One for the Ladies

Well, it looks like our old friend Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination for president. We have to wonder if she is the slightest bit worried about the general election, particularly that part about debating Donald Trump…

No, I don't think so.

Keep in mind that Clinton is admired, even beloved in the Hispanic community — well, at least among older Hispanics. Younger Latinos are a bit more lukewarm on the former first lady /senator/ secretary of state / etc. 

But again, she’s running against a guy who can’t go nine seconds without badmouthing Latinos, so she is most assuredly going to do well with us in November. 

In any case, HRC is the first woman to be nominated by a major party for the presidency. This has, of course, unleashed the expected rivers of misogynistic vitriol and hatred.

One of the chief rationalizations you hear from sexists — be they male or female — is that women are too emotional to be effective leaders. You know, they cry too easily and might get pissed off and nuke somebody because it’s that time of the month, and so on and so on.

Well, I have to admit they nailed that point. After all, men are nothing but calm, cool, and levelheaded individuals who rely on pure logic and never get, you know, all emotional and stuff.

After all, men never start bar brawls, or punch out family members, or go on shooting rampages. Nope, they are too emotion-free for any of that.

And male leaders never invade foreign countries under flimsy pretexts, or seize power in bloody coups, or enslave their citizens out of some sociopathic thirst for power. It’s always the women who do that.

Yes, who knows what crazy, emotional thing Hillary Clinton might do if she wins the election.

Maybe she would go after anybody who ever made fun of her hands. Oh wait, that’s her opponent — the guy.

Hmmm… well, that’s awkward.

Quack Quack

Among the stranger aspects of this bizarre election season is the tendency of Donald Trump supporters to insist that their candidate is not racist. The hyper-defensiveness goes something like this:

When he referred to Mexicans as rapists, he didn’t specifically say, “all Mexicans,” so it’s ok. Right?

And building that wall isn’t xenophobic. It’s a practical way to keep out all those immigrants… I mean, illegal immigrants… wait, I mean, undocumented people… he’s got nothing against immigrants. And neither do I. Ha ha ha.

Banning Muslims would just be temporary. That’s key. And not bigoted at all. Nope.

OK, he wasn’t the quickest about disavowing the KKK, but we’ve all been there… I mean, he said they were bad guys… eventually… after being criticized for days… but yeah, he did it.

And all those unfortunate cracks about “the blacks”… well, he meant, um… Hey, you’re just being PC!

And so it goes.

Oddly enough, liberals seem to have no problem identifying Trump’s many prejudiced remarks. And Latinos, Asians, and African Americans are pretty clear on the fact that the guy is a racist.

On the other end of the spectrum, white supremacists and neo-Nazis are lining up to endorse the GOP nominee. They also appear to have no illusions about where Trump stands on race relations.

Only two groups of people seem baffled about this issue. First, there are moderate conservatives who are struggling to maintain their fiction that racism is dead in America (and who are also striving to justify their votes for a blatant bigot). And there are stray ethnic minorities who explain away or ignore the obvious for reasons that I can’t quite comprehend (although I presume some self-loathing is involved).

Let’s be clear about this. The truth is that if you support Trump, you are aware on some level that the guy has tremendous hostility toward anyone who isn’t a white straight man. And as you stand in that voting booth, sweating through your rationalizations, you will be saying that you are fine with that.

Remember, if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a megalomaniacal billionaire pushing a racist agenda.

American Mystery

Is there another word that conjures such blood-pumping, swooning love and/or as much headache-inducing vitriol as “America”?

Excuse me — make that “America!!”

Regardless of your level of patriotism, you no doubt have some kind of strong association to that simple word. “America” is shorthand for freedom and power and excess and liberty and dozens of other intellectual, emotional, and political concepts.

And what is the source of this four-syllable monument to complexity? Well, as you learned in history class, our mighty nation was named after Italian explorer, navigator, and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.

Or was it?

You see, what we have been taught for generations may not be, strictly speaking, the truth.

There is a theory that Amerigo Vespucci was an opportunist who changed his name after the New World was christened, thus earning him some level of fame and improving the hell out of his branding efforts.

This theory holds that the word “America” actually comes from the name of an Indian tribe and of a mountain range in Nicaragua called “Amerrique.”

Well, consider my mind blown.

Of course, we will never know the real answer, as half a millennium has a way of distorting people’s memories. So the Vespucci angle will no doubt continue to be the dominant story that schoolchildren learn.

But we have to ask ourselves, does it matter that our nation may not have been named after a European male, but rather took its moniker from a bunch of indigenous natives (Latinos, no less)?

Is it true that “to question the origin of America's name is to question the nature of not only our history lessons but our very identity as Americans”?

You tell me.

Zombie President

So I’m trying something different for my next novel. Instead of releasing the whole book months from now, I will serialize the story online as I write it. Each week I will post a new chapter, for you to read for free. If you like the story, spread the news to your friends, and maybe buy a copy of the book when it’s done. The chapters will all be short and easy to read online.

The novel is called Zombie President, and it’s about a defeated presidential candidate who comes back from the dead to take the White House by force and to win the country’s heart. Yes, it’s a bit crazy, but ultimately, the book is a black comedy about getting the kind of leaders that we deserve (especially relevant this year).

You can read the first chapter here, with new chapters coming every week:

Let me point out that my approach to this novel is positively Dickensian (he serialized his novels in newspapers). And that’s good enough for me.

By the way, here is a sample line from Zombie President:

“You know, I really hated my parents. But seeing my dad's head get eaten by a zombie is a bit extreme.”

So whether you’re intrigued or repulsed, check it out. Thanks.

Strike Three

We’ve already pinpointed two reasons why the future looks bleak for the GOP when it comes to attracting Latinos. Basically, Hispanics are younger and becoming better educated, both of which align with liberal values.

But there is a third reason for sparse Latino attendance at future Republican conventions. And it’s an obvious one.

It’s because the GOP has treated Hispanics like shit.

Yes, it really is that simple. 

Now, this isn’t a perception issue or poor marketing, which is what many GOP strategists want America to believe. No, it’s the cold hard reality of the Republican Party’s offshoot of the Southern Strategy, which was to demonize blacks in order to convince white racists to vote GOP. And it worked, at least for a while.

The later version of this strategy was to paint immigrants in general, and Hispanics in particular, as an invading force and a direct threat to America. And this too worked, at least for a while.

Clearly, most Republicans aren’t racists. But their willingness to tolerate subtle bigotry — and at times, overt racial animus — has finally caught up with their party.

After all, such politically loaded ideas as Prop 187 were SB 1070 were Republican proposals, no matter how much the party wishes to distance itself from them now. And the GOP’s presumptive nominee for president couldn’t get through the announcement of his candidacy without slandering Latinos.

No, this isn’t some left-wing plot. Republicans did this to themselves, and as much as they want to complain that Democrats are the real racists and conservative values align more with Hispanics and blah blah blah, none of it matters.

Latinos see Trump and his minions clamoring to build a damn wall, and they see GOP policies of the recent past, and they see statistics like this: “56% of Republicans viewed immigrants as a burden on the country; just 17% of Democrats said the same.”

And then Latinos vote Democrat. This is despite the fact that Democrats haven’t been great for Hispanics, and that Latinos have been excluded “from leadership positions in progressive institutions and, some would argue, from involvement in the movement as a whole. “

When you have only two choices (i.e., our current political system), you go with the people who have merely disappointed you, and not with the people who actively hate you.

Interestingly, some commentators say the GOP would be better served by focusing on African Americans, which is ironic and even a little laughable. But it isn’t stupid. After all, “it is generally easier to grow market share when starting from nothing.”

It is also an acknowledgement that Latinos are a lost cause for the GOP, at least for the near future.

So what are the odds that a decade from now, lots of thirtysomething, well-educated Latino Millennials will vote Republican?

Well, the chances are only slightly better than the odds that there will be a Republican Party at all.