Hispanic Fanatic

Yes, we all received a small burst of optimism from seeing Michelle Obama speak. And we got a tiny jolt of hope from witnessing progressives, establishment Democrats, and even a few moderate Republicans unite in defense of sanity. And we savored an infinitesimal sliver of joy from realizing that Trump has only a 27% chance of winning the election.

Well, that was all great. But the fun times are over.

You see, the GOP will hold its convention next week, complete with smirking teens and gun-toting rich people and conspiracy cranks, all of them wildly enthusiastic about the possibilities of four more years of right-wing deviancy and madness. And this gathering of lunatics will make an impact, because the race will tighten, and we all will be tense as hell until November.

But that’s not the extent of the negative news.

Because even if Trump loses and voluntarily leaves the White House (not a given on either count), the United States is so deep into chaos, so submerged into catastrophe, that Biden will spend his entire term just trying to get us back to where we were  in 2008. On a cultural, social, economic, and political level, we are screwed for the foreseeable future.

Let’s start with our favorite virus, Covid-19, which has killed 170,000 Americans so far and continues to ravage the nation. You might be thinking everything will get back to “normal” as soon as that ruggedly handsome and /or stunningly beautiful scientist holds up a test tube and shouts, “We’ve found the vaccine!”

Well, there are just a few problems with that Hollywood ending.

First, most experts think a vaccine is unlikely to become widely available until mid-2021, at the earliest. Keep in mind that this “would be a huge scientific feat, and there are no guarantees it will work.” Developing a vaccine could, of course, take a lot longer. And rushing the process would only lead to a horrific backfire. Also, there are numerous issues with production, cost, and accessibility when it comes to distributing a vaccine. And finally, because we are Americans, there’s a good chance that anywhere from 30% to 50% of us will refuse to take it. 

So yes, we could easily be years down the road, still fighting this damn bug. That scenario would naturally prolong the economic recovery.

And speaking of the economy, the early talk of a rapid rebound now looks as accurate as those predictions that we would be ditching our cars to buy Segways. No, the economic recovery is going to be long and drawn out, wavering up and down, struggling to take off. The reasons for this include Trump’s botched response to the pandemic, the haphazard methods that the government took to fight the economic meltdown, and the complete lack of guidance on reopening schools. All of these factors have combined to dropkick us into economic calamity.

Also, please note that our last economic disaster under a Republican president (i.e. the Great Recession) was a top-down recession. That is, it hit the wealthy first, then filtered down. For this reason, it was taken more seriously, in that rich people demanded immediate action and got it. This current catastrophe is hitting the poor first and then moving up. And of course, our government doesn’t actually care until the rich donors are suffering, so it will be a while before shit gets real. In the meantime, the housing market will take a hit (sound familiar?), cities will hemorrhage residents, prices will go up, and we will still have massive unemployment and / or parents struggling to work and homeschool their kids simultaneously.

Now, don’t you feel better that the stock market is doing ok?

Meanwhile, on an international level, Trump has damaged America’s standing so badly that we may become permanent laughingstocks. Russia and China are both poised to dominate us. And no self-respecting nation is ever going to enter a treaty with us again.

Back here in America, the conservative judges that Republicans have littered throughout the federal system (including a possible rapist on the Supreme Court) will have us chained to oligarchy for decades.

And finally, please note that our most virulent racists, conspiracy nuts, and homicidal right-wingers have all been emboldened. Do you really think that if Biden wins, they are going to collectively shrug and say, “Guess we were wrong, so we will now go peacefully into the night”? More likely, “if Trump loses and QAnon evolves into a narrative about how a conspiracy of pedophiles won, then it’ll become even more violent than it already is.” And white supremacists will feel even more victimized, with many of them willing to go out in a theoretical blaze of glory.

Basically, the legacy of Trump will not just linger for years, but fester and boil and seep and decay and infect. If everything goes right, it will be years of struggle to climb out of this pit of despair, fear, ignorance, hatred, and paranoia that this man and his sociopathic supporters have flung us into. It may prove to be impossible, leading to a future America where we all wonder, without thinking about it too hard, how everything went wrong.

But on the plus side, Barack Obama gave a pretty good speech the other night.

If you are a progressive, you’ve likely had some variation of the following conversation:

“Global warming is real.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why was it so cold last Christmas?”

“Um, there’s a fundamental difference between climate and weather. Furthermore, your personal experience is—”

“Snow! There was lots of snow!”

“To hell with it. I’m just going to shoot both of us.”

Yes, all conservatives had to do to undermine the concept of global warming was to latch upon the word “warm,” and then demand that liberals explain how winter still existed. And in politics — as in business, love, and comedy — if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

We see this in other progressive concepts. We say, “white privilege,” and an irate white man launches into a diatribe about how he grew up poor and he never got a handout and who are you calling privileged anyway So then the liberal stumbles around trying to explain what “privilege” means and how it exists even if you don’t see it and so on and so on until the angry white man stomps off, more pissed off than ever that some tree-hugger implied that he had it easy.

And of course, even mentioning Black Lives Matter unleashes a furious retort of “all lives matter!” Once again liberals respond by employing metaphors and memes to explain what should be a pretty basic fucking idea (i.e., it’s not good for a society to murder black people at will).

It’s in this spirit of pointing out the poor marketing decisions of the left that I bring up the latest disastrous political catchphrase:

Defund the police.

This is quite possible the worst slogan for a good idea ever.

You see, when presenting proposals on how to reform law enforcement in this country, and end the militarization of our police departments, all while preserving the safety of our nation’s residents, it is not helpful to spend all our time saying, “No, don’t worry, someone will still respond if a man with a gun is breaking into your house.”

But that’s exactly what we are doing.

This should be a time for discussing new techniques, like that Scottish de-escalation method that’s catching on. Or we should be talking about the fundamental role of cops in America. Or we should be debating what public safety actually looks like. All of these ideas have public support.

Instead, right-wingers are sending out tweets and status updates that more or less consist of “Liberals want to allow criminals to run rampant over you.”

And then progressives get all defensive, like we always do, and explain that the phrase we’ve chosen does not actually mean what it appears to mean, like we always do.

And if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Hey, I recently received an angry email from a reader who shrieked how terrifying it is that Minneapolis wants to abolish its police department. And indeed, it sounds scary — like our cities are going to descend into The Purge. 

Or maybe it will be like that scene in RoboCop where the police abandon the city, and the bad guys start setting off rocket launchers (bonus points if you read that sentence and shouted, “I like it!” and made an explosion sound).

In any case, this guy did not want to even hear about defunding the police, let alone abolishing them. Much of this, of course, can be chalked up to willful ignorance or woeful stupidity. But there are many jittery moderates who can be persuaded by simplistic answers to complex issues. And there are determined reactionaries who know they can suck all the oxygen out of the room by forcing progressives to defend “crazy” ideas and explain nuances and tiptoe around details.

Speaking of conservatives, give them credit where it is due. This is a crowd that knows how to sell shit. For example, they convinced Americans that they wanted a war in Iraq but that they didn’t want health care. They persuade poor Americans, year after year, that objecting to wealth inequality is “class warfare.” And they have weaponized the most inoffensive, effective way to combat coronavirus — wearing a damn mask — and turned it into a battle for “freedom.”

Conservatives know the power of symbolism and straightforward mottos. For example, they have claimed both the American flag and the Christian cross, and all the powerful emotions that they invoke, while liberals have basically said, “Sure, go ahead and take them,” thereby guaranteeing that both “faith” and “patriotism” get turned into clear, concise virtues that only Republicans could possibly ever have.

Meanwhile, progressives are the “mob” and “snowflakes” and Antifa fanatics.

Those labels don’t track well, as the marketing experts would say.

What’s the solution? Well, if I knew anything about branding, I would have sold nine million books by now and be riding out this pandemic in my New Zealand compound. So I don’t know the answer. I do know, however, that progressives have a problem. And feeling proud of ourselves for shouting, “Defund the police” is not a smooth path forward.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go explain to some conservatives that taking a knee during the National Anthem is not insulting the flag per se, but an indictment of a racist system that… never mind, I’ve already lost them.

And then everybody made the exact same joke at the same time.

You see, the timing was too good, the irony too evident, and the metaphor too glaring for us to help ourselves.

So that’s why half of Facebook, most of Twitter, and all of the headline writers in America shouted the following:

“Trump finally got his wall. But it’s at the White House!”

And then we all laughed, or at least chuckled as much as we could while coughing up tear gas or choking down existential angst.

Yes, the president who is so popular with his nation’s citizens that he has to hide in the basement now has a riot fence to protect him from America. As many have pointed out, only despots ruling over troubled lands construct barriers to keep the populace at bay. A wall around the presidential residence is what “authoritarian rulers in third-world countries build to protect themselves from the passions of their own aggrieved people, and a far cry from the ‘people’s house’ that has for centuries symbolized a president accountable to the citizens who elected him.”

Furthermore, “as Trump tries to project strength, he instead appears weaker than ever.” After all, Mr. Law and Order can “bluster about force and domination” but the new multilayered black fencing “around the executive mansion reveals the reality that he is operating not from strength but from fear.”

Seriously, can you imagine anything that petrifies Trump more than thousands of black people massed outside his bedroom window? The only way it would be scarier for him is if they all waved around copies of his tax returns.

To add insult to — well, insult — those protesters who terrify the president so much are now marching right up to White House wall and plastering it with Black Lives Matter slogans. So the administration has given the demonstrators an even bigger platform.

With such a heavy-handed symbol of Trump’s ineptitude and cowardice encircling the White House, it’s a good time to ask, “Hey, whatever happened to the origina l wall?” 

You know, the one that Mexico was going to pay for? The Trump campaign’s chief selling point to xenophobes? The central promise of his presidency that inspired racists to taunt Latino kids with chants of “Build the wall! Build the wall!” Yeah, that one.

Well, I’m glad you asked.

It turns out that the administration’s goal of blocking Latin America behind 2,000 miles of towering concrete has fallen just a little short.

The Customs and Border Protection has acknowledged that a mere 194 miles of border barriers has been constructed since Trump took office. Furthermore, 191 of those miles “already had barriers in place.” This means that the president has placed fresh obstacles on a grand total of three miles of borderland. Once again, the number of miles with new barriers is… three.

You can walk that distance in an hour or so. It amounts to less than a mile per year that Trump has been in office.

This is even more pathetic when you consider that the president has pulled billions of dollars from other military projects, and engaged in blatant cronyism while doing it.

Of course, it’s not just about length (ahem). It’s about strength.

Which makes it all the more laughable — or tragic, who can tell the difference anymore — that the new barriers have been easily climbed, hacked through, carted off, and toppled over by heavy breezes.

Yes, the president “wants Americans to believe he’s built hundreds of miles of impenetrable wall that cannot be climbed.” But in truth, his half-assed engineering project is “not a wall; it’s not hundreds of miles; it can be climbed; it’s penetrable, and in one instance, it failed to withstand wind gusts.”

And it bears repeating that “Mexico isn’t paying for any of it, the Republican’s campaign promises notwithstanding.”

At this point, let me remind everyone that I repeatedly said, back in 2016, that there would never be a huge wall on the Mexican border, and to think otherwise was just racist, delusional nonsense.

I should have bet money on that statement.

So maybe the wall around the White House is as good as it gets for our beleaguered, doltish commander in chief. Yes, it’s true that “apresident who needs to take shelter behind fences and barriers because he feels threatened by his own citizens is not their leader.” More accurately, “he is their prisoner.”

But give the guy a break. It’s the closest he’s come to fulfilling a campaign promise, and it won’t matter to his dead-eyed worshippers anyway

No matter what, they will all keep chanting to “Build the wall! Build that wall!” — in denial to the very end.

“We do in all honesty hate this world.”

—Heaven’s Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite

Many conservatives long ago declared their willingness to let others suffer in order to advance a political agenda (e.g., if a 100,000 Iraqis had to die so Americans could buy SUVs, too bad).

Then they increased their zealotry by making suffering an integral part of their appeal (e.g., let’s stuff migrant kids into cages for the sole reason of inflicting pain on them and their families). 

And now they have topped out their fanaticism by embracing homicidal — and even suicidal — behavior (e.g., dying of coronavirus is worth it, just to own the libs).

No, the GOP isn’t merely a fractured political party.

It is now a death cult.

Of course, the phrase “death cult” has been employed “to describe the Republican Party enough lately that it’s probably lost any real meaning, but it’s not far off as a descriptor.”

After all, this is the party that has advocated — strenuously and vigorously — for Americans “to go back to work and make their employers richer even if it kills tens of thousands or more, because they would rather have that happen than adopt the social welfare policies of a civilized nation.”

This is the party that believed voters in Wisconsin should court death to cast their ballots.

This is the party that believes letting Americans die of coronavirus is the “lesser of two evils” compared to harming the economy.

This is the party that dismisses those who have died because they “were on their last legs anyway.”

This is the party that sincerely believes that there are “more important things than living.”

So yeah, the term “death cult” is not an exaggeration.

Still, we have to wonder where this embrace of nihilism and destruction came from. In less than a decade, we have gone from conservatives screaming that fictitious “death panels” were a liberal plot to conservatives screaming that actual death is your patriotic duty.

Well, studies have shown that many of Trump’s supporters have a pathological “need for chaos” that manifests itself in a strong desire “to tear down the system.”

By their nature, these conservatives “think society should be burned to the ground.”

Much of the white working class (i.e., Trump’s base) are depressed about how their lives turned out. Furthermore, they despise both the force of unstoppable demographic change and their loss of unquestioned power and status. They fear the new face of America, which is young, urban, and not white.

Now combine that hatred and anger with a belief that is rooted in hardcore religiosity and/or unyielding political philosophy. And this belief states that “mass death is either necessary or actively good, the product of a higher power — God, the planet, the economy — working its will.”

For good measure, throw in a refusal to admit that they were even a tiny bit wrong to support a corrupt psychopath incapable of empathy or sacrifice (or sarcasm).

You see, “continuing to proselytize on behalf of a doomsday cult whose prophecies have been disconfirmed, although it makes little logical sense, makes plenty of psychological sense if people have already spent [time] proselytizing on the cult’s behalf.” This is because “persevering allows them to avoid the embarrassment of how wrong they were in the first place.”

And wow, were they ever wrong.

Today, “to be a Republican is to believe either that people won’t die if social distancing is ended or that if they do it’s alright.”

Fortunately, even as Covid-19 ravages the country, and armed zealots shriek about “freedom” in a self-righteous suicidal frenzy, most Americans “are striving for social cohesion and solidarity.” This is true even though “Trump is doing everything in his power to divide us, to keep people on edge, mistrustful and at one another’s throats.”

But coronavirus is only the most visible aspect of the GOP’s fascination with death. We know, for example, about the conservative opinion that guns are more important than the lives of schoolchildren. This fanatical devotion to firearms ignores all statistical proofand anecdotal evidence, causing Republicans to view homicide as a minor inconvenience compared to, say, not having a closet full of AR-15s.

And what of the Republican Party’s insistence that climate change is no big deal? Despite just about every scientist in the world saying, “This is going to kill us all and wipe out civilization,” the American conservative basically says, “Like I care.” In fact, the Trump Administration has reversed or weakened almost 100 environmental rules designed to, among other things, prevent the planet from turning into a molten ball of lava.

No, the concept of death does not frighten Republicans — unless it’s at hands of some swarthy foreigner. Then they’re petrified. 

Otherwise, many of them appear to relish to idea of more devastation and violence. They are willing members of a death cult.

In Trump’s inaugural address, he evoked the phrase “American carnage,” which remains a great name for a punk band. Our deranged chief executive — who cannot even be bothered to acknowledge the 50,000 Americans who have died in the last few weeks — promised that he would end this so-called American carnage. Instead, he has brought it to life. Now that “the real carnagehas arrived, he is reveling in it. He is in his element.”

As are his most devoted followers. And they insist that we join them.

Crying won’t help you
Praying won’t do you no good
Now crying won’t help you
Praying won’t do you no good
When the levee breaks
Mama you got to move
Going down
Going down now

“When the Levee Breaks”

— Led Zeppelin (& Memphis Minnie)

During this time of crisis, it might be nice to have someone in charge who is not a doddering sociopath who has no experience dealing with crises, can’t grasp details, insists he knows more than experts in any given field, ignores facts he doesn’t like, lies out of instinct, surrounds himself with incompetent yes men, has a history of bankruptcy and failure, and possesses complete disdain for anyone who isn’t related to him and/or can make him money. Plus, it would be beneficial if he knew how basic science works.

But maybe that’s just me.

Yes, the theoretical main motivation for Trump voters — i.e., to elect someone who will “shake things up” — appears even more spectacularly pathetic now than it did in 2016. 

The coronavirus — or as the GOP refers to it, the Chinese Yellow Peril Death Plot — has ended any talk among conservatives of enacting more of their reactionary agenda.

I mean, remember when Trump insisted that he would build a wall on our Southern border, and that Mexico would pay for it? Really, do any Americans — even the racists — give one-quarter of a fuck about that idea now? The sad hucksterism of “Build the Wall” has been revealed. But of course, people barely remember that bizarre goal (or the millions of dollars wasted on it).

They are too busy denying that the COVID-19 is real, or if it is real, that it is Soros-funded plot. Or that Trump has it all under control even though it’s perfectly clear that a blind orangutan thrust into the Oval Office could do a better job.

Those of us who accept the science behind this catastrophe know that older Americans are most at risk. And in a darkly twisted bit of irony, senior citizens constitute a key demographic of Trump’s support. During the last election, many seniors wanted a return to their childhoods of the 1950s (i.e., no blacks or Latinos living next door), and admired a guy who talked tough, with none of that PC bullshit.

However, it’s becoming clear that insulting ethnic minorities doesn’t facilitate an effective government response to a pandemic. And a virus doesn’t care how tough you talk. So those qualifications are, to say the least, unhelpful during this accelerating crisis.

No, the savior of baby boomers doesn’t appear to be saving them. In fact, he apparently thought so little of their well-being that he prioritized his re-election campaign ahead of their safety. That is, of course, a dereliction of duty and a violation of the president’s oath to defend the country, which in turn, is arguably an impeachable offense. But hey, we played that game already, and the GOP assured us that it was in the nation’s best interests to keep their easily distracted ball of rage in the White House.

I wonder if they have changed their minds, considering that the person they so strenuously defended mere months ago has now committed the worst mistake in presidential history (all while denying any responsibility for his own incompetence).

In truth, “the coronavirus is quite likely to be the Trump presidency’s inflection point, when everything changed, when the bluster and ignorance and shallowness of America’s 45th president became undeniable, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a mathematical equation.”

And all that bullshit about shaking things up, or making America great, or keeping the world safe for elderly white people? 

Yeah, that was all just talk. Nobody believes that nonsense anymore.

Only rarely do I quote Kajagoogoo.

OK, I’ve never quoted Kajagoogoo, and if you have to Google this band, you are clearly not Gen X.

In any case, this one-hit wonder from the 1980s had a big hit with their song Too Shy.

It’s possible that this British synth band was so prescient that they were actually flash-forwarding to 2020 and singing about Trump voters.

OK, it’s impossible. So forget everything I’ve said so far.

The point is that political scientists and pollsters both insist that there is a very real phenomenon known as the “shy Trump voter.”

The theory is that our president is so, shall we say, controversial that many of his fans are reluctant to just come out and admit that he has their vote. In fact, “there is evidence that … there are a lot of people out there who are still afraid of saying to a pollster that they support this president.”

I can’t imagine why someone would be reluctant to say, “Yes, I’m all for a racist misogynist who indulges in overt corruption, fawns over dictators, stuffs kids into cages, rewards appalling incompetence, babbles incoherently, and given enough time, will kill us all.”

But that’s just me.

Pollsters often account for social desirability bias when they gauge people’s opinions. That’s why surveys seldom include questions like “Are you a bigot?” That’s way too much of a shock to the psyche, and even people responding anonymously are likely to say, “What? Me a bigot? No way!”

So pollsters are more likely to ask vague questions about bias and preferences, then crunch it all together to siphon out how much actual bigotry is out there (spoiler: it’s a lot).

But you can’t really do that when you ask citizens who they are voting for. And so, the theory goes, the shy Trump voter will display an “unwillingness to express support for Trump when asked by another human being.”

If true, it means that Trump’s support is chronically underestimated, and Democrats who take comfort in Joe Biden’s theoretical leadare fooling themselves.

However, there are three problems with this thesis.

First, there is the fact that many political experts believe that the whole theory is bullshit.

Second, there is a vast amount of anecdotal evidence that Trump supporters are the least shy people on Earth. We’re talking about whole arenas full of screaming fanatics who wave Q signs, dress in right-wing regalia, bellow idiotic catchphrases, and shriek at anyone who disagrees with them. And as someone who has been harassed online, I can vouch for the ferocity of Trump’s followers. 

Really, these are timid people?

Third, even if there are individuals who remain reluctant to express support for Trump, we shouldn’t refer to them as “shy.” Giving them this inoffensive moniker is conservative PC nonsense that spares their feelings. So let’s be clear.

They are not shy. They are ashamed.

They know, on some level at least, that they have sided with ignorance, hatred, and fear. They know that they have caused enormous damage to the country, and possibly the world, in exchange for a tiny, temporary uptick in their 401(k), or for a slight feeling of comfort that the dreaded “other” isn’t moving in next door tomorrow.

They know that they are endorsing a vile philosophy, and that their principles collapsed when subjected to the slightest bit of pressure. They know all this.

They just don’t want to say it out loud.

So don’t call them “shy.”

In closing, there is one more crucial concept that you should know, one additional vital fact that you have to acknowledge.

And it is this:

Kajagoogoo was not the greatest one-hit wonder of the 1980s.

That would be Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

Fight me.

One of my favorite novels is Stephen King’s The Stand. But that doesn’t mean I want to live it.

Yes, as we all know, the coronavirus is here to decimate our population, destroy our civilization, and in an absolute worst-case scenario, cause our millionaires to lose some money in the stock market.

Experts are still trying to figure out if this is the second coming of the Spanish Flu (which killed 5% of the world) or if it’s the most overhyped near-calamity since the Y2K bug.

But in any case, we shouldn’t worry. Because our mega-super genius of a president has a master plan to —

Ha, no.

As we all know, the odds of Trump handling this crisis well are about the same odds as your pet schnauzer winning the Kentucky Derby.

Even his hardcore supporters know that the guy can’t handle this. They elected the man to shake things up, or burn down the system, or undertake some other metaphor that conjures up images of devastation. Trump voters never dreamed that their beloved doddering reality-show host would actually have to deal with a national emergency. He was just supposed to ban the Muslims and deport the Latinos, not come up with a comprehensive approach to fighting a global pandemic. Oh, the injustice of it all.

Early indicators are that the most racist chief executive in history is not up to the task. After all, we’ve already endured disastrous news conferences where Trump has claimed that we will develop a vaccine for the coronavirus quickly, “when in fact there is little chance that will happen.” Hell, the president doesn’t even appear to know how vaccines work, and he’s implied that stricken people should just go into work and spread the disease among their co-workers.

So our prevention efforts are off to a good start.

Now, it’s not just that Trump distrusts science, “always believes he knows more than the experts about any given subject,” and “has increasingly surrounded himself with a team of acolytes who will not challenge him.”

No, there is also the fact that it is difficult “for the public to believe a president who has made more than 16,000 false or misleading claims in his first three years in office.” 

Put it all together, and there is a slight chance that the virus may yet accomplish what impeachment, the Mueller Report, and myriad scandals, fuck-ups, and immoral actions have not, which is to “throw a spotlight on the Trump administration’s criminal negligence,” massive corruption, and idiotic incompetence.

Hey, even Wall Street analysts are saying that a botched response to the virus “may increase the likelihood of Democratic victory in the 2020 election.”

But I will go even further. I will state the following:

This is the election. This microscopic bug — right here. This will likely decide who the next president is. We are in its hands.

You see, if coronavirus unleashes a wave of illness across America — and in a truly horrific scenario, kills thousands — it will be impossible for even Trump and his squad of conspiratorial lunatics to claim that it is fake news. If the stock market plummets, and the economy shudders, many Americans will finally declare that they have had enough of Trumpian chaos.

Conversely, if the virus burns itself out and doesn’t sicken too many Americans, and the economic turmoil is relatively slight, well then, team Trump will claim that the president vanquished the bug and singlehandedly saved the nation (even if, as is virtually 100 percent certain in this scenario, the administration just got lucky despite its inevitable bungling).

Everything that has come before this has just been set-up, politically speaking. This virus now controls our fate.

You can ponder the insanity of that all you want.

Just don’t forget to wash your hands.

As any follower of the Q conspiracy will tell you, why accept objective reality when ludicrous theories are so easy to believe?

Americans have always been pretty good at ignoring perfectly obvious answers in favor of convoluted hypotheses. Just look back at 2016, when Trump’s election caused “Americans across the political spectrum” to stammer and rationalize and search “desperately for any alternative explanation… to the one staring them in the face.” This explanation, of course, was that racism helped fuel Trump’s victory.

Back then, Republicans insisted that there was no bigotry within their organization, that rural white people really, truly cared about limited government, and that coded appeals to racism had not occurred for the last half-century.

Some of them still say that. But come on, once you’ve garnered the Daily Stormer’s endorsement, you pretty much know the company that you keep. Can anyone actually deny that the preferred party of white supremacists is the GOP?

Now, before we pile on the conservatives — always fun to do — let’s look at the Democratic Party.

As you know, self-avowed Democratic Socialist and progressive rabble rouser Bernie Sanders has been running roughshod over his fellow contenders for the presidential nomination. According to the Democratic Party establishment, this is Armageddon, Ragnarok, and doomsday all rolled into one.

The party’s leaders are shrieking that a Sanders nomination will be the death of us all, and they are willing to splinter their organization to prevent it. 

Now, I’m not going to start an argument about Sanders’ electability. First, because as our jabbering bigoted president has proven, anybody with money can win an election. Second, because for every poll or opinion piece that says Sanders will be destroyed in November, there is another one that says he will cruise to victory. The truth is that nobody really knows if Sanders would win or not. So let’s just admit that right now.

The point, however, is there is no doubt that the progressives in the nation have just about had it with the scared, centrist, compromise-at-all-costs attitude of the Democratic Party. That shit may have worked in the 1990s, but it had worn out its welcome by the Obama years.

In fact, it is perfectly clear that Obama would have been a more effective president if he had simply abandoned his efforts to reach out to Republicans, many of whom openly despised him, and just rammed through a more aggressive agenda. Instead, Obama tried to play nice, and what he got was Merrick Garland hung out to dry and a conservative movement that is still (still!) trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Really, if Obama had just said, “I’m the boss,” half as authoritatively as Trump has, we might have a public option for healthcare and fewer AR-15s in the hands of psychopaths.

I guess we’ll never know.

In any case, moderate Democrats insist that they can win the next election if they just run Hillary Clinton 2.0, but not the actual Hillary because, you know, everybody kind of hated her. More than that, however, they insist that the Democratic Party’s base is all in on that strategy.

Perhaps they missed the news that “Sanders has jumped out to a double-digit national lead in the Democratic presidential contest.”

Or maybe they skipped over the fact that Sanders has “basically tied or won every single primary so far.”

Or perhaps they ignored the idea that Sanders is winning “because he’s promising to transform the way we do things in a country where the actual voting public doesn’t seem to like how things are done.”

The truth is that the Democratic base — the progressives, the young, the racially diverse — are feeling the Bern. Hell, plenty of middle-aged white liberals are down with Sanders.

The Democratic Party’s insistence that, no, its voters are secretly in love with Joe Biden or just need more time to get to know Amy Klobuchar is not based in reality. 

Cramming a moderate down the throat of Democrats — when it has been made massively clear that they do not want this — is beyond arrogant. It is delusional and self-sabotaging. 

Sanders is popular. His supporters are passionate. And nobody is clamoring for Mike Bloomberg to be president except for closeted Republicans.

Democratic leaders are in denial about their base, just as the GOP establishment was in denial about its base in 2016. But in both cases, the rest of us know the truth.

“Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.”

Those are supposedly the last words of Beethoven. But of course, they could also apply to the farcical impeachment proceedings that just concluded. For you pessimists, they could also apply to our country’s existence as a functioning democracy.

Indeed, your social-media feeds are likely clogged with rants from your friends that start with something like “It’s official. We’re living in a dictatorship.” As if this latest travesty made everything “official,” and as if your friends have the authority to decree this (it all sounds a little dictatorial to me).

Still, pundits are wrong to call the impeachment proceedings a circus. A circus is at least entertaining. This shit is just depressing.

We received fresh proof — although none was needed — that the Republican Party is a dead-eyed cult that has succumbed to a lunatic messiah. They will deny easily verified facts (e.g., where is Kansas City?) to avoid offending the mad emperor. They will feverishly applaud Matterhorn-sized lies spewed during the state of the union. They will hem and haw and pretend to deliberate at great length — before falling into line and delivering exactly what the president wants. Hell, a sizeable contingent would be fine if Trump handed Alaska over to the Russians.

Consider that about 75% of the country wanted witnesses at this trial. Yet, about 96% of Republican senators said, “No, we don’t need them.”

Consider also that Republicans have employed dozens of different arguments justifying Trump’s behavior, virtually all of which are nonsense.

And consider that Trump’s lawyers presented a defense that consisted entirely of contradictory, alarming, and idiotic “legal gibberish merely designed to distract and confuse those who tuned into the trial.”

And still, the GOP remains undeterred. They stand by their corrupt, anger-fueled, imaginary-orchestra-conducting president.

In the end, Republicans regret that they have but one country to sell out. 

No, my friends, the comedy is not over. 

But the joke is clearly on us.

Look, this impeachment trial has transfixed all of us.

This is not because there’s any real suspense over Trump’s eventual acquittal. The sycophantic fealty of the Republican Party preordains it. 

No, the spectacle is more about how the GOP is twisting Gordian knots into the very ideas of logic, common sense, patriotism, consistency, legality, principle, and basic decency. Conservatives have overruled all those concepts in favor of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and fear, supplemented by a lust for power and a flair for Orwellian tactics.

It’s all very fascinating.

However, let’s step back from this constitutional calamity to look at the other major political event occurring soon: the Iowa caucuses.

Yes, next week, thousands of wholesome, downhome, gosh-darn, god-fearin’ Iowans will pull on their overalls, adjust their truckers caps, and mosey on down to wherever it is that one caucuses. Once there, they will take the chewing tobacco out of their mouths long enough to argue for their preferred presidential candidates. And then we’ll have a winner, a frontrunner guaranteed to rocket unimpeded toward their party’s nomination.

Except that’s all pretty much bullshit — and not just the stuff about overalls and chewing tobacco.

You see, only about half of the winners of the Iowa caucus have gone on to win their party’s nomination for president. And that accuracy is likely to decline further in the future, due to demographic changes. After all, Iowa is more than 90% white, while the rest of the country — especially the metro areas where most voters actually live — clearly is not.

Still, we fawn over Iowa because our society continues to devote more attention, give more importance, and provide more resources to the rural areas of our nation, despite the fact that rural America is rapidly declining in population, cultural influence, and economic output.

Basically, we just care a lot more about what old white guys think. 

For example, how many articles have you seen that consist solely of a reporter walking into some small-town diner and asking the locals for their opinions? 

And I’m not just talking about this election season. It is year after year, in diner after diner, that we hear from the supposed average America about the issues that matter to him.

Never do these reporters walk into a pupuseria in Los Angeles, or an Indian restaurant in Queens, or a Thai place in Chicago to ask the locals for their insights.

Apparently, that would be elitist, or politically correct, or electorally suspect, or some such nonsense. 

The truth, of course, is that the opinion of a Latina in California is simply not viewed as an authentic representation of the “real America.” That status is reserved solely for rural American baby boomers.

You can also see this in the idea that Trump’s tariffs — which affect places like Iowa more directly — are a fabled “bread and butter issue” that genuine Americans talk about around their kitchen tables. However, immigration reform is a “wedge issue” that appeals only to racial agitators and hippies.

Aren’t you happy to have that cleared up?

Still, given enough time, places like Iowa will eventually become so sparsely populated that even the most old-school journalist will ask, “Why are we still coming here?”

That is, of course, unless immigrants and young multiethnic families start moving in to reshape the area. At that point, you may see a reporter walk into a Des Moines carniceria and ask the owner — a Gen Z woman of Mexican and Korean ancestry — what she thinks about the candidates.

I can’t wait to hear her answer.