Good Morning, everyone…
1. “Morning Joe” Scarborough went on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”-–where President Trump is officially referred to as Putin’s “cockholster”—and played to the anti-Trump audience by announcing that he was leaving the Republican Party as cheers rang out in Colbert’s echo chamber. More blatant pandering virtue-signaling and grandstanding would be hard to imagine.
Scarborough has followed up his short, undistinguished career as a conservative GOP congressman by playing on-air conservative foil to his supposedly opposite-minded co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC while that network attacked Republicans on every show and all day long. In really, we have learned, he and Mika were sufficiently sympatico to be having a romantic affair while posing as journalists, meaning that the whole format was an act as well as an extended date. Scarborough was also complicit in helping Trump to the nomination of Joe’s alleged party by promoting him until he had nabbed the nomination. Once the Miracle of November 8, 2017 occurred, Joe made the obligatory U-Turn.
Never mind: I don’t care how Scarborough or anyone else registers; what matters is if they have the integrity to vote for the best candidate whatever party he or she represents. I do care that Scarborough used the smear that President Trump is a racist, and expressing to Colbert his disgust that GOP lawmakers, he claims, have refused to admonish Trump’s “racist” statements and election promises. This is another sloppy chunk of the anti-Trump false narrative, and by resorting to it, Joe proves, not that he isn’t a Republican, but that he is a race-baiting character assassin.The evidence that the President is racist is elusive, but the smear is repeated among the resistance as truth so frequently that it has reached Big Lie status.
2. In February, the left-biased, Trump-reviling Huffington Post purported to list “16 Examples” of Trump “being a racist.” The whole campaign, his whole career,, with Democratic groups and activists repeating the slur for months, and this was what they could scrape up. (Spoiler: it’s pathetic…)
Some of his top advisers and cabinet picks have histories of prejudice.
The fact that this is #1 shows how weak the entire “Trump is a racist” claim is. Top advisors of virtually ever President have been accused of prejudice. The Huffington Post’s support for this claim is based on what political enemies of various individuals have alleged. There is no evidence that Jeff Sessions is “prejudiced,” for example. He was crucified for arguably racially-insensitive off-the -cuff comments made in private 40 years ago. Even if critics were accurate about Sessions, having an advisor or cabinet appointment who has a “history of prejudice” is not the equivalent of “being racist.” The Eisenhower Administration recruited a brilliant rocket scientist who wasn’t just accused of being a Nazi, he was one. Did that make Ike a Nazi? By Huffpo’s logic, it did.
Trump denied responsibility for the racist incidents that followed his election.
Of course he did…because he wasn’t responsible. Not playing the “when did you stop beating your wife” game is not “being racist,” it’s called “not being stupid.”
He accused the media of overstating the attacks.
HuffPo’s post went up in February. Many of the alleged hate-attacks have been subsequently shown to be hoaxes. It’s not “being racist” to accurately state the truth.
He launched a travel ban targeting Muslims.
Trump’s temporary restriction on travel from some Muslim countries was anti-terrorism, not anti-Muslim. A unanimous Supreme Court doesn’t think the “ban” is racist.
Trump has characterized people from that region of the world as being “terror-prone.”
Gee, why would he ever think that? Must be racist! (Warning: I may tire of this ridiculous list before I get through it.)
He attacked Muslim Gold Star parents.
Classic. Trump (stupidly) attacks anyone who attacks him, but if one of those attacks is on someone who isn’t as white as the Pillsbury Doughboy, it’s “being racist.”
He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican.”
Same thing. Trump, having been widely and falsely portrayed as being anti-Mexican, said that a Mexican-American judge might be biased against him…because Trump had been portrayed as anti-Mexican. That statement was many things, including ignorant, but not “racist.”
The Justice Department sued Trump’s company in 1973 for not renting to black people.
Ugh. An accusation is not a judicial finding. Trump’s company is not Trump.
Discrimination against black people has been a pattern throughout Trump’s career
Here’s what the virulently anti-Trump writer, Daniel Marans, calls proof of this: 1)Workers at Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, have accused him of racism over the years. (Accusations are not proof.) 2) The New Jersey Casino Control Commission fined the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino $200,000 in 1992 because managers would remove African-American card dealers at the request of a certain big-spending gambler. (That proved the gambler was racist, and that the casino was greedy and without principles. Not “racism.”) 3).”The first-person account of at least one black Trump casino employee in Atlantic City suggests the racist practices were consistent with Trump’s personal behavior toward black workers.”
There’s more: it’s all like this.
Trump has also faced charges of reneging on commitments to hire black people.
Charges are not evidence. Do you sense a pattern here? Recall yesterday’s post about the BLM leader claiming that a “Planet of the Apes” movie is racist. By the reasoning of this piece, it is.
Three times in a row on Feb. 28, Trump sidestepped opportunities to renounce white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke
Cowardly? Maybe. It is not “being racist” to refuse to jump through a hoop when the Left or the news media demands it.
The Trump campaign announced that one of its California primary delegates was William Johnson, chair of the white nationalist American Freedom Party. The Trump campaign subsequently said his inclusion was a mistake, and Johnson withdrew his name at their request.
Unless it can be shown that Trump himself knew about the delegate and knew his background, this is a ridiculous stretch—like the rest of the list.
After the election, Spencer’s National Policy Institute held a celebratory gathering in Washington, D.C. A video shows many of the white nationalists assembled there doing the Nazi salute after Spencer declared, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
Other people doing offensive things are Trump “being racist.” Wow.
Good advocacy there, Sparky.
He questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States.
…because any attack on President Obama, fair or (like this one) unfair, was by definition racist. We heard eight years of this from Democrats, Obama officials, African Americans and MSNBC. More: “In September, under pressure to clarify his position, Trump finally acknowledged that Obama was indeed born in the United States. But he falsely tried to blame Hillary Clinton for starting the rumors.”
(Hillary’s campaign did start the rumors….not that this excused Trump. But it also wasn’t “being racist” point it out.)
He treats racial groups as monoliths.
All politicians treat all groups as monoliths in their rhetoric when it suits their purpose. Hillary Clinton spoke of women as monoliths and Trump supporters as monoliths. This is not an example of “being racist.”
At the first presidential debate in September, Trump claimed African-Americans and Latinos in cities were “living in hell” due to the violence and poverty in their neighborhoods.
Of course, when community activists or journalists make the equivalent observation in more subtle terms, they are being responsible.
That’s it…that’s all I can take—the list is all like this. Of course it also includes the standard distortion of Trump’s statement that launched his campaign, claiming that Trump was condemning “immigrants” (he was talking about illegal immigration) and that he said that “all Mexicans are rapists and murderers.” (No, he didn’t.) The various incidents and statements show a man who is undiplomatic, rhetorically awkward, impulsive, ignorant and not very bright—but the evidence that he is “racist” is entirely based on confirmation bias and is desperately contrived. If the same standards were applied to, say, Joe Biden, his comments that candidate Obama was “clean” and “articulate” would be cited as Biden “being racist.”
By endorsing this smear campaign with Colbert, “Morning Joe” not only announced that he was not a Republican, he proved that he was not a journalist.
But we knew that…
3. The morning warm-ups risk becoming collections of issues I’m sick of writing about. Here’s one: James Comey’s self-admitted leak contained classified information. (In a typical sloppy tweet, the President termed the illegal disclosures “top secret,” allowing integrity-free Comey fans to shift the focus to another “Trump lie.”) Can’t do that! Now the complicit law professor who relayed Comey’s leaks is defending his pal by saying that there was no material marked classified.
Hmm…where have I heard that dodge before? As he did when Hillary’s attempted cover-up resorted to this deceit, Jonathan Turley eviscerates the dodge, while also pointing out that Comey himself had rejected it in Clinton’s case. Turley concludes…
Comey clearly leaked non-public information. While he claimed that his memo did not contain classified information, they reportedly did. The fact that he used a surrogate like Richman to leak to the media would not change the analysis. To use his own words, his actions at best showed extreme carelessness in violating the very rules that he imposed on others.
Ethics Alarms 
As for the bogus list of Trump racism “proofs”, anything claiming that anti-Muslim is racist ought immediately be discarded on the grounds that Islam isn’t a race or ethnicity.
3: Think about this. Comey knows about handling classified information so do you think he passed classified documents to someone to leak?
Do you think some memos were classified but not the ones he chose to leak?
Do you think some documents may have been classified after Comey’s firing for political reasons?
And, do you think Trump has any credibility when he makes accusations against people, or is he the sloppy type who would say one of 8 documents is classified, one document was leaked, ergo classified information was leaked despite knowing that it could have been one of seven non-classified memos?
From your own linked article
and from the text you quoted
Reported by who? Someone credible or POTUS?
This is the same kind of self-imposed blindness that I’ve been talking about for literally months, people desperately trying to spin for their team have exiled themselves to a place of non-understanding and wield their ignorance like a club.
Whether the memos were in fact classified or not is irrelevant, at a certain level of government, and “Director of the FBI” absolutely meets that bar, documents like those memos, all of them, are assumed to be “born classified” that is, even if there’s no magical classification fairy standing over Comey’s shoulder, stamping the pages he’s writing, the importance of his position means that he should assume the information is classified, even if it’s about yoga classes, until it goes through the classification process and deemed to not be.
What’s worse for him is that he doesn’t even have Clinton or grrl level ignorance to fall back on, he SAID as much during his press conference. He KNEW better. The only redeeming thing here is that he himself is not defending himself, probably because he knows he’s in the wrong, and willing to deal with the consequences.
“And, do you think Trump has any credibility when he makes accusations against people, or is he the sloppy type who would say one of 8 documents is classified, one document was leaked, ergo classified information was leaked despite knowing that it could have been one of seven non-classified memos?”
This is the same kind of sloppy just demonstrated by HuffPo’s article
this time done by Trump.
“Everyone does it” is a rationalization, and in this case apparently everyone does do it, but it’s still unethical. And beyond unethical it’s stupid and meaningless like a slap fight.
Your reality must be an… interesting one. I never said everyone does it. I believe that I strongly implied that accusations from Donald J Trump shouldn’t be taken at face value.
Nor should those made by HuffPo. You are indulging in the same sloppy crap that HuffPo is, that Trump is, and that apparently I am. We should stop slap fighting. Everyone is punch drunk.
“He treats racial groups as monoliths.”
Hilarious… I’ve been talking about the tendency on the left to treat black republicans like traitorous runaways from the Democratic vote plantation… And while they resent my phrasing, they’ll often own it, inadvertently, by immediately defending their treatment of those black people by saying that they’re behaving against their best interest, that they’re bad for other black people, that they just want attention, that they’re Uncle Toms…. With black people it’s the most obvious, but they’ll also say the same about women, gay people and other minorities…. Cast iron pot, meet stainless steel kettle.
1. I highly doubt valkygrrl, or any other lefty here, supports the type of treatment of black Republicans you’re describing.
2. The term “Democratic vote plantation” is not used by liberals. It is used by conservatives. And it’s racist. If you have a problem with people treating black Republicans as if they’ve “escaped the Democratic vote plantation,” take it up with conservatives, because they’re the ones saying that.
1. What the hell does valky have to do with that comment?
2. A pejorative term towards liberals isn’t used by liberals?! Shocking. I’m describing the behaviors of certain Democrats, and you’re more concerned about the way I describe it than the behaviors being described. And that’s why you’re wrong.
Am I not part of “the left?”
Do you feel that your name is synonymous with it?
Around here? I feel that when a commenter speaks of the left, that I’m being personally included, yes.
You’re not included when I do it. You are yourself and until you said that I have considered you reasonable and fair and to the left of most of my positions. Right and the left are terms use to simplify writing and should be viewed that way. I automatically think left when I hear the words Democrat, racist, pussy hat, elite university and the many words that conjure up twisting every concept I admire into evil conspiracy.
Where am I not to the left of you*? I’m slacking.
*American political meaning of left, AKA center-right to those godless commies** in the rest of the west.
**Humor, yay. Tee hee.
Are you NOT to the left of most of my positions? If you are why wouldn’t I consider that you are? Is it troubling you that I included it with reasonable and fair as a past consideration when I read your comments? If so consider it a problem with the way I expressed it. I used to consider you reasonable and fair and I have always considered you to be politically to the left of my opinions. Fixed it.
My humor meter is broken…except for bitter irony.
Most of your positions. Where am I NOT to your left? I’m worried that I might be to the right on something. The horror.
I think I need to apologize if I caused you to feel that way. If it helps, for future reference, unless you feel that you actually exhibit what I’m talking about, or if I actually mention you, I probably don’t mean it towards you, specifically. Although I find a lot of the left leaning commentators on here annoying at times, there’s a wide gulf between the respect I have for you and the disdain I feel for the mewling masses, and it’s entirely because you’ve earned it.
Accepted. I shall endeavor to take fewer of your comments personally.
Those mewling masses, as you call them are much like me. Except in the places where they’re wrong and should come around to my way of thinking… And them swear themselves to me and build me a palace, a tasteful one, but with like, a big hall where I can hear petitions. No dungeons though, a sturdy blockhouse will do.
Blockhouses look so… utilitarian 1970s communist.
Give me a dark, damp dungeon any day.
1. Sorry, I thought you were responding to her comment, but I can see I was wrong about that.
2. It isn’t a “pejorative term towards liberals,” it’s a pejorative term toward black voters. “Democratic vote plantation” implies black Democrats are slaves and black Republicans are escaped slaves. It’s racist.
Fine then. It’s racist. I’ll own it. And the moment people like you stop acting racist, I’ll stop using racist terms to describe their actions. You’re ignoring the inherent truths in the statement to get hung up on Semantics. Republicans don’t call black people “Uncle Toms”.
“People like me?” OK, in that case I go back to my argument #1, which is now suddenly relevant. Show me an example of me, or any lefty on this blog, treating black Republicans in the way you describe. You can’t. It’s possible that you’re using “people like me” to mean “liberals…” which is just stupid. I wouldn’t say “people like you” when talking about Republicans who do stupid shit I haven’t seen you do personally. Because that’s a shitty thing to do.
Republicans don’t call black people “Uncle Toms”.
No, they just say that black Democrats are slaves to the “Democrat plantation.” There is no difference, Humble. Either way you are denying blacks agency and insisting that there is only one proper ideology a black person can hold. I don’t like it when liberals do it, and I don’t like when conservatives do it either.
But right here, right now, the only person doing it is you.
You realize that despite your very high minded moral molehilling, you really haven’t dealt with the crux of my argument, right?
“Vote plantation” is racist? Ok. I Disagree. But I disagree with you so much about the way that People Like You (and I did mean liberals… Specifically ones that will ignore the stick in their eye to point out the speck in their brother’s.) that your labels have become meaningless to me. Meanwhile, you haven’t dealt with the fact that despite allegations that Trump is a racist for “treating black people as a monolith” The Democratic parts has been doing that for generations. When you say:
“Either way you are denying blacks agency and insisting that there is only one proper ideology a black person can hold.”
You’re taking part in some amazing projection. That’s the opposite of what I’m saying, I’m saying that (while black people do tend to vote as a block) that there’s nothing wrong with them holding any number of political positions. That the people who seem to have problems with them voting anything other than D, the people who call them race traitors, the people who call them Uncle Toms, the people who feel entitled to their support because of the color of their skin, are acting like slave owners. I mean “Vote Plantation” As a slur against ignorant Democrats, and if you fail to see that, that’s your problem.
Yep, ever since the incredibly apt analogy was produced, the goal is to claim it’s a slur against the voters, when it is clearly a characterization of the Democrats. But hey, if it hurts, just call the person a racist!
Humble Talent,
You are drawing a fine line, but I got your point. By way of illustration:
Remember when Harry Reid said he didn’t know how any Hispanic voter could be a Republican?
Who is the racist: Harry Reid, or Humble Talent, who talks about a how the left castigate conservative Hispanics who try to leave the Democratic Voter Barrio?
Did I get that right?
-Jut
I… think so… I’m not familiar with “Barrio”, but it feels right.
Look, not to beat a dead horse, but when Chris says “Either way you are denying blacks agency and insisting that there is only one proper ideology a black person can hold.” I roll my eyes.
See, I think everyone should agree with my politics, I think I’m right, I don’t think that’s unique to me, and I accept that I won’t convince everyone. What I don’t do to that thought is put a demographic modifier on there. I don’t think, for instance, that “black people” or “gay people” or “women” specifically should vote like I would, but that’s the crux of what any Democrat referring to people like Larry Elder as an “Uncle Tom”, or suggesting that Ayaan Hirsi Ali should have her vagina removed because she “doesn’t deserve to be a woman”.
I suppose my point could at the very core be: Treating people like they’re defective examples of their demographics because they don’t behave as you think they should is vile, and a calling card of the Democratic party.
I cannot speak for Humble Talent, but I think it is an accurate representation of how many on the Right see it.
I will go further – anyone who makes a judgment based on a person’s ethnicity, whether it’s arguing that someone is privileged because they are white is being racist.
Humble Talent,
You are drawing a fine line, but I got your point. By way of illustration:
Remember when Harry Reid said he didn’t know how any Hispanic voter could be a Republican?
Who is the racist: Harry Reid, or Humble Talent, who talks about a how the left castigate conservative Hispanics who try to leave the Democratic Voter Barrio?
Did I get that right?
-Jut
Jut, I wouldn’t call either gentleman “the racist” for those comments. But I would consider both comments racist.
And now making it all the way up to number 2 on the rationalization list this week, we have Humble Talent performing, ‘they’re just as bad.’*
*Read in Casey Kasem’s voice*
Look… Saying that being stabbed twice is worse than getting stabbed once is not a rationalization. The rationalization would be saying that being stabbed once isn’t bad, because you could have been stabbed twice. I’m not saying that Trump is right to treat black people as a monolith because Democrats have been doing it for generations,
I’m saying that Democrats are being hypocritical for attempting to use “monoliths” as an indication of racism. It’s like someone saying that stabbing people is wrong while actively stabbing someone.
You rationalized your own racist statement, one that you admit is racist.
I think he facetiously admitted it was “racist” because he’s desperate to get a conversation moving with Chris past the traditional conversation stopping retort of the Left.
Perhaps he should try starting over without resort to or defending of inflammatory and/or racist rhetoric. It isn’t the best way to start or move a conversation. One might even consider it counterproductive.
That is, unless being inflammatory not conversation is the goal.
Given the point he was making, it seemed to be an apt analogy.
And to be clear… Stabbing people IS wrong, so the stabber isn’t wrong in saying so…. It’s just… A fantastically bizarre thing for him to say at that point.
-“Democratic vote plantation” implies black Democrats are slaves and black Republicans are escaped slaves. It’s racist.-
There is a certain elegant historical continuity to it, given that Democrats wanted to keep slaves and Republican freed them.
“and black Republicans are escaped slaves”
Or at least views black Republicans as freemen.
Yes, and Democrats today still pine for the glory of the South and proudly wave the Confederate fla–
Oh, wait.
“Yes, and Democrats today still pine for the glory of the South and proudly wave the Confederate fla–”
uh, they do in the deep South, Chris. And in East Texas, for that matter.
Typical debate foul: take semantics as the point instead of the intent of the comment.
Note, can be used by both sides, but is a progressive favorite.
Wow. That got shifted far down the thread.
The above was in response to HT:
“I’m describing the behaviors of certain Democrats, and you’re more concerned about the way I describe it than the behaviors being described. “
I don’t follow any part of # 2.
A) HT has a problem with how the left treat blacks on the right (a problem I share).
B) He uses a phrase that you dont like, and believe originated on the right…a phrase that, possibly may be crude, but was obviously still used to describe behavior by. the. left.
C) You respond by telling HT to take up his issue with the BEHAVIOR (“If you have a problem with people TREATING black Republicans …”), a behavior that you never denied is possibly perpetrated by the left, with conservatives b/c conservatives refer to behavior by the left in terms that you think originated with them, but you never making the claim that the behavior is somehow tied to them.
How would conservatives explain the actions of liberals to HT just b/c they use a phrase you don’t like?
And the other part I don’t follow…Why is it racist? Would it be racist if the analogy were just, “traitorous runaways from the plantation”? If so, why? This isn’t a slur, its a reference to the very real mindset of slaveholders, who thought that a slave wanting to express their independence was traitorous for leaving the “care” of the slaveholder. You dont need me to explain that to you, I’m certain, but is your stance than analogies that reference distasteful past actions are wrong? Is anyone who compares Trump to any number of notorious world leaders, wrong to so?
Or is it the “Democratic vote” part? To me, all that does is give the analogy the needed phraseology to make sense in this context.
I don’t honestly see why HT making that comment is racist, but maybe that’s the problem…I’m considering this from my POV. Which begs the question: If I made that comment, is it still racist? And if you think so, would you honestly have called me out for it? And if the answers to both of the above are “yes”, would it be equally racist when the less-educated, more threatening black teen on the street were to say it, and would you call them out for it?
And if the answers to all 3 of those questions are “yes”, go back and re-answer them, this time more honestly.
Dang…I had no idea how late I was to this thread, or how long it already was. #SadFace
ANd yet your comment has been read, digested and appreciated for its solid contribution.
By the by, I recommend the 5th Column podcast, if you don’t already listen to it and are into podcasts.
It may be stereotyping or prejudging or microaggressing on my part to assume you’d appreciate his commentary, but the main host, Kmele Foster, an African American who seems to have the exact same attitudes regarding race in a America that you have (and I have).
I feel trigger-gressed-pressed…I suppose that should cover all of the outraged feelings I am supposed to feel. 😉
I certainly will check that out. In the summer time, since Im not teaching, I pass the time and make extra money by walking dogs…which leave a loooot of time for podcasts.
Thanks!
I know realize that the huge caveat “It may be stereotyping or prejudging or microaggressing on my part to assume you’d appreciate his commentary…” made the assumption that you were to infantile to handle a suggestion that COULD be construed by someone as being a microaggression, so in my attempt to pre-apologize for microaggressing I was actually microaggressing.
Damn, it’s hard being a guilt laden white person.
Life in post-post-racial America is hell.
Crap, this whole post is just a micro-aggression for assuming you couldn’t tell that I was now trying to explain I wasn’t intending to microaggress to begin with.
Where do I buy progressive guilt indulgences?
How do I stop!!!!??
I hear you owning up to your minority-belittling, microagressing ways, and while there’s nothing you can do to cleanse of 300+ years of oppression, seeing as how you are still responsible for making amends, you may mail your reparations check to: c/o Chis Bentley, P.O. Box 33546, Ellicott City, MD.
And if I’ve learned anything from CNN, its to include the caveat: I reserve the right to request more funds, should I improperly waste this money, but still feel oppressed.
I somehow find a way to misspell my own name. Nice.
First of all, it’s 400 years plus!
More importantly, your story has stirred something deep within; you set up for paypal?
Rule number 1: microaggressions are bullshit
Rule number 2: see rule number 1
🤡
Chris B., thanks for the challenging questions as always.
The majority of African-Americans are Democrats. If one says that the Democrats treat African-American voters as slaves on the “Democratic plantation,” what does that say about the majority of African-Americans? It implies that the majority of African-Americans are allowing themselves to be treated as slaves. In addition, many leaders in the Democratic Party are African-American. The NAACP is almost entirely Democrat. Our last Democratic president was African-American. That’s why the explanation that it is only an insult toward the left, not towards African-Americans, does not work for me. With the level of support that the left has among blacks, the “plantation” metaphor does not make sense unless you think the majority of black voters and black politicians are consenting to be treated as slaves.
And yes, I would find the metaphor racist no matter who said it. People make racist statements about their own races all the time.
1. I’m trying to picture your reaction would be if a prominent left-wing host–Bill Maher, maybe–went on the air and declared that he was leaving the Democratic Party due to his exasperation with the “Resistance.” Ethics Hero?
2. Trump’s temporary restriction on travel from some Muslim countries was anti-terrorism, not anti-Muslim. A unanimous Supreme Court doesn’t think the “ban” is racist.
I really wish you would stop misrepresenting the Court on this issue. The statement that the “Supreme Court doesn’t think the ban is racist” is just as speculative and unsupportable as your headline about their decision a few weeks ago. You have no idea if they think the ban is racist, because that issue wasn’t addressed in their decision. Presumably when they rule on the constitutionality of the law in October, the question of bigotry will arise.
I agree with you that much of the list is unconvincing, but you hurt your own credibility when you attack it with statements that are equally untrue.
He attacked Muslim Gold Star parents.
Classic. Trump (stupidly) attacks anyone who attacks him, but if one of those attacks is on someone who isn’t as white as the Pillsbury Doughboy, it’s “being racist.”
This is obtuse. The nature of the attack was clearly bigoted, though I’d call it Islamophobic rather than racist. (tex is right; Islam isn’t a race or ethnicity.) Trump invoked stereotypes about Muslim women when he said “Maybe she wasn’t allowed to speak.” Attacking someone with stereotypes about their social group is bigoted.
Saying “Trump attacks anyone” could be used as a defense against charges of misogyny too; why, then, do you call him sexist for his attacks on women? Because in that case you are able to understand that the nature of those attacks are specific to women. Why can’t you understand the same thing when he attacks Mexicans and Muslims in explicitly bigoted terms?
He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican.”
Same thing. Trump, having been widely and falsely portrayed as being anti-Mexican, said that a Mexican-American judge might be biased against him…because Trump had been portrayed as anti-Mexican. That statement was many things, including ignorant, but not “racist.”
He said that the judge could not be trusted to judge him fairly because of his ethnicity. That fits nearly everyone’s definition of “racism” but you, Jack.
He questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States.
…because any attack on President Obama, fair or (like this one) unfair, was by definition racist.
No, and this is also obtuse. “Any attack” on the first black president wasn’t by definition racist; baselessly claiming that the first black president was a secret foreign-born usurper–when he had already given legal proof that he was born in the U.S.–is racist and xenophobic. Again, you’re refusing to look at the nature of the attack.
He treats racial groups as monoliths.
All politicians treat all groups as monoliths in their rhetoric when it suits their purpose. Hillary Clinton spoke of women as monoliths and Trump supporters as monoliths. This is not an example of “being racist.”
Have any of them ever referred to a supporter as “my African-American?” Do you find referring to someone like that racist? I do.
At the first presidential debate in September, Trump claimed African-Americans and Latinos in cities were “living in hell” due to the violence and poverty in their neighborhoods.
Of course, when community activists or journalists make the equivalent observation in more subtle terms, they are being responsible.
But they don’t make “the equivalent observation.” Trump appears to think all black people live in the inner city. He has tweeted false stats about black-on-white crime that don’t make any sense, and could only be believed by a racist. Exaggerating real problems in the black community in order to spread fear is racist, just as exaggerating real problems regarding illegal immigrants in order to spread fear is xenophobic, just as exaggerating real problems regarding the relationship between Islam and terror to spread fear is Islamophobic. This is not a hard concept to understand.
3. So you’re just…back to believing whatever the Trump administration tells you. That’s fun.
“1. I’m trying to picture your reaction would be if a prominent left-wing host–Bill Maher, maybe–went on the air and declared that he was leaving the Democratic Party due to his exasperation with the “Resistance.” Ethics Hero?”
Maybe. I suppose it would depend on his reasoning. I think you’re failing to see the forest for the trees. If someone said they couldn’t support a party that nominated Trump, because Trump was unprofessional, held policy positions that were irreconcilable to theirs, and you know, attacked them personally on Twitter… I think we could all get behind that. Trump isn’t a good president…. There are so many legitimate reasons to attack him it never fails to blow me away when people stoop to cheap shots and lies about him. Lying for a good cause is still lying, it’s unethical, and it undermines the points you’re trying to make.
“No, and this is also obtuse. “Any attack” on the first black president wasn’t by definition racist; baselessly claiming that the first black president was a secret foreign-born usurper–when he had already given legal proof that he was born in the U.S.–is racist and xenophobic. Again, you’re refusing to look at the nature of the attack.”
And you’re refusing to look at the context. At the time, Hillary’s campaign had made overtures that Obama was from Kenya, and Trump latched on to that and ran with it. On it’s own, that could be seen to be racist, in form if not design, if not for his future treatment of Ted Cruz, a pasty white dual citizen who Trump argued for a very long time might not be a natural citizen because of his Canadian heritage. It’s what Trump does… It’s shitty, but it’s not racially informed.
Maybe. I suppose it would depend on his reasoning. I think you’re failing to see the forest for the trees. If someone said they couldn’t support a party that nominated Trump, because Trump was unprofessional, held policy positions that were irreconcilable to theirs, and you know, attacked them personally on Twitter… I think we could all get behind that. Trump isn’t a good president…. There are so many legitimate reasons to attack him it never fails to blow me away when people stoop to cheap shots and lies about him. Lying for a good cause is still lying, it’s unethical, and it undermines the points you’re trying to make.
There was no “lie.” Calling Trump racist is an opinion, and as I have demonstrated, a supportable one, though not for every reason HuffPo trots out.
And you’re refusing to look at the context. At the time, Hillary’s campaign had made overtures that Obama was from Kenya, and Trump latched on to that and ran with it. On it’s own, that could be seen to be racist, in form if not design, if not for his future treatment of Ted Cruz, a pasty white dual citizen who Trump argued for a very long time might not be a natural citizen because of his Canadian heritage. It’s what Trump does… It’s shitty, but it’s not racially informed.
Some day you will stop blaming Hillary Clinton for Trump’s actions…
It was one guy on the Hillary campaign, who wasn’t even with the campaign for long. And then it was over, relegated to the right-wing fringe. Trump revived it and dragged it out for years. And yes, it was racist when the Hillary staffer did it too. Conduct doesn’t just become not racist because “other people are doing it;” that’s a rationalization. And the fact that he did it later to a white guy–for a much shorter amount of time, and with much less force–doesn’t mean he wasn’t dealing in racism when he spent years on a phony “investigation” into Obama. (The attacks on Cruz’s citizenship were, by definition, xenophobic.)
“There was no “lie.” Calling Trump racist is an opinion, and as I have demonstrated, a supportable one, though not for every reason HuffPo trots out.”
You made my point… Trump very well might be a racist. Which means he should exhibit some obviously true racist behavior, but instead, HuffPo trots out weak-sauce conjecture. If someone is so self-evidently bad, you shouldn’t have to do that, it undermines your argument.
“Some day you will stop blaming Hillary Clinton for Trump’s actions…”
There are very few of Trump’s actions I blame Hillary for, but in this case, I’m more than willing to give credit where it’s due. It was one guy, and he was on her campaign, and there’s no doubt in my mind that without that one guy operating under her direction that the birther controversy would not have rolled out the way it did. Donald Trump isn’t famous for independent thought, pretending he would have come to the same place without stimulus is naive.
“Conduct doesn’t just become not racist because “other people are doing it;” that’s a rationalization.”
Yes… But that’s not the argument I’m making… I’m saying that Trump did the same thing to a white person. He didn’t do it to Obama, or Cruz, because of the color of their skin, he was appealing to a nationalist base. If Obama had been white, and Hillary’s campaign has suggested he had been born in Australia, I believe that it would have unrolled similarly.
Perhaps… And this is conjecture, but I believe it likely…. Perhaps it would have gotten less traction with voters had Obama been white, it didn’t seem to go very far with Cruz. But Trump doesn’t pick which messages get traction.
Embarrassing comment. I expected the equivalent from Deery.
A few random comments because you knee-jerking really isn’t worth more effort.
1. I’m trying to picture your reaction would be if a prominent left-wing host–Bill Maher, maybe–went on the air and declared that he was leaving the Democratic Party due to his exasperation with the “Resistance.” Ethics Hero?
“The Resisitance” threatens the democracy and our institutions. Any Democrat with integrity should oppose it, Still waiting for you to show some. Maher doing so infront of his left wing seals would be herioc. Joe going on Colbert and bashing the GOP and Trump is pandering. You don’t see the distinction? Have someone explain it to you.
2. “Trump’s temporary restriction on travel from some Muslim countries was anti-terrorism, not anti-Muslim. A unanimous Supreme Court doesn’t think the “ban” is racist.”
I really wish you would stop misrepresenting the Court on this issue. The statement that the “Supreme Court doesn’t think the ban is racist” is just as speculative and unsupportable as your headline about their decision a few weeks ago.
No, it’s not. If SCOTUS thought it was racist, it would have upheld the injunction. Think. HuffPo said it WAS racist. SCOTUS’s unanimously agrees that you can’t say it IS racist. And as you say inthe following section, if it is religious descrimination, it still isn’t RACIST, now, is it? I do know SCOTUS doesn’t think it’s racists, because even the court opinions opposing the band say nothing about racism. Apply some damned rigor, for God’s sake. This is hackery.
3. This is obtuse. The nature of the attack was clearly bigoted, though I’d call it Islamophobic rather than racist. (tex is right; Islam isn’t a race or ethnicity.)
So it’s not racist, as I said. The post was about whether Trump is RACIST, Chris. Did this not register? You call this a rebuttal? Did I argue that Trump wasn’t bigoted? If he attacks a woman, he says mean things about women. If he attacks a Muslim, he says mean things about Muslims. None of which is racism. It’s playground taunting. You’re hilarious! How can you say that wasn’t racist, although I agree that it’s not racist.
4. “Trump invoked stereotypes about Muslim women when he said “Maybe she wasn’t allowed to speak.” Attacking someone with stereotypes about their social group is bigoted.”
Maybe she wasn’t allowed to speak! Go ahead, deny that Islam is an oppressive anti-woman culture. Go ahead, I can’t wait. His comment was rude, but alluding to facts isn’t bigoted. Women are oppressed subjugated, relegated to second-class status raped and worse with the approval of the Koran. It’s politically incorrect to say so, but it is also true. A massive point of hypocrisy for the Left.
5. He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican.”
Same thing. Trump, having been widely and falsely portrayed as being anti-Mexican, said that a Mexican-American judge might be biased against him…because Trump had been portrayed as anti-Mexican. That statement was many things, including ignorant, but not “racist.”
He said that the judge could not be trusted to judge him fairly because of his ethnicity. That fits nearly everyone’s definition of “racism” but you, Jack.
No, and that statement is ignorant as hell. My business is conflict of interest. Judges who have a personal connection to a litigant, real or claimed, have a conflict issue. A gay judge ruling on a gay marriage case may be biased. A Mexican-American who has read for months that a President thinks his country of origin is full of rapists and murderers can be biased on the basis of his ethnicity.
Your argument is demonstrably brain-dead or dishonest. Trump could claim bias if his judge was a fat womna, like Rosie O’Donnell. He could claim bias from a short judge because he called Rubio “Littel Marco.” He could claim bias from a Canadian-American judge because he was mean to Ted Cruz. Get the pattern, Chris? All of those claims would be a stretch at best (though I think a gay judge should be ruling on gay marriage), but none would be based on any kind of bigotry.
You know, I get really tired of having to knock down cheap arguments that I’m pretty sure you’re too smart to actually believe. This is one of them. Losing litigants use Judges’ relatives, past employers, ethnic backgrounds and many other things to assume bias, and none of that involves racism. Stupidity or a lack of understanding of how judges work maybe.
The rest of your comment is no better.
“The Resisitance” threatens the democracy and our institutions. Any Democrat with integrity should oppose it, Still waiting for you to show some. Maher doing so infront of his left wing seals would be herioc. Joe going on Colbert and bashing the GOP and Trump is pandering. You don’t see the distinction? Have someone explain it to you.
And I would consider a party that has no problem with their party leader colluding with a foreign government to win an election a threat to democracy and our institutions. But to you, publicly opposing such a party is “grandstanding.” This is a partisan analysis, Jack, not an ethical analysis.
I’ll give the point to you on “SCOTUS doesn’t think it’s racist;” you’re right, they probably would have brought that up.
So it’s not racist, as I said. The post was about whether Trump is RACIST, Chris. Did this not register? You call this a rebuttal? Did I argue that Trump wasn’t bigoted?
You said he “attacks anyone who attacks him,” which seemed to indicate you didn’t think it was bigoted. And you’ve argued it wasn’t bigoted before.
Maybe she wasn’t allowed to speak! Go ahead, deny that Islam is an oppressive anti-woman culture. Go ahead, I can’t wait. His comment was rude, but alluding to facts isn’t bigoted. Women are oppressed subjugated, relegated to second-class status raped and worse with the approval of the Koran. It’s politically incorrect to say so, but it is also true. A massive point of hypocrisy for the Left.
Jack, stereotypes don’t become magically good just because there are real problems within a social group. Let’s try this with hypothetical statements about other social groups:
Trump on a Mexican speaker who stutters: “Maybe he never learned English!”
Trump on a black speaker who speaks in a hurry: “Maybe he’s late for a bank robbery!”
Trump on a gay speaker who cries during his speech: “Maybe he’s sad because he has AIDS!”
Now, I highly doubt you’d respond to any of these comments with “Maybe Trump is right! Go ahead, deny that Mexicans/blacks/gays don’t have a problem with assimilation/crime/disease. Go ahead, I can’t wait. His comment was rude, but alluding to facts isn’t bigoted.”
You can understand that real problems within a subculture don’t justify stereotyping and bigotry for most subcultures. But you can’t understand that when it comes to Islam.
No, and that statement is ignorant as hell. My business is conflict of interest. Judges who have a personal connection to a litigant, real or claimed, have a conflict issue. A gay judge ruling on a gay marriage case may be biased. A Mexican-American who has read for months that a President thinks his country of origin is full of rapists and murderers can be biased on the basis of his ethnicity.
Your argument is demonstrably brain-dead or dishonest. Trump could claim bias if his judge was a fat womna, like Rosie O’Donnell. He could claim bias from a short judge because he called Rubio “Littel Marco.” He could claim bias from a Canadian-American judge because he was mean to Ted Cruz. Get the pattern, Chris? All of those claims would be a stretch at best (though I think a gay judge should be ruling on gay marriage), but none would be based on any kind of bigotry.
No, they all would be based on bigotry. Assuming a judge can’t rise above any kind of social tribalism in order to make a fair ruling is bigotry.
“And I would consider a party that has no problem with their party leader colluding with a foreign government to win an election a threat to democracy and our institutions.”
This is an idiotic statement, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I have no patience with this.
There remains no evidence that President Trump “colluded with a foreign government to win an election.” None whatsoever.
Again you embarrass yourself.
I won’t bother to read a comment that starts out that dishonestly and cretinously. If you want a response, hold your fake taking points until the end,
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Hmm. formatting problem kills comment. Must mean I shouldn’t have said it.
Was it a stream of consciousness litany of swear words?
The other day I stubbed my toe…like the kind of stubbing where whatever it was I kicked went *between* my two little toes and for all intents and purposes had the force necessary to tear my little toe off my foot…only it didn’t.
I went to the floor and, to my shame, a stream of consciousness litany of swear words followed.
I only wish my formatting had caused it not to be audible.
Sense of humor restored. Thanks.
““And I would consider a party that has no problem with their party leader colluding with a foreign government to win an election a threat to democracy and our institutions.”
This is an idiotic statement, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I have no patience with this.”
It’s the “Just keep repeating something over and over again in spite of being soundly debunked” tactic we’ve all come to loathe.
Well, I’m beyond loathing. It’s insulting, and wastes my time and everyone else’s.
“And I would consider a party that has no problem with their party leader colluding with a foreign government to win an election a threat to democracy and our institutions.”
Veeeery interestiiiing!
and un-self aware, to be sure, when we KNOW the Democrats have a history of ‘pay-to-play’ in the closet. No, that was not about elections, until you realize where the money went… into an election.
“He was crucified for arguably racially-insensitive off-the -cuff comments made in private 40 years ago.”
Now it’s 40???
The Gold Standard, the “Paula Deen Look Back Period,” used to be 27 years.
Did I miss the memo/update, has Lefty moved the goal-posts again?
The standard is “if the political opposition says something that can be spun negatively it is fair game”.
I mean, let’s pretend like someone on the left said of Barack Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Now we know, a statement like that would get a political opponent of the Left drawn and quartered. But I bet someone on the Left could say that and potentially become the Vice President.
The real question: Does such a double standard actually exist?
I have read President Trump accused of being racist becuase of the print ad he purchased.