Hispanic Fanatic

Look, if you want action on climate change, it’s best to support a progressive candidate.

But if you want old guys to rant in Congress about how evil the Green Deal is — and to display pictures of Ronald Reagan firing a machine gun while riding on the back of a dinosaur– well, then I’ve got a political party for you.

Yes, we all know the Republican Party has long denied the existence of global warming. But that ideological stance — which has long hit the sweet spot between appalling ignorance and mind-boggling denial — is wavering. This is because overwhelming scientific data, personal experience,and the influence of young GOP moderates are all merging to make the conservative dismissal of climate change as antiquated as floppy disks and mall hair.

In fact, recent polls show that “a surging numberof Americans understand that climate change is happening and believe that it could harm their family and the country.” Even a slight majorityof Republicans understand that climate change is a real problem, and not something Hollywood celebrities just made up for the hell of it.

Of course, whenever Republicans admit — through gritted teeth — that the Earth is maybe, possibly heating up, they suggest solutions like “having more American babies to save the planet fromclimate change.”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that crowding even more people onto the planet will only make things worse, but thanks for trying.

In any case, the effects of climate change have already begun. And as usual whenever something terrible occurs politically, economically, or sociologically, it is Latinos who get hit hard.

You see, “much migration from Central America and, for that matter, around the world, is fueled by climate change.”

For example, in my family’s homeland of El Salvador, up to 28 percentof the coastline may disappear by the end of the century, due to rising sea levels. Once that happens, it’s a fair question to ask what happen to the people who live near the coast. Yes, they will ill need to move — to migrate — somewhere.

Elsewhere in Latin America, rising sea levels are “destroying the mangrove forests, the marine life that relies on them, and thus he fishermen who rely on that marine life to feed themselves and eke out a meager economy.”

In essence, climate change may make summers in Kansas more uncomfortable. But it will positively fuck up Central America.

But of course, this is not the first time that Latinos have had an adversarial relationship with climate change. For example, a mere 500 years ago, “European colonizers killed so many indigenous Americans that the planet cooled down.”

Think about that — Columbus and his pals wiped out so many New World natives that the entire Earth felt the chill. You see, a new study shows that when the Europeans brought war, enslavement, and smallpox to the Americas, the result was a death toll that represented about 10 percent of the world’s population at the time, or “more people than the modern-day populations of New York City, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Beijing combined.”

Researchers believe that following such a drastic population decline, “large swaths of vegetation and farmland were abandoned. The trees and flora that repopulated that unmanaged farmland started absorbing more carbon dioxide and keeping it locked in the soil, removing so much greenhouse gas from the atmosphere that the planet’s average temperature dropped by 0.15 degrees Celsius.”

As if slaughtering millions of indigenous people weren’t bad enough, the European explorers created an actual blizzard from their bones.

But ultimately, whenever people talk about the Earth dying, or the planet being in crisis, or some other terminology that implies Mother Nature is suffering, it is misleading.

Because the Earth is merely a big rock, without feelings or desires. For the first billion years of its existence, it went from molten lava to airless sphere, devoid of life. And the Earth wasn’t suffering then. And it won’t be suffering if it heats up and wipes humanity off its surface. It is indifferent to our strong drive to keep living and to thrive and to savor all the joys of existence.

Unfortunately, far too many humans share this indifference.

I’m going to make a bold guess: If you asked most liberals a month ago what the reaction would be to the Mueller Report’s release, they probably wouldn’t have said, “Trump supporters literally dancing in the streets and waving Confederate flags.”

And yet that is exactly what happened over the weekend, when Robert Mueller ended his lengthy investigation into the president’s shenanigans by more or less saying, “The guys looks shady, but I can’t definitively prove it.”

Yes, the president was neither indicted, nor forced to testify (and almost certainly perjure himself). The fact that the GOP somehow celebrates these developments as a “victory” shows how abysmally low the bar has been set for Trump.

In any case, for nearly two years, liberals have been hoping — even predicting — that Mueller would uncover nefarious crimes so appalling, so brazen and shocking, that even the president’s die-hard enablers in Congress would be forced to admit, “You’re right. This lunatic has got to go.” And just like that, we would be rid of Trump forever, and every guy wearing a MAGA hat would fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness, while promising to never, ever question progressives again.

Instead, smug right-wingers are shrieking, “exonerated!” — even though the report summary clearly says it “does notexonerate him.”

Yeah, the GOP isn’t so good with the details.

What Republicans are excellent at, however, is whipping up racial animosity, tapping into authoritarian impulses, and smothering objective facts under a frothy mix of conspiratorial thinking and anti-intellectual disdain.

Because of this, many commentators have pointed out that “Mueller’s report was never going to deliver easy justice, because even if it somehow got Trump kicked out of office, the factors that put him there in the first place, or what has been unleashed since his malice-laced campaign, wouldn’t suddenly evaporate.”

If it’s true that the fabled white working class needed a savior in the form of Trump, then it is also true that many progressives cast Mueller in the same role. Perhaps it is a human need, therefore, to believe that one white knight in shining armor will ride over the mountain, vex our idealogical enemies, and make everything right and pure again.

But let’s be honest — when has that ever been reality?

In truth, “Trump won the 2016 election largely because of deep problems with the U.S. and American democracy that all preceded his candidacy,” and even if this xenophobic meglamaniac “vanished from the White House tomorrow, none of these problems would go with him.”

Next year, Americans will vote for president. Currently, about 40 percentof Americans approve of a guy who has coddled dictators and neo-Nazis. They like the man who has denigrated every demographic other than white men. They admire the chief executive who still doesn’t know how the government works, and whose own advisors regularly question his sanity, intelligence, and competence.

Clearly, no white knight is coming to convince those 40 percent of Americans that they are wrong.

So last weekend, a group of thoughtful conservatives got together to discuss limited government, business deregulation, and tax rates.

Ha — just kidding. Maybe that is what the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) used to be. 

But in Trump’s America, the conference “has become a political circus filled with conspiracy theories, cranks and far-right extremism.” Yes, it’s now a place where wanna-be neo-fascists, pissed-off lunatics, and scheming racists get together to shriek about liberals, rant about hamburgers, and slander a dead manwho was their hero just 10 years ago.

Good times.

In any case, unless you are inexplicably a Trump fan, you likely viewed the CPAC gathering with a mixture of anger, disbelief, and/or befuddlement.

But you probably weren’t disgusted — or at least not truly nauseated in a queasy, stomach-churning way.

That’s because, “numerous studies have found that high levels of sensitivity to disgust  tend to go hand in hand with a ‘conservative ethos,’ which is defined by characteristics such as traditionalism, religiosity, support for authority and hierarchy, sexual conservatism, and distrust of outsiders.”

Basically, if you get grossed out easily, you are more likely to be a Republican.

Yes, this seems silly. For starters, how could scientists possibly measure someone’s level of disgust?

Well, one study placed people in an MRI machine, showed them nauseating imagery, and then analyzed their brain scans. 

You’ll be interested to know that “just by looking at the subjects’ neural responses,” the scientists “could predict with more than 95 percent accuracy whether they were liberal or conservative.”

Other studies have found that this “disgust sensitivity is related to conservatism across a wide variety of cultures, geographic regions and political systems.”

Researchers are saying, therefore, that whether you are American or Chinese, rich or poor, love Maroon 5 or hate Maroon 5, it doesn’t influence your political beliefs nearly as much as whether or not you gag when you smell dog shit.

OK, that’s all pretty compelling. But even if someone is more likely to get wobbly kneed at the sight of vomit, why would this make them clamor for lower taxes on the rich or an end to gay marriage?

Well, according to the researchers, “disgust sensitivity may also help shape beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil.”

Now, keep in mind that other studies have found that conservatives tend to be more fearful than liberals. 

Put it all together, and you can see how a conservative could view, for example, a transgender person as not just a rarity, but a terrifying harbinger of change, an “impure” person who provokes disgust.

But for the most striking example of how fear and disgust comingle to conjure political belief systems, look no farther than our favorite hot-button topic: immigration.

It’s undeniable that the president’s most fervent supporters are petrified at the idea of more brown-skinned people moving in next door to them. The hatred— and the fear — of Latinos is a major characteristic of the Trumpist.

Now add disgust to the mix. Or better yet, let a scientist do it for you.

Researchers found that opposition to immigration “increased in direct proportion to a participant’s sensitivity to disgust — an association that held up even after taking into account education level, socioeconomic status, religious background, and numerous other factors.”

The reasons for this have to do with “negative stereotypesabout foreigners common throughout history — the notion that they’re dirty, eat bizarre foods, and have looser sexual mores.”

The myth that Hispanics are crossing the border and bringing disease is perpetrated on multiple conservative outlets. This idea provokes a strong sensation of disgust. In fact, many “scientists think germ fears piggyback” upon a fear of immigrants, causing a powerful loop of repulsion, especially among those who are most terrified of contamination.

By the way, Trump is a well-known germaphobe.

It’s all starting to make sense now — isn’t it?

OK, so everyone’s tax refund sucked this year. Well, if you’re a billionaire, you did better than ever, but for the rest of us, the first year of the GOP’s so-called tax reform was a major bust.

Yes, I know that a smaller tax refund is actually a good thing, financially, for the average person. But that’s not how many Americans are interpreting it.

For example, many Trump supporters are expressing their “feelings of anger and betrayal— some of whom are now surprised to find themselves owing upwards of several thousand dollars to the IRS.”

Personally, I have exceedingly little sympathy for those middle-class people who were naïve enough to believe that the GOP would actually help them. Today’s crop of Republicans could not give a half a fuck about anyone who makes less than million per year, and this is well-publicized news.

The bigger issue is that the Trump supporters who are complaining about their tax refunds are really saying the following: “I am ok with racism, misogyny, lying, corruption and incompetence. I’m even fine with unraveling democracy, endangering America’s security, damaging the planet, and possibly having a Russian mole in the White House. I’m good with all of it, as long as I get a few hundred bucks back at tax time.”

Never have so many people sold out their integrity for such a pathetic pittance.

Of course, many Trump supporters are not just ok with racism and misogyny, they love it, so they have no integrity to sell out in the first place.

Either way, it is not a good look, as the kids say.

Still, just because the GOP tax law was an overt scam that further enriched the wealthy and screwed over the middle class doesn’t mean that we’re doing anything to change the situation.

For example, our buddy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has recently gotten everyone shouting and seething and swooning over her idea of instituting a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the super-rich.

Many respected economists say that she is on to something. But to the Fox News crowd, this is just another example of out-of-control leftists cramming “socialism” down the throats of good, decent Americans.

As many have pointed out, “socialism” is now anything that asks millionaires to pay a little more.

As a side note, criticizing AOC for getting the occasional fact wrong is hilarious coming from right-wingers. After all, they feverishly support a doofus who doesn’t understand the first thing about the US Constitution, the separation of powers, the job of the chief executive, the basics of international diplomacy, the concept of global economics, or just about anything that doesn’t have to do with golf or fast food. Oh, and the guy has lied in public approximately 8,000 times in two years. 

So I would back off.

Now, regardless of whether AOC’s plan is correct on the numbers, it is clearly on the right path. After all, wealth inequality is currently at its highest point since right before the Great Depression, and several indicators of economic calamity are flashing red.

As such, if throwing money at the 1 percent and hoping for the best was really a sound policy for America, the effects would have trickled down (so to speak) by now.

Still, all this talk about wealth disparity and inequality has gotten me thinking about my Mayan ancestors.

Wait… what does all this have to do with the Mayans?

Well, to learn the answer that excellent question, you will have to wait until next week’s post.

As you know, our buffoonish caricature of a president followed through on his threat to undermine the Constitution, declare himself an autocrat, and waste billions on a pointless, hate-filled endeavor that has no chance of success and is just a pathetic sop to the bigots who love him.

I mean, he declared a national emergency over the state of the southern border. That’s what I meant to say.

Yup.

In any case, we all know that Trump’s move is not based in reality, because “the influx of migrant families at the southern border does not constitute a national security crisis, much less a bona fide emergency.”

Also, it will get bogged down in the courts, if Democrats don’t outright kill it first.

And it has set a disturbing precedent for future chief executives, with liberals now hooting for the next Democratic president to declare emergencies over climate change, health care, and guns — all of which are much bigger, graver crises than a few more brown-skinned people showing up in America.

And it has put Republicans in tight spot, as they must choose between their principles of limited government and respect for constitutional authority over allegiance to —

Ha-ha, let’s not even finish that sentence. Because we all know that the meek spineless GOP will say, “Whatever you want, master” to a scatterbrained narcissist who has shown almost zealous “eagerness to undermine the Constitution to serve his short-term political gain.” 

Of course, this is the same crowd that lost its collective fucking mind when it appeared that Obama may have bowed to a foreign leader.

But they are fine with a potential double agent actively doing the bidding of a hostile despot, right down to echoing totalitarian talking points. Yes, that’s a-ok.

About this time, Republicans have to be second-guessing their embrace of an oafish loser who has accomplished few of their party’s goals, but has managed to turn the GOP into a toxic landfill that future generations will avoid like its Ebola.

That’s not much of a stretch, because we’re talking about people who are so vile that they are actively rooting for the return of deadly contagious diseases that infect children. They really want this. I’m not making it up.

But I digress.

The point is that Trump is such a brilliant negotiator that he shut down the government for a month, only to get a worse deal than he would have received in the first place. Now, that is talent.

With that kind of leadership, it’s no wonder that America is in a constant state of chaos.

Or if you prefer, more like a constant state of emergency.

The laziest man ever to be president of the United States is spending his few working hours vainly, sadly trying to construct an expensive, pointless wall that will never be built. Of course, this is primarily because he’s trying to appease his most ardent supporters, who are either the sole patriots left in this PC-infested country, or the biggest pack of 10-tooth rubes you ever did see.

Yes, opinions vary.

In any case, Trump may be desperately trying to kick out all those pesky Latinos, but it may already be too late for him and the terrified rednecks who worship the man.

This is because “for the first time, Hispanics are on track to be the largest racial or ethnic group to be eligible to vote in a presidential election.” The next time Americans go to the polls to pick a chief executive, “32 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote, just slightly more than the 30 million voters who are black.”

Put another way, “Hispanics are projected to be about 13.3 percent of the electorate in 2020, which would make them the largest racial or ethnic minority of the electorate for the first time.”

Now before any racial alarmists out there get outraged about this news, keep in mind that “white voters will continue to make up the largest share of the electorate, 66.7 percent,” which means almost exactly two out of every three voters will still be white.

It’s also worth noting that fewer than half of eligible Latinos actually go out and vote, a troubling statistic that has held true “in every presidential election since 1996.”

For some perspective, 1996 was the heyday of this crowd:

Plus, there is the disturbing, perplexing fact that despite Trump’s nearly constant attacks upon Latinos, his approval rating among Hispanics is merely very bad, rather than absolutely abysmal. 

It’s at this point that we must acknowledge that there is “a reactionary segment of the Hispanic electorate who is aligned with some of the Trump administration’s thinking on immigration and on some social issues.” To say nothing of those Latinos who are self-loathing and/or deranged enough to think President Tiny Hands is looking out for them.

In sum, more Latinos than ever will be voting for president in 2020, which can only be bad mojo for the Trump Administration. But it is not as slam-dunk negative for the GOP as we would like to believe.

Still, keep in mind that “a record 47% of Americans already say they believe the Trump presidency will be unsuccessful.”

This number, which “is higher than any poll taken at any point for any presidency in the last 25 years” means that “Americans don’t just disapprove of Trump in the moment but believe they won’t ever change their minds about him.”

So that’s a number we can all cheer.

This is apparently what counts as winning.

• Republicans have agreed that Iowa Rep. Steve King is kinda, sorta, a little bit fucking racist.
• A smirking teenage boy in a MAGA cap may or may not be a smug, sociopathic thug.
• Trump may have obstructed justice by telling his lawyer to lie to Congress, but we can’t be sure.

In the first case, conservatives have feigned innocence and shock. In the other two, they have gloated about vindication.

However, these recent events aren’t positive developments that shine brightly upon the conservative movement. They are either the acknowledgement of something horrible that was perfectly obvious for decades, or the absence of clear proof about something sinister.

In other words, the modern Republican Party has been reduced to celebrating basic decency and/or inconclusive evidence.

Clearly, actual victories are hard to come by.

To be fair, there is not much for Republicans to laud as we pass the halfway point of the Trump Administration. The government is still shut down, the economy is displaying troubling signs, and the president is more unpopular than ever.

The GOP’s one big victory of the past two years — a tax cut for billionaires — is widely regarded as a sham, and unless every liberal justice on the Supreme Court retires or dies soon, there is little hope that anything good will happen for conservatives for the reminder of Trump’s term.

Oh, and Mueller has yet to release his report, which even Trump’s allies believe will be “devastating.”

So why are Republicans still supporting a guy who has shown them the very best he has to offer, yet been an unqualified disaster, and who, in all likelihood, will now drag their party so far down that the shellacking they received in the last midterms will soon seem like a pleasant memory?

Well, we are talking about a political movement that still thinks climate change is a myth — despite the science being overwhelming that the world is getting hotter, and more Americans than ever believing in that scientific truth.

For that matter, Republicans are the only group that still insists the Iraq War was worth it.

Obviously, we’re not dealing with people who adjust to reality quickly. 

So this might take a little time. 

We start the new year as we ended the old one:

With a deranged old man holding the country hostage over a xenophobic fever dream that will never come true.

I’m talking, of course, about the continued government shutdown over the president’s insistence that he can bully Congress into funding his idiotic (and totally imaginary) wall on the Mexican border.

This comes despite the fact that Trump abandoned his early promises that Mexico would pay for the wall, and then couldn’t get funding for his simplistic, fear-based solution even when his party controlled both chambers of Congress for multiple years. And it comes despite the fact that Democrats have absolutely no incentive to compromise with Trump on anything. And it comes despite the fact that fewer than 40 percent of Americans support this boondogglish foolishness in the first place, and that the percentage of support dropsinto the 20s when people are asked if the wall is worth shutting down the government. And it comes despite the fact that ex-Trump officials, who are becoming as plentiful as cicadas, are now admitting that the wall is nevergoing to happen. And it comes despite the fact that illegal immigration is down, and a damn wall wouldn’t stop anybodyanyway. And it comes despite the fact that… well, you get the picture.

Basically, the president has gambled the tattered remnants of his pathetic reputation on fulfilling a bizarre campaign promise that only the hate-filled, the ignorant, and the delusional ever believed in the first place.

Trump now says that the resulting government shutdown could last “a long time.”

It could indeed last a long time. Not because Trump is a shrewd negotiator who is standing firm on principle, but because he is a sociopath who doesn’t care about the people he’s hurting and the country he’s damaging.

Yes, within this whole sad spectacle, there is just one thing that all Americans can agree upon:

The Steel Slates is a great name for a rock band.

It took a while, but it has now become clear that the Democrats had a pretty good midterm election.

They took the House, snagged a few governors’ mansions, and made enormous inroads into red states. In essence, if this was a referendum on Trump, it is clear that most of the country is saying, “You suck, Mr. President.”

Of course, one reason for this welcome development is that Latinos — finally and at long last — expressed their anger at the Republican Party the only way that really counts: by voting.

Yes, voting info from several areas with high Latino populations “indicate record participation compared to previous elections, with hopes of building on that success in 2020.”

Furthermore, “early indications are that Hispanic voters came out in historic numbers, and… this made a difference for Democratic candidates.” In addition, “voting data showed tremendous energy among Latino voters; there was an estimated 174 percent increase in Hispanic early voting.”

And if you require more proof that Hispanics were fired up for the midterms, consider that “polling showed that Latino interest in this midterm election matched Presidential year election levels.”

Now, keep in mind that “a large majority of Latinos disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling his job, far more than the general public.” In fact, just 22 percent of Latinos approve of the small-fingered commander in chief, compared with his overall approval rating of 38 percent with the general public.

With numbers like that, it shouldn’t be surprising that many experts say Latino voters, especially young ones, are a key reason that Democrats did so well.

Wow, it’s almost as if Republicans were unwise to have the standard-bearer for their party lacerate, insult, and demean an entire ethnic group — repeatedly — and then expect that group to vote for you.

I mean, who knew?

Another aspect of increased Latino turnout is increased Hispanic representation. In fact, “the new Congress will have a record number of Latino members.”

Of course, it’s worth noting that for Hispanic representation in Congress to truly be proportional, the number of representatives would have to double, and the number of senators would have to quadruple.

So clearly, there is still work to be done.

According to certain individuals of a more conservative mindset, this week’s midterms were actually a big win for the Republican Party — so impressive, in fact, that it was“very close to a complete victory.”

Hey, who says the GOP is delusional? Certainly not me.

In any case, the fact is that the Democrats have captured the House, which means they will be able, in theory at least, to launch investigations into the most corrupt administration in history and slow down, if not stop, the freight train of disaster that Trump has sent hurtling toward the American people.

Of course, if they could just protect the Mueller investigation, we would all be pretty happy about that.

The new Congress set to take office in January “is slated to be the most racially diverse in history,” and “record numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and women of color will serve in the next legislative session.”

Within just a few weeks, Congress will be full of young Latinas and Muslims and Native Americans, with some states having the absolute chutzpah to send all-minority delegations. It’s a white nationalist nightmare.

It’s undeniable that this is a major political and cultural development for America. And it has the potential to be a much-needed course correction to our nation’s recent detour into overt xenophobia, fear-based hatemongering, and rambling insanity.

Of course, white supremacists are still getting reelected to Congress, so it’s not all pride flags and wins for la raza.

But for the first time in two horrific years, there is a spark of hope.