Monday, July 4, 2016

Not evil, just awful

Kotkin sums up exactly the way I want to respond every time I hear a Trump supporter/defender say "he's not racist". Okay; walking like a duck is something our intelligent species can do without becoming ducks, but why would we do it? Maybe to get some really gullible ducks to follow us around.

In reality, Trump is not a classic racist, but rather an ugly opportunist willing to use ethnic divides for his own benefit. He’s been compared to Adolph Hitler, a monster whose philosophy revolved around race, but Trump has no real theory that extends beyond self-glorification, resentment, and attracting the fetching female; “The Art of the Deal” is not “Mein Kampf.”

Trump will play the race card as a way to satisfy his narcissistic need for enthusiastic admirers. This does not mean his approach does not echo the racism of the past. His claim of bias by a U.S.-born judge of Mexican descent, as well as his suggestions that Muslim jurists are incapable of ruling independently, recall the worst of the pre-Civil Rights South. His proposals to ban Muslim immigrants in general recall approaches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which targeted Chinese, Japanese and, ultimately eastern and southern Europeans.

In short, you don't have to be Hitler to be awful, or to have bad intentions, or to be a wrecking ball for your own movement. When people were calling Obama a communist back in 2008 I was cringing because I knew it would be pretty easy to dismiss the charge. After all, what communist would save General Motors? Barack Obama had to have been secretly smiling every time someone tossed that accusation at him or its even stupider twin sister—the charge that he was born in Kenya. Leave the fact that it wouldn't have mattered if he had been (his mother is an American citizen), it just made everyone making it seem like an instant racist to the general populace.

Yes, Virginia—that general populace. The one which elects Presidents. Not the subsection of critical thinkers or people with degrees in the hard sciences.


So when I heard people saying Trump could be the next Hitler I cringed as well knowing that a few black and Jewish friends will effectively dismiss that charge while a host of others would point at the media, shout "See they call us all racist!" and reflexively support Trump even though his rhetoric is incendiary.

I am not the only person who sees it this way. Larry Elder had been more generous to Donald Trump than many of the other Salem Radio hosts, but boy, did he about lose it when the whole thing about the "Mexican" Judge came out. This all happened shortly after Trump had all but secured the GOP nomination. Elder's conclusion is worth noting: "As found as people are of Donald Trump, if you give him a pass on this it means you have no integrity."

I should probably just accept my new status as politically homeless. Get out the cardboard and lets light a barrel fire.

7 comments:

  1. I will vote for Donald Duck before I vote for Trump.

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  2. I will vote for Trump, but I have no argument for people who feel that they can't, Jonathan. My brother (history professor), Pikkumatti, my bro-in-law, you, several friends in Cleveland-- about 10-12 people in all -- all these people are people who I know who voted for McCain and Romney and yet won't vote for Trump. Trump is hoping to pull a bunch of "new voters" in who didn't vote for Romney but are going to vote for him. I frankly don't know any of these people, and I suspect they won't make up for the votes the GOP is losing this time around.

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  3. I understand that. I have to hear more after the convention. The problem is I have not heard many specifics from him.

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  4. This writer draws the same conclusions that you do, Pauli:

    Is Donald Trump himself a misogynist, racist, Jew-hating troglodyte? Heavens no. I would surmise, in complete seriousness, that there is not enough substance to that shallow, self-absorbed cartoon of a man even to BE a misogynist, racist, or an anti-Semite. Perversely, for Trump to be a misogynist, a racist or an anti-Semite would actually require him a measure of introspection (albeit, in a warped form) that he rather obviously lacks. Rather, the world begins and ends with Donald Trump. Nothing, and no one else, even exists.

    That said — and I suppose this is my only point — this unstable, repugnant charlatan certainly seems to be surrounded by any number of people who, while they might not be honest enough to say out loud, “Ding, Dong, the Kike is Dead,” do in fact think in such terms.


    And for me, that's not even the worst thing about him (although that is disqualifyingly bad). My biggest problem with him is that I don't believe he would respect any Constitutional limitation that would prevent him from obtaining what he wants.*

    Of course, it's damn difficult to identify any Constitutional principle that he is aware of, for starters. But he exhibits no respect for the rule of law generally, either. And this is an especially bad thing for a nationalist populist who wants to restore the Nation's true place in the world, IYKWIMAITYD.

    *And yeah, yeah, I know neither does Hillary and neither did Obama. But I won't and didn't vote for them, either.

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    1. And along these lines, we have his continuing admiration for tyrants (Yesterday's episode discussed here.)

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  5. From an interesting piece on the theology of Donald Trump:

    At a campaign event in Iowa, Trump shocked the audience by saying that he had never asked God for forgiveness. All his other disturbing statements—his attacks on every vulnerable group—are made intelligible by this one. The self-sufficient faith Trump absorbed from [Norman Vincent] Peale has no place for human weakness. Human frailty, dependency, and sinfulness cannot be acknowledged; they must be overcome. This opens up the possibility of great cruelty toward those who cannot wish themselves into being winners. A man who need not ask forgiveness need never forgive others. He does not realize his own weakness, and so he mocks and reviles every sign of weakness in his ­fellow men.

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    1. My God, that article is devastating. Norman Vincent Peale is on my list of dreadful human beings. People like motivational speakers and Donald Trump are the fruit of his insane prescriptions.

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