American Politics Discussion Thread

[ipecac]

Three things that aren't being said enough in the whole "Trump is a racist" conversation:

4. Tribalism is intrinsic to human nature, a nigh-universal healthy instinct that confers obvious survival advantages. Like other good things, it can be taken too far and used for the wrong purposes, but that doesn't change its intrinsic beneficial nature. It can only be pathologised as 'racism' for a limited extent, and as we're seeing the limit is fast being reached.

[T-hawk]

Illegal immigrant is not a race. Islamic militancy is not a race. Welfare dependapotamus is not a race.

Trump's support comes from actually taking action against those, ignoring the "racist" screams that scare away everyone else who ever tries.

[Mardoc]

3. I'm appalled at the level of support Trump continues to enjoy among Republicans. Apparently all Republicans must now subscribe to the belief that Trump is not only the greatest president in the history of history, but the greatest president who could possibly be imagined. In my view, he's a deeply flawed man who has advanced the Republican cause on certain fronts, and set it back dramatically on others, and his faults outweigh his benefits by a substantial amount. I've been unable to vote Republican since the party became unequivocally the Party of Trump in 2018.

Can't we subscribe to the belief that he's still the lesser evil?   It's not hard to ignore Twitter and anything he says in a non-official context, and if you ignore what he says and just watch what he does, it's...kinda ok.  Mostly the same as it has been, two steps forward, one back. The one piece that is surprising me is that I thought tariffs would hurt GDP, but if they have it's small enough to be lost in the noise.

You won't see people like me speaking much on the topic, because it's hard to get excited about a lesser evil when I could be excited about work or friends or Civ.  I'm sure I can change the world more at personal scale than I could if I got into politics.

[Charriu]

And also he is no racist and no sexist and very obviously so, this is why his supporters don't see him as such. Everyone agrees that he has flaws, like any man, and he is not the most ideal president by far. But, well, the only hero we deserve, apparently.

I'm sorry, in the face of things like the Hollywood Access tape, his comments about some women in comparison to his comments about men and the numerous allegations by women: how can he not be a sexists. And if his behavior isn't sexist then what behavior is sexist in your opinion?

3. I'm appalled at the level of support Trump continues to enjoy among Republicans. Apparently all Republicans must now subscribe to the belief that Trump is not only the greatest president in the history of history, but the greatest president who could possibly be imagined. In my view, he's a deeply flawed man who has advanced the Republican cause on certain fronts, and set it back dramatically on others, and his faults outweigh his benefits by a substantial amount. I've been unable to vote Republican since the party became unequivocally the Party of Trump in 2018.

Can't we subscribe to the belief that he's still the lesser evil?   It's not hard to ignore Twitter and anything he says in a non-official context, and if you ignore what he says and just watch what he does, it's...kinda ok.  Mostly the same as it has been, two steps forward, one back.  The one piece that is surprising me is that I thought tariffs would hurt GDP, but if they have it's small enough to be lost in the noise.

You won't see people like me speaking much on the topic, because it's hard to get excited about a lesser evil when I could be excited about work or friends or Civ.  I'm sure I can change the world more at personal scale than I could if I got into politics.

I'm sorry, but how can he be the lesser evil if you look at things done under his administration like the separation of families at the border and the situation at these detention centers.

[DaveV]

One of the many problems with Trump is that he keeps lowering the bar for behavior. Back in 2016, the Speaker of the House was willing to call Trump's "Mexican judge" remarks "pretty much the textbook definition of racism." Now the Republicans in Congress just smile and nod like a bunch of old-man bobbleheads. How do other countries trust the US in the future, when a new president can come in and overthrow the agreements made by his predecessor on a whim? How do we keep monetary influence out of politics when the president and his family are openly exploiting the office to make money? Up till now, we expected the president to take his job seriously instead of treating it as performance art. Trump refuses to read his briefing papers, now matter how comic book like his advisors try to make them, and prefers to spend his time on the golf course or watching TV (hoping to experience the little tingle he gets every time he's name-dropped on Fox News). He admires foreign dictators (clearly, Vladimir Putin is who Trump wants to be when he grows up), and views every transaction as zero-sum, where either he's winning or the other guy is cheating. Trump views freedom of the press as a personal inconvenience, and incites his followers against anyone who contradicts his narrative. He is proof that if you repeat the same lie often enough (No collusion, no obstruction), people start to believe it. And then there's climate change, where Trump prefers chasing the votes of a few coal miners to protecting the country at large.

I'm tired of people saying, "I don't pay attention to Twitter." There's a reason his Twitter account is called @RealDonaldTrump: that thin-skinned bully, that ignoramus who has no interest in learning the facts but prefers to make up his own, that re-tweeter of racist, misogynist, and antisemitic tropes, is your president. If that embarrasses you, it should. If it doesn't, maybe you need to take a hard look in the mirror.

[Gavagai]

@Charriu

I think that what Trump said on Hollywood Access tape is cringeworthy (in part because it was very obviously an empty bravado - if Trump really behaved this way, we would have literally hundreds of women jumping up now with accusations of sexual harassment). But I do not think it is sexist. I define "sexism" as beliefs or attitudes under which a person's moral worth depends on gender. If Trump said, for example, that women should allow him to "grab them by the pussy" - that would be sexist, because it would deny a woman the right to autonomy. But he just made a factual claim that they allow him to do it because he is "a star" (and very likely an accurate factual claim). Can a factual claim ever be sexist? I think, not.
What I find funny is that Trump said it like it was a new and surprising experience for him. The man made a career in real estate but it took him to move to ultra-liberal Hollywood to meet women with such obviously patriarchal patterns of behavior
Now, you also make a non-specific claim that Trump generally treats women worse than men. This is not what I see. To the contrary, as I see it, Trump attacks men much more often and viciously than women. It is really difficult to top things he said about Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John McCain - all of them men, all of them white. On the other hand, he was heard to praise people like Nikki Hailey and Sarah Jessica Sanders - both women, one of them a daughter of Indian immigrants. (Btw, can you imagine Trump to tell Hailey to "go back to where you come from"? If not, then you need to concede - his latest tweets were not about race or gender or country of origin but about political positions.) He praised Ben Carson (whom he earlier attacked), a black man, and gave him a position in his administration. It very much looks like that Trump just attacks his political and personal enemies and praises and supports his friends and allies - shocker Political views and personal attitude to Trump is a much better predictor of his attitudes than race or gender. Which means - he is no racist or sexist.

[Gavagai]

"Mexican judge" comment was also not racist, btw. A factual claim, very probably an accurate one

[Gavagai]

The thing with factual claims is that they can be described as true or false and this description completely dominates their description as racist or non-racist. If you have shown that the claim is false, you have already stripped it of any of the power - there is no need to additionally show that it is racist. On the other hand, if the claim is true, then being racist doesn't make it any less true. This is why applying descriptions like "racist" and "non-racist" to factual claims makes little sense (same with sexism). Usually, it is made in an attempt to discredit the claim without challenging its accuracy which should be frowned upon, I think.

[Gavagai]

Generally in respect to Trump's manners - here is the thing which liberals don't seem to understand. From Republican perspective, Democrats of all stripes made a habit from insulting, ridiculing, devaluing Republicans and their values in the meanest, basest ways possible for decades. And during all this time Republican leaders behaved "like adults" and politely pretended that none of this happens. And when it goes on for long enough, it wears people down. Trump is the first Republican leader who lowered himself to Democrat level and started to pay back in kind. Now, I would much prefer Trump's responses to be witty, calm and subtle instead of crude and childish. I think many Reps would agree with me about it. But, on the other hand, many believe that Trump's fighting back is still preferrable to Bush's or Romney's manner of swallowing up shit and smiling.
EDIT: and yes, all liberal outrage about Trump - in Republican eyes is an outrage of a bully who has suddenly discovered that his victim is willing to stand up to him.

[AdrienIer]

From Republican perspective, Democrats of all stripes made a habit from insulting, ridiculing, devaluing Republicans and their values in the meanest, basest ways possible for decades.

Can you cite moments when democratic leadership, or better yet, a democratic president, has done that ?