Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

In the context of 21st or late 20th century America, they stem from our internalized societal racism. Choosing to continue to believe in them now that they have been debunked and society has moved on is different from having believed in them 25 years ago, even though both could be fit into an overly large binary category of "racist."

 

Will Pence's relative sanity lead the Republicans to believe in him going forward? I get that he is more mature and professional than Trump but his politics don't seem very well suited for the changing demographics of the country. He was in trouble in Indiana wasn't he?

 

His "relative sanity" is a very relative term. He's a batshit crazy Bible flogger, which he's kept under wraps lately.

 

So they were always racist, we just needed to wait for the right guys to start supporting them to be sure. Thanks for clearing that up ... I don't handle nuance nearly so well as you.

 

Well said. When we evolve as a country or as individuals are we not allowed to change our views of right and wrong? 20 years ago I thought nothing of calling a buddy a fag or some such name as a good natured jab. I now (and for many years) understand how wrong and hurtful those types of comments are and would never use those terms. It doesn't seem very hard to understand.

 

That was my point. He seems like a "perfect candidate" to the right when compared to Trump but he is crazy as well. Good luck hitching your wagon to him in 2020.

 

As always, dividing people into "racist" and "not racist" is a gross oversimplification.

Everyone is racist. We are born into a racist society and it shapes us from the moment we are born.

The problem isn't that Trump probably tends to perceive young men of different races as older and stronger than they are, as studies tell us we all tend to do, or that he unconsciously engages in any one of the many subtle biases that we all have.

The problem is that he refuses to acknowledge those biases and instead inflames them to use as a weapon of destruction on everyone around him and encourages others to do the same. Being more inclined to believe the Central Park 5 were guilty because of their status is a racism we all probably had a good chance of engaging in. Taking out a dog-whistling newspaper ad is a step beyond. Continuing to accuse them decades later after they were exonerated by DNA evidence is just evil.

We see that pattern time and again with Trump. He doesn't just inherit our cultural biases, he weaponizes them as a way to drag down others in order to feed his insatiable narcissism. And while that is bad enough in his personal life, which has been granted broad-ranging influence entirely by the circumstances of his birth, it is especially unacceptable when he tried to inspire a national movement to follow him.

The ability to change beliefs with the times isn't a bug, it is a feature.

 

Thank you for your acknowledgment.

 

Not $1 spent against him.

If he was the nominee, he'd have $100,000,000 in negative ads dropped on his head calling him racist, sexist, and most especially, anti-gay.

 

Please please nominate Pence in 2020.

No appeal with women. No inroads with Hispanics. Just another iteration of "we just need to repackage our appeal to midwestern whites in the right way."

 

Yeah, the Pence love affair is pretty funny. Imagine how his social conservatism is going to play four years from now. It's the Bernie Sanders/John Kasich phenomenon. Everyone loves the new guy.