Why Democrats Are Afraid of Trump and His Wall

Years ago, when I was on the Democratic National Committee, I proposed a policy resolution (silly me) which was quickly tabled because an African American member opposed it. She never talked to me about her opposition and in the opinion of the Chair of the Resolution Committee, it was my job to get her blessing before proposing such a resolution.

The resolution was simple. It stated that the DNC went on record that all US companies doing business in Mexico pay their workers a minimum hourly wage of $3.25 per hour. (This was the minimum wage in Texas at the time.)

Since there were so many people coming over the border, I figured that a daily wage of $29 a day would be an incentive to keep workers in Mexico, when our workers were making $8 an hour at the time. (By the way, police in Mexico make $500 a month. If they were making $872 as a base wage, do you think so many of them would be working for the cartels?)

How this wage issue became an African American issue I never could find out.

When 50,000 children sought to escape the drug war in Central America and Mexico, the Democrats were silent until it became to embarrassing to say nothing.

Since that time, the Democratic Party’s leaders have run from every issue in Mexico:

• When female workers were raped and murdered by the hundreds, the Democrats were silent.

• When polluted water was the only drinking water that workers could get, the Democrats said nothing.

• When a hundred thousand Mexicans were murdered during the ongoing drug war, the Democrats said nothing.

• When 50,000 children sought to escape the drug war in Central America and Mexico, the Democrats were silent until it became to embarrassing to say nothing.

Moreover, during all this time the African American leadership on the DNC stayed silent on all the issues.

The only issue that the leadership would comment on was to kill a resolution on the minimum wage proposal.

Now Trump and his colleagues in the Republican Party have proposed a wall for Mexico. The African American leadership is quiet, hence the Democratic Party can only cry in horror at the proposal. The issue has become one of cost and not about the war on racism and poverty in Mexico.

Some of you old guys may remember, during the Viet Nam War that the cry was stop war, racism, and poverty. It is a call worth renewing now. Sanders and Company cry about the middle class and poverty, Clinton and Company cry about the tax structure and poverty.

No one is crying about the children dead and dying in the US deserts.

The folks in Arizona say “enough is enough.” They are called racists.

I think the racists are in the Do Nothing Committee who sees the world only in Black and White.

The wall is not the issue that needs to be addressed. The issue is when the Democratic party will stand up in favor of a real minimum wage in Mexico of at least $3.25 per hour when we cry that Americans cannot live on less than $15 per hour. Driscoll that sells strawberries at Safeway for $5 per pound pays its Mexican workers $7 per DAY!

Why isn’t the Bernie crowd talking about this issue?

Oh I get it, there are no black workers picking strawberries in Mexico!

I said in 2000, no vote unless the candidate commits $20 million for our get out the vote and mail ballot effort. I say now, no vote for the candidates until they address the wall as the issue it is and commit $50 million out of their billion-dollar campaign for president. (Or, as I call it, pocket change.)

No more mariache politicas! It is not enough to hire the band,  eat a taco and say see you in four years.

Basta!

Steven J Ybarra JD
Punto Negro-Punto Blanco©