A Bug That's Going Around

As we careen full throttle into the holiday season, it’s important to keep your stress level low, avoid getting sick, and maintain a positive attitude.

Of course, if you’re Latina, you can forget about all that, because it’s impossible for you to do any of those things. 

You see, a recent study has revealed that “Latinas' economic worries and anxiety about health costs are more intense than for other women overall.” In fact, Latinas are far more likely than other American women — specially white women — to worry about affording rent or a mortgage, getting decent health insurance for their families, snagging a job with good benefits, or keeping their family safe from mass shootings. And Hispanic women rank second only to black women when it comes to fear of white nationalism.

Wow, that’s a lengthy list of anxieties. And let’s not forget that almost half of Latinas report that they have experienced discrimination this past year, which is an enormous increase from the Obama era. 

Of course, that implies that there is some kind of link between the well-being of Hispanics and the person in the White House. And that’s just crazy, really nuts and…

What’s that?

Oh, it seems that “half of Latino citizens and legal residents, as well as three-quarters of undocumented immigrants, feel unsafe because of comments made by the Trump administration.”

Hmm, it’s almost like having a raging xenophobic president target you specifically for all of the nation’s ills --- and putting an overt white supremacist in charge of immigration policy --- has a negative effect on people.

Well, researchers point out that “statements coming from the administration and the president really do have significant effects on Latino populations.” Specifically, the rhetoric and policies of this gang of bumbling sociopaths have not only “induced fear in undocumented immigrants, but they have also caused a substantial proportion of Latino citizens to have concerns about their safety."

This refers to all Latinos — whether they are newly arrived, born and raised here, undocumented, or third-generation citizens — all of us.

For one concrete example of this plague, look to the fact that one-quarter “of undocumented immigrants said they were so frightened they delayed going to the emergency room for days,” which I’m sure is just fine with the contingent of Americans who love stuffing kids into cages and advocate for shooting people at the border.

But Trump’s words and actions “can be dangerous, and they can even kill when they create barriers to healthcare access.”

And what about all those ICE raids, and all the Latinos (many of them citizens) who have been arrested on their way to work or school? Well, studies have shown that “Hispanic Americans may experience worsening mental health when immigration arrests spike.” 

This stands to reason, as it can be just a little bit stressful to be walking down the street, minding your own business, and then be abruptly handcuffed by black-jacketed thugs who cart you away toward a waiting van.

Happy holidays indeed!

Researchers point out, in a totally unnecessary aside, that this “anxiety could have a detrimental impact on mental health, particularly among racial/ethnic groups that have been disproportionately targeted for arrest and deportation." 

And again, this psychological assault is not limited to the undocumented. Because these policies and actions have an impact on all Latinos, who “might also experience more discrimination, which worsens mental health.”

OK, now that we’ve established that every Hispanic has solid reasons to get sick and feel overwhelmed, is there anything we can do about it?

Well, medical professionals are actively trying to recruit more Latinos for clinical trials, so that we can better understand how these maladies affect the Hispanic population specifically. You see, Latinos are severely underrepresented in clinical trials, so doctors don’t always know if there are subtle differences in, for example, reactions to drugs that are caused by genetic differences.

As such, doctors really want Latinos to sign up for medical studies.

So the good news is that if you’re going to be sick and stressed as hell, maybe you can get paid for it.

Fair Is Fair

During the first 186 years of the U.S. Constitution’s existence, only one president was impeached. And yet, within the last 45 years, three different presidents have faced impeachment.

Is this a consequence of increased polarization, where opposing political parties seek the ultimate punishment? Or is it a random historical coincidence, and a vast amount of high crimes and misdemouners just happens to be taking place during a relatively short time span? Or has Congress only now noticed the impeachment clause hiding in the Constitution, and thought, “Hey, as long as it’s there, we might as well use it”?

Well, personally, I think more presidents should have been impeached throughout history, so maybe it’s just that our predecessors overlooked some pretty egregious shit.

In any case, this impeachment process is different from the others, and not just because we are seeking to remove a brittle, easily agitated igmoramus who was never qualified to be president in the first place.

No, it’s because the issue of fairness has never before been such a concern when we’re discussing whether or not we should evict someone from the White House.

You see, Republicans are obsessed with being fair to Donald Trump. Their arguments throughout this entire process have had little to do with the facts (there is little dispute about what happened), or the appropriateness of pressuring a foreign government to interfere in our electoral process.

Instead, when they are not pushing idiotic conspiracy theories or shrieking like lunatics, they are demanding fair treatment for our beleaguered president.

For example, Republicans are very big on identifying the whistleblower. “Who is the whistleblower? Is he the whistleblower? Are you, them, or it the whistleblower? Hey, I think I’ll name someone I think is the whistleblower, even if it’s against the law and opens the door to death threats!”

Now, all but the dimmest of Republicans know that it simply doesn't matter who the whistleblower is. All that matters is whether what he/she reported is true. And by the way, all the allegations have been verified about six thousand times now.

So even if Hilary Clinton were the whistleblower, it wouldn’t matter when assessing Trump’s innocence (although that would be a hell of a plot twist, and I’m sure someone’s working on the screenplay right now).

When they not insisting that they need to know the whistleblower’s identity (for absolutely no valid reason), Republicans are bemoaning that Robert Mueller, the FBI, and just about everyone who has investigated the president has some deeply held bias against him that corrupts the very act of looking into Trump’s criminal behavior.

Again, even if every single person involved in investigating Trump possessed a seething contempt and loathing for the man (and really, who could blame them?), it would not matter.

Bias is irrelevant as long as the facts are correct. If someone commits a crime, we do not say he can walk solely because the cops and the district attorney don’t like him.

Unless the GOP is willing to argue that this imaginary bias provoked investigators to plant evidence and make up transcripts — which I’m shocked they haven’t done yet — then this too is a pathetic smokescreen.

By the way, I’m old enough to remember Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and I have no recollection of anyone claiming that Kenneth Starr had an obligation to be fair and unbiased. Granted, much of the public debate at that time centered on whether a blowjob counted as “sex,” but the point remains.

Among the other accusations of unfairness is the GOP opinion that this process is being rushed, or that Joe Biden and his entire family committed far greater crimes.

At the risk of indulging absurdity, it should be pointed out that even if Biden shot someone on Fifth Avenue — to make up a totally deranged example — it would have no bearing on whether or not Trump should be kicked out of office. Impeachment is about the president’s behavior, not the possible shenanigans of his political rival’s kids.

Speaking of children, I can’t be the only one who thought it was odd when Republicans lost their minds over an impeachment witness making a pun about the president’s son’s name. These same defenders of the sanctity of childhood have no problem stuffing other, brown-skinned kids into cages. But hey, they’ve got their priorities.

And those priorities include shrieking that the impeachment process is a grotesque travesty of justice.

Um, no — a grotesque travesty of justice would be, for example, what happened to the Central Park Five. 

Oh, that’s right. Trump was one the loudest voices perpetuating that particular injustice.

And that’s what is so interesting about the GOP’s new and sudden interest in fairness.

You see, this is the same party that dismisses wealth inequality and shoddy healthcare as the price of freedom. They care little that well-documented racial imbalances exist in every facet of American life. They do not concern themselves with the fact that the electoral college screws over the will of the people.

The concept of fairness never enters the GOP equation for any of those issues.

To Republicans, being fair means being nice to the president, and shutting up as they plot their right-wing power grab.

That’s all it has ever meant to them.

Unity at Last

As we all know, Latinos are a vast demographic, consisting of about 18% of the American population, and as such, we have an enormous range of backgrounds, philosophies, and behaviors.

Hey, we can’t even agree on whether we are Latinos, Latinx, or Hispanic. So what possible unifying force could exist to bring us together?

Well, there is something: 

It seems that the vast majority of us hate the president. 

Yes, recent polls find that somewhere between 70% to 80% of Latinos disapprove of Trump. For context, keep in mind that this is a much higher number than the percentage of Americans who believe in democracy. Really, it’s incredibly difficult to get three-quarters of a group to agree on anything, but our illustrious commander in chief has found a way to accomplish it.

Digging even deeper, we find that over half of all Hispanics say the situation for Latinos has worsened since Trump took office, and a significant percentage of us are literally terrified to be living in America right now.

I’m no statistician, but I can say with confidence that those numbers are horrific on multiple levels. And those few Latino conservatives who have stuck by our doddering chief executive have noticed this, with more than half of them admitting that “it is hard to support Republican candidates right now.”

Yes, it is indeed difficult to endorse a political party that exists for no other reason than to demonize ethnic minorities and “own the libs.” 

The fact is that the GOP’s cultish devotion to Trump and open embrace of bigots has galvanized Hispanics to vote for somebody — anybody — else. 

So your socially conservative tio — the guy who praised Ronald Reagan and thought Bush Jr. wasn’t such a bad guy? Yeah he ain’t voting for Trump.

Indeed, “while different generations of Latinos can still hold divergent views, these views appear to have become more muted” under the onslaught of Trumpism.

This is because “some conservative, older Latinos may believe in more stringent immigration measures or restrictions, [but] they may draw the line at putting kids in cages.”

Hey, that’s more than you can say for the average GOP senator. 

The disdain for Trump among Latinos has brought together different generations and subsets of the Hispanic population, with most of us agreeing that a man who pals around with Nazis and mocks Central American refugees may not have our best interests at heart.

This hasn’t stopped our delusional White House occupant from claiming that he is super, mega popular with Hispanics. However, “while the president claims Latino support is growing, that is not based in reality. In fact, he has brought down the overall likability of the entire party.”

Wow, who could have predicted that the entire GOP would suffer for aligning itself with a xenophobic moron who is unable to go more than eight minutes without insulting a Latino, a woman, and/or a world leader? Well, actually, pretty much everyone said that this would happen, but Republicans are not big on listening to anyone who isn’t a Fox News contributor, so they are honestly surprised at this development.

Yes, it seems that you can’t stuff the racially loaded toothpaste back into the tube. 

Still, it will be a great day when Latinos can forge strong bonds over something other than our shared hatred of a bigoted Baby Boomer. 

Maybe we can all agree that pupusas are better than hamburgers, or that Adam Sandler movies suck, or that Carlos Santana should have a statue put up to him on the National Mall. 

Clearly, it’s time to start debating the really important stuff.

A Brief Respite

I’m going to take a rare week off from saving the world one blog post at a time in order to enjoy this Thanksgiving holiday with my family.

So there’s no new article this week. Certainly, I’m not going to say anything about the ongoing shit-show that is the impeachment process… nope, almost got me going there, didn’t you?

Anyway, be sure to take some time this week to give thanks that we live in a country with so much prosperity… even though the richest 1% are currently hording so many resources that it boggles the goddamn mind. I mean, seriously, people! What’s it gonna take to… wait… pull back… not gonna rant. Just gonna give thanks.

As I was saying, we can all be grateful that our country’s leaders are calm, rational people who value facts and expertise over conspiratorial nonsense and never engage in cult-like behavior that…

OK, skip that. It’s a damn lie.

Deep breath.

Let’s settle on this: Happy Thanksgiving.

Yes.

See you next week.

Empathy Is for Suckers

Recently, CNN profiled a former neo-Nazi who now rejects white supremacy. Years ago, the woman (identified only as “Samantha”) inexplicably found something appealing “in the white power activists who presented themselves as intellectuals,” and she soon “became a dues-paying member of a white power fraternity called Identity Evropa.” 

This is a common route to extremism, which is why progressives get just a little annoyed when racist ideology is presented as edgy intellectualism or a valid point of view. 

In any case, Samantha worked for Identity Evropa to test new applicants — of which there were many — to see if the newbies were sufficiently “fluent in white power ideology.” And she focused especially on women, who were told the fascist movement was “a great way to be family-oriented.”

So what eventually drove Samantha out of Identity Evropa? Was it the deranged hatred toward Jews and racial minorities? Was it the violence that often culminates in the actual loss of life?

No, she left because — to absolutely no one’s surprise — angry men who despise blacks and Latinos usually loathe women as well. Apparently, a guy who is willing to attack total strangers based upon the color of their skin may not be the most respectful toward the ladies. Hey, who knew?

Samantha’s male peers in Identity Evropa tried to persuade her to stay, telling her that her body “could hold a lot of Nazi semen and make many Nazi babies.” Despite such smooth talk, she left, and today she receives death threats from her former pals. According to CNN, there are “other women who, like Samantha, spent about a year in the alt-right before quitting, unable to take the abuse anymore and fearing for their safety.”

Indeed, “the alt-right is far more hostile to women than previous iterations of the white supremacy movement,” with many experts insisting that its “not even possible to have an alt-right movement without the underlying misogyny."

Now, we can all be happy that Samantha is no longer a Nazi. But in reading her story, there is one crucial element missing.

You see, Samantha only left the alt-right because she was being oppressed. In other words, she was fine with dehumanizing ethnic minorities. Hell, she enthusiastically promoted hatred toward non-white people. Only when women became the object of scorn and derision did she say, “Whoa, not cool.”

Samantha, and many right-wingers like her, possess an almost total lack of empathy for anyone who doesn’t share their background. Such individuals will alter their repugnant views only when — or if — it affects them personally.

Science backs this up. Researchers have found that liberals and conservatives display equal levels of empathy. However, liberals are far more likely to have empathy for all people. But conservatives tend to have empathy primarily for their own group. 

In one study, researchers found that Americans who felt more connected to “people like themselves” tended to support Trump’s ban on travelers from Muslim countries. They also displayed “less empathy toward immigrants.” The opposite was true for those Americans who placed less importance on their own group.

One could also look at how the conservative movement still largely views gay people as deviants, sinners, or debauched weirdoes who deserve second-class citizenship at best, and capital punishment at worst. Yes, a few libertarians and younger Republicans aren’t down with the whole virulent homophobia thing. But for the most part, the GOP is just fine with gay Americans having fewer rights than straight citizens.

The exceptions, as you can guess, tend to be those Republicans who have gay family members. Oddly, they often change their minds when it affects their loved ones.

The most infamous example is that loveable war criminal, Dick Cheney, who was “a leading Republican at a time when his party was campaigning on forbidding gay marriage.” During this time, Cheney “voiced support” for his daughter Mary, a lesbian.

How about that? He voiced support for his daughter.

Should we applaud now? 

It is highly unlikely that Cheney would give half a damn about gay Americans if his daughter weren’t a lesbian. And the man clearly didn’t care about, say, Iraqis to the same extent.

An indifference to the rights of others — or in extreme cases, to the very humanity of others — continues to vex the conservative movement. What can one say about people who justify jamming kids into cages, in large part because those kids speak a different language? And why should we celebrate people like Cheney or Samantha, who will definitely, absolutely do the right thing… provided that they have some kind of personal stake in the outcome? 

Perhaps it is simply asking too much to consider, even fleetingly, how our actions affect people who don’t look, act, or worship the exact same way that we do.

But is it really that difficult?