ChrisBFRPKY
Illuminator
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Pick a city that has been long term run by Republicans, any city you choose, and let's compare it with a long term Democrat run city like Detroit. Game?
Chris B.
Are all Trump supporters racists?
- Thread starter Hercules56
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Pick a city that has been long term run by Republicans, any city you choose, and let's compare it with a long term Democrat run city like Detroit. Game?
Chris B.
pgwenthold
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I remember reading a while back a comparison of Muskogee, OK and Philadelphia. It was at the time when the riots were going on in Philadelphia, and the general portrayal was how Philadelphia was a complete failure.
When compared to Muskogee, it was a bloody paradise.
I have tried to find it but failed, unfortunately.
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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Skeptical Greg
Agave Wine Connoisseur
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WilliamSeger
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I can only speak from my own personal experience, but I know of some Trump supporters in my extended family who are indeed racists, but also several more and couple of friends who are not themselves racists (I don't think), but I think they have become so accustomed to being surrounded by it that it doesn't bother them. When they hear a racist remark (and they do), they sort of treat it like the guy who gets drunk and obnoxious at parties: hey, other than that, he's a good guy. Anyway, racism obviously wasn't a deal-breaker for them, but then, it doesn't affect them.
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blutoski
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Yes that particular discussion confused me.
Trump's situation is not "she said he did versus he said he didn't"
It's "she said and he boasted about it" - what's to discuss?
blutoski
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Yep. This is why black people feel especially hurt.
The nation threw them under the bus because of... I'm trying to get this straight... hurt feelings about being insulted by New Yorkers?
Mumbles
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To b e fair, there was also the "I'll protect jobs" angle. I read a piece about a West Virginian who voted for Trump because "He'll bring back coal mining!" He wont, but I can understand why someone would want that to happen - and while Clinton had the better plan, she completely failed to send anyone there to actually sell it.
Also, I wouldn't say I'm all that hurt - white supremacy has always been popular in the US, and I was expecting a backlash (or a "whitelash" as Van Jones put it) from the moment Obama was elected. But if Trump actually starts trying to implement the blatantly racist policies he spoke of while campaigning, I'll have to reevaluate my "I'm no activist" view of things.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Sort of the modern equivalent of bystanders at a lynching.
Not participants. Merely observers who remain silent at all costs.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
This is especially problematic because coal mining in West Virginia hasn't gone anywhere. It's alive and thriving. WV is the second highest coal producing state in the country.
The problem is that "mining" these days more than anything else involves pushing the tops off of mountains down into the valleys, and scooping the coal up. It doesn't take anywhere nearly as many people to run backhoes and loaders as it does to crawl around in tunnels.
Those jobs aren't coming back.
That wasn't exactly the problem.
I've talked to my dad about this during the whole duration of the campaign. He's living in WV right now, and as a retired professor who was in WVU's Geology/Geography Dept. he has a better than average grasp of the conditions there relating to mining.
He tells me that Clinton's pledge of helping to find alternatives to the coal industry's inevitable decline (it's gonna run out someday.) was morphed into "Hillary's gonna stop all coal mining." (Kind of like how she's gonna take everyone's guns away.) It wouldn't have mattered how many Clinton people went to the state. The lie was too well established, and had been for quite a while.
Oddly enough, if presented with the things she actually said, most miners in the state would agree with her.
They all know the writing is on the wall. They just want to keep the status quo until well past the last minute.
IOW ... conservatives.
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willim
Scholar
Things are not always as they seem to be.
Some people I know IRL, and many people here, have a preconceived notion, a narrative if you will, about the label "racist", and to whom it applies to. If you voted for Trump, you're a racist, and there will be NO discussion. That Is What You Are, even if you are not. It makes no difference if the person in question is even a member of a racial/cultural minority. It does not matter that I and others in my circle of friends are non-white.
What is missing in this lopsided discussion, is the fact that as obnoxious as Trump can be, there is no current real example that proves the man to be a racist. I know hypersensitive people will absolutely claim that he is, but in my opinion their emotions and blind hatred have made their claims both wrong, and irrelevant. Not everyone subscribes to needless hysteria and baseless assertions when things suddenly don't go their way.
Here's a newsflash- There are people of many different races and ethnic backgrounds in this country who don't take every perceived slight or insult from Trump (or most anyone else) as proof of "racism". In fact, there are people in our country who don't get that worked up over so-called insults both real, or perceived, at all.
Unfounded accusations of racism are a tactic of the defeated who cannot face reality. Keep beating that false and empty drum, and when real racism rears it's ugly head, fewer people, if any, will care. One can only cry wolf so many times.
We do not yet know what sort of POTUS Trump will really turn out to be. However, in the end I suppose it really doesn't matter in this particular backwater, because the people here who hate Trump as well as those who decided to vote for him, will hate us all no matter what he says or does be it right, or wrong.
Some people I know IRL, and many people here, have a preconceived notion, a narrative if you will, about the label "racist", and to whom it applies to. If you voted for Trump, you're a racist, and there will be NO discussion. That Is What You Are, even if you are not. It makes no difference if the person in question is even a member of a racial/cultural minority. It does not matter that I and others in my circle of friends are non-white.
What is missing in this lopsided discussion, is the fact that as obnoxious as Trump can be, there is no current real example that proves the man to be a racist. I know hypersensitive people will absolutely claim that he is, but in my opinion their emotions and blind hatred have made their claims both wrong, and irrelevant. Not everyone subscribes to needless hysteria and baseless assertions when things suddenly don't go their way.
Here's a newsflash- There are people of many different races and ethnic backgrounds in this country who don't take every perceived slight or insult from Trump (or most anyone else) as proof of "racism". In fact, there are people in our country who don't get that worked up over so-called insults both real, or perceived, at all.
Unfounded accusations of racism are a tactic of the defeated who cannot face reality. Keep beating that false and empty drum, and when real racism rears it's ugly head, fewer people, if any, will care. One can only cry wolf so many times.
We do not yet know what sort of POTUS Trump will really turn out to be. However, in the end I suppose it really doesn't matter in this particular backwater, because the people here who hate Trump as well as those who decided to vote for him, will hate us all no matter what he says or does be it right, or wrong.
Mumbles
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Well, yes, that's what the man in the article was talking about - and I agree (not that it's a matter of opinion) that the coal mining jobs are gone for good.
Thank you for this. I tend to be relatively hopeful, although not nearly so hopeful that I'll completely refuse to see what's plainly obvious. And this is one area where I'm critical of democrats overall - it's clear that they have the far better plan to bring jobs to the Appalachians, and that many of the republican congressmen have been blocking these proposals. That's a message worth bringing to the people to live there, yet I've seen little effort to do so.
However, I'm just outside of Baltimore, so it's possible that I'm not seeing these efforts because I'm simply not there. THe opinion of someone who lives there, like your father, will naturally be more informed than I am.
Pushing the multitude of side topics to the back burner for a moment I find general line of thought an odd one.
Politics is the one area of life where a group of people holding a vile opinion or being factually wrong sorta has to be counter with a "Yeah so?" to some degree.
Even if every single last Trump voter was 100% across the board racist and factually wrong about every relevant political and social stance that influenced their vote... so? The Democrats still have to find a way to reach them and win their votes or all their moral high ground is gonna do is provide them a better view of their opponents victory parties.
In politics you can't act as if a certain demographics votes are just beneath you and get all shocked and huffy that when that demographic tips an election against you.
Politics is the one area of life where a group of people holding a vile opinion or being factually wrong sorta has to be counter with a "Yeah so?" to some degree.
Even if every single last Trump voter was 100% across the board racist and factually wrong about every relevant political and social stance that influenced their vote... so? The Democrats still have to find a way to reach them and win their votes or all their moral high ground is gonna do is provide them a better view of their opponents victory parties.
In politics you can't act as if a certain demographics votes are just beneath you and get all shocked and huffy that when that demographic tips an election against you.
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It's a bit tricky appealing to racist demographic without being racist.
It's also difficult when your opponents blatantly lie and tell the electorate what they want to hear rather than the truth...
The Democrats lost a slice of the blue collar demographic by telling the truth - those coal mining jobs are gone, here's a plan and money for retraining. Trump lied and said he'd get those coal mining jobs back. Without lying, I'm not sure what the Democratic Party should have done.
Mumbles
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It's a bit tricky appealing to racist demographic without being racist.
It's also difficult when your opponents blatantly lie and tell the electorate what they want to hear rather than the truth...
The Democrats lost a slice of the blue collar demographic by telling the truth - those coal mining jobs are gone, here's a plan and money for retraining. Trump lied and said he'd get those coal mining jobs back. Without lying, I'm not sure what the Democratic Party should have done.
The point is that there are people who stayed home or voted for Trump, because Hillary really took them for granted, but who are not racist (and I'm not taking the claim that there's "no evidence' that Trump campaigned on white supremacy seriously). I've said this in previous elections about why black voters refuse to consider republicans - and have praised Rand Paul for actually going to black people and discussing issues with them, which many republicans simply refuse to do.
Yes, you can't deal with Alex Jones nuts, or the white nationalists of the so-called "alt right". You don't need to deal with them to win elections.
"Prove" is too strong a word to use when discussing fuzzy topics such as this. That said, the evidence of Trump's racism is extensive and well documented.
Certainly there exists people blinded by hatred. Notwithstanding, what a steaming load of fact-challenged bs, as if the documented body of evidence of Trump's racism doesn't exist.
Basically the Democrats narrative for this election quickly got turned into "I don't understand why all these people I'm calling deplorable racist bigots didn't vote for me."
And again this is all a separate discussion from whether or not the statistically significant (I won't use phrases like "all" or "none" because that does nothing but invite pointless nitpicking exception worshipping) portion of Trump supporters were racist because again it doesn't change anything on a political level.
We have two possible scenarios:
1. The statistical majority of Trump supporters were racists and the Democrats either wouldn't stoop to or didn't know how to pander to that base.
Or
2. The statistical majority of Trump were not racist and the Democrats either painted them all as racists or allowed themselves to be seen as painting them all as racists.
Either way way the end results are the same, the Democrats didn't get those votes.
That's what I meant when I said the in politics you can't simultaneously act as if a certain demographics votes are beneath you and still need them to win and that is exactly what the Democrats did in this election either directly themselves or in not being politically savvy enough to counter the narrative the Republicans were pushing depending on your POV.
All politics ever of all time would like to have a word with you.
The Democrats plan for replacing the Rust Belt/Farm Belt jobs was pie in the sky nonsense and everyone knew it. You can't replace farming and factory jobs with service and tech jobs. Service and tech jobs need a certain population density to work. A dying 300 person town in the shadow of the steel mill or textile plant that was once it's lifeblood can't sustain an economy on Starbucks barista jobs and web page designers and the way a big city can.
There is no plan on the table, anyone's table, to replace the rural American job market and despite the Left's continued insistence that everyone who doesn't live within walking distance of 2 Starbucks and a vinyl record store is nothing but a inbreed racist Hick making meth and sleeping with his sister they rural population knows it.
They went with Trump because he told them a better story. One where they were still screwed but at least it's not their fault and hey here's someone to blame.
You can explain to anyone you want chapter and verse in excruciating detail how wrong Trump story is but at the end of the day the voters swallowed it and that's why he's President and Hillary isn't.
And as far as "Telling the Truth" that's bull. They didn't say anything. Hillary aggressively ignored the Rust Belt states, not running so much as a single Ad or hosting a single event or even stepping foot into several of them assuming she had them in the bad. A few stumps speeches and photo ops in front of a John Deere could have easily tipped the election for her. But no their entire campaign was "Point and laugh at the racist country folk."
I've used this metaphor before and I think it works. In the Dark Knight returns Batman decides to ignore the Joker in order to go after the Mob which leads to this exchange.
Batman: "I don't understand Alfred. This is different. They crossed a line."
Alfred: "No sir you crossed the line. You hammered to the point of desperation and in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand."
Trump lied and said he'd get those coal mining jobs back. Without lying, I'm not sure what the Democratic Party should have done.
Oh jeesus... it's politics. YES LIE TO THEM. Or at least pander. It's what politicians do.
Or again the Democrats can build up their moral high ground higher and higher to give them better views of the Republican victory parties going on down in the gutter.
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sunmaster14
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It's a bit tricky appealing to racist demographic without being racist.
It's also difficult when your opponents blatantly lie and tell the electorate what they want to hear rather than the truth...
The Democrats lost a slice of the blue collar demographic by telling the truth - those coal mining jobs are gone, here's a plan and money for retraining. Trump lied and said he'd get those coal mining jobs back. Without lying, I'm not sure what the Democratic Party should have done.
Why is that a lie? It is quite easy for those coal mining jobs to come back if regulations governing the burning of coal were loosened. The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal. We have enough coal to meet all of the world's energy needs for a thousand years (at current rates of energy usage). Coal is still less expensive per unit of energy content than any other fossil fuel.
LSSBB
Devilish Dictionarian
Coal is not processed the same way any more.
sunmaster14
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Can you explain a bit more?