Paradoxical Politics? Partisan Politics, Ethnoracial Ideologies, and the Assimilated Consciousnesses of Latinx Republicans

Abstract

Because of the Republican Party’s racist rhetoric, Latinx Republicans are considered paradoxes as their partisanship contradict perceptions of Latinxs’ sociopolitical interests. Methodologically departing from prior Latinx politics research, this study employs qualitative methods to understand how Latinx Republicans interpretively link ethnoracial and partisan identities. Drawing on original interviews with Latinx Republicans, I argue that respondents are not paradoxes but strategic actors engaging in politics that align with respondents’ interpretations of their social identities. Specifically, I develop the concept of “assimilated consciousness”—how Latinx Republicans politicize ethnoracial identity by disaggregating Latinx groupness and positioning themselves in opposition to other racialized people. I show how most respondents reject seeing racism as systemic, perceive themselves as assimilated, and subsequently use interpretive tools to distance themselves from other Latinxs and Black Americans; minimize racist Republican rhetoric; and maximize problematic Democratic rhetoric. In doing so, respondents reconcile the relationship between their ethnoracial and partisan identifications. I further employ the concept of assimilated consciousness to show how a minority of respondents rejected the Republican Party due to Trump’s and Trump supporters’ racist rhetoric. Overall, I contend my findings provide a better understanding of how racialized immigration processes shape ethnoracial and political identities.