Commentary: What the 'Taco Stand Karen' fiasco says about right-wing Latinos

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Set us as preferred For the last two years, Francesca Ortega insulted Latinos on social media with rhetoric that sounded straight from Stephen Miller.Under the nom de plume Francesca Sin Filtro — Unfiltered — the small business owner opined that Chicanos have “obviously nothing good going for” them and “probably have baby mamas everywhere.” That Latino men “tend to do better research” than Latinas, and that’s why a majority of them favored Trump in 2024.That illegal immigration “is not giving us a fair representation” of Latin America and that she didn’t want to see the Santa Clarita Valley, where she lives and works, turn into Los Angeles or Mexico.Ortega got away with such vitriol relatively unscathed because conservative Latinos were the shiny new point on President Trump’s spearhead.

Their rise made them a nationwide phenomenon — feared by liberals and hailed by Republicans as the future of politics in a nation where Latinos are the largest minority.And nothing made MAGA happier than seeing Latinos trash their own kind, because that gave everyone else the cover to attack Latinos, too.

But we’re now coming upon a midterm election where conservative Latinos are once again ridiculed as self-hating freaks, as Ortega found out the hard way last week.When Trump descended that damned escalator, I knew this racist excuse for a leader would nevertheless appeal to many Latino men.Filming herself in front of a Santa Clarita shopping plaza, she screamed at taqueros in Spanish that their stand was “cheap” and “vulgar,” mocked them as “arrogant” and “stupid” and called a woman a “smelly hag.” Ortega threatened to call ICE while accusing them of being illegal immigrants with no proof except that they were brown-skinned people prepping meat on a spit.She finally walked away — but not b...