IMO because of the uniquely horrible effect that racism has had on the United States through our history. The base pursuit of power has resulted in some bad things in America, but not nearly on the scale of racism (and the lies that are required to support racist systems, policies, and practices).
By the way, do you believe birtherism is motivated by something other than racism? I’ll include George-Wallace style “deliberately appealing to racists while not necessarily believing it” as under the wider umbrella of racist actions.
I think birtherism is in part an appeal to racists. I also think politicians will do what they can for any advantage. All know is that if politics rewarded the honorable we wouldn’t have either Trump or Clinton as the two possibilities to win the presidency. Again, I blame the electorate more than the candidates.
I blame the electorate too (not sure if more or less or the same). I think this election shows how large a portion of America is still okay with racism (as long as it’s expressed in certain ways), whether or not they have racist beliefs themselves, and it’s unfortunately still a big, big chunk.
Or that the impact of playing the race card over every disagreement as a way to demonize a person instead of winning an argument is leading to a loss of effectiveness. Additionally, being upset at what a political opponent labels racist may matter far less in people’s lives than globalization and other economic concerns.
I’ll answer this as a hypothetical because indeed lying in service of racism is significantly worse than many other sorts of lies.
In the political sphere a lie that harms the good of the people and goes against our nation’s best interests, is a very bad lie. Lies motivated by racism fall into that group. Bush’s untruth about weapons of mass destruction (assuming he actually knew it was untrue, and was thus lying) is in that group too. A hypothetical lie about going AWOL when in the National Guard as part of a campaign would have been bad but less bad. FDR lying about his VP pick (promising it to several who he did not choose) was not as bad. If Kennedy had not been killed and been asked about his affairs and had lied in response, whether to maintain his popularity and power or his marriage, that would have been bad but not motivated by racism bad either.
TL/DNR? Racist lies are up there with lies that needlessly get us into wars. They cause significant harm to our society and thus to our national interest. Trump’s lies are innumerable but his racist ones are his most despicable.
There’s a good article in Psychology Today magazine this month about Narcissism. Though it’s not written about Trump specifically, it sure seems to describe him to a T. Check it out if you get a chance.
I see that in the wake of the NYC bombing and the one in NJ Trump has once again weighed in with thoughtful, observant, and helpful comments. :rolleyes:
The Donald has stated that we must be tough, smart, and vigilant. This is excellent guidance for everyone who firmly believed that the winning strategy was to be weak, stupid, and careless. The Donald had also informed everyone earlier, when the news first broke, that “we don’t know what’s going on”. This is also excellent news, because as we know from his earlier pronouncements, Muslims have to be kept out of the country “until we know what’s going on”, and since we don’t, well …
So if the Donald is elected, we can look forward to four years of this sort of leadership, or until the Donald gets bored and quits, whichever comes first. Add to that the fact that he has great health, the best health, the greatest health of anyone who has ever run for office, and I can’t think of anyone better suited to be president.
People are attracted to Trump because of his brash confidence and his I-don’t-give-a-shit demeanour, all rooted in narcissism. That’s all fine and dandy for now, but when they discover upon crowning him that he still doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, they’re going to wonder what they got themselves into. He will not make America great; he will make America an even bigger target than it was before.
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People like Trump because he doesn’t have any idea what he’s going to do and neither do his supporters – and they don’t care to know either. They’ll just figure it out later. What matters is, he’s white, their white, and he’s saying a bunch of shit that appeals to undereducated white folks that makes them feel good about themselves.
The only thing many of them care about is sticking it to the President, Hillary, Bill, the Dems, the Libs, the Blacks, the Muslims, the Latinos, the poor etc.
If Trump wins it might finally put a stake in the heart of the idea I’ve seen floating around lefty circles for years now that America is secretly a progressive country if you feed them the right info and ask the right poll questions. That doesn’t even hold up to scrutiny if you focus on the Dems. Bernie got crushed. A lot of minorities aren’t progressive, they’re in a marriage of convenience because they fear the right. A lot of libs use dare I say conservative reasoning to reach their conclusions, like they’re not against war because it’s wrong but because it’s too expensive. Gun control is political suicide because so many Dems are pro-gun. UHC is a non-starter. You can keep going down the line.
So the idea that white people in red states are secretly progressive is delusional, but maybe it’s what’s causing some of the shock at Trump’s success. Which is odd, since it wasn’t all that long ago people were drawing Jesusland maps.
I’m not hinting at anything. It’s just that a lot of people are saying Trump knew there was a bomb when nobody knew what is going on. Maybe there’s something happening there. OK? Something’s happening there, and that would be unacceptable.