Hispanic Fanatic

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.

Back in November 2016, when our national nightmare was just beginning, media outlets shouted over each other that racism had absolutely, positively nothing to do with the fact that millions of angry white people had voted for a bigot.

It was just a coincidence.

Well, you’ll be happy to know that media outlets have learned their lesson, accepted reality, and are now reporting the unpleasant veracity that racism is a powerful motivator for Trump supporters.

Ha — no, they are still grasping for excuses, denying the obvious truth that bigotry remains a selling point for the GOP.

You see, the New York Times recently rehashed the 2016 election, and their writers acknowledged the myriad studies that showed Trump supporters were more likely to hold racist views. The Times journalists then stated that they “never found this argument to be persuasive.”

Doubling down on their disdain, the Times stated that the “racial resentment argument doesn’t look merely questionable. It looks wrong.”

So there you have it. The Times is not convinced. 

This is the same paper, of course, that was completely convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But the implication that much of Trump’s base has an issue with black people and Latinos? How gauche!

The Times rationalizes their bizarre opinion by asserting that liberals insisted that all of Trump’s supporters were racist. In actuality, liberals pointed out that there were other factors for Trump’s victory — including conservatives’ strange love of authoritarianism — and never said bigotry was 100% the reason. 

But the Times sniffs, “Yes, you did,” and goes on to point out that Trump’s popularity has risen among ethnic minorities, so therefore, racism could not possibly be, you know, a real thing.

How does one approach this smug denial? How do we argue with such impervious delusion?

If I said that Led Zeppelin was a hard-rockin’ band, the Times would say, “I’m not convinced that’s true.” They would point out that Led Zep also created ballads and acoustic numbers. Ergo, I’m lying.

I could point to Black Dog or Communication Breakdown or Immigrant Song or Nobody’s Fault But Mine and dozens of other rockers. And the Times would say, “Doesn’t prove a thing.”

Any Zeppelin fan would tell you that analysis of this type is bullshit. And they would also point out that Physical Graffiti is their best album, but I digress.

The Times’ dismissal of data, common sense, and Republicans’ own words has a simple motivation. It is simply too painful to admit that millions of Americans are unabashed bigots. It’s much more comforting to insist, as the Times does, that Trump’s “populism is skeptical of elites, political correctness, high levels of immigration and other forms of globalization.”

Yeah, that skepticism sometimes takes the form of razor wire across the Rio Grande, but are you going to call that racism? Come on, give the right-wing base a break.

The Times kicks around the “old racial-resentment story about Trump’s victory” by telling us that the “working-class group of Americans who have soured on mainstream politics and modern liberalism are not all hateful and ignorant.” According to the Times, these poor souls “are frustrated.”

To which I say, “Who isn’t?” Furthermore, I would like to know why frustration is an excuse to vote for racism. 

But I’m sure the New York Times would say I’m exaggerating.

I spent much of the last month analyzing, criticizing, and ruminating on my generation (Gen X). I came to a rather depressing conclusion, which is that too many of us — especially the white guys — are turning into baby boomers. And let’s just say that I don’t have the highest opinion of that particular demographic.

But I’m down with the younger generations. Many studies have concluded that when it comes to politics, Millennials and Gen Z are “tilting left and staying there.”

The kids give me hope for the future.

Well, they did until recently.

You see, many young voters are threatening to boycott the presidential election.

“The collective vibe is hopelessness,” says one Gen Z voter, and while I empathize with her emotional state, her solution is absurd. Refusing to vote in November is like starving to death because you can’t get your favorite toppings on a pizza.

Another young voter says, “I don’t think the presidency has too much of an effect on what happens in my day-to-day life.” That mindset is so wrong, so impossibly naïve (yeah, I used that word) that it boggles the mind.

And yet another young voter says his decision not to vote will “send a message to the Democrats,” and force “them to listen to us.”

Yes, the Democrats will certainly notice that you didn’t vote for them. Of course, they will note this from the gulag that Republicans have thrown them into, and it won’t matter anyway considering that young people will not be allowed to voteagain ever, but Democrats will definitely pay attention to your hissy fit, young man.

Listen, middle-aged Republicans are willing to vote for a lunatic they freely admit is an embarrassment, a disaster, and a direct threat to democracy. They are relentless in their pursuit of victory.

But young progressives mutter, “I’m just not in love with Biden,” and skip voting.

This is how you lose a nation. 

Taking a principled stance that will, in the long run, destroy all your principles is insanity.

At the risk of getting all “back in my day,” let me tell you how dispiriting it was to be progressive when I came of age. We voted even as we were reduced to casting a ballot for Michael Dukakis, for fuck sake. 

But let’s skip the travails of Gen X. Consider that back in the 1960s, the Freedom Riders journeyed into the Deep South during the height of segregation. They faced the billy clubs and firehoses of white supremacists. The vast majority of the Freedom Riders were in their twenties.

Let’s go even farther back. When America actually hated Nazis, we sent US soldiers to storm the beach at Normandy. The average age of those soldiers was 26.

So to all the young people who claim they are too fatigued to show up in November, keep in mind that in previous generations, people your age literally fought fascists to the death.

Yeah, the least you can do is fucking vote.