Hispanic Fanatic

We are a couple of months into the reign of the House GOP, and thus far, Republicans have tamed inflation and ended all crime in America.

Ha, not really. But it doesn’t matter, because you probably forgot that this was their whole campaign pitch last year. It was all, “vote Republican, or thugs will murder you and run off with your milk that cost $89 per gallon.”

Once Republicans actually took over the House, however, they “turned to investigations, abortion, threatening the national debt, and trying to defund the Internal Revenue Service rather than dealing with the issues they insisted were vital in 2022: crime and inflation.”

Currently, the GOP is working hard to convince Americans that the January 6 riots weren’t that bad, that trans people are coming to eat everyone’s babies, and that “woke” is a horrific, Lovecraftian monster so terrifying that it literally defies description.

Congressional Republicans spend their days on hearings designed to expose the Deep State’s weaponization of government, only to flop so badly that even fellow conservatives have tuned out on a “slow-moving train wreck” that exposes nothing more alarming than GOP incompetence.

And when Republicans aren’t spreading conspiracy theories or calling their opponents pedophiles, they are looking “backward resolutely and angrily to an imagined past,” completely oblivious and indifferent to the fact that they are “out of step with the majority of Americans on issues like LGBTQ rights, climate change, gun safety, and abortion.”

But hey, don’t go thinking that the GOP will change course, just because their agenda is ludicrous and millions of Americans hate their ideas. Keep in mind that the “oppressiveness and unpopularity of any particular policy has rarely deterred this bunch from pursuing it.”

Republican leaders know that “the MAGA base will ride and die for this right-wing culture war predominantly animated by fear and racial anxiety.” 

Now, on a human level, this grotesque ploy always backfires. After all, the GOP manipulates “white victimhood and rage… to win over — and kill — their own voters.”

But on a political level, it’s a big winner. Rage-filled conservatives continue to vote Republican, even if it is perfectly clear that the only beneficiaries of GOP policies are billionaires and corporations.

Yes, ever since Reagan, the US has “moved toward an economic policy that often allows corporations to behave as they want, based on the theory that the free market will solve any excesses.” But to be blunt, “the results haven’t been very good,” evident by the fact that during that time, “economic growth has slowed, corporate profits have risen faster than wages, income inequality has soared, and living standards have grown slowly.”

But if you try to explain that to a working-class guy living in small town, he will just shout about freedom and critical race theory and gay immigrants.

And he will vote Republican.

It’s ok to laugh, at least a little. After all, the whole damn thing is a joke. It’s a farce of epic proportions and a black comedy laced with schadenfreude.

I’m referring, of course, to the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, a haphazard free-for-all that featured the most contentious speakership election in a century. We lost track of how often the word “McCarthy” accompanied the phrases “stinging defeat” and “public humiliation,” which is always a good sign for a political leader.

But at last, the GOP elected a new speaker, a guy so popular within his party that it took only 15 votes to elect him. By the way, don’t you wish you had 15 attempts to accomplish a goal? Yes, most of us would never be denied a promotion over a dozen times, because that level of incompetence would likely get us fired long before that.

If you are a mediocre white male conservative, however, you get as many chances as you want to win, until everyone just accepts that you’re the boss—at least in name.

You see, the incoming speaker of the house made so many concessions to a small contingent of lunatics that he is basically being held hostage. It’s almost like appeasing fascists makes them bolder. 

By the way, nothing says “strong leader” like groveling to idiots. These insurrectionists so thoroughly owned the negotiations that they ran out of things to ask for.

I hear the final package includes daily foot messages for every member of the Freedom Caucus. Plus, McCarthy will personally fetch their dry cleaning and let Matt Gaetz slap his face twice a week.

In truth, we don’t really know what’s in the rules package, because the GOP rushed to chisel the deal into stone before everybody could find out that Lauren Boebert is now legally allowed to fire a bazooka at anyone she deems un-American.

At one point during the voting, Republican congressmen almost came to blows, leading us once again to ponder why right-wing men are so in love with violence. Seriously, they constantly want to punch someone, shoot someone, or bomb someone—even their own allies.

With the metal detectors at the capitol mysteriously removed, it is likely just a matter of time before some GOP rep takes a shot at a fellow lawmaker. I wouldn’t be surprised if this heavily armed, easily agitated crowd turns the capitol into the OK Corral.

In any case, the GOP won the House because they convinced enough gullible voters that Republicans would tackle inflation and bring down gas prices. And sure enough, the first thing the GOP has addressed is inflation and improving the quality of life for all Americans.

Ha. No.

To the surprise of nobody with an IQ over 50, the Republicans’ top priority is making it easier for wealthy people to cheat on their taxes. The GOP is “fiercely loyal to the rich and the powerful, and they enthusiastically mislead ordinary Americans to serve those interests.” 

The GOP’s second priority is revenge—plain and simple. The Republican House will investigate Biden, his family, and probably the Biden family’s neighbor’s best friend’s dentist before they are done. They will also harass the law enforcement agencies that they claim to revere so much. And they will launch expensive, time-consuming investigations that are solely “about grievances” and serve as a cover for “folks who are already under investigation trying to protect themselves.”

Oh, and they also want to decimate Social Security, but you knew that already.

Clearly, McCarthy’s “hollow victory will have economic and political consequences.”

Their approach will be based upon faux patriotism and owning the libs. It will be about gaining power for its own sake, and “to the extent that Republicans want to give the appearance of caring about governing,” they will slash and burn their way through Congress with no idea of what they are doing and no principles for doing it. This is because “the endgame now is chaos itself.”

So what are we supposed to do with this gaggle of clowns? Take them seriously?

No, the only appropriate responses are mockery or dread. 

It’s our own little circus of the damned.

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.

Now that Bob Woodward’s career has come full circle — from uncovering the corruption of a bigoted Republican president (Nixon) to uncovering the incompetence of a bigoted Republican president (Trump) — we can focus on where we go from here.

Yes, it’s long been perfectly obvious to every liberal, most moderates, and many conservatives that Trump is a reckless, addled moron who never should be trusted with a houseplant, much less the nation’s nuclear launch codes.

We have books from disgraced reality television stars, smarmy journalists, and Pulitzer Prize winners that all basically say that the United States of America has elected a blithering idiot and hate-filled lunatic as president.

And it is not the looney left that is screeching that Trump is a danger to America. It is the people who are closest to him — who work with him every day — who are verifying his doddering incapacity, chronic dishonesty, and complete inability to handle the job. It is only his most fervent supporters — people who live in a bubble of paranoia and have no idea how the government or the Constitution work — who still think everything is just fine.

The rest of us are trying to figure out who the mysterious New York Times editorialist is, and why he/she thought this article would make us feel better (it sure the hell doesn’t), and why admitting to pulling a presidential coup de tête makes him/her an “unsung hero.”

By the way, it’s darkly ironic and vaguely hysterical that Trump is correct that a “deep state” is indeed out to thwart his agenda. But it’s not a nest of bureaucrats and sinister liberals. It’s his own people, the ones he appointed. Yes, he created his own deep state and brought it with him to Washington.

And now the calls are coming from inside the house.

In any case, here is what the Times editorialist should be doing, instead of trying to reassure us that “there are adults in the room” (a pathetically low standard when we’re talking about the Oval Office).

He/she should be going on the record, offering proof of his/her most shocking claims, and resigning from this administration, thereby putting the pressure on the rest of Trump’s enablers to follow suit and for Congress to perform its constitutional duty.

Let’s be blunt. If half of the claims in the Times and Woodward’s book are true, the recourses are impeachment or the 25^thAmendment. Removal is the only way out of this mess.

Anything less is a half-ass half-measure that is analogous to letting a crazy man run through your house naked, trashing your possessions, on the condition that he is “contained” to the living room.

As for Trump’s fans, well, they have options as well.

Unless they finally, belatedly withdraw their support, the best that can be said of them is that they are in deep, crippling denial, to the point of delusion.

The other three options are as follows:

They are racists

They are idiots

They are cowards

The latter category is primarily congressional Republicans.

The other two categories speak for themselves.

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.

So I just got back from a conference in amazing New Orleans (always one of my favorite cities). The conference featured lots of breakout sessions where the presenters encouraged us to seize the day and live our passions and grab the bull by both horns while seizing your passion every day and so on and so on.

In any case, I noticed something odd about the breakout sessions. For the most part, during the short Q&A portion at the end of each presentation, the women would raise their hands and ask questions. In contrast, the men pretended that they were asking questions, but most of them just made statements.

During session after session, the women seemed more interested in having an expert answer their inquiries and/or engage in a conversation. The men seemed more interested in asserting their expertise, contradicting the moderator, and in general just declaring how super fucking awesome they were to a room full of captive strangers.

On the penultimate day of the conference, some lunatic shot at several congressmen in Washington D.C. Much has been made of the fact that the shooter wasn’t a right-wing nut job. He was ardently anti-Trump.

Sadly, I wasn’t too surprised at this. You see, a pro-Trump man with anger issues has less reason to open up on Congress, because his guy is in charge right now. Oh, he might consider taking a shot at a leading Democrat or a pesky journalist, but ultimately, he will likely decide that it’s not worth it. After all, Trump will have all those traitors thrown in jail soon enough, right?

Now, if Hilary Clinton had won… well, let’s just say that one of the few pluses of Trump’s appalling victory is that we may have been spared from even more violence than we see now, most prevalent in the form of surging hate crimes. Yes, it could have been even worse if Trump’s fans felt robbed and ignored, rather than smug and empowered.

This brings us back to the loser who opened fire on people playing softball. You see, he was a guy who felt victimized, and like many men, he decided that violence was the obvious solution.

The only difference between him and many of his peers is that he correctly identified the people who were fucking with him. He knew it wasn’t immigrants or gays. It was the rich guys who rigged the game.

But other than this insight, he had the exact same reaction as do so many other old guys with access to firearms. He didn’t believe in looking at his own life decisions, or working to improve the system, or helping out his community. No, he believed in punishment and fear and hatred and searing rage. He insisted that, as a white man in America, people were going to listen to him, damn it. He was going to make people pay, and everyone would know how great he was.

That’s what he was thinking. That’s what many men are thinking.

And the objects of their scorn may vary, but their solution is consistent. And that is fucking terrifying.

More people seem to be praying this year.

Oh, I know that Americans pray year-round, and this odd habit intensifies around Christmas. That’s because you have the standard prayers for peace and love on Earth, plus prayers for a prosperous new year, and prayers to survive your uncle’s drunken ramblings at holiday gatherings, and so on.

But even more people than usual seem to be falling on their knees and clasping their hands and fervently mumbling their hopes and dreams and fears — or just flat-out wailing their distress.

And I’m pretty sure this is because we have elected a scatter-brained neo-fascist to the White House.

Yes, that’s a good reason to pray.

But the problem with all this praying and yearning is that it accomplishes nothing. And even worse, it just revitalizes that most pernicious of ills: false hope.

You see, the day after the election, many of my fellow progressives started wishing for some kind of divine intervention to save us from four years of insanity and xenophobia.

First, it was supposed to be the state voting recounts that rescued us. But aside from keeping Jill Stein in the spotlight for an extra week, that achieved nada.

Then the Electoral College voters were supposed to do their duty and keep the presidency away from a demagogue. I remain incredulous that any thinking American truly believed emailing the delegates and signing petitions would convince 38 of them to vote against Trump. In the end, exactly two of them swapped their votes, which means that 304 Republican delegates (99.3% of them) didn’t give a fuck about your pleas.

And the latest liberal hail-Mary pass is predicting that Trump will be impeached — possibly even on his first day in office.

Hey, that’s more likely than the other scenarios, considering the guy is awash in corruption and conflicts. However, I have yet to hear of a realistic scenario where Congress — made up of Republican majorities in both houses — suddenly declares, “We’ve never actually removed a president from office in history. But Trump is out.”

And even if Trump gets impeached or quits in a huff (which I think is actually more probable), we’re stuck with Mike Pence as president and the same band of sociopaths that we started with.

So what again are we praying for?

You know what? Here’s my holiday wish.

Let’s stop believing that Trump isn’t going to be the next president. Let’s stop denying reality, and quit the idea that some magical happenstance will spare the nation the pain of Republican leadership. Let’s just stop with all the childish hoping and praying.

We can’t fight bigotry if we spend all our time just wishing.

Yes, we’re all getting ready for the Super Bowl this weekend (even though my team was eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs, which sucks).

So I’m not going to dwell on this study that points out how far Latinos have to go to achieve political power that is commiserate with our growing population.

But basically, if Hispanics had representation in Congress that matched our actual presence in the nation, there would be 90 Latino representatives or senators. Instead, there are 37. Just nine of those are Latinas.

Like I said, it’s too depressing to rant about at length. So you may now return to your preparations for the big game.

I’m betting on a Seattle upset.

As I’ve written before, we Hispanics are known for our fierce work ethic.

Think of immigrants slaving away at grueling tasks that native-born Americans refuse to do. Or consider that last year, “the number of Latino entrepreneurs grew more than white, black, and Asian entrepreneurs.”

Yes, we sure like to work. It’s unfortunate, then, that so many Hispanics who reach old age have nothing to show for it. This is because “fewer than half of … Latino workers have retirement plans on the job, leaving the vast majority of them with no savings designated for their golden years.”

To continue reading this post, please click here.

So the United States has resumed its wild, impetuous stab at having a functioning government. After this latest farce, internet sites are alive with comments along the lines of the following:

“We need to kick out every member of Congress and start fresh.”

I know we live in a country where nearly half the citizens people can’t name the vice president, but I find it hard to believe anybody is so ignorant of the political process that he or she thinks voting out all 535 members of Congress is a realistic option.

We’ll start with the fact that elections are staggered (hence the term “midterm election”). As such, I doubt anybody’s rage is going to last another five years or so, which is how long it would take to excise all the offending congressmen and women. And we’ll add on the stat that while most people hate Congress, they tend to like their own reps, so we will likely see most of these supposedly toxic incumbents return.

This idea is even less practical and more insane than the delusional belief, which I’ve written about before, that we can easily deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

In the interest of saving time, here are some other political ideas I’ve heard recently that appear just as likely to happen.

“We need to separate into two different countries. Red states and blue states.” (I’m pretty sure we fought a war about this, and the outcome was rather conclusive. We appear to be stuck with one another for the foreseeable future.)

“We need a task force of really smart leaders who will come up with bipartisan solutions to our problems.” (That’s what Congress is supposed to be.)

“We need to mandate IQ tests to make sure people are smart enough to vote.” (Anyone who thinks an IQ test accurately measures political acumen probably doesn’t have a very high IQ.)

“We need to confiscate every gun in America that’s not in the hands of the police or military.” (It amazes me how liberals think that Second Amendment advocates—many of whom are paranoid and all of whom are armed—will somehow go along with this idea.)

“We need to use Jurassic Park-type technology to reanimate the Founding Fathers so they can tell us their original intent regarding the Constitution.” (OK, I made this one up, but wouldn’t that be cool?)