What damage has been done by racism since Trump has been elected?
To many people, Hillary represents corruption and plutocracy.
There is little that is more destructive of democracy than corruption.
Every Republican candidate since I can remember has played to racists to varying degrees. Maybe you didn’t hear it because they used dog whistles but racism isn’t new to presidential politics. Its sort of the reason why so many poor stupid white southerners vote against their interests. They think they are voting for the white team.
So we’re just disagreeing on which is worse. I look back at American history and see that bigotry did orders of magnitude more damage, both to Americans and to American democracy, than corruption. I don’t see it as even close. Bigotry brutalized and murdered millions, for almost 2 centuries of American history. For most of our history it’s pretty damn hard to argue that we were a democracy when so many had no chance of being heard and voting. It wasn’t corruption that did this – it was bigotry.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Donna Brazile. Secret speeches to Wall Street and other oligarchs and plutocrats. The Clinton Foundation.
These things all look pretty bad.
The acid test is going to be the fundraising success that the Clinton Foundation enjoys in coming years compared to previous years. The Clinton political capital took a large hit this election cycle. If the Clinton Foundation fundraising remains pretty steady then the previous donations probably weren’t pay for play. If it drops significantly, then you have to wonder whether people were paying for access and influence.
Or, if it drops, perhaps the conspiracy theorists successfully damaged its reputation enough (with or without evidence) that people are less likely to donate to it.
He didn’t only run on bigotry, but bigotry (birtherism) was how he became prominent politically in recent years, and bigotry (Muslim ban, Mexicans are rapists, the judge should step down because he’s Mexican, etc.) was largely how he won the Republican nomination. It was a big, big part of his campaign, if not the only part.
Laws and oppression require bigotry to be in power, and it isn’t until January 20th. As far as hate crimes, yes, they have increased significantly:
I didn’t vote for Trump, I just think all the hyperventilating about Trump is premature. I also think that too many liberals are getting mentally lazy about reading the results of the election. They just chalk it up to racism and viola, mystery solved. Racism, THAT’S why Trump won!!!
I think Hillary is a horrible person and a horrible candidate but even Hillary was a more palatable candidate than Trump to me. Not just because he was riling up the racists (almost every Republican candidate in my lifetime has done that), but because he has a much higher risk tolerance than someone who will be in a position to end the world ought to have.
First I didn’t vote for Trump. And second, I know plenty of pro-life folks who voted for Hillary despite her pro-choice position because they don’t think Trump is a decent person. Do these pro-lifers support abortions now?
If you think we will EVER go back to slavery, Jim Crow and any of that shit, then yes we disagree on which is worse. I think there is ZERO threat of slavery and genocide of Indians in our future. 2000 veterans rallied to Standing Rock to protest a pipeline alongside dirty hippies and Indians. I don’t think we are heading back in that direction as long as we can maintain our democracy.
I think corruption is an actual threat to the country, it can derail our democracy in a way that a bigoted president cannot. I think bigotry (which AFAICT has played a central role in every presidential election since I was born) is a rhetorical and emotional threat.
If Trump calls for a registry of Muslims, I will go and register myself. I don’t think Jesus would mind. But I put the chances of that happening at zero.
If “any of that shit” includes the incredibly vast universe of racism in the US other than slavery and Jim Crow, then I think it’s distinctly possible. I think sundown towns still exist (Vidor, TX is one such place that I drove through regularly in the early 2000s), and more, and many more could pop up pretty easily if the inhabitants of many all-white small towns decide that it’s okay again to do so. Red-lining is pretty easy to see coming back – favorable loans and other business/financial incentives provided to white areas of town, but not black areas, though crafted legislatively with creative language to seem non-racist. And much, much more. Even relative low-grade racism like sundown towns and red-lining are abominable and monstrous, and far, far worse than anything corruption has caused in the US.
I think you’re unaware of the extent of racism beyond the “big hitters” like slavery and Jim Crow.
I don’t think slavery and Jim Crow will come back. But we’ve already seen efforts at voter restrictions, sundown towns still exist and could spread (in relative secrecy, through informal efforts) once again, and hate crimes have been spiking. And this is just the beginning.
There’s an incredibly vast gulf between slavery and no racism – we’ve made a great deal of progress, and we’re very far from slavery, but we’re not that far from some really bad shit in American society that happened well into the late 20th century and beyond.
Well, sure, we could combat the hatred by yielding to it, and not nominating an exceedingly qualified candidate because people are shouting that she should be locked up or executed for the moral equivalent of jaywalking.
