So Harris didn’t just have a problem with sexist white men. She was also contending with chauvinist male Latino voters who told Pennsylvania radio host Victor Martinez that women belong in the kitchen.
After Harris conceded the 2024 race to President-Elect Donald Trump late Wednesday afternoon, Martinez joined MSNBC’s post-election coverage to offer his perspective on the ongoing postmortem of the race for Democrats.
As they noted, Martinez had made a previous appearance on the network to talk about the reaction to Tony Hinchcliffe’s racist remarks at the Trump hate-fest in Madison Square Garden.
Nicolle Wallace asked Martinez about the impact of the “garbage” remark on the Puerto Rican community, and Martinez responded that in Allentown where he lives, it had an impact with most of that community voting for Harris, but, as he noted, “it wasn’t enough,” before sharing this with Wallace about just how sexist the other Latino men calling into his radio show are.
MARTINEZ: As far as the Latino vote in general, it was the Latino man. It was a Latino man who decided that they were going to vote for Donald Trump. And I will dare to say that it’s the Latino man who will – who wouldn’t want a woman president. I mean, you and I had this discussion before, and I have audios from the Latino men who were calling my show, telling me that they wouldn’t vote for her just because she was a woman.
And that is unfortunate, but that’s part of the Latino culture, right, with the Latino the man. And he’s the one, the provider. And we’re the boss, and we still, unfortunately, have a lot of Latinos with that mentality where the woman belongs in the kitchen. That is a reality of the Latino male chauvinist culture. And I think that’s what exactly what happened.
WALLACE: Victor, how do you get them back if you’re part of the Democratic pro-democracy coalition?
MARTINEZ: I mean, again, they were willing to vote for Joe Biden. They were just not willing to vote for Kamala Harris. So I will say, listen, the Democratic Party needs to make sure that they regroup, that they look for somebody young, vibrant. They can make the case just like Joe Biden did. But unfortunately, as far as these Latino men. I don’t think at any time in the future they will vote for a female president.
That’s sad to say. I’m a Latino man. I supported Kamala Harris. But I can tell you, I heard it. I brought that to your attention. I brought you audios of men calling my show and telling me, oh no, no, no, she won’t be respected. No, no, no, no. There is no way she can handle the job. And I will argue with them on the air, and I will bring examples of all the female powerful leaders in the world, and they seem not to want to hear it.
So Trump’s blatant sexism worked with these voters who decided to ignore the racism. Wonderful. We’ll see how well this works out for them once Orange Julius is back in the White House. Maybe they’ll decide there are worse things than allowing a competent strong woman to run things.
