You know it’s political silly season when campaigns start making fools of themselves in an attempt to appeal to Latino voters.
In the Los Angeles mayoral race, that moment began last weekend.
On Friday, a social media account named Latinos por Prats was opened Released an AI-animated music video Praise from mayoral candidate and former reality television star Spencer Pratt. It begins with a fit, sunglasses-wearing Pratt wheeling a trash can filled with dirt and Mayor Karen Bass walking through a crowd of cheering Angelenos. As the title “Spencer, Saka La Basura” flashes on the screen, the Hollywood sign appears in the background – Spencer, Take Out Trashy Karen, a play on the mayor’s last name with “Basura” and the Spanish word for “trash.”
Cut to scenes of Bass playing the tourist on his infamous trip to Ghana while the Palisades burns. Splice in Pratt dancing with his wife Heidi Montag on stage at a street party where the audience waves Mexican and US flags. And because L.A.’s Latino majority is of Mexican descent, this thing was set up by a peppy accordion, dramatic guitar plucks and a bold tuba, right? Correct?
Uh, no.
Lyrics like “Latinos for prats we’re singing/Cause we’re tired of this dirty beat” play over brassy salsa rhythms that are more Miami and Cuban than L.A., where Latinos are mostly of Mexican and Central American heritage and the city’s soundtrack – corridos tumbados, cumbias, Latin rock and pop – reflects it.
That didn’t stop ignorant, mostly non-Latino Pratt fanboys and fangirls from learning about it online. Nor did it stop Bass from joining the we-need-Latino-voters celebration.
Soon after the video was released, a group called Latinos con Bas discussed it. brought big name speakers to Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights — state Senator Maria Elena Durazo, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights head Angelica Salas, Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta — to pledge support for the incumbent with all the enthusiasm of doctors reminding people to get the flu vaccine. Bais gave a warm welcome to the crowd.Si Se Puede!” – the standard Latino political rallying cry for decades, but it’s not so kosher now, relating to the legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez, whom a recent New York Times investigation revealed had sexually assaulted teenage girls.
Latino con Bais came across as a group of some sort of establishment that was clinging to one of its own rather than to anything organic. But at least we know the track record of those involved. Latino Por Prats appears to be just one person: Adrian E. Alvarez, a Cuban American who, according to his online profile, divides his time between the Miami area and LA. If the lawyer by profession — who did not respond to multiple requests for comment — was really serious about winning the Latino vote for his guy, he would have started a corrido instead of a salsa tune. The Mexican ballad has been reprized by Angelenos for decades for everything from the tragic deaths of Robert F. Kennedy and Kobe Bryant and his daughter to the capture of diverse narco lords.
Those songwriters got it. Not a diss track by Alvarez. And he used Cuban Spanish on social media to promote it – carazo, fajme, i am good – like in favor of Mexican Spanish counterparts guay, antrel, And Raja It seems like someone doesn’t know South LA from South Beach.
But to dismiss “Spencer, Saka La Basura” as an inauthentic joke is to ignore what it says about this political moment. In a year when Latinos across the country will make or break Democrats’ effort to win back Congress, they will play an even more important role in L.A.’s mayoral race.
And it’s the Bass campaign that needs Latinos more than any of her rivals — because there’s no guarantee she’ll get them.
Former L.A. mayoral candidate Karen Bass, center, is joined by pioneering farm worker leader Dolores Huerta, left, and former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, right, during a 2022 campaign event at Mariachi Plaza.
(Luis Cinco/Los Angeles Times)
A UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll released last month and co-sponsored by The Times showed that 56% of likely voters view the mayor unfavorably, with the majority of those surveyed having a negative view of him as the only candidate. He is the top choice among Latinos – 29%, while Pratt has 16%. But 27% of Latinos are undecided about who they want as mayor, the highest percentage of any ethnic group.
Pratt enjoys some name recognition among Latinos as a C-list celebrity, but he is also a registered Republican Who thinks LA should coordinate With the Trump administration’s deportation leviathan, a position that is about as popular among Angelenos as support for the San Diego Padres. This clearly presents an opportunity for Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who is running for mayor to Bass’s left — if she can deftly take advantage of it. But Ramon represents the district with the lowest Latino population in the city and he has yet to make a name for himself citywide — no wonder a Berkeley poll found that just 9% of Latinos supported him, trailing even Presbyterian pastor Rae Huang.
Those shortcomings should give Bais — whose children are Mexican American and who has worked with the Latino L.A. political establishment for almost his entire political career — an advantage among Latinos. But all that star wattage couldn’t win the Latino vote against Rick Caruso four years ago. And L.A.’s biggest problems during the mayor’s first term — homelessness, broken streets, damaged streetlights, Trump’s immigration deluge — disproportionately affected L.A.’s Latino neighborhoods, even as the inferno that engulfed the Palisades cost thousands of jobs for the nannies, house cleaners, and gardeners who kept the neighborhood as pristine as it was.
His campaign will trumpet all of Bass’s alleged accomplishments and support him as they did at the Plaza de la Raza event, but they lost the story of a healthy LA long ago.
Pratt – who doesn’t know Los Angeles beyond the Westside and television studios – will have to do more than Bass and Ramon to attract Latinos. But by repeatedly referring to the mayor as “Karen Basura” — a juvenile, obvious insult but still one that sticks when you hear it — he is at least making Spanish a far more consistent part of his campaign than his rivals. And Alvarez’s music video, as silly and un-L.A. as it is, speaks to an enthusiasm among at least one Latino Pratt supporter that will likely remain engaging and more motivating than anything that comes with the Bass and Ramon campaigns.
It seems that reality has already taken a toll on Bass. He responded to “Spencer, saca la bassura” on social media a few days later with a photo of people holding “Latinos con bas” signs at his Plaza de la Raza rally, with the caption “Latinos con bas > ay Latinos.” It was meant as a political flexibility but turned out to be an insecure posture. Meanwhile, Latinos por Prats released a teaser for another video, this time featuring Pratt as Batman as a clown-faced Bastard and Ramon as the villain Two-Face.
Playing, again, for salsa. That’s weak sauce. can someone try In fact Get Latino LA?
I promise: Si Se Puede.
