# Now Hillary plays the KKK card **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 26, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983 "2016-08-26T02:07:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/181 "2016-08-29T03:33:40Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > …the immigration mess is too subtle to swing lots of voters… The facts are, yes, but the emotional context is anything but. The true believers, the alpha lemmings, that fired up his rocket in the first place…don’t want to hear about being humane. They were _already_ crazy enough to think that you actually _can_ round up and ship out eleven million people! I know he likes to salt his rants with some stuff about how good this guys is, how great that gal is, but the people who show up are not there for the nice. There’s all sorts of dollar store Goebbels out there who will tell them what they want to hear if he won’t. Its a little like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The first host of an alt-right agitprop radio show to yell “Traitor!” is gonna be the one who gets all the attention. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/182 "2016-08-29T05:08:57Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > . . . Saying “OMG! Trump’s a RACIST!” is not going to get a lot of mileage. Sorry but I am 100 percent right on this and you are not. Maybe… But calmly and rationally…and truthfully…highlighting his racism is, I think, a very good campaign move. Also, Clinton set the right tone by complimenting the Republican Party for its good institutions and traditions. At this point, very little is going to get “a lot of mileage.” There are very, very few people who are truly undecided, and it would take a very severe “October Surprise” (or debate melt-down) to swing many people either way. Maybe Trump will succeed in manufacturing a scandal that people believe: his team is certainly going to try this. But Trump is not going to be able to cleanse himself from the taint of the ugly things he’s already said – and which he keeps saying to this very day! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/183 "2016-08-29T06:45:05Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > The facts are, yes, but the emotional context is anything but. The true believers, the alpha lemmings, that fired up his rocket in the first place…don’t want to hear about being humane. They were _already_ crazy enough to think that you actually _can_ round up and ship out eleven million people! > > I know he likes to salt his rants with some stuff about how good this guys is, how great that gal is, but the people who show up are not there for the nice. There’s all sorts of dollar store Goebbels out there who will tell them what they want to hear if he won’t. > > Its a little like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The first host of an alt-right agitprop radio show to yell “Traitor!” is gonna be the one who gets all the attention. We’re not talking about the true believers. I agree they are gone. We’re talking about the white men who have been drifting away because they aren’t comfortable with what Trump has been saying. Trump claiming he is the candidate for the black voter isn’t going to convince black voters, but might convince some white voters on the fence. And that is the audience Clinton is after. The guys you are talking about aren’t going to be fooled that the law and order message is anything but the same old stuff. Now, immigration is different. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/184 "2016-08-29T10:11:46Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Again you seem to ignore the polls. Sure she has unpopular levels, but it is really silly though to ignore the reasons why Trump is more unpopular. Trump has gotten this far **because** of his racism and because he is not Hillary Clinton. He collapsed in August because he looked temperamentally unfit for the position, and he looked like a sociopath when he attacked a dead soldier’s family. There are also some conservatives who think he’s a fraud and, like many democratic voters, some have doubted all along that he would be competent. But you know what? Despite all of that, here he is barely a few percentage points behind Hilllary Clinton and we haven’t even had the debates yet. Hillary Clinton also had a few scandals of her own, including one that she has repeatedly failed to put to rest. Hillary and Donald are fighting over white centrist voters. Hillary Clinton is not going to win by calling Trump a racist. The voters who would buy into that strategy already know that Trump is a racist and probably did a long time ago and made up their minds to vote for Hillary months ago. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/185 "2016-08-29T11:15:14Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > [Catholics aren’t happy about it, either.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/28/donald-trump-has-a-massive-catholic-problem/?wpisrc=nl_p1wemost-partner-1&wpmm=1) Catholics aren’t happy about anything. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/186 "2016-08-29T11:23:00Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Strangely, this is the part of your post that we disagree on. I don’t think Hillary is on shaky ground with this. I find a lot of the “hold your nose and vote for her” people are kind of delusional about exactly how she’s seen by a majority of this country, to be honest. Maybe not a huge majority, but certainly more of one than the people who are only reluctantly supporting her think is there. > > But maybe my desire to be informed by fact rather than a quarter-century of innuendo and relentless political character assassination by a morally bankrupt political party is the wrong tack on this… Yeah I agree with this. Calling out Trump, not every day in every speech, but conclusively and unambiguously like she did, is both good for her own stature, her campaign and for the country. And necessary. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/187 "2016-08-29T11:31:17Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Yes, let the media and Hillary’s surrogates point out Donald’s negatives. Hillary herself? Bad idea. Hillary needs to be the anti-Trump: boring, plodding, smart, knowledgeable, intellectual, calm, reasonable. > > Saying “OMG! Trump’s a RACIST!” is not going to get a lot of mileage. Sorry but I am 100 percent right on this and you are not. I think you’re a little too worried about Clinton overplaying it as far as the racism charge. I don’t expect her to be harping on it. I think she already did what she needed to do. And you may be overplaying the role of surrogates - the TMZ and WWE crowd never sees them, wonks see them. So you can’t leave ALL of the dirty work and endless repetition of the same talking points to surrogates. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/188 "2016-08-29T11:34:38Z")
Asahi, it’s called _leadership_. And in that regard, you are 100% wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/189 "2016-08-29T11:37:57Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump has gotten this far because of his racism Well, then, why are you protesting [del]too[/del] so much? > [@asahi](#): > > and we haven’t even had the debates yet. [Until then…?](https://youtu.be/NDKIs0v120s?t=9) :D:D:D ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/190 "2016-08-29T12:16:11Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Sure the poll numbers show that Trump has tanked, but today’s Reuters poll puts Trump back within 5 percentage points, which is something I pointed out and got ridiculed for a few days ago when I said that the race was tightening (look who’s right now, mothafuckkkas). The race is tightening whether you want to admit it or not, and the race is not being decided by people like you. It’s being decided by white, know-nothing mother fuckers in the suburbs. I know you don’t want to believe that your country’s democracy is being determined by people who watch TMZ and WWE, but guess what, bro…it totally fucking is. I could’ve sworn I also just read you [posting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19584271&postcount=5244) > [@asahi](#): > > I have been wrong before, but I think the Clinton landslide is now finally on. > > No questions asked: Trump is officially running the worst general election campaign in American history. Seriously, make up your mind! And yes, I know how Silver’s last entry makes a big deal over > [@Silver](#): > > … that Donald Trump has regained some ground on her. Clinton’s national lead in our polls-only forecast has gone from a peak of about 8.5 percentage points two weeks ago to 6.5 percentage points as of Sunday evening — that is, a 2-point gain for Trump over two weeks. … If Trump keeps gaining 1 percentage point a week, he’ll beat Clinton by a couple of percentage points on Nov. 8. … But again, the stability of the race is not contained at that 8.5% peak. It is that the race has settled into where it has been for most of of June, July, and August, with a brief and very expected period of turbulence around the conventions. The stability centers around a +5 to 7 Clinton national polling range and any excursions out (and there may be some, will be likely be brief. Current 538 polls-only is still 6.5% national popular vote. Pretty much solid in the middle of the long term range. The White motherfuckers in the suburbs are precisely who Trump has lost relative to other GOP contenders. There may be too many racist know-nothing assholes in this country but there are not enough of them to determine its future. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/191 "2016-08-29T12:30:16Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I could’ve sworn I also just read you [posting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19584271&postcount=5244) Seriously, make up your mind! > > And yes, I know how Silver’s last entry makes a big deal over > > [QUOTE=Silver] > > … that Donald Trump has regained some ground on her. Clinton’s national lead in our polls-only forecast has gone from a peak of about 8.5 percentage points two weeks ago to 6.5 percentage points as of Sunday evening — that is, a 2-point gain for Trump over two weeks. … If Trump keeps gaining 1 percentage point a week, he’ll beat Clinton by a couple of percentage points on Nov. 8. … But again, the stability of the race is not contained at that 8.5% peak. It is that the race has settled into where it has been for most of of June, July, and August, with a brief and very expected period of turbulence around the conventions. The stability centers around a +5 to 7 Clinton national polling range and any excursions out (and there may be some, will be likely be brief. Current 538 polls-only is still 6.5% national popular vote. Pretty much solid in the middle of the long term range. The White motherfuckers in the suburbs are precisely who Trump has lost relative to other GOP contenders. There may be too many racist know-nothing assholes in this country but there are not enough of them to determine its future. [/QUOTE] I shook my head when I read that comment by Silver. He of all people should know better. The major league baseball graveyard is littered with the bodies of managers who were 8 games behind at the end of July and said “all we have to do is make up 1 game a week.” ---
**Author:** ![MacCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maccat/32/216_2.png) [@MacCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacCat)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/192 "2016-08-29T12:52:17Z")
> [@DonLogan](#): > > Calling out Trump, not every day in every speech, but conclusively and unambiguously like she did, is both good for her own stature, her campaign and for the country. And necessary. Absolutely. His character needs to be totally exposed. The 27 to 45% percent of the electorate _must_ be made to confront reality. The media is gradually and steadily calling him out, despite their getting tougher on Clinton every time her lead gets too large for their liking. They don’t want a blow-out that would lose them viewers before the election. My expectations of Trump were always for a yuuuge loss and yuuuge damage to the GOP. Despite lots of little ups and downs in the interim, my expectations are confidently still the same. Once the mainstream media and general electorate sense blood in the water, there is almost no preventing a coming feeding frenzy. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/193 "2016-08-29T13:43:59Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I could’ve sworn I also just read you [posting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19584271&postcount=5244) Seriously, make up your mind! Every couple of days, asahi makes some grand pronouncement about how the race has changed this time. He or she reminds me of TV news. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/194 "2016-08-29T14:32:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Even if you believe Trump and Clinton are equally evil, there’s no question that Clinton is at least competently evil. If Clinton is Dr. Doom then Trump is Dr. Drakken. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Wait…he’s got Shego on his side? I’m switching my support! Well, “Mockery Gold” might just be the best explanation for why someone would choose to work for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/195 "2016-08-29T15:35:31Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I agree that Trump has earned the racist label, but calling your opponent a racist - fairly or not - is a provocative charge and one that will elicit emotional reactions among various segments of the electorate. In a sense, it’s getting into the gutter of American political discourse. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/196 "2016-08-29T16:32:34Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Yes we have a double problem. #1 is Trump, which is resolvable frankly. The second is the GOP policy of obstructionism. What to do, what to do… If that happens, it could destroy the Republican Party. Because women make up more than 50% of the electorate. Sure, some women would participate in that. But maybe, possibly, not enough. > > The central challenge of the GOP has been to persuade the middle class to vote against their economic interests. Fomenting inter-ethnic strife has been one method of jacking up the base. But I suspect that vulgar gender based attacks on Hillary could turn a lot of voters off, in a way that racist attacks do not. Or maybe I’m wrong: if Trump secures less than 35% of the vote, maybe that means that some will draw a line at racist fog horning. I don’t know, racism is less accepted in polite societies than sexism. I see Clinton as having as hard a time as Obama, if not moreso, in having to deal with the personal attacks. Every single time she gets upset, someone going to make a “time of the month” joke. Every single time she tries to get something passed and it doesn’t, someone going to say its because she’s a weak woman. The only thing worse about having to watch all that happen in the next 8 years is imagining it could be much worse with Trump as president. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/197 "2016-08-29T16:34:44Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Hillary Clinton is not going to win by calling Trump a racist. The voters who would buy into that strategy already know that Trump is a racist and probably did a long time ago and made up their minds to vote for Hillary months ago. There you go again demanding that Hispanics like me just be comfortable with silence. And I do think it is grossly condescending for you to imply that all white Republicans, independents and some Democrats are racists or such enablers of racists that they will ignore the evidence Clinton was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/198 "2016-08-29T16:50:11Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Every couple of days, asahi makes some grand pronouncement about how the race has changed this time. He or she reminds me of TV news. I don’t think that’s true, but I do think he or she is a little too worried about completely avoiding offending anybody. It can’t be helped. In other campaigns, I’ve been like asahi, concerned about every statement every day. I’ve also worked in campaigns at a national level, not anywhere near privy to the conversations about “why we’re gonna say this in this manner” but I can watch these processes both from a partisan persepctive and also objectively. I used to wince sometimes and go “Whoa I would have said that differently,” or “Why did he have to say that?” But then I’d step back and go, OK who knows more about this, them or me? I’m not complacent about getting out the vote, but I’m pretty sanguine overall. I think Clinton has 270 locked down already, and it would take an earthquake to change that. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/199 "2016-08-29T17:47:54Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > And as I said, it’s not like Hillary can’t talk about Donald’s race problem. What I’m saying is, she might do well to let other people talk about it more. I’m right about this and nobody here’s going to convince me otherwise because I actually have worked on campaigns and know how real voters think. I don’t read some wonky-assed blog for my “facts” So you worked on a campaigns so you ‘know’ that the person running a campaign and all of the working on this campaign and who have worked on previous campaigns are wrong? It seems a little silly to argue ‘I worked on campaigns before so I’m right when I say that these people who are working on a campaign and have worked on campaigns before are all wrong’. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983/200 "2016-08-29T18:31:09Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > I don’t know, racism is less accepted in polite societies than sexism. I see Clinton as having as hard a time as Obama, if not moreso, in having to deal with the personal attacks. Every single time she gets upset, someone going to make a “time of the month” joke. Every single time she tries to get something passed and it doesn’t, someone going to say its because she’s a weak woman. The only thing worse about having to watch all that happen in the next 8 years is imagining it could be much worse with Trump as president. Clinton is a bit old for time of the month jokes. I expect to see bitch far more than weak woman. And she has had more experience with personal attacks than nearly anyone. I’m interested in seeing how she responds to the expected Wrestlemania attack in the first debate. “There you go again” might be good. BTW, I saw a report this morning that 90% of people have already made up their minds, which seems really high. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-hillary-plays-the-kkk-card/763983.md?page=11)