# Does Trump want a race war? If so, why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 1, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876 "2020-06-01T21:09:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/41 "2020-06-03T16:04:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think people who are ending their arguments with “…and that’ll help Trump get re-elected” are putting too much thought into it. Trump is trying to create chaos because he likes chaos. That’s the end of the causal chain, as far as he’s concerned. He’s not thinking about the effects of the chaos, because extended planning like that is not the sort of thing that comes naturally to the sort of person who likes chaos for its own sake. I don’t think it’s actually that he wants chaos. I think what he wants is an order in which he gets to give all the orders. Everyone else is supposed to behave “properly” according to his ideas of properly. Slaughterhouse workers are supposed to show up to work, so that meat can arrive on Trump’s table in an orderly fashion. Other people are supposed to do the cooking and the cleanup in what he thinks is an orderly fashion; and for that matter take care of all the rooms and grounds at all of his properties. Trash is supposed to go “away” in an orderly fashion; any environmental or labor regulation that appears to make any part of this difficult is seen as interfering with an otherwise orderly process. Demonstrators on the streets in DC are supposed to not exist, because their presence interferes with an order in which he gets to go where he wants without being inconvenienced. Also, of course, it’s improperly disorderly for demonstrators to yell at Trump. The order of the world is supposed to function so that nobody yells at Trump, but he yells at whoever he wants to yell at. Demonstrators who claim to be in favor of Trump and who are getting in the way of people who aren’t Trump and who aren’t doing anything that Trump thinks will interfere with Trump getting what he wants aren’t a problem; if they’re annoying people who Trump thinks might yell at Trump, then that’s a bonus, because in the proper order of the world nobody should get to yell at Trump. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/42 "2020-06-03T22:12:02Z")
Trump wants to survive - it’s that simple. If he loses the election, he risks losing everything. He wants to survive somehow, some way. He has no idea how to get there, but he’s going to pull out all the stops to make sure he does. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/43 "2020-06-03T23:09:55Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump wants to survive - it’s that simple. > > If he loses the election, he risks losing everything. He wants to survive somehow, some way. He has no idea how to get there, but he’s going to pull out all the stops to make sure he does. That only makes sense if you feel that Trump’s actions are helping him stay in office. And I think they’re pretty obviously having the opposite effect. The Covid19 crisis could have been a golden opportunity for Trump if he had half a brain. It was a major international crisis and all he really needed to do was sit back, do what the experts told him to do, and then stand in front of a camera and present himself as a leader who was rising above politics. He would have been like Bush or Giuliani after 9/11. People would have forgiven him for all of the screw-ups earlier in his term as long as he looked competent during the crisis. People want to trust their leader in a crisis and believe he knows what he’s doing. All Trump needed to do was meet them halfway and say the right things. Trump could have had 75% approval ratings and he’d be coasting towards his second term now. Instead Trump seemed to intentionally take the worst possible approach to the medical crisis. And then, when a few of his supporters tried to suggest that maybe he shouldn’t be held responsible for a virus, he decided to promote a race war. This isn’t the way a man who’s trying to survive acts. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/44 "2020-06-04T00:07:33Z")
I am beginning to reach the conclusion that everyone is over estimating Trump. Everyone! the media, the people in this thread, and up until now, me. There is no plan. There is no plan to start a race war. There is no plan to get reelected. There is no plan to distract from the Coivd. I’m not sure that there is even a plan to pander to his base. He is Chance from the Gardener from being there. Given his level of power people that people have given him people assume there is actually something there, but there really isn’t. All there is is spontaneous reaction. It only appears as that he is trying to distract, because he is always trying to throw himself into the lime light, and the colossal failures come so fast and furious, that you can’t keep track of them all. But that’s not by design, its just the way things happen when there is no plan. The only goal is to promote his Brand. His Brand is a smart, courageous, wily, tough, charming, funny, non nonsense, virile, alpha male, who everyone wants to be. He’s a winner who is the greatest at everything and never wrong. Think of a combination of John Wayne, Clark Gable, Pierce Bronson, and Jack Palance. As others have said he is the dumb person’s idea of what a smart person is, a weak person’s view of what a strong person is, and a loser’s idea of what a successful person is. Primarily because Trump is a weak dumb loser. On the other hand so is much of America, so this works. Brand promotion is the only reason he ran for president, he didn’t have any particular agenda in mind he just thought it would be cool to be able to say he was president. I think a lot of his base pandering is simply operant conditioning. When he says certain things, he gets big cheers at his rallies, and headlines on Fox, so he keeps saying those things. Only wimps talk about feeling and reconciliation. The way to deal with conflict is to bust some heads until you force them into submission. Dirty hairy doesn’t say “OK lets talk about this before things get out of hand”. He says “make my day!” and the bad guy gives in. So when confronted with a looming race war, send in the troops. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/45 "2020-06-04T00:37:36Z")
Presidents with sagging fortunes at home can count on a war to stoke patriotism. To wit: [No U.S. President Has Ever Blown Re-election During Wartime](https://medium.com/@wsonn/no-u-s-president-has-ever-blown-re-election-during-wartime-7648e5413638). Trump has been fond of calling himself a [“wartrime president”](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/18/trump-administration-self-swab-coronavirus-tests-135590) because of coronavirus. That didn’t get much traction (because it was dumb even by his low standards) and other targets that Trump might have made as targets - say Iran - a divided country [still has decided](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03/killing-suleimani-iran-tension-trump-fault/) that a war with Iran would be good for [absolutely nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX7V6FAoTLc). Trump knows very, very little about history but he does very much want to not be a one-term president. And if the public doesn’t want a war against a foreign country and the country laughs that fighting a virus is akin to military action, may as well declare war against other Americans! This serves the purpose of war and also feeds his base red meat because Trump only will send the National Guard off after those Blue State undesirable minorities and triggered libs. Anyone who thinks he wouldn’t want to try this - especially as polling numbers get [increasingly bleak](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/bidens-polling-lead-over-trump-getting-seriously-large.html) for him and the possibility congressional Republicans are finally beginning to [see a future](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/11/republicans-finally-realize-trump-will-drag-them-under/) that involves them being dragged down by Trump - hasn’t paid much attention to Trump. The guy got impeached because he wanted to win reelection by any means necessary, he had a [militaristic police force attack peaceful protesters](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-walk-lafayette-square.html) for [a photo op](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/opinions/trumps-photo-op-not-churchillian-dantonio/index.html) and he doesn’t do anything without ensuring that [his base feels the love](https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/406337-more-comfortable-for-trump-to-think-just-about-his-base-says). That base is racist and suspicious of big city socialism. Anyone who cannot see him sending in the military to attack the non-real Americans for all the reasons outlined really haven’t been paying attention. The issue isn’t whether he won’t try, it’s whether anyone in his cabinet and inner circle have the balls to stop him. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/46 "2020-06-04T01:31:11Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Presidents with sagging fortunes at home can count on a war to stoke patriotism. To wit: [No U.S. President Has Ever Blown Re-election During Wartime](https://medium.com/@wsonn/no-u-s-president-has-ever-blown-re-election-during-wartime-7648e5413638). That will be news to Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. I guess technically they didn’t lose their re-elections. But only because their popularity had dropped so far they didn’t even run. Presidents doing so bad they couldn’t even get their party’s nomination: that’s the precedent Trump should be thinking about. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/47 "2020-06-04T01:39:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That only makes sense if you feel that Trump’s actions are helping him stay in office. And I think they’re pretty obviously having the opposite effect. > > The Covid19 crisis could have been a golden opportunity for Trump if he had half a brain. It was a major international crisis and all he really needed to do was sit back, do what the experts told him to do, and then stand in front of a camera and present himself as a leader who was rising above politics. > > He would have been like Bush or Giuliani after 9/11. People would have forgiven him for all of the screw-ups earlier in his term as long as he looked competent during the crisis. People want to trust their leader in a crisis and believe he knows what he’s doing. All Trump needed to do was meet them halfway and say the right things. Trump could have had 75% approval ratings and he’d be coasting towards his second term now. > > Instead Trump seemed to intentionally take the worst possible approach to the medical crisis. And then, when a few of his supporters tried to suggest that maybe he shouldn’t be held responsible for a virus, he decided to promote a race war. > > This isn’t the way a man who’s trying to survive acts. He was acting this way when he was campaigning. He wasn’t behaving any more rationally in 2016 than he is in 2020. He’s a con man and a caricature who was elected by a cynical electorate in an increasingly broken political and economic system. He does stupid things, and a part of him probably wishes he had never even thought of running for office, but now that he’s here, he has no choice but to win. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/48 "2020-06-04T01:56:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Presidents doing so bad they couldn’t even get their party’s nomination: that’s the precedent Trump should be thinking about. The sensible thing for him to worry about is the precedent of former presidents going to prison as in Taiwan, South Korea, Peru, Brazil, Israel, and, well, the U.S. (Confederate President Jeff Davis). As to what advice I’d give DJT to avoid that fate — if I was in his corner — I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/49 "2020-06-04T11:48:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That will be news to Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. I guess technically they didn’t lose their re-elections. But only because their popularity had dropped so far they didn’t even run. > > Presidents doing so bad they couldn’t even get their party’s nomination: that’s the precedent Trump should be thinking about. You assume that Donald Trump wants to win using the normal democratic process. My position is that he’s probably given up on winning a fair contest. He’s behaving this way because he’s panicking and realizes that his chances of winning a fair election are dwindling by the day. What he’s doing now is laying the groundwork to wreck the political system so that he can steal a second term. Whether he succeeds or not, nobody knows, but know that he’s going to try grand theft politics. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/50 "2020-06-04T13:02:58Z")
Has there ever been a “race war”? I don’t think genocides or ethnic cleansings count. And the U.S. civil war was only indirectly about race. And I don’t think wars where the enemy happens to be another race (e.g. Vietnam) really count either. So what examples are there? ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/51 "2020-06-04T13:22:00Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Has there ever been a “race war”? > > I don’t think genocides or ethnic cleansings count. And the U.S. civil war was only indirectly about race. And I don’t think wars where the enemy happens to be another race (e.g. Vietnam) really count either. So what examples are there? The Vietnam war was mainly a civil war in which the US picked a side. That particular civil war was not about race. The US Civil War of the 1860s, on the other hand, was most definitely directly about race, not just indirectly. The “states right’s” thing was just a bunch of BS. ETA. Not sure why the font came out so small. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/52 "2020-06-04T16:25:22Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Trump wants to get re-elected. End of discussion. If a race war helps in that, then its awesome. Otherwise, he couldn’t care less. > If Trump was told that he would win re-election if he nuked every city whose name started with a B, then half an hour later, Belfast, Berlin, Belo, Brussels, Brasilla et al would be flattened, smoldering ruins. Why stop there? Bakersfield, Baton Rouge, Boston, Baltimore… ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/53 "2020-06-04T17:12:07Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Has there ever been a “race war”? > > … > > So what examples are there? See Reconstruction. > [@Ashtura](#): > > I don’t think genocides or ethnic cleansings count. Why wouldn’t it count? > [@Ashtura](#): > > And the U.S. civil war was only indirectly about race. Your American history teacher misinformed you. It was very directly about the white race’s “right” to own black slaves. > [@Ashtura](#): > > And I don’t think wars where the enemy happens to be another race (e.g. Vietnam) really count either. Splitting hairs. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/54 "2020-06-04T17:23:01Z")
> **[American Indian Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars)** > > The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settlers, against various American Indian and First Nation tribes. These conflicts occurred in North America from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the early 20th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of fac... ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876/55 "2020-06-05T02:31:12Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > You assume that Donald Trump wants to win using the normal democratic process. > > My position is that he’s probably given up on winning a fair contest. He’s behaving this way because he’s panicking and realizes that his chances of winning a fair election are dwindling by the day. > > What he’s doing now is laying the groundwork to wreck the political system so that he can steal a second term. Whether he succeeds or not, nobody knows, but know that he’s going to try grand theft politics. He’s been laying the groundwork since he got elected. He’s been sowing the seeds of a “fraudulent” election from the beginning. And while I don’t think he was explicitly planning a constitutional crisis, we may end up with this: [ > [@](#): > > Because Election Day took place in the middle of a second wave of coronavirus infections, turnout was historically low and a huge number of votes were cast via absentee ballot. While Biden is the presumptive winner, the electoral process was bumpy, with thousands of mail-in votes in closely fought states still waiting to be counted. Trump, naturally, refuses to concede and spends election night tweeting about how “fraudulent” the vote was. > > … > > One day goes by, then a few more, and a month later Trump is still contesting the outcome, calling it “rigged” or a “Deep State plot” or whatever. Republicans, for the most part, are falling in line behind Trump. From that point forward, we’re officially in a constitutional crisis. ]([Will Trump leave office if defeated? - Vox](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/3/21257133/trump-2020-election-meltdown-lawrence-douglas)) I think this scenario is very likely. This country is in deep shit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-trump-want-a-race-war-if-so-why/854876.md?page=2)