Karma: The Aggressive Beast

Karma: The Aggressive Beast
By Dennis Edwards
Columnist

In all the escalating insanity involving everything President Donald Trump and Trump related, there is a formidable elephant in the political room. A huge one no one wants to deal with or talk about.

It is wrapped in the disturbing personal and political irony of how the very people who voted so enthusiastically for Donald Trump are now his chief and among his growing list of victims. You could call it a present perfect tense  kind of “Karma” (in Hinduism and Buddhism) “the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.” In this case, that future existence is very much in the now.

According to Edison Research the final vote count from the 2024 Presidential Election shows 54 percent of the Latino Male vote went to Trump compared to only 44 percent for Former Vice President Kamala Harris. This disturbing comparison gets worse when considering the same voters during the 2020 Presidential election. In that contest Latino men went for Former President Joe Biden and VP Harris by 59 percent to Trump’s 36 percent. A roughly  23 percent swing in Trump’s direction!

The irony here is epic, literary in breath and dimensions. The proverbial elephant in the room. Yet no one’s holding Hispanic men accountable for their embrace of the man who is now deporting as many of them as he can. No one’s confronting them for their and their extended families abject refusal to learn the English language or become part of the “American Melting Pot.”

According to FP, an internet site providing what it calls “In-depth GeoPolitical Analysis,” the results are disturbing. “The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves – from Los Angeles to Miami – and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge,” the article says “at its peril.”

The truth is Hispanic Isolationism is antithetical to the American dream. It’s anathema to the successful melting pot culture that’s made America the great nation it is. Yet Democrats and Republicans are pandering to and not pressuring this group to become a part of that successful dream, where all men and women are politically and personally equal.

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The unfair reality here is in how so many Americans of all races and cultures are lamenting and protesting Trump’s open attacks on Hispanic men and their families, while those men are not supporting their supporters. They appear stubbornly determined to stay separate and apart from the broader community.

I must confess a personal irritation. Many of my neighbors and their families simply refuse to  speak the language of the country they wish to profit from.

These are the mistakes Greek, Jewish, European, Asian, African as well as immigrants from India and descendants of slaves (no matter how badly treated) have not made. Our nation celebrates their and our multi cultural diversity under the umbrella of the English language. A uniquely American commitment.

To be sure, African-American Men need also to re-examine ourselves in light of the more than 20 percent among us and the 8 percent of African-American Women who voted for Trump! An insanity that defies common sense and basic intelligence.

Despite these contradictions described here, Americans of all races, creeds and cultures are standing with our Hispanic neighbors. Yet, there’s no real indication they stand with us as Americans in our evolving melting pot.

So, when immigrant Hispanics and their descendants refuse to learn the language, be a part of the broader community, look out only for their interests and refuse to be part of the historic melting pot, then they become the worst kind of Anti-American. It is an attitude from within making it hard for some or all American races to get too upset about their escalating misfortune.

My hope is these attitudes in the Hispanic Community will evolve away from isolationism.

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The further hope is the rush to support those being abused by Trump’s war on Hispanic men causes that community to decide to reconsider who their friends really are; to blend their uniqueness into the “Great American Melting Pot” instead of behaving like an invading force trying to reclaim America for their native countries.

The bottom line is the beast called Karma,“what goes around, comes around” will continue until all benefactors embrace the “American Melting Pot” that’s served our country’s greatness so well.

Dennis Edwards is a Major Market Emmy and Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Award Winning Television and WRVA Radio News Anchor, Investigative  Reporter, Editorial Page Columnist and Pastor. He is a graduate of Virginia Union University and its Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology

(Copyright April 2025)