Hispanic Fanatic

For most of my lifetime, a vocal mixture of liberals, African Americans, and historians have insisted that the Confederate flag is a racist symbol. Until recently, conservatives always responded that this was PC nonsense, and that the flag merely indicated Southern pride.

Of course, within the last few weeks, everyone from NASCAR drivers to Mississippi state legislators have said, “You know what? It is a racist symbol. Let’s get rid of it.” They behave as if they never noticed the overt bigotry before, like they had to squint to see it behind all those stars and bars.

Now, this is the exact same emblem, long championed by the exact same people who are now denouncing it. All of this begs the question of why we have to fight with conservatives over and over again, sometimes sparring for years in heated debate, only to have them eventually discard their supposedly principled arguments, shrug, and say, “Oh yeah, everybody knows that. Old news.”

Nothing exemplifies this abrupt switch from loathing to loving as much as Black Lives Matter. As we all know, until recently it was perfectly acceptable to call BLM a mob of racial agitators or even a terrorist group.

But today, majorities across multiple racial and ethnic groups express support for BLM. In fact, “two-thirds of U.S. adults say they support the movement, with 38% saying they strongly support it.” Not surprisingly, this sentiment is “particularly strong among black Americans, although majorities of Hispanic (77%), Asian (75%) and white (60%), Americans express at least some support.”

Yes, it seems like everybody now supports Black Lives Matter.

Well, maybe not everybody (certainly not these two).

In any case, studies show that the percentage of Americans who consider racism and discrimination a “big problem” has skyrocketed since Trump oozed his way onto the political scene. Currently, three-quarters of Americans think bigotry is a national crisis, but as recently as 2015, barely half of Americans believed that. Furthermore, 57% of voters say that the anger behind the George Floyd demonstrations “is fully justified, while a further 21 percent call it somewhat justified.”

So only about one-quarter of Americans look at the protests and say, “I don’t see what they’re complaining about.” I am sure you will be shocked to know that the people who are most likely to dismiss BLM are white Republicans.

Keep in mind that the GOP “might want government to be ‘smaller’ when it comes to providing essential services, but it wants the violent authority of the state to be a constant intrusion into the day-to-day lives of many Americans, particular the lives of people of color, women and/or poor people.”

This attitude lines up with their standard bearer, old Mr. Racial Reconciliation himself. As we know, Trump is fine with ethnic minorities… as long as they never, ever disagree with him or question his authority in even the slightest way.

However, it is not enough to point out the hypocrisy of Republican attitudes, nor is it sufficient to state that they are woefully out of touch with mainstream American thought (i.e., the Silent Majority is as real as Pizzagate).

It is worth considering what, exactly, the conservative opposition to BLM is based upon.

After all, it is easy to pinpoint what Black Lives Matter protesters stand for (i.e., racial justice and an end to police brutality). 

It is more difficult to ascertain what BLM opponents want. The most generous interpretation is that they believe cops are being unfairly maligned and even endangered. This viewpoint, of course, doesn’t line up with statistics that show how the police disproportionally target ethnic minorities. Nor does it sync with the images we have seen over the past few months (unless you think an unarmed septuagenarian hypnotized a good cop into pushing him down and cracking his skull, brainwashed all the other good cops into walking away without offering help, then convinced all of them to lie about it).

So at its best, opposing BLM’s goals requires a strange suspension of disbelief. As we climb the ladder of probable motivations, we encounter familiar unpleasantries such as denial, delusion, fear, weaponized privilege, subconscious racism, and overt hatred.

In case you’re wondering, none of these are good.

All of the white conservatives who insist that racism is not an issue are basically saying that they understand the lives of ethnic minorities better than African Americans and Latinos do themselves. They are saying that we are imagining hostile interactions with cops and racial epitaphs casually tossed our way and smirking slights that can have only one origin. 

The white conservative believes that he alone is plugged into the happenings of the urban cities that he avoids as much as possible. The GOP stalwart insists that the 84% of African Americans who say they “contend with discrimination a lot or a great deal” are clearly wrong. And according to Republican guys with their fingers on the pulse of the nation, the one-third of Latinos who say that they have been slurred are just making it up for attention.

No, systematic racism is just your imagination. We know this because conservative suburbanites have told us so.

By the way, statistics show that African American men receive prison sentences nearly 20% longer “than those of white men convicted for the same crimes.”

Be sure to ask some white Republicans if that’s actually true. After all, they are the final authority.

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

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

OK, maybe those traits aren’t so great.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yikes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, remember Ronald Reagan?

Sure you do. He was the devil.

Woops, I meant to say that he was the 40th president of the United States whom many people consider the last great Republican leader. Well, it turns out that he was also an unrepentant bigot.

Hey, remember the Tea Party?

Yeah, they were the band of rabid racists who freaked out because America elected a black man.

Sorry, I meant to say they were the highly principled patriots who protested rampant government spending. Well, it turns out that they were actually hate-filled hypocrites who latched onto a convenient excuse to spew irrational, prejudicial nonsense.

In both cases, present-day conservatives shrug and say, “Who could have known?”

Yet all the clues were there, and even at the time, lots of progressives said Reagan was a racist and the Tea Party were lunatics who hated ethnic minorities.

But today’s GOP insists it’s a left-wing lie that racism has had a cozy home within its party’s confines for, oh, the past 50 years or so. Just ignore the Southern Strategy and Nixon’s anti-Semitism and people hanging Obama in effigy and hard data that shows Trump’s win was fueled by xenophobia more than any other factor and… well, what do you have?

OK, there are real-life Nazis in the Republican Party and GOP congressmen praising white supremacists and nationalistic terrorists gunning down Latinos.

But besides that, what do you have?

Yes, I’ll give you the fact that Trump has hurled racial slurs at members of Congress — insults that would get him fired at any normal job. And it’s true that racial resentment correlates with voting Republican. And yeah, hate crimes have increased since Trump was elected, especially in places where he held campaign rallies. And Fox News spotlights white men who demean immigrants and praise white homogeneity. And more than half of all Americans say the president is flat-out racist.

But really, isn’t all that just coincidence?

No? Not even a little bit?

Um, no.

It is clear to everyone in America that plausible deniability is gone.  You simply can’t say that you don’t know.

At this point, if you support Trump, there are only four possibilities:

1. You are a racist
2. You are supportive of a racist in exchange for a bigger tax refund or the achievement of some vague conservative goal (like Supreme Court justices who still think it’s 1959)
3. You put up with a racist because you’re in too deep, and to admit your error in voting for this corrupt fraud opens yourself up to a flurry of “told ya so” by those damn liberals
4. You have suffered a grievous brain injury and don’t know what the fuck is going on

But to say the president is not a bigot, or to dispute the cancer of racism that has a chokehold on the modern Republican Party, is to indulge in fantastical thinking that can only lead to more chaos and, eventually, to a searing rendering of the American nation itself.

Because you know the truth. Let’s all stop denying it.

Part of being American is expecting that on any given day, you will be involved in a shootout.

Hell, most of us just assume that, inevitably, we’ll be crouched under a desk, ducking behind a pew, or sprinting across traffic to flee gunfire. Or maybe we’ll be in active-engagement mode and exchanging shots with a rifle-wielding assailant because there are so many, you know, good guys with guns keeping us safe… yup.

Now, according to our favorite right-wingers, you are most likely to be gunned down by a bloodthirsty Latino “illegal,” or a wild-eyed Muslim immigrant. And if they don’t get you, there are Antifa thugs eager to bash in your head, because we all know that leftists are the most violent people in America.

Oh wait… in truth, only about 3 percent of politically motivated homicides are carried out by leftists. On the other hand, over 70 percent “of U.S. extremist-related murders in the past decade were committed by right-wing extremists, including white supremacists.”

So yeah, a white guy with a gun and an agenda is a lot more dangerous than just about anybody else in this nation. 

In fact, the FBI says that a majority of the domestic-terrorism cases that they’ve investigated “are motivated by some version of what you might call white-supremacist violence.” 

Yeah, we might call it that.

We might also call it a growing threat to the stability of civilization. Because white supremacy is a not just a problem within the United States, but is “part of a global network of white nationalist radicalization and violence.”

Studies show that in many nations, “terrorism does increase with immigration,” just like hardline conservatives insist, but in a murderous irony, this is true only with regard to “homegrown right-wing terrorism.”

And as the shooting in El Paso showed us, there are plenty of homegrown right-wing terrorists eager to enforce their homicidal versions of racial purity. Latinos, in particular, seem to be a popular target at such times.

However, it’s important to note that “recent racist violence in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Europe is linked by the shared conspiracy that white people are being displaced from their home countries.” All around the world, white supremacists who share this paranoid vision believe the only proper response is “to create a violent societal collapse, that will lead to apocalyptic end times, and a race war, and then eventually to restoration and rebirth.”

In America, that has led to a cavalcade of xenophobic freaks who are“part of a larger ecosystem,” but are united in their desire “to outdo Timothy McVeigh.” And as some experts on white nationalism have proclaimed, “it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Wow, that’s all pretty grim. But fortunately, our nation’s leaders are determined to fight this growing scourge.

Actually, what I meant to say is “determined to deny that the problem even exists.” Yes, I get those concepts confused sometimes.

It just so happens that “a leaked memo reveals the GOP’s strategy” for fighting militant racism, which is to “point the finger at the left and minimize the role of white supremacy at all costs.”

OK, that’s not quite what we had in mind. 

But you see, it is simply not politically beneficial for Republicans to admit that some of their most enthusiastic followers — white people with a high degree of racial anxiety — may be plotting to shoot up the place. In addition, a long history of “racially inflammatory views blurs the line between conservatism and outright white supremacy, making it very difficult for conservatives to police the boundaries between the two.”

Maybe that’s one reason a conservative can get on television and proclaim that “white supremacy is a hoax,” and “actually not a real problem in America.”

How’s that for bravely confronting a problem head-on?

In summary, let me leave you with this little anecdote. 

Recently, a neo-Nazi was arrested for threatening to murder a Latina and her family, stating in completely unambiguous language that he would “stop at nothing” until the “entire worthless Latin race is racially exterminated.” After pledging allegiance to Hitler, the man declared, “Spanish and all Spanish speaking people illegal.”

He ended his threat by saying, “I thank God every day that President Donald Trump is president and that he will launch a racial war and crusade to keep all the n—–s, spics, and Muslims and any dangerous non-white or ethnically or culturally foreign group in line.”

Now imagine thousands, perhaps millions, of this guy.

Just imagine it.

I’ve been a lot of things in my life. Among them are the following: 

A son

A quiet kid

An opinionated adult

A husband

A father

A bad guitarist

An aspiring writer

A published author

A sullen Gen Xer

A Monty Python fan

A Latino

And now, thanks to our current president, I can add the following: 

A target

You see, there can be no doubt — if there ever was — that Hispanics are not just objects of derision and scapegoats for America’s problems. In conservative circles, we’ve had those roles covered for decades now.

But in Trump’s America, we are also human bullseyes for paranoid racists with access to heavy firearms. And considering that there are thousands (perhaps millions) of paranoid racists storing up millions (perhaps tens of millions) of guns… well, it is not a time to sit back and get comfortable if your last name ends in Z or if you bare even a slight resemblance to Salma Hayek.

We all know that the El Paso gunman who murdered 22 people carried out the “deadliest attack targeting Latinos in recent American history.”

The gunman “drove more than 10 hours … specifically to find and kill Latinx people.” He wrote a racist, xenophobic manifesto “posted online minutes before the massacre, in which he warned about a ‘Hispanic invasion’ of Texas.”The document also bemoaned the increasing Latino population and included “a decision by its writer to target Hispanics after reading a right-wing conspiracy theory asserting Europe’s white population is being replaced with non-Europeans.”

And, oh yeah, the El Paso shooter came right out and told a detective after his arrest “that he was targeting Mexicans when he opened fire at a Walmart.”

But according to conservatives, this is just total coincidence. And also, Trump and Fox News have nothing to do with this despite their constant screeching about immigration and labeling Mexicans as “rapists” and throwing around the exact terms the gunman used and demonizing Latinos every single chance they get. And another thing, I am the real racist for pointing out these facts and why can’t we all just be nice to the president, so there.

However, back in reality, it is clear that right-wing hostility toward Latinos has moved beyond insults and physical assault and threats to deport everyone who is just a little too tan.

No, we now have white supramicists gunning us down while doing back-to-school shopping.

Indeed, it is “quite a transition from being invisible to being visible in a lethal way,” and hurtling past “the basic darkness of racism” into homicidal rage.

Yes, I know there are those Latino conservatives out there who will insist that this incident does not reflect upon the xenophobia of their cherished GOP. However, their self-loathing fidelity to bigots is no safety net. El Paso shows that in the eyes of rabid nationalists, “it doesn’t have to be you who crossed the border. It just has to be you who are not Anglo.”

Of course, our fumbling, incoherent president — who cannot even fake his way through a display of basic empathy— addressed the shooting by blaming “the internet, news media, mental health and video games, among others.” But at no point did he “take responsibility for the xenophobic rhetoric that he has frequently used to demonize and dehumanize Hispanic Americans and immigrants over the past four years.”

Hey, it’s not his problem. And his main supporters, the fabled Trump base, will likely never feel the existential stress of being targeted for extermination, for no other reason than the way one looks or speaks.

But for Latinos, “it’s really hard to be alive right now and to not be sick and exhausted.” 

It feels like being hunted.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of catching even a split second of oldies radio, you may have heard a terrible song by the Hollies that contains the following chorus:

Sometimes all I need
Is the air that I breathe
And to love you 

However, for ethnic minorities, the air that they breathe is often filled with crap, so I guess they just have to settle for the ability to love you.

You see, a recent study has shown that “pollution, much like wealth, is not distributed equally in the United States.”

Specifically, “air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans’ consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans.”

Basically, white Americans have more money and therefore buy more stuff. This consumer demand for products, in turn, increases air pollution. However, the shitty air doesn’t linger in white neighborhoods. It tends to concentrate in poorer neighborhoods, where ethnic minorities often live.

The result is that “minority communities are exposed to pollution that they bear less responsibility for.” In fact, when the researchers crunched the numbers, they found that “whites experience about 17 percent less air pollution than they produce … while  blacks and Hispanics bear 56 and 63 percent more air pollution, respectively, than they cause.”

The inequity and murderous irony of this situation can be summed up thusly: blacks and Latinos are less likely to buy junk they don’t need, but they are far more likely to inhale the toxic garbage that comes from creating that junk.

Now, certain commentators — such as the overprivileged offspring of ignorant bigots — have mocked these results by claiming that the study has created the ludicrous concept of “racist air.”

Of course, it’s a well-known conservative ploy to dismiss complex concepts with short, catchy phrases that mislead and misinterpret the data, which also has the convenient effect of provoking distrust and even contempt for facts, science, and anything resembling fancy book learnin’ by bleeding-heart eggheads.

Remember “death panels”?

However, as many real-life experts have pointed out,such smug condescension “contradicts what we know, and it’s basedin ignorance.” Furthermore, such a dismissive attitude “is no joke,” except to rich jerks who “think structural inequality and environmental racism aren’t real because they are as invisible to them as the air they breathe.”

In the reality-based world, “scientists and policymakers  have long known that black and Hispanic Americans tend to live in neighborhoods with more pollution of all kinds than white Americans.” In addition, “because pollution exposure can cause a range of health problems, this inequity could be a driver of unequal health outcomes across the U.S.”

Those are the facts of the matter. And smirking about “racist air” will not make them go away.

So will the propagators of such lies, misinformation and scientific illiteracy ever stop embracing this vile tactic?

Hey, don’t hold your breath.

It’s worth discussing how much the social fabric of this country has been altered — perhaps shredded permanently — by a bigoted ignoramus whose chief claims to fame before snagging the presidency were a third-rate reality TV show, gag-inducing self-aggrandizement, and boorish public behavior.

For example — in a development that Republicans will call pure coincidence — the number of hate groups in America has reached “an all-time high,” according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Yes, there are now more than 1,000 U.S. organizations dedicated wholly to the abuse of people who don’t look like their members, and this is “the most the SPLChas ever counted.” 

Now, it’s fair to ask if this surge in bigotry is in any way related to the current occupant of the White House, a man who, as we all know, could not get through the speech announcing his candidacy without slurring Latinos and who believes every non-European nation is a shithole.

Well, the SPLC dispels any doubt about cause and effect. The researchers state that “white nationalist groups have been particularly electrified by Trump’s presidency.” In fact, the number of white supremacist groups increased by nearly 50 percent last year. New members “are often motivated by fear of demographic changes these extremists falsely believe is causing ‘white genocide.’”

In essence, through word and deed, the president has normalized racial animus, and this has provoked mild racists into becoming active storm troopers in a theoretical race war that — if the neo-Nazis get their way — will soon be coming to a city near you.

But it’s not just angry white men targeting ethnic minorities. No, in a truly bizarre backlash, many black nationalist hate groups have used Trump’s disparaging remarks about African nations and black football players to recruit members. So their numbers are increasing as well.

However, the SPLC points out that these groups, while just as bigoted and crazy as their white peers, do not pose the same threat. Not only are their numbers smaller, but they are “very different than white hate groups” because they have “no supporters in mainstream politics.”

Basically, there are no African American Steve Kings or Tucker Carlsons spewing epitaphs and cajoling their supporters to get their hate on.

And the numbers support the idea that white nationalists are becoming stronger and more violent. The SPLC found that “domestic terrorism has also been on the upswing,” with 40 people murdered in the U.S. and Canada by radical right extremists, including the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the killing of two black people in a Kroger’s grocery in Kentucky. 

Of course, let’s not forget that a Coast Guard lieutenant who espoused extremist and white supremacist views was recently arrested, allegedly before he could conduct a mass killing. His hit list included journalists and Democratic politicians — basically, the enemies of his idol Trump.

By the way, just in case you thought only ethnic minorities should fear tiki-torch-wielding lunatics chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” keep in mind that the SPLC says, “rabid misogyny is [also] an integral part of America’s hate scene.”

Yeah, it’s come to this. Our country now has a “hate scene.”

Let’s take a moment to revel in the magnificence of a fully operational government. I mean, wow, how special are we?!

OK, that moment is over.

Now let’s another moment to discuss edgy ideas and their importance to society. No, I’m not talking about innovative concepts that challenge the status quo, such as raising the marginal tax rate on millionaires or offering universal health care.

I’m talking about theories like “racial inequities can be explained by the idea that black people are dumber.”

Hmm, that’s odd. That supposedly edgy idea just seems like idiotic, boilerplate racism.

But it shows what you know. Because one of the guys who believes that theory — a “notorious alt-right figure and accused Holocaust denier” — is held in such high esteem that he recently met with a couple of Republican lawmakers in Congress.

Hey, when was the last time you got an audience with multiple congressmen?

Well, perhaps you would if you were regarded as a mighty intellectual, as a great many right-wing xenophobes are in Trump’s America. Yes, people who would have been identified as racist fools or paranoid nutjobs just a few years ago are now “edgy” truth seekers. 

Apparently, there is “a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades, and media personalities” who promote ideas such as, for example, black people have a “violence gene” that makes them more prone to aggression.

By the way, I’m fairly certain it wasn’t black people who murdered six million Jews. It was… well, you know the racial makeup of the perpetrators, so just imagine how much worse it would have been if the Aryans possessed a “violence gene.”

Ahem.

In any case, overtly racist arguments and blatantly prejudicial thinking are now considered valid debate points, creating a “milquetoast both-sidesism” that argues “on the one hand, you have people who think bigotry is acceptable, and on the other, you have people who think it is not, and the only way to determine which group is right is to treat them as equals, and hear them both out.”

However, “edgy” conservative ideas all pretty much boil down to one basic thesis: white Christian men are superior. Clearly, there is nothing edgy or innovative about this. In fact, it is one of the oldest ideas in existence, and one of the intellectually laziest. It is only a bizarre incarnation of right-wing PC, mixed with liberal politeness, that provokes mainstream outlets to say, “Wait a second, let’s give these ideas some respect.”

In truth, we are now giving platforms to people who watch Schindler’s Listjust so they can point out the stray historical inaccuracy as proof that it’s all made up. These are individuals who say, “Hey, hold on, maybe George Wallace had some good ideas.”

It has gotten to the point that espousing bigoted ideas apparently doesn’t make one a racist.  In the era of Trump, it appears that a person can’t be labeled a racist unless he personally lynched an African American while wearing a Nazi armband. Otherwise it’s just political correctness and snowflakes getting all sensitive and shit.

Now, before you think that I’m being melodramatic, let me point out that at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, members of Identity Evropa relished their newfound respectability in political circles. Members of this group, if you’ve never heard of it, have been “emboldened by President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on race and immigration, [and] they advocate for allowing only Caucasians to immigrate to the U.S. in order to maintain a white supermajority.”

Their plan, they say, is “to take over the GOP as much as possible.”

Sounds like a perfectly respectable, somewhat edgy plan — right?

Now that we’ve gone almost a full week without any bizarre allegations or devastating accusations erupting from the White House, we can turn our attention to other illuminating facts about life in Trump’s America.

For example, here’s a fun fact: Did you now that around 11 million white Americans are basically Nazis?

Hmm, I guess that is less a “fun fact” and more of a “holy shit, what the hell is going on” kind of statistic.

But it is, unfortunately, true. A recent study implies that “whether or not they would describe themselves as alt-right,” about 6 percent of white Americans “share the movement’s belief in a politics that promotes white interests above those of other racial groups.”

What this means, statistically, is that if you gather together 100 white Americans, about a half-dozen of them will say, “You know, Hitler had some good ideas.”

Now, for some time now, we’ve been hearing that alt-right goons are a tiny fringe group making a lot of noise. Certainly, there’s mo more than a few thousand zealots out there — right?

Well, no.

Because this study shows that white supremacist ideas “are more popular than it might seem. Large numbers of people think the way that they do, and shape their political identity around a sense of white grievance and identity.”

In case you think the researchers are inflating their numbers, keep in mind that the study took pains to exclude plain old racists and borderline bigots from the final analysis. The study honed in on those who are at the top of the hate pyramid, people who supported the tiki-wielding assholes in Charlottesville last year, even if they never said it out loud.

As the researchers pointed out, such individuals “may not march around the streets yelling, ‘Jews will not replace us!’ but they are extremely receptive to a politics that positions whites as victims and a growing minority population as an existential threat.”

By the way, that figure of 11 million Americans is roughly equivalent to the populations of New York City (8.5 million) and Chicago (2.7 million) combined. It also means there are enough neo-Nazis in this country to fill the entire state of Georgia (the eighth largest state), with a few leftover.

And in a truly ironic twist, there are potentially more alt-right supporters in this nation than undocumented immigrants.

Again, the study focused on hardcore white supremacy. So the percentage of white Americans who are at least a little racist is even bigger.

For example, you might be amused to know that almost 40 percent of white Republicans have personally used the n-word in the past five years. Again, that’s not “have you ever used the n-word in your life?” That’s just within the past five years.

But don’t worry, just 27 percent of white Republicans think using the n-word is acceptable… wait, shouldn’t that be 0 percent?

In any case, these findings fit “with a larger body of work finding a sea change” in the Democratic Party’s attitudes toward race “without any corresponding movement on the Republican side.”

Basically, a lot of white Americans — Republicans in particular — truly think there are good people on both sides.

At this point, it would be more of a surprise if a tape existed of Trump not saying the N-word.

Yes, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming.

After taking a few weeks off to address racial, cultural, and political issues that have nothing to do with the accursed occupant of the White House, we have now returned to the source of so much of our current calamity.

And just in time too — as revelations of the president’s bigotry and idiocy dribble and drab from certain disgruntled former staffers and/or reality television stars.

What is the result of these shocking allegations? Has the president apologized or resigned in disgrace or…

Ha, that’s all bullshit of course.

Trump has attacked, which is the only thing that he is actually good at. After admitting that he hired an unqualified, horrible person solely because she flattered him, he called his past-tense BFF a dog, then sent out his lackeys to defend the honor of the president. And those lackeys said, more or less, maybe there is a tape of the president spouting racial epitaphs.

Hey, who even knows anymore?

In any case, we know that the person making these accusations is an unreliable sell-out, but oddly enough, that doesn’t matter as much as it should in these cases. And that’s because the accusation is so positively, absolutely credible.

I mean, raise your hand if you’re at least a little surprised that Trump hasn’t shouted, “Wetback!” at a Rose Garden ceremony by now — yes, I’m raising my hand.

About half of Americans believe that the president is a racist. And one presumes that a big chunk of the other half at least suspects as much, or is too embarrassed to admit it to pollsters.

So let’s say that there is a tape out there with Trump uttering the vilest word in the English language. What would happen?

Well, keep in mind that “the fact that Trump still managed to get 63 million Americans to vote for him after the notorious Access Hollywood tape shows that his supporters are fully adept at setting aside offensive speech.”

And as for Republican leaders, they “would say they disagree with the president’s rude remarks,” and they “might even issue what would appear to be a strongly-worded condemnation.” And then they would promptly and decisively “do absolutely … nothing.”

And what about the rest of America? Well, to be blunt,“if you think a racial slur is the only way to determine if the president is racist, you haven’t been paying attention, and you don’t understand what racism is.”

So cue the tape. Ultimately, it won’t matter. Because we all know what kind of person the president is.

But what kind of country we are… well, that still remains to be seen.