Oh. Well.

We Cubans say that "Más vale caer en gracia que ser gracioso" (It's worth more to be liked than to be likeable). That must certainly be true of Donald Trump, a brazen, dangerous, repulsive "fantoche" (charlatan) who inexplicably enjoys substantial popular support. It just won him a presidential reelection in the United States. And it was no glitch, this heinous creature won comfortably-- the popular AND the electoral vote. But why? How? You could wave it off as

simply the result of a backlash from all the white, uneducated redneck bigots in our middle and southern states. But then, what about all the Latinos who voted for Trump? Gone now is the assumption that US Hispanics are knee-jerk liberal champions for the downtrodden by virtue of being downtrodden ourselves. In truth, we don't see things that way, and I recently began to suspect as much. I had been chatting with cab drivers and other NYC working class Latinos before the elections and listening to their complaints about a bad economy and about Latino newcomers as criminal liabilities who profit unfairly from public largesse (while more established Latino immigrants struggle to survive). When I was a journalist, I learned that if you hear the same opinion from two or three random individuals, then that's what La Calle ("The Street") is generally saying. It's public opinion. Too bad Democrats haven't been listening and so Latino voters--by 54%-- switched to the GOP during this election. Didn't seem to bother us that Trump has stated Latinos are rapists and criminals who are bringing the country down and polluting its bloodstream and cultural heritage. We (mistakenly) believe he is talking about those OTHER latinos, not us, not the ones whose kids were born here, who work and pay taxes. Unfortunately, Trump is a racist who imperils all of our destinies, and we need to face it. Years ago, when I first travelled out West, I met Mexicans who cautioned me to always carry my legal documents and watch out for La Migra (US Immigration) checkpoints along the roads. Otherwise, I might get sent back to Mexico, never mind that I'm Cuban. Being also from New York, I was bewildered; such atrocities were unheard of back East. Now the threat is ubiquitous. I'm already hearing fearful whispers about the possibility of naturalized US citizens being deported to strange countries,right along with the illegals. Alas, we all look the same to our would-be deporters. But we are not all illegals, nor do we want a tsunami of newcomers washing over urban areas and competing for our jobs and educational slots, driving up crime rates and giving the rest of us a bad name, depleting resources with the money WE pay into the public coffers. Why should those misgivings surprise anyone? And why should other minorities criticize us? When it came to choosing a president in 2024, many black males refused to vote for a black female. Machismo is in their DNA. It's in ours, in fact. You can't deny that Latinos of both genders love Trump's macho swagger. It has the feel of protective reassurance, or at least its promise. It's familiar. It conforms to the old caudillo (chieftain) notions of leadership; to Latinos, Trump is the much-needed "strong man" who will restore order to the mess that Democrats left behind, Latinos seem to have forgotten the harm a succession of "strong" men did to their own countries and they don't appear cognizant of the ominous fascist outlines of Trump's intended policies. But we're not the only group who ever favored personality cults over rational politics and Latino political discontent is obviously not the sole catalyst behind the virulent resurrection of Trumpism. The unvarnished truth may be that most Americans are stupid and lazy, that most don't analyze or even pay attention to the news,that most would rather facilitate a takeover of fascism than, say,fork out $1 more for a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk. Or maybe we're just looking at things the wrong way. Perhaps we are voting Republican not out of some newly developed affinity for rightwing ideology, but because we have noplace else to go. The Democratic Party Leadership has been bought out by large money interests. The Democratic Party has been consolidating its power not by fighting conservatives, but by muting progressives. The Democratic Party has been paying lip service to liberal causes while supporting the runaway capitalism status quo. The Democratic Party is now a Caucasian gerontocracy of the affluent who uses younger, colored puppets such as New York Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Richie Torres as fronts to blame the "Far Left" for their woes. This infuriates me; the only thing about it that brings schadenfreude to my soul is how divided the old troupers really are. While Kamala Harris shakes her fist at the fates that brought her electoral ignominy, Joe Biden appears positively joyful that she lost. His tacit message is "See? I could have WON, COCKSUCKERS, but you made me step aside!" (Which is exactly what he said when the party nominated Hilary Clinton over him in 2016. And lost. No wonder Old Joe appears to hate women, too.) Now he's announced "plans" to finish out his incumbency by mulling happily over his achievements. And yes, there WERE some-- largely tentative, watered-down half-measures, overshadowed by all the catastrophes that would accumulate in the end. We should have suspected as much at the beginning, when he fucked up the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, causing chaos and deaths among civilians and troops alike. We couldn't know this was just the start of a stream of failed domestic and foreign initiatives, of weak excuses for not getting things done, of not standing up to enemies and not supporting friends. So WHAT has been Biden's "legacy"? Runaway inflation? A lousy job market? Wholesale genocide in the Middle East? A nonexistent immigration policy? Failure to prosecute criminal insurrectionists? The lies intended to cover up all these disasters? Let's just say that his legacy is all-inclusive; he's become emblematic of everything wrong with the Democrats today. So folks, stick a fork in the Democratic Party; it's done. Let's all of the like-minded band together and create other avenues of thought and action. And let's hope that the rest of the country wakes up after one or two years of Trump.