Senate The US Politics discussion

totally his intention

 

@Chromide, your position is so ridiculous. You can't say that Trump is a racist, even though he refused to rent to African-Americans and only relented after being sued by the government more than once; even though he demanded in a full page NYT ad the death penalty for 5 falsely accused children of minority descent; even though he was the most prominent advocate of anti-Obama birtherism; even though he states he'd welcome migrants from Norway but not minorities from "****-hole" countries; even though he condemns black football players taking a knee as "sons-of-bitches" while he equivocates about white supremacists and Neo-Nazis; and even though he just told 4 politicians who are naturalized citizens, 3 of whom born in the US, to go back to countries where they were born?

Virtually all of this is worse than what you'd hear from Archie Bunker, and he was written as the epitome of a bigot.

So, what does it take for you to label someone a racist? Does Trump have to drag the body of minority behind his vehicle while yelling the N word?

Here's my not so outlandish theory about what's going on here. You know people who have acted or spoken in similar ways to how Trump acts or speaks and perhaps down deep you may even share some of Trump's views. Your brain short-circuits with cognitive dissonance at the implication that you or the people who are close to you are actually racists or the idea that you support a racist, so you give Trump the benefit of doubt, even when it requires you to throw all logic out the window.

Face it. Trump is a racist, and more than half of white American supports him either because he is a racist or because they rationalize and deny his racism because they support other aspects of his agenda (and large parts of that agenda also happens to be tinged with racism too).

 

To build off of that.

Much less that any slave owners would ever have had sexual relations with the slaves, often without consent. It's only in the early 20th century, that we had the racist slant that blacks couldn't drink from the same water fountains as whites, use the same public bathrooms, eat in the same restaurants or at least in the same room and couldn't be at the same hospital. As well as take blood from a black person, for fear that it would "contaminate" them.

 

Blah, blah, blah, huh?

Maybe these things bother us much more than they bother you.

We do this all the time in this thread. We've talked about how his treatment of immigrants is inhumane, unacceptable, and must be improved. Provide soap, toothbrushes, better sleeping conditions, etc. This isn't "racism blah blah blah", this is pointing out what is wrong and demanding improvements. I just brought up how often immigrants attend hearings (90%) and how detention often isn't necessary in the first place. Tracking devices are another option that have been mentioned. These improvements had been the topic of the thread the last few days.

Blackmyron is constantly bringing up his economic policies. How damaging tariffs have been. How corporate tax breaks have not resulted in corporations investing in workers.

Anakinfan is constantly bringing up his attacks on the press and her opposition to it.

We heavily criticized his Muslim ban as not only racist but unconstitutional, and for leaving people stranded all over the world, very unfairly.

We've criticize his border wall idea as being idiotic and obviously ineffective, and have proposed investing in other technology (drones) instead.

We criticized him for mobilizing troops to the border, which was both entirely needless and escalating.

We've criticized his policies plenty here.

Like, not wanting people from Haiti and claiming they all have AIDS?And not wanting people from Nigeria? And El Salvador? And asking for more people from Norway?

That's believing people are worse based on where they were born. That's degrading a whole lot of brown people and holding up people from an overwhelmingly white country as superior and more desirable.

With everything else that has been presented, which doesn't even come close to covering it all, what more do you want? The burden of proof you require is incredibly high.

 

Yet another list of examples of trump's racism for chromide to read

 

Of course, the people in the groups that he hates don't have the luxury of just handwaving all of these things. And you missed misogynist. I know, blah blah blah yada yada yada. But you do realize that you're literally shouting down minorities of all stripes by just making nonsense noises? Let's imagine that a woman is making a statement about how Trump raped her and you just stood up in the back of the room and went "LALALALALALALALALA" in order to shout her down. That's what you're doing when minorities say Trump hates them and you reduce their statements to "blah blah blah." It's not that you don't believe them; it's that you won't even listen to them. Your bad faith is showing. Also your privilege.

 

I think that's a fairly robust definition of racism, and one that I'd agree with. That automatically puts you and I in an overlapping bubble in the Venn diagram of beliefs held in this place.

Where we differ is what we assume Trump believes. I think attributing any beliefs to him is probably wrong in the first place, I think his beliefs are all about self importance, his desire to be powerful and dominant, his desire to swing with gangsters, his desire to be the most famous man alive. I think he says and does whatever will garner the most positivity from whatever audience he's performing to, be that his family, his friends, his Twitter followers, his rally attendees, etc. I think he knowingly courts the far right, the ethnonationalists, the 2A crowd, the Alex Jones crowd, the biker gangs, and all the other very fine people on that particular side, and sees no issue with doing so. I have to be honest, if you agree he does that, and if you don't see a problem either, that seems at odds with your anti-racist morals. I don't get it, perhaps you can explain it to me.

I'm not going to pick apart your logic too much, but there does seem to be some wiggle room for prejudging nations here, and it's almost like you're saying we shouldn't blame people for their racial handicaps.

I think he does both.

 

Yes, Trump is a racist. And what will that say about America if he manages to get re-elected again?

 

Nothing new, really. America has always had a lot of racist tendencies.

 

Ms. Brooke Thomas said that Nancy Pelosi should have guessed that Trump would have stirred implicit white nationalism and threats against AOC, Ms. Omar, Ms. Tlaib, and Ms. Pressley. Thomas is correct. Trump put those women in danger, since he knows how many threats they receive. Pelosi should have understood this and spoken out against Trump before she did. I only wish that Pelosi understood what these young women understand: that the Green New Deal and these other initiatives are important. But as it is, I am glad that AOC, her friends and allies, and folks like Bernie Sanders understand the importance of ending these wars and the environmental crisis that needs attention.

 

https://apnews.com/6bef9ed6c48b4c2ea203cbbea3ccacad

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reversing decades of U.S. policy, the Trump administration said Monday it will end all asylum protections for most migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border — the president’s most forceful attempt to block asylum claims and slash the number of people seeking refuge in America.

The new rule, expected to go into effect Tuesday, would cover countless would-be refugees, many of them fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. It is certain to face legal challenges.

According to the plan published in the Federal Register , migrants who pass through another country — in this case, Mexico — on their way to the U.S. will be ineligible for asylum. The rule also applies to children who have crossed the border alone.

 

Wonderfully put, and most importantly on that last paragraph, at a certain point there is no difference between those two options. Being a racist and defending a racist eventually are one and the same. Not seeing Trump as racist, and going "blah blah blah" towards the fears of the oppressed is racist.

 

When Trump says he's fighting for freedom and his fans cheer for him, they have something very terrible in mind. They want the freedom to promote bigoted ideas, to utter hateful slurs and names, and to do it shamelessly without fear of stigmatization. That's what MAGA is all about, plain and simple, it's the thrill of being transgressive without any consideration for who it hurts.

 

Remember when Trump was railing against family-based immigration? Or "chain migration" as he called it. That's legal immigrants sponsoring family members. And while his twitter tantrums have moved onto other things (for the moment), there are plenty of other racists in his administration to keep things going when his attention wanders.

(And his wife's parents recently got in on that system, but that's more special treatment for them rather than any actual empathy for migrants.)

Even aside from all the obvious racist policies, there's Trump's corruption (he made those remarks Sunday right before he went to his Jersey golf course to pour more taxpayer money into his family fortune), his incompetence (a couple dozen high profile administration officials have left in disgrace in just two and a half years) and that's he just an international laughingstock.

None of that seems to bother his supporters much either, given his steady approval rating of around 30-40% (and 90% among Republicans).

We criticize Trump for his racism, his misogyny, him wasting taxpayer dollars (the Trump administration still owes DC a lot of money from the inauguration and his recent 4th of July ego boost), his siding with dictators over democratic allies (Trump treats Putin and Kim Jong Un nicer than he treats Democrats), his lying (those kids in cages started with Trump's zero-tolerance policy) and his general rudeness and lack of ethics and empathy (he needs a note to remind himself to act nice towards mass shooting victims).

(And this thread throws a good deal of criticism at Obama and Pelosi and Schumer too, since most of us don't just blindly follow someone but judge them by their words and actions.)

Trump apologists apparently don't mind any of those traits (or even love those things about him because it angers liberals and people with ethics) or don't care as long as they get their legislative agendas passed. (Or don't notice as long as they get to blame someone else.) Which says a lot about their standards.

 

Yes and I also forgot to mention that, at least in the case of the disabled, the truly faithful Trump supporter shouldn't fail to include a bit of physical comedy.

 

Man, so much with this piece of filth is projection. He runs around crying "witch hunt" for a year, and now him and Graham are doing their best Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn impersonations.

 

That very much does constitute racism by Trump. It's reasonable to think that illegal immigration shouldn't just be ignored, it's very unreasonable to think that people should be favored for coming from a white country and disfavored otherwise.

 

Remember that rally in Florida, where he said the guards at the border needed machine guns, but "we can't do that". That's right, they can't, but what he's saying, even when he's not saying it, is they WANT to do it, and they would if they could. He would order all of them, children included, gunned down.

Explain that one to me Trump lovers.

 

To those arguing Trump is not a racist, there is literally a Wikipedia page on Trump’s racial views:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump

And that doesn’t include everything. That is just a sample.

If it walks like a duck...

Donald Trump is a racist. That is not opinion. That is fact based on the wealth of media evidence he has provided in his own words (and tweets). These views are racist. He is therefore a racist.

As to his supporters, every time he made these comments, they had a chance to get off the Trump train. If they are still on that crazy train it is because they don’t care enough about these views to stop him. They are indifferent. And that is the enemy. Their indifference has cost lives. Our inaction as a country has led to children in cages or dead from the conditions this administration has imposed upon them because they treat these Human beings as less than.

I listened to the latest NY Times The Daily podcast. I would HIGHLY recommend everyone listen. They interview a woman who was denied asylum and citizenship and fears she will be deported.

She talks of essentially locking her family in the house over the weekend and not going out, swapping parking spots with her neighbor who will let her know if it is safe to go to work. She talks of drawing the shades, turning off the lights and not answering the door if someone knocks.

I want everyone to look at those actions. Tell me what this reminds you of? To me, this is the SS and the Jews all over again. ICE raids are the new SS and illegal immigrants are the Jews. The description of what this woman gives is almost identical to what Jewish families did when hiding from the SS. They literally fear for their lives if they are deported.

This is unacceptable and if you accept it, you accept the rule of a racist and your indifference to this and the human suffering it has caused makes you complicit.

 

Meanwhile.......

Protests demanding the governor of Puerto Rico resign are getting bigger and more violent. Police launching tear gas in the streets of Old San Juan, protesters throwing stones and god knows what else at the police.