ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Americans get all fired up over politics even though not many of us seem to understand the subject matter.

For example, on both the right and the left, you will find true believers who share a common view that the two parties are vastly different and present a stark contrast to voters.

That's adorable. There are actually Democrats and Republicans walking around under the delusion that they are not the same. These people seem to think there are two distinct parties in this country, when at best the decision that the current system puts to voters is akin to choosing between Visa and Mastercard.

This reality -- that the parties are two heads of the same snake -- might get through to voters if not for the smoke generated by both parties over hot-button issues. When it comes to guns or abortion, liberals and conservatives have legitimate differences of opinion. I admit that.

But more important than positions that candidates for office or elected officials take on contentious issues -- which change with the wind -- is the business of politics. It's when we get down to the often unpleasant nuts and bolts of what it takes to get elected and get reelected that we see just how similar the parties really are.

Exhibit A is redistricting. Note the current shenanigans by Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California. Sometimes, it turns out, folks in the big states act like big babies.

The initial tantrum came when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, put on the agenda for a special legislative session a mid-decade overhaul of the state's congressional maps. The district lines are typically redrawn by state legislators once a decade, to adjust for population changes as recorded by the U.S. census. In recent years, the Lone Star State has grown in population and added congressional seats. According to the Texas Tribune, neither Abbott nor Republican lawmakers wanted to do mid-decade redistricting, but they went ahead because President Donald Trump ordered it in the hopes that the GOP might pick up as many as five congressional seats.

Not to be outdone, California Gov. Gavin Newsom -- a Democrat who can be as petty and petulant as the next governor -- has announced that the Golden State also needs to take a fresh look at how congressional districts are drawn. In California, that task falls not to the legislation but to an independent redistricting commission. In order to follow Texas' lead and conduct a mid-decade reworking of the state's congressional maps, Newsom -- who obviously hopes the redistricting effort adds jet fuel to his likely 2028 run for the White House -- would have to put the issue before voters. Political observers say that effort is already underway in Sacramento.

Yet there's a glitch. Both Texas and California are overwhelmingly Latino. In both states, that demographic group accounts for nearly 40% of the population. So it's not a total surprise that both Texas Republicans and California Democrats intend to use Latinos to help them pick up more seats in those respective states. Each tribe assumes that most Latinos are on their side politically with very little evidence to back up that claim.

When it comes to Latino voters, both groups assume too much and understand too little about a group they claim to want onboard.

Texas Republicans don't realize that Latinos vote the person, not the party. About 48% of Latinos voted for Trump in 2024. But that doesn't mean this support will transfer to Republican congressional candidates. It's likely that it won't.

Likewise, California Democrats don't understand just how far they've strayed from the everyday concerns of working-class Latinos who worry more about inflation and the sky-high cost of living than whether transgender athletes can compete in women's sports.

That's what both Texas Republicans and California Democrats have in common: Neither group respects Latino voters enough to not presuppose how we're going to behave.

Here's a radical idea: How about both parties just make their best case and let us make our own decisions about who or what to vote for?

In the game of politics, Latinos never win. It used to be that Republicans wrote us off, and Democrats took us for granted. It was a recipe for irrelevance. Now both parties take us for granted and write off the possibility that we could actually think for ourselves.

That's not a step forward. It feels more like 10 steps backward.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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