Hispanic Fanatic

What’s behind the GOP’s Ragnarokian rage?

It’s both an excellent question and a great excuse to use the term “Ragnarokian,” which I’m pretty sure is not even a real word.

But why are conservatives so determined to destroy America unless they can reshape it into a right-wing utopia?

Well, for decades, rich jerks tried to control our political system for their own economic benefit. And while they were successful (the wealth gap is a very real thing), they needed the middle- and working-class to vote Republican to maintain this system. After myriad culture wars and made-up threats, many of those voters came to believe they are in a literal holy war against satanic progressives. 

So now we have millions of religious fundamentalists “hellbent on overthrowing democracy to impose their religious will on the American majority.” I will quote the historian Heather Cox Richardson at length here:

“In the United States, [there is] a movement of people who are willing to overthrow democracy if it means reinforcing their traditional vision. Christian nationalists believe that the secular values of democracy are destroying Christianity and traditional values. They want to get rid of LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, immigration, and the public schools they believe teach such values. And if that means handing power to a dictator who promises to restore their vision of a traditional society, they’re in. It is an astonishing rejection of everything the United States has always stood for.”

But don’t believe me and some egg-head historian. Conservative leaders have gotten up in public and shouted that they want to overthrow democracy and unleash “righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Millions of Americans no longer believer in the Constitution, and “have no interest in the stewardship of American democracy.” Instead, these theocrats “seek to commandeer the ship of state, pillage the hold, and then crash us all onto the rocks.”

This is not a fringe movement within the Republican Party. No, the GOP threat to democracy is now systemic, and Republican leaders “tolerate or condone antidemocratic extremism because it is the path of least resistance.”

The guiding lights of the modern conservative movement are threatening violence if they don’t get their way, which consists of “restructuring the country so that the right — meaning primarily straight White men, as was the case 100 years ago — can decide how power and status are allocated.”

They want us to be like Hungary (only bigger) or Russia (only smaller).

And speaking of international trends, a recent study concluded that 71% of the world’s population currently lives in autocracies, which “constitutes a 48% increase compared to ten years ago.” And before you think despotism exists only in those sepia-toned third-world nations that provide anonymous villains for Hollywood blockbusters, please note that almost half of the population of industrialized nations “think a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts is a good form of government.”

That apparently includes America, where democracy is frail as it faces the onslaught of fundamentalist maniacs. 

After 250 years, it can all go away overnight.

Look, we can all agree that some people just need killing. It’s common sense and not controversial in the least—nope.

OK, the idea of executing individuals you disagree with might strike you as bizarre, deranged, antithetical to American values, a conduit to chaos, and a powerful indication that society is collapsing.

But you’re not a Republican.

You see, the GOP has always had a violent streak. Witness their love of war and propensity for calling in the cops to bust some heads. But in the Trump era, this predilection for bloodshed has become overt and integral to the conservative brand.

It’s not surprising that a political party that welcomes Nazis would eventually embrace thuggery. But this trend has accelerated since the rise of Trump, a man who has never been in a fight in his life but who loves to act the tough guy.

The MAGA movement’s “violent threats are warping life in America,” and “there is no question that Trump has so normalized calls to violence as an instrument of politics that it has inflamed countless people to perverse action.” 

GOP leaders have encouraged right-wing vigilantes to “take matters into your own hands” and advised their supporters to “strap on a Glock.” Conservatives have issued death threats, attacked progressive protestors, and expressed a great willingness to commit violent acts to get their way. Over 40% of Trump supporters “are open to violence from ‘true American patriots.’”

Now, you might think that acquiescing to the demands of these gun-toting goons would protect you. But giving in to bullies just makes them bolder. So now even Republicans are feeling the wrath of the easily provoked. 

GOP members of Congress have resigned out of fear for their lives, and the threat “of physical violence from Trump supporters has kept certain Republicans” from criticizing Trump. In fact, Republican state legislators “reported seeing a greater increase in the ‘volume of abuse’ than Democrats.” Republican officeholders are often targeted “by the party’s far-right for refusing to back extreme positions.”

So whimpering, “But I’m a Republican” will not save you from the billy clubs.

Looking at all this data and anecdotal evidence, combined with our knowledge of how conservatives rioted when they lost the last presidential election, it is a given that there will be political violence if Trump loses in November. Actually, there will likely be political violence even if he wins because, hey, why not?

Until then, we will go on pretending that the GOP is a stable political party, devoid of violent tendencies, while we explain to kids that some conservatives just want to bomb their library, and that’s perfectly normal.

Yes, there’s nothing to worry about here.

As I may have mentioned, this is an election year.

I also may have said something about how millions of Americans will vote this November for an aspiring despot who wants to crush dissent, abolish democracy, and catapult the nation into a hellhole of authoritarian chaos. But I mumble sometimes, so maybe you didn’t catch it.

In any case, people are taking the inevitable Biden-Trump rematch seriously. Researchers have found that “an overwhelming majority of Americans believe democracy is ‘at risk’ in the upcoming presidential election.” They are correct, of course, because if Republicans regain power, they will burn the country down rather than give it up again.

So it’s a good thing that experienced officials are running our electoral system and focused on making sure the election is fair, accurate, and efficient. Well, at the least the election officials who aren’t running for their lives are focused on that.

You see, “since the 2020 election, state and local officials have faced a surge of violent threats, harassment, and intimidation.” This hostility is primarily from Trump supporters, who accused election officials “of rigging that race and subsequently hounded many out of office.” 

Because so many officials have quit in fear for their lives, more than 20% of election administrators “will be doing the job for the first time in 2024.”

Yes, this is yet another way in which Trump has manhandled the nation, perhaps permanently. Before 2020, “threats against election workers were virtually nonexistent,” but now they are frequent. And the abuse has often been “more severewhen directed at officials who were women, people of color, religious minorities, or LGBTQ.”

Now, you may be saying, “This is all the fault of the woke mob,” or Antifa or whatever imaginary group of progressives that the GOP conjures up as the latest boogeyman.

Well, keep in mind that “support for political violence runs mostly along party lines.” About one-third of Republicanssupport violence as a means to get their way, compared to 13% of Democrats. More specifically, Republicans who like Trump are nearly three times as likely as other Republicans to support political violence.

So yeah, we can safely say it’s that guy’s fault.

In this golden age of political bedlam, America is “grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s.”

And as bad as the 1970s were, American political violence back then was “perpetrated more often by radicals on the left and focused largely on destroying property.” But the contemporary version of the Symbionese Liberation Army isn’t interested in blowing up an empty bank. Today’s political violence “is aimed at people — and most of the deadly outbursts … have come from the right.”

Basically, you are far more likely to be shot by a neofascist than by an animal-rights activist.

How grim is the potential for carnage during this year’s election season? Well, many election offices have installed “bulletproof glass and security doors amid threats of violence.”

For all of you who thought voting was a dull obligation, that is certainly one way to spice things up.

Welcome to the new version of American democracy.

Some jerk cut me off in traffic today, so I chased him at high speed until he crashed. Then I pulled him out of his car, punched him bloody, and smashed his windshield with a rock.

Well, no, that didn’t actually happen. Yes, I got cut off in traffic, which is a near-daily occurrence because I live in Los Angeles. But I didn’t chase the guy. 

To continue reading this post, please click here.

If you can’t beat ‘em, kill ‘em.

You would be forgiven if you believed that this was the GOP slogan for the midterms. After all, the modern conservative movement is not about lower taxes, traditional values, or all the other supposed principles that long obscured the right-wing predilection for violence. No, the Republican Party has quit the exhausting task of hiding its affinity for head-bashing, and instead, conservatives are openly celebrating mayhem. 

To continue reading this post, please click here.

As I may have mentioned, I’m from Wisconsin.

I’ve written before about growing up Latino in an overwhelmingly white state, and living in the most segregated city in America, and attending the flagship university where less than 0.5 % of the student body was Hispanic.

But one thing I never wrote about was Kenosha. And the reason was simple: It’s a boring suburb where nothing interesting ever happens.

Ahem.

As many commentators have pointed out, Kenosha is where a Black man can get shot seven times in the back while a White guy waving an AR-15, who had just killed multiple people, will barely get noticed.

And here I should mention that in my most recent novel, I wrote a scene in which the police tackle an unarmed Latino. Those same cops ignore a nearby white person who is juggling multiple handguns. In that scene, I was going for black comedy mixed with social satire. But clearly, the real world is even more farcical than anything I could imagine.

In any case, after the unrest in Kenosha, our oblivious, bloviating president did his part, flying in to order up fraudulent photo-ops, shout over Black leaders, and express sympathy for a homicidal teenager. Really, do you expect anything else from “a sociopathic narcissist running on a platform of fear, intolerance, and authoritarian, conspiratorial doublespeak” at this point in his presidency? I know I certainly don’t.

And speaking of gun-toting, bloodthirsty teenagers, please note that many right-wingers have done more than excuse one of their brethren for the slight transgression of shooting unarmed people. They have actively celebrated him. A Christian website is raising funds for the shooter’s defense, because after all, there’s nothing more Christian than murdering someone in the street.

Now, I’m tempted to pick on my home state for becoming the newest battleground — both literal and figurative — in the ongoing war of right-wing extremism against, well, everybody else. Believe me, I glance at my Facebook feed — which always contains posts from guys I went to high school with — and I wonder, “You were sane once upon a time, so when did you become a terrified, angry suburban apologist for racism and neo-fascism?” Is it a law that growing up White and male in Milwaukee means that you will eventually clamor for the violent demise of liberals? 

But in truth, what happened in Kenosha is happening all across America. Indeed, it has been going on, more or less, for centuries. For example, “the narrative that dangerous Black people are causing violence that White men must suppress for the good of the community serves Trump’s election narrative, but it is a trope right out of Reconstruction.”

However, this trend has accelerated and become more visible in recent years because “White fear has become the unalloyed rallying cry” of Trump’s followers, and the GOP has morphed into nothing more than a national “White grievance party.” 

So now add in America’s love — fetishization, actually — of guns. And soon, we have the realization of the “long-held fantasy of right-wing militia groups,” which is a “scenario in which they can put their gun collections to use by showing up, unbidden, to ‘protect’ businesses that in many cases aren’t theirs and don’t want that service.” 

Armed thugs roaming the streets should alarm Americans. But many of us enthusiastically cheer for these “self-anointed, weapons-bearing so-called enforcers of order” who have no legal authority and “very little stopping them.”

By the way, all 50 states have legal provisions prohibiting private militias from operating outside of governmental authority, “but the statutes are largely unenforced.”

So much for law and order.

Never say that I am not helpful — even to people who hate me.

I’m talking about my old friends in the Republican Party, who are currently projected to lose 4,000 seats in Congress during the next midterms. Of course, if the 2016 election taught us anything, it was to not trust the polls completely. But things look pretty bleak for the GOP right now, even if the economy is defying the odds by continuing to chug along, and North Korea may actually refrain from nuking us.

Still, the Trump Administration has been, for the most part, one long nightmare for most Americans. And the polls reflect this.

So I’m offering some advice to conservatives that they can use in the next election. Here are some helpful hints for you Republicans that will help you make your pitch to voters over the next few months.

For starters, drop the whole party of morality thing. I’m not sure who ever believed this. But it’s clear that after embracing Trump and endorsing Roy Moore, the GOP has absolutely no credibility when it comes to judging ethical behavior. Republicans can talk all they want about virtue and the importance of family, but let’s be honest, after the tenth story of a Republican congressman resigning because he threatened his mistress, it gets a bit laughable.

Along those lines, conservatives really have to let get of their image as the bastions of decency. Getting all huffy about what is proper and dignified just doesn’t fly when you gleefully cheer for a guy who boasts about sexually assaulting women and denigrates ethnic minorities. And yes, that means you can’t feign outrage when a comedienne uses vulgarity to describe the most vulgar man to ever be president.

Another concept you Republicans can ditch is your image as so-called fiscal conservatives. I mean, did you even read that deficit-busting tax bill you passed a few months ago? Don’t answer that — I know you rushed it out the door and didn’t even bother to check for typos (or huge, glaring loopholes). But take it from me, nobody is going to take you guys seriously ever again when you scream that spending is out of control or that the budget needs to be balanced or that we can’t afford to fund public education. Clearly, the GOP doesn’t care about the budget, and most likely never did.

Finally — and I know this is going to be the most painful for you conservatives — let’s have no more talk of conservative values or the GOP agenda. You have no values beyond the naked pursuit of power and winning at any cost. You have no agenda beyond making sure that white, straight men are perpetually on top. This is why you guys are very good at campaigning and finding a way to control the government — but not so good at the actual governing part.

So that’s my prescription for the GOP.

Of course, a natural question is to ask is the following: Who am I to offer this unsolicited advice? After all, I don’t have a degree in political science, nor have I ever worked on a campaign.

But that’s the beauty of the Republican Party. The GOP has made it clear that expertise in a given field is irrelevant. Hell, it may even be detrimental.

According to conservatives, you can’t believe those egghead scientists who use data to prove global warming, or those studies that say more guns equals more violence, or those pundits who use fancy facts and actual numbers instead of anecdotal evidence and conspiratorial rants to prove a point.

Hey, one of Trump’s biggest selling points to his supporters is his total lack of governmental experience and ignorance of policy. And that’s worked out great… except for the constant chaos erupting from the White House and the rampant corruption engulfing the administration.

So take it from me, dear GOP, this is advice you can use.

Trust me.

Just a quick post this week to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and give thanks that we all live in the greatest country in the world.

Well, actually, there is no “greatest country in the world,” at least in the sense of some objective standard or measurement. We just all say “greatest country in the world” and assume we’re talking about the USA because, I mean, come on, who are we kidding?

Of course, if we did use objective stats to analyze how well America is doing, how absolutely A#1 amazing we are, we might pull out this one:

“The US has the second-highest rate of poverty among rich countries,” and for black and Hispanic American children, “the poverty rate is even higher.”

Hmmm… that statistic isn’t so great, is it? Well, how about this one:

“The US has the highest income inequality of all rich countries.” And of course, that just got worse with today’s massive GOP tax cut for the wealthy.

OK, this isn’t going so well. Let’s try again.

Although “Americans spend enormously” on healthcare, we remain “in relatively poor health.” For example, America “has fewer physicians, hospital beds, and psychiatric care beds than most other economically advanced countries, ranking towards the bottom in each of these parameters.” And as if we all didn’t already know, the United States “remains the only advanced economy in the world not to have full health coverage of its population.”

But look on the bright side, we’re also the most obese industrialized nation in the world.

About now, you’re probably wondering where I’m getting all those disturbing statistics.

Well, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) put together a report that found “the US performs dismally in most areas — such as healthcare, education, and violence.” In fact, the analysis “proves that, while Americans may be doing relatively fine, ‘best country to live in’ is a serious stretch.”

Yes, according to the OECD, “child mortality is higher in the US than any other advanced economy, and adult Americans also live shorter lives.”

Hey, if you want to live longer, move to Japan or one of those fancy, effeminate European countries where they simply don’t understand that dying young just proves how tough you are and is clearly the patriotic thing to do.

The OECD gets a little personal when it claims that America “stands out as one of the only countries in the world where maternal mortality has increased, rather than decreasing, over the past 15 years.”

But of course, that’s just one of the ways in which it sucks to be an American woman. Because according to the report, the “share of US women who experience violence in their lifetime is much higher than the OECD average,” and “the gender wage gap is also bigger in the US.” But don’t worry, because another thing we have going for us is the fact that America is “one of only two countries in the world that do not mandate paid maternity leave.”

How’s that for American exceptionalism?

Now, my intention is not to bring you down this holiday season.

It is simply to point out that much work needs to be done, and shouting how we’re the “greatest” isn’t going to accomplish anything.

We cannot address our problems if we refuse to acknowledge them, or if we dismiss disturbing facts as fake news, or if we insist that we have nothing to learn from any other nation because we’re just the damn best.

We’re only 200+ years old. Maybe we have some growing up to do.

As I’ve mentioned before, my family is from El Salvador. I’ve never been there, but I hear that it’s nice.

Actually, I don’t hear that at all. In fact, I hear the direct opposite.

My mom and aunt came to America decades ago, and they have surprisingly little positive to say about their childhoods in El Salvador. One of my cousins came to the United States when he was a kid. He has vowed never to set foot in El Salvador the rest of his life, because the place holds such dark memories for him. And my brother has lived in that country for years now, and he has told me about the struggles of raising a family there.

So no, this isn’t going to be an up-with-the-motherland kind of article.

Because in addition to my family’s subjective experiences, there is also the fact that El Salvador is arguably “the murder capital of world.”

And that is definitely not a phrase to put on the travel brochure.

You see, the legacy of U.S. intervention, a horrific civil war, and a stagnant economy are all major reasons for the country’s problems. And of course, “violence by so-called maras – gangs that originated in the United States and spread to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – is thought to be the major push factor” in propelling the tiny nation into “a lethal cycle that the government’s current rhetoric and strategy will not be able to break.”

In short, it’s a messed-up place.

What’s interesting is that, as bad as El Salvador would be under most circumstances, a couple of stray variables have turned a horrific situation into a pure cataclysm.

Back in 1999, the government thought the best way to fight the skyrocketing crime rate was to arm its citizens. It was that whole fantastical scenario of a good guy with a gun coming in to save the day. Well, that didn’t exactly work out.

The laws “permitted the private possession of heavy weapons. Instead of reducing violence,” however, these laws “fuelled its escalation.”

Another factor in El Salvador’s demise is its hyper-religious culture. The Catholic Church has such sway over the inhabitants that abortion is “illegal in all circumstances, without exception, punishable by up to eight years in prison. Sentences of up to 30 years have been handed down when a judge determined that ‘homicide’ rather than abortion had occurred.”

When women are denied basic rights over their own bodies, the culture notices. And today, “El Salvador is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women,” with “the highest rate of femicide in the entire world.”

Now, you might say that this is all very depressing, but that’s life in the third world — right?

Well, look at some of those factors again: a country where citizens are heavily armed, religion is all-powerful, abortion is illegal, and strongmen run the place.

This is the dream of everyone who voted for Roy Moore yesterday. Fortunately for America, they were outnumbered… this time.

For all the fear and paranoia that white right-wingers have about Latinos, they seem absolutely hell-bent to adopt the very worst ideas of Hispanic culture.

Perhaps El Salvador has bottomed out, and can only improve.

But the United States, if handed over to zealots, can get a lot, lot worse.

Good news — there is a 35 percent chance that the country will descend into open civil war within the next decade.

Now, you may ask, why is that good news?

Well, personally, I thought the odds of a second Battle of Antietam erupting within the year were around 50/50. So a risk of just 35 percent is positively optimistic.

Hey, nearly four out of five Americans “believe the nation is divided on the most important values.” And some experts claim that the nation is really a mash-up of almost a dozen different cultures where people “increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.” And, of yeah, in recent years, residents of both Texas and California have sincerely endeavored to secede from the union.

Naturally, we’re all wondering about the root causes of this internecine madness. Well, as is usual when nations start rotting from the inside, the main problem is the age-old malady of bigotry.

Yes, many social scientists have concluded that America is “vulnerable to racism, tribalism, and conflicting visions of the way forward for our nation.” And it certainly doesn’t help that our deranged president “modeled violence as a way to advance politically,” which feeds right into the narrative of the hardcore right wing and fuels talk of armed conflict.

Indeed, ever since the protests at Charlottesville, it should be perfectly clear to even the most idealistic person that “white fear of demographic change is a powerful force” and that “there are several lines of evidence converging on the idea that America is becoming a more hostile place for immigrants and outsiders.”

If you need further proof, “research does find that in the age of Trump — the age that started with an assertion that Mexicans were sending rapists to the US — it’s becoming more acceptable to be outwardly prejudiced.”

It’s all very depressing, of course, and we are correct to wonder how America has so quickly devolved into a nation where racists feel pretty good about themselves, and hatred toward Muslims is shrugged off a conservative value.

Hell, there was a time (not so very long ago) when “psychologists feared that ‘social desirability bias’ — people unwilling to admit they’re prejudiced, for fear of being shamed — would prevent people from answering questions about prejudice truthfully.” But in this terrible new America, “people will readily admit to believing all sorts of vile things. And researchers don’t need to use implicit or subliminal measures to suss it all out.”

This willingness to be horrible only verifies what progressives and ethnic minorities have been saying for years about a large subsection of America.

And yet, many media outlets still indulge in delusional thinking about Trump and his supporters. Despite mountains of anecdotal evidence — and in some cases, actual data-driven research — many commentators still dance around the issues of racism and xenophobia that characterizes Trump’s most ardent fans.

I mean, how many more studies do we need that show fictional “discrimination against whites was a core concern of Trump’s base”? No, it wasn’t a weak correlation or a side issue. It was a “core concern” of Trump’s support.

How often do we have to hear that “changing racial demographics of America contributed to Trump’s success as a presidential candidate among white Americans whose race/ethnicity is central to their identity”?

The truth is that there are millions of Americans who dream of an all-white country, one that is presumably 100 percent straight and Christian as well.

These are people who have never faced governmental or cultural oppression, and “who sat through the unit on the Second World War in their history class and looked at images of concentration camps and gas chambers and burning books and Anne Frank’s attic and still thought, well, hang on, maybe those Nazis had some interesting ideas.”

And they are all for Trump — to the point that he can no wrong and will never lose their support.

Now, in contrast to the bizarre enthusiasm that Trump supporters have of their man’s performance so far, more than half of all Americans and more than two-thirds of Latinos disapprove of the guy.

These are fundamental differences. One might even say that they are irreconcilable.

And since we’re using that kind of language, let’s admit a basic fact — one that may help us avoid open warfare.

We’re 240 years into this marriage, and maybe it’s time to admit that we’re no longer happy in the relationship. We have clearly grown apart. In fact, it’s worth asking if we ever really got along, because after all, there have been more than a few rocky times and bumps in the road over the decades.

Perhaps everyone would be happier if we called it quits and promised to stay in touch — you know, to negotiate intercontinental trade deals and stuff like that. But this whole idea that we are a unified nation and a cohesive culture… well, come on.

Who are we kidding?