Among the numerous Republicans arguing that the left’s concern with ethnic identity politics is pushing Latino voters away from the Democratic Party is Blake Masters, an Arizona Senate candidate.
Mr. Masters, on the other hand, has pushed a new kind of racial politics as he seeks the Republican candidacy.
Master’s thesis that illegal immigration over the southern border is part of a sophisticated Democratic power grab has been widely discredited for months. Democrats are seeking to weaken the political strength of native-born voters, he has said in rallies, social media postings, and podcast interviews.
A video shared on Twitter last autumn had Mr. Masters asserting that the left’s goal is to alter the demography of this country. “It’s true. In order for them to maintain power and ensure that they will never lose another election, they want to accomplish this. Democrats are “trying to construct and import a new electorate,” he told an interviewer at the beginning of this month.
According to extremist specialists, what Master calls a “obvious reality” is what once-fringe, racist conspiracy theory alleges that Western elites, sometimes infiltrated by Jews and working with the aid of the Jewish lobby in order to decrease the power of white culture in the United States. According to the theory, a Buffalo supermarket massacre, an El Paso Walmart shooting, and the deaths at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 have all been related to it.
Republican immigration rhetoric has adopted Mr. Masters’s version, which makes no mention to Jews or white people, but instead builds up a clash between newcomers and the native-born. It has gained notoriety in conjunction with the discredited accusations that illegal immigrants are voting in huge numbers in US elections.
Professor Robert A. Pape, head of the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats, called this approach “a position in which institutional bad actors purposefully cause change, which would subsequently lead to whites being politically subordinated”.
According to Mr. Masters, he has never advocated for the great replacement hypothesis.
According to him, “It is clear to everyone that Democrats consider illegal immigrants as potential future votes.” There is no need for ‘theory’ here. He slammed those he called “false experts” for making such claims.
The Arizona primary on Tuesday is likely to be won by Mr. Masters. Peter Thiel, the internet magnate he formerly worked for, and former President Trump’s backing catapulted the 35-year-old Stanford alumnus and first-time candidate to the head of the pack.
During his primary campaign, he aimed to gain the Republican Party’s right-wing and mostly white base of supporters. Hispanics make up a third of the population in Texas, but as the general election draws near, he will have a difficult time holding on to those votes while still attempting to win over new ones.
During the Trump administration, Republicans have intensified their anti-immigration rhetoric. Ohio, Alabama and Texas have ordered National Guard soldiers to the border, considered declaring a border “invasion” under the wartime powers of the Constitution, and warned that a burgeoning immigrant population will soon compel all of us to learn Spanish.
Some Hispanic voters haven’t always been put off by those kinds of ads. Among Latinos, Republicans have found success by highlighting their shared views on topics like abortion, patriotism, and support for law enforcement, especially in Texas and Florida’s southern counties.
Yet the GOP’s anti-immigrant policies in Arizona have done considerably more damage, and Mr. Masters is taking things a step further than other Republican governors before him.
Scare tactics were cited by many Hispanic voters from Phoenix and the surrounding area in interviews, according to the New York Times.
Father-of-two Cesar Rodriguez, 35, just launched a taqueria in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale and sees himself as an independent business owner. Fear is the driving force for Mr. Masters’s immigration beliefs, according to him.
Mr. Masters was dubbed “repulsive” by a former Arizona state employee named John Ruiz.
Mr. Masters’s immigration language has been characterised as dangerous, bigoted, and hypocritical by Democratic leaders and activists in Arizona because he raises an alarm about demographic shift while seeking to win over the group that is driving it.
“We all know you need to engage Latino voters to win statewide,” said State Senator Raquel Terán, the head of the Arizona Democratic Party. When he goes out and talks his replacement ideas, he then tries to portray it as like he is the one who will solve all of your issues.
Many Latino Republicans, according to the Masters campaign and his supporters, are on board with the Trump-style border enforcement that he is advocating.