Rest in Peace, ‘Latinx’
As we’ve discussed before, and despite the woke left’s best efforts, the term “Latinx” has consistently failed to take root within the Hispanic/Latino community. Polls have routinely shown that only tiny minorities prefer the term “Latinx,” with others showing overwhelming majorities using “Hispanic” or “Latino/Latina” over “Latinx” to describe their ethnic background.
The allegedly “inclusive” term, which is believed to have originated in 2004, is so despised in the Hispanic community that Hispanic lawmakers from both parties in Congress and in states like Arizona and Connecticut have actively sought to have the term banned for use in official government documents.
As early as 2021, the warning signs for Democrats on the use of the term were becoming more prevalent, with polls indicating it was hurting them with the Hispanic/Latino vote:
More problematic for Democrats: 40 percent said Latinx bothers or offends them to some degree and 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term.
At a time when Republicans appear to be making inroads among Latino voters, the survey results raise questions about how effectively the party is communicating with them, according to pollster Fernand Amandi and other Democrats and Latino vote experts.
“The numbers suggest that using Latinx is a violation of the political Hippocratic Oath, which is to first do no electoral harm,” said Amandi, whose firm advised Barack Obama’s successful Hispanic outreach nationwide in his two presidential campaigns. “Why are we using a word that is preferred by only 2 percent, but offends as many as 40 percent of those voters we want to win?”
Here we are three years later, and polls are showing Democrats in big trouble with this core voting bloc, many of whom are undoubtedly tired of being taken for granted and sick of being likened to breakfast tacos:
Shockwaves ran through the White House earlier this month when a Siena College/New York Times poll showed President Biden trailing former President Donald Trump among Hispanic voters.Many analysts complained that Mr. Trump’s 6-point lead in the poll couldn’t be real — but few denied that he had gained ground.Battered by inflation and worried over crime and chaos at the border, Hispanic voters are running away from Mr. Biden, particularly in key states where they play an outsized role.[…]The Biden campaign launched Latinos con Biden-Harris, promising $30 million in advertising targeting the community. The first ad cast the election as a referendum on Mr. Biden’s support for lowering insulin costs and defending abortion rights.
Accordingly, it would appear that the Biden White House/campaign has also made a strategic decision to get back to using the term “Latinos”:
National media outlets have done a reversal of sorts on the use of “Latinx” as well, as evidenced by this recent Axios report:
And this one from NBC News:
Really, about the only places you hear/read “Latinx” used anymore on a regular basis are on college campuses and by the Very Online Left.
The Very Online Right, meanwhile, has had fun with the apparent demise of the term:
Now if only the terms “birthing people” and the like would travel down a similar path to irrelevancy.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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