Hispanic Fanatic

As we know, supporters of Trump come in all styles.

There are angry young men, cackling oligarchs, virulent racists, smug misogynists, cowed conservatives, frightened boomers, furious Gen Xers, religious zealots, conspiratorial lunatics, pedophile defenders, oblivious minorities, and casual voters who wanted cheaper eggs, among other demographics.

It’s more difficult to find highly educated professionals who see a blithering, self-aggrandizing bigot go on and on about himself who think “This is the guy.” But you will find them. There are economists who support his tariffs, political scientists who insist Trump is a strategic genius, and doctors who like polio. 

However, one professional class refuses to get on board the Trump train. That would be the historians.

I have yet to see a prominent historian say, “This is a golden age, and Americans will celebrate Trump in the future.” Indeed, historians are among Trump’s strongest critics. They really dislike the guy.

Many will say, “Who cares what a bunch of elitist eggheads think?” And then these people will steal the historian’s lunch money and yell, “Nerd” while giving them wedgies.

But in some ways, Trump’s horrible reputation with historians may be even more alarming than his notoriety among scientists, journalists, heads of state, and anyone who believes that citizens should not be murdered in the street.

You see, historians have devoted their lives to studying the past, analyzing the present, and presenting conclusions. And pretty much all of them are saying, “This shit is fucked up and will lead to chaos for years, even generations.” And they have been saying this since his first term.

Historians are shouting about the signs of fascism, the parallels to other countries that dabbled with authoritarianism, and the fact that the GOP has a Nazi problem. They are pointing out that all of this has happened, in some form, in many other countries over many decades, and it has always led to catastrophe.

They are the Cassandras that Americans are not listening to, either because it’s too disturbing, too unbelievable, or too easy to dismiss as the caterwauling emanating from ivory towers.

But keep in mind that historians judge presidents differently than voters and journalists do. Historians don’t evaluate leaders on how the economy is doing today (although the answer is “not well”). Nor do they obsess over partisan ideology, culture wars, or political wins and losses. 

Rather, historians prioritize long-term institutional effects, like constitutional norms, minority rights, commitment to rule of law, respect for democratic processes, and the peaceful transfer of power.

And guess what? Trump sucks at all of those.

If historians don’t like a president, it’s usually not because he was mean to trans people or constantly insulted allies (but let’s be honest, that doesn’t help). No, historians interpret warning signs in democracies and say, “This is ominous as fuck for all these reasons that we have seen in other countries, and America will not be an exception.”

Other experts are beginning to agree, like the research firm that states “the United States [is] the principal source of global risk in 2026.”

Unless we alter our terrifying trajectory, the historians of 2126 will shake their heads at our ignorance, sigh, and add America to the long list of countries that didn’t pay attention to the lessons of history.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Second Amendment.

This poorly written clause has provoked more death and mayhem in this country than any other scrap of the English language. And its homicidal power has only increased in recent decades, as belligerent  dudes insist the right to own an AR-15 is so fundamental, so crucial to liberty, that slaughtered children are just an annoying byproduct of its greatness.

But even though I would like to see the Second Amendment revoked (or at least heavily edited, modified, and clarified), I accept it as the law of the land. You want a gun? Yup, you can get one, no matter how much I personally don’t like it.

So it’s more than a little perplexing to see Second Amendment “absolutists,” the same people who are the first to proclaim how much they love the Constitution, now backtracking, hedging, and wavering in their support for this supposedly sacred right.

These guys believe the Constitution is ala cart, and their belief in any of its principles depends upon how politically inconvenient they are.

Now that their leader — aka Tangerine Palpatine — has mumbled, “You can’t have guns,” many of them are saying, “OK with me, chief! What other theoretically essential values do you want me to abandon?”

Of course, some gun owners have pushed back… meekly and with the respectful tone that they would never adopt if someone were, say, asking them to wear a mask to prevent disease. But it’s a pushback nonetheless.

Our old friends at the NRA felt pressured to say something after a Republican president threatened gun ownership in a way that no Democratic president has ever come close to vocalizing. Remember all that nonsense about Obama taking your guns? The guy never even implied that you can’t have them.

So if you ever needed proof that many Second Amendment advocates are weak-willed hypocrites, here is your proof.

But to be fair, Trump and the most fervent of his hardcore supporters are not hypocrites. That would require them to have principles in the first place.

No, the MAGA faithful think about the Second Amendment the same way they think about all American rights: as something reserved exclusively for them.

In their eyes, the Second Amendment is not for Latinos or liberals or punk rockers who live in cities.

It’s for them — rural and suburban white, straight Christian men who are the God-given owners of this country. They alone receive the benefits of the Constitution, the protection of the government, and the right to say and do whatever the hell they want.

And if you don’t like that, watch out, because they are heavily armed. 

When Trump said gun ownership could be restricted, he clearly wasn’t talking about these guys.

He meant the rest of us.

And that goes for all our rights. They can just be whisked away like they never existed.

I recently created my first AI agent.

Don’t be impressed. It took ten minutes and no technical skill at all. The AI basically synthesizes my news feed.

But maybe I should look into developing an AI chatbot that can convert hardcore right-wingers into progressive activists, because that would be one hell of a cultural improvement from a tool that, so far, has been most effective at writing poorly phrased emails for lazy people and creating bizarro images.

You see, a recent study has found that AI chatbots “can sway voters better than political advertisements.” The researchers found that “a conversation with a chatbot can shift people’s political views” more effectively than talking to a human can. But since we’re talking about AI here, and there is always a dark side, you will be unsurprised to know that “the most persuasive models also spread the most misinformation.”

Basically, your Tia Ana will remain steadfast in her political views no matter how many facts you throw at her or regardless of how much you plead. But her principles may waver if an AI bot lies to her enough. 

No, that’s not reassuring.

The researchers say that “the chatbots’ persuasive power could have profound consequences for the future of democracy.” For example, politicians who “use AI chatbots could shape public opinion in ways that compromise voters’ ability to make independent political judgments.”

As we know, many Americans believe Jewish space lasers control the weather and vaccines cause babies to explode. And those beliefs have a head start even before AI does it thing. 

Research shows that the affinity to believe total nonsense is more of a trait for conservatives. This tendency apparently extends to AI, as the study revealed that “chatbots advocating for right-leaning candidates made a larger number of inaccurate claims than those advocating for left-leaning candidates.” 

You see, if AI is parroting right-wing nonsense, it quickly runs out of objective truths. So the chatbots create “misleading or false information” to become more persuasive, and AI “essentially reaches to the bottom of the barrel of stuff they know, so the facts get worse quality.”

The researchers conclude that this study implies “a troubling world for democracy.” But they have a solution. All we need are “strong guardrails to keep the systems in check.”

If AI chatbots could laugh, they would bust out cackling at that statement. Because in the interest of making tech bros even more money, and to facilitate Silicon Valley’s continued right-wing drift, the Trump administration has made it difficult to create any guardrails — never mind strong ones.

Most likely, conservatives will swarm Americans with AI chatbots, deep fakes, and technological tricks designed to fool people into thinking progressives are diabolical and the GOP is competent, neither of which is true.

So in the future, perhaps robots won’t need to rise up, attack humans, and subjugate them. Maybe we will just meekly do whatever AI tells is to do.

We have not lost our democracy. That’s the good news.

We are rapidly losing our democracy. That’s the bad news.

Recently, the New York Times assessed how America is doing on 12 key aspects of democracy. They concluded that we have declined in all dozen areas, which is “a warning of how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose.”

Ok, so we’re 0-12 when it comes to maintaining the guiding principle of our republic. That’s about as bad as it gets, right?

No, it’s even worse. You see, the Times analysis did not get into some of the grayer areas of America’s decline, such as the fact that in the last year, we have witnessed “a parade of rapid-fire knee-bending that has heralded in a new era of American exceptionalism—one in which we prove that no country capitulates to authoritarian tendencies faster than us.”

However, it’s not all bad news. This week’s election results imply that people are getting sick of Trump and his boorish brand of authoritarianism. 

The Democrats “won every race that was in meaningful contention anywhere in the country.” They won governorships, mayoral races, school board seats, “long-held [Republican] dog-catchers,” and “flipped a dungeon master in a rural Iowa D&D club… just everything.”

It is, of course, far too early to launch into a touchdown dance. But the off-year election’s results shows, at the very least, that GOP dominance is not a given.

In fact, it gives credibility to my assertion that the Democratic Party does not need to move to the right to win elections. Maybe Trump’s victory was not a sea change in American politics and harbinger of conservative ascendancy. More likely, the guy won because of “high inflation, Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to try to run for reelection, an underwhelming Kamala Harris campaign, and an anti-incumbent mood.”

If so, the “anti-MAGA majority has reemerged,” and democracy is not dead yet. 

That’s our hope anyway.

Whenever you hear someone brush off the existential crisis that this administration is inflicting on America with the words “It’s just politics” (or variations on this phrase), you are dealing with someone who feels they are immune. And to fair, most of the people who say this are unlikely to be grabbed on the street by masked thugs and whisked off to an impoverished country.

These people are usually white.

I had a friend inform me that I had no need to be concerned about ICE raids here in Los Angeles because I am obviously not a member of MS-13, so I would not be detained.

What a relief that was!

Granted, when I recently attended a Dodgers post-season game, a different friend asked if I was concerned about being swooped up and thrown into the back of an unmarked van. I told him that, yeah, it had crossed my mind, but the odds were in my favor with 50,000 people (half them Latino) surrounding me.

This second friend was closer to the truth of my situation, because obviously, this is not a great time to be brown in America.

You see, our pals at the most pliable U.S. Supreme Court in history have “allowed the Trump administration to use racial profiling in its militarized immigration raids.” The conservative justices have “effectively compelled all Latinos ‘to carry enough documentation to prove that they deserve to walk freely’ at risk of indefinite detention.”

The Trump Administration can now “target people because of their appearance and how they speak, as well as where they were found and what kind of work they do,” meaning that “to move freely in this country, it may become increasingly important to look white.” 

But what about the viewpoint of my naive friend, who said I had nothing to worry about because I’m not an undocumented gang member? Well, he should know that at least 170 U.S. citizens “have been held by immigration agents,” with many of those detained getting “kicked, dragged, and detained for days.”

So immigration status is no guarantee. All that matters is how dark your skin is.

These developments imply that I should walk around with my passport in case some overzealous ICE goon decides I look far too swarthy to be walking in a respectable neighborhood. Just the fact that I have to consider this shows you how far this nation has plummeted in its promises to its citizens.

And I assure you that I take it very personally indeed.

We are now a few days removed from the No Kings protests, so I’m fairly certain that if antifa was going to attack and unleash hell on innocent citizens, they would have done so by now.

Wow, maybe all those protesters didn’t hate America after all.

I spent the day at a protest that, to be honest, felt more like a block party than a political demonstration. But it’s possible that was the whole point, because one of the methods for fighting authoritarianism is to mock those in power, which is pretty damn easy with the Trump administration. We’re talking about the biggest collection of fools, sycophants, and delusional has-beens that has ever been assembled in one place. They would be comical if they weren’t so lethal.

In any case, our easily triggered chief executive proved the protesters correct when he responded in a childish, boorish, cringy manner by posting an AI-generated video of him literally shitting on Americans. His base cheered him on because these pathetic sheep would cheer if he actually did shit on them. The rest of us just said, “instant metaphor.”

The AI video was just the GOP’s latest clumsy attempt to embrace the modern maxim that the “truth no longer matters[because] all you have to do is go viral.” Americans have shown that they will believe just about anything, so why not the ridiculous, the grotesque, and the obviously fake?

Speaking of believing absurdities, many conservatives continue to insist that everyone protesting against Trump is being paid. I find this belief fascinating because it illustrates the conservative mindset.

The conspiracy theory posits that conservatives are both overwhelmingly popular (because liberals have to resort to bribery) and outnumbered (because a vast organization of shadowy globalists are out to destroy them). But this contradiction is not the most egregious act of non-thinking.

After all, if millions of Americans were being paid to protest, why have we not seen one person waving her check around? Even loyal partisans can’t keep secrets well. These are apparently desperate, nonmotivated participants. So you would have thought one (or more likely, thousands) of them would reveal the Venmo payment or flash the cash for a TV reporter. Or at least one of these MAGA theorists would have gone undercover to reveal how he got paid. It can’t be a very sophisticated network if millions of unemployed losers just show up and get money.

But no, we get idiotic theories that can be disproved with nine seconds of logic. And we are supposed to take these concerns seriously.

The fact is that millions of Americans gathered together to display their disdain for a wannabe dictator. These participants “reported disagreement with political violence, in a turn from similar surveys at previous protests” and were less likely than Republicans to trash the place. 

Conservatives were disappointed that these so-called ferocious radicals marched through every major city and even in deep-red states, with few arrests.

It was, by some estimates, the largest one-day protest in American history.

That’s good news, because studies show that “if you want to guarantee success against authoritarianism, there is one more thing you must do: You must grow until at least 3.5% of the population is out in the streets protesting.”

This is the 3.5% rule, which theorizes that “if you manage to get that 3.5% of the country out in the streets with you, the historical data suggests your movement will win.”

Over seven million people protested last weekend. And the protests keep getting bigger. So achieving 3.5% (12 million people) doesn’t “seem so far away.”

And even while Republicans mocked the protesters, and seemed genuinely confused that the “no kings” name was metaphorical, a recent survey illustrated a disturbing truth for conservatives.

The survey gave people two options: Is Trump a “potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys democracy” or is he a “strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness”?

Americans chose the “dictator” option by a strong margin, 56% to 41%.

It took a while, but people are catching on.

You kids might not remember the 9/11 attacks, but I am certainly old enough to recall that horrific day.

I’m also old enough to remember when America had presidents who could speak in full, coherent sentences. But that’s another story.

One aspect of the attack’s aftermath that many people do not remember, or choose to forget, is the Patriot Act. This rabbit punch to our civil liberties was rammed through by Republicans and timid Democrats, all of whom insisted that unless we wanted religious zealots to blow us up repeatedly, we had to agree to be surveilled nonstop. We are still living with the legacy of this panicky response to terrorism.

I also recall more than one conservative in 2001 insisting that we had to racially profile airplane passengers and that we had to be willing to give up some of our freedoms to feel safe.

Well, a quarter-century later, a new breed of conservatives are bravely standing up, renouncing the past, and insisting that… we have to be willing to give up some of our freedoms to feel safe (or at least, not get offended).

You see, “some Republicans who consider themselves defenders of unfettered speech are getting more comfortable with limiting it.” At least one Republican congressman has said, “under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right” before adding “I don’t feel that way anymore.”

I must admit, I had no idea the First Amendment could be discarded so quickly simply because Republicans aren’t feeling it.

Also, these “normal times” that the GOP is referring to are apparently the Biden years, which pretty much admits that the Trump years are fucked up to the point that authoritarianism becomes the default.

The larger issue, a point that has been made multiple times over multiple decades, is that if anything bad happens, the GOP will melt down and shout, “And now we have to take away all your rights.”

Hell, sometimes nothing bad needs to happen for conservatives to, say, “Stop it with your civil liberties nonsense.” It takes very little for conservatives to jettison the values they claim to uphold. 

That might be because they never believed any of that stuff in the first place.

It’s been more difficult than usual to keep track of all the outlandish conspiracy theories.

Was the shooter a groyper or a trans activist? Is antifa coming to burn your city down? Will taking Tylenol cause your head to explode?

You may have lost track of the myriad rumors that swirl into our minds every day, courtesy of our friend, the internet.

But do you remember this conspiracy theory from a couple of weeks ago?: Trump is near death, and the White House is covering it up.

Yes, it seems like the distant past when everyone was posting pictures of Trump’s hands and asserting body doubles were on the Oval Office and conjecturing like mad. It was so long ago that, back in those halcyon days, we still believed in the First Amendment.

I know — ancient history, right?

Well, the most obnoxious and unpopular person to ever lead a major nation is alive and kicking, thank you very much, and he showed off how non-dead he is by delivering the most unhinged, bizarre, and befuddling speech in the history of the United Nations.

I can assure you that this was no body double, my friends.

However, the rumors have led to the inevitable question about the inevitable end that all of us face. Someday, whether days or years from now, Trump will no longer be around.

Now, I’m not wishing harm upon our illustrious president.

Do you hear that, all you government goons and right-wing busybodies who are scouring the internet for any sign of dissent? I am not wishing harm upon the guy.

In fact, I’ve said many times that I hope old number 47 continues to thrive in great health. I want him to live to be 100, when he will be an ancient and withered symbol of the nation’s descent into insanity and a living refutation to all those people who deny they stood by or applauded while this country spiraled into fascism. Ideally, Trump will celebrate his centenarian birthday in prison, surrounded by his yes men and fellow failed authoritarians.

But I digress.

What happens when Trump exits this mortal coil?

I mean, besides dancing in the streets. That’s a given.

Well, whenever he dies, it will be a liberal plot.

He could keel over a decade from now while eating a cheeseburger, and right-wingers will claim lesbian folk singers poisoned him. The man could impale himself on a golf club in 2040, and conservatives will insist an immigrant college professor speared him.

From a media perspective, he will not go quietly.

His passing will be a landmark in US history. It may be greeted with a collective sigh of relief or a violent attack. It may usher a period of shame and reflection, or it could provoke mass executions.

We don’t really know. Nor do we know what will happen to his most zealous followers, who will have to face life without their domineering daddy figure.

Like all things Trump, I am wary of this development, as unavoidable as it is.

And like all things Trump, there is no way to prepare.

So the authorities have captured the person who allegedly shot that fascist guy last week.

And it turns out the shooter is a gay Latino Muslim immigrant who is chairman of his local antifa chapter.

Wait a second, let me check that. No, he is yet another socially isolated, angry, young white man who grew up in a household that fetishized guns and worshipped the Republican Party.

I know you didn’t see that one coming.

Even though the shooter is not the dark-skinned foreigner that conservatives were literally praying for, that hasn’t stopped them from vowing vengeance. 

Republicans are compiling lists of people who have not expressed the minimum amount of mourning for a bigot that the GOP deems adequate. This is because the Republican Party is against cancel culture and believes strongly in free speech. Yup.

Also, the Trump administration is threatening progressive organizations, because this murder has given them the excuse they have been dreaming about. The White House says unspecified groups face unclear consequences for undetermined crimes. I’m sure the Trumpists will be thoughtful and well-reasoned in their approach. After all, this is the team that just blows up ships in international waters for the hell of it.

And of course, right-wing militants — who need a reason to get violent as much as fire needs a reason to burn — are ready to attack. Even more than usual, these lunatics are prepping for full-on warfare. And as we know, even though conservatives deny it at every turn, right-wing violence is exponentially more common and catastrophic than left-wing violence.

In the midst of all this conservative sturm und drang, myriad conspiracy theories have popped up. Because they must. Seriously, if there has ever been more fertile ground for conspiratorial nonsense than 21-st century America, I would like to know.

The assassination is rumored to be the work of a dark cabal, or an inside job, or the work of a Satanic liberal cult, or simply enough, the Jews (who wind up as the villains in every conspiracy theory). Some internet nutjobs insist the shooting was fake, and that the fascist guy didn’t die at all. I’m surprised that nobody has insisted that it was an elaborate suicide — yet.

With all this mishmashing of fact and fiction, progressives find themselves in an odd place. For the first time in, well, maybe forever, misinformation is beneficial to liberals.

This is because the shooter does not fit the easy profile of an ethnic minority gone savage, or a crazed immigrant out for blood. Again, he’s a native-born white guy who was raised Republican. This background has led to conjecture that he fired that shot as the opening salvo in a right-wing civil war. We’re hearing about internecine conservative plots and online mutual trolling and groypers, which is a term that I resent I had to learn.

Again, those who hate liberals will not care what the facts are or the truth of what actually happened. But painting this murder as the work of unhinged liberals is already failing because of the shooter’s profile, the swirl of misinformation, and the absence of clear facts.

For the first time, liberals can say, “That’s not what I heard” and offer up their own crazy story that may or may not be accurate.

No, that is not good for society. But it may help to keep progressives alive.

By the way, we should note that the fascist guy rose to fame by demonizing immigrants and ethnic minorities. He devoted his career to spreading hatred of “the other” and convincing white people that they were under attack by swarthy foreigners speaking bizarre languages. Until his dying breath, quite literally, he insisted non-white people were violent and dangerous.

And then a white man shot him.

That’s proving your hypothesis wrong in the most tragically ironic way possible.

Quick quiz: Who is the most dangerous man in America?

You thought I would say Trump, right?

While I wouldn’t argue with anyone who sees our mad emperor as the biggest threat to our country, our planet, and possibly life on Earth, my nominee for the man most likely to kill us all is that rapscallion of the Kennedy clan, Mr. RFK Jr.

You see, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to end vaccines, weakening public health infrastructure, firing health experts who actually know what they’re talking about, cancelling scientific research that could save millions, and spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories that will eventually lead to Americans chugging vitamins and gurgling bleach instead of getting vaccinated. I wouldn’t be surprised if he outlawed chemotherapy for cancer patients in favor of dousing them in essential oils. 

Kennedy’s idiotic whims and hostility to science will straight-up kill people. But he is symptomatic of two of the Trump administration’s chief characteristics. 

The first is aggression toward expertise, logic, facts, or data. The monumental hubris of conservatives comes out as attacks on those fancy-pants eggheads who study things and learn things and base their conclusions on anything other than the Bible, Trump, or own made-up theories that a 10-year-old could disprove with two minutes of Google searching.

In particular, the Republican hatred of science is well-established. This is part of the larger trend of anti-science mysticismenabling autocracy around the world. Millions of supposedly rational conservatives would rather believe a babbling conman with a messiah complex over decades of scientific research. This ignorance and anger will soon cause the American scientific and technological empire to collapse.

The second “theme that unites Trump’s inept handling of deportations, his trampling on human and civil rights, his rejection of the rule of law, his dictatorial centralization of power, and his utterly inept handling of the economy is the ineptness itself.”

The problem is that Trump “has the attention span of a fruit fly,” which is “causing chaos across the federal government, as rival sycophants compete for his limited attention.”

The result is that no one is in charge, and the Trump administration is “coming apart, [and] incompetence is everywhere.” The administration can’t keep military secrets, maintain financial stability, or protect children from measles. In essence, Trump “cannot protect America.”

But hey, at least red dye is banned. So as our economy nosedives and masked fascists rampage through the streets and we die of preventable diseases, we can take great comfort in that.