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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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they're a pretty conservative constituency and would happily vote for a red tribe without the MAGA tendencies

In surveys like the ACS, Hispanics as a broad group (there is considerable internal diversity, although it's generally dwarfed by the distance to the broad non-Hispanic white group) hold lots of positions that rhyme with or are basically the same as those held by typical Red Tribe members, especially as far as interpersonal & religious morality is concerned, but on any question touching on matters of state and power they diverge completely. Hispanics by and large want a potent state that taxes heavily and actively redistributes, restricts free speech for social harmony and spends lots of money on disadvantaged minorities, at least as far as their answers in the ACS go (this is also independent of party affiliation, Cubans vote Republican, yet their stated preferences are almost indistinguishable from heavily Democrat Puerto Ricans or Mexicans). In other words they completely lack the libertarian, don't-tread-on-me attitude that pervades the current Red Tribe. American conservatism as thought of by its mostly white practitioners and defenders is fairly alien to Hispanics (and non-whites in general, e.g. Asians fit the economic side a bit better but mostly lack the Christian and classical liberal aspects in their expressed world views).

If MAGA or the Republicans absorb more Hispanic voters, it's IMO much more likely that the policy platform will change significantly than that there will be a Jeffersonian republic with Spanish surnames.

In other words they completely lack the libertarian, don't-tread-on-me attitude that pervades the current Red Tribe. American conservatism as thought of by its mostly white practitioners

Is this a majority of Republicans? It certainly describes a faction of Republicans and likely the majority in places like Nevada and Wyoming. But the religious right when it was ascendant certainly didn't have those attitudes.