CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront viewers got another great look at how racial grievance is driving media coverage of this election, thanks to the most recent outburst from Univision anchor María Elena Salinas. But it isn't anything you haven't seen before.
Salinas was interviewed as part of a story on how some Latinos are applying for citizenship for the specific purpose of voting against Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. The story deserves some specific attention before we get to Salinas, though, because of the narratives it attempts to recycle.
The story is fright-framed in the usual manner, with footage of a mass swearing-in and this bit of narrative from the reporter:
Across the U.S., from Florida to Nevada to Illinois to North Carolina, Latinos once content to carry green cards now seek citizenship, because when Trump teed off his presidential candidacy with this (cut to inflammatory Trump quote on Mexicans), and this (cut to Trump leading Mexico wall chant), the federal government says naturalization applications jumped 14 and a half percent compared to the same six months last year.
The inference, of course, is that the increase in applications is directly attributable to Trumpmania. This point must be made in order to sell the subsequent point of the political earthquake effect that would take place if every green card holder were to naturalize. And again, the inference - because the story is one framed against the current GOP frontrunner - is that the potential increase would result in a massive shift to the Democrats. Of course, there are likely naturalization applicants that are enrolling now because they finally came up with the money to go through the costly process - but I guess none were available to say that on camera.
In fact, political citizenship drives are nothing new. Here's a quote from a Wall Street Journal story on a similar such drive from 2007:
The citizenship drive began in January, when Univision's largest station -- Los Angeles's KMEX 34 -- began bombarding Southern California airwaves with a campaign designed to steer eligible viewers to become U.S. citizens.
The impact was immediate: In Los Angeles and surrounding counties, the number of citizenship applications filed to the U.S. government more than doubled for the three months ended March 2007 compared with the same period last year. It typically takes six or seven months for green-card holders to complete the citizenship process.
Now, the campaign is spreading quickly to big cities including Miami, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix. After the yearlong campaign is complete, a second phase is slated for 2008 that will focus on getting the new citizens to register to vote.
and:
If the citizenship campaign culminates in two million to three million new Hispanic voters, "that could turn the tide in several states," including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, says Sergio Bendixen, a pollster who specializes in ethnic markets. In 2004, Republicans won by a small margin in those states.
Sound familiar? Click through to the story in order to see just how much of a rehash this whole narrative is. A rising Trump lifts all media boats, and it is clear why The Donald has garnered close to $2 billion dollars' worth of free media. Just cut and paste Trump on to an old story, and voilá. Wash, rinse, increase your ad-rates, repeat.
But on to Salinas already. Here's her quote for the CNN citizenship drive rehash - pure magic as always:
MARIA ELENA SALINAS, ANCHOR, UNIVISION: You know that Donald Trump is your enemy, because he declared war, because he's the one that declared us enemies.
Previously, Salinas said:
The very same group that he (Trump) has been attacking is the one that's going to stop him from getting to the White House.
Regular readers of this byline have heard this bellicose rhetoric from Salinas before. Here's a choice quote from her epic op-ed published shortly after Jorge Ramos' manufactured ejection from a Donald Trump press conference in Iowa:
In reality, most of us that work in Spanish-language media have wanted a piece of him (Trump), have wanted to question him and challenge him and show him that his statements are baseless. Moreover, that his words are the equivalent of a declaration of war against an important sector of American society. As in any war, an aggression against one of our own brings pride and nationalism to the surface. Insult Hispanic immigrants, with or without papers, and you insult all of us Hispanics. They are not alone.
Credit to the CNN reporter who introduces Salinas as an anchor at Univision, "a powerful media organization owned by a Hillary Clinton donor", and "has joined with grassroots groups to get out the vote in November." This was probably the most objectively framed part of the story, because it reminds us of the conflicts and agendas present at the network at every different level, from its owner down to its Chief News Officer, and how they project these biases to its viewers. It's not so much that Univision is so crudely biased, but it tells you to your face that it revels in its bias and has no intention of doing otherwise.
If you watch the story again, you'll see that it's not really about legal immigrants getting their visas. It's about media complicity in racial grievance politics for the purposes of attaining and holding political power. I leave you with the CNN reporter again:
Donald Trump's unintended consequence: a pathway to their political power.
By now it should be crystal clear that the "their" there is something totally different from what was depicted on your screen. Buyer beware.
