Hispanic Fanatic

As we all know, Latinos are about as likely to vote Republican as they are to sprout feathers and fly.

The conservative reaction to Latinos’ tendency to vote Democratic is usually disbelief and the continued insistence (despite all evidence to the contrary) that Hispanics are really Republicans but just don’t know it. Even this misguided, paternalistic response is preferable, however, to the other common reaction from conservatives, which is overt hostility to Latinos and the claim that Republicans don’t need nothin’ from those illegal alien sumbitches.

Well, give credit to the big kahunas of the conservative movement, the Koch brothers, who have realized two things:

They need Latinos to win elections. And insulting and denigrating Hispanics doesn’t win them to your side.

As such, “one Koch-backed group is using a softer touch to try to win over part of the nation’s booming Hispanic population.” The group, the Libre Initiative, “is sponsoring English classes, driver’s license workshops, and other social programs to try to build relationships with Hispanic voters.”

As one leader of the Libre Initiative explained, the group is striving to build trust, with the hope that if Hispanics like the organization, “they may seek our opinion on something else.”

It’s unclear what this ominous “something else” is, but it apparently includes the idea that real Latinas “respect authority” and the acknowledgement that the rich are America’s “only productive class.”

For further edification, the speeches at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) may offer a clue. At this who’s-who of the conservative movement, that grand old crazy lady of the right wing, Ann Coulter, was met with applause when she called for the formation of death squads to take out any politician who supported immigration reform.

Now, if there’s one thing that many Latino immigrants know, it’s what a death squad looks like. So it’s clear that conservatives are finally speaking our language.

This year, I became a father. I can assure you that nothing that monumental and awesome is going to happen in 2014.

But among the few downsides to parenthood is the fact that one has less time to update blogs. So I’ve written less this year. In fact, I’ve missed out on a few stories that I normally would have been all over.

For example, there was this little tidbit from the fine state of Texas, where a Latina politician tweeted her hatred of immigrants, her support for apartheid, her belief that the Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks, and her opinion that Muslims are “vermin.” Why yes, she is a member of the Republican Party. Why do you ask?

Now, I would usually get a lot of mileage out of a self-loathing Hispanic with strong anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic tendencies who also appears to be a paranoid lunatic. But what new parent has the time?

So here’s hoping that in the new year, the little guy will give me a breather now and then to write about such characters. I can’t wait.

So it looks like many of the bugs have been worked out, and Obamacare is more or less chugging along.

Or is it?

According to some commentators, the key to the ACA’s ultimate success or failure is, as with many aspects of American society, none other than Latinos.

This is because “as the youngest, fastest growing, and least likely demographic in the United States to be insured,” Hispanics “represent a huge opportunity to inject a broad swath of young, healthy adults into the healthcare system.”

However, a mix of “cultural barriers, mixed-status families, and the delayed launch of Spanish-language enrollment tools” could limit “efforts to encourage Hispanics to get coverage.”

So will Latinos accomplish what the GOP could not? Could Hispanics kill Obamacare? 

Well, I find that hard to believe, since Latinos are among the biggest supporters of so-called socialized medicine. Unless, of course, we have been GOP spies all along who are intent on undermining Obamacare from the inside.

Wow, that’s either the best or the worst political thriller of all time.

Well, Obamacare has rolled out, and the results thus far aren’t exactly spectacular. This fiasco has illustrated the vast gap between liberals and conservatives.

Now, I’m not talking about ideology, or even about Obamacare specifically. I’m referring to the differing mindsets of the opposite ends of our political spectrum.

Simply put, conservatives are perennially more confident and exhibit greater faith in their causes. Liberals, in contrast, seem perpetually on the verge of giving up.

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So once upon a time, and by that I mean just a few months ago, it looked like comprehensive immigration reform was going to happen, and soon. After all, you had Democrats fresh off an election triumph. And Republicans had finally caught on that you don’t repeatedly insult the fastest-growing demographic in America (Latinos) and expect to win.

But then government shutdowns and botched healthcare websites and Ted Cruz all happened. And now we have reached the point where people are asking, “Hey, whatever happened to that whole immigration reform thingy?”

The answer is that all that forward momentum was “no match for the absurd illogic of today’s Washington, where political imperatives, voter preferences, and even the desires of moneyed interests are powerless to move House Republicans off a default stance of ‘no.’”

So there you have it. I’m glad we spent all that time and energy on something so very, very doomed.

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?)

As we know, the Affordable Care Act went into effect this month.

So-called Obamacare “is particularly critical to Latinos, who have the highest rate of being uninsured in the nation.”

Yes, about nine million more Hispanics will now be eligible for health insurance, and this thought terrifies the Republican Party, which sees nine million more voters who will think positively of the Democratic Party.

So we just had to have this shutdown nonsense, so that the GOP could stop its collective foot and scream, “Socialism!” one more time, for nostalgia’s sake.

Interestingly, many Americans blame the Democrats for this mess. While I have my own issues with the Democrats, which I’ve written about in the past, I am stumped over how this cannot be construed as a 100% GOP-manufactured crisis.

As many people have pointed out, the ACA passed Congress, was signed by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, and put into effect. That’s the way our country works.

We don’t say, “Hey, the minority party, which overwhelmingly lost the last election, doesn’t like the law. So we have to negotiate.”

What in fuck’s name is there to negotiate?

It’s the law. Deal with it.

When two-thirds of the US Senate is in favor of a bill, one might assume that it’s a pretty popular measure.

So when the Senate passed an immigration reform bill by a lopsided vote of 68 to 32, it indicated that nothing could be simpler than coming up with a way for undocumented people to gain a pathway to citizenship.

But of course, the US House (home of the crazies) is already talking about passing its own version of the bill. I assume that one will require new citizens to recite the Declaration of Independence, name all the presidents in order, and get a US flag tattooed on their foreheads while singing the Star-Spangled Banner (taking care to hit all the high notes).

As such, it is not time to celebrate just yet. The hard part is yet to come.

Every time I write about the GOP’s image problem with Latino voters, some conservative sends me an angry missive insisting that it’s all the liberal media spreading lies. I discover that not only does the Republican Party respect Hispanics, but it has their best interests at heart. The missive usually ends by telling me that Republicans are actually the most open-minded and tolerant of Americans.

And then approximately fourteen minutes later, a GOP leader will say something like this:

“My father had a ranch. We used to have fifty to sixty wetbacks to pick tomatoes.

That’s Alaska Representative Don Young, a Republican, who recently said this during a radio interview. Honestly, I don’t know what point he was trying to make, because I can’t get past the casual use of the term “wetback.”

Of course, Young’s fellow Republicans were quick to distance themselves from his offhanded bigotry, while stressing, “Hey, hey, we’re crazy about Latinos.” But this was not some risqué joke or harmless gaffe. This was an elected official resorting to slurs when referring to the fastest-growing ethnicity in America.

Now, I’m not saying that the Democratic Party is immune to racism, but honestly, when was the last time you heard of a Democrat saying something so prima facie bigoted? Yes, I know all about Biden’s “back in chains” comment — something that is not even in the same universe as far as offensive language.

So I have to wonder why wildly derogatory and/or lunatic statements seem to spring solely from the mouths of Republicans.

Sure, such comments are not as egregious as the GOP tendency — even eagerness — to excuse rape. As such, perhaps misogyny is still the Republicans’ number-one issue. But you would think a political movement that, by its own admission, has an image problem with ethnic minorities would take just the smallest care not to fling around racial epithets like its 1950.

So let’s go ahead and accept the congressman’s apology that “there was no malice in my heart or intent to offend,” while dismissing his slur as a simple “poor choice of words.”

But just this once, will you conservatives spare me the corrective email insisting that I have it all wrong? Can you just drop the denial about the white-hot strain of racism in your party that you have allowed to fester and grow? Instead, spend that energy by actually trying to drag your GOP brethren into the twenty-first century.

Or just keep doing what you’re doing. Then sit back and wait from that big group hug from Latinos, because deep down we know that you really, really love us.

It’s never a good week when one of the few Latino national leaders becomes a punch line.

So even though I personally am not too fond of Mr. Rubio, I would prefer that he avoid making Hispanics look like bumbling amateurs.

So here’s a tip.

Hydrate.