Recently, I wrote about the GOP’s odds of taking over Congress and enacting its agenda of turning America into a hellish zone of desolation and despair.
OK, I’m just kidding. The GOP has no coherent agenda.
But the desolation and despair? Yeah, that part is true.
In any case, the best chance that the Democrats have for retaining control of Congress is to convince Americans that their party is strong and capable of effective governance.
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If, for some horrific and highly implausible reason, you found yourself on the front line of a combat zone, ready to charge into battle, and you glanced over and saw me standing next to you, I doubt you would feel comforted.
That’s because I believe in nonviolence, so I wouldn’t be there shrieking war cries and boasting how I was going to drink my enemies’ blood. I would more likely be trying to figure out how to avoid shooting myself or anybody else, and this is not the quality you want in a soldier.
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You can blame that son of bitch Martin Van Buren.
Yes, I’m sure we all harbor animosity for America’s eighth president—right? The guy had few achievements, but one goal he accomplished still lingers, to the point of festering. Van Buren’s “longest-lasting contribution has been the two-party political system.”
So the fact that you have just two choices for president? Yeah, that’s old Marty’s doing.
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OK, imagine you’re a Democratic legislator, and you’re rushing to the chamber to cast your vote on a crucial bill. An old lady collapses in front of you, clutching her heart. If you stop to help her, you will likely cost your party a vote and send the bill to defeat. Do you stop?
Now imagine that you are a Republican legislator in the exact same situation. Do you stop?
This scenario comes courtesy of Rick Perlstein, a historian who theorizes that most Democrats would help the old lady, while most Republicans would step over her writhing body.
Perlstein argues that this is not because Republicans are indifferent to human suffering. It is because they are focused on winning and advancing their agenda at all costs. Democrats, in contrast, are focused on fairness and bleeding-heart concepts such as, for example, helping out old women who have heart attacks.
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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.
Good news — the most dangerous hostile force that America ever faced has now been defeated.
That’s right. The infamous immigrant caravan — a bigger threat than the Nazis, the Communists, and Al Qaeda put together — has been destroyed.
I know this is true because the Fox & Friends morning show “used the word ‘caravan’ an average 21 times per episode in the six days prior” to the midterms. Yet that same show “only mentioned the topic once on the day after the election.”
The only logical conclusion is that the immigrant caravan has been turned back… or destroyed… or vanished into thin air — who knows?
The important thing is that we are safe. After all, we’re talking about an invading army here.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: How could a group of impoverished people on foot, presumably unarmed, with absolutely no element of surprise, be a threat to the most powerful nation on Earth, which has built the largest military force in the history of the galaxy? And did we mention that a huge portion of the caravan consists of malnourished children? It’s not exactly an elite killing force that we’re talking about.
Well, that doesn’t matter. Because in the weeks leading to the midterms, many conservatives insisted that these immigrants were a Soros-funded plot to sway the midterms… although it has never been explained exactly how a group of refugees slowly walking toward the border could be remotely beneficial to the Democrats. If anything, the whole story has been a blessing for the Republican Party, which was briefly able to recapture that old xenophobic spirit of 2016 again.
In any case, these refugees — who apparently are going to reintroduce polio while providing cover for Isis agents— have so alarmed our nation’s right-wing overlords that they are spending taxpayer money to send U.S. troops to guard against bedraggled people fleeing for their lives from drug cartels. So we may soon have “up to 15,000 members of the world’s greatest fighting force, sitting in the desert, watching for poor refugees approaching on foot.”
But you see, it has to be this way. Trump supporters have to believe that the immigrant caravan is an invading army. That’s the only way to justify using military force to threaten people who are following U.S. and international law regarding asylum. Otherwise, these right-wingers might be the kind of people who advocate gunning down thousands of unarmed refugees, including children.
And that might make it difficult to sleep at night.
Fortunately for Trumpists, they already have a unique worldview that allows them to believe all kinds of factually inaccurate, conspiratorial, logic-defying propositions, including the following:
“The MAGA bombs were fake (they weren’t). There’s going to be a middle-class tax cut by the end of the year (there isn’t). US steel has opened seven new plants in the US (it hasn’t). The trade tariffs are working (they aren’t). The US is the only country with birthright citizenship (it isn’t).”
To be honest, it must be exhausting to come up with preposterous scenario after preposterous scenario, all designed to reinforce the delusion that Trump knows what he is doing, liberals hate America, scientists are making everything up, and that there is nothing racial about locking Latino kids in cages.
Yes, I have to admit that up until now, I have been empathizing with my fellow progressives, who are weary from the almost daily outrages that cascade from the White House.
But Trump supporters must be even more fatigued, coming up strained explanations, convoluted theories, and secret coded messages that, in the end, add up to no wall on the Mexican border, no locked-up Hillary, and no decrease in the number of pesky minorities in America.
Really, it’s got to be fucking exhausting.
According to certain individuals of a more conservative mindset, this week’s midterms were actually a big win for the Republican Party — so impressive, in fact, that it was“very close to a complete victory.”
Hey, who says the GOP is delusional? Certainly not me.
In any case, the fact is that the Democrats have captured the House, which means they will be able, in theory at least, to launch investigations into the most corrupt administration in history and slow down, if not stop, the freight train of disaster that Trump has sent hurtling toward the American people.
Of course, if they could just protect the Mueller investigation, we would all be pretty happy about that.
The new Congress set to take office in January “is slated to be the most racially diverse in history,” and “record numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and women of color will serve in the next legislative session.”
Within just a few weeks, Congress will be full of young Latinas and Muslims and Native Americans, with some states having the absolute chutzpah to send all-minority delegations. It’s a white nationalist nightmare.
It’s undeniable that this is a major political and cultural development for America. And it has the potential to be a much-needed course correction to our nation’s recent detour into overt xenophobia, fear-based hatemongering, and rambling insanity.
Of course, white supremacists are still getting reelected to Congress, so it’s not all pride flags and wins for la raza.
But for the first time in two horrific years, there is a spark of hope.
As you know, the Democrats are poised to win 5,698 congressional seats (more or less) next month, and there is nothing on Earth that can stop the vengeful cleansing of the mighty Blue Wave.
Well, there is one thing: maybe the Democrats won’t get enough votes.
How can that be?
You are correct to ask such a seemingly naïve question.
After all, for months now, just about every analysis has shown that Democrats are heavily favored to win back the House, and maybe even snag the Senate while they’re at it. In addition, while the president’s approval rating has improved from “abysmal” to “very bad,” this is not enough of a turnaround to cause the GOP to swell with confidence.
However, while “Democratic voters are revved up for November. There is one exception to that rule: Latinos.”
Yes, my fellow Hispanics don’t seem terribly enthusiastic about the midterms. On the one hand, this is difficult to comprehend. After all, what more proof do we Latinos need that Trump, if he had his way, would deport every person whose last name ends in Z and/or seems just a little too tan? And let’s face it, the rest of the GOP is clearly not enthralled with us as well.
But there are multiple reasons why so many Latinos are poised to perform that most American of behaviors (i.e., skipping election day).
For starters, the Democratic outreach toward Latinos has been pathetic. Regardless of whether Democrats are ignorant, incompetent, or possess a misguided feeling that everything is in the bag, they have sucked at talking to Hispanic voters. In fact, “nationally,55 percent of Latinos said they have not yet been contacted by a political campaign this year.”
In addition, many Latino voters say “they felt disempowered rather than emboldened; they expressed feelings of cynicism, apathy and fear fueled by the highly fraught political moment.”
OK, that makes sense.
Another fact is that Hispanics are younger than other demographics. And it’s well established that young people like, totally space on, like, voting, you know…
Add it all up, and it becomes apparent that we are not talking about a sleeping giant. No, this is a hibernating, heavily medicated goliath who is so deeply zoned-out that he’s practically in a coma.
What will it take to snap him out of his stupor?
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.
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.
