Hispanic Fanatic

Like all of you, I am exhausted, so I’m not going to get it into too much until we have a declared winner. But as of right now, you would rather be Biden than Trump.

In any case, many Americans are shocked at how close this election turned out to be. 

Yes, we have plenty of commentators rehashing the same argument from 2016, which is that Democrats have alienated swing voters because of their embrace of “socialism.” This is interesting, of course, because it implies that Joe Biden (i.e., the most politically moderate man in America) has either hid his secret socialist agenda for decades, or that a small group of congresswoman is deviously pulling the strings (and no, there is nothing insane, illogical, or flat-out misogynistic about that — nope).

This argument also lets the Republican Party off the hook, because it implies that they have not built a cozy home for bigots, conspiratorial lunatics, and neo-fascist freaks, who in turn, now feel emboldened to get out the vote for the GOP. It also hints that millions of kind-hearted, good-natured Americans have no choice but to vote for a corrupt, incompetent, authoritarian racist whose degeneracy is obvious to a 10 year old. They just have to vote GOP!

No, my friends, it is perfectly obvious who Trump and the modern Republican Party are. And it is also clear that millions of Americans like it.

But if you want to keep blaming liberals for this mess, go ahead.

I’m just going to get some sleep.

At the end, perhaps it is the “rapists” who will undo him.

That would be ironic, considering that we all remember how this little nightmare started, with Donald Trump announcing his 2016 presidential run by insisting that Mexicans — and by extension, all Latinos — were nothing more than thugs and rapists.

At the time, conservatives and media figures fell over themselves insisting that this creepy failed businessman didn’t actually mean what he so clearly said. The result of the gaslighting was that millions of Americans voted for the guy, only to find — four long, horrific years later — that he did indeed mean every word of his grotesque opinion. Their bad! It could happen to anyone, right?

Ahem. 

But here in 2020, many commentators theorize that the fabled Latino vote could be the tipping point in a potential Biden landslide. For example, if Hispanic voters turn out in force for Biden, it would give him wins in Texas, Florida, and Georgia. And that, of course, would be the end of the line, electorally speaking, for the GOP, regardless of what happens in other swing states.

However, that is a huge “if,” considering that Latinos are less likely to vote than other demographics. And keep in mind that even though Biden has overwhelming support from Latinos, a sizable minority of Hispanics still plan to vote for a xenophobe who would happily deport them if he could.

To complicate matters, remember that there are multiple subgroups within the Latino demographic, so it is impossible to say definitively who is or isn’t Hispanic, or how that lines up with polling. Indeed, some analysts boldly insist that “there is no such thing as the Latino vote.”

Whoa — now we’re getting metaphysical here.

So let’s return to the subject of Hispanics as thugs and rapists. As we all know, rather than sending us their criminals, Latin America is actually sending us their bravest, such as the 100 wildland firefighters from Mexico who are in California to assist with firefighting efforts. And don’t forget that “nearly 40 countries across five continents have received Cuban medics during the pandemic.”

Closer to home, “Latinos are on the coronavirus front lines,” working as essential workers and suffering much higher rates of infectionbecause of it. In fact, global health experts say that coronavirus is causing “the historic decimation of the Latino community, ravaging generations of loved ones in Hispanic families.”

Basically, our country is fine with Latinos risking their lives to keep the nation intact, but not so upbeat about, you know, actually accepting Hispanics as Americans with equal rights. You might find that a sickening contraction, but to Trump supporters, it’s a patriotic virtue.

The good news is that if our health care system continues to flounder, we can just go to Mexico for civilized treatment. That’s right, many Latino families who lack medical insurance and resources “are crossing the border for affordable medical visits and medicine.” More than 2 million “medical tourists” make the crossing each year, because in Mexico, “it is possible to save from 40% to 65% on a treatment compared to the United States,” and the quality of medical care is “usually first class.”

Just don’t tell Trumpists that, because they might actually start heading south for decent medical care. And we certainly don’t want to send Mexico our worst people.

PS: I rarely update my articles after I post them. I figure that once the words are out there, it is what it is (to quote a super-genius).

But I just read this info, and it directly relates to Latino voters, so I’m adding this little tidbit to the post:

“The gender gap among Latino voters — 26 percentage points — is significantly larger than it is among Black, white or Asian voters.” Apparently, for many Hispanic men “the macho allure of Mr. Trump is undeniable.” In fact, “what has alienated so many older, female and suburban voters is a key part of Mr. Trump’s appeal to these men.” 

So the point is that, once again, we should all listen to the Latinas.

No doubt you’ve run into those surly Americans who shout, “Both sides are crazy,” when discussing politics, or who insist that liberals are just as bad as conservatives when it comes to reprehensible behavior.

Now, one can definitely criticize the Democratic Party for failing to address the nation’s most egregious problems, and progressives are not flawless individuals.

But saying that the left is as unhinged as the right is like saying that your kooky tia Rosa is as insane as Charles Manson.

Because the truth is that “the American right today has a bigger violence problem than the American left.” For example, “top Republican politicians have encouraged violence in ways no prominent Democrat has,” and have even assaulted people.

And when it comes to homicidal acts, please note that of the 42 politically motivated killings that occurred last year, right-wing extremists committed 38 of them. Going back even further, we see that of 893 politically motivated terrorist incidents in America since 1994, “just one attack that led to a death came from an anti-fascist agitator” (and that single person killed was the anti-fascist agitator himself). But in the same time period, “White supremacists and right-wing extremists have killed at least 329 people.”

With a lopsided tally like this, it is not exactly surprising that 13 members of a right-wing militia were recently arrested and charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The alleged scheme “included plans to overthrow several state governments that the suspects believe are violating the US Constitution.”

The last I heard, nobody in the ACLU, MoveOn, or Black Lives Matter was plotting to kidnap people and overthrow the government.

Of course, those neo-fascist militia members are the same loveable types who stormed Michigan’s state capital, with guns drawn, and screamed that their freedom was being taken away because of a mask mandate. They are also the people who take Trump’s command to “liberate Michigan” quite literally.

One could point out the hypocrisy of conservatives who are more furious about face masks and vandalism than they are about people getting murdered in the street. But of course, it is not about consistency or principles.

Because despite all the flowery talk of “freedom” and “liberty,” the fact is that many conservatives are doing nothing more than “defending their America — where white men can rule and brutalize without consequence.”

Ethnic minorities demanding equal rights are, to right-wingers, “the sounds of violent attacks on their supremacy.” And so they morph to Trumpism, which is “the violent defense” of white dominance. They believe they face “a choice between white male supremacy and anarchy.” And you can guess which option they will choose.

This threat of violence from Trump loyalists, and the president himself, is part of a historical pattern that “echoes the strategy of southern Democratic leaders in 1860, when they knew they did not have the numbers to win the upcoming election fairly.” Back then, the Southern leaders threated open warfare, and “promised supporters that if it came to a fight, weak and frightened Northerners would run away.” 

It didn’t quite work out like that, and in the ensuing war, “Confederate soldiers learned the hard way both that Northerners would not run away, and that their leaders cared about protecting the economy, not them.”

The parties have switched roles since 1860, but the philosophy is the same.

So you have Trump “using federal law enforcement officers in unprecedented ways, not to quell protests, but to escalate them.”

You have Trump advisors saying that he should declare martial law and arrest his political enemies. You have right-wing talk show hosts shrieking that Trump “will have to… put down the enemy” after the election, using the Insurrection Act, which permits the president to “use the military against citizens to stop civil disorder and rebellion.” You have administration officials insisting that “there are hit squads being trained all over this country” to stop a second Trump term. And you have the president himself dismissing the idea of a peaceful transition of power if he loses, all while mumbling, “There has to be retribution.”

Yes, the party of law and order could not give a fuck less about either of those concepts. If they did, they might be concerned that a whistleblower alleges that top political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security “repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit President Donald Trump’s agenda by downplaying … the threat posed by White supremacists.” They might also be concerned that the FBI says that threats by right-wing militias “will likely increase in the run-up to the November 3 election.” Hell, they might even offer words of support to Governor Whitmer rather than insult her and complain that she hasn’t been sufficiently grateful.

But Trumpists will do none of those things, because liberty and freedom and democracy are not particularly important to them. What matters is power, and if holding on to it means that the nation collapses “into a state of civil war and widespread political violence,” hey too bad.

Yes, I’m pretty sure that both sides are not equally bad. In fact, the disequilibrium is absolutely murderous.

Yes, we’ve all been there.

At some point, we’ve all been jammed into the uncomfortable position of reconciling our sincere beliefs with unpleasant facts, with the result that we are often found wanting. 

For example, some of our greatest artists are horrible human beings. But we still buy their books and see their movies.

We preach sustainability, but when there’s no recycling bin around, we’ll throw that soda can in the garbage.

And we say we’re compassionate people who detest bigotry, but then we support white supremacy and calls for violence. 

OK, stop. 

As it turns out, maybe we haven’t all been there.

You see, we’re closing in on the election that will decide if America is going to crawl out of the intractable quicksand of oligarchy, racial warfare, and religious fanaticism, or if we’re going to happily cannonball into the abyss.

And Trump supporters have made it clear that they are having no crises of conscience, no blinding epiphanies, and no moments of hesitation. 

When our cacophonous chief executive told the Proud Boys to “stand by,” this pack of neo-Nazis responded by shouting, “Yes, sir!” And rather than glance around at the company they are keeping, and growing alarmed about it, most Republicans just shrugged and mumbled something about Hunter Biden and creeping socialism.

It is just the latest in an unending string of lemming-like behavior that, way back in 2016, might have caused us to wonder how anyone could be so delusional, hypocritical, and abhorrent, not to mention self-destructive.

But we have now come to accept that 40 percent of our fellow Americans will rationalize just about anything rather than flick on the neurons that provoke empathy, logic, or introspection.

These are people who are furious that “illegals” don’t pay taxes (even though undocumented immigrants “pay billions of dollars in federal taxes annually”). However, their fake billionaire dodges his taxes for years, and that just makes him “smart.”

One would think they might be disturbed that a privately owned U.S. immigration detention center in Georgia forcibly sterilizedimmigrant women. But then conservatives realized that we’re talking about brown-skinned women, and anyway, unauthorized hysterectomies without anesthesia are completely justifiable because Trump is simply carrying out God’s will.

And the threats that Trump will not leave office even if he loses, and that his minions are plotting to undermine democracy? Well, in a refrain that has become farcical, we hear that Trump “doesn’t really mean it.”

Clearly, the guy could mock their religion and play them for suckers, and they would be fine with it.

It must be exhausting for Trump supporters, constantly spinning their president’s deranged threats into patriotic virtues, and insisting that everyone is a malicious liar unless he works for the administration or Fox News. 

They might view their perpetual churning of reasons and motivations as charming complexity, or an example of the inherent contradictions of being human.

But the rest of see a bunch of hate-filled zealots eager to sell out their supposed principles just to say they owned the libs.

You see, being a Trump supporter “is about winning at any cost, cheating and subjugating. It’s about unraveling the culture in service of just one aim: victory over the others.”

The rest of America can do nothing except futilely hope for the president’s acolytes to snap out of it, and come to their senses. In this sense, it is we who are standing by. But our wait will be endless.

Here’s a fun fact:

“Both of the last two Republican presidents — Bush and Trump— have lost the popular vote, and yet each nominated two Supreme Court justices, who have been confirmed by the votes of senators who represent a minority of the American people.” So a fifth member of SCOTUS confirmed in this way will “create a solid majority on the court, which can then unwind the legal framework that a majority of Americans still supports.” 

Wait, did I say, “fun”?

Sorry, I meant to say, “grotesque travesty of logic and a trampling of basic civil rights.”

I get those things confused sometimes.

Yes, the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave it her best shot, but she couldn’t quite hold on until January, when a potential President Biden could nominate a replacement who wouldn’t, for example, possess a “deep, deep contempt for the rights of voters” or insist that “it’s time for Roe v. Wade to go.”

No, that probably would not happen.

Of course, the idea that the death of one octogenarian woman means the collapse of decades of social progress does not, in any way, indicate that America’s political system is a pathetic façade that autocrats can twist and contort at will.

Ok, maybe it does.

You see, the supposed principles of America, and our theoretically strong institutions, are not just a house of cards, but a tower of water-soaked jokers, perched upon a shit-covered dog trying to scratch itself in unpleasant places.

I think you’ll agree that this is indeed a shaky foundation.

And yet many of us have placed our faith in these systems, and in the people who were entrusted with running them. Our reward for this delusion was a parade of Republicans who did everything but slap our naïve faces for believing — even for a slice of a nanosecond — that they would refrain from indulging in a blatant, salivating power grab.

I mean, a few GOP senators offered tortured rationales for their inconsistency — something about this event being different than 2016 — but those reasons quickly devolved into a MC Escher contortion of self-serving nonsense.

However, most Republicans didn’t even bother to reconcile their torpedoing of Merrick Garland then with their embrace of rushing through a confirmation today. 

And many GOP senators flat-out reveled in their hypocrisy. They thought it was just fucking hilarious that Americans would believe they might be men of their word. Just a scream.

So what happens now, when the Republican Party has revealed — for about the 883^rd time — that they don’t really care about democracy, decency, or effective governance?

Well, there’s a lot of talk about the Democrats stacking the court, and indeed, some of them may just be pissed off enough to try it. But come on — we’re talking about the Democratic Party here. Most of their leaders think Joe Biden is too progressive, and that we all have to continue worshipping the white working class, and that making Republicans angry is so upsetting that it’s better to cower in the corner and avoid doing anything too “radical.”

So no, I highly doubt that you will see Democrats re-impeach Trump tomorrow, or ram through four liberal justices in January, or do much of anything beyond pout and ask Middle America to please love them.

But of course, even if there were some way to stop Trump’s third appointment in four years, it would be a stopgap. Because we need to go deeper.

Gentlemen’s agreements about how to run the country don’t work when one side is just fine with fascism, racism, and armed vigilantes in the streets. Lifetime appointments for justices who love theocracy is not a workable idea. Pining our hopes on a 250-year-old document that is impossible to amend is not a productive approach. And hoping that a system engineered to keep rich white men in power will somehow reform itself is not a comforting plan.

If the age of Trump has taught us anything, it is that all options have to be considered. Because the Republicans have figured this out already, and they think it’s cute if you don’t see it that way. 

Yes, it’s simply adorable.

Last week, I attempted to deal with the nonstop deluge of horrific behavior spewing out of the White House by asking, “Is there something that we progressives can do to make conservatives feel better, so that maybe they won’t, you know, destroy the country and devastate the entire planet?”

After all, we liberals are well-known for blaming ourselves for every monstrous action that right-wingers embrace. And American society is all about excusing conservative aggression and justifying GOP incompetence.

So let’s just run with it. Here are some of the ways in which liberals can make things easier for you conservatives.

First, we don’t want to hurt your feelings by pointing out that Trump is a dangerous moron whose own advisors “hesitated to give him military options, fearing the President might accidentally take the US to war.” Hey, I’m sure that statement has been true about every president.

Of course, we also know that Trump only ran for president as some kind of bizarre branding exercise, and for some unfathomable reason, you bought it. And yes, our sociopathic chief executive possesses the attention span of nine-year-old, has revitalized fascism, and is arguably the most corrupt president in history. But you won’t hear that from us.

Similarly, we will not bring up the fact that if you support Trump, you are more likely to be racist — even though study after study has shown this. No, you can go right on thinking that Black Lives Matter are a bunch of terrorists, even if the FBI has stated that “White supremacist extremists present the most lethal threat” to the country.

Oh, maybe you don’t know about that last item because “top political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit President Donald Trump’s agenda by downplaying Russia’s efforts to interfere in the US and the threat posed by White supremacists.”

Apparently, the guy flies into a rage if someone tells him a fact that he doesn’t want to hear, and in a maneuver better suited to calming a screaming toddler than advising the most powerful person in the country, his lackeys twist the truth to keep him appeased. Or, in an assessment that we swear we are not making up, “the President prefers to operate without intelligence.”

Yeah, he does that a lot.

In any case, you keep on believing that a doddering septuagenarian with a history of failure and garbled syntax knows far more than the top medical professionals in the world. While we’re at it, go on and forward that conspiratorial video from your high school acquaintance who flunked chemistry and has never left his home state, but who somehow is plugged into the inner workings of a vast cabal of mad scientists.

Above all things, we will not question American exceptionalism. We don’t want to destroy your belief that our country is vastly superior to all others, even if this “too often clashes with its culture of guns, mass incarceration, the death penalty and the war on drugs,” and has left us way behind on multiple quality-of-life measurements.

Woops, I see that I’ve upset you. I apologize, and I definitely will not mention that the border wall with Mexico will never be built. Yes, that endeavor wasted tons of taxpayer money, and did nothing more than provide a front for right-wing con men to steal your money, like you were some kind of fucking rube or something, but…

OK, now you’re crying. Let’s try to make it up to you.

Hey, would you like to vote twice? You know, because you’re so special? The president says it’s fine, so go for it.

And you know what else? We will ask newspapers to avoid endorsing candidates, because it might upset conservatives. There, there.

You know what would really cheer you up? Ending all of that diversity nonsense.

Yes, the president who is incredibly popular with neo-Nazis — a coincidence, we’re sure — “has instructed federal agencies to end racial sensitivity trainings that address topics like white privilege and critical race theory, calling them ‘divisive, anti-American propaganda.’”

And good news for you: It’s not just the feds who are canceling diversity. Companies such as Google have “significantly rolled back their diversity and inclusion initiatives in an apparent effort to avoid being perceived as anti-conservative.” 

In fact, some of these companies have “stopped saying the word diversity” altogether, because it’s so very very very controversial — well, at least to you Trump supporters. So we bend over backward to ensure that you’ll never have to hear disturbing facts about racial inequality or have your 1950s thinking challenged in any way.

You see, it’s all about being nicer to you, the hardcore Trump supporter who screams, “Fuck your feelings” and shrieks that progressives are sensitive snowflakes. And that’s when you’re not threatening us with guns, or beating us up to prove that we’re the violent ones. Or just shooting us in the street while the cops watch.

We want to make sure that you feel good about yourselves. Because that’s the most important thing in the goddamn world.

Yup.

Look, we understand that these are tough times for you unwavering Trump supporters.

You’ve discovered that you cannot yell, “Support the troops” while waving around a Trump 2020 sign. That’s because your idol made some, shall we say, unfortunate remarks concerning American’s veterans — something about “losers” and “suckers.” To be honest, the fact that the president has complete disdain for everybody except himself (and certain homicidal dictators) cannot be a shocker. Hey, it’s not like military leaders are rushing to deny the story, and even Fox News verified it. Plus, he has more or less said the same thing out loud (and you applauded).

But wait, because it gets worse. Apparently, your beloved president “admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and ‘more deadly than even your strenuous flus,’ and that he repeatedly played it down publicly.” The result of his little fib — this tiny lie — was that tens of thousands of Americans died. So clearly, your bewildered leader messed up, and your claims that he knew what he was doing are even more pathetic than we realized.

OK, so you’re having some cognitive dissonance right now.

How can you support a corrupt dolt who has complete disdain for you and everything you supposedly revere, and whose selfish grandstanding has decimated the country?

Well, fortunately for you, we progressives are here to help. Next week, I’ll list all the ways that liberals are bending over backward to help Trump supporters feel better about themselves.

Consider this an introduction to a field guide. Or a teaser. Or a way for me to admit that I cannot possibly keep up with all the crazy shit coming out of the White House nonstop.

In any case, stay tuned and see you next week.

Listen, we can discuss the Republican National Convention so far, dissecting all the blatant lies, delusional boasts, and vague threats. We can even talk about how some Latinas, unsure if they’re immigrants or not, will wail like soul-hungry demons in praise of white supremacy.

But one thing that we cannot discuss is the GOP agenda. Because there isn’t one. There is only Trump and his kids / minions. As many commenters have noted, there really is no coherent Republican Party anymore. 

Indeed, “for the first time in its 166-year history, the GOP didn’t bother to issue a new platform for its national convention.” Instead, Republicans simply reaffirmed their allegiance to their homegrown il duce, effectively saying that “the party supports whatever Donald Trump wants.”

This is problematic, in that Trump strives for nothing except improving his finances and pursuing an insatiable need for adulation.

But that doesn’t mean that Republicans exist only to please Trump… ok, that’s mostly true. However, the GOP still has goals, even if the people executing those priorities — the intellectual leaders of the Republican Party — “are the paranoids, kooks, know-nothings, and bigots who once could be heard only on late-night talk shows.”

For example, conservatives don’t like diversity, immigration, and women having control over their own bodies. All that has been true for a while.

But there are still a few holdovers from the fabled “small-government” movement, who insist that Washington is so corrupt and incompetent that the only solution is to cut services, throw money at billionaires, and hope for the best.

Of course, no White House has tried to do as little as possible as the Trump Administration. So if this limited-government approach was ever “going to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity, it should be now.”

However, I’m pretty sure these are not peaceful or prosperous times.

So how can Republicans persuade Americans that a collapsed economy, horrific pandemic, and unrest in the streets are not the fault of their guy, who has been in charge for almost four years now? 

Well, the GOP often wins “by selling a narrative in which ‘liberals’ are trying to undermine the country by stealing the tax dollars of hardworking Americans — quietly understood to be white men — and redistributing them to lazy people who want handouts, not-so-quietly understood to be people of color and feminist women.”

And that, ultimately, is the guiding light of the modern conservative movement.

You see, Trump “has stripped the veneer from familiar Republican themes concerning social order, values and economic policy.” Most of that was bullshit and just code for racism all along. But even if “they once represented principled ideological arguments, they’ve now curdled into content-free bludgeons to preserve power for the dwindling ranks of white conservatives in a rapidly diversifying America.”

Once lauded as the party of ideas, the GOP’s sole motivations now consist of pleasing Trump, amassing power for its own sake, and maintaining the privilege of white men. 

No, those are not catchy slogans that resonate with swing voters. But they are all that conservatives have left. 

Yes, we all received a small burst of optimism from seeing Michelle Obama speak. And we got a tiny jolt of hope from witnessing progressives, establishment Democrats, and even a few moderate Republicans unite in defense of sanity. And we savored an infinitesimal sliver of joy from realizing that Trump has only a 27% chance of winning the election.

Well, that was all great. But the fun times are over.

You see, the GOP will hold its convention next week, complete with smirking teens and gun-toting rich people and conspiracy cranks, all of them wildly enthusiastic about the possibilities of four more years of right-wing deviancy and madness. And this gathering of lunatics will make an impact, because the race will tighten, and we all will be tense as hell until November.

But that’s not the extent of the negative news.

Because even if Trump loses and voluntarily leaves the White House (not a given on either count), the United States is so deep into chaos, so submerged into catastrophe, that Biden will spend his entire term just trying to get us back to where we were  in 2008. On a cultural, social, economic, and political level, we are screwed for the foreseeable future.

Let’s start with our favorite virus, Covid-19, which has killed 170,000 Americans so far and continues to ravage the nation. You might be thinking everything will get back to “normal” as soon as that ruggedly handsome and /or stunningly beautiful scientist holds up a test tube and shouts, “We’ve found the vaccine!”

Well, there are just a few problems with that Hollywood ending.

First, most experts think a vaccine is unlikely to become widely available until mid-2021, at the earliest. Keep in mind that this “would be a huge scientific feat, and there are no guarantees it will work.” Developing a vaccine could, of course, take a lot longer. And rushing the process would only lead to a horrific backfire. Also, there are numerous issues with production, cost, and accessibility when it comes to distributing a vaccine. And finally, because we are Americans, there’s a good chance that anywhere from 30% to 50% of us will refuse to take it. 

So yes, we could easily be years down the road, still fighting this damn bug. That scenario would naturally prolong the economic recovery.

And speaking of the economy, the early talk of a rapid rebound now looks as accurate as those predictions that we would be ditching our cars to buy Segways. No, the economic recovery is going to be long and drawn out, wavering up and down, struggling to take off. The reasons for this include Trump’s botched response to the pandemic, the haphazard methods that the government took to fight the economic meltdown, and the complete lack of guidance on reopening schools. All of these factors have combined to dropkick us into economic calamity.

Also, please note that our last economic disaster under a Republican president (i.e. the Great Recession) was a top-down recession. That is, it hit the wealthy first, then filtered down. For this reason, it was taken more seriously, in that rich people demanded immediate action and got it. This current catastrophe is hitting the poor first and then moving up. And of course, our government doesn’t actually care until the rich donors are suffering, so it will be a while before shit gets real. In the meantime, the housing market will take a hit (sound familiar?), cities will hemorrhage residents, prices will go up, and we will still have massive unemployment and / or parents struggling to work and homeschool their kids simultaneously.

Now, don’t you feel better that the stock market is doing ok?

Meanwhile, on an international level, Trump has damaged America’s standing so badly that we may become permanent laughingstocks. Russia and China are both poised to dominate us. And no self-respecting nation is ever going to enter a treaty with us again.

Back here in America, the conservative judges that Republicans have littered throughout the federal system (including a possible rapist on the Supreme Court) will have us chained to oligarchy for decades.

And finally, please note that our most virulent racists, conspiracy nuts, and homicidal right-wingers have all been emboldened. Do you really think that if Biden wins, they are going to collectively shrug and say, “Guess we were wrong, so we will now go peacefully into the night”? More likely, “if Trump loses and QAnon evolves into a narrative about how a conspiracy of pedophiles won, then it’ll become even more violent than it already is.” And white supremacists will feel even more victimized, with many of them willing to go out in a theoretical blaze of glory.

Basically, the legacy of Trump will not just linger for years, but fester and boil and seep and decay and infect. If everything goes right, it will be years of struggle to climb out of this pit of despair, fear, ignorance, hatred, and paranoia that this man and his sociopathic supporters have flung us into. It may prove to be impossible, leading to a future America where we all wonder, without thinking about it too hard, how everything went wrong.

But on the plus side, Barack Obama gave a pretty good speech the other night.

We met freshman year in high school, and yes, that was a couple of decades ago. She became one of my best friends, not just during the four years of adolescent angst, but through college and the travails of early adulthood. 

Even after moving to separate states, we stayed tight. But eventually, we segued into that maintenance mode of friendship, where you’ve probably had all the adventures you’re going to have with a person, and your continued relationship consists of staying in touch and enjoying the rare times you get together.

And then even that was gone. I had not heard from her in about five years, when last month — abruptly and seemingly at random — she sent me a text. 

Before I tell you the content of that text, let me tell you about my friend. I’ll call her Anna, which is not her real name and is clearly not an anagram.

Anna was one of the first people I ever knew who came out, and she was outspoken in both her defense of gay rights and her condemnation of racism. Overall, she was about as progressive as it gets.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read her text — a hodge-podge of reintroduction — that culminated with the alarming phrase “Trump 2020!”

What the actual fuck?

I ran through the scenarios. Was this a bad joke? A jab to see if I had turned to the dark side? Perhaps a highly improbable typo?

Nothing made sense, so I texted her back and asked, as calmly and politely as I could, just what the hell she meant by that sign-off.

Anna responded with the following text:

“President Trump is the best thing that’s ever happened to our country. I am done with the Democratic Party. All the states and cities that are burning right now are run by Democrats. There’s a darker agenda.”

Ok, so that’s no to the whole idea of a typo.

I responded (again, as peacefully as I could), and asked what she was talking about.

Here was her response:

“Mayors kneeling to a mob of rioters is one clue to this agenda. Antifa, who has done most of the rioting, is funded by George Soros, a far-left puppet/frontman of a shadowy group of international bankers. This group is notorious for bringing countries down from the inside out. Through infiltration instead of invasion. The Democratic Party has also been infiltrated to an astonishing degree, but you probably don’t want to hear about that.”

Well, Anna was right about one thing. I didn’t want to hear crazy anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. I’ve heard enough of them.

So I wished her well and ended our correspondence. The last thing she wrote to me was “Your mayor is a traitor who wants to defund the police,” which is a particularly odd, random, and sad way to finish our friendship. Believe me, when we were 14, I would not have predicted that this exchange — decades later — would be the final word on our relationship. But I highly doubt that I will ever hear from Anna again.

I will never know what happened to Anna. How did an open-minded, kind-hearted liberal morph into a paranoid, delusional conspiracy monger? Did her mind suddenly snap? Or did she just gradually decide to abandon all the principles of the first half of her life? Did someone hypnotize her? Did she decide to give racism a try and liked it? 

Other troubling questions bubble up. Is it a common occurrence for young progressives to turn into bitter reactionaries as they age? If so, is that what happened to the hippies who went to Woodstock who became Trump supporters 50 years later? Could this happen to anyone? Are we all at risk?

I have no answers to any of those questions.

My only hope is that, in later years, when I think of Anna, I will not remember the middle-aged woman furiously texting me bizarre, offensive rants. Instead, I hope that I remember the funny, creative, sweet artist who hung out with me in our youth, when we were close as could be, and when we shared dreams about our bright, limitless future.