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The Nationalist Delusion
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The Final Dakar
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Nov 21, 2017, 07:33 PM
 
Starting a new thread because this doesn't deserve to be lost in shuffle. While the piece if overlong and some of it goes over my head as I don't have strong sense of historical racism in the US, I think it has lots of good content.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...lusion/546356/
Thirty years ago, nearly half of Louisiana voted for a Klansman, and the media struggled to explain why.

It was 1990 and David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, astonished political observers when he came within striking distance of defeating incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, earning 43 percent of the vote. If Johnston’s Republican rival hadn’t dropped out of the race and endorsed him at the last minute, the outcome might have been different.
Duke’s strong showing, however, wasn’t powered merely by poor or working-class whites—and the poorest demographic in the state, black voters, backed Johnston. Duke “clobbered Johnston in white working-class districts, ran even with him in predominantly white middle-class suburbs, and lost only because black Louisianans, representing one-quarter of the electorate, voted against him in overwhelming numbers,” The Washington Post reported in 1990. Duke picked up nearly 60 percent of the white vote. Faced with Duke’s popularity among whites of all income levels, the press framed his strong showing largely as the result of the economic suffering of the white working classes. Louisiana had “one of the least-educated electorates in the nation; and a large working class that has suffered through a long recession,” The Post stated.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Many of Duke’s voters steadfastly denied that the former Klan leader was a racist. The St. Petersburg Times reported in 1990 that Duke supporters “are likely to blame the media for making him look like a racist.” The paper quoted G. D. Miller, a “59-year-old oil-and-gas lease buyer,” who said, “The way I understood the Klan, it’s not anti-this or anti-that.”

Duke’s rejoinder to the ads framing him as a racist resonated with his supporters. “Remember,” he told them at rallies, “when they smear me, they are really smearing you.”
---

He made a farce of his populist campaign by putting bankers in charge of the economy and industry insiders at the head of the federal agencies established to regulate their businesses. But other campaign promises have been more faithfully enacted: his ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries; the unleashing of immigration-enforcement agencies against anyone in the country illegally regardless of whether he poses a danger; an attempt to cut legal immigration in half; and an abdication of the Justice Department’s constitutional responsibility to protect black Americans from corrupt or abusive police, discriminatory financial practices, and voter suppression. In his own stumbling manner, Trump has pursued the race-based agenda promoted during his campaign.
The plain meaning of Trumpism exists in tandem with denials of its implications; supporters and opponents alike understand that the president’s policies and rhetoric target religious and ethnic minorities, and behave accordingly. But both supporters and opponents usually stop short of calling these policies racist. It is as if there were a pothole in the middle of the street that every driver studiously avoided, but that most insisted did not exist even as they swerved around it.
One measure of the allure of Trump’s white identity politics is the extent to which it has overridden other concerns as his administration has faltered.The president’s supporters have stood by him even as he has evinced every quality they described as a deal breaker under Obama. Conservatives attacked Obama’s lack of faith; Trump is a thrice-married libertine who has never asked God for forgiveness. They accused Obama of being under malign foreign influence; Trump eagerly accepted the aid of a foreign adversary during the election. They accused Obama of genuflecting before Russian President Vladimir Putin; Trump has refused to even criticize Putin publicly. They attacked Obama for his ties to Tony Rezko, the crooked real-estate agent; Trump’s ties to organized crime are too numerous to name. Conservatives said Obama was lazy; Trump “gets bored and likes to watch TV.” They said Obama’s golfing was excessive; as of August Trump had spent nearly a fifth of his presidency golfing. They attributed Obama’s intellectual prowess to his teleprompter; Trump seems unable to describe the basics of any of his own policies. They said Obama was a self-obsessed egomaniac; Trump is unable to broach topics of public concern without boasting. Conservatives said Obama quietly used the power of the state to attack his enemies; Trump has publicly attempted to use the power of the state to attack his enemies. Republicans said Obama was racially divisive; Trump has called Nazis “very fine people.” Conservatives portrayed Obama as a vapid celebrity; Trump is a vapid celebrity.
I've been saying, Trump is nearly every negative trait conservatives heaped on Obama. The irony that the mocked community organizer knew how to run the government more than the 'business man.'

That the legacy of the first black president could be erased by a birther, that the woman who could have been the first female president was foiled by a man who confessed to sexual assault on tape—these were not drawbacks to Trump’s candidacy, but central to understanding how he would wield power, and on whose behalf.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 21, 2017, 07:40 PM
 
Splitting posts since there's so much content.
On vote and race:

Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year. Among voters making more than that, the two candidates ran roughly even. The electorate, however, skews wealthier than the general population. Voters making less than $50,000, whom Clinton won by a proportion of 53 to 41, accounted for only 36 percent of the votes cast, while those making more than $50,000—whom Trump won by a single point—made up 64 percent. The most economically vulnerable Americans voted for Clinton overwhelmingly; the usual presumption is exactly the opposite.

If you look at white voters alone, a different picture emerges. Trump defeated Clinton among white voters in every income category, winning by a margin of 57 to 34 among whites making less than $30,000; 56 to 37 among those making less than $50,000; 61 to 33 for those making $50,000 to $100,000; 56 to 39 among those making $100,000 to $200,000; 50 to 45 among those making $200,000 to $250,000; and 48 to 43 among those making more than $250,000. In other words, Trump won white voters at every level of class and income. He won workers, he won managers, he won owners, he won robber barons. This is not a working-class coalition; it is a nationalist one.
Trump’s support among whites decreases the higher you go on the scales of income and education. But the controlling factor seems to be not economic distress but an inclination to see nonwhites as the cause of economic problems. … Yet when social scientists control for white voters’ racial attitudes—that is, whether those voters hold “racially resentful” views about blacks and immigrants—even the educational divide disappears. In other words, the relevant factor in support for Trump among white voters was not education, or even income, but the ideological frame with which they understood their challenges and misfortunes.
---

Some Trump voters I spoke with were convinced, for example, that undocumented immigrants had access to a generous welfare state that was denied to everyone else. “You look at all these illegal immigrants coming in who are getting services that most Americans aren’t getting as far as insurance, welfare, Medicaid, all that jazz,” Richard Jenkins, a landscaper in North Carolina, told me. Steve, a Trump supporter who runs a floor-covering business in Virginia’s Tidewater area, told me that it “seems like people coming to this country, whether it’s illegally or through a legal system of immigration, are being treated better than American veterans.” If you believe that other people are getting the assistance you deserve, you are likely to oppose that assistance. But first you have to believe this.
When you look at Trump’s strength among white Americans of all income categories, but his weakness among Americans struggling with poverty, the story of Trump looks less like a story of working-class revolt than a story of white backlash.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 21, 2017, 07:49 PM
 
About using racism to describe things or people:

In 2006, during a televised fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West said President George W. Bush didn’t care about black people. NBC News’s Matt Lauer later asked Bush, “You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your presidency?”

“Yes,” Bush replied. “My record was strong, I felt, when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And it was a disgusting moment.”

Bush singling out West’s criticism as the worst moment of his presidency may seem strange. But his visceral reaction to the implication that he was racist reflects a peculiarly white American cognitive dissonance—that most worry far more about being seen as racist than about the consequences of racism for their fellow citizens.
This is one the thorniest of issues for me. I've vacillated back and forth on calling Trump a racist. HIs actions are racist. But since his animus is unknowable on most issues there exists that seed of doubt with which one will be flogged because being called a racist is the worst thing.

The problem, however, is that as far as I can tell, aside from White Supremacists, there are almost no racists in the US. This, of course, is very convenient, but it ignores institutional racism, at best. So we are left in a place where America has racist policies and preferences, yet no actual racists to be found who are implementing or sustaining them.

To whit:
The reason many equated Clinton’s “deplorables” remark with Trump’s agenda of discriminatory state violence seems to be the widespread perception that racism is primarily an interpersonal matter—that is, it’s about name-calling or rudeness, rather than institutional and political power.
---

The defenses of Trump voters against Clinton’s charge share an aversion to acknowledging an unpleasant truth. They are not so much arguments against a proposition as arguments that the proposition is offensive—or, if you prefer, politically incorrect. The same is true of the rejoinder that Democrats cannot hope to win the votes of people they have condemned as racist. This is not a refutation of the point, but an argument against stating it so plainly.
Clinton’s arrogance in referring to Trump supporters as “irredeemable” is the truly indefensible part of her statement—in the 2008 Democratic primary, Clinton herself ran as the candidate of “hard-working Americans, white Americans” against Obama, earning her the “exceedingly strange new respect” of conservatives who noted that she was running the “classic Republican race against her opponent.” Eight years later, she lost to an opponent whose mastery of those forces was simply greater than hers.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 21, 2017, 07:57 PM
 
On nationalist fear:
In the meantime, more than a decade of war nationalism directed at jihadist groups has shaped Republican attitudes toward Muslims—from seeing them as potential Republican voters in the late 1990s to viewing them as internal enemies currently. War nationalism always turns itself inward, but in the past, wars ended.… But the War on Terror is without end, and so that national consolidation has never occurred. Again, Trump is a manifestation of this trend rather than its impetus, a manifestation that began to rise not long after Obama’s candidacy.
---

That anti-Muslim surge on the right also provided a way for some conservatives to rationalize hostility toward Barack Obama by displacing feelings about his race in favor of the belief that he was secretly Muslim—a group about which conservatives felt much more comfortable expressing outright animus.

In 2012, according to Tesler’s numbers, only 13 percent of voters who believed Obama was Muslim said they would not vote for Obama because of his race. But 60 percent of those voters said they wouldn’t vote for him because of his religion—a frank admission of prejudice inseparable from their perception of Obama’s racial identity.
There was effectively no opportunity for Obama to escape the racist caricature that had been painted of him, even though his challenge to America’s racial hierarchy was more symbolic than substantive. An agenda that included record deportations and targeted killings in Muslim countries abroad did little to stem the conspiracy theories.
---

Birtherism is a synthesis of the prejudice toward blacks, immigrants, and Muslims that swelled on the right during the Obama era: Obama was not merely black but also a foreigner, not just black and foreign but also a secret Muslim. Birtherism was not simply racism, but nationalism—a statement of values and a definition of who belongs in America. By embracing the conspiracy theory of Obama’s faith and foreign birth, Trump was also endorsing a definition of being American that excluded the first black president. Birtherism, and then Trumpism, united all three rising strains of prejudice on the right in opposition to the man who had become the sum of their fears.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 21, 2017, 08:05 PM
 
On Civil War & Jim Crow revisionism:
Stephens had become first in line to the presidency of the Confederacy, an entity founded to defend white people’s right to own black people as chattel. But that didn’t mean he possessed any hostility toward black people, for whom he truly wanted only the best. The real problem was the crooked media, which had taken him out of context.
Stephens’s rewriting of his own views on race and slavery, the causes of the Civil War, and the founding principles of the Confederacy laid a different cornerstone. It served as a crucial text in the emerging alternate history of the Lost Cause, the mythology that the South had fought a principled battle for its own liberty and sovereignty and not, in President Ulysses S. Grant’s words, an ideal that was among “the worst for which a people ever fought.” The Lost Cause provided white Southerners—and white Americans in general—with a misunderstanding of the Civil War that allowed them to spare themselves the shame of their own history.

Stephens’s denial of what the Confederacy fought for—a purpose he himself had articulated for the eternity of human memory—is a manifestation of a delusion essential to nationalism in almost all of its American permutations: American history as glorious idealism unpolluted by base tribalism. If a man who helped lead a nation founded to preserve the right to own black people as slaves could believe this lie, it is folly to think that anyone who has done anything short of that would have difficulty doing the same.
---

One letter (out of many) cited by Sokol, from a World War II veteran in 1964, provides an illustrative example. “Six brothers in my family including myself fought in World War II for our rights and freedom,” a veteran from Charlotte, North Carolina, wrote to his representative. “Then why … am I being forced to use the same wash-room and restrooms with negro[e]s. I highly resent this … I’d be willing to fight and die for my rights, but can’t say this anymore for this country.”
---

Four-time Alabama Democratic Governor George Wallace lost his first gubernatorial race when he ran as an economic populist against a candidate with a segregationist platform, and famously vowed never to be “outniggered again”—and he never was. He declared, “Segregation now, segregation forever!” as he took the oath of office in 1963. He stood in a schoolhouse’s door in Tuscaloosa to prevent black students from integrating it. He was responsible for the vicious beating of voting-rights activists in Selma.

By 1984, however, Wallace’s memory of his own actions, like Stephens’s, had changed. “It was not an antagonism towards black people, and that’s what some people can’t understand,” Wallace explained to a reporter from PBS for the documentary Eyes on the Prize. “White Southerners did not believe it was discrimination. They thought it was in the best interest of both the races.”

“I spoke vehemently against the federal government, not against people. I talked about the, the government of the, the United States and the Supreme Court. I never expressed in any language that would upset anyone about a person’s race. I talked about the Supreme Court usurpation of power. I talked about the big central government,” Wallace said.
See, George Wallace wasn't a racist.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 21, 2017, 08:10 PM
 
(Fin)
     
reader50
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Nov 21, 2017, 09:03 PM
 
Condensing the above, Trump is a pretty terrible person to be a leader. But he's good at fooling white people, so he won the EC while losing the vote.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." (often attributed to Lincoln, but origin actually unknown)

ps - I was not fooled.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 21, 2017, 10:44 PM
 
I think you missed the point of the article. Trump didn't fool anyone. His racist, xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric appealed to them.
     
subego
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Nov 22, 2017, 03:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
About using racism to describe things or people:



This is one the thorniest of issues for me. I've vacillated back and forth on calling Trump a racist. HIs actions are racist. But since his animus is unknowable on most issues there exists that seed of doubt with which one will be flogged because being called a racist is the worst thing.

The problem, however, is that as far as I can tell, aside from White Supremacists, there are almost no racists in the US. This, of course, is very convenient, but it ignores institutional racism, at best. So we are left in a place where America has racist policies and preferences, yet no actual racists to be found who are implementing or sustaining them.
What makes institutional *isms such a tough nut to crack is their institutional status makes it difficult for many to recognize.

It’s awfully convenient to use the same term for someone not noticing that which is defined as difficult to notice... and a white supremacist.
     
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Nov 22, 2017, 05:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I think you missed the point of the article. Trump didn't fool anyone. His racist, xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric appealed to them.
Boom!

OAW
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 22, 2017, 08:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
It’s awfully convenient to use the same term for someone not noticing that which is defined as difficult to notice... and a white supremacist.
Convenient is not the term I'd use. The term almost never gets applied to people and when it does its fought to the death.

Edit: Here's alternate term: White Privilege. That's fought too.

The problem isn't the terminology. The problem is no one will admit to the problem. See: NFL Protests.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 22, 2017, 08:56 PM
 
Speaking of terms, 'ungrateful' is the new dogwhistle adjective about african-americans, similar to how 'uppity' was used in the past.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Nov 22, 2017, 11:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
Condensing the above, Trump is a pretty terrible person to be a leader. But he's good at fooling white people, so he won the EC while losing the vote.
When you're talking about people who seemed to believe that the least honest politician in the history of the developed world is 'refreshingly honest', it apparently doesn't take much fooling.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Nov 22, 2017, 11:33 PM
 
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Trump decided to be BLUNT about “social” issues that modern day GOP politicians usually only DOG-WHISTLE about. And he was an absolutely unqualified, nowhere near as wealthy as he claims to be, pussy grabbing reality TV star who was rewarded with an election to be POTUS as a result. That speaks VOLUMES about the mindset of the GOP electorate any way you slice it.

OAW
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 23, 2017, 01:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I think you missed the point of the article. Trump didn't fool anyone. His racist, xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric appealed to them.
To push the point further, this was so obvious that a significant chunk of the conservative intelligentsia not only distanced or disowned Trump, they actively endorsed his opponent; They feared both for the country and for the image of party should such a transparent demagogue got elected.

Meanwhile, the intelligentsia also got a nice wake-up call about how much the people they thought shared their values of freedom and small government – don't. And Trump's election seemed to validate all those negative stereotypes liberals accused the GOP of for years.
     
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Nov 24, 2017, 12:38 AM
 
… .
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Waragainstsleep
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Nov 24, 2017, 09:23 AM
 
The working class doesn't need to be racist though.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 24, 2017, 06:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
It's hilarious how the real "working class", as in, people who actually make physical things, fix things, or work with their hands - the people at the base of the economy of whom the whole economy is built on - are always relegated to being "uneducated"; or just another way of calling working people stupid. Everyone who disagrees with our Marxist TNG worldview is simply stupid & needs more state indoctrination.
Uneducated as in don't have a college degree. Because if you have a college degree, chances are you're not working in a factory for poor wages nor are you up shit creek if the local company shuts down and leaves.

Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
How oh how do RACISTS and people like Trump win? Dang it must be this pesky "large working class whose suffered through a long recession" AGAIN.
That's not what the article said, so congrats on coming in and thread shitting.
     
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Nov 24, 2017, 11:44 PM
 
… .
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Nov 24, 2017, 11:55 PM
 
… .
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subego
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Nov 25, 2017, 06:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
The term almost never gets applied to people...
It doesn’t?
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 25, 2017, 08:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
Im sorry. You'll have to excuse dumb ol me for interrupting the delightful Marxist echo chamber, I thought this was about how republicans support racists because republicans are racists - and they're racists possibly, in theory, because their just uneducated working lower class people. But I dont really know what Im talking about cause Im probably one the uneducated working class, I mean what can you expect.
Strawman, ad hominem, etc., etc.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 25, 2017, 08:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
It doesn’t?
Point me in the direction of all the agreed upon racists.
     
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Nov 25, 2017, 10:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
See here's the problem. Yalls filosofy is based on redefining what "racism" means. Many claiming it's a subconscious action and thought process, that we dont even know when we're being racists... Such a subconscious thing might be guiding some people in a very slight manner, but it's not "racism" (and it's not a big deal). Call it something else.

In any case the things dems define as apocalyptically racist in our society, republicans dont consider important at all. Essentially yall are calling them racist simply because they dont care one way or the other about minorities or the slight disadvantages they MAY have in society. You call them the racist for not wanting to turn the whole economy, government, & culture, upside down to fix what we consider petty non-problems. IOW a vote for Trump wans't a vote for racism, it was a vote for a guy who clearly didnt care about issues which republicans have relegated to insignificant "political correctness" and nothing more. Republicans consider these issues a waste of time and resources.
What a crock of shit.
Trump wasn't ignoring trivial race issues, he was using race to stir up discontent and motivate a racist base to campaign for him as well as vote. Their stupid redneck behaviour got him plenty of extra free media attention, just as his own did. Those who "didn't" care about race issues still had to consciously ignore the fact that he was genuinely prejudiced against minorities, just as they ignored that he was a shameless sex offender.

The 8 years of outrageous bile and spite from Republicans against Obama was absolutely racist, 100% by any sensible definition. You might argue some of it was subconscious, but at best it was somewhere in the middle of the subconscious inclination to lock your car doors when you realise you've driven into a minority neighbourhood and there are traffic lights and joining the KKK.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego
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Nov 25, 2017, 11:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Point me in the direction of all the agreed upon racists.
Let’s start with the alt-right.

Seems like calling them racist is pretty common.
     
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Nov 26, 2017, 12:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Let’s start with the alt-right.

Seems like calling them racist is pretty common.
There's a difference between common and agreed upon. Is it agreed upon that the alt-right are racists?
     
subego
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Nov 26, 2017, 01:25 AM
 
I’m confused here.

Isn’t the claim “the term [racist] almost never gets applied to people”?
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 26, 2017, 01:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I’m confused here.

Isn’t the claim “the term [racist] almost never gets applied to people”?
How about reading that quote in its full context.
     
subego
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Nov 26, 2017, 01:35 AM
 
I did.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 26, 2017, 01:49 AM
 
So what's the confusing part?
     
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Nov 26, 2017, 02:43 AM
 
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subego
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Nov 26, 2017, 02:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
So what's the confusing part?
The part where the term racist isn’t being applied to people.
     
subego
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Nov 26, 2017, 02:01 PM
 
Here. We can drop that. I’ll assume it’s an unimportant semantic misunderstanding.

Let me take the most extreme example to make my point.

According to the 2010 census, there are less than 5,000 black people in the entire state of Montana. That’s less than 1 in 100.

Might racism towards blacks seem like a distant problem to the vast majority of the population there?

Might one see the objection to the claim this distance is due to their racism or privilege?
( Last edited by subego; Nov 26, 2017 at 02:59 PM. )
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 26, 2017, 03:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The part where the term racist isn’t being applied to people.
That's clarified by the second part of that statement you claim to have read.
     
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Nov 26, 2017, 08:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
Could you give some examples of Trump using race to stir up discontent? I could've sworn it was the democrats that were using race to stir people up;
I remember a big fuss about a wall and calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. That was just the super condensed highlights.

Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
I guess you guys forgot about the interviews with Hillary's super pact years ago when they blatantly admitted to the media their primary focus was going to be to label whoever decided to run for the republican ticket as racist and sexist.
I don't remember hearing that at all but painting a Republican as sexist and racist is hardly a stretch. It probably covers 75+% of them and has done for the last decade or two.

Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
On a side could you give examples of this discontent that hadnt already reached boiling point before Trump?
Immigration was a partisan topic that came up often but I certainly wouldn't characterise anything that happened before Trump as 'boiling point'. More like standard partisan/anti-Obama racist bitching.


Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
You've been fake news'd like most the democrats. It doesnt help that youre in another country. It's as if you really think kkk types / alt right, are numerous enough to have gotten Trump elected. As if half America is clansmen running around everywhere. In reality these are one of the smallest minority groups in the country. But the armchair intellectual elitists wouldn't know that with all the sensationalized media attention they get...
Not what I was getting at at all. I remain surprised that there is enough racist or racism complicit assholes in America to have gotten Trump elected. I thought the majority still had the decency to vote against someone so obviously awful in every possible respect but it turns out that at least 60m Americans are either racist, or don't care which makes them racist anyway whether you like it or not. Not to mention sexist and permissive of sexual assault against women and in Alabama in particular it seems children too.


Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
Also please cite some proof he's a sex offender; in our country people are innocent till proven guilty.
He admitted himself on video tape. Then he said the tape was fake, then he admitted it wasn't, now apparent he says its fake again. Its obviously real and he didn't know his boasting was being recorded for once. He bragged about assaulting and harassing women and even about the fact that his fame and influence allowed him to get away with it.
He may not have a criminal record for it, but I think we all know that he's a dirty old pervert, has almost certainly paid people off from court cases and other allegations of sexual impropriety, intimidated others to go away as well. As far as I'm concerned, he's basically a rapist. I don't need a court to back up my personal opinion, I'm entitled to it. I'm also entitled to think that most decent folk should agree with me.

Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
Keep in mind Trump was hated by everyone even the most powerful people in his own party before the election. They were asking for and looking for anybody who could dig up any kind of dirt on him, if dirt were there, they would have found it long ago. The most they could come up with was a recording of him dirty talking like a liberal inner city 25 year old club going hipster.
Talking dirty? Great, you're as bad as the rest of them. I'm likely wasting my time.
Trump has ignored enough dirt to sink ten dozen regular politicians. As bad as they are they have a sense of shame that sees them resign when they are caught doing something awful. Trump just denies it and deflects until his attention deficient base see something else shiny, not that any of them care that he's a lying, thieving, treasonous rapist anyway.


Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
Many conservative types who had voted for Bush in the past voted for Obama. Thats how Obama won the election in this horrendously racist country.
Many people who voted for Bush voted for Obama maybe, I'm not sure I'd call them Conservatives.


Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
Obama decided to make a racial issue out of everything and blatantly sided with blacks in particular over events before all the info was out & before anybody knew what happened. Obama even went so far as to call a cop racist based on innitial rumors. Obama messed up on a number of accounts, one of the most serious was his solution to fixing the economy with trickle down economics by bailing out the wealthiest billionaires in the nation and paying for it with the inflation tax. This is suppose to the be party whos going to tax the top 1% not bail out the top .1% at the expense of everyone else. Obama removed a nuclear defense shield at the the request of Russia only to have them walk all over the U.S's interests. And lets not forget Obama's pre election racist church. What would people think if a republican attended a church preached like Obama's? There are many non race reasons for republicans to dislike Obama, he was given a chance, and he effed up.
Most of this happened well after the hatred started. The hatred started about two minutes after he won the election. No surprise people dug up stuff and made up excuses to justify their mindless bigoted anger after the fact.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Nov 26, 2017, 10:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
That's clarified by the second part of that statement you claim to have read.
The part where people who receive the accusation fight back?
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 01:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The part where people who receive the accusation fight back?
The one where there's no true scotsman.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 12:21 PM
 
Richard Spencer is a true Scotsman. Newt Gingrich is not.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 04:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Richard Spencer is a true Scotsman. Newt Gingrich is not.
Calling a nazi a racist gets no street cred from me. That's literally the lowest hanging fruit.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 08:56 PM
 
But Newt is on the same tree?
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 10:04 PM
 
I don't understand where the Newt question is coming from. He literally never crossed my mind in this topic.

Let me redirect by posing this – Are the following labels accurate:

Harvey Weinstein: Sexual Assaulter
Al Franken: Sexual Assaulter
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 10:17 PM
 
The labels I would use are,

Weinstein: rapist
Franken: handsy

Of course, we have way more dirt on Weinstein.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 10:21 PM
 
You didn't answer the question.

You're giving a specification, I'm giving a classification.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 10:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
You didn't answer the question.
Not intentionally.

Rapist falls within the classification I guess, but I think that classification is too forgiving.

Handsy does not.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 10:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Not intentionally.
You did not answer the question intentionally or you unintentionally did not answer the question?

Originally Posted by subego View Post
Handsy does not.
You're saying the things Al Franken are accused of do not qualify as sexual assault?
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 11:04 PM
 
Not providing enough information was unintentional.

Unwanted butt grabbing fits the legal definition of sexual assault, but that’s not what I think when someone says sexual assault.

I forgot about the kiss thing. That fits the definition.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 11:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Unwanted butt grabbing fits the legal definition of sexual assault, but that’s not what I think when someone says sexual assault..
Well, this goes to my point. You're bringing your baggage to these definitions.

To return to the origin of this discussion:
It’s awfully convenient to use the same term for someone not noticing that which is defined as difficult to notice... and a white supremacist.
It is not convenient. It is merely how language works.

To return to my point:
The problem isn't the terminology. The problem is no one will admit to the problem.
No one wants to accept that their racist actions are racist.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 11:41 PM
 
The whole point of words is the baggage they contain.

There’s assault, and there’s assault. Without qualifiers, people think of the latter.

I’m saying the same is true of racist and racist.

Even though I know this isn’t what’s being said, the summation reads as “no one wants to accept their racist actions are racist”.
     
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Nov 27, 2017, 11:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The whole point of words is the baggage they contain.

There’s assault, and there’s assault. Without qualifiers, people think of the latter.

I’m saying the same is true of racist and racist.

Even though I know this isn’t what’s being said, the summation reads as “no one wants to accept their racist actions are racist”.
Do you think changing the term would change acceptance of its applicability?
     
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Nov 28, 2017, 01:38 PM
 
It would be a huge push forward, but it would not instantaneously erase years of using the wrong term.
     
 
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