POLITICAL SALSA Y MÁS with SAL BALDENEGRO “THE SCARCITY OF EGGS”

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority shares in it. Leo Tolstoy

the U.S. normalized a sociopath, a convicted felon, an adjudicated sexual abuser, a profligate liar, a cheat and scam artist … an outright racist.

Like millions of Americans, I’m struggling to process what the U.S. just did. By electing Donald Trump to a second term the U.S. normalized a sociopath … a convicted felon … an adjudicated sexual abuser … a profligate liar … a cheat and scam artist … an outright racist …

Because he is a felon, Donald Trump is not even qualified to vote in his home state of Florida. Nor would Donald Trump the felon be eligible to be hired by scores of companies or governmental agencies in America nor be able to rent an apartment, and he would not be able to obtain a license in any profession that requires certification. In a fair world, then, if Donald Trump the felon can be president, questions about felonies should be removed from all job applications, rental applications, and professional certification applications. Surely, if the highest position in the U.S. can be taken by a felon, all positions should also.

Shamefully…

Making headlines is the shameful fact that 47% of Latinos, and 55% of Latino men, voted for Trump. This is shocking in the face of Trump’s racism and anti-Latino actions and attitude, which are no secret. Here’s a sampling:

* He characterizes Mexican immigrants as murderers, rapists, drug lords, and throw-aways from mental institutions who are “invading” the U.S. and poisoning the blood of the country.

* Trump callously tore close to 4,000 Latino children from their parents and locked them up in cages. No tracking system that could help reconcile the families was established. About 1,400 of the seized children have not been (and may never be) reunited with their parents.

Trump callously tore close to 4,000 Latino children from their parents and locked them up in cages.

* Trump proudly asserted his intention to conduct mass deportations of immigrants. Inevitably, American citizens will be among the deported. People don’t usually carry their birth certificate with them, so looks, last names, and accented speech will be the criteria by which “Americanism” will be determined. American-born children of immigrants will also be deported as happened in the late 1920s and early 1930s, during the blatantly unconstitutional raids known as the “Mexican repatriation,” in which as many as 1.8 million people of Mexican descent were deported. A large majority (over 60%) of the people deported were U.S. citizens, including American-born children of non-citizen Mexicans.

* Trump withheld about $20 billion in hurricane relief from Puerto Rico following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane María in 2017, one of the deadliest U.S. natural disasters in over 100 years. Instead, he went to Puerto Rico and infamously threw rolls of paper towels at people.

* At a Trump rally, with Trump’s full support, one of Trump’s surrogates described Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage.

There’s no mistaking Trump’s racism and anti-Latino attitude in these and similar actions. As my Tata would say, “Más claro no canta el gallo” (the matter can’t be any clearer than that).

The scarcity of huevos (aka eggs)…

The price of eggs seems to be one of the stock answers as to why people – including Latinos, and Latino men in particular – voted for Trump.

The price of eggs seems to be one of the stock answers as to why people – including Latinos, and Latino men in particular – voted for Trump. It is noteworthy that no evidence is provided by the Trump voters establishing that Latino men are big purchasers of eggs. But this business about egg prices is bogus BS, a talking point provided by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Just to clarify: the price of eggs in 2020, during the Trump administration, was $3.90 per dozen. In 2024, during the Biden administration the price of eggs was $2.52 per dozen. Eggs are expensive, to be sure, but one has to be pathologically uninformed to believe that the president of the United States – and much less the vice president – dictates to stores what they should charge for a can of corn, a head of lettuce, or a dozen eggs.

Reality check: The price of eggs skyrocketed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck (during the Trump administration). In the face of stay-at-home protocols and the like, people began to stock up on household staples such as toilet paper, flour, sugar, canned goods, and eggs. The result was a huge spike in the price of eggs. Once the run on eggs began, prices went as high as five dollars a dozen in certain parts of the country. Several states sued egg companies for price gouging, alleging that egg companies took advantage of the pandemic and the panic buying it engendered to maximize profits.

Making matters worse, in 2023, an outbreak of avian influenza, aka bird flu, hit the country. Millions of birds, including commercial poultry, across 48 states, were affected by this. This created a huge shortage of eggs, which drove egg prices even higher.

So, to blame Harris for the price of eggs is bogus and then to use that bogus argument to justify voting for Trump is transparently dishonest.

Ironically, even as these Latino voters supported Trump, ostensibly because of the high price of eggs and other goods, a central plank of Harris’ platform was to go after the price gougers.

As a veteran of the Chicano/a Movement of the late 1960s-1970s, I am saddened, disgusted and infuriated that Trump had as much support as he did among Latinos.

On a personal – Chicano – level…

As a veteran of the Chicano/a Movement of the late 1960s-1970s, I am saddened … disgusted … infuriated that Trump had as much support as he did among Latinos. In Arizona, as in other states (e.g., Texas, California), “Latino” is a euphemism for Mexican / Mexican American / Chicano(a). Our movement fought many battles – as did the G.I. (aka Mexican American) Generation before us – involving important aspects of life such as education, employment, and politics.

Regarding the latter: the MAGAs and the Trumps of our time – and the G.I. Generation’s time – did everything they could to keep our community politically powerless. They made it hard for us to register to vote by imposing such things as literacy tests and poll taxes. And they made it hard to vote by limiting the number of voting polls in the parts of town we lived in, etc. Today those kinds of things are known as voter suppression.

We – and the G.I. Generation before us – fought hard against the voter suppression efforts of the MAGAs and the Trumps of our times. We took a lot of blows, were arrested and beaten, were blacklisted, etc. But we won. We opened up the voter registration and voting processes. People of Mexican descent are today routinely elected to office, at all levels, from school board to the U.S. Senate. As a result of having political representation, among other things barrio streets are paved and have sidewalks and streetlights. There are neighborhood centers and parks in our barrios. Hiring practices were opened in the public and private sectors. Instead of rejecting Spanish-speakers, employers seek out bilingual applicants. And, our children are not beaten at school for speaking Spanish.

Latinos who stand with the racist MAGA cult and its racist leader are a stunning exhibit of disrespect to those who fought to make it possible for them to vote freely.