Looking through the window, I had noticed the plants in the backyard, wanting of moisture. They were drooping.  Parched, their leaves were ashen.  I fixed my morning coffee wondering if I should drive my equally dust-caked truck through the car wash before I left for San Antonio.  There was mention of rain on the radio.  

I concluded I would risk embarrassment if I ran into someone I knew in the parking garage of the hotel on the river where the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists would meet to announce their scholarship winners for the year.  It being August, college registrars are expectant.

‘One or 18 dead’ was the latest update from El Paso before I turned the radio off. 

That phrase says everything about the next step we take and the path we travel in the years ahead as a state and as a country.  El Paso is more than another mass shooting.  We are drifting into angry, uncharted waters of racial polarization, and they can sink us.  The United States is not so special as to avoid calamity.  Who, exactly, do we think we are?

Before I came to know the name Patrick Crusius, my thoughts turned to the handful of numbskulls in our family who voted for Donald Trump.  I do not talk to them much.  They are mostly uneducated and somewhat ridiculous individuals. 

The exception in this cluster is an African American who married a niece.  Truly a nice fellow, hard worker, etc. – a catch for any woman.  She is blessed to have him.  But he intends to vote for Trump again.  He told me so eight weeks ago at a high school graduation party for the most excellent son they have raised.  Of a different life experience than most black folks, my niece’s husband came to this country by way of Belize.  On that alone and because I like him so much, I have to suspend all and give him a pass.  At least he can have a somewhat intelligent conversation on the federal debt, etc.

The others are morons. 

If I come across as uncharitable and unchristian, I am — tiredly so.  I have a way of dismissing people who are ignorant, uninformed or lazy.  It is a big failing.  And though ashamed of admitting it, I do think it:  If your surname is Spanish and/or you look Hispanic/Latino and you intend to vote for Donald Trump’s re-election you simply are a stupid person.

I do not get any comfort writing this in so public a space.  But we no longer can refrain from saying it – and we need to stand up and confront those fools who do not understand nor realize the danger of someone who causes other racist haters to mow down innocent brown-looking or black-looking people.  Or Jews.  Or Muslims.  Or gays and lesbians.  Or perhaps your own in the next shooting. 

Individuals who deal on a daily basis with personal anger or self-hate or self-frustration because of mistakes they made in life are equally as dangerous as the alien from Allen.  They default to arguments like ‘the Clintons are corrupt’ to vote against a competent, intelligent woman for President.  They buy the big lies concocted by Fox News because they do not know what to believe about their confused, meaningless lives.  Not until the next ever-more powerful hurricane or tornado levels their town will they get it about climate change.

The election next year will prove decisive.  One or 18.

Waking up in the middle of the night, I thought I heard rain.  In my tired state, I was careful not to stumble in the dark and went downstairs.  I opened the front door of the house.  It indeed was raining.  A sweet rain.

I could see it had cleaned the truck, which reflected light through the trees. It seemed ambitiously resplendent. 

The plants are sure to draw strength soon.

And stand upright.

We should be no different.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño, former editorial page editor of The Austin American-Statesman, lives in Austin, Texas.