Hispanic Fanatic

I don’t want to be a hater.

But I will now offer the mildest of critiques to everyone’s favorite demographic: the white working class.

Who doesn’t love these guys?

Yes, we know that Trump made gains with every racial demographic, but these “small deviations from long-term minority voting patterns could be a short-term blip that has not truly transformed the GOP’s voter base,” which is “hardly a multiracial coalition.”

In fact, the white working class remains the cornerstone of the Republican Party. Seriously, “if Democrats think they can win back the loyalty of the working class, they likely should think again.” After all,  “under Biden, Democrats adopted one of the most pro-working class policy agendas in recent political memory, enacted much of it — and accrued no electoral benefit.” Meanwhile, the GOP’s “attention to the white working class is overwhelmingly symbolic” in that Trump presented “nothing substantive on policy” that would actually help these voters. Instead, what our president-elect “essentially offered the working class were attacks on undocumented immigrants, which his campaign blamed for much of the nation’s ills.”

And while a disturbing number of black and Latino voters were down with demonizing immigrants, who do you think really responded to this campaign strategy? 

Yeah, take your time analyzing that one.

White working class voters made it clear that they were far more interested in outlawing trans people and keeping Muslims out than in preserving democracy, but every conservative, most of the media, and a lot of progressives still excused this hate-voting with the same tired excuses: economy anxiety, cruelly left behind, felt talked down to, and blah blah blah.

We were told — lectured really — that we needed to respect and listen to white working class voters. They had no choice (none at all!) but to vote for the guy who boasted that he would be a dictator.

But these voters “aren’t five-year-olds who have to be cajoled into behaving themselves.” For all the talk about respecting the white working class, there was little acknowledgement that when “you respect people, you also hold them responsible for the choices they make.” It’s maddening, hypocritical, and “infantilizing to assume” that white working class voters  “aren’t or shouldn’t be interested in things like America’s democratic traditions.”

So which is it? Should we respect them and pay attention to their opinions? Or should we coddle them and excuse their ignorance?

And it is ignorance, because their hero is already backtracking on his absurd promise to bring down grocery prices. Every progressive in the country said that the incompetent buffoon wouldn’t follow through on this pledge, but we were told to shut up and stop being elitist.

And speaking of being elitist, we’ve learned that progressives are far too woke for the white working class, and we need to knock that nonsense off. However, this is yet another way in which the fawning of the white working class for authoritarianism has been excused.

You see, “anti-woke” voters basically said, “Those leftists claimed that white men have done some terrible shit throughout history. This has enraged me so much that I have no choice but to vote for a white man who will do some terrible shit today.” 

Of course, people will say that I am being simplistic by blaming the white working class for its parochialism and lack of education. That’s possible. 

But it’s also possible that media figures are overcomplicating things and becoming apologists for horrific choices. Perhaps it is too disturbing to admit that bigotry and misogyny are prevalent in every demographic and especially strong in the white working class. It is more comforting to say it’s the pompous college-educated progressives and hypersensitive minorities that are exaggerating and out of touch. This viewpoint, which its practitioners love to portray as insightful and contrarian, is in fact the prevailing opinion and a strong reinforcement of the status quo. It’s also a lazy excuse.

But hey, what do I know? I’m not a member of the white working class, so my opinion is null and void.

I hope you guys know something that I don’t know, because we are all in this together.

Recently, America has endured many disasters: killer blizzards, innumerable mass shootings, governmental dysfunction, and a psychopathic bigot leading in the polls.

But conservatives have identified the culprit for all these and every other issue. They know the main bad guy vexing this nation and unleashing infinite misery upon our country. Yes, I’m talking about diversity.

You see, the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action didn’t quite make America safe enough for white men. So now conservatives are unleashing their ire on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. These are the often half-assed attempts that institutions make to include ethnic minorities in their systems.

Conservatives see these programs as unconstitutional and immoral. I assure you that it is completely coincidental that these are among the only areas of American culture where white men are not in charge. Yup, conservatives are taking a completely principled stand… ahem.

In any case, when Boeing airplanes came apart in midair, most experts pointed to “the weakened regulations on Boeing thanks to more than $65 million in lobbying efforts.” 

But conservatives weren’t so easily hoodwinked. They shrieked that airplanes were disintegrating because that’s what happens “when you’re focused on DEI and maybe less focused on engineering and safety.” 

Now, I could point out that “this narrative has no basis in fact” and that Boeing is not “particularly diverse, either at the workforce level… or on the corporate ladder, where the overwhelming majority of executives are white men.” No matter, it must be the fault of the stray black executive or that Latino engineer who clearly didn’t belong there.

Now, commentators have pointed out that “right-wing media figures have also erroneously blamed last year’s train derailment in Ohio and the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank on DEI initiatives,” despite the fact there is zero evidence for that. In truth, many of the catastrophes occurring in America are taking place under the leadership of white guys. But it’s impolite to point that out to conservatives.

So they will continue to blame ethnic minorities and eliminate even minimal attempts to increase diversity. As a result, attacks on diversity in education and within major corporations have intensified.

For example, the University of Florida has eliminated all its DEI positions and canceled its DEI-related contracts. And the accounting firm PwC has dropped its diversity targets. 

Across the country, DEI funding and staffing are plummeting, “after a two-year boom in the wake of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020.”

You remember that whole George Floyd thing, don’t you? It’s like Covid or the collapse of the Trump economy — something that apparently never happened.

In any case, if conservatives get their way and vanquish diversity, we will get rid of all those undeserving ethnic minorities who are messing up everything and provoking every disaster that occurs. Sure, you might argue that many studies have shown that diverse teams perform better than racially homogeneous ones and that companies that embrace diversity get better results.

But I’m sure those studies are wrong. Yeah, they were probably created by some black guy.

I recently wrote about the women who believe supporting the Republican Party will somehow protect them from the wrath of angry right-wing men.

But now let me discuss an issue closer to home: the rise of the MAGA Latino.

Seriously—what the fuck is wrong with those guys?

Ponder the cognitive dissonance (a phrase that comes up a lot when discussing contemporary politics) that is necessary to justify voting for a man who has repeatedly, gleefully said that he wants to throw anyone who looks like you into a concentration camp. It’s majestic.

Of course, studies have pinpointed three main reasons why someone named Hernandez or Rodriguez would vote for xenophobic bigots.

These include the fact that Latinos still lag in educational achievement, and the diploma gap has become perhaps the chief indicator of whether someone votes Democrat or Republican. Basically, people who go to college are more liberal, and people who stop with high school are more conservative, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Also, male Latinos are more likely to be drawn to GOP misogyny because “if you’re a man in a low-status group, masculinity may become more important to claiming high status.” In essence, a lot of Latino men like the false machismo of Republican blowhards.

Latinas are far less likely to fall for this nonsense, and “like female voters across ethnic categories [they] were repelled by Trump’s disrespect toward women and his bragging about sexual assault.”

Yes, many pundits are still offering “the tortured and narrow analysis that Latino votes for Donald Trump correlate with ‘economic anxiety,’ but reactionary sexual politics and religiosity are usually missing from media commentary on this political shift.” 

The final reason is that many Latinos believe that if they go along with white supremacy, they will soon be allowed into the powerful majority. About a third of Latinos “see themselves as a group similar to European American immigrants who can join the mainstream.” A lot of Latinos think that if Italians and Greeks were eventually considered white, maybe they will be too.

Yes, that’s a sad motivator, but it’s a very real one.

The Republican Party knows this, which is why they employ “language that is designed to trigger racist stereotypes associated with whiteness.” Conservatives are well aware that “this status anxiety is inseparable from this racist hierarchy.” 

And how has appeasing white conservatives worked out for Latinos? Well, the Trump campaign has threatened to create the largest deportation program in history, end birthright citizenship, and install neo-Nazis in positions of power. So they are clearly interested in the needs of the Latino community. 

No, the Republican Party doesn’t care that a record number of immigrants have become citizens, or that young Latinos hate the GOP, or that most Latinos still vote for Democrats.

They know that they just need to chip away at the Latino vote to ensure victory. So they can go right on blaming Latino immigrantsfor mass shootings, shrieking about the “great replacement” theory, hanging out with militant white supremacists, and encouraging white Americans to fear everyone with brown skin.

Because their approach is working. The bigotry and “radicalization of the GOP on the issue of race isn’t sending it down some entirely new, irreversible path of stigma among communities of color.”

They are doing just well enough with Latinos to hang in there. And many Latinos are just fine with MAGA.

Sin vergüenza.

An Iraqi Sunni, a Bosnian Serb, and a Moro Muslim walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, you’ve all been politically downgraded.” So they shoot up the place, killing everyone.

Ha, that’s a good one.

OK, it’s not. But it proves a point.

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All of us—me in particular and America in general—have been talking a lot about civil war lately. To describe the frayed state of our nation, we’ve even learned a fancy new word: anocracy. This indicates a floundering country that is teetering between democracy and authoritarianism. Its presence is the first indicator that a civil war may be coming.

And what is the second indicator?

Well, that would be “whether populations in these partial democracies began to organize politically, not around ideology—so not based on whether you’re a liberal or a conservative—but where the parties themselves are based almost exclusively around ethnic, religious or racial identity.”

So the fact that the Republican Party has become the white-grievance party is more than just disturbing. It is a possible harbinger of war.

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Recently, I wrote about the rise of white supremacist terrorism. As horrifying as that concept is, please note that violence is just a means to an end for America’s racists.

Sure, many homicidal bigots enjoy bashing in a black person’s head or shooting a Latino for sheer enjoyment. But most of them are not content to sucker-punch an Asian person and leave it at that. They want more. 

And that more consists of civil war.

Yes, I know that the idea of internecine armed conflict was laughable during, say, the Obama administration. Well, those halcyon days (which were only mildly halcyon by the way) might as well have been centuries ago. Because here in the post-Trump world, a full-fledged civil war is a distinct possibility.

Now to be clear, a second American civil war would not look like the 1860s version, which featured dueling governments and uniformed armies and generals with wacky facial hair. 

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The “woke mob” didn’t kill 10 people in Buffalo. 

A transgender swimmer didn’t kill 10 people in Buffalo. 

A teacher talking about CRT didn’t kill 10 people in Buffalo. 

No, the biggest menace to Americans continues to be an angry white man echoing Fox News talking points.

In this case, the justification for mass homicide was a favorite among conservatives: replacement theory. 

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I admit that I got bullied into it.

Yes, friends and relatives had raved to me about discovering their genetic heritage, but it all seemed a bit silly. As I understood it, you send your DNA sample to a lab, and a few months later, you find out that you’re 10% French and have a fourth cousin in Pennsylvania. What does one do with such knowledge?

However, after I received a DNA kit for my birthday—really, how random is that?—I went ahead and did the cheek swab. Recently, I received my test results, and they were intriguing. 

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What would you give for an extra year of life?

Most of us would sacrifice a fair amount for that luxury. Everyone is on limited time, after all, and we likely want as many days on Earth as we can get.

However, if you are Latino, you are not in a position to angle for additional time. Hell, you’re lucky to be alive enough to read this.

Yes, in addition to the fact that we perpetually lag behind other groups when it comes to mortality, there is the disturbing truth that COVID-19 hit Latinos harder than other demographics. And just how devastating was the pandemic to Hispanics?

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Among the 47 jobs I held in college—back when tuition was almost reasonable—was a gig with the US census. As part of the job, I walked around Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods, knocking on doors and asking the inhabitants how many people lived there, how many bathrooms were in the house, and other random questions that constituted the worst ice breakers of all time. I wrote their answers on my clipboard, and then moved on to the next nonplussed resident.

My job with the US census lasted for only a couple of months. Some of the other jobs I had in college were cafeteria worker, phlebotomist, press release writer, and test-tube washer. Seriously, those were my gigs.

In any case, my total contribution to the most recent census was filling it out and marking “Latino” in the ethnicity section. But that must have made an impact. 

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