Donald Trump: The First White President [article in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates]

[Richard_Parker]

@Malthus

Sigh.

This is not helping your case. A rhetorical flourish that doesn’t help your argument, ironically.

@Malthus

The Argument

Basic question addressed: some people say that racism was only one ingredient in the rise of Donald Trump. Does that disprove the thesis?

Argument: claiming that racism is just one ingredient in the rise of Trump isn’t a valid objection to the thesis.

Correct. Unfortunately, you then go on in your post to disregard your own understanding of the argument!

@Malthus

the argument assumes that the only objection is that racism isn’t the only ingredient in the rise of Trump.

No, it doesn’t. You just stated it correctly and it doesn’t contain either that assumption or the conclusion you are pretending it is trying to reach.

@Malthus

the argument provides no evidence that the proportion of racism to other factors in events such as lynching is anything like that in the ascendancy of Trump - which is the very objection the author ought to have addressed.

No. It isn’t. In fact, you need only refer to YOUR OWN SUMMARY to see that.

[treis]

@iiandyiiii

Here’s the timeline of Trump’s birtherism:

How Donald Trump Perpetuated the 'Birther' Movement for Years - ABC News

He harped on it for years after that correspondents’ dinner, up to and including his presidential campaign. He was asked about it multiple times and refused to say, until Sep of 2016, that Obama was born in the US.

You really don’t think the fact that so many Republican voters believed that Obama was born outside the US had anything to do with Trump’s early success? That’s a position that Trump alone (among the candidates) held, in concert with so many Republican voters.

Look at what your own cite is saying:

“No. I don’t know. I really don’t know,” he said in a July interview with Anderson Cooper. ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos presses him about this on “This Week” in September, and he declines to answer. “I don’t get into it. And I just don’t talk about it,” he said.

In 2015 he doesn’t want to talk about. Birtherism simply wasn’t an issue in the election.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Richard_Parker

You cannot expect to understand a complicated social phenomenon without spending some quality time with it. If you’ve read more Charles Murray than you have Isabel Wilkerson, then Coates is probably not going to reach you.

Ah, the Courtier’s Reply.

[iiandyiiii]

@treis

Look at what your own cite is saying:

In 2015 he doesn’t want to talk about. Birtherism simply wasn’t an issue in the election.

I don’t buy it. If he didn’t want to talk about it he would have said “yes, he was born in the US”. I don’t know what he actually believed, but I think he looked at the polling that showed so many Republicans were birthers, and figured he had to stick to this (whether or not he believed it), since that’s what brought him to recent Republican prominence.

But I think this is becoming a hijack, so I won’t continue it unless you start another thread.

[Richard_Parker]

@Darren_Garrison

Ah, the Courtier’s Reply.

From your link:

Denunciation of this particular fallacy, however, is quite easy to misuse. Whenever one is told to read more about a subject that he disagrees on, it is easy to accuse one’s contradictors of giving a “Courtier’s Reply”. The element of the Courtier’s Reply that is being forgotten here is that it asks the questioner to “read more” about a subject that begs the question. Therefore it cannot be used, for instance, by people not liking that they are being asked to read more about global warming if they deny it. In addition, it is not fallacious to tell, for example, a creationist to read more on evolution, if they clearly do not understand what they are talking about, and are basing their evidence on false premises (such as, for example, believing that abiogenesis = evolution).

[iiandyiiii]

@Richard_Parker

I only know what worked for me. One of my first encounters with Coates was his exchanges with Jonathan Chait. I was mostly on the Chait side. I was initially pretty skeptical of Coates’ essay about reparations. I felt defensive. That feeling was really hard to overcome, even though I recognized intellectually how wrong it was to feel defensive.

What has opened my mind on some of these issues, and helped me to understand Coates’ writing, was learning more. I would not have understand and appreciated Racecraft, if I had not first read the Warmth of Other Suns, for example.

I honestly think this essay (and something like Between the World and Me), would have been completely inaccessible to me as little as five years ago. What I needed was not message board debate. I needed to be walked slowly, without the defensiveness or argument that occurs in online back-and-forth, through the history of white supremacy in America from 1800 to present. I doubt there is any shortcut for that, at least for someone like me–a naive white guy who could describe Objectivism better than he could Reconstruction.

Thanks for this. In light of this, perhaps Coates’ discussions with Chait might be useful for others to gain some of the background. I think this is all of them, in chronological order:

The Secret Lives of Inner-City Black Males

Barack Obama, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Poverty, and Culture

Black Pathology and the Closing of the Progressive Mind

Barack Obama vs. the Culture of Poverty

Other People's Pathologies

Ta-Nehisi Coates Disagrees With ‘Jonathan Chait,’ and So Do I

[puddleglum]

@k9bfriender

And what if you take a reasonable position, and while not believing that everything is about racism, but that there are indeed many things that are about racism?

Then Coates is unpersuasive since he never makes a coherent argument that something is about racism he just assumes it. Because of this he never addresses any counterarguments.
He states that Trump is the first WHITE president but what about the presidents who were actual slave owners? Do they not count as WHITE?
He says that Trump’s election is all about undoing Obama’s legacy, yet an even better time for opposing Obama would have been when Obama was actually running and that did not happen.
9% of Obama voters voted for Trump. Why would they do so if Trump’s election was all about WHITE people?
Coates is a one note guy who has one answer to every question.

[treis]

@iiandyiiii

I don’t buy it. If he didn’t want to talk about it he would have said “yes, he was born in the US”. I don’t know what he actually believed, but I think he looked at the polling that showed so many Republicans were birthers, and figured he had to stick to this (whether or not he believed it), since that’s what brought him to recent Republican prominence.

But I think this is becoming a hijack, so I won’t continue it unless you start another thread.

How it is a hijack? It’s literally the first thing Coates says about Trump and politics. How can you defend his article and not defend the first thing in it that looks like a fact?

It’s because, of course, the article is nonsense. If any election was Trump running against “an entire nigger presidency with nigger health care, nigger climate accords, and nigger justice reform”, it was 2012. That campaign failed miserably.

[iiandyiiii]

@treis

How it is a hijack? It’s literally the first thing Coates says about Trump and politics. How can you defend his article and not defend the first thing in it that looks like a fact?

I have been defending it, through multiple posts. It’s as if 50% of Democrats were 9/11 truthers, and there was a prominent celebrity who pushed 9/11 trutherism for years, and then ran for the Democratic nomination alongside 15 Democrats who rejected 9/11 trutherism, and won the nomination. It would be utterly ridiculous to say that trutherism wasn’t a big part of his victory.

If a huge portion of an electorate has a political position, and only a single candidate supports that political position very prominently and publicly, and then wins the nomination, then it’s entirely reasonable to put forward that this political position was very influential in their success.

But there I go, continuing to focus on a teeny-tiny part of the article, which is why I’m calling it a hijack. This is not the main thrust of the article.

[Bone]

@iiandyiiii

Thanks for this. In light of this, perhaps Coates’ discussions with Chait might be useful for others to gain some of the background. I think this is all of them, in chronological order:

The Secret Lives of Inner-City Black Males - The Atlantic

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/obama-ta-nehisi-coates-poverty-and-culture.html

Black Pathology and the Closing of the Progressive Mind - The Atlantic

Barack Obama vs. the Culture of Poverty

Other People's Pathologies - The Atlantic

Ta-Nehisi Coates Disagrees With ‘Jonathan Chait,’ and So Do I

I’ve read some of these already, but as an exercise I will re-read them, trying to set aside my disagreement with Coates, generally.

[iiandyiiii]

@Bone

I’ve read some of these already, but as an exercise I will re-read them, trying to set aside my disagreement with Coates, generally.

Bone: out of curiosity, if you did come to agree with Coates about the massive influence of white supremacism, would you start to support Democratic politicians who made opposing white supremacism a big part of their platform (but had standard Democratic positions on guns)? Or would opposing gun control be more important to you than opposing white supremacism?

[John_Mace]

There was an hour long discussion of this subjection on NPR this AM. I only caught about 15 minutes of it in the middle. I’m sure it’s available as a podcast.

[madsircool]

@Richard_Parker

This article is a bad article. For you. That’s my point. It is obvious from your first post that it is not reaching you and not going to reach you. I don’t think this is because of some weakness in the argument, but because of a disconnect. The sentences and paragraphs aren’t landing. That disconnect is a problem for the author to the extent that you are the author’s intended audience.

You cannot expect to understand a complicated social phenomenon without spending some quality time with it. If you’ve read more Charles Murray than you have Isabel Wilkerson, then Coates is probably not going to reach you.

Bone: exactly.

You sound like an evangelist trying to convert the heathen circa 19th century.

[Kimstu]

I think Coates makes a very neat point about whiteness being “the original identity politics” in America. A lot of significant problems bearing on class, capitalism, ethnicity, national origin, religion, etc., have always been conveniently defused or displaced by encouraging white voters to concentrate on racial-identity issues instead.

[treis]

@iiandyiiii

I have been defending it, through multiple posts. It’s as if 50% of Democrats were 9/11 truthers, and there was a prominent celebrity who pushed 9/11 trutherism for years, and then ran for the Democratic nomination alongside 15 Democrats who rejected 9/11 trutherism, and won the nomination. It would be utterly ridiculous to say that trutherism wasn’t a big part of his victory.

But again, that’s not what happened. To use your example, it’s a candidate running in 2012 as a 9/11 truther, losing badly, and then winning in 2016 with a campaign that only reluctantly talks about 9/11.

I’m not harping on this for the sake of a hijack. It’s an important point. The campaign Trump ran in 2012 is far closer to what the article describes. He lost badly then. If Trump was the revenge of white America against a “nigger” presidency then he should have had success in 2012. The fact that he didn’t destroys the argument.

How do you explain Trump’s utter lack of success in 2012 vs his win in 2016?

[iiandyiiii]

@treis

But again, that’s not what happened. To use your example, it’s a candidate running in 2012 as a 9/11 truther, losing badly, and then winning in 2016 with a campaign that only reluctantly talks about 9/11.

I’m not harping on this for the sake of a hijack. It’s an important point. The campaign Trump ran in 2012 is far closer to what the article describes. He lost badly then. If Trump was the revenge of white America against a “nigger” presidency then he should have had success in 2012. The fact that he didn’t destroys the argument.

How do you explain Trump’s utter lack of success in 2012 vs his win in 2016?

Trump did not run for president in 2012.

[k9bfriender]

@treis

But again, that’s not what happened. To use your example, it’s a candidate running in 2012 as a 9/11 truther, losing badly, and then winning in 2016 with a campaign that only reluctantly talks about 9/11.

I’m not harping on this for the sake of a hijack. It’s an important point. The campaign Trump ran in 2012 is far closer to what the article describes. He lost badly then. If Trump was the revenge of white America against a “nigger” presidency then he should have had success in 2012. The fact that he didn’t destroys the argument.

How do you explain Trump’s utter lack of success in 2012 vs his win in 2016?

Remind me when trump ran against Obama in 2012? I don’t remember that.

ETA: Kinda ninja’d by iiandyiiii.

But did want to point out that trump did stick his toes in the primary.

[Do_Not_Taunt]

@iiandyiiii

Trump did not run for president in 2012.

That does seem to have some explanatory power.

[treis]

@iiandyiii

Trump did not run for president in 2012.

Of course Trump ran in 2012.

He added: “I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognise that running for public office cannot be done half-heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.”

The decision comes after the businessman was repeatedly trounced by Obama last month over the “birther” issue. Trump took doubts about Obama’s birthplace from the fringes of American politics to the mainstream, but the president undercut him by publishing the long form of his birth certificate, proving he had been born in the US. Obama humiliated Trump a few days later with a series of jokes at his expense at the White House correspondents’ dinner, with the businessman present.

In spite of Trump’s claims about being frontrunner in the polls, one published on Monday by the Politico website and George Washington University showed 71% of those surveyed thought he had no chance of becoming president.

Donald Trump bows out of 2012 US presidential election race

[iiandyiiii]

@treis

Of course Trump ran in 2012.

Donald Trump bows out of 2012 US presidential election race | Donald Trump | The Guardian

LOL.

He had no campaign workers, no fundraising, there had been no voting, etc. There had been a few polls, and he actually was doing pretty well in the polls that included him, but to call a few months of occasionally saying that he might run for president “a campaign” is ridiculous.

He didn’t run for president in 2012. There was no Trump 2012 campaign. There was no votes for or against Trump in the 2012 campaign cycle. He didn’t do well in 2012 because he didn’t run in 2012.