Free to say what they really believe
Nicholas Confessore at the NY Times on Trump as the racism candidate.
The chant erupts in a college auditorium in Washington, as admirers of a conservative internet personality shout down a black protester. It echoes around the gym of a central Iowa high school, as white students taunt the Hispanic fans and players of a rival team. It is hollered by a lone motorcyclist, as he tears out of a Kansas gas station after an argument with a Hispanic man and his Muslim friend.
The chant is just one word – Trump.
In countless collisions of color and creed, Donald J. Trump’s name evokes an easily understood message of racial hostility. Defying modern conventions of political civility and language, Mr. Trump has breached the boundaries that have long constrained Americans’ public discussion of race.
And that’s why he’s so terrifying. This isn’t some joke or stunt or tv show or publicity move. It may be any or all of those in Trump’s mind, who knows, but that is no guarantee that he wouldn’t act on his message of racial hostility if he were elected. Racist chanting doesn’t stop with racist chanting.
Mr. Trump has attacked Mexicans as criminals. He has called for a ban on Muslim immigrants. He has wondered aloud why the United States is not “letting people in from Europe.”
His rallies vibrate with grievances that might otherwise be expressed in private: about “political correctness,” about the ranch house down the street overcrowded with day laborers, and about who is really to blame for thedeath of a black teenager in Ferguson, Mo.
In cries of “All lives matter.”
“I think what we really find troubling is the mainstreaming of these really offensive ideas,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks hate groups. “It’s allowed some of the worst ideas into the public conversation in ways we haven’t seen anything like in recent memory.”
And not merely “offensive.” People can get over being offended, but the ideas are dangerous as well as “offensive,” and it’s the dangerous part that makes Trump terrifying.
Some are elated by the turn. In making the explicit assertion of white identity and grievance more widespread, Mr. Trump has galvanized the otherwise marginal world of avowed white nationalists and self-described “race realists.” They hail him as a fellow traveler who has driven millions of white Americans toward an intuitive embrace of their ideals: that race should matter as much to white people as it does to everyone else. He has freed Americans, those activists say, to say what they really believe.
Yeah. And that’s a bad thing.
I don’t really think Trump is Klansman-level racist, he’s an opportunist first and foremost. As a symbol though? He’s the most damaging thing we’ve seen in decades… and people should be very afraid.
Just because he’s not from some backwater place, don’t assume he’s NOT “Klansman level”. His dad was arrested in connection with some trouble-making in support of the KKK. And one of his fake infographics came from a white supremacist site. Trump isn’t just playing to the racists. In my opinion, as a businessman he’s had to keep his prejudice somewhat less than obvious to avoid a lawsuit, but now he’s letting it all out.
It doesn’t matter whether the Dumpsterfire is Klan level or not. He’s unleashing Klan-level racism in others. There’s no question about that.
The lack of instant social ostracism for that behavior — because, hey, they’re just supporting a candidate and it’s politics so it’s somehow free speech and not racism and let’s all be as confused as possible so we can go on doing this — that lack of ostracism, that “evenhanded” media attention, is what is letting racism back into the daylight.
It doesn’t matter whether the Dumpster intends it or not. We’re not in a court of law. This is politics and demagoguery.
It’s parallel to the frat boys on a bus having fun chanting rape and pretending it’s okay because it’s “a joke.”
It’s more even than that; a lot of media outlets are giving sympathy to his supporters. They automatically assume that they are angry for a reason, and that reason has to do with (fill in the blank with the appropriate of the following): the economy; being out of work; America ignoring the plight of the white working class man; being betrayed by politicians…etc. Seeing a pundit ascribe any of it to actual racism (recognizing that a lot of Trump supporters are not, in fact, working class, out of work, or economically deprived) or sexism. It’s just a bunch of poor working men that are sick of the system that leaves their interests out, and that has left them behind. It doesn’t matter if this is true or not; this seems to be the agreed upon narrative.
Exactly. I long ago stopped speculating about what any politician really, truly, honestly feels in the depths of his or her heart. Politicians never really stop running for election in our system; even a second-term President is usually preoccupied with his legacy and place in history. So if you want a guide to what someone will do once in office, look to what they say publicly, not what you suspect they would really prefer to do.
Obvious caveats apply: this doesn’t mean to believe ridiculous promises and projections (“we’re gonna build a wall and make Mexico pay for it”; “we’re going to have real GDP growth of 5% a year!”), and you can discount things that a politician says only out of a sort of obligation and doesn’t emphasize. But in general, if it quacks like a duck, it will govern like a duck.
If Trump were to become president, his very ascension to the office would validate and inspire every prejudiced view and virulent urge out there. He is already already having a that effect on the authority of his just running for president as if that conferred authority on anyone.
^ inspiring the virulent urge is what scares em the most. I don’t think he will actually get bigoted legislation passed (necessarily), but I think under him, white supremacist groups will go on killing sprees in minority neighborhoods. Because they feel they have approval.