This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

CHICAGO • So let's just posit that Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in November because her opponent, Donald Trump, is so off-putting that African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans — and others Trump has insulted — come out to the polls in droves.

And then what?

For all the talk about how the Republican Party has alienated minorities, what do the Democrats have to offer them in terms of long-term voter engagement?

Let's take a look at what happened when Clinton — whose husband garnered negative press last month for castigating Black Lives Matters protesters who interrupted him — stopped by East Los Angeles for Cinco de Mayo.

According to the website Fusion.net, people were upset to begin with — there were police in riot gear and on horses and in helicopters to deal with the estimated 1,000 protesters who showed up. And the eight-piece mariachi band Clinton showed up with just set people off.

Jasmin Pacheco was there to confront Clinton about her June 2014 comments supporting the deportation of unaccompanied minors from Central America. She told Fusion, "I was nervous, but then I saw the mariachis and it made me angrier. She was pandering."

Adding to the perception of offensive Hispandering was Clinton's short speech, which was almost exclusively focused on Trump's immigration demagoguery. Hitting your opponent in a weak spot is to be expected. But limiting a brief speech to one issue in which the only thing you can say is that at least you're not the other guy telegraphs a poor understanding of the challenges ahead.

A recent America's Voice/Latino Decisions poll of registered Latino voters showed, for the umpteenth time, that when you ask Hispanics about the top priorities they think the next president and Congress should address, they rank jobs, the economy and unemployment above all else.

Of course, there's no question that immigration is an important and personal topic to the overwhelming majority of Hispanics. According to this poll, 35 percent of Hispanics know someone who has been detained for immigration reasons or deported, and 57 percent know a friend, family member or co-worker who is residing in the U.S. illegally.

But the key number this particular group of registered voters articulated is this: When asked why they are motivated to vote in the 2016 election, 41 percent said to vote against Trump. Only 16 percent said they were enthusiastic to vote for Clinton and 13 percent for Bernie Sanders.

A lack of enthusiasm for Democrats isn't just a Latino thing. In a March analysis of the future of the Democratic party, The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza quoted Michael Render, the rapper known as Killer Mike who has been on the stump for Sanders, noting that his friends have lost all faith in electoral politics: "Their mantra is 'Don't be a part of the political process at all. You're leading our people into a burning house.'"

The Democrats have, for the most part, gotten a pass from communities of color who have had little choice but to support the only candidates who weren't specifically referring to them as terrorists, takers, spongers on the welfare system and/or illegal aliens.

But that's hardly what you'd call the makings of a long-term voter engagement and allegiance strategy.

The fact of the matter is that even while 42 percent of Hispanic voter respondents said that they felt the Republican Party has become more hostile to Latinos in recent years, no one failed to notice that two Hispanics were in the running for the Republican nomination.

Some politicians are figuring they can get away with alienating minorities — who don't show up at polls in numbers that reflect their populations — for short-term gains.

But as the years go by, there will be no avoiding a demographic destiny that will demand that representatives of both parties not only respect minority voters but promote them within their ranks, hire them for key positions in their campaigns and administrations and address their specific concerns.

It won't be too long before simply being the lesser of two evils is not a strategy that will help Democrats stay in positions of power. The question is: Will they finally start figuring out how to really connect with voters of color, or will they simply keep counting on hyperbolic Republicans to make them the choice of last resort?

Twitter, @estherjcepeda