Beltrán urges ‘affective abundance,’ rasquachismo as a counter to eliminationist politics

Christina Beltrán, associate professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, delivered the Neil A. Maxwell Lecture in Political Theory and Contemporary Politics at a Hinckley Institute forum at the University of Utah, urging progressives to adopt what she called a "politics of affective abundance" that refuses the right’s "zero‑sum" and eliminationist logic.

Beltrán framed the argument at the center of a forthcoming book, Latinos and Other Uncertainties on Desire, Difference, and the Rise of Multiracial Conservatism. "It's a politics I'm calling affective abundance," she said, describing that politics as a coalition‑building orientation that highlights joy, beauty and pleasure as persuasive political tools. She warned that contemporary right‑wing rhetoric often treats political opponents as illegitimate or subhuman and therefore seeks not merely defeat but erasure.

Why it matters: Beltrán said the right’s eliminationist imaginary—she referenced public rhetoric that depicts opponents as "the enemy within"—makes shared democratic rule difficult. To counter that, she proposed political practices that acknowledge ambivalence, reuse and…