Hispanic Fanatic

I’m going to take a rare week off from saving the world one blog post at a time in order to enjoy this Thanksgiving holiday with my family.

So there’s no new article this week. Certainly, I’m not going to say anything about the ongoing shit-show that is the impeachment process… nope, almost got me going there, didn’t you?

Anyway, be sure to take some time this week to give thanks that we live in a country with so much prosperity… even though the richest 1% are currently hording so many resources that it boggles the goddamn mind. I mean, seriously, people! What’s it gonna take to… wait… pull back… not gonna rant. Just gonna give thanks.

As I was saying, we can all be grateful that our country’s leaders are calm, rational people who value facts and expertise over conspiratorial nonsense and never engage in cult-like behavior that…

OK, skip that. It’s a damn lie.

Deep breath.

Let’s settle on this: Happy Thanksgiving.

Yes.

See you next week.

Recently, CNN profiled a former neo-Nazi who now rejects white supremacy. Years ago, the woman (identified only as “Samantha”) inexplicably found something appealing “in the white power activists who presented themselves as intellectuals,” and she soon “became a dues-paying member of a white power fraternity called Identity Evropa.” 

This is a common route to extremism, which is why progressives get just a little annoyed when racist ideology is presented as edgy intellectualism or a valid point of view. 

In any case, Samantha worked for Identity Evropa to test new applicants — of which there were many — to see if the newbies were sufficiently “fluent in white power ideology.” And she focused especially on women, who were told the fascist movement was “a great way to be family-oriented.”

So what eventually drove Samantha out of Identity Evropa? Was it the deranged hatred toward Jews and racial minorities? Was it the violence that often culminates in the actual loss of life?

No, she left because — to absolutely no one’s surprise — angry men who despise blacks and Latinos usually loathe women as well. Apparently, a guy who is willing to attack total strangers based upon the color of their skin may not be the most respectful toward the ladies. Hey, who knew?

Samantha’s male peers in Identity Evropa tried to persuade her to stay, telling her that her body “could hold a lot of Nazi semen and make many Nazi babies.” Despite such smooth talk, she left, and today she receives death threats from her former pals. According to CNN, there are “other women who, like Samantha, spent about a year in the alt-right before quitting, unable to take the abuse anymore and fearing for their safety.”

Indeed, “the alt-right is far more hostile to women than previous iterations of the white supremacy movement,” with many experts insisting that its “not even possible to have an alt-right movement without the underlying misogyny.”

Now, we can all be happy that Samantha is no longer a Nazi. But in reading her story, there is one crucial element missing.

You see, Samantha only left the alt-right because she was being oppressed. In other words, she was fine with dehumanizing ethnic minorities. Hell, she enthusiastically promoted hatred toward non-white people. Only when women became the object of scorn and derision did she say, “Whoa, not cool.”

Samantha, and many right-wingers like her, possess an almost total lack of empathy for anyone who doesn’t share their background. Such individuals will alter their repugnant views only when — or if — it affects them personally.

Science backs this up. Researchers have found that liberals and conservatives display equal levels of empathy. However, liberals are far more likely to have empathy for all people. But conservatives tend to have empathy primarily for their own group. 

In one study, researchers found that Americans who felt more connected to “people like themselves” tended to support Trump’s ban on travelers from Muslim countries. They also displayed “less empathy toward immigrants.” The opposite was true for those Americans who placed less importance on their own group.

One could also look at how the conservative movement still largely views gay people as deviants, sinners, or debauched weirdoes who deserve second-class citizenship at best, and capital punishment at worst. Yes, a few libertarians and younger Republicans aren’t down with the whole virulent homophobia thing. But for the most part, the GOP is just fine with gay Americans having fewer rights than straight citizens.

The exceptions, as you can guess, tend to be those Republicans who have gay family members. Oddly, they often change their minds when it affects their loved ones.

The most infamous example is that loveable war criminal, Dick Cheney, who was “a leading Republican at a time when his party was campaigning on forbidding gay marriage.” During this time, Cheney “voiced support” for his daughter Mary, a lesbian.

How about that? He voiced support for his daughter.

Should we applaud now? 

It is highly unlikely that Cheney would give half a damn about gay Americans if his daughter weren’t a lesbian. And the man clearly didn’t care about, say, Iraqis to the same extent.

An indifference to the rights of others — or in extreme cases, to the very humanity of others — continues to vex the conservative movement. What can one say about people who justify jamming kids into cages, in large part because those kids speak a different language? And why should we celebrate people like Cheney or Samantha, who will definitely, absolutely do the right thing… provided that they have some kind of personal stake in the outcome?

Perhaps it is simply asking too much to consider, even fleetingly, how our actions affect people who don’t look, act, or worship the exact same way that we do.

But is it really that difficult?

Back in the day, people said that my hometown of Milwaukee was known for two things: Obesity and serial killers.

That’s unfair, of course, because it also possesses the distinction of having brutally cold winters, and of being the most racially segregated city in America.

OK, maybe those traits aren’t so great.

But I still love the place. And that is why I will rush to its defense even if, for example, its sports teams collapse, or its economy struggles, or it’s the scene of a horrific acid attack.

Wait a minute, let me check my notes on that last one.

Hmm, unfortunately, this is true. Recently, Milwaukee police arrested a 61-year-old white man who called a Latino man an “illegal” and told him to “get out of this country” before throwing acid in his face. The Hispanic man, who happens to be U.S. citizen, suffered second-degree burns.

Now, you might wonder what kind of homicidal lunatic carries acid around with him, just looking for a reason to toss it into somebody’s face.

Well, keep in mind that Wisconsin is a swing state, with plenty of white male Baby Boomers who seethe with revulsion for Latinos and immigrants. 

Further note that studies have shown that hate crimes tend to increase during “times of tense political fights over issues such as immigration or national security.”

I’m pretty sure that we are living in such times.

But to get even more specific about it, “hate crimes targeting people in 2018 surged to their highest levels in 16 years,” and once the data for 2019 is crunched, we can expect to see more of the same.

As we all know, hate crimes have escalated ever since America elected a loud-mouthed xenophobe to the White House (which I’m sure the GOP insists is just a coincidence).

What’s most interesting, however, is that the targets of hate crimes have changed. Back during the Iraq War, thugs routinely went after Muslims. But recently, “the number of crimes targeting Muslims cratered,” which just goes to show that bigots need constant reminders of who they’re supposed to hate the most at any given time. 

And in further good news, anti-Semitic crimes dropped. But — and I’m sure you saw this coming — hate crimes “targeting Latinos increased for the third year.”

Yikes.

So Hispanics are back to being the most loathed group among nativists. As I’ve said before, it’s like we have fucking targets on our backs.

Experts say that none of this is random. For example, “you can look at the year 2016 and see a spike in hate crimes, or look at the increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric in recent years, and see an increase in anti-Latino crimes.”

Still, you don’t have to be a statistician to notice what’s going on. According to many polls, a majority of Americans say Trump is racist. And over half of the country believes “Trump has been bad for Hispanics, Muslims, African Americans, and women.”

Another way of saying this is that the president has been good only for white men and the occasional Asian American.

There is simply no doubt “that Trump’s rhetoric has legitimized expressions of prejudice.” But if you need proof, consider that one study found that racist statements “were considered more acceptable after the election. And a second study showed that reading Trump’s statements targeting ethnic or racial groups made people more likely to write prejudicial things themselves.”

So is there a sliver of positivity in this dire compendium of racism, hate crimes, anti-Latino bias, and acid attacks?

Well, there a theory that “Trump’s election did not make Americans more racist; instead, it may have emboldened those who were already prejudiced.” So what we are seeing is an intensification of racism rather than an upsurge of bigotry overall. 

And looking at this further, there is some evidence that the frequency of racist behavior is actually going down in America. And long-term trends “suggest a decline in both professed racist views and racist acts.”

This means, therefore, that eventually we will not have to worry about angry old men assaulting Hispanics, or be afraid that a fistfight will erupt when we speak Spanish, or witness Nazis happily marching in the streets, or suffer through any of the myriad bigoted, hate-filled actions that we have had to endure over the past few years.

No word, however, on when that day will come.

We have endured just over 1,000 days of a president whose mind-boggling ignorance, cartoonish incompetence, pandemic corruption, and glaring racism have damaged America for the foreseeable future. 

Really, I can’t enumerate all of the man’s personal disasters, catastrophic decisions and sucker punches to the republic. But here’s a partial list of his insanity, which reads more like “the symptoms of someone who was recently bitten by a rabid raccoon one night after getting lost between Marine One and the Oval Office.”

And yet, over 40% of Americans say, “Yup, I’m down with this.”

I’ve written before about Trump’s base, many of whom would gladly follow him into a bubbling sulfur pit, or slit the throats of their loved ones if he told them to do so. Their reasons for such blind obedience to this maddest of messiahs range from political expedience to human frailty to deeply disturbing psychological issues.

But what of Trump’s motivations? Why is he subjecting himself — and the entire country — to this ceaseless onslaught of nausea-inducing grotesqueries that have catapulted our nation way past laughingstock status and into the realm of the tragically pathetic?

Well, it might be “because he’s two parts crazy, one part stupid, but also because he’s been engaging in corruption his entire life, to the point that it’s second nature.”

Yes, that’s true. But there’s an additional complication.

Consider that even Nixon possessed some smoldering embers of self-respect that prevented him from accepting the humiliation of impeachment. Trump has embarrassed himself so many times on so many world stages that he has gotten used to public disgrace. And his supporters have made it clear that no matter what deranged babble spews from his mouth, they will twist it into a positive.

So appeals to the president’s sense of shame are useless. We might as well plead with a honey badger to be nicer, or for a bear to stop shitting in the woods.

Animal comparisons aside, there is even stronger reason for Trump’s antipathy than his abdication of basic decency.

And it is this:

The man hates America.

I know it is tacky to accuse your political opponents of despising our nation, but it is not hyperbole in the president’s case. Even many conservatives say that the guy clearly loathes the country and offers a vision that “is radically anti-American.”

The president’s GOP enablers are perfectly aware that the chief executive cares only about himself, with particular attention to his image and his bank account. Yes, Trump has some mild concern for his family, feels a slight affinity for his fellow billionaires, and admires crazed dictators who execute their opponents.

But that’s about it. The rest of the world— and the overwhelming majority of America — is dead to him.

He hates the West Coast, and would be thrilled if it burned to the ground. He hates the East Coast, and is only too happy to live somewhere, you know, less cosmopolitan. 

As for the Midwest and the South, well, the idea that he has any interest in the humdrum struggles of his base (i.e., the legendary white working class) is absurd. Even sadder is the one-sided nature of their relationship, in which millions of struggling white people insist that he is fighting for him, and show up at his rallies to hear him drone on about awesome he is. Meanwhile, he ignores the opioid crisis, cuts off their health care, and would no sooner mingle with the hoi polloi than he would gurgle raw sewage.

And it should be perfectly obvious by now that the president has no use for women, ethnic minorities, or immigrants. In fact, “we have never seen an American president make a U.S. representative, a refugee, an American citizen, a woman of color, and a religious minority an object of hate for the political masses, in a deliberate attempt to turn the country against his fellow Americans who share any of those traits.”

Yes, despite all that flag-hugging, there is little proof that Trump displayed even the vaguest sense of patriotism before he ran for president (just as he didn’t display a scintilla of interest in Christianity, but that is another story). And there is no indication that the president has any knowledge of the Constitution, any respect for American ideals of freedom of the press, or any interest in how the nation fares after he is out of office.

In fact, he “appears to care little for the American nation as a whole,” and is actually “more of a self-serving populist, preaching anti-elitism, anti-pluralism and exclusion.”

So let’s be honest.

If the Democrats made an offer that Trump could pocket a small fortune from the U.S. Treasury and fly away to a private island with his family, to live out his days in comfort and splendor, and never be brought up on any criminal charges or held accountable for anything he has done, the man would leap at it and say, “Fuck off, America,” faster than they could write the check. 

And he would never look back.