Hispanic Fanatic

It took a while, but it has now become clear that the Democrats had a pretty good midterm election.

They took the House, snagged a few governors’ mansions, and made enormous inroads into red states. In essence, if this was a referendum on Trump, it is clear that most of the country is saying, “You suck, Mr. President.”

Of course, one reason for this welcome development is that Latinos — finally and at long last — expressed their anger at the Republican Party the only way that really counts: by voting.

Yes, voting info from several areas with high Latino populations “indicate record participation compared to previous elections, with hopes of building on that success in 2020.”

Furthermore, “early indications are that Hispanic voters came out in historic numbers, and… this made a difference for Democratic candidates.” In addition, “voting data showed tremendous energy among Latino voters; there was an estimated 174 percent increase in Hispanic early voting.”

And if you require more proof that Hispanics were fired up for the midterms, consider that “polling showed that Latino interest in this midterm election matched Presidential year election levels.”

Now, keep in mind that “a large majority of Latinos disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling his job, far more than the general public.” In fact, just 22 percent of Latinos approve of the small-fingered commander in chief, compared with his overall approval rating of 38 percent with the general public.

With numbers like that, it shouldn’t be surprising that many experts say Latino voters, especially young ones, are a key reason that Democrats did so well.

Wow, it’s almost as if Republicans were unwise to have the standard-bearer for their party lacerate, insult, and demean an entire ethnic group — repeatedly — and then expect that group to vote for you.

I mean, who knew?

Another aspect of increased Latino turnout is increased Hispanic representation. In fact, “the new Congress will have a record number of Latino members.”

Of course, it’s worth noting that for Hispanic representation in Congress to truly be proportional, the number of representatives would have to double, and the number of senators would have to quadruple.

So clearly, there is still work to be done.

Good news — the most dangerous hostile force that America ever faced has now been defeated.

That’s right. The infamous immigrant caravan — a bigger threat than the Nazis, the Communists, and Al Qaeda put together — has been destroyed.

I know this is true because the Fox & Friends morning show “used the word ‘caravan’ an average 21 times per episode in the six days prior” to the midterms. Yet that same show “only mentioned the topic once on the day after the election.”

The only logical conclusion is that the immigrant caravan has been turned back… or destroyed… or vanished into thin air — who knows?

The important thing is that we are safe. After all, we’re talking about an invading army here.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: How could a group of impoverished people on foot, presumably unarmed, with absolutely no element of surprise, be a threat to the most powerful nation on Earth, which has built the largest military force in the history of the galaxy? And did we mention that a huge portion of the caravan consists of malnourished children? It’s not exactly an elite killing force that we’re talking about.

Well, that doesn’t matter. Because in the weeks leading to the midterms, many conservatives insisted that these immigrants were a Soros-funded plot to sway the midterms… although it has never been explained exactly how a group of refugees slowly walking toward the border could be remotely beneficial to the Democrats. If anything, the whole story has been a blessing for the Republican Party, which was briefly able to recapture that old xenophobic spirit of 2016 again.

In any case, these refugees — who apparently are going to reintroduce polio while providing cover for Isis agents— have so alarmed our nation’s right-wing overlords that they are spending taxpayer money to send U.S. troops to guard against bedraggled people fleeing for their lives from drug cartels. So we may soon have “up to 15,000 members of the world’s greatest fighting force, sitting in the desert, watching for poor refugees approaching on foot.”

But you see, it has to be this way. Trump supporters have to believe that the immigrant caravan is an invading army. That’s the only way to justify using military force to threaten people who are following U.S. and international law regarding asylum. Otherwise, these right-wingers might be the kind of people who advocate gunning down thousands of unarmed refugees, including children.

And that might make it difficult to sleep at night.

Fortunately for Trumpists, they already have a unique worldview that allows them to believe all kinds of factually inaccurate, conspiratorial, logic-defying propositions, including the following:

“The MAGA bombs were fake (they weren’t). There’s going to be a middle-class tax cut by the end of the year (there isn’t). US steel has opened seven new plants in the US (it hasn’t). The trade tariffs are working (they aren’t). The US is the only country with birthright citizenship (it isn’t).”

To be honest, it must be exhausting to come up with preposterous scenario after preposterous scenario, all designed to reinforce the delusion that Trump knows what he is doing, liberals hate America, scientists are making everything up, and that there is nothing racial about locking Latino kids in cages.

Yes, I have to admit that up until now, I have been empathizing with my fellow progressives, who are weary from the almost daily outrages that cascade from the White House.

But Trump supporters must be even more fatigued, coming up strained explanations, convoluted theories, and secret coded messages that, in the end, add up to no wall on the Mexican border, no locked-up Hillary, and no decrease in the number of pesky minorities in America.

Really, it’s got to be fucking exhausting.

According to certain individuals of a more conservative mindset, this week’s midterms were actually a big win for the Republican Party — so impressive, in fact, that it was“very close to a complete victory.”

Hey, who says the GOP is delusional? Certainly not me.

In any case, the fact is that the Democrats have captured the House, which means they will be able, in theory at least, to launch investigations into the most corrupt administration in history and slow down, if not stop, the freight train of disaster that Trump has sent hurtling toward the American people.

Of course, if they could just protect the Mueller investigation, we would all be pretty happy about that.

The new Congress set to take office in January “is slated to be the most racially diverse in history,” and “record numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and women of color will serve in the next legislative session.”

Within just a few weeks, Congress will be full of young Latinas and Muslims and Native Americans, with some states having the absolute chutzpah to send all-minority delegations. It’s a white nationalist nightmare.

It’s undeniable that this is a major political and cultural development for America. And it has the potential to be a much-needed course correction to our nation’s recent detour into overt xenophobia, fear-based hatemongering, and rambling insanity.

Of course, white supremacists are still getting reelected to Congress, so it’s not all pride flags and wins for la raza.

But for the first time in two horrific years, there is a spark of hope.

One thing I admire about conservatives is their adherence to a narrow set of principles, as well as their political consistency.

Ha, just warming things up with a little joke there, people.

But seriously folks, the GOP, which once believed in “forceful moral leadership of the world, promotion of the free market and fiscal conservatism,” abandoned those silly ideas the second that Trump became president, and conservatives realized that they could pass tax cuts for millionaires and intimidate ethnic minorities, which are, when you think about it, the only things that the Republican Party currently stands for.

And now another supposed GOP value is quite dead. That would be the questionable virtue of demanding a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. You see, our very conservative president “claims he can defy the Constitution and end birthright citizenship.”

I bet you thought something as well-established and bedrock ingrained as the 14^thAmendment could not be altered just because a president signs an executive order. Well, this shows how little you know. Trumpism, which has supplanted conservatism, means that a president can do whatever he wants — as long as he’s a Republican.

In this case,Trump can do away with any pesky Constitutional rights that he dislikes. And the man dislikes nothing more than immigrants, particularly Latino ones.

So that section in the Constitution that says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”? Yeah, he can just end it with the stroke of a pen and, if he likes, the snap of his tiny fingers.

And who knows — he just might get his buddies on the Supreme Court (at least one of whom apparently owes him one) to uphold his dictatorial edicts.

Of course, Trump’s promise to end birthright citizenship most likely reflects his complete ignorance — and total indifference — to the laws of this nation. And it has even less chance of happening than his idiotic wall does of being built.

One more time: there will be no wall constructed on the Mexican border.

However, Trump’s offhand musings about crushing our legal system and throwing the entire citizenship process into absolute chaos are really designed to fire up his base. It is “about the midterm elections and the desire of the president and his team to change the channel, grab the news cycle by the throat and talk about immigration rather than the domestic terrorism that we’ve seen in the last week.”

Yes, if there is one thing that will convince an elderly bigot to pull the lever for the Republicans again, it is the idea that no more Hispanics will become citizens, ever ever ever.

The fact that Trump’s ramblings are “a pure political stunt” that is “offensive, deeply troubling, racist, and unconstitutional” is of little concern to a voter who views Latino newborns “not as a source for society’s renewal but as threats.”

And even though that voter could most likely not even pass the U.S. citizenship test himself, he will still support a decrepit, unhinged political movement that can offer nothing but fear, hatred, denial, and a dark, pessimistic view of our changing world.

As you know, the Democrats are poised to win 5,698 congressional seats (more or less) next month, and there is nothing on Earth that can stop the vengeful cleansing of the mighty Blue Wave.

Well, there is one thing: maybe the Democrats won’t get enough votes.

How can that be?

You are correct to ask such a seemingly naïve question.

After all, for months now, just about every analysis has shown that Democrats are heavily favored to win back the House, and maybe even snag the Senate while they’re at it. In addition, while the president’s approval rating has improved from “abysmal” to “very bad,” this is not enough of a turnaround to cause the GOP to swell with confidence.

However, while “Democratic voters are revved up for November. There is one exception to that rule: Latinos.”

Yes, my fellow Hispanics don’t seem terribly enthusiastic about the midterms. On the one hand, this is difficult to comprehend. After all, what more proof do we Latinos need that Trump, if he had his way, would deport every person whose last name ends in Z and/or seems just a little too tan? And let’s face it, the rest of the GOP is clearly not enthralled with us as well.

But there are multiple reasons why so many Latinos are poised to perform that most American of behaviors (i.e., skipping election day).

For starters, the Democratic outreach toward Latinos has been pathetic. Regardless of whether Democrats are ignorant, incompetent, or possess a misguided feeling that everything is in the bag, they have sucked at talking to Hispanic voters. In fact, “nationally,55 percent of Latinos said they have not yet been contacted by a political campaign this year.”

In addition, many Latino voters say “they felt disempowered rather than emboldened; they expressed feelings of cynicism, apathy and fear fueled by the highly fraught political moment.”

OK, that makes sense.

Another fact is that Hispanics are younger than other demographics. And it’s well established that young people like, totally space on, like, voting, you know…

Add it all up, and it becomes apparent that we are not talking about a sleeping giant. No, this is a hibernating, heavily medicated goliath who is so deeply zoned-out that he’s practically in a coma.

What will it take to snap him out of his stupor?

As our illustrious leader has informed us, these are dangerous times for men… particularly white ones… particularly straight, rich, conservative ones…

Yeah, that’s right. It’s an absolute horror show for privileged males today.

Of course, common sense and a basic understanding of math reveals that the odds that an American women will be raped in her lifetime is about 1 in 6, while the odds that an American man will be accused of rape is way, way, way lower. And the odds that an American man will be falsely accused is lower still.

So why — besides Trump’s nauseating predilection for misogyny — is the president advocating for the plight of men?

Well, there is a long history of the most powerful among us presenting themselves as the real victims. It is an effective method for retaining control, even if the hypocrisy and blatant mendacity of the tactic make it apparent to anyone who is the slightest bit non-partisan and/or has the cognitive ability of a ten-year-old.

In any case, this approach goes beyond simple sexism. It is at the core of the whole battle against the nefarious forces of political correctness, which an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans think is a problem in our country.

I’ve written before about how calling something PC is usually shorthand for dismissing the concerns of marginalized groups, and how there is nothing the slightest bit edgy about being non-PC, an ambiguous standard that often signifies a high level of fear and loathing about our changing society.

But is PC a legitimate concern, or is it just an overblown attempt by conservatives to claim victimhood and, in this way, their own political “safe spaces”?

Well, I don’t know of any scientific studies that have analyzed the toxic effects of political correctness. So we’re reduced to looking at anecdotal evidence.

For example, many white people have been caught on tape accosting black people who are minding their own business and posing no threat. Some of these paranoid individuals have been fired or publicly shamed for their actions. Now, let’s assume that it is mere political correctness to call out a white person for, say, calling the copson an African American who is watching his kid play soccer.

I would call it being a bigoted asshole, but let’s go with the right-wing definition, and say that it’s PC to fire someone for preventing a black man from entering his own apartment.

In that case, yes, I guess you could say that PC has harmed a handful of Americans. But for the most part, this is only when aggressive jerks display extremely prejudicial behavior that happens to be caught on video. Otherwise, they can just go around chanting, “Jews will not replace us” and cracking racist jokes with impunity.

Clearly, PC is a bit toothless if that is the extent of its cultural power.

Now let’s look at the other side.

Have there been examples of liberals — you know, the PC people — who have been bullied into submission?

Well, there is theblack Vermont lawmaker who “first suspended her re-election campaign before resigning altogether from her post following racist attacks against her and her family.” That’s correct — bigoted trolls attacked an elected representative, and PC did not come to her rescue. In fact, the alt-right abusers got their way.

And then there iswriter Chuck Wendig, who has been the object of many online attacks from conservatives. Wendig was fired from Marvel “after posting a number of explicit tweets attacking Republicans and the GOP over the confirmation of Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.”

Once again, the alt-right suffered no consequences for their fusillade on Wendig, who said that his firing “is really quite chilling,” leaving him “very sad, and worried for the country I live in, and the world.”

Why didn’t PC, with its monumental powers, prevent Wendig from losing his job? And why are his alt-right attackers, rather than being chastened, now overjoyed with yet another victory?

That’s because it is the alt-right that is punishing people for their language and opinions, not the so-called PC police. And it is the Republican Party that is cultivating this surrealistic environment, in that they cry about their oppression and issue a “call for civility as the PA GOP candidate threatens [his opponent] with a golf cleat stomping.”

No, a black lawmaker can lose her job due to alt-right attacks. But a white man who may have committed a felony can get belligerent and still nab a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Clearly, it doesn’t sound like privileged white men are suffering too much under the hideous yoke of political correctness.

In fact, I’m tempted to say that much of the whining about America being too PC is just another pathetic, knee-jerk reaction from unimaginative, self-righteous hypocrites.

But I don’t want to offend anyone.

Now that we’ve gone almost a full week without any bizarre allegations or devastating accusations erupting from the White House, we can turn our attention to other illuminating facts about life in Trump’s America.

For example, here’s a fun fact: Did you now that around 11 million white Americans are basically Nazis?

Hmm, I guess that is less a “fun fact” and more of a “holy shit, what the hell is going on” kind of statistic.

But it is, unfortunately, true. A recent study implies that “whether or not they would describe themselves as alt-right,” about 6 percent of white Americans “share the movement’s belief in a politics that promotes white interests above those of other racial groups.”

What this means, statistically, is that if you gather together 100 white Americans, about a half-dozen of them will say, “You know, Hitler had some good ideas.”

Now, for some time now, we’ve been hearing that alt-right goons are a tiny fringe group making a lot of noise. Certainly, there’s mo more than a few thousand zealots out there — right?

Well, no.

Because this study shows that white supremacist ideas “are more popular than it might seem. Large numbers of people think the way that they do, and shape their political identity around a sense of white grievance and identity.”

In case you think the researchers are inflating their numbers, keep in mind that the study took pains to exclude plain old racists and borderline bigots from the final analysis. The study honed in on those who are at the top of the hate pyramid, people who supported the tiki-wielding assholes in Charlottesville last year, even if they never said it out loud.

As the researchers pointed out, such individuals “may not march around the streets yelling, ‘Jews will not replace us!’ but they are extremely receptive to a politics that positions whites as victims and a growing minority population as an existential threat.”

By the way, that figure of 11 million Americans is roughly equivalent to the populations of New York City (8.5 million) and Chicago (2.7 million) combined. It also means there are enough neo-Nazis in this country to fill the entire state of Georgia (the eighth largest state), with a few leftover.

And in a truly ironic twist, there are potentially more alt-right supporters in this nation than undocumented immigrants.

Again, the study focused on hardcore white supremacy. So the percentage of white Americans who are at least a little racist is even bigger.

For example, you might be amused to know that almost 40 percent of white Republicans have personally used the n-word in the past five years. Again, that’s not “have you ever used the n-word in your life?” That’s just within the past five years.

But don’t worry, just 27 percent of white Republicans think using the n-word is acceptable… wait, shouldn’t that be 0 percent?

In any case, these findings fit “with a larger body of work finding a sea change” in the Democratic Party’s attitudes toward race “without any corresponding movement on the Republican side.”

Basically, a lot of white Americans — Republicans in particular — truly think there are good people on both sides.

One thing I don’t understand:

Why would anyone jump on Twitter and post a racial slur or homophobic tirade?

What is the upside? You rile up a dozen of your followers for 30 seconds?

Because the downside is that you look like a total fucking asshole to millions of people years from now, when your idiotic tweets are uncovered, and your career is threatened and your reputation is ruined.

That is a really bad return on investment.

Recently, major league baseball has had to deal with the fallout of several of its players who have had their old bigoted tweets unearthed.

Among them is reliever Josh Hader, an All-Star who pitches for my hometown Milwaukee Brewers.

Hader, like his fellow misguided tweeters, has apologized profusely for his words and insisted that his hateful outbursts are not indicative of who he is today.

OK, sure. Let’s go ahead and give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He was a dick when he was a teenager, but now he’s older and wiser, and not a racist jerk.

But this issue goes beyond a couple of pitchers who may or may not have issues with ethnic minorities.

You see, when Hader took the mound in Milwaukee for the first time after his apology, Brewers fans gave him a standing ovation.

I can’t be the only one who found that distasteful. I’d like to think that most of my fellow fans were just trying to be supportive of Hader’s quest for redemption.

But I also know my hometown. Milwaukee has long had problematic racial issues, even by the problematic standards of the USA.

I can’t help but think that some of those fans were cheering for Hader because he wasn’t “politically correct” or because they wanted to stick it to the libs or some bizarre motivation like that. And some of them, unfortunately, were cheering for Hader’s original tweets and wanted to indicate that he nothing to apologize for.

If that sounds paranoid or accusatory, let’s try a thought experiment.

Imagine that Lorenzo Cain, also a Milwaukee Brewer and also an All-Star, had old tweets surface in which he denigrated people of a different race. The catch (and I’m sure you saw it coming) is that Cain is African American, and let’s pretend that he slurred white people.

In such a scenario, it’s difficult to“imagine thousands of white fans rising to their feet and giving him a standing ovation, even after he apologizes and blames youthful indiscretion.”

It’s not just about my hometown, of course. You see,  “baseball has the oldest (average age of an MLB viewer in 2016: 57) and one of the whitest (83 percent in 2013) viewerships of any major American sport.”

It means that baseball — despite its prominence in Latino culture — has a fan base that is more likely to be both more socially conservative and more forgiving of white athletes who screw up.

And this means that young white fireballers who tweet vile things are more likely to get standing o’s, whether they are deserved or not.

By the way, I do indeed have a Twitter account. You can check it out here.

Go ahead and dig around. You won’t find any racist tweets.

After much deliberation, President Trump has narrowed down his list of white, right-wing judges and came up with Brett Kavanaugh, who is most likely headed for a seat on the Supreme Court.

As we know, Mitch McConnell basically stole one seat on the Supreme Court, and with Kavanaugh’s confirmation, we will be looking at a solid majority of reactionary justices who will rule over the nation for decades to come.

Yes, anywhere from a few weeks to a few years from now, Trump will no longer be president, and his name will be fully ensconced on the short list of presidential abominations like Buchanan, Harding, Nixon, and Bush 2.

However, even then, we will still have to live under the rulings of out-of-touch conservatives and people who long for the 1950s.

Many Republicans held their noses and voted for Trump because they wanted the GOP to load up the Supreme Court with its kind of judges. They got their wish, of course, so maybe they will finally be happy and stop feeling so persecuted and perpetually furious (note: not very likely).

Of course, those Republicans who know Trump is a disaster will say that his judicial choices justify their backing. To be fair, it is quite a bargain. The GOP gets its agenda advanced, and all it costs America is the loss of our values and our standing in the world. Oh, and every ethnic minority, gay person, and immigrant now feels the icy grip of fear constantly, and there will most likely be some kind of economic disaster soon. But hey, it all evens out — right?

However, if the establishment GOP is happy, what about those fabled working-class conservatives who propelled Trump to victory?

After all, we heard stories of “economically anxious” farmers and unemployed factory workers who wanted to shake up the system, and while they were at it, maybe get their small town’s opioid crisis under control.

It’s hard to believe that these hardscrabble folk feel vindicated because, for example, the Supreme Court has “sided against workers’ rights in an important arbitration case.” Is that really what they wanted?

Along those lines, keep in mind that only 29% of Americans want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Yet 46% of voters picked Trump.

That’s at least a 17-point gap in reality.

Of course, we should know by now that many people didn’t vote for Trump because of an allegiance to GOP goals. They voted for him because he shared their hostility toward foreigners and swarthy people. Maybe they were unemployed coal miners, or maybe they were rich Manhattan lawyers. The only thing they had in common was that they never — and I mean, never — wanted to hear Spanish.

And today, a lot of those heartland conservatives see their precious leader screwing them over because of some insane drive to start a trade war. Or their tiny town is exactly as messed up as it was two years ago, with no signs of help from the Trump Administration.

And yet they continue to pledge their eternal loyalty to him. And they will continue to support an agenda that is focused on making rich people richer. And their pain will never end. But of course, they will blame the liberals for that, and the cycle will continue.

By the way, assuming that Kavanaughis confirmed, four of the last six Supreme Court justices will have been appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote.

That, apparently, is democracy.

Fortunately, the United States has survived the insidious plot of liberals to instigate a second civil war, and we all enjoyed Independence Day without bloodshed — well, without any more bloodshed than usual, because after all, we are Americans here.

In any case, everybody is talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Latina who defeated a 10-term Democrat in the primary election for a House seat in New York.She was a bartender a year ago, but now she’s headed to Congress.

Ocasio-Cortezis young, educated, female, and of course, Hispanic. As we all know, none of those four traits line up well with the GOP. So put them all together, and it’s possible that Republicans will burst into flames if they enter the same room as her.

Now, we heard a lot about voters in New York wanting a representative who “looks a lot more like the constituents in the very diverse district” than the “56-year-old white man” who has been in Congress forever.

That’s true, of course, which seems to bother people if we’re talking about Latinos or black people. After all, ethnic minorities are supposed to shun “identity politics.” But white evangelicals, for example, can offer record support to loudmouthed moron who shares none of their values, and it certainly can’t have anything to do with their shared race — nope.

Regardless, demographics were an important factor in Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, which is all fine and good. Butkeep in mind that Ocasio-Cortez also won in neighborhoods that were not heavily Latino, implying that her progressive ideas won over lots of people who don’t have a z in their names.

One could argue that in addition to proving the electoral potential of Latinas, her win “proves that people are ready to move away from out-of-touch, establishment Democrats.”

But of course, they wouldn’t be establishment Democrats if they weren’t hand wringing nonstop. We’re hearing from many liberals that electing bona fide progressives is impossible, and candidates like Ocasio-Cortez will turn off independent voters. Their thinking is that it’s better to play it safe and go with moderate, establishment candidates because that has so worked so well…

No really — that is their thinking.

Those of us who are progressive might mention that moderate Democrats have jack-shit to show for their timidity, and giving the people more Hillary Clinton clones is the essence of head-in-the-sand denial and the surest path to irrelevance.

Much of this attitude comes from the skittish nature of the Democratic Party, combined with its incredible talent for fucking things up and losing elections that it should win in a damn landslide.

But most it is because the Democratic Party remains enamored of the white working class — even though the WWC has made it perfectly clear that it is all in on Trump. Moderate Democrats keep insisting — despite mountains of statistical data and acres of anecdotal evidence — that if they avoid saying the word “liberal,” long enough, millions of Trump voters will suddenly abandon their hatred of Latinos and Muslims and immigrants in favor of… what exactly… expanding Medicare?

It’s interesting to note that Republicans don’t concern themselves with appealing to moderates, and they keep winning elections, despite the fact that most of America hates their agenda. Yes, conservatives can nominate a lunatic right-wing child molester and still almost win. Clearly, they play to their base, and they freely insult anyone who doesn’t agree with them, while Democrats flail pathetically and shriek, “Why don’t you like us? Pretty please?”

And speaking of agenda items, keep in mind that most of Ocasio-Cortez’s supposedly radical philosophy consists of ideas that most Americans approve of.

Still, it hasn’t stopped conservatives for attacking her for being a socialist (that’s Democratic Socialist to you) and for wanting to give all our money to gay terrorist undocumented immigrants and for, I don’t know, living in a house or something. Who can tell anymore with all the insanity from the Republican Party?

The bottom line is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be the future of the Democratic Party.

Well, it’s either her or 78-year-old Nancy Pelosi.

Hey, I know who I’m betting on.