Covid Support Thread
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Omg. I know that *some* Trump voters have changed their minds and regret their decision, I’ve read interviews with them. Great. But they are still people who are racist or tolerant of racism, or they wouldn’t have voted for him in the first place. Or perhaps they’re JUST sexist. Either way, not my cup of tea, and I don’t think they’re good people or responsible citizens. They did this with their votes in 2016 or lack of a vote. We didn’t have to be in this horrible painful situation right now.
I don’t get your argument that they can’t be racist if they voted for a Black man. They also voted for a fucking racist. They apparently did whatever they thought was in their own self-interest at the time. You can work for a Black boss or marry a Black spouse and still be racist.
And stop calling them racists. People who voted twice for Obama simply are not racists. Why in the world do you think racists would vote for Obama. It makes ZERO sense. If I thought they were racists, I would ignore them. It seems you strongly supported Hillary and can’t believe any right-minded, non-evil person could not vote for her. I know a lot of people, like myself, who voted for her with absolutely zero enthusiasm. It was a year of awful choices. I made up my mind on whom I thought was the more awful choice. Not everyone made that same choice and they are not all evil, as you want to paint them. It’s like conservatives complaining about why liberals don’t criticize abuses in China or Pakistan (but never mention Saudi Arabia) every time we dare to criticize civil rights abuses in the United States. It’s because you can’t caveat every criticism and because we think a pile of shit stinks more and is more our responsibility when it is lying on the floor of our own tent. I’m telling you that, right or wrong, that is how many Dems felt about Hillary and the Clinton crowd who controlled the party organization. They weren’t racist, or sexist — they would happily have voted for Michelle Obama or Elizabeth Warren — they just saw it as very important to clean up our own shit.
BGM — I can’t disagree with a word of that. As I said way upthread, Biden is not my guy. I am aghast that my choices narrowed down to 70+ guys. Pete would have been fine, not my first choice, definitely better than Biden or Bernie. I’m a Boomer and I am more than done with Boomers running politics. I am closer to the center than I suspect you are. The only primary candidate we contributed $ to in the presidential primaries was Klobuchar.
It’s not about Hillary. You and Mark insist on making it about her. She was the not-evil choice. She could have been any decent candidate. I wasn’t a Hillary stan, but I respected her and thought she’d be a good president who wouldn’t destroy the country.
If you voted for Trump, you proved you’re cool with racism. Period. Voting for Barack Obama previously doesn’t change that.
Kate–
People see candidates differently, focusing upon different promises and different attributes. One did not have to be a racist to vote for Trump. One certainly can fail to care greatly about the scourge of racism and vote for other reasons. Trump promised a lot of things. He violated a great many of those promises. But go on, keep calling out everyone who fails to proclaim that anyone who voted for Trump once is a racist or ok with racism, and insist that we denounce them for one vote, even though they voted twice for our first black president. And you worry that Trump will win again. If all of us on the progressive side adopt your absolutist approach and denounce these swing voters as racists, then Trump’s re-election becomes a certainty.
Dimwitted Trump is an ignorant buffoon who knows next to nothing about politics or the world in which we live. Much of his own party leadership was steadfast against him. And yet he won.
It took a decidedly mediocre opponent for that to happen.
HRC was handed a god damn political cakewalk! Instead, she stumbled and tripped the entire way making more missteps than really bad dancer who had been made to wear both a blindfold and earplugs.
Ron, I still think they’re racist. You have not changed my mind. I also still think rioters have a great reason to be angry enough to riot and loot. White men have done the oppression and the killing and the keeping people down for centuries.
I respect somewhat where you’re coming from wrt winning the election. But I’m just not at all swayed from my opinion, formed over 4 years now of watching and listening to these people, that they were not just fine with racism and made a conscious choice to support it.
But Ron – they are racists. They may not feel they are racist, but they are sitting in their little bubble and what they’ve said is “I like PoC and I believe in equality, but it’s OK to vote for a blatant racist, if that means I get mine.” Voting for a racist is a racist act. You are saying that racism is ok and if you’re saying racism is OK, then you are a fucking racist.
In the past week we are hearing a very clear message from people “It’s not enough to say you’re not a racist – you have to actively be anti-racist.” And that means, when you hear someone say that Mexico is sending us “very bad people, rapists and murderers” you say “That is fucking racist as hell and I will not support you, even if I think I’ll financially do better, I can’t allow someone who is so fucking blatantly racist to have my vote.”
Who the fuck are ‘these people’ you’ve listened to for 4 years. My guess is they are Republican/Trump core diehards, not the swing Obama voters who stayed home or voted for Trump. The guy I had the hardest time convincing to vote for Hillary iw not at all racist, not at all sexist, hated Clinton and was souring on Obama — because they are not nearly strong enough progressives for him and too willing to deal with the devil as you would describe it. He is as absolutist as you are. We call him our liberal’s liberal and Obama was not going to fully satisfy him short of a banker hanging from every light post in Manhattan and universal health care funded fully by the government and all of the health insurers and drug companies nationalized, regulated utilities, or out of business. In other words, leftist absolutist who despises corporatism and foreign wars and thought that enough reason not to vote Hillary, even with Trump as her opponent. He was a tough sell. Which is one reason I refuse to accept your casual conclusion that anyone who stayed home or voted Trump is a racist or accepting of racism. You don’t know what causes an individual to vot ea they do and, far worse, you are disinclined to even try to understand.
And I am not saying that I agree with their reasons, but I understand them. One can be so opposed to the slaughter of innocents in the Middle East by our country and the senseless turning upside down of Libya and Syria leading to the deaths of millions, that a candidates likely racism may not be the most important thing to you in the moment. I believe in democracy, which I mean each individual gets to decide how they vote, for their own reasons. I try to influence as many people as I can, but I know that when the curtain closes, whatever is most important to them in that instance or whatever they fear the most, will determine how they vote. I may be disappointed, but i won’t curst them as you do. I’ll try to get their vote in the next election.
I’m a lot closer to the end of life than any of you. It is you who should have the longer view. I don’t disagree that there were ample signs Trump was a racist. I see his birtherism boosterism as concrete proof, along with his comments on Central Park Five after DNA exonerated them, and his companies violation of housing laws.
I’m simply unwilling to label as racist a person who votes for Obama twice and then votes for Trump as a racist. That’s not how racists behave. A racist would never vote for a black man for president. To me, that is nonsense. And it is not the equivalent of ‘some of my best friends are black’. These are people who twice entrusted their country and their personal futures to a black man — a black man with little real experience, but whose thoughts and words and promises touched something in their souls.
Part of the Obama-Bernie-Trump triumvirate, as unalike as they are, is that they promised change. One reason Trump won is that Hillary virtually promised that there would be no major change.
People craved change and a shaking up of the establishment. That doesn’t make them racists. It can make their craving for change extremely, existentially dangerous. That’s how Germany got Hitler. An unthinking quest for change can be a very dangerous thing and can block out other considerations.
“These people,” I mean articles about people who voted for Trump and changed their mind afterward. I know they’re out there, but like Leslie said, they decided racism worked for them.
I mean, you’re close to end of life as you say. If you want to believe someone heard trump say what he said about Mexicans and Muslims and supported him anyway isn’t racist, that is fine.
