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enchantedchocolatebars · 4 years ago

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Molly Headcanons!💖🕷️🕸️

Here are some Molly headcanons that I came up with!💖🕷️🕸️💖🕷️🕸️ I was planning on using them in a future roleplay blog if I still decide to create it. Enjoy!🙂

•When they were alive and human, Molly was the one who introduced Angel (Anthony) to drag.

• Molly had two closest best friends who were girls growing up. Those three were besties who were inseparable! Molly's glad she was able to meet and reunite with them in Hell! (When they saw each other in Hell for the first time, they did the classic high pitched girl squeal before running up to each other in a group hug, jumping up and down.)

•The Shop Til' You Drop Queen (both in life and in death)!

• Angel is her favorite brother, but don't tell Arackniss that.

• Molly and Henroin have a sorta Mabel Pines and Grunkle Stan dynamic / relationship.

• Keeps small candies like jelly beans, gummy bears, skittles, etc in her boobs and pulls them out whenever she needs a quick snack.

• Lives in a cute, pink vintage house! The inside is super girlified! She calls it The Dreamhouse 2!

• Likes to help Angel with his drag makeup.

• Babysits Fat Nuggets for Angel when he's at work.

• Loves throwing girly sleepovers at her place and invites Charlie, Vaggie, Niffty, Cherri Bomb, Mimzy, Velvet, and Stella (she's my best friend's oc)!

• When she was alive, she use to always brag about her "italiano tan" but really she always used fake tanner. She's naturally a fair, pale skinned girl.

• She mostly was used for espionage in the mob family, since she’s the most innocent looking. She always baked a nice, fresh batch of poisoned cookies for the rival gang.

• Her fav methods were and still are guns, knifes, and poison. She always thought that she deserved to have the biggest gun since she's the prettiest!

• A mixture of Star Butterfly, Mabel Pines, and Pinkie Pie!

• Fourth wall breaker!

• Barbie is her idol.

• You can find my headcanon voices for her "here".

•The jobs on her dream job list are: A real life italian princess, housewife, gummy bear enthusiast, unicorn tamer, a rave queen, a taste tester for foods like cake, candy, cookies, etc, a cute, undercover secret agent like those girls from the show "Totally Spies!", a media personality like Paris Hilton, and becoming an amazing woman who will shine like the stars (ya know, like Barbie!).

•When she shows her list to Arackniss, he blunty tells her that most of those aren't even "actual careers" or are "extremely unrealistic" but she doesn't listen lol. When she shows her list to Angel though she's glad that he at least supports her dreams and tells her that she can do anything she puts her mind to! After all, she's super smart! Henroin might not make a comment on the list at all cause he doesn't wanna get on Molly's bad side.

• Call her dumb and she'll go hardcore Bubbles on your ass. Ditzy is fine, BUT DUMB is a no no.

• Here's a little playlist I made for her:

💖Playlist💖

• Molly's Theme Song: Rob Mayth Barbie Girl (Single Edit)

• Caramella Girls - We Love To Party

• Rocket Candy

• That's What Girls Do

• Hilary Duff - Beat Of My Heart

• Caramella Girls - Candy Girl

• S3RL - BFF

• Slayyyter - Sweet 16

• 'Cause I'm a Blonde

• Kim Petras - I Don't Want It At All

• Barbie Life In The Dreamhouse Theme Song

• I Am A Girl Like You (Barbie As The Princess And The Pauper)

• Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures Theme Song (Everytime Molly would lip sync the Barbie songs, Arackniss would have the biggest, most annoyed frown on his face. The frown would grow even bigger if Angel decided to join in on the lip syncing singing.)

• Totally Spies Theme Song

• Smile.DK - Boys

• Pomplamoose - Bust Your Kneecaps

• Heidi Montag - Overdosin

• Blondie - Atomic

• Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

• Connie - Funky Little Beat

• Dean Martin - Mambo Italiano

• Rosemary Clooney - Mambo Italiano

#hazbin hotel #hazbin #hh #molly #hazbin hotel molly #writing #my writing #🕷️#💖#🕸️

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starstress · 4 years ago

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MCC Aqua Axolotls Live Commentary!

Hello, as said, I will attempt to write down my thoughts and reactions during the MCC.

Stream links!!

False: https://www.twitch.tv/falsesymmetry

Ren: https://www.twitch.tv/rendogtv

Grian (yes, he’s streaming): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjkgnEi4t9g

Pearl: https://www.twitch.tv/pearlescentmoon

Updates will come as edits, so be sure to check this again every once in a while if you’re interested or just curious!

To all fans, please be kind to everyone, no matter the team or who you wish would win. You will only embarrass yourself if you harass others or act immaturely and will gain no brownie points with those you follow and watch.

For now, may the games begin and the best team win!

Edit 1: Peeps are running a bit late, apparently, Ren is the only one on the team with no aqua colour XD Grian recoloured the headband that Smajor had made for him last stream XD

Andddd, we’re kicking off!!

Edit 2: The gong makes an appearance!! Also, the story of the gong!! Grian had bought it as a gag for whenever he and Mumbo record! The team loves it!

Countdown has finally started!

Edit 3: The first game is Skyblockle(?)!! Team ain’t feeling too confident about it, but we’ll see! I think they’ll be okay at this. Gri is reading the instructions and getting nervous XD

From now, everything will be under the cut. Warning, it’s really long.

Oof, wood fell in the lava. They still have more :)) They’re sharing tasks pretty nicely, I have to say, but they keep changing plans. Things will heat up quickly, tho, and I’m glad this game is gonna be out of the way soon.

First death in Skyblockle for the Aqua Axolotls: False! Second: Grian!

Doom is on the horizon XD

Rip, Ren has died too, and Pearl has gotten a couple of kills!!

And the Axolotls are out!

First gong after a game. Rn we’re all watching the other teams. Dream team is holding up well. Techno’s team is out too. Last bid!

Endgame: Pearl has won the most coins, team is a bit disappointing by last place.

Edit 4: They have the Uno Reserve card as they were the worst team.

Game: Bingo but Fast!

Gri is reading the instructions again. Someone in Pearl’s stream is watching 25 streams holy dandelions.

The team is again sharing tasks. This is pretty speedy!

Hearing Gri lament how speedy it all is is so funny. Also, they’re all like headless chickens and a lot more disorganized now. Poor team.

Endgame: Ren’s sweating in unspeakable places lol, but they’re not last anymore!

Pearl’s game just crashed, oh goodness.She’s back in, wooo!

Edit 5: Game: Battle box!

Gri is going for the middle. Pearl got so many kills!

First round won!!

Second round lost!

Third round won!!

Ren’s having a hard time breathing, and I gotta say same! 4th place rn.

Game was paused to stop the animations of the NPCs and we got another gong! we chilling for a few mins lol.

WE’RE ON AGAINST THE DREAM TEAM. Aww, the game needs to be reset or smt.

Oh wow, draw for every team. Fourth round was skipped.

Fifth round - uh SERVER CRASHED

Wowie, the map looks really strange without the resource pack.

First hiccup in 7 event, dang.

Starting again. Resource pack might no re-appear again. And now I’m laggy, lol

Round 1: lost!

Round 2: won! Gri with the tnt :D

Round 3: lost! tnt did not work this time

Round 4: unknown due to lag, oof.

Round 5: lost

Round 6: unknown

Round 7: unknown

Round 8: unknown

Round 9: unknown (prob lost)

Place: Last.

Everyone’s laggy, including me lol.

The viewers are being encouraging, which is really great and wholesome!

Edit 6: Game: Big Sales at Build Market!

Team is confident about this one, wooo!!

Grian ended up in plants lol. Ughhh, diorate. Communication is key, and it’s very well done!!

They’re building fast and getting resources pretty fast, that’s good.

Grian listing what they need is *chef kiss* False being alert is *hearteyes* and the chats are the real mvps

Endgame: Place 7. It was pretty intense indeed.

Break time!

Edit 7: Audience takeover!! Pearl wants Rocket Spleef, so does Techno. Dream wants Hole in the Wall.

Game: Rocket Spleef!!

Grian’s reading instructions :)))

This will be intense as all heck. Countdown has stopped, huh.

Oof, apparently it was supposed to be Hole in the Wall, but can’t change. Gri’s prob not gonna have as great of a time as I’d hopped :P

Round 1: Rainbow map, False is out! :o The very first time! Team’s out right before tnt time! Place 6, nice.

Round 2: Uhh, Atoms map?? Grian and Pearl are struggling. Pearl’s out! Gri’s out! Ren’s out! False’s still going.

Round 3: Grian’s finally got the rocket jump. Jump and then launch :D Or maybe not XD Tnt time! Pearl is waiting down at the bottom. She fell, oof. Grian’s having cramps in his hand and, in his words, he’s ‘a goner.’

Endgame: False’s the master of Rocket Spleef! And place 6! Team really enjoyed it, I’m so glad :D

Edit 8: Team’s hoping for Ace Race, and it looks like it might be!

Game: Ace Race!

Grian is narrating for all of us, nice! “This is totally Sonic!” he says!

“’Your first time will probably suck’. Yeah, that’s been happening about the entire time!” lmao

Omg, the map is so cool!! Def a fan favourite!! The entire team is having so much fun yesss

All of them are really doing good, Grian and False are placing good.

“Techno, get outta my way!!” - Gri, and I have to say, mood.

Grian got place 15! Right behind Techno, nice!!

Pearl is 32!

Ren is 35?

False is somewhere behind Gri, but way before Pearl.

Endgame: Everyone had one heck of a time and now they’re trying to find out how to make it in Vanilla Minecraft XD

Place: 9

Edit 9: They dunked the Lime Llamas XDD

Game: Sands of Time

Oof, this one’s gonna be a maker or a breaker.

Oh goodness, they have no one watching the time D:

They’re banking coins, thankfully.

Oh no, Pearl!! Sand is needed. Grian to the rescue!

Phew, three sand left, thank you Pearl for topping up!!

Intense, gosh, i’m really nervous about the sand!!

Oof, Pearl’s stream froze. It ended, oh no. Actually, it might just be me that has enormous lag (not smt new lol).

There we go, slow but it’s something.

The sand!! Aww man, right as Pearl got the sand!! They’re out! At least they banked a lot of their coins.

Endgame: We got a nice gong. Place: 5! Overall place: 9!

Edit 10: My wi-fi is beating me up with a stick, and it’s unrelenting. Lag is my life now.

Last game: Hole in the Wall

Ren’s gonna have a bad time XD

Round 1: Pearl’s fallen, from what my laggy video will show me. Gri as well. They’re out!

Round 2: Pearl’s still alive, woo!! Glitched right through one, so cool XD

Round 3: lag.

Endgame: Ren’s raging, Grian is really amused by that XD Nice game!!

Edit 11:

Overall place: 9

Time for the final battle!! Gong! Ren wants the gong as stream sound effect :D

Green Guardians vs Orange Ocelots!

Grian supports Techno bc Techno said he liked him lmao!! The others are Green.

Also fun fact: Grian could coach a match of dodge ball!

Round 1: Green wins!

Round 2: Orange wins!! Techno’s taking them out!

Round 3: Orange wins!

Round 4: Orange wins!

Grian: “It’s like one of those anime moments!”

Round 5: Green wins!

(Gri went off holy heck)

Congrats to the Green Guardians!!

Last edit of the night!

That was extremely fun to watch!! The lag and my own wi-fi made it a bit irritating at times, esp since I had to split my focus, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

It’s really sad that the Championship itself lagged so much, I have a feeling it left both a lot of viewers and players feeling frustrated as well.

However, the new mini game was lots of fun and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing it a lot in the future. I really hope we will.

The team was really good, they managed to coordinate very well, but like many groups who’ve just started working together for the first time, there were times where they could’ve slowed down a bit and reconsidered their plans. Still, the important bit was that they all had a great time together.

Overall, I really hope Grian and Pearl will participate again, even if not on the same teams. I also hope that there will be more Hermitcraft members joining in, even if only for one Championship. I had tons of fun writing this as well, but I think I’ll switch back to occasional posts about amusing things that happen during the games, as it really took a lot of my attention from the mcc itself.

Hope whoever kept up with me or reads this later enjoyed/enjoys this. I’m off to bed now, I’m sleepy and I’ll prob wake up, read through this, and find 10 million little mistakes that I’ll die over. Future me, I deeply apologize, but, uhhhh, no regrets!!

Starstress out!

#minecraft championship #mcc #hermitcraft #hermitblr #falsesymmetry #rendog #grian #pearlescentmoon #technoblade #dreamwastaken #dream team #mine #mcyt #mcytblr

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chicagoindiecritics · 5 years ago

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New from Kevin Wozniak on Kevflix: The Top 25 Movies of the 2010s

We’re finally here. The 2010s are officially over (and have been for almost two weeks now) and what a decade it was. When the decade began, I was in my final semester of film school at DePaul University in Chicago. Now, ten years later, I run my own website as a movie critic. Did I see myself in this position when the decade started? Absolutely not. I still can’t believe this is something I get to do and something I will continue to do for the unforeseeable future.

When it came to making this list and what movies made the list, I looked at a number of factors. I looked at the movies I’ve revisited the most over the years. I looked at the movies that had the biggest emotional impact on me. I looked at the movies that I felt were important to cinema and movies that were important to me. I looked at movies that made me go, “wow”, and movies that I simply love. Like all of the “Best of the Decade” lists, this was incredibly hard to make and this is a list that if you asked me rank these movies again in a month, it would probably change. But for now, here are my picks for the best movies of 2010s.

25. AVENGERS: ENDGAME (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019)

After eleven years and over twenty movies, the Russo Brothers gave us a fitting conclusion that is as big and epic as movies get.

24. WARRIOR (Gavin O’Connor, 2011)

A deeply emotional spots drama about family and forgiveness coupled with realistic, crushing MMA scenes.

23. TOY STORY 3 (Lee Unkrich)

Even with a fourth installment, Toy Story 3 still manages to be a sweet and touching end to Andy’s journey with Woody, Buzz, and the gang.

22. POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone, 2016)

The funniest movie of the decade also features base-shattering, smartly written rap songs.

21. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018)

The best action movie of the decade and the peak of Tom Cruise’s insanity.

20. BLACK SWAN (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)

Darren Aronofsky’s psychological horror film features career-best work from Natalie Portman.

19. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)

Another Coen classic, this time about a struggling folk singer who just can’t catch a break.

18. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (Wes Anderson, 2014)

Wes Anderson’s masterpiece is one of the most gorgeous movies of the decade.

17. A STAR IS BORN (Bradley Cooper, 2018)

Bradley Cooper was a one man wrecking crew as he produced, co-wrote, starred, and directed this remake of a Hollywood classic that he made his own.

16. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (George Miller, 2015)

An insane, non-stop thrill ride from the great visionary George Miller.

15. SPOTLIGHT (Tom McCarthy, 2015)

A riveting, disturbing procedural.

14. LA LA LAND (Damien Chazelle, 2016)

Chazelle won a well-deserved Oscar for his lovely L.A. musical.

13. SPRING BREAKERS (Harmony Korine, 2013)

Harmony Korine’s spring break nightmare featuring a legendary performance by James Franco.

12. THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour crime epic is a somber look at loyalty and regret as we get old.

11. INCEPTION (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

A mind-blowing crime thriller with the best final shot of the decade.

And now, the top ten movies of the 2010s.

10. THE AVENGERS (Joss Whedon, 2012)

The 2010s will forever be remembered for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and though Endgame ended it with a bang, it was 2012’s The Avengers that made this universe what it ended up being. Five movies came together into one in a seamless fashion thanks to writer/director Joss Whedon, who effortlessly blends humor and action within the stellar cast. The Avengers changed the game forever.

9. HEREDITARY (Ari Aster, 2018)

No movie this decade haunted me more than Ari Aster’s debut, Hereditary. The best horror film of the decade is more than just scares and is really a look at a grief-stricken family drama about dealing with a horrific tragedy. Toni Collette is masterful as the mother of the family who slowly begins to crumble as she dives further into the life of her recently deceased mother, giving one of the best performances of her career and the decade. Aster made a movie that will crush your heart and scare the hell out of you.

8. LINCOLN (Steven Spielberg, 2012)

The 2010s were a great decade for Steve Spielberg. This was a decade where Spielberg focused a lot on political stories, making a series of films I like to call his��Amendment Trilogy. This trilogy kicked off with 2012’s Lincoln and what a way to start it off. This is stately look at Abraham Lincoln trying to emancipate slaves and end the Civil War is a gorgeous and captivating film. Led by an Oscar-winning performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, who embodies the sixteenth president in a way no one else could, Lincoln is stunning work for Spielberg and ushered in a new stage in his career.

7. GET OUT (Jordan Peele, 2017)

The best original screenplay of the decade belongs to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. This darkly funny horror satire about black life in white America is a startling eye opener, as Peele looks at a black man (Daniel Kaluuya, giving an acting class in nuance) spends the weekend at his white girlfriend’s house until things go awry. There are scenes that will have you laughing and scenes that will shock you and Peele balances the tones like a true pro. This is the best debut film of the decade and film that only gets better the more I watch it.

6. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street is balls-to-the-walls chaos. A film of non-stop drugs, sex, money, and debauchery, and it all came from a 72-year-old Martin Scorsese. Leonardo DiCaprio gives a career-best performance as Jordan Belfort, a stock-broker who rose to the top of the game, only to lose everything in a heap of drugs and crime. Much like another Scorsese masterpiece, Goodfellas, Scorsese paints a portrait of the worst kind of people. Mean people who are only in love with money, greed, and doing whatever the hell they want. Yet we love every single one of them and want to join Belfort’s firm. Scorsese had one hell of a decade, but The Wolf of Wall Street was his best.

5. CREED (Ryan Coogler, 2015)

How do you reinvent a historic franchise? That’s what Ryan Coogler did with Creed, a continuation of the Rocky franchise that also launched a new film series and made Michael B. Jordan a star. What Coogler does best with Creed is find heart of the story and the heart of the Rocky franchise. This has always been a franchise about friendship, family, never giving up, and finding yourself and that’s what he made here, as we watch Adonis Creed (Jordan) try to make a name for himself in the shadow of his father and Rocky (Sylvester Stallone, who hasn’t been this good since the original Rocky). Coogler added a great visual style, a killer soundtrack, and tons of emotion to make Creed endlessly rewatchable and the biggest surprise of the decade.

4. MONEYBALL (Bennett Miller, 2011)

Brad Pitt gives the best performance of his illustrious career in Bennett Miller’s Moneyball. He plays Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, a man who builds his team around the idea of buying runs not players, something completely different from every other baseball team. But more than that, Moneyball is a movie about man who loves baseball with all his heart, yet anytime he gets close to a field, things go wrong for him. This is a movie about taking chances and accepting your failures. This is one of the best baseball movies ever made and there is barely any baseball action. This is all about what happens inside the dugout and what goes on in the back office and thanks for stellar directing and a smart screenplay, it’s more exciting than any baseball action would be.

3. DUNKIRK (Christopher Nolan, 2017)

If there was a director who owned the 2010s, that man was probably Christopher Nolan, who kept pushing the boundaries of cinema with every movie he made, whether it was how it was written or the scale of the film. In under two hours, Nolan showed us how masterful he is at understanding space and scale while also making a film that transcends convention to make Dunkirk, one of the greatest war movies ever made. This is a relentless movie about a group of soldiers trying to survive the attacks at Dunkirk during World War II. Nolan does this by showing us happenings on land, the sea, and the air, all being shown in different time frames, while never showing us the enemy once. My heart was racing the entire film and I was in complete awe of Nolan’s technical brilliance here, while also making us care for these soldiers and their survival. Dunkirk is Nolan’s crowning achievement as a director.

2. WHIPLASH (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

I remember the first time I saw Whiplash. It was an early morning screening on the second day of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. From the opening shot of Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller, in a breakout performance) practicing on his drum-kit to the epic, earth-shattering finale, I knew Whiplash was a truly special movie. Damien Chazelle’s sophomore effort is a war film is a music room. A blistering, brutal look at what it takes to be perfect and asking the question of how far is too far? JK Simmons gives the best supporting actor performance of the decade as Fletcher, the tyrant music teacher to Andrew who pushes him to his limit. In an era of participation trophies and effort medals, Whiplash comes along and tells you to shove it. To be the best, you myst be willing to push yourself to beyond what you can think. You must give every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears to get what you want and failure is not an option. This is a movie that will kick your ass and have your heart racing and palms sweating from minute one. Chazelle made an exhilarating masterpiece on his second try.

1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher, 2010)

The Social Network is not only the best movie of the decade, but it is the most important one as well. David Fincher’s account of the invention of Facebook and the controversy that followed is a movie that has not only held up, but improved over the years, as our dependency on technology has increased throughout the decade This is a movie that captures everything about today’s society. Aaron Sorkin’s rapid-fire, impeccable screenplay about one man’s rise to the top by losing everything around him, including his closest friends, is an all-timer. Sorkin’s words are a spark off the page and are more exciting than most action movies. Fincher’s work behind the camera has never been better. This is the best work of Fincher’s career. A culmination of everything he has done in his career, both visually and narratively, giving us striking images while utilizing the quick editing and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score (the best of the decade) perfectly in the film. The cast, led by Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake, is perfect, giving life to Sorkin’s words in their own creative, genius way. There is no film that represents our current time in history like The Social Network. It is a film that years from now, even decades, people will look back and see what America was at this time. It is the best film of the decade.

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

A sizable bloc of Latino voters have remained aligned with Republicans in the Donald Trump era. This seems surprising, considering that he described Mexicans who sought to come to the United States as drug users and rapists during his 2016 campaign, his administration has adopted anti-immigration policies, and Democrats are taking increasingly liberal stances on immigration issues. Some journalists expected that Trump would severely damage the GOP’s standing with Latino voters. So why hasn’t that happened?

The Latino vote in 2016 and 2018 was pretty similar to what it was in elections held before President Trump became the defining figure of the GOP. At least 1 in 5 Latino voters nationally backed Trump in 2016. This November, at least 1 in 4 Latino voters across the country backed a House Republican candidate. (Some pollsters found a slightly higher percentage.) Trump and some statewide Republican candidates have done even better in Florida, getting more than 30 percent of the Latino vote in 2016 and 2018. (Florida has a large population of Cubans, who are traditionally more conservative than other Latinos, so that partially explains what we’re seeing there.)

This bloc of Latinos backing GOP candidates really matters. You can see why when you drill down into individual races. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz got at least a quarter of the Latino vote in his race against Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a campaign the Republican won by only 3 percentage points. Latinos make up more than 20 percent of the electorate in Texas, so Cruz could not have won without getting a substantial number of Latino voters to back him. (Yes, Cruz is Cuban. But exit polls suggest Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is white, won an even higher percentage of Latino voters than Cruz in his successful re-election bid.)

To be sure, the overwhelming majority of Latino voters backed Democrats nationally in 2016 and 2018. But the percentage of Latinos who backed Republicans in 2016 and 2018 is at least double the percentage of African-American voters who supported Republican candidates in those elections. The GOP is regularly cast as struggling to connect with “minorities,” but nonwhite voters are not actually a single unified group, and Republicans are doing significantly better with Latino voters than they are with African-Americans.

So again, why hasn’t there been a huge Latino voter backlash to Trump? Let me examine four potential explanations. I have ordered them from most to least plausible, at least in my opinion.

Theory 1: Partisanship is strong

The most obvious explanation is that there were good reasons why a sizable portion of Latino voters favored Republicans pre-Trump — and those reasons haven’t changed. In short, this is about political stability: Most American voters have stuck with a single party both before and after Trump’s election, and Latino voters are no different from the rest of the country.

It’s hard to prove this theory, since we don’t have much information about individual American voters. But here’s some strong evidence for it. For the last two decades, according to the Pew Research Center, about 25 percent of Latino voters have said they back the Republican Party, a number that has remained about the same in the Trump era. A significant number of Latinos (30 percent, per Pew) say they have conservative political views. They are likely sticking with Trump for the same reason as they stick with other Republicans — because he’s closest to them on issues like taxes or abortion.

“There is a growing evangelical share among Hispanics, and that may be an important part of the story for Republican Latinos,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, Pew’s director of Hispanic research.

Trump’s approval rating among Latinos also hovers between 20 and 30 percent in national polls (compared to 60 and 70 percent disapproval). That number is more evidence that a solid minority of Latinos is likely to remain aligned with Trump and the Republican Party.

Theory 2: Immigration isn’t a deal-breaker

Observers have assumed that Trump’s rhetoric on immigration would turn off Latino voters en masse, even some of the more conservative ones. But it seems that Trump’s immigration approach isn’t a deal-breaker for many Latinos, because they either agree with him or aren’t that amped up about the issue.

According to a recent Pew poll, a fifth of Latino voters say that there are too many immigrants in the United States, and a quarter favor Trump’s idea of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. About half of Latino voters say they are fairly worried that a family member or close friend might be deported, but the other half is not too worried about such deportations, according to that same survey.

Specifically, most Latinos who were born abroad say they are worried about deportations, but the majority of Latinos who were born in the United States are not.

“There has long been a significant portion of the Latino population that supports reducing immigration and closing the borders,” said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College in California and author of the 2014 book “Living the Dream: New Immigration Policies and the Lives of Undocumented Latino Youth.”

“You could argue Trump’s policies and the rise of anti-immigration sentiment even encourages that,” she added.

In that Pew survey, when Latino registered voters were asked to rank the issues most important to them, the plurality (19 percent) put the economy at the top, as did American voters overall. But it’s worth noting that immigration was still the second-biggest concern, with 16 percent of Latino registered voters saying that it was their top issue. Another 10 percent said President Trump was the country’s biggest problem, and 8 percent said it was race relations or racism. All three responses hint at concerns about how Trump’s policies affect Latinos.

Theory 3: Republican appeal

Maybe Republican politicians are doing a better job wooing Latino voters than is commonly believed, and maybe Democrats are not taking advantage of the opportunity that Trump presents. I’m skeptical of this explanation, largely because the data suggests that Latino voters are continuing to follow their pre-Trump voting patterns.

That said, Republicans like Texas Gov. Abbott and Florida’s Rick Scott (who won a U.S. Senate seat) both did extensive outreach to the Latino communities in their campaigns this year. (This approach is in contrast to how the GOP increasingly ignores African-American voters.) On the Democratic side, some Democratic strategists criticized gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and Sen. Bill Nelson for not investing enough time or money on Latino outreach in Florida, as Politico reported. Both candidates lost.

Matt Barreto, a UCLA political science professor who has also worked on polling and political strategy for some Democratic politicians, including Hillary Clinton in 2016, told me that Scott “had a statewide, multi-ethnic approach, and Nelson was slow to respond.”

Theory 4: Maybe we’re wrong

My fourth and final explanation is not really an explanation at all, but a suggestion that the entire premise of this piece might be wrong. What if Latinos are deserting the GOP because of Trump, but it’s happening at a gradual enough pace that is not currently being captured by most polls.

The polling firm Latino Decisions estimates that Trump won 18 percent of Latino voters in 2016, a dip from the 23 percent who the firm estimated backed Mitt Romney in 2012. Latino Decisions specializes in polling Latino-Americans, and the company argues that exit polls from other firms overstate the number of Latinos who back GOP candidates in part because those firms don’t interview enough Latino voters who primarily speak Spanish. (The exit polls from the national networks suggest Romney got about 27 percent of the Latino vote in 2012 and that Trump got about the same percentage.)

In House races across the country last month, Latino Decisions says Republicans won 24 percent of the Latino vote. (The network exit polls estimated 29 percent.) This was a slight uptick from 2016, but Trump was not on the ballot, so it’s possible Latino voters viewed other Republican candidates differently than they view the president. But if the GOP Latino vote did drop by 5 percent in 2016 because of Trump, it’s plausible that his policies and rhetoric as president could result in a further decline the next time he’s on the ballot. So I think it’s possible (but not necessarily likely) that Trump gets something like 15 percent of the Latino vote in 2020. And if that happened, that would mark a significant decline from 2012, the pre-Trump era for the GOP.

“The Republican Party since the 1960s has alienated African-Americans to such a large degree. They haven’t done it to the same degree with Latinos — yet. But what you are seeing now is an alienation of Latinos by Republicans that is unprecedented,” said Indiana University political science professor Bernard Fraga, who specializes in studying the voting behavior of racial minorities.

To conclude, let me again emphasize that Latino voters overall are heavily Democratic and don’t like Trump. News articles that portray Democrats as having a “Latino problem” are, in my opinion, a bit off. It’s hard to say a party has a problem with a voting bloc that it wins by more than 35 percentage points nationally. The Democrats’ strength with Latino voters was a major factor in the party’s ability to flip GOP-controlled Senate seats in both Arizona and Nevada, two states with large blocs of Latino voters.

But it’s also true that Republicans continue to win a meaningful share of the Latino vote. And that has major implications. Florida remains a hugely important swing state in presidential elections, and now Democrats are talking about trying to win Arizona and maybe even Texas next year. Democrats could carry those states by winning more white voters, particularly those in the suburbs, but Democrats could also motivate Latinos who have not previously voted to cast ballots in those states. Or they could try to win over Latinos who have traditionally voted for Republicans.

For Republicans, this bloc of the electorate is just as critical. The path for Trump to win re-election probably includes him winning Arizona, Florida and Texas — and that would be easier if his Latino support doesn’t, say, bottom out to single digits in those states. But I don’t expect Trump to do much in the next two years to woo Latino voters. So the big question is whether Trump will have alienated Latino voters so much by 2020 that even those who have long backed GOP candidates decide that they can’t keep voting Republican.

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