There's just so much irony in this statement LOL. Trumpism is literally getting lied to and believing it. That's why I say that he's your God.



I think you can have an American first identity but it's pretty ugly here. I have a buddy of mine whose family came from Japan before my family came from Italy yet people like Ghot would tell him to "go back to where he came from."

Republicans should stand for security and competency. Unfortunately, the GOP allies themselves with stupidity instead of condemning it. Republicans should EMBRACE elitism but in a way that doesn't shit on people for the hand they were dealt with in life.

It's a problem of language. The label "racist" can apply to the most hateful Nazi and a person who doesn't have any real hate in their heart but treats certain ethnic groups more skeptically.

SJWs throw it around too much, but really it's just that they don't have the language to differentiate between levels of racism. Trump is a racist for sure, but he's not anywhere near what we think of as a stereotypical racist. He exemplifies the typical New York racism, which is different from a Southern or Midwestern type. Of course he has revealed his typical New York anti-semitism as well, but obviously he's not some wackjob who hates Jews.

This post was edited by IceMage on Apr 10 2020 04:18pm

Where did you EVER get the idea, that we "believe" everything Trump says?
I guess if the Dems really attempt to believe everything Trump says, that would explain the "orange man bad" or the TDS.

It would be easier to know if Trumpism wasn't sustained by a personality cult.

You'd have to break it into categories. Will the GOP continue down the dark path of anti-intellectualism and non-governance? Of course. Will they harp on silly cultural issues to rile up the base? Yes. Will they undermine American institutions to delegitimize the mechanisms of accountability? Absolutely.

More interesting questions might be whether economic and foreign policy are going to change. I'm not sure the GOP is capable of turning into a party of ideas. They're just reactionary day traders. If Biden gets in they'll pretend to care about the deficit, and they'll oppose whatever big foreign policy moves he tries to make.

After Trump's gone, they'll mostly abandon his populist trade and foreign policy positions.

This post was edited by IceMage on Apr 10 2020 04:53pm

Well, the fact that you think he "keeps his promises." Maybe you had incredibly low expectations for your God?

and i think that if you're willing to make excuses for, and actually support someone who is clearly racist, it really makes no difference. it's not like you would stop supporting trump if he said the implied part out loud. you have demonstrated time and again that you genuinely share many of his bigoted views when it comes to africans / muslims / foreign cultures in general, so your attempts to downplay and rationalise his racism is really just about optics.

to halfway decent and intelligent people, racism is an instant disqualifier for public office - no matter how offensive someone is in expressing those beliefs.

that's why i find the 'this term has lost its meaning / it's overused' narrative, just in order to blame 'the left' somehow, so laughable: i bet there isn't a single person in the world who thought 'you know, i could never support someone who is a racist, because it goes strictly against all my beliefs and values. HOWEVER, since the term is overused, i guess we can never tell if someone who is labeled a racist actually is one or not - i mean, we couldn't possibly judge their actions and words by applying common sense, right? a certain term being overused, totally prevents that - so nothing can be racist anymore.'

And that's the point: having negative views about some foreign cultures and opposing some forms of immigration does not automatically constitute "racism", no matter how many times you try to establish such an automatism.



This is exactly the black and white attitude I was talking about. I brings me back directly to what I was saying:






In recent years, forces from the left have postulated a smaller and smaller corridor of acceptable opinion on anything race-related. In light of this context, your "racism means racism, and is an instant disqualifier, no matter what"-attitude is nothing but an attempt to entrench this increasingly vast definition of racism/narrow definition of acceptable opinion. Your dogmatic attitude serves to stifle any debate about this development and to cast anyone opposing it as being a racist himself.

It really is an attempted power grab by the "woke left", who are trying to usurp the unilateral power over defining racism and the limits of acceptable speech. I'm having none of this shit, and neither does Trump. Which btw is the exact reason why he triggers leftists so much - everything about his words and conduct challenges their sovereignty over the public discourse. They cant stomach someone who shrugs it off when they call him a racist or sexist, instead of folding instantly and apologizing.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 10 2020 05:59pm

i think you missed the part where everyone who isn't full blown trumpsexual acknowledges that he is 'clearly racist', proven by countless examples like claiming a judge would not be able to do his job because of his ethnicity, the birtherism, his central park five comments...

so what degree of racism are you comfortable with in a political leader? i mean, i'm perfectly ok with someone like you telling me that i have a 'black and white attitude' because i think that ANY amount of racism should disqualify someone from public office, but i'm still curious: what more he would have to do for you to stop making excuses for him? what if he added a slur after his comments about the judge? what if he called obama the n-word on top of all the bs and dogwhistling? would that have made a difference to you, and why?

you try to hide behind semantics and distinctions without differences, but this is not about 'policing speech' or left wing 'power grabs' - this is about people discriminating against other people based on race / ethnicity / religion... the underlying worldview doesn't change just because trum managed to avoid being on the record with all too obvious slurs and profanities - his racism is painfully obvious without that. what a ridiculous defence really...

Here's a full transcript of the interview where he was talking about the judge:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/27/politics/judge-curiel-trump-border-wall/index.html

It's really quite the tedious, rambling mess, Trump and the reporter are constantly talking past each other.
What I can take away from his ramblings is that he already held a grudge against this particular judge because of a case involving Trump university where Trump felt treated unfairly.

And then Trump clearly insinuates that the judge would have a pro-mexico bias should he ever preside over a case involving Trump's US-Mexico border wall. This is an example of a larger pattern with Trump: he believes that people are inextricably shaped by the social and cultural environment they grew up in, by the culture of their parents.. Is this a pessimistic, ugly worldview? Sure it is. Is it completely unreasonable to think that people who grew up under strong influence of a foreign culture or who still have family ties to a foreign country might have some bias in favor of this country/culture? Nope.

His comments about the judge went too far, I cant condone them - but they dont represent racism that I would consider "beyond the pale".

----

His comments about the Central Park Five were inflammatory, but I dont see an obvious racial undertone in them. It should also be noted that these comments have to be seen in the light of the situation at the time - from the mid-70s until the early 90s, NYC was a violent cesspool of crime and urban decline. Trump's call for a zero tolerance policy was much more justified and justifiable in 1989 than it would be today. Mayor Giuliani turned around NYC's fortunes a couple of years later by essentially implementing the exact sort of hard on crime policies that Trump was demanding in his Central Park Five newpaper ad.

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The birtherism imho is the worst offender of them all. That's the one instance where Trump really went too far imho.





Where I draw my personal line is actually a good question. I would say when a politician is showing a consistent pattern of racism or deep racial resentment that frequently leads to policies which are racially discriminatory by intention.
On racial issues, Trump doesnt go beyond my personal acceptance limit, but for example someone like Steve King of Iowa does. In a German context, I can live with the stuff Gauland is saying and proposing, but Höcke is well past it.





I think our fundamental disagreement on this issue lies with my willingness to overlook missteps by politicians that I usually agree with, as long as there's no consistent pattern. You, by contrast, think that ANY amount of racism should disqualify from public office.
Btw, just curious: do you think that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam should have resigned over his blackface scandal? If really ANY amount of racism is enough to disqualify someone in your eyes, you would have to be in favor of him resigning over it.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 10 2020 08:05pm

Just for the record the central park 5 were still violent thugs who belonged in prison.

This post was edited by Plaguefear on Apr 10 2020 08:13pm