Hispanic Fanatic

There is something mathematically pure about the Republican Party. For the past 30 years, they have insisted that once they have the presidency, everything will be great, but the exact opposite — i.e., massive chaos — always occurs.

This predictable political formula of A plus B equals C would be charming enough. But it’s the specifics that amaze and astound.

Consider that the last three GOP presidents (Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Trump) all began their terms with solid economies and ended their terms with recessions. Although Jr.’s was the worst, Trump 2.0 has the potential to create a definite trend of economic downturns intensifying with each Republican administration.

However, the most amazing mathematical formula, too precise to be coincidence, is that the last three GOP presidents have waged an unnecessary war in the Middle East, with the rationale for each one becoming more ludicrous than the last.

We’ve gone from defending Kuwait to imaginary WMDs to… well, nobody really knows why we’re bombing Iran. It could be one of a dozen vague, contradictory reasons or no reason at all.

This latest round of GOP warmongering in the Middle East looks to end the trilogy with a full-blown scene of total Armageddon. Seriously, we have religious zealots who are eager to kill us all for the glory of Jesus (which theologians would tell you is not something Christ would actually want). But hey, if the apocalypse comes, at least we would be spared another GOP president.

In any case, I have long wondered about voters who insist that Republicans are better for the economy, despite a century of evidence that this is not true. However, now I have to ponder why any sane adult would look at Trump during the 2024 election, listen to the GOP’s shrieked bloodlust, and think “They are the party of peace.”

Yeah, Trump said he wouldn’t start any wars, but it was a minor miracle that he didn’t launch one during his first term. He was too busy golfing and denying Covid to attack anybody. Only a child would believe that our luck would last. Trump and his right-wing acolytes are happy only when Americans are dropping bombs on people.

Invading Venezuela was just too easy and didn’t deliver the carnage that conservatives love and the distraction that Trump needed. And that is why “the most powerful man on Earth is cavalierly bombing and reshaping one of the most geopolitically explosive regions in the world — and has offered nothing even approaching a coherent explanation for why he’s doing it or what he’s aiming to achieve.” We all know that it was horrific enough “for America to have a mad king, [but] now the world is seeing the rise of a mad emperor.”

Our lunatic president — who has really shot to hell his chances of winning that elusive Nobel Peace Prize — “is telling liesabout the war that not only contradict one another, but contradict themselves internally.” We have to ask if this misbegotten war is “about a nuclear program that doesn’t exist” or a regime change “that we haven’t thought through” or “an imaginary Iranian threat to elections.” Our befuddled commander in chief “has claimed both that he already destroyed Iran’s nuclear program and that he is now destroying it,” which makes it a Schrodinger’s cat of atomic weaponry.

This conflict — which has yet to gain a catchy name, so we will likely go with the Iran War — has been launched “without explanation, without Congress, without even an attempt to build public support, [and] without a coherent strategy.”

Of course, that’s not entirely true. Because according to the GOP ideology, “the dominance itself is the point; there is no other endgame.”

As for the war itself, at some point, America “may be forced to choose between an escalation or an embarrassing climbdown.”

Assuming that this campaign doesn’t end in a disaster that makes the Iraq War look like a mighty victory, our best hope is that our easily distracted president just gets bored with the war and impulsively calls it off. That would not be the first time he creates a cataclysm, leaves a mess for others to clean up, and declares victory.

If we tell him that America has won the war already, will he tweet himself congratulations and go back to ranting about paper straws?

Sounds like a coherent strategy to me.

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 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.

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.

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 haven’t said much about Venezuela because I’ve been busy processing the fact that armed government militias are shooting women in the face and getting away with it. And when I’m not dwelling on that grotesquerie, I’m obsessing about the fact that millions of Americans are ok with this development, actively support it in many cases, and insist that a country where governmentalized thugs can murder people who disrespect them is just fine.

Yeah, it’s a lot to ponder.

In any case, the US invaded Venezuela a couple of weeks ago.

This was to stop the flow of drugs, or seize the oil, or end repression, or.. well, who even knows anymore? Certainly not the guy who authorized the incursion. 

Hell, just “a week after the mission to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, the chief executive of ExxonMobil called the country ‘uninvestable,’ undercutting the economic rationale for the military intervention.”

This shifting of reasons and mess of contradictions was not enough to dissuade an acquaintance of mine, a Latino conservative who plastered my social media with proclamations of how great it was that we bombed Venezuela and captured Maduro.

This acquaintance ended his rhapsodizing with the declaration “I hope we take care of Cuba next.”

I’ve said it before: There is never enough warfare for conservatives.

I wonder if people like this remember the Iraq War, where we overthrew a vicious dictator and then were shocked when the people of that country were not grateful. We were even more surprised when we discovered that rebuilding a country is not as easy as eliminating a second-rate despot.

Even more relevant, I wonder if they know anything about US military intervention in Latin America, which has almost always culminated in violence, death, and suffering for the inhabitants, and never freedom and easy living for the nation we invaded.

Why do they clamor for more of the same, insisting that this time, under the auspices of a volatile ignoramus, it will be different?

Perhaps they would like to know that repression in Venezuela has actually intensified since we kidnapped Maduro, and there is no indication that life will be better for anyone any place where US troops are active.

And speaking of Maduro and how it relates to ICE thugs shooting people in American streets, keep in mind that the “worst thing that Maduro did is just what Trump is beginning to do: killing civilians and blaming them for their own deaths.”

Conservative who agree with Trump that mocking federal officials is grounds for immediate execution should note that the Maduro regime “claimed that the people they murdered were resisting government authority, and that the men who pulled the trigger had been provoked by those whom they murdered.”

Yes, we can either believe our own eyes and intuition, or we can embrace the “conspiracy story that Trump and his advisors are telling: that all evil has to do with immigrants and drugs, and that everyone who wants democracy and human rights in the United States is somehow part of a giant invisible immigration/drug/antifa conspiracy directed from abroad.”

Your call.

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.