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Scott Alexander gives a great breakdown of Trump and how the portrayal of him as being "openly white supremacist" is probably (likely) wrong.
I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he's "the candidate of the KKK" and "the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement" is made up. It's a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clinton was a secret Satanist. Yes, calling Romney a racist was crying wolf. But you are still crying wolf.
I avoided pushing this point any more since last October because I didn't want to look like I was supporting Trump, or accidentally convince anyone else to support Trump. But since we're past the point where that matters any more, I want to present my case.
He further states: "I realize that all of this is going to make me sound like a crazy person and put me completely at odds with every respectable thinker in the media, but luckily, being a crazy person at odds with every respectable thinker in the media has been a pretty good ticket to predictive accuracy lately, so whatever."
So do his claims hold up under scrutiny, is he manipulating the figures, or is he just a 'crazy person' ?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Saturday November 19 2016, @04:58PM
Perhaps, but what then of Clinton? Trump's views even if you take the media at its word, which you probably shouldn't, are probably not any worse than other people of his generation. But, the Clinton's mass incarceration of people of color under their get tough on crime policies were far and away worse.
What's more, they haven't apologized or even explained why she would have been different from her husband when he was President.
Also, Trump is a lot of things, but he's not a homophobe and it seems really strange to me that somebody who is a supporter of LGBTQ rights is being portrayed as a hopeless bigot. At bare minimum, that shows that he can grow as a human being as opposed to Clinton who only seems to grow when and in ways that the polling data demands.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:11PM
> What's more, they haven't apologized or even explained why she would have been different from her husband when he was President.
That's just false. They've both done it on television multiple times. She even said during the debate it was a mistake.
Furthermore her platform included a comprehensive plan for criminal justice reform. [hillaryclinton.com] Mass incarceration is the first issue mentioned on that page, literally the third sentence. But who cares about facts, amirite?
> that somebody who is a supporter of LGBTQ rights is being portrayed as a hopeless bigot.
Because if you aren't a bigot about everything then you can't be a bigot.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:39PM
Would that be her public personae that changed or her private one?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:14PM
Uh, yeah.
Rand Paul was similarly beaten with the racist stick
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/chris-hayes-rand-paul-racist_n_3570440.html [huffingtonpost.com]
and yet also supports criminal justice reform
https://www.randpaul2016.com/news/keep-pushing-criminal-justice-reform [randpaul2016.com]
so which is it then?
Well if the candidate is left, it is obvious proof that they are not racist, but if right, proof that you can be racist and support criminal justice reform (and obviously just for white people), amiright?
It's exactly this type of double-dealing that leads to the left being openly mocked- you too have racist in your midst, and wrapping yourselves in the cloth as free from any type of bigotry actual promotes racism, as there can be no honest discussion about racism.
And quite frankly, I care less that Trump might burn crosses in people's lawn as recreation as much as I'm concerned with actual polices. Stop and frisk is an abomination regardless of what race you are, but instead of holding his feet to the fire on that on constitutional grounds, the left resorts to petty name calling that does nothing, accomplishes nothing, and in fact makes the situation worse by directing the attention to identity politics (yes Esmeralda, that's racist too) instead of actual actions that affects people's lives.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Francis on Saturday November 19 2016, @11:36PM
No, because people who aren't homophobic are usually not racist. Racism is generally less socially acceptable than homophobia is. I'm sure there are examples out there of people that are racist, but not homophobic, but it's not something that's common.
As far as Clinton's campaign goes, that's a load of crap. I take it you haven't seen the video of her ejecting a black lives matter protester and then at the tail end of the video saying that she has to get back to the issues. Whether or not you consider the #BLM to be right, it's asinine to suggest that it isn't an important issue of the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXv6G6_d-lQ [youtube.com] this is just one of the videos, there are others with comentary by other groups, but she has shown no shame nor did she give anybody reason to believe that she's had a change of heart. I don't know why the black voters didn't show up for her as much as they might have, but, having made a lot of them felons over pointless BS definitely didn't help. It turns out that if you take away people's right to vote that they have a tendency to not show up to vote. Funny how that works.