Hispanic Fanatic

We live under the cultural delusion that for an idea or movement to catch on, it must be a good one. But examine the evidence. Do you really think daylight savings time is a good idea? Do you truly believe that Creed deserved to sell 27 million albums? Are you out there clamoring for more Transformers movies?

No, plenty of bad ideas become popular. That is perhaps no more evident (or alarming) than when we look at the Republican Party.

In previous decades, the GOP was a mishmash of smug libertarians, rich jerks, and uptight Christians. They were unpleasant but semi-reasonable. The psychotically fringe members of their party were tolerated but remained off-stage.

All that changed a few years ago when one bloviating billionaire demanded absolute loyalty and molded the party into a twisted reflection of his own black-hearted soul.

So today, we have neo-Nazis (as in literal, actual Nazis) openly mingling at a recent conservative gathering, shouting antisemitic conspiracy theories and offering “heil Hitler-style salutes in the lobby of the hotel where the conference took place [while] other members of the group reportedly used the N-word.” No, they were not asked to leave.

This Republican embrace of fascist ideology has cascaded into other corners of the GOP, so that today “conservatives have become more vocal in support of armed vigilante and militia groups that share their draconian and oftentimes illiberal view of criminal justice.” In many parts of the country, Republicans are creating armed militias that “operate as a de facto police force,” accelerating the conservative movement’s “troubling infatuation with vigilantes and other civilian forces that are even less accountable and subject to oversight than ordinary police.”

Meanwhile, when conservatives are not screaming in nationally televised speeches that all Democrats are pedophiles and pure evil, they are pledging undying allegiance to a man who sociopathy has contaminated the entire nation.

Republicans have made it quite clear that they are willing to destroy American democracy in “a misguided approach to trying to appease a dictator” who cannot be appeased. This is “a profound rejection” of the idea that “we all are created equal and have a right to a say in our government,” which are “principles so fundamental to human self-determination” that thousands of Americans “have given their lives for them.”

And they are doing this just to curry favor with a lunatic. At least people in traditionally autocratic regimes cower because of the threat of going to jail or getting shot. But for these spineless Republicans, “it is loss of office or reputations that are at stake,” which is “the saddest part” of this capitulation. 

Imagine selling your soul for so little.

Yes, we could have done this months ago. And yes, Trump can still win.

But for the first time in this election cycle, Democrats are feeling a little jaunty, a little hopeful, and slightly less terrified.

We have no idea if Kamala Harris will defeat the third incarnation of Trumpian fury. However, it was clear that Biden wasn’t going to win. His supporters could never explain how a guy who had been trailing in the polls for months, coming off the worst debate performance in history, and getting older by the second, was going to suddenly surge to victory. Who the hell was he going to persuade at this point?

By stepping aside, however, Biden has become a revered figure, the courageous leader, even “the Democratic party’s Yoda, and no one ever complained about Yoda’s wrinkles, age, ponderous pauses, or bizarre speech patterns.”

The GOP knows this. Witness their idiotic threats to somehow force Biden to stay on the ballot. They are shitting themselves in fear because suddenly they are the ones saddled with an ancient, rambling, incoherent candidate who “looks older and more deranged” than any presidential nominee in history.

Biden “understood his limitations and, in an act of patriotism, selflessness, and party unity, decided to step away from power,” while Trump is a doddering lunatic “clinging to power, holding on desperately to the myth of a lost election, evoking the same predictable descriptions of carnage and disaster he served up eight years ago.”

Trump will no doubt rant about Harris and make up whacked-out lies about her. He will throw racist and misogynistic insults her way while his handlers insist for the 10,839^th time that he didn’t mean what he clearly said. He will threaten and prophesize and whine. He will babble nonstop in a jumbled cacophony of illogic and garbled syntax. 

And the rest of us will witness this sad display, and with hope, we will give it the only response that it warrants:

Just shut up already, old man.

An inch to one side, and he is unscathed. A couple of inches to the other side, and he’s a dead man. A few inches lower, and he’s seriously injured and off the campaign trail for a while.

But no, that shot had to nick him so precisely, so exactly, that he could claim a war wound but still be back on the golf course the next day. 

He could wave his fist around, blood on his face, with the American flag fluttering in the background in an image guaranteed to sway a million voters who base their decisions on random feelings and gut reactions. 

He could escape injury while his followers get killed. 

He could claim that he took a bullet for America when all he really did was take a bullet from a white male Republican lunatic opening fire with a legally purchased AR-15. 

No one who gets shot at benefits from the experience, except this guy.

It is astronomical how that bullet had to nip his ear but not actually harm him. How the slug had to cause just enough blood to flow that he could use the incident to boost fundraising. We’re talking millimeters that could decide an election.

Of course, he’s always been lucky. He was born a millionaire, for starters. And who else goes bankrupt multiple times, displays the morals of an alley cat, and spews idiotic lies and pathetic excuses nonstop, only to become more popular with each deranged act or massive failure?

Who else violates several federal laws in a blatant mockery of our system of classified information, but then gets the case against him dismissed because of a motherfucking footnote?

This election was “already shaping up as a symbolic contest between an elderly and weakening liberalism too frail and uncertain to protect itself and an authoritarian, reactionary movement ready to burst every barrier and trash every institution.”

Now, it looks like it will be a referendum on just how vile, incompetent, and cataclysmic one man can be without any comeuppance or hint of karma. 

The only person who might be luckier is some politically inexperienced buffoon who parlayed his hillbilly upbringing into a brand, sold out his semi-moderate values to fall into line with right-wing insanity, and is poised to become president if a certain obese septuagenarian wins an election but then suffers a fatal heart attack or chokes on a cheeseburger in two years.

Yeah, these guys have used up all the good luck for the entire country.

Recently, I wrote about the business leaders who see Trump as a threat to the economy and, by extension, to their company’s bottom line (and isn’t that what really matters?).

However, other business execs are pretty chill about the possibility that a man who doesn’t understand basic financial principles and is prone to reckless, impulsive decisions might be in charge of the world’s largest economy.

At the Davos conference, where the richest of the rich gather to hobnob and cavort, many business leaders said the media has exaggerated “the threat of a Trump presidency,” insisted that the GOP nominee is “all bark and no bite’” and implied that “many of his policies were right.”

This shows how in touch these supposedly brilliant leaders are. If anything, the media has downplayed the potential catastrophe of a second Trump administration. An unrepentant authoritarian who instigated an insurrection is clearly not “all bark.” And Trump’s policies led to economic disaster.

But none of that has stopped billionaires from lining up to help the Republican Party. And really, if you can’t trust billionaires to do what’s right, who can you trust?

However, people “still operating under the impression that they will curry favor with a dictator are painfully unaware of how dictators actually operate.” If Trump comes back for round two, he “will use the power of the state to squeeze the wealthy as well as his political opponents, threatening them with investigations, audits, regulation—even criminal charges—unless they do as they are told.” 

It doesn’t matter if you donate a gajillion dollars to his campaign. A megalomanic focuses only on what you can do for him at that moment, and while demanding complete loyalty, he offers none in return. 

And when you have outlived your usefulness, or have been perceived as a threat, you will face the same fate as his enemies that you helped vaniquish.

And his followers have adopted this mindset. For example, let’s say that you are fervent Trump supporter living in a red state. You might think you are safe from MAGA rage. Unfortunately, all it takes is one misstep, such as acknowledging basic facts, to provoke your former allies into calling for your head.

Or perhaps you are a well-regarded conservative, someone whose GOP credentials cannot be denied. It doesn’t matter. If you say or do anything that The Leader doesn’t like, or that his flunkies find suspicious, you will be harassed, mocked, maligned, and threatened, with actual physical violence a real possibility.

Now, there is a reason why Trump’s most fervent admirers are white straight men. As the ultimate white straight guy with underserved power, Trump tells them that they are entitled to the disproportionate amount of influence they have in this country. They want to keep it that way, and they believe Trump will preserve their status. To some degree, they are correct. It’s not like Trump is going to promote the rights of black lesbians or Muslim immigrants.

But ultimately, if Trump fanatics of any color or gender think their authoritarian overlord will protect them, they are massively mistaken. He will protect himself, and beware anyone who gets in his way.

History shows that eventually, even cult members and party favorites make a mistake, and it doesn’t end well for them.

Sooner or later, the dictator comes for you.

It’s a very special Independence Day this year, because it will be our last.

You see, the Supreme Court has ruled that the president is a king, and can pretty much do whatever he wants (even assassinate his political rivals, theoretically) without fear of being stopped or punished.

Also, the Supreme Court has ruled that bribery is legal, federal agencies have no actual authority, and homeless people can be thrown in prison if they are inconvenient. So the justices had a busy week of right-winging it.

The counter to this unprecedented push into authoritarianism is a disorganized, freaked-out Democratic Party that even under the best of circumstances has proven itself unable to fight back against fire-breathing Republicans. It doesn’t help that the Democratic flagbearer has trouble staying awake past 4:00 pm.

Meanwhile, American voters are more predisposed than ever to choose an aspiring dictator for their leader because the other guy stutters. 

So yes, this might be it for American democracy. I plan to relax, barbeque in the backyard, and have a few beers this weekend. After all, by next July, I might be running for my life from jackbooted thugs who are rounding up dark-skinned people who are insufficiently Christian.

Happy Independence Day everybody!

As we all know, no institution is more radically progressive, left-wing, and woke than Moody’s Analytics. Sure, they conduct objective analyses and offer insights to businesses about financial risks, but the facts have a well-known liberal agenda, and helping major corporations navigate issues is just the kind of thing that a lefty would do.

Yes, I’m spewing nonsense, but I’m trying to help our Republican friends figure out how to denigrate and dismiss the latest report from a respected, conservative institution that their presidential nominee’s economic policies are idiotic beyond restoration.

You see, Moody’s Analytics recently compared the economic promises of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The study concluded that “a second Biden presidency would see cooling inflation and continued economic growth [while] a Trump presidency would be an economic disaster.”

How can this be? Polls show that more Americans trust Trump on economic policy, and a majority view the Trump years as successful. Well, on the first point, Republicans have never (as in never never never) been better at handling the economy than Democrats. And on the second point, Trump left office with the economy in a crater and fewer jobs than he started with. So maybe Americans don’t know what they’re talking about on this topic.

According to Moody’s Analytics, the convicted felon who fronts the GOP has promised to slash taxes on the wealthy, increase tariffs across the board, and deport 11 million immigrant workers. These policies would trigger a recession by mid-2025, increase the costs of consumer goods, boost inflation, eliminate over 3 million jobs, increase the unemployment rate, and add trillions to the national debt.

What’s not to love about that?

The chief economist of Moody’s Analytics said, rather plainly, that “Biden’s policies are better for the economy.”  

I told you they were left wing.

But if you still want to dismiss this report as liberal fear-mongering, consider that studies show that Trump “continues to suffer from the lowest level of corporate support in the history of the Republican Party,” despite the fact that an estimated 60 to 70 percent of chief executives are registered Republicans. It’s almost like these guys, who live for tax cuts and prize the bottom line over everything, are recognizing that enacting the half-baked notions of an addled criminal with multiple bankruptcies is a little disconcerting for business.

According to the historian Heather Richardson, the GOP is made up of “MAGA extremists and junior varsity opportunists” who are waving “red flags to business leaders.”

To be clear, these fat-cat execs don’t give a damn about wealth inequality, the rights of ethnic minorities, or democracy. But they do care about money. And if even these guys are shouting, “Don’t vote for this lunatic or the economy will collapse,” maybe we should pay attention.

Oh, and sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists have signed a joint letter stating that “Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s” and that GOP proposals are “fiscally irresponsible.”

 But none of those guys are stable geniuses, are they?

Here’s an interesting statistic for you: 

When pollsters asked Republicans in April whether someone convicted of a felony should be allowed to be president, just 17% said yes. But when the same pollsters asked Republicans the same question this month, 58% said yes.

That’s a 41-point swing, from fringe idea to majority opinion, in mere weeks. I wonder what happened in the time between the question being asked again. Yeah, that’s a stumper.

I also wonder how anyone can say with a straight face that Republicans are a serious political party with ironclad principles. Maybe next you’ll tell me that they are not in a cult.

In any case, I will be offline next week, but I will resume posting the following week. Until then, make sure that nothing interesting happens because I don’t want to miss it.

Thanks

What more can we say?

We have the first ex-president to be convicted of a felony (or 34 of them, as the case may be).

We have the first convicted criminal to run for president under the banner of a major political party.

We have that political party, which long championed “law and order,” now saying law and order is no big thing, or more likely, doesn’t apply to them.

We have religious conservatives, who want us all to worship Jesus or have our citizenship stripped, lining up to proclaim the holiness of a man who paid a porn star to keep quiet about his infidelity to his third wife.

We have half of Congress insisting that Americans can no longer trust the courts, the electoral process, or any political institution that doesn’t align with the whims of their jabbering, addled messiah.

We have conservatives who told us that “This should be decided at the ballot box” then when the voters decided, changed it to “If he broke any laws, let a jury decide,” then after a jury decided, changed it to “This should be decided at the ballot box” in a circle of mesmerizing gaslighting.

We have people who don’t even know what the charges were screaming that he is innocent of whatever they charged him with, while conservatives who know the law perfectly well proclaim that the law is not what it actually is.

We have a man who “has spent decades on the edge of legal trouble,” whose life goals consist of delaying legal problems for as long as possible in the assumption that he could ride it out, who has finally been judged a criminal.

And we have pollsters telling us that this, like every development under the sun, will inevitably be bad news for Democrats.

We have all this and more.

And we have nine undecided voters in swing states who have actually changed their minds.

Hey, it’s something.

He’s not Hitler. More like Mussolini.

The cult of personality is the same, as is the fetishization of power. But Trump isn’t planning a genocide, at least not yet.

Should that make you feel better?

We all know that Trump is a wannabe fascist. Every journalist, political science professor, and economist knows it. Every progressive knows it. Just about every conservative — at least the honest ones — knows it.

And his base — those most ardent of his fans and followers — absolutely knows it and love him for it.

Consider that a second Trump administration would create an “imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.”

Among his goals are the following:

A deportation program, including massive detention camps, that would remove 11 million people from the country.

The deployment of the U.S. military on American soil.

The monitoring of women’s pregnancies.

The prosecution of women who violate abortion bans. 

The withholding of congressional funds at his whim.

The politicization of the Justice Department.

The gutting of the U.S. civil service.

The staffing of the executive branch with yes-men. 

A refusal to help ally countries if they are attacked.

The pardoning of every January 6 rioter.

If you look at that list and fail to see the authoritarianism, then I can’t help you.

Keep in mind that the lunacy has infected all three branches of government. Congress is shut down because Trump’s toadies refuse to let it govern. And the Supreme Court is considering “absurdist presidential immunity questions for the first time in centuries because it’s the first time we’ve had a president who was this much of a criminal and such an existential threat to democracy.”

Some will tell you that Trump has fooled millions of voters. They say he has gotten this far because so many Americans are idiotic, delusional, or tuned out. That’s true of course.

But in addition to the feeble-minded and the insane, Trump’s hardcore fans include those who know what he’s proposing and are all for it.

The fact is that “for many Americans, a turn toward authoritarianism isn’t seen as a negative.” Many Americans support the idea.

Political scientists estimate that about one-fifth of Americans are “highly disposed to authoritarianism.” Among Republicans, “support for authoritarian tendencies” is a key indicator of support for Trump. Surveys show that about one out of every seven Americans admits that Trump doesn’t respect the rule of law but still want him to be president.

If you add it all up, “roughly 40 percent of Americans tend to favor authority, obedience, and uniformity over freedom, independence and diversity.”

These numbers have led experts to conclude that “the reason Trump is doing well in the polls … is not simply that people are unfamiliar with his stated authoritarian intentions should he be inaugurated in January 2025.” The reason is that “a lot of people support those intentions.”

Indeed, when asked if his psychotic ideas would turn off voters, and why so “many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles,” Trump insists, “I think a lot of people like it.”

Well, he’s finally right about something.

Ok, I am not going to focus on whether the symbol of manly strength to millions of insecure right-wingers is, in fact, nothing more than an old, obese, flatulent moron prone to dozing off in public.

He is all those things, and those descriptors are among his more flattering characteristics.

Trump’s criminal trial may be the only of his myriad legal proceedings that occurs before the election, and it is the least important one. Still, many Americans are going to base their presidential vote on whether a jury believes that paying off a porn star from corporate funds is a bad look. After all the disaster, corruption, and death that the Trump administration instigated, this is the deal breaker for many people.

Hey, whatever works to get you on the right side of history. Many of these indecisive voters are likely the people who insist that “the country was really running smooth” [sic] back when a pandemic killed thousands of us weekly, people were rioting in the streets, and the international community was openly mocking America.

Those who are nostalgic for the Trump years believe that the economy was booming back then. This is despite clear evidence that the economy is doing much better now under Biden, and Trump’s economic record was decent only if you leave off what happened in the last year of his administration.

This is like saying, “My team had a slight lead into the third quarter of the Super Bowl, so ignore the fact they gave up five touchdowns in the last quarter. They won!”

In any case, if this trial sways just a handful of swing-state voters, we can all thank Stormy Daniels for her service to democracy.

But please don’t tell me how you plan to express your appreciation. I can only imagine.