Hispanic Fanatic

Look, I’m really telling you this for the last time.

It is a myth that Trump was elected by poor white people, who had been cruelly left behind by a rapidly changing world.

While it is true that, for a bevy of bizarre reasons, the president is wildly popular with lower-income rural white people, there are three issues with this bit of conventional nonsense.

First, coal miners and farmers have been no more “left behind” than travel agents and typewriter salesman have. So knock it off with the strained excuses for their poor judgment and/or refusal to adapt to an evolving society.

Second, there are simply not enough unemployed factory workers to account for Trump’s sickening 40 percent approval rating. Hell, every Trump voter I have personally encountered has been doing just fine, economically, and myriad studies have shown that poor people were actually more likely to vote for Hilary Clinton.

And third, and most important, people didn’t vote for Trump because of economic reasons. They voted for him because he’s a fucking bigot.

Yes, I know many people who voted for the lunatic did so out of party loyalty or a misguided urge to stick it to the establishment or some other really, really bad reason.

But a great many people who pulled the lever for an inexperienced megalomaniac with a history of bankruptcies were not just overlooking the man’s blatant racism. They were endorsing it.

You see, yet another study has come out showing that“Trump voters weren’t driven by anger over the past, but rather fear of what may come.” In particular, “white, Christian and male voters… turned to Mr. Trump because they felt their status was at risk.”

As an aside, has any profile of the average Trump voter not included at least one of the following words: “fear,” “anger,” “anxiety”? Hey, when your chief defining characteristics are all negative, it’s not surprising that your choices aren’t the most uplifting.

But I digress.

The point is that, according to this study, “losing a job or income between 2012 and 2016 did not make a person any more likely to support Mr. Trump.” In addition, “the mere perception that one’s financial situation had worsened” didn’t matter, nor did that person’s view on trade, the unemployment rate in his or her area, or the density of manufacturing jobs nearby. None of that economic shit mattered at all.

So what did have an impact? Well, would it surprise you to learn that “economic anxiety did not explain Mr. Trump’s appeal,” but “a growing sense of racial or global threat” did? Yes, “Trump support was linked to a belief that high-status groups, such as whites, Christians or men, faced more discrimination than low-status groups, like minorities, Muslims or women.” As we know, such thinking is not just paranoid, but factually wrong. However, that was of no consequence. Just the feeling, irrational as it was, that Latinos and blacks were taking over was enough to motivate many white people to support a misogynist, delusional bigot.

The researchers point out that whites “who exhibited a growing belief in group dominance,” in the idea that “hierarchy is necessary and inherent to a society,” jumped on the Trump train, which reflected “their hope that the status quo be protected.”

Hey, that sounds suspiciously like plain, old-fashioned racism to me.

But that would be insulting to all those salt-of-the-earth types who don’t have a bigoted bone in their body and are just looking for good, honest work and blah, blah, blah.

The researchers conclude that “the prevailing economic theory lends unfounded virtue to Trump’s victory, crediting it to the disaffected masses” when in fact, it is more accurate to say cultural anxiety was the chief factor. And while the researchers are too polite to state it outright, clearly the root of that cultural anxiety was white supramacy.

So can we stop it with the image of the downtrodden Trump voter in his depressed little town who has no issue (none!) with Hispanics or gays or immigrants, and who just really wants to get back his assembly line job? Can we just fucking drop it already?

Because I really am telling you all this for the last time.

One of the more disconcerting facts about America in 2018 is that about 40 percent of us approve of the job President Tiny Fingers is doing.

This comes despite the knowledge that his administration has no accomplishments other than a massive tax cut for rich people and corporations. And this approval level has held relatively steady even in the face of constant disasters, comical ineptitude, overt corruption, and borderline insane behavior, to say nothing of Trump’s constant attacks on decency, the rule of law, America’s standing, and the humanity of anyone who isn’t a straight white male.

Hell, even his fellow Republicans say that you must be delusional or comatose to be unconcerned about how horrific the situation has gotten.

It doesn’t matter. Because line up 10 Americans, and four will say, “I like him, because he’s shaking things up” or some such nonsense.

Of course, Trump’s approval rating is highest among angry white men. The rest of us aren’t so keen.

You can see this by measuring the level enthusiasm for his greatest ambition — that fucking wall on the Mexican border. A recent poll finds that a bare majority (51 percent) of white voters think that it’s a bad idea. That percentage, unsurprisingly, is substantially higher for Latinos, 71 percent of whom know that a wall is just flat-out idiocy.

But what’s most interesting is that “the community that is the least supportive of one of the main tenets of Trump’s immigration plan isn’t Latinos; it’s black Americans.” Yes, a full 87 percent of black voters oppose the wall.

That’s right — black people hate Trump’s immigration policies even more than Hispanics do. In fact, “no ethnic group opposes the border wallmore than black Americans.”

One reason for this could be that some Latinos are so self-loathing, so eager to gain status in the eyes of white conservatives, that they will support something as crazy and denigrating as the wall (which, as I’ve stated before, will never be built). As such, the percentage of Hispanics who support the wall, while low, is still embarrassingly high.

Another reason is that, as the survey authors point out, “some Americans who identify as black may also be Latino since Latino is an ethnicity, not a race.”

But you knew that already.

In addition, “some black Americans feel that despite Trump’s focus on immigration from Latin America, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from predominantly black countries are affected by his policy, as well.”

That’s all true, of course.

However, those reasons do not fully explain why black Americans are so overwhelmingly hostile to Trump’s immigration madness.

So maybe it is because African Americans, with a history of persecution that continues to this day, aren’t buying the conservative bullshit that there is no racism to see here. Or perhaps black Americans are empathetic to people who are trying to improve their lives in the face of harassment and discrimination.

Or just maybe, as author Raquel Reichard wrote, “Our struggles, even for those of us who aren’t Afro-Latino, are linked…. Black and brown people in the U.S. have always lived in the same neighborhoods, worshiped at the same churches, attended the same schools and frequented the same stores and restaurants. We are neighbors and allies in the class and race struggle.”

And in times like these, it’s good to have allies.

Many of us have spent the last year or two fretting about the white working class (WWC). Americans are concerned that WWC individuals have been cruelly left behind, and we empathize with their discomfort over a changing world.

Truly, it is to weep.

But while we knock ourselves out trying to justify their allegiance to President Trump, many of us wonder why WWC people can’t just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Or we ask why their anger and hostility should be met with hugs. Or we ponder why ethnic minorities — who tend to be poorer than the WWC — didn’t clamor for Trump like their white counterparts did (hey, I’m sure racism had nothing to do with that).

But then along comes a study to say, “Guess what? All your claims that white people are disenfranchised are really just so much bullshit.”

Because a recent study led by researchers at Stanford, Harvard, and the Census Bureau shows that “white boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way.” However, “black boys raised at the top are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy” when they grow up.

Think about what that means. It implies that race matters more than class when it comes to how well you do as an adult. And it further implies that white privilege is not some made-up straw man that progressives created.

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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.

I’ve written before about gun control and our nation’s status as the shoot-em’-up capital of the industrialized world.

Seventeen people in Florida are dead because one angry man believed the AR-15 was the solution to all this problems. This uniquely American mindset apparently never manifests itself in the youth of, say, Belgium or Australia or Japan.

It’s a mystery — right?

Now, I’m certainly not going to get into all the defenses of the Second Amendment that we hear from conservatives every time there’s a mass shooting. These arguments range from the semi-principled to the clearly illogical to the completely bat-shit insane. So why put ourselves through it again?

I also don’t want to discuss the shooter. There are conflicting reports about whether he is a Latino, or a white supremacist, or some oddball combination of both. But ultimately, let’s skip it, because the less said about this pathetic loser, the better.

Instead, I want to dwell on the tiniest shred, the thinnest shard, of hope that this latest mass shooting might be a catalyst toward sanity.

Many of us feel that way, primarily because of the activism of teens and young people who are fed up with being viewed as target practice and/or acceptable losses in the fight for “freedom” or battle against “tyranny” or whatever vague, paranoid rationale gets tossed around as justification for allowing bloodbaths to occur with regularity on American soil.

Yes, there is already rumbling that “Hey, these kids aren’t as anti-gun as you think.” And even if every millennial demanded more gun control tomorrow, the political and cultural barriers to real, lasting change are daunting.

But we do know that one of the leaders of this youth drive is Emma Gonzalez, whose powerful speech has become both viral sensation and rallying cry.

This once again proves that if you want something done, turn to a Latina.

So maybe, possibly, we have turned a corner on this madness? Do we dare hope?

The government shutdown is over, amounting to little more than a long weekend for federal employees. It is now fashionable to insist that, on this issue, the Democrats caved or lost or ran away screaming into the night — whatever phrase suits you — as the GOP trounced them.

Indeed, I would have preferred if the Democrats had fought harder for Dreamers, or emerged with some kind of pledge for immigration reform. But that didn’t happen.

Instead, we have smug Republicans claiming they won, and pissed-off liberals shrieking that they will never donate another cent to Democrats unless the party runs a vegan socialist woman for president in 2020.

However, the truth is that Democrats were probably correct (at least on a political level) to compromise. It was becoming clear that the GOP’s idiotic assertion that “illegal immigrants” were getting preferential treatment over good, hard-working, red-blooded, god-fearin’ Americans was resonating, and the longer the shutdown went on, the more points the GOP would earn.

So the Democrats cut a deal and got CHIP refunded, which is hardly a minor thing. We’re talking about millions of poor children receiving health care (why exactly Republicans — the supposedly religious party — would be against this is a discussion for another time).

In addition, the Dreamers live to fight another day. Yes, we’ve been reduced to that vague concept of “hope” when it comes to DACA, but I remain optimistic that a program that has the support of the vast majority of Americans will eventually pave the pathway to citizenship that the Dreamers deserve.

And the further good news is that, as of right now, we’re not allocating any money to Trump’s damn wall, which remains the most simplistic solution to a complex issue in the history of American politics, as well as the biggest con on rural voters ever.

By the way, I’ll say it again: There will never be a wall — not a real one anyway. I can’t imagine the disappointment among white nationalists when, years from now, there is not even a brick on the Mexican border where there was supposed to be an impenetrable barrier.

Actually, their disappointment will be dwarfed with the realization that there are now more Latinos, Muslims, out gay people, and assertive women than ever before, and their emperor-god Trump did absolutely nothing to stem the tide,

But now I’m predicting what will happen years from now, which is always tricky business. So I’ll stick to prognosticating about the end of 2018, specifically the midterm elections in November.

No, I don’t know if Democrats will ride a fabled blue tsunami to victory, or if Republicans will once again find a way to cling to undeserved power. But I do know this: Months from now, nobody will even remember this shutdown, and whether the Democrats won or lost. This skirmish will not matter in the larger war.

And there are many more battles to come.

It’s been just over a year since 62,979,636 Americans said, “Hey, you know that smug, narcissistic, mentally unstable billionaire who hates women and minorities? Yeah, that guy. Let’s all vote for him.”

And it’s been nothing but easy living ever since.

To be fair, plenty of Americans are indeed happy with Trump’s first year in office, even if by any objective or reasonable standard, it has been a complete failure, daily embarrassment, and horrific nightmare.

No matter, because as I wrote in my last post, many hardcore Trump supporters have abandoned all pretense of rational thought or even strained justification for their misbegotten votes. Instead, the working-class folks profiled in Politico insist that the human cringe factor masquerading as a president is a great guy, and that things couldn’t be better.

Well, I didn’t mention that the Politico article ends with a Trump supporter casually dropping the N-word, which might as well be a snapshot of what the 2016 election was really all about.

You see, study after study has shown that bigotry is a prime characteristic of many Trump voters. In fact, some experts insist that racism motivated Trump voters more than any other factor.

But as I’ve written before, Americans tend to dismiss the very idea that racism was even a minor variable in Trump’s election. We are determined to say that prejudice died in the 1960s, and millions of our fellow citizens cannot possibly be bigots.

Well, as the Atlantic recently pointed out, this kind of delusion has been going on for decades.

And it is not just Trump’s supporters “who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum, who … searched desperately for any alternative explanation — outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety — to the one staring them in the face.”

The explanation staring all of us in the face is blatant racism, xenophobia, hate-filled rage — whatever you would like to call it.

What happened in 2016 was that “Americans, who would never think of themselves as possessing racial animus, voted for a candidate whose ideal vision of America excludes millions of fellow citizens because of their race or religion.”

It really is that clear.

Now, of course, it is inaccurate and offensive to label all of Trump’s supporters as racists.

But the vast majority who are not neo-Nazis and white supremacists were still willing to look the other way as they voted for a guy beloved by, well, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

The Atlantic article has gone viral for a very good reason: It is an astute and well-written attack on our national delusion. At the risk of checking out for the remainder of this article, I’ll just list some of the most striking passages here.

“A majority of white voters backed a candidate who explicitly pledged to use the power of the state against people of color and religious minorities, and stood by him as that pledge has been among the few to survive the first year of his presidency.… This all occurred before the eyes of a disbelieving press and political class, who plunged into fierce denial about how and why this had happened.”

“Supporters and opponents alike understand that the president’s policies and rhetoric target religious and ethnic minorities, and behave accordingly. But both supporters and opponents usually stop short of calling these policies racist. It is as if there were a pothole in the middle of the street that every driver studiously avoided, but that most insisted did not exist even as they swerved around it.”

“The argument for the innocence of Trump’s backers finds purchase across ideological lines: white Democrats looking for votes from working-class whites, white Republicans who want to tar Democrats as elitists, white leftists who fear that identity politics stifles working-class solidarity, and white Trumpists seeking to weaponize white grievances.”

“A peculiarly white American cognitive dissonance is that most worry far more about being seen as racist than about the consequences of racism for their fellow citizens. That dissonance spans the ideological spectrum, resulting in blanket explanations for Trump that ignore the plainly obvious.”

“A majority of white voters backed a candidate who assured them that they will never have to share this country with people of color as equals. That is the reality that all Americans will have to deal with, and one that most of the country has yet to confront.”

It’s a lot to take in. But a combination of data-driven research, psychological study, anecdotal evidence, and our own common sense all verify that this is indeed the case. Americans remain in deep denial about the crushing moral failure that occurred last year.

To justify their votes, Trump’s biggest fans combined “an insistence that discriminatory policies were necessary with vehement denials that his policies would discriminate and absolute outrage that the question would even be asked.”

The only thing more delusional than thinking that Trump is not a bigot is to believe that his die-hard supporters will ever become open-minded and tolerant. In essence, “these supporters will not change their minds, because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of.”

So let’s stop kidding ourselves.

Yes, it is indeed challenging in Year One of the Orange Despot to find anything to be grateful for.

Normally, at this time of the year, we would offer thanks for what we have and all the positive developments that are happening for us as a nation.

However, the consensus among sane Americans is that, this year, we should instead give gratitude for the things we don’t have and the horrible acts that have not occurred.

For example, we don’t have a war with North Korea, or a collapsed economy, or a rescinded First Amendment, or a total absence of healthcare for all except the super-rich — at least not yet.

So let’s all shout, “hallelujah” over these amazing gifts.

But there is one group of Americans who are truly grateful this holiday season. Now, I’m not talking about the mega-wealthy one percenters, or the plutocrats who are devouring our country. Although they’re doing great, those bastards are never grateful for anything, because their whole lives are relentless, insatiable quests for more, more, more.

No, I’m referring to the Trump true believers. I’m talking about those fabled white working-class voters who love Trump and live in places like rural Pennsylvania — you know, the people who decided the election and overwhelmed your vote.

Politico recently ran an article profiling the president’s most fanatical supporters. The article found that for these voters, their “satisfaction with Trump now seems untethered to the things they once said mattered to them the most.”

In other words, last year, these people said they were voting for Trump because he would bring back the coal industry, end the opioid epidemic, build that fucking wall, etcetera.

Almost a year later, Trump hasn’t accomplished any of those things, or even tried particularly hard to do so. And yet, his fans don’t hold it against him. Indeed, “it’s not that the people who made Trump president have generously moved the goalposts for him. It’s that they have eliminated the goalposts altogether.”

Yes, for these voters, it doesn’t matter that we have a bumbling man-child dragging the country into massive discord. He is their guy, and he shares their rage and hatred and ignorance and incoherence. So damn it, they’re sticking with him.

And how does one reason with such superhuman levels of denial and delusion?

Well, it’s simple really. Don’t even try.

You see, the hardcore “Trump supporter is living in a state of downplayed disappointment — like a child taking a bite of black licorice thinking it was chocolate, feeling regret, then accepting the candy anyway.”

I mean, these are people who trust Trump more than they trust Jesus Christ.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, that should tell you something — a whole lot of somethings, actually.

So this Thanksgiving, if you’re stuck sitting next to die-hard Trump supporters, realize that there is quite literally nothing you can say to them to get them to change their mind about the guy.

As such, just skip the chitchat and double up on pumpkin pie. Trust me, dinner will be far more enjoyable that way.