The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Is Trump a Racist?

    By ocean-kat on Sun, 08/20/2017 - 5:54pm |

    I've seen a lot of discussion on this question this week. The right has been making the claim that Trump is correct when he pointed out that there was violence on both sides. The left that one cannot make a moral equivalency between those who protest for white supremacy and those who counter protest. I have just one small point to make on the question.

    Trump claimed at his last news conference on the issue that he watched all the videos of the Charlottesville protests, better than you all did, he told the reporters. He claimed the protests on Friday night were peaceful and about the statues.

    This is objectively false. There are videos of violent clashes at the Friday night protests. Whether one blames the Nazis or both sides it is clearly false that the Friday night protests were peaceful.

    We can see long lines of people at the Friday night protest chanting Nazi slogans and, "Jews will not replace us." Clearly the Jews have nothing to do with the statues, nor do the other Nazi slogans

    Trump's claim that the Friday night protest was peaceful and about the statues is clearly, provably, and objectively false. If Trump had watched the video's closely, closer than the reporters, he could not have missed the violence and the antisemitic chants. So Trump is lying, again. Everyone paying attention knows Trump lies often but this is a different sort of lie. Most of Trump's lies are to bolster his ego, like the easily disprovable claim that his inaguration has the largest turnout in history or that he would have won the popular vote if 3 to 5 million people hadn't voted illegally.

    These were lies to give cover and comfort to the white supremacists, the KKK, and the white nationalists. It seems to me that when a person lies to protect and cover for white supremacist, the KKK, and the white nationalists he's a racist. I just don't see any other reason for these lies.

    Comments

    Well, he certainly has not done much to show that he is not racist. Life presents most people with lots of opportunities to be better or worse at that sort of thing. I have known people who tried very hard to not be racist but were anyway. They didn't find a way out of their own heads.

    But Trump has clearly demonstrated that he follows Pat Buchanan's doctrine that too much diversity leads to a loss of European identity. Buchanan also promulgates the notion that the benefits and the highest values of our society come from the unbroken replication of that identity. This thinking is more toxic than simple affiliation to a group. It transforms a body of prejudice and mistrust into a "righteous" cause.

    Now it is possible that Trump doesn't think his worldview is racist. I have seen crazier things.


    by moat on Sun, 08/20/2017 - 9:07pm

    That is an excellent comment IMO. 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 08/20/2017 - 9:31pm

    Pure speculation but after hearing and seeing more bits and pieces from biographers the last week, and articles like this, I'm starting to think he is best described as a very bizarre variation of a eugenicist. He thinks celebrity and popular power is a good signifier of excellent genes (incredibly ironic, as if those endowed with lesser genes still have enough smarts to rate the best!)  And therefore if a celebrity is of color, he's more than okay with them, as they are the best of their race in his mind. And there's probably a bell curve kind of thing, too, where he probably thinks there are fewer black celebrities because they are not equal as a whole to whites.

    And from what we ironically now know about his lack of knowledge and intelligence, he surely has no clue how much his kind of thinking is a basic of Nazism. At the risk of someone invoking Godwin's Law, it seems to me that if Hitler never existed and neither did the Nazi movement nor the Holocaust, if someone appeared preaching Nazi-style eugenics for the first time right now, Trump would be a yuge fan.

    An important nuance is this: he feels those with the top genes should look out for and lead the bottom genes, not persecute or abuse them.Not to mention: make money in the process. Also, note how he spars with and insults those he thinks are equals and demagogues the rest?


    by artappraiser on Sun, 08/20/2017 - 9:50pm

    All true. Trump is not only a racist, a coward and a liar, he's an instigator and agitator.

    Many knew some male in high school who's specialty was lying, instigating, starting fights, usually between 2 of the dumbest in class. That's Trump's target, his base, and his technique.

    Trump on Boston:

    Looks like many anti-police agitators in Boston. Police are looking tough and smart! Thank you.

    12:22 PM - Aug 19, 2017

    It wasn't until  1 1/2 hours, this, Kelly influence?:

    Our great country has been divided for decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heel, & we will heel, & be stronger than ever before!

    1:41 PM - Aug 19, 2017

    With the "anti-police agitators" he is (1) deflecting protests from himself, (2) demeanng their purpose, (3) falsely telling police the protestors hate them, and with his many, many remarks encouraging violence against protesters and also by police as a routine measure, he is hoping to make it a fight between police and protesters.

    Just like that smart ass HS kid that loved to get 2 guys fighting by spreading lies about them.

     


    by NCD on Sun, 08/20/2017 - 10:45pm

    Bibi's Opinion via Huffpo (So Neville Chamberlain just got a post-mortem pardon?)


    by artappraiser on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 12:03am

    I'm sorry, but Trump's expression of racism runs far more than whether he feels that Antifa was a co-instigator of violence in Charlottesville. Even if we just looked from the beginning of his campaign until now there are multiple examples, not to mention all the white supremacist dog whistles.

    He wanted to send 5 African American youths to a potential death sentence - even after it had been proven they were innocent.

    He announced his campaign with one of the most racist rants against Hispanic immigrants that I have ever heard.

    He has deliberately tried to equate the "heroes" of the South from the Civil War with those who fought to keep the country together.

    His use of "culture" and "heritage" for the civil war monuments are straight out of the neo-confederacy, alt-right talking points.

    His pushing the birther movement - one of the things he shares with Arpaio (one of the best known faces of racism in the U.S.) whom he has pardoned.

    And on and on. I find it hard to believe that there is even a question about whether he is racist or not.


    by librewolf on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 12:21am

    He's made clear he believes he has better genes, descended from Aryan Fred (who couldn't return to the Heimat for desertion). He's laid out his racist anti-black and anti-Hispanic views in no uncertain terms, from his housing discrimination to treatment of employees to his racist rants to his genocidal pleas to wipe out other cultures such as Muslims. I'm amazed there's even a "debate" on this point.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 1:58am

    Racism is evolution's original sin. We are all human. I'm not suggesting that because we are built that way that it is alright.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 2:12am

    Racism is like Windows Vista. That one software update that Microsoft installed in our brains 100 million years ago, and we still hate them for it despite the fact that we've now got Windows 10 and just can't be bothered to learn to use it to its potential. 


    by Obey on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 7:01am

    Dude, you must be on the coast, sun or something causing wavery lines....  September comes none too soon.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 10:07am

    Sure, these Christiania weed muffins are giving me aural hallucinations, but it mostly involves Arcade Fire so I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much.


    by Obey on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 10:24am

    I guess a small DHL package is too much to ask. For research purposes only, you understand - got to stay current with my name on the masthead and all, so much responsibility...


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/28/2017 - 10:56am