President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

White men protesting and demonstrating that they fear being marginalized comes across a lot differently given our history than when others do it. Particularly when you have the President backing you up and the current Congress is 80 percent white and 80 percent male and yet is STILL THE MOST DIVERSE in our history.
For the record, the country is 63 percent white, 49.2 percent male and white people make up the majority in 49 of 50 states - yet white males are feeling marginalized when they are over-represented in Congress and they have a fan in the White House. Why?
To many people, hearing white people complain and protest about their "loss of status" comes across as trying to reinforce (or even increase) the power they already have or even worse to diminish and demean those outside their group. This may not be the intent, but that is the way the message is being received when symbols of the Civil War and the Nazi party are used as totems for their cause.
If the same over-representation in Congress was reversed in the favor of non-whites and women to the same degree as it is for whites and males, half the members would STILL be white and more than half would still be men.

I don't think there is some demand to be politically correct 24/7 - I think most Americans would settle for people just not going out of their way to agitate and offend people. Nobody is old enough or ignorant enough to have lived in a time when the n-word and other epithets weren't meant to be offensive or demeaning.

 

I'm gonna guess he wasn't 340 pounds then.

 

Undoubtedly, but I'm still guessin he weighed a load more than the rest of his Ranger friends.

 

Have you checked the college micro aggressions thread lately?

 

You're kidding, right? You think that's the first thing he thought of, the reason he'd do what he did? And why would anybody be surprised his jersey sales climbed? You'd expect it, wouldn't you?

Also, just for the record, I own exactly no NFL jerseys.

The problem with all this week's protests/statements is that they had less to do with any inequality for blacks or any other principled stand than they did the league's upset and anger over Trump's ridiculous rant. Has there ever been a U.S. president who called anybody -- let alone his own countrymen -- sons of bitches in a public speech or post?

It was a new low, even for Trump.

 

To the priveledged, any slight incremental inch toward equality feels like oppression.

 

There is systemic racism in America. I'm fine with saying that. Criminal laws and police violence disproportionately affect blacks.

You wanna change mandatory minimums? Let's do it.

You wanna look at decriminalizing certain drug offenses and getting the government out of our personal lives? Let's do it.

You wanna stop allowing states to run debtors prisons with horseshit fine structures? Sounds good.

Reparations? Let's examine real ways to do that through tax credits. Hiring quotas? Interesting, let's hammer out a compromise. Police? Disarm them.

The "dialogue" - which is really a monologue - only goes so far, and, at some point, it becomes a badge of political honor on social media.

 

Of course. And he'd expect it too, explaining why he did it. Ka-ching!! Boy did he know how play this to optimally cash in off rube America. And what a job security play--think the Steelers would dare cut Captain America now?

What a selfish manipulative dude. Instead of supporting his teammates he only thinks of himself.

 

Wow. Just, wow.

You're right in that I'm not the most cynical person in the world, but...wow. That, apparently, must be you. You really can't see how someone who went to West Point and served in the military, on active oversees tours, might legitimately choose not to, or not be able to get himself to, participate in a supposed protest during the national anthem?

(As I said earlier, I think this all was more a protest of Trump's embarrassingly bad rant than any real united stand against the inequities faced by African-Americans in this country).

 

Unlike after the Democratic convention, he has respect for Gold Star parents now?

(Late to the party, so sorry if this is a d_b).

 

Of course I can, because it suits his own self-interest to make that choice.

And those career moves were just steps in his long con. Can't you see that?