USA Politics

[milk]

I think it's totally unfair to characterize Trump's appeal as racist, same as the earlier Tea Party. It's a way to dismiss the valid reasons people had for identifying with the TP and MAGA over issues dealing with immigration, the border, narco trafficking, competition for jobs, etc.

Would I feel comfortable at one of those rallies? Absolutely, as most of the people attending are good, hard working Americans. I think a lot of the people attending a Biden rally are probably the same kind of good folks, with a higher percentage of grifters, free loaders and special interests because the Dems historic behavior of promising free stuff and appealing to "oppressed" sub cultures.

to be fair, I'd be uncomfortable at any kind of rally.

[greg]

I apologize.  I misunderstood the point you were trying to make.

No problem. I'm not the clearest of communicators. 

As with other aspects of the recently healthy economy he's taking credit for the work of his predecessor.

That may be true. I don't know, I don't get into economic details.

The point of my question is, if he were racist, part of which involves wishing the worst on a different race (if this is an incorrect assumption, let me know), why would he be happy that the race that he is supposedly "against" is successful (pre-Covid)? And that he helped in that success? (or claims to, like you say, how much of that is due to him is debatable)

The problem with the other stuff he says is that he is kinda inarticulate, so he's an easy target for this. I could go onto length about this, but the distinction between abstract vs. lexical thinking is very real, and he falls into the area subject to misinterpretation... (just think of how many different ways the slogan of MAGA could be interpreted, for the better or for the worse)

Biden also is a clumsy speaker, for different reasons, though. The "if you don't vote for me, you aren't black" could also be misinterpreted as racism. I think maybe all of us shouldn't be so quick to interpret stuff like that a certain way just because they are in the opposite party that you like, maybe?

You know, "The Kenyan" (subtext: "go back to the jungle where you came from".)

Eh... never heard of this insult, but again, "subtext" is just subjective interpretation, not something he actually said. Seems like people want him to be racist. Gotta dehumanize the enemy first in order to drive motivation to win.

[greg]

I call that bizarrely naive, and it does not rise to the level of an argument.  The whole birther premise is racist, and plays to racists.  Not going to spell it out for you.

There is a need to spell it out, though. Why is it not interpreted as "we suspect this guy was born outside the US, and you have to be born in the US to be president?" and nothing else?

Is it because some racists like it? Or is it because the idea itself is racist?

[Daverz]

Please. I did not say that the majority of those who voted for Trump are racist.

I'll say it, then!

[milk]

The point of my question is, if he were racist, part of which involves wishing the worst on a different race (if this is an incorrect assumption, let me know), why would he be happy that the race that he is supposedly "against" is successful (pre-Covid)? And that he helped in that success?

Thinking a group of people aren't as good - and trying to take credit for their supposed  betterment, these are not mutually exclusive. Throw in that tump is often incoherent. I doubt tump is happy about much. He seems like an unhappy person who gets some gratification when he feels he's insulted someone.

[SimonNZ]

Plus he needs their vote - or at least a portion of it. If he could be president with only the white vote he wouldn't be going around saying the ridiculous "nobody has done more for black Americans than Donald J Trump", he'd be saying just the "they're coming to get you / rape your women" stuff.

[Daverz]

Plus he needs their vote - or at least a portion of it. If he could be president with only the white vote he wouldn't be going around saying the ridiculous "nobody has done more for black Americans than Donald J Trump", he'd be saying just the "they're coming to get you / rape your women" stuff.

Any GOP noise on race has always been more about reassuring Republican voters that they are not bad people.  I don't think the GOP has cared about the black vote since the 60s. 

[Herman]

Greg, what you're doing is spending days formulating, in an excruciatingly inept fashion, apologetics for an out and out racist, i.e. Trump.

Your argument that Trump's birtherism was not racist because Obama is not a race but a person is crazy. I don't know how you get yourself to type that kind of nonsense but it looks very very bad.

Your argument that Trump's cynical bragging about black employment looking good (for about three days, and then it was bad again) doesn't cut it either. Trump has been told, day in day out, that it would help him to peel off some black votes from the Dems. That's why he says a thing like this, without the slightest honesty.

People in New York City are not deluded about Trump (as you are). Look at the case of the Central Park Five. Trump took out big ads in papers to call for the death penalty for five kids who just happened to black. Even after it was proven they were not guilty, he kept arguing they should be killed. Just because they were black.

He still believes so. And it reminds one of one of the scary things about this current president. It gives him a thrill if people get killed (as long as it's not him). He doesn't give a rat's ass about 130.000 people dying on his negligent watch. It increases his feeling of self-worth.

This is a man who calls during a rally: "Where is my black guy?" because they had planted one black guy in the crowd.

Trump of course did not win the popular vote, so he only 'won' the elections on a technicality. It's the Republican way. Republicans haven't won the popular vote in a generation, and this will get worse. ("Russia, if you're listening...?) However he did get as many votes as he did because of pent up anger among uneducated low-info white voters (lookin' familiar?), angry that Obama, a sophisticated black guy, had been president for two terms and had done spectacularly well. Voting for an racist idiot like Trump was the response of millions of these voters. Trump did not have any realistic policy proposals. He doesn't have any now. He runs on racist anger and "owning the libs", pure and simple. That's why I disagree with the pious notion that many Trump voters or rally goers are not racists. Trumps speeches are full with racist dog whistles and the crowds respond ecstatically to them. He's the guy who says the things that cannot say out loud.

[arpeggio]

I'll say it, then!

You may be correct.  I live in Fairfax County, Virginia which has a very cosmopolitan population base.

Maybe the majority of the whites in Lee County, Virginia are racists.  I do not know.

[milk]

One thing I'll say: I never saw Obama as black but biracial. His mother was white, he was raised primarily by her parents and later had an Indonesian stepdad. Now he lives on Martha's Vineyard or wherever other rich white people live and is supposedly writing his memoirs that only paid him 75 million. I think Barack has more in common with the Trumps than he does with the average black voter.

How would Barack Obama have been treated at almost any time in history in America? How would he have been treated in Mississippi in 1958? Would he have been excluded from white bathrooms and water fountains half the time? Or how about his treatment in 1858? Or 1758? Or Boston in 1968? I think you are not thinking this through. A lot of people, not you but a lot, are making this kind of argument dishonestly, i.e. Obama isn't really black.

[Herman]

Of course saying Obama isn't black is another form of racism. The master race decides how to call the subject.

Obama was the first black president and that's the way he presented himself.

[Todd]

Trump of course did not win the popular vote, so he only 'won' the elections on a technicality. It's the Republican way.

Trump won the Electoral College vote, which is the constitutionally mandated way to win the Presidency.  It is, in fact, the Republican way to adhere to the Constitution.  Facts are sometimes inconvenient things.

[Herman]

So why is Trump always saying he really won the popular vote?

Because he craves that legitimacy.

[Todd]

So why is Trump always saying he really won the popular vote?

Because he craves that legitimacy.

Meh.  Trump won the only election that counts when it comes to the presidency.  Online psychoanalysis means nothing.

[Mahlerian]

Just finished one unusually poor article on Politico to then stumble on this:

Tucker Carlson 2024? The GOP is buzzing
The Fox News host's ratings have gone gangbusters, and many Republicans think he'd be a force in a Republican primary.

Oh god, I hope not. One nativist, racist reactionary was more than enough. Do they really want another one?

[Todd]

Obama in many ways reflects what America will look like in the next 30 years, a pot more racially mixed than melted of Europeans. He can identify as whatever he wishes as he has said he sees himself as a black man despite the obvious white privilege.

The US will become more Hispanic (white and non-white) in the next 30 years.  The black population will increase about one percentage point.  The foreign born population as a percentage of the total will exceed the level of 1850 later this decade under existing immigration laws, and will continue to increase to roughly 17% of the population in 2060.  At around the same time, there will be three dependents for every four workers.  (This all supposes you think the Census Bureau is a reliable and trustworthy source of demographic projections.)  Racial politics - and generational politics! - will become more important as the facts on the ground change.  For my money, transfer spending is a more important topic, so generational politics should become relatively more intense as grandma and grandpa keep stealing from younger generations.

[JBS]

No, it's a fact: he had a white mama. Hence biracial and we should celebrate that identity, too, if we are anti-racists. If Michelle runs in 2024 and wins she'll be the first black president (black mama, black papa).

Let's not forget that under the prevailing mindset of the mid 20th Century, and well after, to be biracial was to be black.

Let's not forget that a significant number of people born into slavery before 1865 had a white free father and a black slave mother. Being biracial did not save them from slavery.

It's probably fair to say that the idea of being "biracial" is in fact a very modern concept.

[Todd]

Let's not forget that under the prevailing mindset of the mid 20th Century, and well after, to be biracial was to be black.

It took only one drop to be black.

With Obama, one is faced with something of a conundrum: either one accepts the fact that he is biracial, or one clings to the blatantly and violently racist one drop rule that used to prevail and states definitively that he is black.

[Herman]

Let's not forget that a significant number of people born into slavery before 1865 had a white free father and a black slave mother. Being biracial did not save them from slavery.

Bingo. Most of the people whom our board's iffy guys would call black, or scum, have some white progenitors, too. But that is, of course, one of America's dirty little secrets.

[Todd]

But that is, of course, one of America's dirty little secrets.

To whom is it secret?  Oh, yes, the internet is rotten with platitudes.