Hispanic Fanatic

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.

There’s a fair amount of Latino pride surging through my household lately — the result, as you can imagine, of a certain malevolent rodent taking over the Super Bowl. 

This is despite the fact that I am not Puerto Rican, and I’m more of a grunge rock guy than a reggaeton fan. 

But I love seeing Latinos excel. And I also love a good party. Hey, who doesn’t?

Ha — you know the answer to that.

No sooner was the halftime show over than angry white conservatives proclaimed how very, very oppressed they were because for the first time in the history of the universe, a major event was not focused on them. The indignity of hearing Spanish, and seeing all that joy, has launched a million apocalyptic fits among Republicans, who are now threatening to unleash the power of governmental investigations upon those radicals who dare to twerk.

I guess they wrapped up that whole Epstein investigation and now have lots of free time to focus on other equally pressing matters.

Yup.

In any case, I have to wonder if doubt ever creeps into the right-wing mind. It is painfully obvious that the Super Bowl halftime show was a tremendous success, while the hastily conceived alternative concert was, to be diplomatic, not so well regarded. And yet conservatives continue to die on that hill, buried under ever-increasing piles of ludicrous and straight-up racist arguments.

Does it ever cross their minds that most Americans do not share their terror over hearing Spanish? Do they ever say, “I don’t know much about this music or culture, so maybe I can learn more” instead of reflexively lashing out at the unknown and clinging to the familiar and the pedestrian? Do they see people dancing and proclaiming the power of love and welcoming all types of individuals, and feel, just for a moment, that their posture of fury and self-righteous rage is misplaced and kind of, sort of, a little bit pathetic?

Probably not.

But more and more, Americans are seeing conservatives for what they are. And all we can do is shake our heads and say, “Que triste.”

Yeah, that was Spanish. Get used to it.

I’ve mentioned before that I am a proud member of Gen X.

Well, make that usually or perhaps occasionally proud. We have our flaws.

In any case, I remember the 1980s, and they weren’t that rad… excuse me… they weren’t that great.

As such, it is disconcerting that so many members of my generation glamorize a time that was loud, shallow, and ugly. And holy fucking hell, did the music ever suck.

But 1980s nostalgia isn’t just for middle-aged Gen Xers who remember a time when their knees didn’t hurt and a person could be entertained for a whole afternoon with just five dollars in quarters at the arcade.

No, this yearning for 40 years ago is especially acute for Trump and his devoted fans.

I know, we all think of the “again” in the MAGA slogan as referring to the 1950s. And indeed, the desire for that simpler world of milkshakes and segregation is strong among the baby boomers. Damn, they rhapsodize about the Eisenhower years.

But attitudinally, the conservative movement is all about the 1980s. That was the last era in which white men were the unquestioned leaders of America, and it was still ok to make racist jokes in public. Sure, there were ladies in the workplace, because of that damn women’s lib movement of the 1970s, but men could still grab a female ass in the office without everybody getting all uptight about it. Best of all, rich guys were heroes, and nobody — I mean, nobody — was stressed about the environment collapsing, Muslims moving in next door, or gay people doing anything other than hiding and cowering in fear.

For white male conservatives, this was the last good time.

Yes, in the 1980s we were under constant threat that the USSR would bomb us into oblivion at any time. But that’s not a concern because the Republican Party of the 2020s loves Russia. They don’t even mind when the US president kowtows to a Russian dictator whose propaganda machine gleefully proclaims that corrupt Republicans will destroy America.

I suppose that’s the new version of winning one for the Gipper.

In any case, Republicans — especially white, male, straight Christian ones — will continue to pine away for the 1980s. They want a nation where ethnic minorities are never the lead in movies, women stop getting nominated for president, and rich guys can yell, “retard” again.

As if all that weren’t vile enough, they will likely indulge in their retrograde fantasies while blaring Starship’s We Built This City.

Totally gnarly.

As I’ve mentioned, I lived in the great city of Minneapolis for seven years. During my time there, I became friends with a guy I will call Jordan. I’m not using his real name for reasons that will shortly become apparent.

Jordan and I spent a lot of time together, sipping our Surly Furious beers, pondering if winter would ever end, and being all open-minded and tolerant of others. You know — radical insurgent stuff.

In any case, Jordan recently texted me about what’s happening in Minneapolis, a city where heavily armed thugs are assaulting people, stomping on the Constitution, and unleashing terror on a populace best known for politeness.

With his permission, I am excerpting some of Jordan’s texts here:

This is simple retribution and punishment against the people of MN for not falling in line and helping this asshole become a king. It’s clear anyone undocumented is scared, but I know a scientist with a green card who is scared to leave her home. I’ve got work colleagues who are US citizens scared shitless and not coming into work. It’s literally affecting everyone. The damage they are doing here is absolutely crazy. They are not following laws and intentionally roughing people up.no matter what you’re doing.

They are here to send a message. Detain people for hours and release them without charges. Smashing car windows when people don’t move fast enough. They’re on the freeway pulling people over. Schools are in chaos. 

Restaurants are closed due to fear of staffing and customer safety. Because if ICE shows up, they mess with everybody no matter who you are. They rammed into a guy’s car because they said he was not a citizen but then drove away, leaving him with a damaged car. It’s all tactics to put the fear into everyone that anyone at any time can be harmed, detained, or have property damaged.

Also, we’ve got right-wing extremists calling in pipe bomb threats at Hennepin County buildings. ICE doesn’t care. 

One good and sad story is that a Mexican restaurant had workers too scared to come in, so the owner asked for volunteers to cook in the kitchen before all the food spoiled to make for their workers, and over 100 people signed up, and they had to turn away volunteers. 

I don’t know, we’re sad, we’re angry and we’re scared.

Yes, it’s a lot to take in.

Also, Jordan is probably pissed at me because he’s a Vikings fan, and the pseudonym I choose for him is inspired by Jordan Love, the Green Bay Packers quarterback. Ha, that was a good one.

Sports rivalries aside, I want Jordan to know that we support Minneapolis — and by “we” I mean the majority of Americans who are aghast at the Gestapo-lite marching through uptown. 

The city is taking a hit on behalf of the entire country right now, and for their perseverance, we own them our gratitude and respect.

I had hoped that my first post of 2026 would be full of joy and chockablock with optimism.

Yeah, not so much.

What should we focus on first? How about the fact that ICE thugs are now shooting people in the face for not complying with their shrieked, random, contradictory orders fast enough? Or that the government demands that we reject evidence we see with our own eyes? Or that poorly trained neo-fascists have proven that they are willing to murder white women in broad daylight, so we can just imagine what they are capable of when they drag Latino men off to some dark cell?

Well, we can address all of that, plus the fact that even under the most extreme version of devil’s advocate, the trigger-happy ICE goon in Minneapolis was reckless and incompetent, and more likely guilty of at least manslaughter, if not outright murder.

Keep in mind that the gunfire in Minneapolis, a city I lived in for seven years, is not some stray occurrence or freak accident. Rather it is “the logical result of Trumpism and MAGA extremism, both in theory and in practice” because “a fatal encounter was all but inevitable” once you unleash armed hoodlums under the auspices of authority who serve no purpose other than to terrorize and provoke.

And the guy who Republicans insist will unite this nation is displaying an “indifference to facts, to due process, to the dignity of the deceased, and to basic human decency” that is beyond grotesque. The White House has made “ostentatiously dishonest statements that they knew would be contradicted by the video evidence available to anyone with eyes to see it,” proving once more that the “federal government now speaks with the voice of the right-wing smear machine: partisan, dishonest, and devoted to vilifying Trump’s perceived enemies rather than informing the public.” 

And all this has happened in the first week of what will likely be another miserable year.

But wait, I haven’t even gotten to the invasion of Venezuela yet. I suppose that will have to wait until next week’s post… unless something even more horrific happens before then, which let’s face it, is always possible.

Damn, this is an abysmal start to 2026.

We have definitive proof, as if any were needed, that our president is a depraved sociopath.

The most chilling aspect of this homunculus of hatred’s response to a beloved director and his wife getting murdered is not the gloating, the mocking, or the praising of himself. It is the implication that if the murderer turned out to be a right-wing goon, that was fine, because the couple had it coming. Even MAGA fans (well, some of them, at least) were disgusted at this rejection of basic decency and the grotesque wallowing in violence.

Don’t conservatives ever get tired of defending this repulsive behavior? At what point are they no longer owning the libs and instead cackling over pure evil? Do they even know anymore?

In any case, I will wrap up this final post of 2025 by celebrating the great Rob Reiner, who was responsible for one of my favorite films of all time, the insanely underrated road-trip comedy The Sure Thing.

I saw this movie when I was 16, and to this day, I have never related to any onscreen character more than Gib. Maybe it’s because Gib was a funny guy who was awkward with women. Perhaps it is because Gib tried to go with the flow but still got moody and morose. Or maybe it is because to this day, there are very few Midwestern-raised Latino characters in movies, so I don’t have a lot of options.

In any case, The Sure Thing is hilarious, which is a big reason I love it. But another reason for my admiration developed only later, when I rewatched the movie as an adult. 

It’s clear that Alison takes life too seriously, and she learns to lighten up through her relationship with Gib. But as Reiner himself pointed out, Gib takes life too frivolously, and he learns much from Alison. That nuance took me a while to figure out.

Yes, this director was so good, even his 1980s teen comedies were deep.

See you in 2026.

I know. We had the audacity to celebrate Thanksgiving, treating ourselves to the briefest of respites from the nonstop clown-car shitshow that now makes up American government. And what happens?

Well, for starters, our possibly ailing, possible senile president openly admits to committing war crimes (but then tries to jettison the blame to someone else). 

Hey, remember that “controversial” video of Democratic leaders reminding military personnel that they should refuse to carry out illegal orders? Yeah, it looks like that was sound advice that has unfortunately gone unheeded. 

In other disturbing news, our nation’s centuries-long reputation as a beacon of freedom for oppressed people has been stomped into oblivion. We are kicking out refugees who helped us in a botched war because one of them is a homicidal lunatic. This is because we now judge whole groups of people based on their worst members, unless of course, they are white Americans who tried to overthrow the government, in which case we do not even judge the worst of them at all.

And while we’re at it, we’re expelling other immigrant groups because… well, there really is no good reason. Hell, even the most ardent Trump defender has to admit that referring to communities of black people as “garbage” and harassing them for a crime that they are not even remotely responsible for is not, as the kids say, a good look.

But don’t worry. Our government has made it clear that Afrikaners can get going on rebuilding their whites-only homeland right here. So we still love certain immigrants, and the reasons why are not glaring or obvious in the least. Nope.

Oh, one more thing. It is more than a little odd for a guy to threaten war (despite his boasting that he would never start a war) because he is so angry about the illegal drug trade, but then turn around and pardon a man who flooded America with those same illegal drugs.

Yes, it’s all very depressing, infuriating, and perplexing. So basically, it is another day in Trump’s America.

And we just can’t get a fucking break.