Are all Trump supporters racists?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

Semantics aside I fully do believe that for the most part the "Voter Base" that elected Trump did so in spite of his racially charged rhetoric, not because of it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aviksaro.../#75a5a0b23b8b

Trump's support among whites decreased slightly compared to Romney. His support among blacks, latinos, and asians increased slightly compared to Romney. The numbers don't seem to support the racism narrative.

[Cobalt]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

Nickelback listening to,

Damn, that's just low.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Spoken like a true privileged white male heterosexual.

Yes, because true privileged white male heterosexuals can't possibly use this "critical thinking" thing to understand the plights of other people. Only oppressed minorities can do that.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Tank

All human beings are racist

It really would be best for you if you didn't pretend that everybody was like you, and that we're somehow all pretending to not care about race. Just because you found some extreme version of an ideology doesn't mean everybody belongs to it.

[NoahFence]

Clearly not all Trump supporters are racist.

They just need to acknowledge that HE is. And he is staffing his cabinet with racists to prove it.

[Skeptic Tank]

Originally Posted by Argumemnon

It really would be best for you if you didn't pretend that everybody was like you, and that we're somehow all pretending to not care about race. Just because you found some extreme version of an ideology doesn't mean everybody belongs to it.

In-group preference / out-group mistrust is built into us at a genetic level.

Babies show a preference for looking at images of people from their own racial group...

Lots of different tests on adults have shown things like anxiety around people of other races, it being harder to break an association between an image of a black person and an electrical shock than an image of a white person after the shock is removed... and many many other tests. Lots of people believe these are a result of acculturation but I don't think so. Or at least, I think that's only part of it.

I really do believe the entire construct of anti-racism is one enormous example of trying to swim upstream against our nature and I think it's analogous to the classic archetype of the homosexual conservative who becomes a huge opponent of gay rights, yells at the top of his lungs about the sins of gays, puts on a huge show about how not gay he is... how opposed to it he is... is constantly looking for ways to signal against it and all the while he is making a twisted, horrific inner psyche for himself by not having simply admitted the truth. But you can't fully blame him because maybe he was in a culture which placed a very strong incentive on denying that truth.

I can tell you that after I embraced racism it definitely had a feeling of something finally clicking into place, my inner mind and my instincts and what I actually thought and said at every level of my brain - from the subconscious all the way up to the top layer - all finally being in harmony with one another.

I think my former anti-racist persona was the unnatural condition and took a lot of cognitive dissonance to maintain. Though, it was easier when I simply didn't have much contact with diversity. That's how a lot of anti-racists maintain it easily. They just simply don't have to live around diversity so it's just sort of a distant thing they virtue signal about.

[tyr_13]

Originally Posted by Joe Random

Apologies for snipping so much, but I wanted to focus on this bit - don't take that as me writing off or ignoring the rest of what you had to say.

I agree with you - liberal intolerance is not at all the only reason we elected the Bloviating Gasbag. I think my PoV is that it played a larger part in things than you seem to think it did, but that's okay - your view vs. mine is merely a difference of degree, rather than kind, and there's nothing wrong with that. For my part I didn't for a moment want to imply that "SAFE SPACES!" were the single only reason Trump won. But I strongly feel intolerance of deviation from what we've come to see as the Right Way played a non-trivial part in bringing us to where we are.

One of the few meatspace rhetorical victories I've won was arguing with someone who thought marriage equality would open the floodgates for people looking to 'scam the system' in some unspecified way. Rather than shouting him down as a bigot I asked him to clarify what he meant, and challenged him on what I thought were the weaknesses in his position. He had a regressive repugnance about him, but rather than shriek and denounce him for it, I tried to show him the flaws in his line of thought. I don't think I totally convinced him, but I know I at least shook the foundations of his certainty. I got him to at least reconsider his bigoted PoV, and that was at least something.

Getting him to be less cock-sure about 'them faggots who just wanted to rip the rest of us off' was just one step in getting one person to consider a viewpoint different to the one he'd been married to. If I'd simply called him a homophobic knuckle-dragger, there wouldn't have even been that much of a victory. I most likely won't be able to convince a Stormfronter that that Jews really aren't out to get him. But maybe I can give a fellow liberal a gentle nudge and convince them that someone failing to use a preferred pronoun doesn't make that person as evil as Goebbels, and that treating that person as such will most likely deafen them to the message of tolerance and acceptance we'd like them to hear.

Liberal intolerance is not the only reason we're in the situation we're in, and it may or may not be the largest reason. But it's the one we, as liberals, have the most immediate influence on, and is where I feel we should start the work on restoring some sanity to social/political discourse in our society.

Well it's going to depend on how much the problem is the growing insular and intolerant nature of many groups on the left and how much is the grouping of them all together. They're really not all supportive of all these ideas just because they're all on the left. More on that below.

But you've hit on something that I meant to point out in a few of my recent posts. For too many on the left and in the center, finding a policy or person to be motivated by racism was seen as an end of the conversation. We took it too much for granted that would lead to the same conclusion we came to from such a finding, and that they'd agree with such a finding when we did even if it got tossed out in cases where it wasn't a valid finding. That's simply not the case. We have to do better linking point A to point C. 'This policy is motivated by racism and here is why that's a bad thing.'

It works the same with other invalid bigotry as well.

I also believe that focusing on the blatant sexism, racism and other bigotry was a tactically bad choice. That's only part of the conversation, although it should of course still be part of it. I don't believe for a second that America has rejected the idea that these things are still problems.

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

One of the problems with analyzing election results is that we look at something that played only a minor role in influencing the way people vote, and dismiss it as insignificant, forgetting that this election was lost by something like 0.5% of the vote. Change that many votes, and Florida and Michigan turn blue. I'm not sure about Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Maybe they would need a full 1%.

You also have to remember that most of the electorate had made up their minds before the first vote was cast in the primaries. Most people were going to vote for either the Republican or Democratic nominee regardless of who it was.

So you have to look at what swayed the remainder, and there, I think the things you mention, and the things Jonathan Pie mentioned, come into play in a pretty big way.

Also, when considering the margin of victory, I think racism played almost no role in this election at all. The real racists were among those who were going to vote Republican no matter what. Four years ago, Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama. There hasn't been a whole lot of turnover in the population during those four years. If we say that racism is the reason people voted for Trump, you have to explain why some of those people, enough to form the margin of victory, voted for Obama four years ago. Their racism prevented them from voting for Hillary Clinton, but not for Barack Obama? Or was it that Romney was insufficiently racist, so they figured they might as well vote for the black guy, but now that they had a real racist to vote for, they went for it?

I don't think it makes sense.

There were many small things that could have changed those over, and I don't want to give too much credence to any single one if possible. To me, the more important question are which policies and attitudes will lead to the best outcomes rather than which are the easiest to 'sell'. Just like with critical thinking and science outreach, it's about figuring out how best to sell the most advantageous ideas.

Let me point out a potential flaw in your reasoning though. Your analysis is about which states went which way, not which voters did. There is no guarantee that the people who voted this time were the same as who voted last time. Of course there is bound to be overlap, but it's possible last time the racists didn't vote for Obama, and those who voted for Obama didn't vote this time. With voter turnout the way it is, this doesn't seem implausible to me. I don't know if it's true or not though without evidence.

Also, see what I said above. White racism isn't the only racism.

Note that while I'm not discounting racism, I'm not saying it's the reason Trump won. A bigger problem is how this has emboldened racism because they either think it was, or at the least they think people will give them a pass on it because they did for Trump and his racist words and actions. They are now testing to see what they can normalize.

Originally Posted by Darat

Can I just please state that left and liberal and not synonyms. Liberal and left policies are very different in many areas, but they do overlap in some areas as do liberal and right policies. That does not mean that liberal policies are inherently "centralist" they are simply not on the same axis as the traditional right and left.

This is worth noting. In the US, it's 'close enough for jazz', and that is one of the major problems. We get used to binary opposition states. Left or right, liberal or conservative, authoritarian or libertarian, bad person or good person.

This means that 'the right' will hold things not widely advocated by those on the 'the left' such as 'cultural appropriation' of basic clothing or foods against all on 'the left'. They're all just a bunch of college know it all elites. It works the other way. The right are all judged by the Klan. This makes many enemies out of would be allies. How many have eaten their own in the recent SJW conflicts? If one is going to be rejected inevitably from a community over the first disagreement (especially if one is not of a protected class), then what's the point in not embracing this opposition community?

The reality is not an easy to describe and oppose binary, but a complex weave of continuum.

[Noztradamus]

Originally Posted by NoahFence

Clearly not all Trump supporters are racist.

They just need to acknowledge that HE is. And he is staffing his cabinet with racists to prove it.

SideBar: The purpose of Stalin's trials was not to determine guilt, that was already decided. It was to get the accused to confess, justifying Stalin's paranoia.

Continue

[Skeptic Tank]

I don't find Trump himself to be particularly racist.

I'd say he's substantially less obsessed with and motivated by race than the average leftist.

[Noztradamus]

Originally Posted by fuelair

The Eloi were trained to follow the horns/sirens to the Morlocks. No attack really needed.

It's a metaphor. Condition the flowers by providing safe spaces for them, and after 800,000 years they'll go to the "safe" space at the sound of a horn by instinct.

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Tank

In-group preference / out-group mistrust is built into us at a genetic level... the entire construct of anti-racism is one enormous example of trying to swim upstream against our nature

Yes, that is exactly right!

Quote:

I can tell you that after I embraced racism it definitely had a feeling of something finally clicking into place... my former anti-racist persona was the unnatural condition and took a lot of cognitive dissonance to maintain.

I know what you mean. I felt the same about murder - before I embraced it. I hated racists so much I wanted to kill them, but I was brought up to believe that racism was taught and not the fault of the individual. Anti-racist education would turn them around I was told, so I created an unnatural persona that tolerated and pitied them.

Not any more. Now that I know it's part of their nature and cannot be changed, something finally clicked into place and all parts of my psyche are in harmony with one another. And every time I kill a racist a great sense of righteous calm comes over me, as I realize that this is what I was meant to be!

[Loss Leader]

Hey! Guess which retired grandmother from Westchester this thread isn't about! This thread is about the question of racism among Trump supporters. Please stay on topic. Thank you.

Posted By:Loss Leader

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Tank

I don't find Trump himself to be particularly racist.

I'd say he's substantially less obsessed with and motivated by race than the average leftist.

You don't pick bigots and racists for your cabinet, unless you support/condone/tolerate racism and bigotry.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by applecorped

It becomes clearer why Trump won.

Yep. More terrible people voted than non-terrible people. When that happens the terrible people get their way.

I mean how many times since the election has some Trump supporter told me I had better enjoy the camps and gas chambers that await us libtards? Too many to count. But, no, they are actually good people that had good reasons.

[varwoche]

Originally Posted by Travis

Yep. More terrible people voted than non-terrible people. When that happens the terrible people get their way.

I mean how many times since the election has some Trump supporter told me I had better enjoy the camps and gas chambers that await us libtards? Too many to count. But, no, they are actually good people that had good reasons.

Far be it for me to defend Trump supporters, but I flat out don't believe this. Do you have evidence that these supposed events occurred? Like, did this happen here on the forum?

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by varwoche

Far be it for me to defend Trump supporters, but I flat out don't believe this. Do you have evidence that these supposed events occurred? Like, did this happen here on the forum?

Why would he lie about something like this?

[sunmaster14]

Originally Posted by varwoche

Far be it for me to defend Trump supporters, but I flat out don't believe this. Do you have evidence that these supposed events occurred? Like, did this happen here on the forum?

The conclusion I drew from his claim is that he just can't count that high.

[sunmaster14]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Why would he lie about something like this?

Why would you lie in the OP? Why would the moderators let you get away with slandering other members of the ISF? There are some questions we may never know the answer to.

[Foolmewunz]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aviksaro.../#75a5a0b23b8b

Trump's support among whites decreased slightly compared to Romney. His support among blacks, latinos, and asians increased slightly compared to Romney. The numbers don't seem to support the racism narrative.

That's one of those glass-half-full/empty-things.

I would posit that the way you word it is not the case. Hillary didn't match Obama's appeal to blacks. A very large bloc of black voters did not turn out. I don't have the final figures but USA-wide, black participation level appears to be coming in a 10%. For Obama that turnout was 13%. 3% of 130 million is almost 4 mil. Would all those have broken with Trump's +2 over Romney? You can't really say.

But the real issue is that Barack Obama was black, see? I know that in post-racial America conservatives didn't notice that, but it's true. He was a black man, the first black man to be running for POTUS. He had Favorite Son status. Trump's black support reverted to Bush's levels. You can probably consider that the GOP bellwether - 8/10%. Blacks ain't stupid. They've been voting against the GOP for several decades. They just did more of it when they had a black candidate to vote for.

[Minoosh]

Not all are racists but many are xenophobic. That's not the worst thing in the world. It can change, as people begin to see each other as individuals. Trump took me by surprise because in my area "minorities" have always been a large part of the population. I had to start getting used to the idea of being a racial minority a decade ago or more. It's not then very helpful to turn around and start flinging around stereotypes about Trump supporters.

It disturbs me that he does not renounce the support of white separatists even though he did very clearly in 2000. One of his kids had the right idea about David Duke but I haven't heard it from Trump himself. If he has just pulled off a con I hope his supporters follow him as he tacks to the center. But I'm not sure he can change course now. Stoking people's fears has served him well so far and the moderate, subdued man in the clip above may be out of reach.

[Foolmewunz]

The answer to the OP is, of course, "No." I'm still of the opinion that an educated voter who supports/ed Trump is an enabler because I think his racism, xenophobia and misogyny are pretty obvious. But that's me.

We have to accept that there are a very large number of people in the USA who if not directly of the Alt-Right white power faction are willing to give the man a pass on his participation with that element. Does that make them racists?

I think that part of what we have to come to grips with is the "just don't care" faction. In many of those locked-in largely rural Red States the minority population is such a minority that the lowest on the voters' list of priorities is going to be Race Relations/Equal Opportunity.

[Hercules56]

Originally Posted by sunmaster14

Why would you lie in the OP? Why would the moderators let you get away with slandering other members of the ISF? There are some questions we may never know the answer to.

How did I lie?

Why are you accusing people of lying? (two so far)

[Travis]

Originally Posted by varwoche

Far be it for me to defend Trump supporters, but I flat out don't believe this. Do you have evidence that these supposed events occurred? Like, did this happen here on the forum?

I don't have the emotional fortitude to go back and dig up the facebook comments in question.

But here is a sampling from another website I frequent.

http://wonkette.com/608547/deleted-c...g-to-the-ovens

Others existed in Rawstory comments sections only briefly before going to Disqus heaven.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally Posted by 3point14

The answer is: We don't know.

It appears, however, that Trump supporters don't care if Trump himself appears to be racist or espouses racist (and sexist) philosophy.

Bingo. Not all Trump supporters are racist or misogynist, but racism and misogyny weren't a deal breaker for them.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Tank

In-group preference / out-group mistrust is built into us at a genetic level.

So is reproduction, but not all of us are sex maniacs.

You are using a basic characteristic of humans as justification for an extreme application of it. It doesn't work, Tank. You are skipping an important step.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally Posted by Ray Brady

No, not all Trump supporters are racist. But for every last one of them, Trump's racism was not a deal-breaker.

I should've scrolled this far before replying to 3Point14's post.

[JoeMorgue]

I'm from the South so a lot of my family are Trump supporters.

There is a weird mentality I get from a lot of them. It's always in the margins, never outright solidified or stated but it's there. They voted for Trump because they are worried about the economic and social state of rural America.

It's not that they don't care about the social issues; some of them do, some of them don't, it's that they don't see that as the President's job.

At the very least the paranoid fantasy that a lot of my progressive friends are living in where half the country whipped off their clothes to reveal Klan robes is a bit much.

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by Argumemnon

So is reproduction, but not all of us are sex maniacs.

You are using a basic characteristic of humans as justification for an extreme application of it. It doesn't work, Tank. You are skipping an important step.

Hunger is a natural driving force, therefore it is silly to try and stop people from being cannibals.

[marplots]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Tank

In-group preference / out-group mistrust is built into us at a genetic level.

Babies show a preference for looking at images of people from their own racial group...

These claims didn't sound right to me...

Here's the abstract from a 2005 paper on it:
Adults are sensitive to the physical differences that define ethnic groups. However, the age at which we become sensitive to ethnic differences is currently unclear. Our study aimed to clarify this by testing newborns and young infants for sensitivity to ethnicity using a visual preference (VP) paradigm. While newborn infants demonstrated no spontaneous preference for faces from either their own- or other-ethnic groups, 3-month-old infants demonstrated a significant preference for faces from their own-ethnic group. These results suggest that preferential selectivity based on ethnic differences is not present in the first days of life, but is learned within the first 3 months of life. The findings imply that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own- versus other-race faces during early development. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566511/)

Sounds like it's learned.

[turingtest]

Originally Posted by marplots

These claims didn't sound right to me...

Here's the abstract from a 2005 paper on it:
Adults are sensitive to the physical differences that define ethnic groups. However, the age at which we become sensitive to ethnic differences is currently unclear. Our study aimed to clarify this by testing newborns and young infants for sensitivity to ethnicity using a visual preference (VP) paradigm. While newborn infants demonstrated no spontaneous preference for faces from either their own- or other-ethnic groups, 3-month-old infants demonstrated a significant preference for faces from their own-ethnic group. These results suggest that preferential selectivity based on ethnic differences is not present in the first days of life, but is learned within the first 3 months of life. The findings imply that adults' perceptions of ethnic differences are learned and derived from differences in exposure to own- versus other-race faces during early development. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566511/)

Sounds like it's learned.

Even if it was the way ST needs it, I'm not sure I understand the virtue in an argument that says we should continue acting like babies for all our lives.

[NoahFence]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

I'm from the South so a lot of my family are Trump supporters.

There is a weird mentality I get from a lot of them. It's always in the margins, never outright solidified or stated but it's there. They voted for Trump because they are worried about the economic and social state of rural America.

It's not that they don't care about the social issues; some of them do, some of them don't, it's that they don't see that as the President's job.

At the very least the paranoid fantasy that a lot of my progressive friends are living in where half the country whipped off their clothes to reveal Klan robes is a bit much.

Did you remind them that Trump doesn't give 2 ***** about them?

[sunmaster14]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

How did I lie?

You claimed that every Trump supporter you have encountered on the internet is a racist and bigot. And yet you have encountered many here at ISF who are not. Frankly, I thought your OP was a breach of the MA, but the moderators apparently didn't think so.

Quote:

Why are you accusing people of lying? (two so far)

When I see a lie, and it annoys me, I point it out. If I have the time, that is. I had the time yesterday.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

I'm from the South so a lot of my family are Trump supporters.

There is a weird mentality I get from a lot of them. It's always in the margins, never outright solidified or stated but it's there. They voted for Trump because they are worried about the economic and social state of rural America.

As others have noted, they apparently didn't let themselves be bothered too much by the racist and violent rhetoric.

[NoahFence]

Originally Posted by sunmaster14

You claimed that every Trump supporter you have encountered on the internet is a racist and bigot. And yet you have encountered many here at ISF who are not. Frankly, I thought your OP was a breach of the MA, but the moderators apparently didn't think so.



When I see a lie, and it annoys me, I point it out. If I have the time, that is. I had the time yesterday.

So Trump's many, many, many lies don't annoy you?

Funny that.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Argumemnon

As others have noted, they apparently didn't let themselves be bothered too much by the racist and violent rhetoric.

My family believes that Hillary is a crook and will do whatever to enrich herself. They believe that an racist incompetent will cause less harm to the nation than a conniving thief.

Obviously, I think that their view of Clinton is a gross exaggeration, but this is why they voted for Trump. I also imagine that they simply ignored Trump's more overtly racist comments.

[uke2se]

Originally Posted by phiwum

My family believes that Hillary is a crook and will do whatever to enrich herself. They believe that an racist incompetent will cause less harm to the nation than a conniving thief.

Obviously, I think that their view of Clinton is a gross exaggeration, but this is why they voted for Trump. I also imagine that they simply ignored Trump's more overtly racist comments.

Ironic that in order to prevent a crook who would do anything to enrich herself from becoming president, they voted for a crook who would do anything to enrich himself and who is a flaming racist as well.

[sunmaster14]

Originally Posted by NoahFence

So Trump's many, many, many lies don't annoy you?

Funny that.

Lies that have been pointed out and recognized by others don't annoy me. I get annoyed when people deny those lies, however.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by uke2se

Ironic that in order to prevent a crook who would do anything to enrich herself from becoming president, they voted for a crook who would do anything to enrich himself and who is a flaming racist as well.

Yeah, it boggles the mind that they would choose a corrupt businessman to root out corruption, a habitual liar to show up the liars, a racist to demonstrate their exhasperation with identity politics, and a rich man to represent the common folk against rich men.

[uke2se]

Originally Posted by Argumemnon

Yeah, it boggles the mind that they would choose a corrupt businessman to root out corruption, a habitual liar to show up the liars, a racist to demonstrate their exhasperation with identity politics, and a rich man to represent the common folk against rich men.

It boggles the mind so much I half suspect it to be a convenient excuse.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by uke2se

It boggles the mind so much I half suspect it to be a convenient excuse.

It's entirely possible. It's also possible that they simply aren't smart or educated enough to notice the discrepancy.