Just trying to get an idea of the current political climate.
Feel free to define anything in any way you wish, including their location, office (still highest possible), and platform, as long as the candidate could be considered a white supremacist by most reasonable public measure.
One reason I ask is that I wonder sometimes what the national Republican party would do if their members’ tactics, especially those in heavily red states, went to its logical conclusion. It further made me wonder if that was at all likely. Thus, this question.
They won’t care. The party is pretty much there as it is, what with Make America Great Again being a dogwhistle for those who believe America stopped being great when Obama got elected.
If the candidate is aesthetically appealing (never underestimate the appeal of fame, good looks, a good voice, height and such things,) has a knack for rolling out a dozen zingers in every speech that make for bumper-sticker quotes, plays the “whites are reverse-discriminated against” card effectively, is helped by outside factors such as the economy or Islamic terrorism, AND goes up against an inept, SJW, dislikable type of opponent, then I think he/she could go all the way. President-Elect of the United States.
You can be anyone. Just tell people you’re rich over and over again, be loud, say what you want and dye your skin color to a new and truly dopey-Looking skin color which people seem to like for some odd reason.
Yeah, we have Trump, but he still at least on the surface makes a token effort to pretend to care about minorities (at least to the point where his supporters pretend that he wants to do anything for them). When I said “openly,” I was thinking no dog whistles, no euphemisms or metaphors, just straight out 100% direct. Maybe not to genocide levels, but at the least to the “not afraid, perhaps even proud, to say it directly in public.”
Same with the national party. They are still too afraid to say it straight out. They may get there eventually, but not now, IMO, so this again my interest in the topic.
An open racist wouldn’t get anywhere, because the people voting for him would necessarily have to admit to themselves that they’re also racist. And most racists don’t believe themselves to be racist.
An openly racist “I’m proud to be white supremacist” candidate might even do better than Trump at the ballot box.
There’s a certain phenomenon (might have a name) whereby if you argue for Policy X halfheartedly, it will be unpopular, but if you full-out embrace Policy X full-bore, no apologies, it can be very popular - even if Policy X is a horrible thing - because people are naturally drawn towards confidence. If they see you showing genuine enthusiasm for something, then they figure there must be some validity and substance to it, otherwise why are you so confident and ardent for it?
I could see them actually getting pretty far if they focus on the “Pride” part of “White Pride”. Someone who rants about minorities and throws around racial epithets likely won’t get very far, because even the “I’m not racist, but…” crowd would shy away from them.
But someone who just talks about how great white people are? Who just talks about how great things would be if we didn’t hold back white people? Who talks about letting the best people reap the greatest rewards? That guy could win big. “He doesn’t hate minorities, he just loves his own race! What’s wrong with that?”
Just play up every good thing white people have ever done, while ignoring everything bad they’ve ever done, and literally ignoring every non-white person out there would likely be a winning strategy.
Another aspect to consider is that if someone openly and proudly claims to be an “-ist” (racist, sexist, etc.), suddenly, accusing them of it becomes a toothless attack.
The whole point of accusing someone of being racist is that they’re supposed to deny it, since being racist is a bad thing. But if someone proudly embraces that label, then you’re left with a “Uh…okay…so what now then” situation.
I have always felt that this is a vastly underused strategy. Whatever one is accused of, freely and openly admit to it, no matter how outrageous or false the accusation is.
To a degree, our current occupant covertly uses this strategy. The underlying message being, “Yeah, so what are you going to do about it?” Which, as we have observed, leaves the opposition wringing their hands and furrowing their brows and being outraged and and and …