I've done a fair bit of arguing with the folks here on HN, it's interesting because it doesn't match the echo chamber I have on twitter or facebook. There seem to be a lot of Trump supporter here, which I find very surprising.
This idea keeps coming up again and again that using the word 'racist' in the context of the Trump campaign is essentially name-calling, an insult.
The problem is, racism is a big, big, big issue. And Trump is a racist bigot, you simply cannot deny it. That's why people that are described as 'on the left' feel so strongly about him. It's not 'pulling the race card', it's an actual big problem. America has spent 200 years trying to overcome it, and it's still so far behind. The open racism displayed by Trump is the reason why so many people viscerally hate him. Add to it the sexism (and sexual assault), the bullying, and the xenophobia, and the support for him becomes essentially unfathomable for many who consider his attitudes and behaviors completely incompatible with basic democratic values.
The article posted calls it smug, the commuter above called it 'not tolerating dissent'. I would call it a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, bullying and xenophobia.
Using 'racist' in the context of criticizing Republicans is just name-calling. Bush displayed no open racism, bullied no one, and was not xenophobic. Same for Romney. Yet the anti-Trump language is just a more hysterical version of the anti-Bush and anti-Romney language.
At some point the term "racist" came to mean "insufficiently left wing". This happened because left wing types called every Republican "raaacciiiiist" - like a bored shepherd boy yelling "wolf" for amusement and likes on social media.
Trump is looking to get about the same amount of votes as Romney.
Clinton is getting a lot less votes than Obama got.
So there is an alternative explanation there, that rather than one group of people getting sick of shrill accusations of racism, a different group of people just doesn't like Hilary Clinton all that much.
A whole coalition of groups with different reasons for not voting for Clinton.
I'm just pushing back against the "unprecedented Trump blowout" narrative. So far he's got less popular votes than the loser of the last presidential election (Romney got 60,933,504 votes. Trumps at 59,088,517 with 98% of precincts reporting. He probably won't pick up another 1.8 million votes).
A different argument is that Trump attracted new people to the polls. I'd be more inclined to believe that many of those people are sick of establishment politics and their tactics. But I don't think they are actually a majority of Trump's support.
Bush was pretty inclusive racially. McCain too. IDK about Romney, but Mormons have written history and religion that makes him suspect on that, but he campaigned reasonably.
Trump campaigned openly on a racist, xenophobic platform. They were key parts of his rhetoric and key to a good proportion of his winning. That is the difference here.
And we're right back to smug. You smugly state that it's a zero tolerance policy on racism, when it's going to be the progressive cohort who gets to declare things racist. Specifically, they'll cry racism every time someone disagrees with them. Don't like what the president wants to do? Racist. Have an issue with Mexico? Racist. Mildly suggest that college admissions should have a class based adjustment instead of racial quotas...racist.
Or just sit in the wrong place and you get to hear, "all white men are racist." It may guilt some to action, but it makes others disinclined to help.
Look at the #blacklivesmatter. Look at all the people who have been railing against police militarization for decades being called racist by the recent arrivals to the issue just because they say there is a larger problem.
I'm not a Trump supporter... far from it however looking at my HRC social media bubble it's clear that practically 95% of my social circle are way off base when it comes to their analysis of why Trump won, which is precisely why he did win. If you don't understand your 'enemy' you cannot organise against him... or in this case liberals are so out of touch of what life is like in less fortunate areas of the country that they cannot begin to communicate with the people that live there on a level playing field. We needed a more extreme version of Bernie but instead we got offered the status quo. Racism, which has always been a big problem, has very little to do with this election and the sooner we accept that the better for everyone. This is economic.
Do you have any examples of what you call racism from Trump. I haven't been following him super close (not American), but from what I've seen he wants to tighten up immigration. It's my understanding that this is not racism, but protectionism. Here in NZ it's very hard for people to immigrate here (I have had friends have to leave) but we don't associate racism with tight immigration policy.
For example there were proposals to not allow Muslims to immigrate to the US. There was calling Mexicans 'criminals' and 'rapists'. Beating of black people at Trump rallies (which he endorsed).
This shows up this night on my twitter feed:
"I am at a Trump rally in Manhattan, and thousands are chanting 'We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back'. Disgusting"
https://twitter.com/SRowntreeNews/status/796141495573155840
Uh, no. I wrote that something 'showed up on my twitter feed', implying it's unverified. Last night there wasn't a way to verify it, it merely seemed plausible. In any case, the Huffpost article sufficiently makes the case.
I want to agree with you but Muslims are not a race. Neither are Mexicans for that matter. And being Islamaphobic and xenophobic genuinely is different from being racist. Perhaps not very different, but different nonetheless.
It's worth bearing in mind that the US is a much more racialized society than the UK. We don't think of 'Mexican' or 'Muslim' as racial categories. But they de facto are racial categories in the US. That may not be very logical, but then neither are most Trump supporters. How many of them do you think are able to carefully parse the distinctions between 'Latino', 'Mexican' and 'illegal brown person'?
And of course, racism very often comes wrapped up in other prejudices which are thought (rightly or wrongly) to be more respectable. All of the groups Trump has targeted are groups that just so happen to consist mostly of people who aren't white. They're the groups that, in the public imagination, are responsible for the loss of an imagined homogenous White America.
Trump can't say "I want a white America". But the people who do want this haven't had any difficulty picking up on his hints.
>So they think he's xenophobic and religiously bigoted instead? How is that better?
He is not against all immigrants. He is ONLY against ILLEGAL immigrants. He still supports LEGAL immigrants from all over the world.
Also, he is not against the Islamic religion. He is just against immigration from countries with known ties to terrorism.
>I'm not making up the fact that white supremacists supported Trump.
The KKK also supports Hillary too, so that's just the typical election rhetoric you see every four years.
These are misconceptions by people who have not listened to Trump's rally speeches. They only hear a small part of the quotes without the context and form these misconceptions about him. And now, they're shocked and confused to find that the majority of the country supports him.
> Also, he is not against the Islamic religion. He is just against immigration from countries with known ties to terrorism.
He expressly called for all Muslims to be barred from the United States. I'm afraid that claiming he's "not against the Islamic religion" is not a fact-based argument.
Which he also later clarified to meant immigrants from countries with direct ties to terrorism. And TEMPORARY only, until they can figure something out, like a vetting program, from those countries with direct ties to terrorism.
He wants to protect everyone from terrorism. Yes, he wants to protect Muslims from terrorism too. He even asked them for their help in the fight against radical terrorism, because he knows that terrorism affects them too.
But it is not xenophobia to want to keep terrorists out by temporary stopping immigration from countries with ties to terrorism. And that has nothing to do with their religion. It has to do with the fact that terrorists want to blow people up.
Calling that xenophobia and religious bigotry is just a straight out lie.
ONLY the Muslims IMMIGRANTS from countries with direct ties to terrorist groups.
So how can he be racist if he's only banning the Muslims from countries with direct ties to terrorism, and not ALL Muslims? He's not banning ALL Muslims immigrants like you claim.
And this has nothing to do with religion. An immigrant don't even have to be Muslim. ANY immigrants (ANY, not just Muslims) that are attempting to enter the United States from a country with direct ties to terrorism will not be allowed into the United States until vetting can be done.
Like I said, election rhetoric meant to smear the opponent.
Voters are smarter than this. Voters care more about the real issues that are affecting them (jobs, economy, etc). They don't care who the KKK is voting for. The result of the election have shown that.
We have no way of knowing whether they genuinely support Trump, or whether they did actually support Hillary like they claimed to. It's all election smearing and rhetoric, which voters don't care about, as the election results have shown.
We know that David Duke supported Trump. We don't know of anyone associated with the KKK supporting Hillary. That the voters don't care is to their discredit.
We do know of Hillary's mentor, he claimed to have left the KKK. We know of other KKK Grand Master who have claimed to have donated to Hillary. It's all just claims and accusations to smear the opposite opponents in the election cycle. These are not important issues. Voters knows these are just election smears.
Fair enough if the stuff with Trump Management Corporation and his action at the casino are correct I'd say it's a fair call he's probably a bit racist.
Not allowing Muslims in could be seen as racist, but I don't know that was at the core of what he was trying to do. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's a good idea. But 100% of radical Islamic terrorist are Muslim so banning them would have made people less afraid of the radical Islamic threat the media were hyping up as ISIS was taking hold of Iraq. It's dumb and unfairly treats good honest safe people, but racist is a stretch.
That tweet holds little water with me each side has been mud slinging, most of the time it's either BS or an exaggeration.
>And Trump is a racist bigot, you simply cannot deny it.
There you go with the name calling again. How about you listen to Trump supporters for once. Or maybe you just don't want to know the real reason why Trump supporters supported Trump.
This idea keeps coming up again and again that using the word 'racist' in the context of the Trump campaign is essentially name-calling, an insult.
The problem is, racism is a big, big, big issue. And Trump is a racist bigot, you simply cannot deny it. That's why people that are described as 'on the left' feel so strongly about him. It's not 'pulling the race card', it's an actual big problem. America has spent 200 years trying to overcome it, and it's still so far behind. The open racism displayed by Trump is the reason why so many people viscerally hate him. Add to it the sexism (and sexual assault), the bullying, and the xenophobia, and the support for him becomes essentially unfathomable for many who consider his attitudes and behaviors completely incompatible with basic democratic values.
The article posted calls it smug, the commuter above called it 'not tolerating dissent'. I would call it a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, bullying and xenophobia.