Gonzalez 'Jews for Hitler' comparison ahistorical, hypocritical cheap shot
If Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler, then Vicente Gonzalez is a Nazi collaborator.
Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, my former boss and friend, stopped taking my calls in the fall of 2018, when I worked for Neta (now Trucha) RGV. I was covering, in an admittedly not-so-favorable light, the possibility he helped run lowkey diplomacy for President Donald Trump’s Guatemalan affairs. I was particularly interested in how he’d apparently brokered agreements between the central American country’s then-President, and Trump, on a couple of foreign issues I won’t bore you with but would be happy to explain if you care to know. This, by the way, after he’d dined twice at the White House as one of the 45th President’s honored guests, somebody he now likens to Adolf Hitler.
Gonzalez likened Latino Trump voters with “Jews for Hitler” in a March 11 article published by The New Republic. He and other south Texas Democrats were whining to the liberal online and print magazine about their anticipated, and well-deserved, loss of support from Latino voters in the Rio Grande Valley, while justifying their avalanching support since 2018 and big loss in 2022. In a texting conversation with a reporter for the Texas Tribune, Gonzalez doubled down, saying, “It’s clearly a vote against self interest. And yes it would be like the Jewish community voting for Hitler before the atrocities he caused. That would never happen. And Latinos need [to] wake up and see a tyrant on the horizon.”
If Donald Trump is Hitler, then Gonzalez is a Nazi collaborator.
“Congressman Vicente Gonzalez…on Monday night met with President Donald Trump for a private dinner at the White House to strengthen bipartisan consensus between Congress and the President's administration. He is one of only a handful of Democrats in the country to meet with the President,” so began a press release by Gonzalez’s office.
"I represent a diverse and growing constituency and I am dedicated to working on behalf of all—regardless of political party," Gonzalez said. "President Trump and I may not agree on everything but I felt it was important for him to hear the needs of those in the 15th District of Texas. And I also feel that it is important for us to work together for the American people on issues where we can find common ground to improve our region and the country.”
"President Trump was cordial and respectful, and he vowed to work with me on issues important to Texas," he continued. "While people may have varying opinions about President Trump, he is our president and we must work with him. I certainly hope we will. As the dinner concluded, President Trump said to me: ‘see you in Texas.' I welcome him to Texas and our district any time."
Wow, so, Congressman Gonzalez wanted to reach “consensus” with today’s modern-day Hitler, and even welcome him to Texas? Did he just describe Hitler’s apparent political descendent as “cordial” and “respectful”? Does this make him a ‘Latino for Trump’? Or maybe a ‘Latino sort of for Trump’?
Obviously, this is absurd. Of course, Gonzalez is not a Nazi collaborator or appeaser. But that’s because Trump isn’t Hitler, or his equivalent; and, more importantly, his voters are not the equivalent of Nazi voters. As we can also see quite plainly, it’s insulting to one’s intelligence to seriously compare today’s political situation in the United States with 1920s and 30s Weimar Germany.
So, why did Gonzalez make this apparent ahistorical and hypocritical remark about Latinos who support Donald Trump?
One reason is that he doesn’t rely on conservative or Republican-leaning votes in his new district as he did in his last, wherein he apparently was more diplomatic. So, he can call Latinos who vote for Trump his effective “deplorables” remark. This is Gonzalez’ “basket of deplorables” moment. Gonzalez’ challenger, Former Representative Myra Flores, condemned his comments. “Shame on Vicente Gonzalez for referring to conservative Latinos in this manner. He forgets they are his constituents, too,” Flores said on social media. “We need to elect new leadership in November, and that's exactly what the Rio Grande Valley will do.”
The national Republican Party is eyeing this district. The National Republican Congressional Council said, “Vicente Gonzalez just can’t stop insulting people. First, he pushed sexist and racist remarks about his opponent Mayra Flores, now he is comparing many Hispanics to acting like “Jews for Hitler.”” They went on to say, “This is not only insulting to many Hispanics throughout the country, it’s also ignoring a blaring sign for Democrats that show Hispanics’ massive shift towards the Republican Party.” They demand an apology.
Another reason is because neither he, nor any Democrat, can look at Latinos in the eye and with a straight face anymore, particularly those in the working-class, and say their political support could earn them a better life for them and their families. Almost no one would believe it, unless they were already somehow financially or politically tied in with Democratic Party politics to begin with. Therefore, since they’ve no real prospect of winning over any Latino Republicans to their side, not even a pretense of a prospect, may as well bash them, right? Gonzalez has proved he’ll do little to actually threaten his tenure in Congress, like switching districts. His candor in this case signals his lack of electoral fear. Gonzalez must have concluded there’s no chance of him winning these people over if he chose to make such an offensive and insulting comment as he did.
The last reason Gonzalez made this apparent fatuous remark is because, given that it’s fashionable to casually compare Trump to Hitler and his supporters to those of Hitler’s, in liberal circles, he can freely express his contempt. In the New Republic article, he makes a sarcastically hostile remark suggesting Republicans might not “know how to count,” in showing their notice of demographic changes:
“They have invested millions and millions of dollars trying to target Latinos on the border. They do that because in Texas, Latinos are now the majority. The Republicans know how to count, right? For them to stay in power, even at the state level, they need to convince at least a percentage, even a small percentage, of Latinos to start voting Republican. If not, they will eventually lose elections.”
Many working-class Latinos with conservative family values have worries and concerns about crime in their communities. For a long time, Democrats have used fear as with many things on the issue of immigration, always painting Republicans as anti-immigrant in principle, blurring the fact that conservative voters try to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. Still, Gonzalez’ assumption that the interests of working people can be represented by either party, is wrong. Both parties advance the interests of the capitalist class.
The Democratic Party’s loose talk of “fascism inside the Republican Party” is dangerous because it misdiagnoses the political situation. If we come to think of Trump and his political current as fascism, we will not recognize ‘the real thing’ when it hits us. Like Socialist Workers Party leader Farrel Dobbs used to say, if you give people a wrong idea of what fascism is, they’ll be looking out for gorillas when it’s elephants who’ll be charging them. The epicenter of middle-class antisemitism in the United States coupled with attacks on civil liberties, two scientific and objective aspects of incipient and full-blown fascism, can be found inside the Democratic Party and on its outer, radical edges.
But we are not living in an epoch of fascist reaction; we are living in the epoch of socialist revolution.
Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist and director of the ‘Lone Star Project,’ a Democratic ‘political action committee,’ also displayed his contempt for Trump voters, telling the magazine, “De la Cruz lost the Hispanic vote but won on the strength of overwhelming support among Anglos. This dynamic is what the Republicans are shooting for statewide.” By this he means that de la Cruz won rural counties by a long shot, trying to poopoo their significance, dismissing them as “Anglo.” The Democrat’s 2024 district 15 candidate, Michelle Vallejo, who lost in 2022 and is apparently getting ready to lose again in 2024, recently expressed similar contempt for the rural regions of the district.
This kind of talk is a continuation of Democrats’ fear of working people.
Local state Democrat, Eddie Canales, also had his musings transcribed in the New Republic. He painted Trump like a boogeyman, with an impenetrable mystique and mystery to him. “Trump is an anomaly,” he said. “I think that anybody, politically, would agree with me, that he’s completely different than any candidate that you’ve ever seen. Trump says, does, and acts in ways that you’ve never seen any candidate act. What I can tell you is that you can attribute that phenomenon to him. So, there was growth in Republican numbers. It was because of him.”
“A recent University of Houston poll of Texas Latinos showed Trump up by six points over Biden, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Those numbers, and the election of Congresswoman Monica de la Cruz, a Republican in Latino South Texas, have given Republicans hopes they will get a larger share of the Latino vote in 2024 than they did in 2022,” writes New Republic author, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa. Many other polls have reflected similar results in recent weeks.
But it’s the entire political situation including trumped-up criminal charges and the media campaign against Trump that favors him more than anything.
Gonzalez’s comments demonstrate a surrender by Democrats to retain Latino voters in the face of an exodus, an exodus that has included Black voters as well. Trying to take away the right of people to vote for who they want, in the form of attempting to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballots, hammered the final nail.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats offer working-class people a road to fight for our class interests. For that, turn to the Socialist Workers Party.
jonathansalinas@substack.com