Hispanic Fanatic

You may have noticed recently when a member of most incompetent, corrupt administration in history started talking trash about who does or doesn’t have skills.

Yes, our old friend, White House chief of staff John Kelly, said he believes that “the vast majority of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border into the US do not assimilate well because they are poorly educated.” Kelly — whose boss is a sociopathic ignoramus who is historically unqualified for the job of president — went on to say that undocumented immigrants “don’t have skills.”

And he did this without any sense of irony, grasp of hypocrisy, or inkling of shame.

But it wasn’t just Kelly who says undocumented immigrants are too dumb to fit into America and refuse to learn English, damn it.

Noted right-wing babe Tomi Lahren said, “people who don’t speak English or who come from poverty shouldn’t be allowed to immigrate to the United States.” She insisted that “you don’t just come into this country with low skills, low education, not understanding the language and come into our country.”

Of course, it took a journalist about nine seconds to do a little research and find out that Lahren’s ancestors did exactly that, proving that “people like Lahren continue to push a specious agenda that suggests today’s immigrants are somehow wholly different from previous ones.”

Indeed, it can be pointed out that “nativists can’t keep trying to back up their argument by saying ‘the country doesn’t work this way’ when clearly it does, and has, for their families. So why do they *really* not want these people here?”

To answer that question, let’s look again at the fabled white working class (i.e., the salt of the Earth) that forms the base of Trump’s support and the emotional underpinning for conservative thought in this country.

These non-immigrants are struggling to keep up because (in theory) Latinos have stolen their jobs, the coalmines have shut down, and the assembly line has moved to China.

And it’s supposedly going to get even worse soon, as self-driving cars will eliminate millions of jobs from truck drivers who are overwhelmingly white and uneducated.

So what has been the response to these issues?

Well, most Republicans and many Democrats have sought to assuage the fears of white working class people by telling them that their low-skill jobs are coming back (any day now!), and that they don’t have to change a thing. Nope, they don’t have to take a computer class, learn a trade that’s actually in demand, or (heaven forbid) learn Spanish.

The implication, sometimes stated outright, is that too much change is happening, too fast, and we as a nation will make sure that these big mean machines don’t take anybody’s job.

So if you’re keeping track, this nation cannot accommodate immigrants who risk their lives to come here, work like demons, and often perform essential tasks that Americans don’t want to do.

However, we can slow down our economy and move our entire society backward to make things a little easier for people who refuse to even acknowledge that it’s the twenty-first century.

Interesting.

But I have a question.

Has a society — any society anywhere at any time — willfully stopped progress because the elites were afraid of how it would affect the least-skilled members of that society? I’m not being snarky. I honestly doubt this has ever happened in human history.

Remember that the Luddites failed to stop the machines from taking their jobs. In fact, their doomed insurgency is only remembered today for giving us the adjective for a backward, fearful person who is terrified of technology.

Modern blue-collar workers will not fare any better. Republicans are stoking discontent among the white working class, but at best the GOP is being disingenuous about its ability to stop the acceleration of automation. At worst, Republicans are telling overt lies while laughing their asses off about the gullibility of small-town types.

Because Republicans cannot and will not stop the self-driving cars from coming. By the way, those self-driving cars will most likely “see farther and react faster, so it makes sense to bake computer control into big-rigs, to make them safer and more efficient,” thereby reducing the grim statistic that “crashes involving trucks kill about 4,000 people on US roads every year.”

Or we could just sabotage the computer programs and make sure big-rig drivers can continue to be less efficient while killing more people on the road. Because otherwise they might have to, you know, learn a new skill.

Sounds like a fair trade to me.

Oh, and one more thing: all those kiosks that fast-food outlets have created to take the place of burger flippers? Well, conservatives love to imply that it’s because some cities have raised the minimum wage. But isn’t this just capitalism in action? After all, no company exec would say, “Yes, a machine can do this task more efficiently and for less money, but I really want a bored teenager to do the job.”

Where does all this GOP concern for workers come from, all of a sudden? I would think that conservatives — with their supposed love of the free market — would be thrilled with the idea of creating more efficient systems rather than subsidizing a low-skilled worker to do a worse job.

So again, what’s behind this sudden love for halting immigration and, while we’re at it, stopping economic and technological progress?

Well, I’ll talk more about that in my next post.

If you’re some kind of softy Nancy boy who wears his bleeding heart on his sleeve, then you might get a little emotional at the sight of, for example, screaming children being ripped out of their mothers’ arms.

But if you’re a true patriot like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then you know full well that the only way to protect America is to rip families apart and put children in jeopardy.

You see, The United States will now“take a stricter stance on illegal crossings at the Mexico border by separating parents from children, rather than keeping them together in detention centers.”

The goal is to terrify people into not even trying to cross the border without 47 forms of ID. It’s an interesting theory, especially when one realizes that many people who are trying to enter the United States are fleeing oppressive countries where death is a constant presence, and that traveling to America is already a desperate choice where getting killed en route is a chance many people are willing to take. But hey, why not make things more hellish for them?

Sessions says, “We are dealing with a massive influx of illegal aliens across our Southwest border” despite the fact that immigration — both legal and undocumented — is down, and that nobody except angry old white men actually still use the term “illegal alien.”

No matter, Sessions unveiled the zero-tolerance policy “with the goal of a 100 percent prosecution rate for all who enter the U.S. illegally.”

Quick aside: It’s interesting how conservatives are big fans of zero-tolerance policies when it comes to, say undocumented immigration and marijuana use. But they are all about forgiveness and mulligans when it comes to civil rights violations and illegal campaign payouts to porn star mistresses. But I digress.

Sessions sums up the new approach with a curt “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”

Well, that settles it then. The Trump Administration’s policy can surely be nothing but an effective, but still humane, approach to complex problem — right?

Oh, and by the way, more than 700 children “have been separated from their parents since last October,” and “almost 1,500 migrant children went missing after federal officials put them in the homes of adult sponsors around the country.”

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?

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.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

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.

Perhaps you are sinister.

No, I don’t mean you’re a vile person who is out to destroy the world. After all, you’re probably not a Republican.

Woops — just kidding, my GOP friends!

Ahem… yeah… anyway.

I’m talking about the original meaning of the word “sinister,” which was a Latin phrase (“sinistra”) that originally meant “left” or “left-handed” but took on the meaning of “evil.”

This trend is seen in many languages. For example,

“Left” in German (“linkisch”) also means “awkward”

“Left” in Russian (“levja”) is associated with being untrustworthy

Synonyms for “left” in Mandarin are things like “weird,” “incorrect,” and “wrong”

The truly French word “gauche” originally meant “left”

And the very word “left” comes from “lyft,” which meant “broken.”

You get the picture. Being a leftie has often been associated with myriad unfavorable traits. And in the olden days, left-handers were often coerced to use their right hand, in some cases even having the offending limb tied down to immobilize it.

Hell, never mind the olden days. Even here in 2018, about “two-thirds of the world still hates lefties.” You see, “in many Muslim parts of the world, in parts of Africa as well as in India, the left hand is considered the dirty hand, and it’s considered offensive to offer that hand to anyone, even to help.”

And of course, it’s tough for you southpaws to pick up a guitar, baseball glove, or pair of scissors without getting frustrated.

All of this comes despite the complete lack of scientific evidence that there is anything wrong with being left-handed, and with plenty of anecdotal evidence that we’ve had our fair share of high-achieving lefties.

So what does all this mean?

Well, it means that, on some level, humans actively look for reasons to hate one another. Yes, life is hard enough with natural obstacles and unforeseen bad breaks and outbreaks of cultural stupidity. We apparently have to make it even more difficult by honing in on the slightest deviance — like being left-handed — and piling on the fear and loathing for absolutely no good goddamn justification.

Which leads us back to the prevalence of racism.

Will it even be eradicated?

That is, of course, highly unlikely. And even if we did somehow achieve ethnic and racial nirvana, where differences were celebrated and never a cause for distrust or violence, we would find some way to fuck it up.

I don’t know — probably the small-nostriled people would oppress the large-nostriled people. Or people who like spicy food would get into fistfights with people who don’t. Or some other infinitesimal difference would become grounds for superiority and anger.

Hating on left-handers just proves that people will discriminate against any minority — for the smallest, oddest rationale, and for the tiniest infraction or deviance from the majority.

But then again, let’s just remember this:

According to the Bible, the angel who sat at God’s left-hand side was Lucifer.

Well, that settles it.

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.

In the good old days, you could always tell who was what.

For example, just a few decades ago, every Latino in America — at least according to pop culture — was Mexican with dark brown skin, and probably worked as a gardener. I mean, it was pretty simple for Americans to get out their handy bucket of clichés and then start stuffing Latinos into them.

Life was simple.

But then things got messy. Hispanics started coming in different shades, with terms like “second generation” banded about, and not all of them spoke Spanish, and some even went to college when nobody was looking. And don’t even get us started on “Latinx.”

Yes, it’s gotten so complex that very real questions about identity and culture are cartwheeling through the Latino community, with the result that voices get raised, metaphysical quandaries turn into quagmires, and your basic simple-minded racist can’t even keep straight whom he is supposed to hate now.

Because the truth is that “Hispanic identity is fluid to begin with,” and “the gray area that Latinos inhabit in this country’s historical black/white binary inevitably leads to shifts in identification.”

Basically, who or what is Latino has always been a question, and it has never been more open to debate. Even age-old signifiers of culture are fading away.

For example, even in my generation, just about every Hispanic person was also Catholic. Being a member of La Raza and displaying an almost fanatical devotion to the pope was a natural combo.

But leave it to those wild, trend-setting, selfie-lovin’ youngsters — the millennials — to mess with that.

You see, “Latino millennials, overall, are becoming less religious the more they assimilate to American culture.”

Yes, we could point out that this might not be Latinos assimilating to America, as much as the other way around, but let’s save that debate for another time.

The basic truth is that “the longer Latinos are in the United States and the more Americanized they become, the more secularized they become.” In fact, “the fastest growing [religious] group among millennials is the nones” (i.e., those who align with no specific religion).

Of course, many of these Latinos are still spiritual, in their own individualistic kind of way, but many others are becoming straight-up atheists, a trend that is also true for America overall.

I guess many Hispanics are finally asking exactly what, other than eat up a lot of their Sundays, has the Catholic Church ever done for them. Personally, I believe this is a very fair question.

However, for now, let’s turn our attention to another sign that it is getting more and more difficult to pinpoint those Latinos among us.

A recent study has found that “although recent immigrants identify as Hispanic at a rate of almost 90 percent, this number drops to around 50 percent after the fourth generation.”

The reasons for this are complex. One motivator is simple self-loathing, as many Latinos who can pass for white sometimes prefer to do so. Another variable is fear, because slipping below the radar of Trump supporters is “a strong motivation for avoiding identification as Hispanic.”

Some commentators theorize that the lessening of ethnic pride “in later generations can be due to increased assimilation.”

Finally, there is the fact that the longer Latinos live in America, the more likely they are to intermarry with other groups and produce multiethnic children, and this can lead to “U.S.-born Hispanics who sometimes find their identities challenged by natives of their home countries who don’t think they’re Hispanic enough, and come off as too American.”

Regardless of the specific reason, at present, “11 percent of adults with Hispanic ancestry do not identify as such, and 23 percent of Hispanics most often refer to themselves as ‘American.’”

So what does it all mean? Well, it could indicate that in the near future, Latinos will be considered white Americans, whether they want to be or not.

Indeed, many people have pointed out the historical parallels to the Irish, the Italians, and the Jews — all of whom were considered non-white until the intensity of cultural change and the force of societal pressure suddenly made each of them, more or less, white.

Or maybe white people just got together for a secret vote and decided to let the O’Reillys and the Rizzos and the Goldsteins in — I don’t know for sure.

Regardless, it is undeniable that it is a time of great change for Latinos, and this shift can be difficult to notice when Hispanics have more concrete issues on their minds — like surviving three more years of a xenophobic toddler who would gladly depart everyone with a Z in their last name.

But it is happening.

Life is no longer so simple.