The thing is, the article specifically labels Trump a white supremacist. I can’t think of any other area where being indifferent to a phenomenon is enough to earn you the label of supporter.
With alcoholism we might use the term enabler. If Tom an alcoholic and I don’t actively discourage drinking around him, am I an alcoholic or an enabler?
I disagree that Trump is “indifferent to white supremacy”, but leaving that aside, your statement is pretty remarkable. That type of “you’re either with us or against us” attitude is what we heard a lot of during GW Bush’s tenure. You really don’t think the US would be a different place in these two instances:
Most members of Congress were indifferent to white supremacy.
Most members of Congress were actively motivated by white supremacy.
I don’t think either would be particularly good, but #2 would almost certainly be much worse. #1 might be pretty much what the US was like in the early 20th century. #2 is pretty much like what Nazi Germany was.
In terms of fighting white supremacy, I don’t think it’s remarkable at all – those who don’t recognize its power, or are not interested in fighting it, are hindering efforts against it by their indifference. Looking at our history, that seems pretty damn reasonable. Those folks who were indifferent to slavery, or Jim Crow, or Germans in the 30s who were indifferent to anti-semitism, were, by their indifference, inhibiting efforts to fight white supremacism and Naziism.
But for Trump, I specifically noted “for a national politician saying the kinds of things he’s said” – I wouldn’t say that it’s reasonable to call random person Bob, who doesn’t much care about white supremacism, a white supremacist. But if Bob were a national politician, who had spread birtherism, praised/excused white supremacists, said bigoted things about Mexicans, Muslims, etc., and much more, then I don’t think it really matters if he’s indifferent to it and trying to utilize it for political purposes, indifferent to it because he’s a nut/idiot, or he’s specifically motivated by it, if we’re discussing the extent and power of white supremacism in the country at large, or the extent of white supremacism in the specific appeal and success of this politician.
I hate to say this, but it sounds to me like you are saying, at worst, that you don’t see any “functional difference” between Trump and Hitler or, at best, you don’t see any “functional difference” between Trump and David Duke or Richard Butler.
Missed the edit window: I specifically said “I hate to say this” because I realize I am violating the advice I gave you in the other thread-- where I advised against invoking Hitler. Maybe I should have followed my own advice, but I’m struggling to read your post in a way that doesn’t equate Trump to actual, active white supremacists.
In terms of power and impact? Absolutely. Trump is helping white supremacists significantly more than David Duke or Richard Butler ever did, just by virtue of being President. I don’t know if there’s a single American since, perhaps, George Wallace, who has helped white supremacists more than Trump.
If Duke or Butler were President, it would be far worse, most likely. But just a smidge of white supremacism (and it’s probably more than a smidge, IMO) coupled with being President means a very large impact – more so than a heap of white supremacism coupled with relative obscurity.
So you do see a functional difference. Otherwise, things wouldn’t be “far worse”.
There are lots of differences. But since Donald Trump is helping American white supremacists more than anyone in generations, I don’t see a functional difference in the nomenclature. I probably wouldn’t call him a white supremacist, but I don’t think it matters – if someone is helping white supremacists more than anyone else in 50 years, than whether we call him a white supremacist or just a white supremacist enabler seems like pointless quibbling.
But that’s not what you said earlier. You weren’t talking about how someone is labeled, you talked about what someone is:
“saying the kinds of things he’s said, being personally indifferent to white supremacism is functionally no different than being actively motivated by it”.
That makes no sense, especially since you agree that the country would be a very different place with someone who was an active White Supremacist in the White House (no pun intended). You can’t have it both ways. You want to say that Trump is equivalent to a White Supremacist, but then say that an actual White Supremacist would be much worse.
Anyway, I think we’ve beat this horse to death and beyond. Feel free to have the last word.
Okay, fair enough, I could have phrased things better to get my intent across. I think Trump’s presidency is causing (and perhaps equivalent to) white supremacists being significantly more influential and powerful than before.
Nope. It is a solid analogy. Trump neither condones or Condemns. That doesn’t mean he supports or is.
In all seriousness, how so?
We are not debating bringing back slavery or Jim Crow. Nobody is repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act or trying to overturn Loving v. Virginia and bring back anti-miscegenation laws.
What policies are Trump, or any elected representative who was elected on his coattails, pursuing which will roll back the gains made by minorities since the 1960s? Which of these gains are in the slightest danger?
If white supremacists are “significantly more influential and powerful than before,” there must be some tangible freedom that is in danger, or at minimum proposed to be removed, no?
Voter Identification is a return to Jim Crow laws. The GOP is strongly in favor of this.
Ugh. Even if that were true, which it isn’t, it has nothing to do with Trump. The push for voter ID is a state issue, not a federal one, and predates the Trump administration.
It can’t simply be that Hillary was just a horrible, uninspiring candidate, can it? ‘Whiteness is the apocalypse of mankind’, and with that, I hope Trump wins in 2020 just to piss this racist piece of shit author off.
I just wish that those so airily dismissing Ta-Nehisi Coates had a better idea of who he is. Hendrik Hertzberg, himself an acclaimed political writer and senior editor at the New Yorker, whom the Atlantic called “the best opinion journalist in the business”, praised Coates’ blog at the Atlantic as among the six best in the English language. Coates’ most recent book,* Between the World and Me*, was released to widespread acclaim and won the National Book Award in 2015. His observations deserve serious attention.
Not everything goes back to “whiteness”. Like I said, it can’t just be that Hillary was basically the male version of Mitt Romney: Charmless, lacking in any charisma, who comes off as cold, aloof, self-absorbed, and a liar?
Did Romney lose in 2012 because of his “whiteness” or was it because he was a terrible candidate?
Trump is stupid, morally and intellectually repugnant, etc, but he had two things going for him: He is charismatic, and he was seen as an outsider who doesn’t mince words.
If Obama had run for a third term against Trump, Obama would’ve won in a landslide victory.
The far-left just can’t accept that Hillary was a poor candidate. “Never let a crisis go to waste” - Use the election of Trump to condemn not only all white men, but the very concept of whiteness itself. Clever.
The far-left doesn’t like Hillary.
Then wy excuse and qualify her loss with this epic, philosophical thesis?
Ultimately, that’s what the article attempts to do; to shift blame less from Hillary and more to “environmental” factors if you will.
The continuous, daily outrage to Trump being President is tiresome. The Democratic Party needs to look at itself, and stop blaming “others” for its failures. The white male is not to blame for every single problem with society, or with the Democratic Party, nor is it the sole reason for her loss.
Why did she not capture 100% of the Black and Latino vote? Why did she fail to excite as many votes of color than Obama did? Why did she fail to attract an overwhelming majority of the female vote? She didn’t even capture 100% of the Muslim vote - you would think that would’ve been guaranteed with a man like Trump running. But she didn’t.
I could understand if the Democratic Party was in terrific shape besides this election, but the Democratic Party is in the worst shape it’s been in nearly 100 years. You can’t blame that on whiteness alone.
I will say again: If Obama was running for a third term, and his opponent was Trump, you would’ve seen a landslide in Obama’s favor on par with 1988, or possibly even 1964.
You don’t appear to understand the concept of “whiteness” as it’s used in this article. It doesn’t condemn all white men. Whiteness, as it’s used here, is an artificial social construct, mostly created only in the last few centuries, that was used to divide and plunder, to the detriment of the country at large. “Whiteness” has harmed non-white people a huge amount, but it’s also harmed many or even most white people as well.