Anonymity, Trump supporters, the right-wing media, and the gman account

Politics and religion
824

I agree that most currently mainstream Republican talking points are either covertly or even overly racist and that is hugely damaging.

I don’t agree that most Republicans are racist, and certainly not back to the 80s! My dad was a republican until Sarah Palin came along, and he certainly isn’t racist. Zionist, but not racist.

Conservatism is not racist, small government is not inherently racist. Classist, perhaps, but not racist at its core. It has been used that way by some to structurally disadvantage poor and brown people but every ideology has been used to put down poor folks and minorities. Or who lacked the courage of their conviction and put party

That’s why we need to stop calling Republicans conservatives. They aren’t, these days. True conservatives who believe in that ideology are nevertrumpers and have been purged from the party. The only real shock was just how many of them were opportunists who never believed a word they had been saying for the past forty years. Or who lacked the courage of their convictions and put party over country to avoid being primaried.

825

My main point of disagreement with Armando’s anti-GOP post is that it doesn’t acknowledge the massive change that the GOP has undergone within the last 3 to 5 decades. Before Nixon and the Southern Strategy, the GOP was a fairly typical example of a center/right conservative party compared to the rest of the developed world. In terms of social policy, the GOP used to be a fairly moderate, even liberal party. For example, before the 1950s, the GOP was the better party in terms of racial issues. And during the Gilded Age, there wasn’t a ton of difference between the industry-serving GOP and the industry-serving Dems.

The GOP has undergone a huge change over the last 50 years, as the Southern Strategy has both revealed and increased the racism within the party, as the Goldwater era ideology has reigned triumphant, as the anti-media/science/fact campaign has deceived the majority of GOP voters, as increasingly strident exploitation of demographic fears has made the GOP the party of overt xenophobia and racism, as increasing tribalism has made the GOP put party over country and as hatred of liberals has crushed concern for democracy such that the GOP is now the party of political cheating, exploitation of the law and Constitution, voter suppression and general political dickery.

The two main motive forces behind this were IMO the devil’s bargain of the Southern Strategy, which traded the last shreds of GOP decency on racial issues for political power, and the misguided reliance on right wing media to motivate the political shock troops through fear and anger, with massively unintended consequences.

The GOP has never, during my lifetime, been a party I would vote for, as a party, but it did in fact used to be a normal party, and a useful counter-balance to liberal excess. That has all changed and the current GOP is irredeemably evil and needs to be political crushed to make room for a healthier successor.

And treating the GOP as evil since forever I think diminishes the true abnormality and evil of the current GOP transformation. It feeds both-sides-ism “Oh, you always hate the GOP, now is no different.” No, now is different and as liberals, even as we disagree with old-school GOP policy, need to acknowledge that difference.

I love me some Armando, but that post is an expression of the consumption of the God-Emperor by the Dark Side. His hate has made him strong and eloquent but also IMO misguided.

826

I think he acknowledged it when he time boxed it around 1980. But really going back to the 60s they’ve been the party of pure evil. He’s exactly right, pick a Good Thing and there’s a 90% chance Republicans are against it.

Try it, it’s fun.

827

I think my earlier question gets to the heart of the matter. When someone says we need to build Trump’s border wall, the foundation for that comes from a place of xenophobia and racist reasoning. In their minds, we need the wall because Mexicans and South Americans are coming into the country illegally, stealing from taxpayers, and bringing crime and disease with them. It’s bullshit, but its a great old chestnut that’s worked throughout history. The “other” is coming to take away your way of life! You’d better do something about it, and only we have the plan to stop it! Heck, we can see now that this crap isn’t even limited to illegal immigrants. Some GOP folks think it’s time to wall up totally and reduce legal immigration to a trickle - and only then with the “best people” the “non-shithole countries” can offer.

The key for me is that I really don’t believe every single person that buys into that thinking does so with ill intent. Their thinking is rooted in racism, ignorance, and fear, but they’re not white supremacists or Nazis.

These people think the Gonzalez family that attends their church are wonderful. Just the kind of “good” immigrants we need. And that black couple that moved in to the old Wilson house? They’re just lovely. The husband is a teacher and the wife has a pottery business. They’re not at all like the ones in the rap videos or those thug football players that won’t stand for the flag. Did you see how those people protested after that policeman shot that criminal? It’s shameful how they won’t let the police clean up those neighborhoods. Thank goodness we keep that element out of our town! But you know those liberals. They’d open the borders and let those kinds of people turn the country into another Mexico. Or a socialist hell like Europe with their soccer riots, multiple languages, and high taxes. They just want handouts for everything. Not like the Gonzalezes. They came in the right way, learned English, worked hard, and saved enough to start their own flooring company. That’s how America should work! Build yourself up and stop expecting everyone else to pay your way. Football players make millions, but they won’t even honor the troops by standing for the anthem. Ungrateful! The whole lot of them!

828

I didn’t notice the time-boxing. Richard Nixon’s 1968 Southern Strategy was IMO a crucial tipping point, as was Ronald Reagan’s 1980 “welfare queens” campaign message. And after that it was just a fast ride down the freight elevator to Trumpsville: Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, the Clinton Impeachment, George W. Bush, etc. etc. There’s been real change in the GOP during my lifetime.

829

That was pretty impressive.

830

The time boxing was actually meant to encompass about 1960 forward but its possible that detail might have gotten lost / omitted amidst the hatred.

The point does still stand that at no point during my lifetime have they ever stood for good or useful, moral policy. I don’t know if it’s gotten substantially worse so much as they’ve stopped hiding and hinting around the worst elements that have been there for decades and are finally free to express their desires without shame.

831

I agree. I’ve said it many times, but it’s important to keep pointing out that somebody can hold racist opinions for a variety of reasons, without necessarily being an inherently racist person. An inherently racist person you are not going to change (or you are very unlikely to) but a person holding a racist opinion/idea can sometimes be convinced their point of view is indeed demeaning and aggressive, and they will drop it if so.

The main problem keeps being how to do that without them getting offended. It requires personal face to face time, or at least social media is a very, very bad channel for that type of conversation.

832

Yes, it used to be a fairly moderate liberal party if you were white. It’s certainly true that after LBJ forced through the Civil Rights Act, racists fled the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. What isn’t true is the idea that, before that, the Republican Party wasn’t basically a racist party. Of course it was. Before the Civil Rights Act, both parties were racist parties.

Over coffee, Eisenhower took Warren by the arm and asked him to consider the perspective of white parents in the Deep South. “These are not bad people,” the president said. “All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big black bucks.”

833

What a thread.

I have voted for Republicans, Libertarians, and Democrats, and an active Christian, but I am not a racist. I think that Brooski’s take on the sad state of the Republican party during a conversation with Tom (on youtube) is pretty accurate for many who share my views.

834

This is splitting hairs. You either think people are less than you because of their skin or you don’t. It really doesn’t have much to do with grey area opinions at all. Now there are people who make racist statements without realizing it or not recognizing that’s a racist statement but if your opinion is dirty Mexicans are coming into the country and we need a wall to stop them, that’s not a sort of racist opinion, it is not only a racist statement, it’s a racist opinion coming from a racist person. Whether or not you can get that person to change their opinion is an entirely different matter. It has nothing to do with whether or not they are racist right now.

Now a racist statement coming from a probably not racist person, you’d actually have to know that person to some extent to determine that, and… it’s not an excuse.You can’t just fall into well i know this guy, I like this guy and he likes me so he can’t be racist. Whether you know or like that person has nothing to do with it.

And let’s be clear here, there was nothing discreet or accidental about gman’s approach or the language he used or the topics he targeted. It was purposeful, and he played the language game to fool some people who are, frankly, still.fooled. The people who buy his approach, they have no skin in the game so they can afford to be wrong and still go with it.

835

Oh, there was nothing naive about gman at all. Don’t misunderstand me, he was loathsome in his approach and I engaged him because of that.

But I was replying to @Telefrog’s post. I think it does reflect a fundamental thruth that it’s important to understand when you approach actual discussions with people in order to change an opinion or draw a red line on acceptability of discourse (and being European, I’m OK with banning hate speech and limiting free speech on these grounds).

Look, personally, I don’t think I have ever been a racist (of course one can always be mistaken about himself, but I’m quite certain here), but I have certainly held misconceptions and insidious generalizations about minorities that I failed to appretiate were such when I was younger (it was just what part of the society around me spouted and I had little real contact with such minorities). We are not talking about feeling superior, but generalizations like “taking our jobs” or “they don’t want to integrate” that are dog whistles for real, deep-rooted racism. I think this is somewhat (and sadly) common and thus I think it’s important to address the opinion as separate from the person when you suspect it might be an expression of a misguided cultural osmosis. I know I have been successful doing that, at least.

I, however, have no qualms to call those arguments racist (there is people who think the term is overused, I don’t, I just think it’s sometimes practical to distinguish), and I don’t think you can ever excuse those talking points, or not give importance to them, or not engage with them. Certainly I do not shut up when somebody says stuff like that in front of me. But I do say “hey, I don’t know if you are aware, but that’s a pretty racist thing to say” and I follow from there into an explanation why. But I don’t directly say “man, you are a racist” unless the opinion directly implies racist/suprematist thought, like the “dirty Mexicans need to be stopped” example you gave. It might very well be that in the course of such a conversation the person will indeed reveal a deept rooted racism, but again, many times I have experienced people understanding their position was misguided.

836

What if it’s ‘I feel uncomfortable when a large fraction of my neighborhood, and local shops, now speak Polish, a language I don’t understand’?

837

We side step the entire conversation by remembering that Poles aren’t a race.
And then we tell the old joke “How do you sink the Polish Navy?”

838

That doesn’t sound like you’re thinking less of them because of the color of their skin or their race. A lot of people feel uncertain or uncomfortable when someone is talking, and you can’t understand them. It’s not inherently racist to say that, but if someone winds up on YouTube screaming at someone that we don’t speak some language in this country or that language doesn’t belong here or you know just abusive and abrasive behavior that often implies they’re not American or don’t belong in America due to their language then we start working our way in to grey area.

I don’t think anyone is going to call someone racist on QT3 because they say something like it makes me uncomfortable when I can’t understand what is being said around me.

839

There’s also a big difference between “I’m uncomfortable when this happens, so that’s something I need to work on, because they have just as much right to live here and speak whatever language they want as I do” and “I’m uncomfortable, therefore we should deport all the Polish until I feel more comfortable”

840

Wave to them?

841

One of many great answers, but not the one I was looking for.

842

Rupture the hulls of their ships with mines and torpedoes?

843

Okay, that’s my perspective too. But certainly in the UK, that is a common answer to ‘why don’t you like immigration?’ and, more pertinently, ‘why did you vote to leave the EU?’. I’ve seen these attitudes described as racist.