General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf it walks like a bigot.....
But Donald Trump is a racist. He meets what Ryan himself once called the textbook definition of racism. Trump singles out particular ethnic, racial, and religious groups for suspicion. He holds all members of these groups responsible for the misdeeds of other members. He casts aspersions on individuals based on creed and background. And he explicitly advocates discrimination. If these behaviors dont define bigotry, nothing does.
Lets give Trump the benefit of the doubt in every case where his conduct could be explained, even implausibly, by something other than prejudice. Housing discrimination by his fathers company? Young Donald wasnt directly involved. The Central Park Five? He thought they were guilty. Questioning Barack Obamas birthplace? Trump just wanted to be thorough. His failure to denounce David Duke? Trump couldnt hear the question. Calling the removal of Confederate statues an attack on our culture? He meant we should own our history. Calling Sen. Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas? Hes being ironic. Hounding NFL players who kneel? He feels strongly about the national anthem. Set aside all of that, and youre still left with four patterns that cant be explained away.
The first is Trumps habit of associating certain ethnic or religious groups with violence. In 2013, he targeted blacks, writing on Twitter that the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics. He also retweeted fake black-on-white crime data. In 2015, he kicked off his presidential campaign with a tirade against Mexican immigrants: Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Later that year, Trump claimed to have seen thousands of people cheering the 9/11 attacks in northern New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. In each case, Trump imagined or misrepresented the threat. He never does this to whites.
Within these groups, Trump blames the innocent for failing to control the guilty. He has held Barack Obama responsible for black crime, explicitly because Obama is black. President Obama has absolutely no control (or respect) over the African American community Trump wrote in 2014 during the riots in Ferguson, Missouri. A year later, Trump jeered, Our great African American President hasnt exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore! In 2016, after the Orlando massacre, Trump falsely charged that the Muslim community does not report its extremists. He concluded that Muslims should be punished collectively for such incidents: The Muslims are the ones that have to report them. And if they dont report them, then there have to be consequences to them. Trump refuses to apply this policy of collective responsibility to whites. After Charlottesville, he argued just the opposite: that very fine people shouldnt be faulted for rallying with Nazis.
Trump has persistently cast aspersions on particular poeple based on race, ethnicity, or religion. He suggested to evangelicals that they couldnt trust Ted Cruz because Cruzs family came from Cuba. He suggested to Protestants that they couldnt trust Ben Carson because Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist. He retweeted an allegation that Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife, who is Mexican American. At rallies and in TV interviews, Trump charged that Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born federal judge presiding over the Trump University fraud case, was incorrigibly biased against him because were building a wall. Hes a Mexican.
snip
Thats bigotry. Its not some left-wing activists definition of bigotry. Its the textbook definition. And while quotas by nationality are common in immigration policy, its hard to explain why Trump thinks and talks this way on so many other issues, not just about foreigners but about Americans. He has been doing it for years to every group with whom he doesnt identify: blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, Korean Americans, and women.
Read More: https://field-negro.blogspot.com/2018/04/if-it-walks-like-bigot.html
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He is a cancerous human being, hell strike human, he is not, let's just leave it that he is a being. One that needs to be taken down.
Vote Democratic. Our lives depend on it. Full Stop!
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,184 posts)That's an enormous red flag in and of itself.
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)Thanks Tommy. That statement was so far out of line that they all lied about it. HE NEVER SAID THAT. Confirmed by multiple sources on both sides of the aisle. Oh yes. He sure as hell said it.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)And Trump's bigotry is Nixon's bigotry, is Reagan's bigotry, is George H.W. Bush's bigotry, is Roy Moore's bigotry.
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)Thanks. You are correct, guill.
RVN VET71
(2,692 posts)His predecessors, to be sure, were racist but, for the most part, did not advertise the fact, and mostly kept it out of their public statements. But Trump shouts it from the hill tops -- and Roy Moore sings loud and proud in the background. Sadly, Trump's racism and bigotry have given a green light to the large percentage of Americans who share those feelings. Heck, Trump -- and Moore, who sighed nostalgically for a "better day" in America when whites were in control and blacks were slaves! -- both nearly won the popular vote not despite their sick views but because of them.
49% of Alabama voters voted for an amoral racist. 48% of American voters voted for a man who was blatantly anti-black, anti-latino, a sexual predator, a mocker of the disabled -- and none of these traits had be construed by a liberal media. They were in evidence in his speeches and angry public tirades -- and in the dozen or so women who have thus far come forward with tales of sexual harassment.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)And determining which form of bigotry is the worst would be difficult.
Excellent points as well.
calimary
(81,323 posts)and it mentioned that he basically made it okay to own your racism and be out 'n' proud about it. Remember how he railed against political correctness? And the article said that the deplorables love him for that. I bet they do. An old gent (white) who was a friend of my late mother sent an email around to a very long chain of friends and connections - that complained "why can't I say the N-word?"
I guess these folks regard that as "freedom". "Freedom" to be a Stone-Age-mentality asshole and not having to care about whether you're offending somebody. I've heard them referred to as "resentniks" and I think it fits. Selfish, basically. Thoughtless. Inconsiderate. Spoiled. Imagine that. This fellow was an 80-year-old spoiled brat. All I can say about him since she passed is - "shame on you, dude, wherever you are."
brer cat
(24,578 posts)I am in a red area and I saw it happening. They truly believe they represent the majority and now have the freedumb to hate loudly and openly.
mcar
(42,334 posts)Vote Democratic!
George II
(67,782 posts)...he refuses to use the military to help the hundreds of thousands of brown AMERICAN people in Puerto Rico who are still without electricity or normal human services.
iluvtennis
(19,863 posts)sheshe2
(83,793 posts)He mocked them. Ridiculed them. He has no soul. He and his ilk are pure evil.
iluvtennis
(19,863 posts)"Our government has totally failed our African American friends, our Hispanic friends and the people of our country. Period," Trump said in Akron, Ohio, straying from the prepared remarks the campaign provided to reporters. "The Democrats have failed completely in the inner cities. For those hurting the most who have been failed and failed by their politician year after year, failure after failure, worse numbers after worse numbers. Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing, no homes, no ownership. Crime at levels that nobody has seen. You can go to war zones in countries that we are fighting and it's safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats. And I ask you this, I ask you this crime, all of the problems to the African Americans, who I employ so many, so many people, to the Hispanics, tremendous people: What the hell do you have to lose? Give me a chance. I'll straighten it out. I'll straighten it out. What do you have to lose?"
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)Everything.
iluvtennis
(19,863 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,991 posts)iluvtennis
(19,863 posts)Thank you. It's true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we're getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They're sending us not the right people.
It's coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over South and Latin America, and it's coming probably probably from the Middle East. But we don't know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don't know what's happening. And it's got to stop and it's got to stop fast.
He's a racist, bigot, misogynist, anti LGBTQ, anti disabled, anti Muslim, etc - through and through