expectations and then claim they have their best interests at heart.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.