Trump Surrogate: Without Donald Trump There Will Be ‘A Taco Truck On Every Corner’
A Trump surrogate warns of a "taco truck on every corner" if Trump loses. That sounds like more of a promise than a threat if you ask me.
The founder of a group called ‘Latinos For Trump’ made a very odd, and yet revealing argument in favor of his candidates position on immigration last night:
A founder of the Latinos for Trump group on Thursday warned that without Donald Trump in the White House, there would be “taco trucks on every corner” in America.
“My culture is a very dominant culture,” the Mexican-born Marco Gutierrez said on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes.” “It is imposing and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.”
oy Reid, who was guest-hosting Hayes’ show, cut him off, saying, “I don’t even know what that means, and I’m afraid to ask,” before going to New York state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, a Dominican, for a reaction.
“I’m offended,” Espaillat said.
Gutierrez defended himself, saying, “We have a lot of good things that we’re bringing to the United States, but we also have problems.”
The exchange caused ripples among political watchers on social media, and comes at a time when the immigration debate is roiling the presidential election. Republican nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday visited Mexico before making a major immigration speech in Phoenix, Arizona. He also sought to clarify some of his fluctuating immigration positions earlier Thursday.
Here’s the video:
As @JoyAnnReid guest hosts @allinwithchris, guest warns of "taco trucks every corner" without #Trump's plan https://t.co/4vnpZXKBYY #inners
— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) September 2, 2016
To a large degree, the response to Gutierrez’s comment has been widely ridiculed on line with even many conservative pundits joking that if voting for Hillary Clinton meant that there indeed would be a “a taco truck on every corner” then they may have to vote for her after all. Others suggested that the Clinton should adopted this as a campaign slogan, mirroring the slogan that Republicans adopted in the 1928 Presidential election when Herbert Hoover promised ‘a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage’ (in other words, economic prosperity) if he was elected. Of course, given the fact that Hoover’s election was followed just nine months later by a stock market crash that proved to be the beginning of the worst economic downturn in American history, perhaps it’s wise that the Clinton campaign avoid the analogy. In addition to treating it as a joke, several Latino organizations have called on Gutierrez to apologize for what they perceive to be an offense comment. So far, though, there is no response from either Guitterez, his organization, or the Trump campaign.
Beyond the jokes and the demand for an apology, though, these comments reveal one of the primary arguments of the anti-immigration movement, specifically the fact that what the people who hold to these are ideas are frequently revealing is a fear of change. Guitterez’s appeal to the idea of “taco trucks on every corner” reflects the long standing fear of the xenophobe that immigrants will change American culture. The answer to that fear, of course, is that yes, they will change American culture. This is how immigration has always worked in the United States. From the founding of the nation, and even prior to ratification of the Constitution, waves of immigrants from different parts of Europe influenced American culture in countless ways that have enriched and changed what it means to be an American. They’ve impacted everything from our customs (many of the Christmas traditions we now see as common came from German immigrants), our language (pretty much every large scale group of immigrants has helped add words to the what we consider common English), and even the kinds of food we eat (need I mention pizza, sushi, hamburgers, Chinese food, and, of course, tacos?) Newer immigrant groups are also adding their own flavor to the American stew, which is why you can find restaurants serving food from India, Ethopia, Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, the Middle East, and Central and South America in most major American cities and their suburbs. This is what the idea of the “melting pot,” which isn’t really an accurate description of what happens when American and immigrant cultures meet, is all about. Immigrants become American and, at the same time, they influence and add their own flavors to what it means to be American. It’s why pizza, sushi, hamburgers, hot dogs, and, yes, tacos, are as much “American” food as the things Americans ate in 1776. Trump supporters and other anti-immigrant xenophobes don’t like this because they view America something static and demand that immigrants must change to become “American.” This isn’t what the immigrant experience is about in America, though, and its arguably one of the reasons why assimilation of immigrants has been more successful here than it has been in most of Europe, where the idea of changing what it means to be “French” or “German” to include the immigrant experience seems to be a foreign concept. That’s never been America, though, and one hopes it never will be because the day we stop being willing to adapt to immigrants as much as they adapt to us is the day what it means to be American dies.
Nick Gillespie at Reason has more to say:
What Trump and Guiterrez don’t seem to appreciate is that people like immigration because it brings new possibilities into the country. Latino or Mexican culture isn’t any more “dominant” than past immigrant cultures. The clearest markers of a culture are language and food. It turns out that Spanish-speaking immigrant households are learning English in precisely the same generational pattern that held for Jews, Italians, Poles, and previous newcomers. Eighty percent of third-generation folks from Spanish speaking households speak English as their dominantlanguage while 0 percent speak Spanish, says Pew Research. As for food, today’s Mexican food is as American as apple pie, pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, sushi, and chop suey. As Gustavo Arrellano argued in a June 2012 Reason magazine cover story, it might even be more American.
Precisely who, other than direct competitors with bricks-and-mortar restaurants, doesn’t like food trucks? That’s not simply because, as we’ve documented endlessly here at Reason over the years, they are bringing tasty and delightful food to underserved areas from Los Angeles to downtown Washington, D.C. It’s because the food-truck revolution, every bit as much as Uber or Airbnb or Tesla or any other hipper and more cutting-edge business, exemplifies something primal in America’s cultural DNA. They are small businesses first and foremost, typically run on shoestring budgets, sweat equity, and family-based micro-loans. They experiment and mongrelize and are desperate to please customers. They are mobile and fast-changing, they take risks and they live with booms or busts. Forget the Okies driving pickup trucks across the barren plains in the Dust Bowl era or even the garlic-and-bagel eaters disembarking at Ellis Island in the late 19th- and early-20th centuries. These days, if you want to see not just the American Dream made flesh, but the American future incarnated, head down to wherever food trucks congregate and take a bite of the best this goddamn country has to offer. Typically on some sort of once-weird bread or pasta or pastry—pizza dough, pita, tortilla, bao, whatever—and crammed with odd-ball meats, vegetables, and sauces.
As someone who is the grandchild of immigrants from old Europe who has lived all over the country (New York City, New Jersey, Philly, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Texas, small-town Ohio, D.C.), I can tell nativists that however much you fear immigrants, you don’t want to live in a part of the country where they are few and far between. They take less welfare, they cause less crime, they start more businesses, they breathe new life into a tired body politic, and more. You will lose more than elections, amigos. You will lose out on being able to enjoy a vibrant America that will be different from the one you grew up in, yes, but also better and more future-oriented.
So yes, let’s have a taco truck on every corner, along with the pizza joint, the Chinese place, the Jewish Deli, and whatever else the market will support It’s part of what makes America great, not something to be feared.
Oh no! Easy access to yummy tacos would be TERRIBLE!
Can we at least start insisting that we don’t “Americanize” what does get adopted, where “American” means “slather with cheese”?
I just had a BLT from the deli downstairs and they asked me what type of cheese I wanted on it….
No! Trucks on ‘Merican corners should only sell ‘Merican meals. Such as peanut butter and jelly!
Every other food on a truck was brought in by another country. Hot Dogs, Pizza, Burgers, Sandwiches, Tacos.
Maybe BBQ would make the cut, not sure though.
Remember, Marco Gutierrez is one of the best Mexican-American surrogates the Trump campaign could find. That’s representative of the low level of talent the campaign is attracting.
Pathetic.
Well said, Doug.
little known fact: When WW1 happened, politicians appealing to the Tea Party types of the day renamed hamburgers “Liberty Sandwiches”.
There are virtually NO delicious taco trucks in New Hampshire. Yet another campaign promise that won’t be kept, I’m sure.
@grumpy realist: BLT with cheese ? Sacreligious ! Heresy !
The nearest taco joint is about 20 minutes away. So I wouldn’t mind a taco truck around here.
Whatever happened to the ice cream wagons ?
Please send some taco trucks from LA up to the Bay Area and put one on my corner. The quality of Mexican food up here is a joke compared to the southland. A truck from the Coral Beach Cantina in Malibu would be great…
Well-done, Doug.
Yeah, in the category of ’empty threats’ a taco truck on every corner runs only slightly behind ‘free beer.’ And any candidate who could credibly promise both, would carry every state but Utah.
@grumpy realist:
I like a girl who understands that there are certain rules that apply to sandwiches. A BLT is a BLT, it’s not a ham and cheese. It’s not a Reuben. It’s not a club sandwich. It’s not a shrimp po’ boy or a lobster roll. It’s a damn BLT. Is nothing sacred anymore?
@Tyrell:
Obama done took ’em!
I’m a little confused. I thought Trump was going to make tacos great again…
@anjin-san:
That was about Taco Salads – but easy mistake to make.
I don’t know that I care much, I prefer Peruvian-Korean Fusion food trucks anyway.
All I can say is this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=i+love+tacos+so+much+graffiti&sa=X&rlz=1C1VASU_enUS555US555&espv=2&biw=1517&bih=714&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwjj0bPD0vHOAhUP7WMKHTZMCHQQsAQIMg&dpr=0.9
I want a taco truck on every corner. I want a boeuf bourguignon truck on every corner. I want a pad Thai truck on every corner. I want a New England fried clam truck on every corner. I want a genuine Reuben sandwich truck on every corner. I want a Portuguese paella truck on every corner. I want an Afghan lamb pilaf truck on every corner. I want a cioppino truck on every corner. I want a Cuban pork and black bean truck on every corner. I want a feijoada truck on every corner. I want a tempura truck on each corner. I want an Italian sausage with peppers and onions truck on each corner. I want a smorgasbord on each corner.
You people need to stop: I’m getting hungry.
@michael reynolds: and @grumpy realist: I feel your pain. Vodka martini? What the hell is that?
Typo alert:
Should read
My God, people, don’t you understand?
Remember how the Irish and German immigrants overwhelmed our innocent Puritan culture with beer? Remember how African-American slave food turned into “soul food” and corrupted pure innocent Southern women? Remember how those Pope-kissing Italian-Americans infiltrated our all American diet with endless pasta bowls and taught us which cheeses were actually worth eating? Or how the Chinese fooled us with a little something called “Beef and Broccoli,” and now there’s a Chinese restaurant in nearly every American town, run by the sinister Triads and their Fu Manchu overlords?
Next up, the Trump campaign will be warning us about the dangers of ragtime and “The Charleston.”
@CSK:
Oddly enough, this is exactly what I’ve been claiming is my retirement plan. I want to get a food truck and serve nothing but boeuf bourguignon and crusty French bread. Ideally outside of a major publishing house so that as I dish it out I can be a cautionary tale: “See the cranky old bastard ladling beef? Used to be a writer. Yep. Until he lost his shit one day and just started tweeting fwck everyone over and over.”
I admit, it’s a bit strange.
@Lit3Bolt:
This is the sum total of what Americans know about history:
1) George Washington did something at Lexington and Concord and wrote the Declaration of Independence.
2) the Civil War was totally not about slaves, it was about. . . um. . . states rights.
3) WW2, America, fwck yeah! Woohoo! We won!
4) Vietnam, which was lost by the mainstream media.
That is history for Americans. I guarantee you, just to pick one example, that not 1 in 10 Americans has any idea how we came to own California. Clueless about history and geography.
@grumpy realist: I have always wondered what the food in Mexico and China compares to the Mexican and Chinese food here.
An aside, but an old cop told me the good ones don’t generally move around much, they tend to settle into one or two spots and the world beats a path to them.
What kind of self-loathing does it take for a person to claim one’s personal heritage could only be a negative influence on a melting pot culture?
That is one self hating Hispanic dude.
Just when you think the Trump campaign can’t say anything dumber….
@Joe:
A vodka martini is the most delicious pre-dinner drink in the universe, with all due respect to those who like single malt, or a fine bourbon, either of which I am happy to serve my guests, along with the classic gin martini. It’s all good.
@Tyrell:
It’s different. Both, if well made with good ingredients, are quite delicious. But different, because the ingredients are.
@michael reynolds:
When you initiate the bourguignon truck in the Boston-NY-DC corridor, do let me know.
In this election, he’d take Utah too. Mormons hate Trump and like immigration. And tacos too.
@Tyrell: in Japan, fast food is stuff like yaki soba and okonomiyaki. Cheap Chinese (dumplings and varieties of fried rice and Ma Po Doufu is also typical.
(Now I want a plate of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Damn.)
@Scott F.: / @Stonetools:
.
He is not self-loathing or self-hating, hes just a crooked, greedy SOB learning at the feet of the master.
Surprise! Latinos For Trump Founder Is A Real Estate Scammer
P.S. “Okonomiyaki” is based off an egg+cabbage pancake slathered with tonkatsu sauce, mayo, and powdered nori. It usually has other stuff in it like meat, noodles, scallops, whatever. It was the longest time before I realized the name came from “okonomi” or “as you like it” as opposed to “economy-yaki” because it’s a damn cheap meal to make. As a grad student I pulled this recipe out whenever my funds were getting low at the end of the month. Eggs, cabbage, a little flour, and the sauces made a fine dinner.
My position on this issue has already been covered in Adam Rubin’s treatise on the subject:
Dragons Love Tacos
I would, however, note that his research on dragons and spicy salsa has been largely discredited by later studies.
@michael reynolds: “how we came to own California”: did it have anything to do with that John Sutter guy, the man that discovered all that gold ?
@michael reynolds:
— John Adams in a 1790 letter to Benjamin Rush
@Tyrell:
No, that came later. First we used a pretext to invade Mexico with two armies, seize Mexico City and force the Mexican government to hand over California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and part of Colorado, IIRC. In short, we stole it. Once we’d stolen it we only had to eliminate the Indians there and turn the Mexicans into second class citizens in what had been their own country. All largely because we wanted to extend slavery into new areas.
US Grant, who was a young officer at the time, called it, “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”
@Stormy Dragon:
That is a great quote. It’s practically prophecy.
Meanwhile, in the real world…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN1182PT?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=57ca13ae04d30110abc0399f&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
For the click-averse, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll has Trump actually ahead of Hillary by 1 point.
I think it may be time for all the Pastafarians to stop amusing themselves and start praying for real.
Mike
@MBunge:
Definitely closer than I’d like, but…
Fox – Clinton +2
Economist – Clinton +5
Reuters (through 8/29) – Clinton +2
USA Today – Clinton +7
Monmouth – Clinton +7
NBC – Clinton +4
I’m never going to be one who “unskews” polls. They are what they are, and her lead has shrunk. She also absolutely smoked fundraising in August, so isn’t in a position where she can’t address this. It’s hardly time to panic.
@grumpy realist:
BLT with cheese? That’s a hangin’ offense ’round these parts.
@grumpy realist: I thought “Americanize” now meant “add bacon.”
@MBunge: I still think polls are mostly useless at this point. The big question is which Trump will show up at the debates when people start actually paying attention. If normal Trump shows up, I predict he’ll drop in the polls like his feet have been set in concrete. Because people sort of expect presidential candidates to seem presidential.
You guys talking about BLTs are killing me. I finally had to go out to the garden to pick a couple of tomatoes and make sandwiches for my wife and I.
http://fat-patties.net/29154
@Franklin: The big question is which Trump will show up at the debates when people start actually paying attention.
But here’s the problem, and it demonstrates how none of us are really that smart. It is going to be impossible to lower debate expectations for Hillary Clinton. Even if the establishment wanted to go all in on poor mouthing her, there’s no way to make her seem worse than the guy they’ve spent the past year labeling an idiot, racist, sexist, deranged, deluded, incompetent, undisciplined, lying, creepy, belligerent crybaby. And if Trump shows up at the debates and acts like anything resembling a normal human being, the Republican and moderate element of our elite will absolutely swoon at the “pivot” they’ve desperately longed for, while the Democratic and liberal part of our elite will completely foam at the mouth.
Are there more Blue Star families to pick fights with Trump every other week until the election?
Mike
@michael reynolds:
I thought we got California by giving about $20 worth of trinkets to Louis B. Mayer. 😉
@Grumpy Realist: No mayonnaise, please, just bulldog sauce.
Meanwhile, the Trump Foundation has just paid an IRS fine for illegally donating campaign money to Pam Bondi, after which she dropped the investigation into Trump U.
You know, *actually* paying to play. Trump has managed to get away with this because the media are obsessed with the FBI emails, which contain absolutely nothing new. He broke the law, tantamount to a bribe, and… *crickets*.
@Tim: I think that might have been Jack L. Warner.
“That’s all folks !”
5 of the most famous logos: 20th. Cent. Fox, Warner Brothers, MGM. Paramount, Disney castle
@Jen: He’s normalized illegal behavior. Just one more example of the shrewd businessman ta work. The “liberal” media must have been out to lunch that day.
Its actually similar to his pivot. His people just leaked that he was going to pivot, and then he doubled down with his normal hate speech. And suddenly he was presidential for going to Mexico. He didn’t have to pivot, only needed to appear to pivot.
In the meantime his campaign CEO runs a website that has become a clearing house for white supremacists, but that story doesn’t interest the media. All I hear is how media savvy Steve Bannon is. Not that he actually has probably committed one of the few cases of actual voter fraud.
@Senyordave: Slate had an article a couple days ago. There are more than a few cases of vote fraud. Not significant, but real. Almost always mail-in ballots. Republicans have a crusade against in-person fraud which essentially never happens and never seem to mention mail-in vote fraud that does. Could it possibly be because mail-in ballots tend to run Republican?
@michael reynolds: My father describes boeuf bourguignon as the best manner yet devised by which to cook a carrot.
I can’t argue.
@MBunge:
You’re taking for granted that this is within his ability.
All that stuff about him being incompetent, easily angered, and narcissistic… isn’t just some “narrative”. People who meet the real Trump have that impression, and he’s done everything he can to confirm it with his daily maniac Tweets, his campaign decisions, and so on.
It’s easy to assume he just “can” behave normally and civilly like the rest of us, and I do have that worry in the back of my mind — but it’s not where I’d put my money. He won’t even have a teleprompter to help guide him, and that’s been part of every “presidential” thing he’s said so far.
Of course, the reality is that without Trump the taco truck on every corner will not be held to the same health, sanitation and safety standards as the cheeseburger truck, the pizza truck, the wiener schnitzel truck, the falafel, the curry truck, the bbq truck, etc.
It has widely been documented that in many areas, especially California, that local authorities do not enforce building codes, sanitation, driving, and other regulations against those that they profile as possibly in the country illegally, especially Hispanics with this profile. This trend has accelerated in the last 8 years.
So, a taco truck nearby, perhaps not on every corner as we like diversity, is a good thing, but one not subject to the same regulations as other types of food trucks due to the bigotry of local public policy is not.
Non-european descent Mexicans were already 2nd class citizens in their own country. Remember the Mexican identity was created by the Spanish and French masters. The same continental European feudal powers who imposed Spanish as the language, the oppressive institutions and the until the Mexican revolution different legal codes and courts for differing classes.
True, those territories came from the resolution of the war, but what we got was a California that couldn’t support any significant population, that is why you don’t read of the huge population of Indians in California, although some of that was due to early conflicts with Mexican (and Spanish) colonizers, both very culturally driven to enslave and work to death indigenous populations.
@JKB:
This is a version of the ‘black people owned slaves, too’ argument. How X treated Y has no bearing whatsoever on the moral question of how Z treats Y. Z is responsible for his own actions. Offering ‘they were already second class citizens’ as an excuse is like suggesting that because three guys have already raped a woman, you might as well, too.
You’re playing semantic games singling out ‘non-European Mexicans,’ since it says nothing about our treatment of ‘European’ Mexicans as well as offering no excuse for our treatment of the already mistreated.
As for this ‘what we got was a California that couldn’t support any significant population,’ I could point out that Wyoming is incapable of sustaining a large population, so why don’t we give it to Colorado? Or at very least not allow them the same Senate representation as NY or CA.
We do not acquire the right to take property just because the current owners aren’t using it in a way we think is optimum. So that, too, is a failed argument.
The simple facts are these:
1) We invaded and seized a huge portion of Mexico.
2) We did it in large part because southern slave owners wanted more slave states to compensate for the growth of the north.
And very few Americans know anything about it because it is too clearly a black mark on our history and it complicates our national narrative in which we are the heroes in shining armor. The undeniable fact is that of the 3.8 million square miles we call the US of A, we stole the bulk of it by direct force of arms, or by first ‘buying’ it from some other power with no right to the land and then applying force of arms. This does not make us unique – most of the world was taken at some point by someone from someone else. But it makes us one among many sinners, and that does not fit well with our preferred self-image.
@CSK: Vodka and vermouth may be yummy, but get your own damn name. Martini’s taken. A “Martini” is gin and vermouth. I am fighting for Western civilization here (and I have reared three children so I am battle tested in that war). Leave my Martini alone.
And, hey, you kids get off a’ my lawn.
And yet, from your same link…
@Grumpy Realist:
Okomomiyaki is flat-out fun for a group of people. When I was in Tokyo we’d head on up toward Shinjuku to Shin Ogikubo and settle in for great okonomiyaki and beer. Always a good time.