And himself. First the Birther stuff (and lets not kid ourselves what that is all about), then the Mexicans, then the Muslims, and last night it was on open display at a rally.
I’ve seen a number of reports of people passing out White Supremacist literature outside his rallies, but I’ve only heard one mainstream reporter make one passing comment about the hateful stuff she hears at his events.
When is someone going to straight out ask him about it? We used to think this stuff was bad.
You’ve pretty much answered your question. Trump is appealing to racists but he’s doing it indirectly enough that his supports can deny it. (And expect to see several posts denying it in this thread.) So Trump won’t openly say a black man shouldn’t be President; he’ll instead claim that man isn’t an American citizen. He won’t say he doesn’t like Mexicans and Muslims; he’ll say he doesn’t like rapists and terrorists after equating them with Mexicans and Muslims.
In Trump’s defense, there’s no racism in his anti-vaccination platform. That’s just an appeal to regular idiots.
It was amazing. The questioner was a flat-out raving lunatic, declaring that we all know that the President is a Muslim and isn’t even an American, and “they” are running training camps learning how to kill us all, and when are we gonna get rid of the Muslims, and Trump made no attempt whatsoever to push back on any of it. Not a whit. He just gave his generic non-answer about how he’s going to look into all these bad things.
There’s no point in asking Trump about it. He mostly never answers a question anyway, and the rest of the time lies about it – as with the “blood coming out of wherever”, or how “would you vote for that face?” was a reference to Carly Fiorina’s persona and not her face. In fact in the above case, his campaign rep already lied about it, claiming that Trump “didn’t hear” the part about Muslims, which was 90% of the question, and which is loud and clear in the video clip. What a complete, shameless asshole.
I have a neighbor, who is a cop, start raving about “terrorist training camps.” I said “I’ve been hearing about them for ten years. Are you guys that incompetent?”
Boy, did that piss him off.
I think his whole “make America great again” slogan was purposefully left open for interpretation for his lunatic followers.
I’m afraid for a lot of them that means going backwards to when they thought things were “great”.
America was “great” before the civil rights movement.
America was “great” before the woman’s lib movement.
America was “great” before Mexican immgrants were here.
America was “great” when we had segregation.
Right now it is mostly crickets what you hear regarding who is Trump getting chummy with. As I pointed many times before this makes no sense if the mainstream media was liberal, in reality the mainstream media is more in favor of corporations and they have an interest in eyeballs to then sell stuff.
IMHO we will see a lot of skeletons being talked about if Trump increases his lead in the polls, the media wants to tell us that it is only being fair, I don’t think so.
The media needs a horse race to get more money in advertisement, the moment the race looks to be lopsided we will see the media suddenly finding the evidence that was already there to undermine the front runner.
I think we know Trump’s response. Wasn’t it “I have passionate followers”? I could have sworn this was asked before
The New Yorker has, if that counts.
How many top Republicans have stated firmly and strongly that Obama was born in the U.S. and is not a Muslim? IIRC, John McCain did so. Others?
A recent poll shows that only 29% of Republicans answer Yes to “Was Obama born in the U.S.?” 54% say he’s a Muslim with another 32% unsure. These and other racists constitute the Republican base, and you’re asking those appealing for votes to disown them? :rolleyes: I imagine ¿Jeb? et al are grateful Trump is in the race to deflect, like a lightning rod, such hecklers toward himself.
The mainstream media for the most part plays the both sides are equally valid, we report you decide. So as not to be seen as partisan. They may go as far as stating factually that “some have suggested that Trumps statements were racist” but to call him a racist themselves would have a chance of causing them to lose some Trump supporters as viewers.
There was a New Yorker article a couple weeks back addressing this:
Give him more rope, donate it if need be. Leave the Boy Scout handbook lying about his office, with the page open to the section on “Knots and nooses”.
Of minor consequence. Its not if Trump does a Hindenurg, its when. Sooner rather than later? Well, which one makes it likelier that he will run independent? Sooner, while he still has steam up and a core of certifiable minions? Or later when he is so thoroughly committed that he feels like he has no choice?
Over all, don’t much approve of coldly cynical realpolitik. But a wee dram, every now and again…
I heard Chris Christie on CNN today state that Obama is a Christian and was born in the United States.
He probably added, “would taste good on bread with jelly & maple syrup.” 
I haven’t watched the video (assuming there is one) but for those who have, is there any chance the questioner was a provocateur? The question, at least in print form, sounds so over-the-top that it trips my trolldar.
The media breathlessly reported and commented on Trump’s immigrants are rapists line. Everyone knows Trump’s birther history. It’s easy to find opinion pieces declaring how racist Trump is. I’m not sure what else you want. “No, seriously you guys, Trump is a white nationalist, for reals.” Yeah, and? That’s part of his appeal.
Nope. That was authentic New England redneck gibberish.
The problem with outsider candidates of any sort is that since racists tend to be anti-establishment types themselves, they latch onto outsider campaigns. It happened to Perot and he was the furthest thing from racist. The nuttiness of their base is in part what killed the Reform Party.
Trump, unlike Perot, deserves a lot of the blame for this because of the harshness of his anti-Latino immigrant rhetoric, but as a general principle I don’t think a candidate can be held responsible for the makeup of his supporters.
He can in the limited sense that, being attracted by his actual messaging, they reflect on him. RWs are always crowing when the Communist Party endorses the Democratic candidate for president, which it routinely does – well, if that indicates anything, then so does WNs following Trump. Barry Goldwater was no Bircher and found them distasteful, but it was no happenstance that they campaigned for him and not some more moderate Pub.
Dude sounded half-drunk to me. You’ve gotta see the video, though. If for nothing else, to see the kind of people who go to Trump rallies and their almost complete lack of reaction to such ignorant absurdities being spouted.
The time McCain had a similar rally moment and responded commendably, he was aided by the fact that there was an immediate response of laughter among the crowd at the elderly lady’s confused ramblings, making it much easier for him to immediately take away her mic and correct her.