Hispanic Fanatic

To be fair, who could have possibly known that a corrupt, venal, ruthless, cutthroat businessman would turn out to be a corrupt, vicious, conniving, disastrous president? I mean, what are the odds?

Certainly we can’t blame the white working class, who are still merrily chanting, “Lock her up” even as their mighty hero faces the most overwhelming legal trouble for a president since Nixon in the throes of Watergate.

And the Republican Party leadership could not possibly have foreseen that a man whose views were antithetical to their supposed values would break laws left and right in an amoral drive for power over principle, leaving them mute and impotent with their moral cowardice on display for all the world to see. Talk about a whoopsie.

Cleary, the question at this point is not, “Are there grounds to impeach Trump?”

The question is, “How do we choose which grounds to list in the articles of impeachment?”

Yes, it is odd that in this cavalcade of corruption, the silver lining for so many conservative media figures is that the word “Russia” has not been mentioned once.

But all this proves is that Trump has pulled so much horrible shit that we don’t even need to get into the Russia mess to verify that the man is a walking, talking personification of crime, unethical behavior, and grotesquery.

And believe me, we still have to get to the Russia mess at some point.

In any case, these are dark days for America’s favorite unindicted co-conspirator. If Democrats take the House in three months — likely but not a slam dunk — we can start betting on whether they will vote to impeach on the first day of the new Congress or sit back and let the orange menace sweat it out for a week or so.

Wow, it’s almost like an episode of some really bad reality television show — almost.

Hey, remember when Obama gave a little bow to that Saudi king, and conservatives lost their minds about the president of the United States coming across as weak and subservient to a foreign ruler?

Yeah, I wonder how they would have felt if Obama had “abased himself … abjectly before a tyrant” and committed “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

We will never know, of course, because regardless of what you thought about Obama, no sane person ever speculated that the man was actually a double agent for an evil dictator.

However, in the nightmare of Trump’s America, serious journalists and earnest politicians are openly assessing whether the president is secretly working for a hostile foreign power. Think about that.

Did anybody ever accuse Bush of being an Al Qaeda sympathizer? Did anyone believe that Reagan was a communist mole? Did anyone ever contemplate, for a moment, that Roosevelt was an undercover Nazi or that Washington was plotting with the British?

This moment is, like so many moments over the past two years, unprecedented and horrifying.

Currently, the odds makers are bickering over possible motivations for Trump’s pathetic sell-out of America. The possibilities include the following:

Trump is an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Trump isn’t an idiot, just arrogant and delusional.

Trump is a genius who has formulated some kind of unfathomable master plan.

Trump has a fixation with dictators and wants to be just like them.

Trump is doing anything he can to discredit Mueller.

Trump has financial deals in place with Moscow and doesn’t want to insult the Russians.

Trump is being blackmailed by the Russians.

Trump has been recruited to work for the Russians.

Trump has been an asset for the Russians for the last 30 years, and it’s all just coming out now.

In this way, every American has now become a detective, desperately trying to sort through the twisted, contradictory logic of a man who clearly has little grasp on reality. And the best part is that we are unlikely to ever uncover the whole truth.

But of course, what many of us are missing is that Trump’s motivations don’t really matter.

You see, whether Trump has gone crazy, or Putin has videotape of the guy in an orgy with Russian teenage boys, the fact remains that the president of the United States has delivered a haymaker to America’s jaw, and recovery is far, far away.

And it doesn’t matter in one other way. Trump remains incredibly popular with Republicans. A full two-thirds of Republicans think it’s fine that Putin owns the president and will soon receive a personal tour of the White House.

Trump’s bizarre news conference with Putin lead to cries of treason, even from some of his most ardent conservative supporters.

But in a stunning display of cowardice, “Republicans are grumbling but seem resigned to inaction.” Clearly, Trump could give Alaska to Putin, piss on the American flag, and slap all of the Republican Senators’ children. The GOP would still say he’s a patriot and a great leader.You almost have to admire their honesty, if not their lack of patriotism and total absence of shame.

Other conservative commentators haven’t even bothered to pretend that they are annoyed at a little thing like fucking over the nation in favor of a murderous thug. Many conservatives have sidestepped Trump’s overt betrayal to blame liberals and the media and (my favorite) Latinos for this chaos.

And as for Trump’s fabled base, well, they thought he would put America first, and bring the hammer down on foreigners. The joke, as is so often the case with Trump voters, is on them. Because Trump is helping foreigners — specifically, the Russians — and has done absolutely nothing to improve their situation.

Trump’s disaster in Helsinki shows us that he is not a strong leader, not a good negotiator, and certainly not concerned with putting America first. Basically, all the things his supporters said he was? He is none of those. But he is still a racist narcissist who can’t speak full sentences. So there’s that.

Keep in mind that”Trump won the election with just under 78,000 votes in three states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It is unlikely that those voters were betting on an abandonment of American values in favor of Russian interests.”

But that’s how it has turned out.

So when will Trump’s base finally give up in this cyclone of corruption and incompetence? The answer is never.

After all, the man could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose support.

Or he could commit blatant treason in front of millions of people.

Either way, he’s fucking golden.

After much deliberation, President Trump has narrowed down his list of white, right-wing judges and came up with Brett Kavanaugh, who is most likely headed for a seat on the Supreme Court.

As we know, Mitch McConnell basically stole one seat on the Supreme Court, and with Kavanaugh’s confirmation, we will be looking at a solid majority of reactionary justices who will rule over the nation for decades to come.

Yes, anywhere from a few weeks to a few years from now, Trump will no longer be president, and his name will be fully ensconced on the short list of presidential abominations like Buchanan, Harding, Nixon, and Bush 2.

However, even then, we will still have to live under the rulings of out-of-touch conservatives and people who long for the 1950s.

Many Republicans held their noses and voted for Trump because they wanted the GOP to load up the Supreme Court with its kind of judges. They got their wish, of course, so maybe they will finally be happy and stop feeling so persecuted and perpetually furious (note: not very likely).

Of course, those Republicans who know Trump is a disaster will say that his judicial choices justify their backing. To be fair, it is quite a bargain. The GOP gets its agenda advanced, and all it costs America is the loss of our values and our standing in the world. Oh, and every ethnic minority, gay person, and immigrant now feels the icy grip of fear constantly, and there will most likely be some kind of economic disaster soon. But hey, it all evens out — right?

However, if the establishment GOP is happy, what about those fabled working-class conservatives who propelled Trump to victory?

After all, we heard stories of “economically anxious” farmers and unemployed factory workers who wanted to shake up the system, and while they were at it, maybe get their small town’s opioid crisis under control.

It’s hard to believe that these hardscrabble folk feel vindicated because, for example, the Supreme Court has “sided against workers’ rights in an important arbitration case.” Is that really what they wanted?

Along those lines, keep in mind that only 29% of Americans want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Yet 46% of voters picked Trump.

That’s at least a 17-point gap in reality.

Of course, we should know by now that many people didn’t vote for Trump because of an allegiance to GOP goals. They voted for him because he shared their hostility toward foreigners and swarthy people. Maybe they were unemployed coal miners, or maybe they were rich Manhattan lawyers. The only thing they had in common was that they never — and I mean, never — wanted to hear Spanish.

And today, a lot of those heartland conservatives see their precious leader screwing them over because of some insane drive to start a trade war. Or their tiny town is exactly as messed up as it was two years ago, with no signs of help from the Trump Administration.

And yet they continue to pledge their eternal loyalty to him. And they will continue to support an agenda that is focused on making rich people richer. And their pain will never end. But of course, they will blame the liberals for that, and the cycle will continue.

By the way, assuming that Kavanaughis confirmed, four of the last six Supreme Court justices will have been appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote.

That, apparently, is democracy.

Fortunately, the United States has survived the insidious plot of liberals to instigate a second civil war, and we all enjoyed Independence Day without bloodshed — well, without any more bloodshed than usual, because after all, we are Americans here.

In any case, everybody is talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Latina who defeated a 10-term Democrat in the primary election for a House seat in New York.She was a bartender a year ago, but now she’s headed to Congress.

Ocasio-Cortezis young, educated, female, and of course, Hispanic. As we all know, none of those four traits line up well with the GOP. So put them all together, and it’s possible that Republicans will burst into flames if they enter the same room as her.

Now, we heard a lot about voters in New York wanting a representative who “looks a lot more like the constituents in the very diverse district” than the “56-year-old white man” who has been in Congress forever.

That’s true, of course, which seems to bother people if we’re talking about Latinos or black people. After all, ethnic minorities are supposed to shun “identity politics.” But white evangelicals, for example, can offer record support to loudmouthed moron who shares none of their values, and it certainly can’t have anything to do with their shared race — nope.

Regardless, demographics were an important factor in Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, which is all fine and good. Butkeep in mind that Ocasio-Cortez also won in neighborhoods that were not heavily Latino, implying that her progressive ideas won over lots of people who don’t have a z in their names.

One could argue that in addition to proving the electoral potential of Latinas, her win “proves that people are ready to move away from out-of-touch, establishment Democrats.”

But of course, they wouldn’t be establishment Democrats if they weren’t hand wringing nonstop. We’re hearing from many liberals that electing bona fide progressives is impossible, and candidates like Ocasio-Cortez will turn off independent voters. Their thinking is that it’s better to play it safe and go with moderate, establishment candidates because that has so worked so well…

No really — that is their thinking.

Those of us who are progressive might mention that moderate Democrats have jack-shit to show for their timidity, and giving the people more Hillary Clinton clones is the essence of head-in-the-sand denial and the surest path to irrelevance.

Much of this attitude comes from the skittish nature of the Democratic Party, combined with its incredible talent for fucking things up and losing elections that it should win in a damn landslide.

But most it is because the Democratic Party remains enamored of the white working class — even though the WWC has made it perfectly clear that it is all in on Trump. Moderate Democrats keep insisting — despite mountains of statistical data and acres of anecdotal evidence — that if they avoid saying the word “liberal,” long enough, millions of Trump voters will suddenly abandon their hatred of Latinos and Muslims and immigrants in favor of… what exactly… expanding Medicare?

It’s interesting to note that Republicans don’t concern themselves with appealing to moderates, and they keep winning elections, despite the fact that most of America hates their agenda. Yes, conservatives can nominate a lunatic right-wing child molester and still almost win. Clearly, they play to their base, and they freely insult anyone who doesn’t agree with them, while Democrats flail pathetically and shriek, “Why don’t you like us? Pretty please?”

And speaking of agenda items, keep in mind that most of Ocasio-Cortez’s supposedly radical philosophy consists of ideas that most Americans approve of.

Still, it hasn’t stopped conservatives for attacking her for being a socialist (that’s Democratic Socialist to you) and for wanting to give all our money to gay terrorist undocumented immigrants and for, I don’t know, living in a house or something. Who can tell anymore with all the insanity from the Republican Party?

The bottom line is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be the future of the Democratic Party.

Well, it’s either her or 78-year-old Nancy Pelosi.

Hey, I know who I’m betting on.

It looks like we can relax now.

After all, the Trump Administration is no longer splitting up families at the border and… what’s that? Thousands of kids are still missing, and there is mass confusion about how to reunite devastated families? Oh, and the United States is now officially banning visitors to our country based on nothing more than their religion, and the Supreme Court is soon to be even more reactionary than ever?

Yeah, this week was not a net win.

Before America descends completely into a jingoistic theocracy, it’s worth addressing the people who made all this happen.

No, I’m not talking about a septuagenarian racist with delusions of grandeur and an army of sycophants. I’m talking about the Americans who supported him, and continue to support this overt madness.

You see, when kids started being ripped away from their parents at the border, more than two-thirds of Americans disapproved of the policy. But well over half of Republicans thought it was just fine. This indicates one of three things:

1. Many Republicans are so selfish and indifferent to others that they’re fine with suffering as long as it doesn’t affect them.
2. Many Republicans are so filled with hatred for Latinos that they actively delight in the agony of Hispanics.
3. Many Republicans are so weak-willed that they will follow their almighty leader on whatever crazed path he takes next, and if Trump said every American had to wear a purple hat on Thursdays or be locked in jail, they would shout, “Yes, whatever you say, Mr. President.”

Or maybe it’s a combination of all those things.

To be clear, you can be conservative on the issue of illegal immigration without being a total asshole. But you cannot support locking up innocent kids — for no discernable reason, no less — without revealing to the world that you are a seriously flawed human being. You simply can’t.

And now that the policy has been reversed, the conservatives who shrieked that this cruel tactic was absolutely necessary to save our nation are now saying, “Eh, no big deal one way or another.”

Of course, the total absence of a clear goal, plan for success, vision for the future, and exit strategy was all in keeping with the GOP’s long-running tradition of just winging it.

Hey, it worked in Iraq!

So again, why did conservatives line up to zealously defend a heartless policy that did nothing to achieve its goal, and as far as I can tell, actually cost more time, money, and effort to undertake, and that nobody — really, nobody outside this White House of fanatics — was advocating for? Was it so difficult to say, “I’m for tougher border control, but this is mean-spirited and pointless,” or to admit that the GOP was wrong on this one?

Apparently, it was, because although no reputable conservative advocating for locking up kids way back in 2015, it has now become a GOP baseline.

In today’s world, with obedience to the mad king the top Republican value, we had conservatives focusing on the ubiquity of chain-link fences, in a truly dazzling display of obsessing on meaningless details in hopes of allowing yourself to sleep better at night. By the way, there’s air in those facilities, and there’s air in churches, so that makes it ok, and why do liberals hate air so much?

We had Fox News insist that these aren’t our kids, and presumably, they are not worthy of basic compassion.

We had rich white people make grotesque comparisons to summer camps.

We had cabinet officials who are apparently robots incapable of anything other than fealty to a muddled, contradictory agenda based on lashing out at the defenseless.

We had a guy make the phrase “womp womp” a catchphrase for sociopathic indifference.

It doesn’t matter that religious leaders from across the theological and political spectrum condemned it, or that major business leaders condemned it, or that a few principled conservatives spoke out against it.

No, we had Trump supporters who got angry and demanded that we all “quit trying to make us feel teary-eyedfor the children.”

Well, we all should apologize most profusely. We briefly thought Trump’s base might not be composed of ogres who lack basic empathy. As such, we should never again try to make them feel the slightest bit of compassion for anyone ever again.

Perhaps my favorite justification of the administration’s policy came from those Americans who think of themselves as kind-hearted decent people who would never — and I mean never — endorse cruelty to kids and Nazi-like tactics. They often said Americans had no choice but to support the president.

Well, here’ a brief history of that type of mindset:

1850: “I feel bad for the slaves, but it’s the law.”

1940: “I feel bad for the Jews, but it’s the law.”

1960: “I feel bad for the blacks, but it’s the law.”

2018: “I feel bad for the kids, but it’s the law.”

Yes, that all makes it ok.

Now in its fourth century of existence, the United States of America has withstood the birth pangs of violent revolution, a bloody civil war, the enslavement of millions of its residents, the brutal forces of racism and xenophobia, the Great Depression, multiple recessions, the murder of some of its most brilliant leaders, two world wars, Vietnam, Iraq, and the September 11 attacks.

But you know what we can’t possibly endure? You know what would break our back and destroy the nation?

That would be the impeachment of Donald Trump.

Yes, according to many commentators, impeaching the lunatic of Pennsylvania Avenue would be bad for the country, even a “grave injustice.” And plenty of Trump supporters have threatened to “begin a second civil war in the U.S. if President Trump were impeached.”

Even our old friend Nancy Pelosi said “pushing Trump out of office would further ‘divide the country’ and suggested it could do more harm than good.”

Oh, I know that two other presidents have been impeached — one just a couple of decades ago. And nobody ever suggested that trying to remove Bill Clinton from office might result in America’s collapse. Although to be fair, that was all about a blowjob, which is far more of a crisis than silly things like selling out the nation to a homicidal dictator of a hostile country. I mean, it’s about priorities.

And I know that this nation has endured warfare, natural disasters, civil rights outrages, drug epidemics, economic collapses, rioting in the streets, and even the rise of disco (that one really stung). But clearly, we’re just fragile princesses when it comes to the strain of a Senate trail of the president.

It’s best to just avoid the whole thing and go about our business.

After all, we wouldn’t want to upset Trump’s hardcore supporters, who as we know, are a minority of the population, have had their every concern or insecurity elevated to national prominence, and are driven primarily by racism, hatred, fear, and ignorance. No, let’s just kowtow to them even more than we already have.

It’s just a good thing that we’re not implying that if a subsection of America threatens violence, we’ll all give in — oh wait, that’s exactly what we’re implying. Never mind.

Well, at least we’re not saying that corruption, incompetence, and neo-fascist tendencies would actually be rewarded, rather than punished, which is horrifying in both the present and because of its ramifications for future presidents. Check that — I guess we are saying that too.

And we’re certainly, most definitely not saying that all the talk about the rule of law, and the importance of checks and balances, and the sanctity of the Constitution, and the strength of America’s institutions, and the integrity of its very culture — all that is meaningless. Oops, wrong again — we are not just implying that but screeching it from the rooftops.

But still, whatever horrors the Mueller investigation uncovers, we should all just ignore them. Yes, only good things can come from denying reality and appeasing madmen.

We should do this, you know, for America’s sake.

Never say that I am not helpful — even to people who hate me.

I’m talking about my old friends in the Republican Party, who are currently projected to lose 4,000 seats in Congress during the next midterms. Of course, if the 2016 election taught us anything, it was to not trust the polls completely. But things look pretty bleak for the GOP right now, even if the economy is defying the odds by continuing to chug along, and North Korea may actually refrain from nuking us.

Still, the Trump Administration has been, for the most part, one long nightmare for most Americans. And the polls reflect this.

So I’m offering some advice to conservatives that they can use in the next election. Here are some helpful hints for you Republicans that will help you make your pitch to voters over the next few months.

For starters, drop the whole party of morality thing. I’m not sure who ever believed this. But it’s clear that after embracing Trump and endorsing Roy Moore, the GOP has absolutely no credibility when it comes to judging ethical behavior. Republicans can talk all they want about virtue and the importance of family, but let’s be honest, after the tenth story of a Republican congressman resigning because he threatened his mistress, it gets a bit laughable.

Along those lines, conservatives really have to let get of their image as the bastions of decency. Getting all huffy about what is proper and dignified just doesn’t fly when you gleefully cheer for a guy who boasts about sexually assaulting women and denigrates ethnic minorities. And yes, that means you can’t feign outrage when a comedienne uses vulgarity to describe the most vulgar man to ever be president.

Another concept you Republicans can ditch is your image as so-called fiscal conservatives. I mean, did you even read that deficit-busting tax bill you passed a few months ago? Don’t answer that — I know you rushed it out the door and didn’t even bother to check for typos (or huge, glaring loopholes). But take it from me, nobody is going to take you guys seriously ever again when you scream that spending is out of control or that the budget needs to be balanced or that we can’t afford to fund public education. Clearly, the GOP doesn’t care about the budget, and most likely never did.

Finally — and I know this is going to be the most painful for you conservatives — let’s have no more talk of conservative values or the GOP agenda. You have no values beyond the naked pursuit of power and winning at any cost. You have no agenda beyond making sure that white, straight men are perpetually on top. This is why you guys are very good at campaigning and finding a way to control the government — but not so good at the actual governing part.

So that’s my prescription for the GOP.

Of course, a natural question is to ask is the following: Who am I to offer this unsolicited advice? After all, I don’t have a degree in political science, nor have I ever worked on a campaign.

But that’s the beauty of the Republican Party. The GOP has made it clear that expertise in a given field is irrelevant. Hell, it may even be detrimental.

According to conservatives, you can’t believe those egghead scientists who use data to prove global warming, or those studies that say more guns equals more violence, or those pundits who use fancy facts and actual numbers instead of anecdotal evidence and conspiratorial rants to prove a point.

Hey, one of Trump’s biggest selling points to his supporters is his total lack of governmental experience and ignorance of policy. And that’s worked out great… except for the constant chaos erupting from the White House and the rampant corruption engulfing the administration.

So take it from me, dear GOP, this is advice you can use.

Trust me.

For a moment, let’s travel back to those innocent days of 2012.

The country had just reelected Barack Obama, overt racism was on the decline, and the idea of building a wall on the Mexican border was laughable. Also, the only people who had ever heard of Stormy Daniels were lonely guys planted in front of a computer.

Yes, those were the days. Life was carefree.

But let’s also remember those conservative psychics in 2012 who predicted the end of America and record unemployment. Recall those GOP deep thinkers who said Obama would confiscate everyone’s guns, institute socialism, and more or less “morph into a radical Third World Soul Brother Number One.”

Yes, it’s clear now that none of the scary things that were supposedly inevitable in Obama’s second term actually came to pass. And of course, conservative pundits have since acknowledged how wrong they were and apologized for their fear-mongering.

Ha-ha… no.

In any case, the point is that the worst for Obama never happened. At no point have liberals had to sheepishly admit, “I guess the Republicans were right, and the guy was a Kenyan-born communist all along.”

In contrast, let’s look at some of the predictions for Trump’s presidency, which were made just over a year ago. The more extreme ones (e.g., that we would be living in a dictatorship on the verge of Hunger Games mania) were always unlikely to come true.

But what about those commentators who said racists would be emboldened? Well, even the most pessimistic of us probably didn’t think hundreds of Nazis would proudly march down the streets in broad daylight, confident that the president would be ok with it.

And what of the prediction that the Trump Administration was riddled with novices and crooks who would damage our institutions and set off a wave of corruption? That’s gone down.

Remember people who were concerned that Trump was an insecure amateur who had no idea how to remotely act presidential? I’m pretty sure that was spot on.

How about the idea that Trump would damage our international standing, cede leadership to other nations, offend our allies, and more or less make America a big, fat joke? Well, do you need to ask?

What about the prediction that Trump would drag American discourse into the gutter? Or that racial animus would get worse? Yeah, those things have happened too.

And of course, what about the concern that Trump would roll over and play dead for Putin, or that the Russia investigation would weigh down the administration like a huge, dead albatross made of lead? Hey, those turned out to be safe bets.

About the only predicted event that hasn’t happened is an economic meltdown, and the guy seems determined to pull that one off too.

Again, the worst for Obama never came true.

But many of our fears about a Trump presidency have already happened, barely a year into this nightmarish ride.

In theory, at some point conservatives will have to say, “OK, you kooky progressives were right. Trump is an unqualified idiot who has caused massive harm to this nation, and we cheered him on, much to our eternal shame.”

However, by the time that happens, the country will be so far gone that no one will feel any satisfaction or relief over that belated admission.

At least, that’s my prediction.

It’s easy to predict the 2018 midterms (i.e., the Democrats will win big… or they might not).

It’s a little tougher to predict the 2020 presidential election (i.e., Trump will lose in a landslide… or he might not).

But if we really want to get crazy, let’s look at the 2024 presidential election. Because regardless of whether or not Trump gets reelected in 2020, he will not run in the election after that. Either because he’s a disgraced loser who is way to old to run for office, or because he is constitutionally prohibited from a third term (unless, of course, he declares himself president for life… ahem).

In any case, we can say, with a high degree of certainty, that Trump will not be the GOP nominee in 2024.

So who will it be?

Well, let’s face it — naming a specific person at this point is idiotic, arrogant, or a sad attempt to fill time on a 24-hour news channel having a slow day.

No, I don’t have any names to throw around. However, I can predict what type of person the Republican nominee will be. First, we can be fairly certain that he will be a guy, probably a white guy, and probably an older white guy. After all, the GOP is overwhelmingly the party of older white guys. So don’t expect their future nominee to be an Asian woman in her forties.

Of course, the limited gender and racial makeup of the current and future Republican Party is well-known. The bigger question is what characteristics the 2024 nominee will have.

And this is where it gets truly interesting. Conventional wisdom holds that Trump has so severely damaged the GOP brand that it will not recover, at least not any time soon. Trump’s incompetence, corruption, and immorality have repulsed most Americans from voting Republican. Combined with undeniable demographic trends, the GOP will be sent reeling in the coming years.

Under such adverse conditions, the GOP will try to make amends. They will nominate a moderate in 2024, and his campaign will basically consist of begging for forgiveness. But this tactic will fail miserably, and the Republican Party will essentially be confined to pockets of the Deep South and rural America, with nothing but decay and slow death in its future.

But wait. There is a different version of this story.

You see, there is a school of thought that Trump has permanently altered not just the GOP, but American politics itself. His brand of fire-breathing madness and racist demagoguery has revealed the GOP for what it is. And the conservative base loves it. Far from punishing Trump and his allies for, say, insulting anyone who isn’t a white man, the GOP true believers are more enthralled than ever.

As a result, Republicans are now perfectly comfortable embracing xenophobia and tolerating tacky pronouncements on race and ethnicity. In fact, they are loath to disclaim it, for fear of pissing off their army of bigots.

In this scenario, the next GOP nominee will be just as prejudicial, neo-fascistic, and hate-filled as Trump. The probable difference is that he will not be as overtly crude as Trump. He will be more polished, and more open to playing nice when it suits him. At the very least, he will have just enough self-control to avoid attacking people in 5:00 tweetstorms.

This smoother, more charming Trump could indeed win a general election, especially if the Democrats find a way to screw up things up like they always do.

And then what happens? Well, Trump 2.0 would have little trouble pushing America into authoritarianism for the foreseeable future. He will succeed where Trump’s belligerence and obvious mental instability have failed.

He will create a new nation. And it will all be over for the rest of us.

How’s that for a prediction?

At this point, my television exists to play DVDs, stream Netflix documentaries, and blare Foo Fighters videos for my five-year-old son (hey, the kid has good taste).

I rarely turn on the TV just to channel surf. As such, I almost never see commercials, which has improved my quality of life substantially.

For this reason, I have missed one of the key advertising trends of recent years. I’m talking about the steady flow of heavy-handed, crass, xenophobic, ignorant race-baiting political ads that demonize Latinos for the sole purpose of terrifying old people into voting for Republicans.

I consider myself lucky on this count.

Yes, these ads convince people that unless they pull the lever for the GOP, hordes of deranged Hispanics will knife them in the street and violate their dead bodies, before executing their families just for kicks.

Now, you might think these ads appeal primarily to those bigots who already harbor anti-Latino sentiment, functioning as a wake-up call to drive them to the polls. That’s true, of course.

But what’s even more disturbing is that these ads are not just tapping into anti-Hispanic hatred. They are creating it.

Yes, a recent study has found that “ads and inflammatory language are actually ‘activating’ voters’ latent stereotypes about Latinos and immigrants, and those sentiments in turn are influencing how voters feel about immigration policies.”

Yikes — it’s not enough that Latinos have to fight the president, his legions of like-minded lunatics, institutionalized racism, Hollywood stereotyping, and the cultural baggage of centuries of anti-Hispanic hysteria. Now, we have Madison Avenue converting people into fear-based, irrational, racist voters.

It’s almost as if advertising agencies have some experience convincing Americans to buy something that’s horrible for them.

But I digress.

In any case, the researchers found that “misleading messaging tying immigrants to criminal gangs, such as MS-13, triggers fears among people, which in turns drives strong sentiments against immigrants and sanctuary city policies.” Furthermore, these fearful attitudes “are not in response to crime, but about stereotypes regarding Latinos and immigration.”

It gets worse.

The study also shows that “Republican ads using negative imagery about Latino immigrants and crime activates latent bias and contributes to support of anti-immigrant policies.”

Just how “activated” are these biases? Well, the researchers found, for example, that there is no correlation between crime rates and support for banning sanctuary city laws. As we know, sanctuary cities tend to have lower crime rates than other cities. But the perception that they are nests of rapist immigrants is strong, and this perception gets jacked up with every ad that depicts these areas as dangerous.

So we end up with a situation where people are not “evaluating their support for ending sanctuary cities on the basis of crime in the area. Instead … support for ending sanctuary cities correlated with a higher rate of Latino population growth.”

In fact, the researchers found that “residing in a high-Latino-growth area is predictive of support for Trump,” but this has only been the case since Trump arrived on the scene with “his utterance of inflammatory and bellicose comments about Mexican immigrants.”

Basically, Trump not only whipped up hatred against Latinos and made it ok to be overt about it. He actually helped create more racism. Yes, it’s yet another thing we can thank the current occupant of the White House for.

The bottom line is that, for the GOP, it’s “an effective strategy to first paint immigrants as dangerous, and then base your campaign on addressing that as a problem,” creating an issue where there wasn’t one before, and thereby conjuring up a whole new batch of hate-filled racists in its wake, all for the sake of scoring a few more votes.

The study concludes that, unfortunately, the GOP continues to “double down on this message,” meaning that “anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment will continue to grow, and it is on Republican elites for driving this.”

Of that, there can be no doubt. It is indeed on all on them.