You’re giving them a benefit of the doubt that our country’s entire history proves they don’t deserve. You can bet they don’t even care about the immigration status of people who are from “non-shothole” countries.
I believe they’re mostly in Boston NYC and Chicago, so I’m not really surprised that you weren’t aware- but if the only undocumented immigrants in your area are Hispanic, it’s a big leap to assume people will be just as opposed to European illegal immigrants.
Nobody’s that naive and uninformed, not anymore. That ship has well and truly sailed, run aground, and been cannibalized for parts.
The last remnants of that group, the ones who act like paranoid conspiracy theorists, seeing massive hordes of liberal boogeymen orchestrating literally everything, I think there’s something else going on. Nobody’s that crazy - they have accepted the obvious, transparent lies for a reason, because of some other motivation. Something they personally gain from trump and the republican administration, that they like enough to justify literally destroying everything else to get it. Even if they haven’t made the decision as a result of conscious thought, the underlying motivation is still there.
For some it’s money. Those people are sociopaths.
For some it’s “conservative judges”, who are seen as a pathway to bigotry and social oppression of perceived outgroups. More sociopaths. (And some racists, if they pick their outgroups by skin color.)
And of course, for some it’s just racism straight-up.
I’ll do you one better: 1/3 of all people everywhere are full-on unapologetic bigots.
They simply hate everybody who is different in any way. Gay, black, western, eastern, rich, poor, white, yellow, red, catholic, muslim, jewish whatever. You can be a successful politician anywhere with the right scapegoat.
See Putin, PiS, Bolsenaro, AfD, FvD, PVV, Orban, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Front National, Vlaams Blok,
Lacking a strong opposition bigotry is a force to reckoned with everywhere.
IMHO I believe racism is largely a Republican problem. The hypothesis that most Republicans are racist, however, does have some issues. Here are some of the problems, and some of my responses to the issues. This list is by no means exhaustive. I also think my own responses to these issues do not fully address the problems.
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A Black man with a funny sounding (almost like a terrorist!) name won a presidential election and then won re-election against two conservative White men.
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Subsequently a White woman lost to a White man who was not traditionally conservative in the way the other two were.
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There is a small segment of minorities in the Republican Party, some even welcomed by Trump himself. The most recent infamous example being Herman Cain and his presence at the Trump’s Tulsa rally.
Here are my partial, and seemingly inadequate in my own estimation, responses to these issues.
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The Republican party’s problem with racism is deep but not broad, and it’s problem with sexism is broad but not deep. This is why a Black man can win a presidential election and a White woman subsequently lose.
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It could be that Trump’s behavior since he won has turned previously non-racist Republicans into racist Republicans. The minorities in the party just still haven’t gotten the message that more and more of their White counterparts are becoming racist.
I’m sure there are are other, better explanations as well, but I’m not sure what they might be.
I have no idea why Trump is still popular. Well, actually I do have an idea, even though it makes no sense whatsoever, since it involves his nearly 100% total unfitness for office… But that’s beside the point of the OP, I guess. As to that, I don’t think appealing to racists in this country is a winning strategy. Especially because I would guess that the racists in the Republican party are already on his side, so there is no need to go after them, and the racists in the Democratic party wouldn’t vote for him anyway, given that he is a Republican, at least in name. Perhaps he wants to solidify some potential supporters and Trump believes racism is the way to go. I don’t know. But I’m not sure that is his main strategy now anyway, at least not overtly. It might make for a better discussion if you give us specific racist techniques you see that he is using.
I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at that hyperbole.
Maybe there are some Republicans who have totally non-racist reasons for being Republicans.
Maybe you are a Republican who believes in the rule of law and tough law enforcement.
Really? Does it not bother you that all our national federal law enforcement efforts are being directed into discrediting our own law enforcement agencies by combing through their work looking for procedural errors rather that towards conducting real investigations? Are you not disturbed that the attorney general of the USA has taken the position that lying to the FBI and obstructing justice are not crimes if the investigation doesn’t result in an indictment? Are you good with the president’s dealings with his various “private attorneys”? The President is a gangster, you know
Maybe you are a Republican who believes in prudent spending, small deficits and small government.
Yeah? Tell me about it. You know you got sweet-talked into running up some huge-assed national debt and you plowed it into the macroeconomic version of a Ponzi scheme. If you’re still waiting for that magic 5% GDP that’s going to make at all back for you to arrive, I’ve got a bridge to sell you if Trump didn’t beat me to it. You got conned just as surely as every fat-assed middle management retiree who wasted their entire life savings on a degree at Trump University. Of course, now that we’re in a real national emergency and we really need that money you lost back in order to help real people- you’re going to start acting like you’re the fiscally responsible one and start bitching about the deficit like you weren’t in on running it up. The President is a con artist, you know.
Maybe you are a Republicans who believes that our foreign adversaries, such as Russia, post a grave threat to our national security and interests abroad.
Until your buddy Trump took office, I bet it never occurred to you that our greatest global enemies were Great Britain, Canada and Germany - right? But you signed off on a new foreign non-policy that puts the instincts and “gut” of a corrupt businessman ahead of opinions and analytics of hundreds of the most highly trained and well-informed experts and professionals in this country. And now he’s exchanging love notes with Kim Jong Un and trying to pick fights with Canada.
And I won’t even mention how cool you were with that time when the Russians had unreleased compromising emails from the President’s idiot son. Now we know how unserious you really are about foreign policy,
Maybe you are a Republican who believes we need to aggressively defend our foreign interests abroad.
Or maybe your true colors are showing and you just like bloodshed, because from now on we are selling our armies to the highest bidder. If South Korea needs our help, they’re going to have to pay…what did Trump say…cost plus 50%. If they don’t pay up Trump may make the same deal with North Korea. Our armies will no longer be used to support our foreign interest, because that phrase is oxymoronic within the Trump lexicon. From now on, it’s all about profit. And if you’re fine with this change of direction, you’re busted. It was always just about killing people for you I guess.
But what about the Republicans that are just simple American people? They don’t care about college stuff like foreign policy or economics. They are just simple people who want to protect their simple jobs and their simple Christian church and their simple 2 parent family heterosexual lifestyle from complicated things.
Uh huh… once you start worshipping a totally non-religious guy who has 5 kids with 3 different women who does stuff like screwing and paying off pornstars and who’s a gangster and a con artist, you lose your claim to the moral high ground.
I really used to argue against the claim that all Republicans were racist. But I’ve been through it from every angle and there’s no other reason at for anyone to remain a Republican. Trump has subverted and defeated every single other traditional Republican value. Any Republican that still supports Trump is either a racist or someone that has made a cynical choice to side with the racists.
There does still exist the dreaded “single issue voter”.
My mom has professed that she is a single issue voter about abortion. Democrats murder and eat babies for fun, therefore she votes against them.
However, in order for her to maintain this stance, she has to accept everything else Trump and co do. Even if nothing can change her mind about how babies shouldn’t be torn limb from limb and eaten raw (or whatever) she is still swallowing the whole of trumpism when she leans on this single issue. She is demonstrating that nothing about the republican party is a big enough problem to worry about.
Which means that she’s probably, nay, certainly, a racist or sociopath at some level. (Dammit.) At least enough to not have any sympathy for the BLM movement or Covid deaths or anything else that comes down the pike. The ability to ignore issues is a basic requirement for being a single-issue voter.
Many of the Trump voters now seemed to have backed his type since back in HS in the mid 80s. Lots of my classmates drew a high liking to a film character who cheated, over and over, had books, appeared at talk shows and was a financial headline highlight each day in the paper.
That was Gordon Gecko. The famed Michael Douglas character. I watched Wall Street plenty of times, too.
What amazed me was the huge fan ship of Gordon, not the movie itself. Once at a summer party, someone popped in the film near dusk as grads filled inside for an after party. The section that they cheered for? The part they rewound over and over? Near the end where Charlie Sheen meets him with a wire in the park. When Gecko beats him up, knocks him down— THIS was the cheering part. Beat that whistle blower!
Over and over they trash talked Sheen’s character, noting that he’ll never makes money and deserves it. Will ruin his dad’s life, etc, etc.
My point is (too late) is that they loved the cheater. They said he was a genius for taking advantage of the loopholes, that’s how all the successful guys do it. “Greed… is good” became their mantra as fellow grads of mine.
Stupid Americans LOVE criminals. Hey, cheating the system illegally? Ruining companies just by short-selling? Ruining families and factories (had similar opinions about auto plants closing)? That’s all part of the game. And if you want to be successful, you have to do what they do. At least that was the resounding thought of my class of ‘89.
You see a person who says what he wants. About pussy, boasts about money, gets headlines, gets attention all the time, and… most importantly, HE’S RICH! LOOK WHAT HE OWNS!
Tell them it’s all on loans. Trump owes way more than what he owns. WHO CARES?
THIS is what stirs Trump’s popularity, his fame. He gets away with it and it’s “awesome”.
I’ve said it for some time now. trump is who trump’s supporters would be if they could get away with it.
My take, based on conversations with family members and friends, is that:
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Republican voters feel like they aren’t getting to live the promise of the American Dream™.
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Republican voters are angry that Democrats seem more interested in giving unearned things to black criminals, homeless drug addicts, gays and foreigners than they are in helping “normal” Americans™.
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Republicans feel that they’ve been bumped to the bottom of the ladder/back of the bus, and that blacks, gays and communists are receiving all kinds of money and special privileges while “normal” people are left footing the bill, while still waiting for their ship to come in.
That to me feels like the core of Republicanism these days. Yes, racism is the draw, and many people wear that racism comfortably and easily. But I think it’s worth noting that for many, it’s racism that they’ve backed into as a result of being frustrated and angry about their lot in life, and the sense that they deserve more happiness and comfort than they have. And Trump and the GOP play into this; fueling that dissatisfaction and anger, and directing it towards the “others” who are getting theirs before those who really deserve it.
Today I chatted on the phone with a family member who said, “I was watching the news, and Mayor de Blasio is putting up homeless people in $300/night hotel rooms, while my kid can’t even get the services he needs at school. It’s a messed up world!” (paraphrased and mellowed out).
That to me is the core. The problem isn’t that a special needs kid isn’t getting the care he’s used to from the school system, the problem is that other people are being helped before my family.
Add to that a lack of perspective on who “deserves” what level of help before someone else.
A homeless person not having a place to stay is a pretty damn big problem, probably one that should get priority over many other people’s problems.
It’s more about “white grievance” than “card carrying klansmen,” but it still is racism.
Well, the unprecedented (pre-Covid) levels of employment, including minorities, probably had a lot to do with it. Sure, things have gotten worse since the virus hit, but most voters are smart enough to know that President Trump didn’t cook up that virus and unleash it on the world himself.
Well, Chimpy Bush didn’t start Katrina either, but his administration’s incompetence made the suffering worse. The US response has been among the worst in the world, maybe on the loser podium along with Brazil. The economy was growing at the start of 2017, all the GOP did was blow up the deficit and gut environmental regulations. This election will be about covid-19 and the inept federal response. All the white grievance in the world isn’t going to save Herr Donald.
Most voters are smart enough to know that Trump took over a strong economy with employment trending in a good direction for years and was merely along for the ride.
Here’s a graph of the US unemployment rate with the axes removed. Without those visual cues, can you point out the spot where the “Best Jobs President Of All Time” righted the ship from Obama’s Marxist policies?
