Hispanic Fanatic

Recently, I got dragged to a theater to see an insufferable kids movie.

Normally, I have nothing against films for kids, and I will catch a showing of Paddington 2 with you anytime.

But this movie sucked. The only reason my family attended was because we had to accommodate the youngest member of our group, who inexplicably wanted to see a movie that was too childish even for the children in the theater.

I won’t identify this film, because then this site becomes a movie-review outlet, and that’s not exactly my forte. Although I will say, once again, that Goodfellas is the greatest movie of all time.

The kids movie I had to endure was no Goodfellas. Although a kids version of that Scorsese masterpiece is interesting to ponder.

In any case, it wasn’t just this film’s dull story, heavy-handed dialogue, cringy humor, and hammy acting that annoyed me. Those were all factors, but the chief reason for my antipathy was more thematic.

You see, the plot of this particular monstrosity was that a married couple lose their jobs in the loud, crowded, obnoxious big city. So they move their family to the rural countryside, where they literally live in a barn.

After a period of adjustment, complete with kooky locals and quaint rural customs, the family falls in love with their new home. The movie ends with the family dancing in joy as their new neighbors surround them and clap along in glee.

I’m not exaggerating. This fucker ends with our main characters literally dancing in sheer happiness at their new life. The scene is in slo-mo, no less.

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I am from Wisconsin. Although I grew up in an urban environment —Milwaukee, home of the major league-best Brewers — I’ve spent more time in the Wisconsin countryside than most Latinos, progressives, or college-educated elitist libtards (whichever category you want to jam me into).

So I can tell you that rural America is not a place where people dance in slow motion, bursting with exuberance at their heavenly existence. It is a place, quite frankly, that is suffering.

Don’t take my first-hand experiences for it. Acres of studies and piles of books have documented this issue. You know that phrase “deaths of despair”? Yeah, it’s about people who don’t live in cities.

By most measurements, rural America has a worse quality of life than urban America. People who live in the country have shorter lifespans, higher poverty, less education, and fewer cultural or economic options. You are more likely to see meth heads taking over barns than a grateful family doing a jig because they escaped the city.

But despite wretched kids movies like the one I had to endure, and all those romcoms about city women ditching their lives for a hunky man who works on a farm, we all know, deep down, that it is ineffectual propaganda.

Several small towns will give you free land if you move there. A basic rule of economics is that if you have to give something away for free, it’s because nobody wants it.

And it’s not just America. Rural areas of Japan, Italy, and other countries are emptying out fast because humans around the world have decided that cities are superior, or at least more conducive to survival.

So why do we continue to glamorize the country life? Why do we insist that everybody would be better off if we lived outside a small town, away from the concrete and crowds of the big, scary city?

Part of it is our ongoing insistence that rural Americans are the true patriots, the ones whose voice and votes matter more than the rest of us. The fact that rural Americans are synonymous with “white conservatives” is a coincidence, I’m sure.

I’m not saying that cities are paradise. But portraying rural life as nonstop joy and the key to happiness is more than disingenuous. It is an insulting lie.

Also, if we kill this particular trope, I won’t have to go to any more shitty kids movies.

Recently, I discussed how doomsday preppers — often white men who hate the government — frequently view an apocalyptic meltdown of society as a good thing.

Many of these heavily armed guys dream of hanging out in their fortified complexes, free to do whatever they want and immune to the threat of immigrants and drag queens and vaccination campaigns. It’s their fantasy.

But let’s be clear. There are other types of people who are also prepping for the end of the world.

For starters, you have your classic evil billionaire. These oligarchs are “buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create.”

Sure, some of them are living out their dream of becoming a Bond villain, but for many of these money-hungry sociopaths, Armageddon is the predictable endgame of their “selfish and isolationist outlooks.”

This is a new worldview for the uber-wealthy, who traditionally have focused on indulging in extravagances and procuring status symbols. Never before “have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unlivable for everyone else,” and neither have they ever had “the technologies through which to program their sensibilities into the very fabric of our society.”

Basically, for these tech bros and crypto schemers, it is no longer about living in a mansion with a fleet of expensive cars and weekends on the mega-yacht. It’s about surviving civilization’s destruction in relative comfort and “exercising control over the rest of us.”

The good news is that the “probability of a fortified bunker actually protecting its occupants from the reality of, well, reality, is very slim.” So all those smug rich dudes who think they’re going to ride out the chaos and destruction that they have instigated? Yeah, if society implodes, they’re probably going to die miserable deaths in those bunkers.

So we’ll have a happy ending after all.

In any case, there is another type of prepper, one not nearly as loathsome as the people whom we’ve discussed so far. And that is the ethnic minority and/or liberal who is “waking up to the reality of needing to be prepared.”

Some experts say the number of preppers has doubled in the last decade, with “much of that growth from minorities and people considered left-of-center politically, whose sense of insecurity was heightened by Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the pandemic, more frequent extreme weather, and the 2020 racial justice protests.”

To the surprise of right-wingers, “a new breed of Americans is getting ready to survive political upheaval and natural catastrophes, a pursuit that until recently was largely associated with far-right movements such as white nationalists.” 

As I said, I’m not a prepper. But if one of my fellow Latinos is gathering supplies and firearms because he believes America is going to crumple into an authoritarian hellhole, well, I get it.

Lots of progressives and ethnic minorities are taking courses in survival tactics, picking up guns, and preparing for the worst. As a result, prepper culture (if that is the correct term for it) is diversifying “amid fear of disaster and political unrest.”

So for all those white supremacists who thought DEI was over, and that the future belonged to Aryan thugs in camouflage, the joke’s on you.

Even in an apocalypse, you can’t stop diversity.

An acquaintance of mine recently suffered the loss of her husband. The man collapsed of a sudden heart attack, and then he was gone.

In the aftermath of this crushing, unexpected calamity, my acquaintance scrambled to get her late husband’s affairs in order, and her digging into bank accounts and recent activities delivered another shocker: She discovered that her husband had a secret life.

No, he didn’t have a mistress, work as a double agent, fight crime superhero-style at night, or anything sexy like that. It turned out that the guy was a prepper.

He had spent about a hundred grand of their retirement money on a bunker, guns, provisions, and the necessities of a Mad Max existence.

And the man never told his wife about this, for reasons that he quite obviously can never provide (you know, because he’s dead). All my acquaintance knows is that she has $100,000 less in her retirement fund because her deceased hubby was convinced society would soon collapse and wild-eyed marauders would be on the hunt.

I’ve written before about preppers, those incredibly paranoid and/or prescient doomsayers who spend a huge chunk of time and money getting ready for the day when a nuclear holocaust, unstoppable virus, or zombie uprising destroys this pathetic façade we call civilization.

As I stated then, and still believe, these hardcore preppers aren’t just getting ready for Armageddon. They are actively rooting for it, because if it doesn’t happen, they have wasted an enormous portion of their lives on crazy nonsense.

But there is more to this disturbing mindset than a subconscious wish for complete chaos.

Preppers are overwhelmingly male and white. This is not just because white men have the most money to spend on underground vaults and piles of freeze-dried lasagna that can last 25 years (eww). It is because a societal collapse appeals to the white male fantasy of freedom.

Keep in mind that Americans “have been urged and trained to prep as children in various scouting organizations, as homesteaders given a plot of land by the federal government in the colonial project of ‘taming’ the West, and as steady, patriotic citizens prepared to survive nuclear attack to keep the US alive in their bunkers.”

In all of those scenarios (or mythologies if you prefer), the hero is a white man protecting his family. The image that we have been sold about these lone cowboys of ruggedness never includes women or Muslims or Latinos.

It’s always a white guy who believes making plans for “survival in the absence of state support is not being a doomsday prepper but simply being a reasonable, prepared citizen.”

And that brave individualist, who just needs the government to get off his damn back, doesn’t care if 911 goes offline or the streetlights stop working or the hospitals are overrun. When and if America implodes, he will finally be free to do whatever the hell he wants. 

Think of it. No stupid job with a stupid boss. No stealing of their hard-earned tax dollars (that are just going to lazy welfare cheats anyway). Not even any complaints to turn down the music, because the neighbors will be too scared (or too dead) to argue with the heavily armed king in his castle.

That sounds like paradise to many strong, gun-toting white men.

And there has never been a better time to embrace the fantasy. Our incompetent, corrupt government is not exactly reassuring its citizens that America will persevere. I’m not just talking about the shaky economy, unraveling international relationships, and botched wars that have become the hallmarks of this flailing administration.

The conservative mindset encourages “a bunkerized society [in] a permanent state of readiness … as a condition of living in the hollowed-out shell of a state that does not take infrastructural stability and basic need satisfaction as a right but as a good one must supply for oneself.”

It’s the ultimate libertarian endgame. The only thing better than small government is no government at all.

The American Dream, whatever that was, now costs far more than most people will ever earn. To many Americans, the odds of raising kids, buying a home, and achieving other traditional milestones are equivalent to the chances that the nation will fall into cannibalistic anarchy. So why not invest in a concrete alcove with a steel door that will be your personal kingdom, free of governmental interference and ethnic minorities?

And it certainly has felt like end times ever since November 2024, when the US chose fascism over boring competence.

To a large segment of America, the coming apocalypse is not something to be feared. It is an opportunity to start over, and to live one’s best life, and to shoot off as many guns as you damn well desire. These guys are looking forward to the collapse. 

So always remember: Your dystopia is someone else’s utopia.

Perhaps it’s fitting that America is coming to the end of its lifespan.

Because our leaders are certainly coming to the end of theirs.

Back to back, we’ve had the two oldest presidents in US history. The US Congress now has two dozen  octogenarians and at least one nonagenarian. 

More than half of those lawmakers are running for re-election, because hey, why retire and let someone younger make decisions that will affect future generations when you can shuffle around the corridors of power and never endure the long-term consequences of your actions?

By the way, the gap between “the average age of an American and the average of a member of Congress has been growing, especially over the last 15 years.”

Political scientists have a term for this: gerontocracy (aka rule by older generations).

I’ve written before about the Scourge… I mean Baby Boomers. This is a generation that preached peace and love in its youth but then shrieked, “Give me more and kill them all” in its old age.

It’s bad enough that Boomers hoarded everything for themselves while lecturing younger people about being selfish, which doesn’t even get into how this most pampered of generations has the cojones to insist that everyone under 60 is weak because we don’t appreciate the decimated society and world they left us.

No, the lasting political legacy of this far from greatest generation is their refusal to cede power.

My generation (Gen X) will likely never have a president, as the country will probably leap from Baby Boomer domination to Millennial stewardship. That’s ok. We’re used to being ignored.

But what’s not ok is that this shift to younger leadership is not happening anytime soon.

We have enfeebled senators blubbering their way through their terms but still insisting on running for reelection. That’s when they’re not dropping dead of old age or disappearing because of age-related calamities. 

And it goes beyond politics. We are enduring “a quiet slide into generational inequality, in which older, disproportionately wealthy voters and homeowners shape the economy — and America’s democracy — to their advantage while insisting they’re really the ones who are under siege.”

Boomers now hold more than half of American wealth despite making up just 20% of the population. Economists say that “the old rich have pulled away from everyone else,” meaning that the US is not just an oligarchy, but is also an “oldigarchy.”

And as far as social or cultural progress, keep in mind that “an aging society is more set on preservation than on renovation.” Boomers don’t much care for things that didn’t exist in their day, like trans people and female CEOs. Hell, they don’t much care for things that they actually did have in their day, like affordable college and scientific breakthroughs, because those concepts no longer affect them personally.

No, older Americans just want to live out their remaining years in peace and quiet. And that means holding on to as much power and money as they can while exhibiting pathological indifference to their children and grandchildren.

That’s far from ok, Boomer.

The only businessman I trust is Seth Godin. If you are not familiar with his work; Godin is an entrepreneur who focuses on marketing. 

But as opposed to our well-known titans of industry, Godin doesn’t blather on about how great he is or screw over whole countries so he can grab a little more cash or embrace fascism because nobody loves him or explode rockets left and right.

Those examples are not made up.

In any case, Godin wrote a recent article in which he explained the shitshow that we are living in. Well, he didn’t use that term because he’s a lot classier than I am, and he is politically nonpartisan. But his analysis holds up when trying to figure out how a corrupt gang of incompetents, loudmouths, and lunatics took over the US government.

Godin explains that “expertise and firmly held beliefs don’t always go together,” and he uses the following diagram to illustrate the idea:

As Godin points out, “plenty of well-trained professionals have earned the right to have strongly held beliefs,” a contingent that includes “surgeons, jugglers, and historians,” among others. Professionals combine expertise with strong beliefs.

Then there are the innovators, who have “plenty of experience and training and have chosen to be flexible.” As Godin points out, “when an innovator suggests a counter-intuitive or even nutty concept, it might pay to listen carefully.” After all, they have some idea of what they’re talking about.

Most of us, at some time or another, will fall into the category of curious. This is when we “don’t have a lot of domain knowledge, but we’re able to ask intelligent questions and to listen carefully to the answers.” We’re being curious when we’re honest about our lack of expertise. Ideally, we engage with others in the spirit of goodwill and exhibit a willingness to change our minds.

It’s that upper-left quadrant, where ignorance meets strongly held beliefs, that we encounter the foolish. These are the people who have “little in the way of expertise, and are generally unwilling to change their assertions or goals.” As Godin puts it, “Alas, social media has elevated the foolish.”

Think of the influencer who failed high school biology but still insists that vaccines are dangerous. They have no expertise in the field but refuse to listen to data or logic. Or better yet, consider the secretary of health and human services.

Now imagine a whole administration full of people who have no experience, no training, and no clue about what they’re rambling on about, but are convinced that they are brilliant. 

The professional, the innovative, and the curious wind up getting steamrolled by an incessant, aggressive horde of the foolish.

And that’s how we got here, to this most unhappy place.

That’s how we got present-day America.

The US is no longer a democracy. 

I know — you thought we were the shining example of this most fabled form of government, when in truth, we are more like a theocracy or oligarchy or kakocracy or, well, some kind of crazycracy.

It’s not just that the Supreme Court has decided that allowing black people to vote is a silly idea. Nor is it that a handful of billionaires have more power than the populations of entire states. 

Those are big-time indicators, but the latest proof comes courtesy of “one of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations,” The Varieties of Democracy Institute at Gothenburg University, which reached the “alarming conclusion that the US is hurtling toward autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey.” The institute said America is “now back at the worst recorded level since 1965, when US civil rights laws first introduced de facto universal suffrage,” meaning that “all progress made since then has been erased,” and what “we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever in the country.”

OK, that’s just one group of eggheads badmouthing the good old US of A. I’m certain that most people still love us. Well, there is the fact that residents of Europe are three times more likely to view the United States as a threat than an ally. 

And there’s the disturbing statistic that about half of Americans believe democracy is functioning poorly in the United States, “marking a sharp decline from several decades ago.” And there is also a growing movement among young people for an absolute monarch to take over America. And… damn, how did we get to this messed-up point?

There are numerous grim milestones, terrifying tipping points, and 20/20 hindsight realizations about when and why America has become a chaotic swirl of violence and hatred led by thugs and incompetents. 

One root cause goes all the way back to the 1970s, when Nixon was forced to resign, but received a pardon rather than doing the hard time that would have served as a warning to would-be despots and petty tyrants.

Ford pardoning Nixon was not the supposed balm that allowed the nation to heal, but the moment when “powerful people in both political parties worked assiduously to ensure that their leaders would escape the consequences of their actions.”

When Mr. Watergate escaped any punishment whatsoever, it jumpstarted the “decades-long backlash among the American leadership class to the idea of accountability.” As a result, we ended up with Trump, a man whose corruption was well-known before he even ran for political office but whose many moral, ethical, and legal transgressions were viewed as ok because he was, you know, rich and stuff.

The only felon ever elected president “has evaded punishment for crimes both low (campaign-finance violations, for which he was convicted, though he will serve no time thanks to his 2024 victory) and high (his attempted overthrow of the federal government in the aftermath of his 2020 election loss, for which he was spared by the Supreme Court’s decision to grant him kingly immunity).”

The adjudicated rapist in the White House “is the product of a society that has worked hard to help the rich and powerful elude punishment for criminal behavior.”

And it’s worked great… for the rich and powerful.

For the rest of us, not so much.

In my last post, I discussed how Finland was crowned the happiest country in the world for like the 19^th year in a row. In fact, all of Scandinavia is prosperous, peaceful, and delightful. 

This fact should put American conservatives in a quandary. After all, when multiple nations embrace the exact opposite of your values, and those countries go on to become the envy of the world, one would think it would constitute a strong rejection of your ideals.

But conservatives are a hardy lot. Even when total disaster befalls them, and everything they said would happen doesn’t occur, and their agenda implodes into chaos, they insist that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

One could call this perseverance. I prefer the term delusion, but perspectives vary.

In any case, conservatives have a quick answer for why the Nordic countries — all socially democratic with active governments and generous benefits for their citizens — are doing so well.

“It’s obvious,” says the conservative. “They are reaping the benefits of being small, culturally homogenous societies with little ethnic diversity.”

To the conservative, the Nordic governments prosper not because they provide universal healthcare and don’t allow their citizens to carry around assault rifles. No, they thrive because all of their citizens are white and blonde.

This is, to say the least, an interesting viewpoint. It’s also implied racism, but we will let that go for the moment.

Let’s take a look at each of these arguments in turn.

First, I agree with conservatives that smaller countries seem to be more hospitable. This is one reason why I advocate for splitting up the United States (or at least studying the idea more thoroughly). 

Huge countries like America, China, and Russia tend to devolve into unmanageable messes or international bullies. Maybe the Nordic countries have an advantage in that they don’t have to keep 300 million people happy under one system. 

However, there are large countries that seem to have their shit together, like Canada, and small countries that are hellholes, like North Korea. So this is a supporting factor at best.

What about being culturally homogenous? It makes sense that a shared culture and national character would bind a country together. However, many studies have shown that the most culturally diverse cities tend to be the safest and most productive within any given nation. So maybe we call this factor a draw.

That leaves us with the heart of the conservative argument, which is that the happiest countries don’t have a lot of foreigners running around, and most people there are the same skin hue and look like they could be related.

Again, this is an interesting position to advocate for.

To analyze this argument, let’s look at that list of nations again. According to the study, the five happiest countries, in order, are the following:

Finland 

Iceland 

Denmark 

Costa Rica 

Sweden 

Yes, those places are not exactly melting pots. But do me a favor and take a glance at the same study’s list of least-happiest nations. The five most miserable countries, in order, are the following:

Afghanistan 

Sierra Leone 

Malawi 

Zimbabwe 

Botswana

Um, those countries are even less racially diverse than the Nordic countries. 

Well, that’s a plot twist.

Now to be fair, if conservatives are talking about ethnic diversity, they may have a point, because Afghanistan, for example, is home to many different tribes, all of whom apparently hate each other. But if you’re talking about racial diversity — and let’s face it, that’s what conservatives really mean — then the conservative argument is backward. 

Places like Afghanistan and Sierra Leone have almost no racial diversity. The vast majority of the people in those nations enjoy the cultural and racial hegemony that conservatives dream of, and yet this has not led to paradise. Also, those countries have limited governments (to the point of almost nonexistent) and plenty of guns in the hands of residents, so they sound like conservative Edens.

And if we really want to get bossy, please note that the top five happiest nations, in addition to being more racially diverse than the five saddest countries, also have much higher immigration rates.

This makes sense, because if you were a refugee, would you rather escape to Denmark or Malawi? So once again, if an immigration rate of zero is your dream, you must really love Zimbabwe.

At this point, it’s fair to say that even this most fragile of conservative arguments for the success of Scandinavia is absurd. In truth, there is no logical way anyone can look at the most prosperous nations, line them up with American conservative ideals, and see a match.

So maybe conservatives are wrong about the ideal society, and perhaps we should not listen to people who want American to emulate Hungary (the 74^th happiest country in the world) rather than Norway ((the sixth happiest country in the world).I know where I would rather live. How about you?

We get into trouble when we attempt to measure unmeasurable concepts. Yes, we can assess a nation’s economic strength by crunching the numbers, and such an assessment might lead us to conclude that America is on shaky ground.

But how do we measure a country’s capacity for love and hate and perseverance and creativity? Numbers cannot gauge the quality of a culture’s food and music and horror movies. OK, we don’t need to measure that last one, because we all know Japan is number one.

In any case, the list of the world’s happiest countries recently came out, and while we cannot say this ranking is definitive or precise, it does give us some insight into the quality of life for a nation’s residents.

To no one’s surprise, the place to be right now is Scandinavia. Five of the top six spots are in that cold (but very happy) slice of Northern Europe The only non-Nordic nation to crack the upper ranks of happiness is Costa Rica, so score one for my fellow Latinos.

According to the list, the happiest country in the world is Finland. Researchers and social scientists give numerous reasons for why Finns are in a constant good mood. These factors range from economic stability to cultural tenacity to institutional trust. 

The president of Finland says that when it comes to nation-wide happiness, ‘I do not think there is a magic potion, but it helps to have a society which strives towards freedom, equality and justice.”

That all sounds vaguely woke, doesn’t it?

In any case, what these factors have in common is that none of them are based upon the rugged individualism, hyper-religiosity, patriotic fervor, and narrow definition of “liberty” that our conservative friends insist are integral to a nation’s well-being. 

In fact, Scandinavia is far removed from the “small government” libertarianism that conservatives insist is necessary for prosperity. The region is pretty much the antithesis of every conservative value, and yet it’s citizens are among the world’s happiest, safest, and most productive.

I haven’t been to Finland, but I’m going to gamble here and assert that if a guy in Helsinki shrieked that the government is plotting against him and guns are necessary for liberty, the Finnish populace would think that guy was a fucking lunatic. Then they would offer him free healthcare, because that’s a real thing there. 

So what happens here in America year after year, when these rankings come out, and they show that democratic socialism is a huge success story? Do conservatives acknowledge that low taxes for the rich and a shredded social-safety net do not lead to national happiness? Do they look at Scandinavia’s high quality of life and say, “Maybe we’re wrong to mock the homeless and demand that our citizens die if their insurance lapses?”

No, they tend to have a very different reaction. It’s one that preserves the illusion that their worldview is correct, and it ignores the obvious truth that healthy nations have no interest in adopting their simplistic ideals.

What is this reaction? I will discuss it in my next post.

Now that we have it on good authority that the Iran War will be over in about 19 minutes, we can move on to other issues.

Hey, who knew conquering a nation of 90 million people would be so quick, easy, and pain-free? Those adjectives, incidentally, describe the main goals of American life and are the only criterion for assessing if we’re willing to get up off the couch.

In any case, I’m going to return my attention to the ostensible focus of this site, which is Latino culture.

So here’s an uplifting stat for you: More Latinas are pursuing a bachelor’s degree or higher than ever before.

This is great news. Considering education is the best equalizer for inequality, it’s just a matter of time before… what’s that? Despite these significant strides in educational attainment, “Latinas who have a bachelor’s degree or higher still earned lower wages on average compared to white men”?

Well, damn.

Are there any other areas in which Latinas have shown huge increases? Yes, the fertility rate for teens in Texas rose for the first time in over a decade, “a shift driven by disproportionately high rates among Hispanic teens” after the state’s six-week state abortion ban took effect.

So congrats, Texas. You are tops in Latina teen mothers.

Those two stats do not balance out. In truth, the status of Latinos in America is as dire as it has ever been. This may be why a disturbingly high number of Latinos are giving up and joining the lunatics who would just as soon imprison or shoot us.

You see, there are “people within nearly every community who can respond to misogynistic, aggressive, conspiratorial rhetoric, and then become radicalized fairly quickly,” and Latinos are no exception. This explains why so many Latinos are joining white supremacist movements. 

As many political commentators have noted, “anyone who denies that a Latino man could also be a white supremacist is probably ignorant about the way race works, and destroys, in our country.”

Hell, “far-right militias are increasingly recruiting Latino members,” and even the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer “has started publishing a Spanish-language version.”

I’m not sure what the Spanish translation is for “master race,” but I’m sure it’s loathsome in any dialect.

Among our nation’s most persistent, poisonous traits is our “long history of enmity towards various ethnic groups — Italians, Irish, and Greeks — that eventually subsided as those groups came to be considered white.”

This is because “white supremacy’s ability to adapt” is astonishing, so “racism will likely be just as entrenched in a browner America as it is now,” creating a version of “white supremacy, with a tan.”

OK, that is not so appealing. It seems that America possesses “not only the desire to rid the nation of Black and brown people, but aims to banish us and the issue of race from the nation’s moral conscience.”

All this is fairly depressing, which is a phrase I have been using a lot since 2016.

So if you hear any statistics that are uplifting, hopeful, or just not worrisome (I will settle for that at this point), let me know.

But if you uncover a Spanish-language version of Deutschland Uber Alles, keep it to yourself.

I recently wrote about being a member of Generation X, and how our youth (those damn 1980s) is the cultural touchstone and promised land for much of the MAGA movement. Yeah, it creeps me out.

One thing I didn’t mention is how, despite our inherent coolness, my fellow Gen Xers and I are getting older. I know — it all seems so impossible. But trust me, it’s happening.

In fact, an early year of my generation, 1972 to be precise, was the peak time for youth in America. By that, I mean the average age for an American has risen every year since then, to the point that the nation’s median age has reached 38.9, which is “the highest it has ever been.”

Yikes. America is one old-ass country.

What does it mean that our nation is rapidly filling up with cranky senior citizens while there are fewer young people to offset them?

Well, for starters, our population growth “has slowed significantly with an increase of only 0.5%.” There is some concern that within the next few years, America will actually lose population, which is not the sign of a vibrant country.

An aging population that has fewer young people to do all the work and keep society moving forward is a sociocultural red flag that economists call “a truly fucked-up situation,” to use the official term.

This demographic cliff is looming so large, in fact, that conservatives are shrieking nonstop that Americans need to have more babies. They mean white Christian babies of course, but even if the hyper-religious get to banging nonstop, it is unlikely to slow our nation’s slide into decrepitude.

Most political scientists believe the best way to increase the number of young people in America is to increase immigration.

Ha — that’s a good one, right?

Actually, it’s no joke.

If America is to avoid becoming one big nursing home, we need more immigrants. Unfortunately, due to right-wing lunacy and xenophobia on a massive scale, “after more than 50 years of rapid growth, the nation’s immigrant population is now in decline.”

This is good news for the racists, but bad news for just about everyone else.

Just the economic toil of decreased immigration is likely to be grim. You see, Republicans who wanted to kick immigrants out ignored “a big hole in the seductively simple argument that Mr. Trump’s policy will push employers to hire Americans: For many jobs, the cheaper and more likely replacement is a robot.” And those jobs that can’t be done by robots “will simply leave the country.”

So much for a job boom for those angry, native-born Americans who thought their high school diplomas were good enough. They believed they could have a strong economy and mass deportations, but both are turning out to be pathetic delusions.

And speaking of robots, keep in mind that artificial intelligence is poised to trigger “a rapid reorganization of work—compressing years of change into months, affecting roughly 40 percent of jobs worldwide, [and] the consequences will not stop at the economy,” testing political institutions “that have already shown how brittle they can be.”

These factors are combining to create a picture of the future that is, well, not so very bright. To be honest, it’s fairly horrifying. 

So what are the ultimate consequences of an aging population, fewer immigrants to take care of old people, and AI taking over?

Well, for one thing, Gen X will need lots of robots to keep us alive.

Knowing my generation’s luck, our robotic caregivers will be on glitchy beta test and fry us.

This would all be much simpler if we weren’t so bigoted. But that’s not the American way. 

Just ask the next furious old man you see. He will be easy to find, because soon, the country will be nothing but the elderly, tumbleweeds, and reminiscing about the good old days.