The Double-Whammy Lou Dobbs Latino Backlash

By Ricardo González.

Basta Dobbs website

I’ve been telling business and political leaders for years that a significant positive action towards Latinos will many times create an equal or stronger backlash with existing constituents. In other words, they must clearly understand the impact, or better yet, make decisions out of conscience rather than polling numbers and surveys.

I saw this happen first-hand with Newt Gingrich, who when it became known he was learning Spanish a few years back, took some serious heat for “pandering to Latinos” from the right-wing of the Republican party. He has received a bit more of the same due to his recent launch of The Americano whose target audience is conservative Hispanics. That’s at least 30 percent of Latinos in the country so it is a significant media market niche and nothing to sneeze at if he is successful at capturing that target market.

We are now seeing the double-whammy, Latino backlash with Lou Dobbs. Derided and run out of dodge by Latino activist groups for his derision of Latino Undocumented Immigrants (not Latino citizens or legal residents to be fair and clear), Mr. Dobbs did an about-face recently (when he began to consider a Senate run) and now says he is in favor of comprehensive immigration reform and wants to “reach out” to Latinos.

Mr. Dobbs seems to be oblivious to the fact that thousands of Latinos gathered all over the country to celebrate (yes, celebrate as in parties) his being forced to leave CNN. It was, by many accounts, one of the greatest victories in recent history for Latino civic activists who had dubbed Mr. Dobbs as the most dangerous man in America to Latinos. Most Latinos I know don’t want to get close to him and view his change as very insincere and politically motivated. That, however, is not the point of this article and is not for me to judge.

The point is that he is now being rejected by people who before were his most loyal and fanatical constituency. Read the quote that comes from ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee), “Lou Dobbs has deeply offended his base of supporters and ALIPAC is going to remain loyal to those Americans who support our existing immigration laws instead of Amnesty disguised as reform.”

According to this published report ALIPAC is also shutting down two of its Dobbs fansites, including www.LouDobbsForPresident.org and the Facebook page “Draft Lou Dobbs for President or US Senate.”

Oh, how things can change so very quickly when one is either openly for or against Latinos in this country. So now Mr. Dobbs has deeply offended both Latinos and his own core group of former disciples. Where he goes from here will depend on whether or not Latino leaders will forgive him and embrace him (his best political scenario) or if he will have to recant his Latino love as a delusional moment due to his emotional trauma from leaving his post at CNN.

So, back to the lesson at hand. If you are going to make a marketing, labor or political push to reach Latino people, make sure you understand you may just get some backlash on the backside. Your best move? Always act out of a good conscience before man and God and you’ll be just fine.

Ricardo González is the Founder and Executive Director of Bilingual America, a nationally recognized language and cultural management training institute.

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