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Posts like this play directly into Trump's hands. The entire Trump ideology is based on a belief that "real Americans" are being oppressed by a sinister "global
by apsec112 10y ago
Posts like this play directly into Trump's hands. The entire Trump ideology is based on a belief that "real Americans" are being oppressed by a sinister "global elite". Demanding that Trump supporters be fired tells everyone that the "elites" are a) scared of Trump, b) can't win through arguments and have to resort to intimidation, and c) are a powerful, dangerous group which is hostile to average people, who need someone to protect them from this sinister force. Which is all, of course, exactly what Donald Trump wants them to believe.
Daily newspapers have endorsed Clinton by a margin of 147 to 2. It should be obvious, over a year after the Trump campaign started, that anyone voting for Trump isn't going to be dissuaded by yet another article calling him racist. Indeed, I think many Trump supporters back him because of all the articles calling him racist. "They" must be scared of Trump (the logic goes), or else "they" wouldn't spend so much effort attacking him, so Trump must be the only "truly independent" candidate who will "fight the system".
If you don't believe me, look at eg. this comment on /r/The_Donald, which was voted up to #1 on a recent Peter Thiel article:
"True story. I once hung out with a group of lesbians (most my friends are male), and when they found out I didn't agree with them politically, they told me they were taking away my dyke card. Thankfully there are a LOT of gays who give no fucks about the 'lgbtqjseflelkf community', and just live their lives like anyone else. This article is nothing more than typical democrat tactics. 'YOU'RE NOT A REAL <insert minority> UNLESS YOU DO WHAT WE SAY.' REMEMBER IF TRUMP WEREN'T A REAL THREAT, THEY WOULDN'T BE THIS DESPERATE." (emphasis in original)
The same tactics have been used against Trump over and over and over, for more than a year now, and his support is still pretty much where it was during the summer. Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over and over, and expecting different results.
- cerebrum 10y ago> The entire Trump ideology is based on a belief that "real Americans" are being oppressed by a sinister "global elite". Yes there is in fact a campaign of elites against Trump, in case you don't believe that I suggest taking a look at the recent wikileaks.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoOr how Clinton has a disdain for your average American voter? And plans to push through trade agreements that hurt the very Americans whose vote she's trying to get? I can't imagine why half the country won't vote for her. I know minorities and women who will still vote for Trump after everything that has happened; perhaps it'd be wise if you dislike Trump to understand why that is and what has brought us to this point instead of putting your head in the sand.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rfrey 10y agoWhat are Trump and Thiel if not "elites"? So it seems the elites are campaigning against each other.
- jessaustin 10y agoAt times I've suspected this entire cacophony of anti-Trump vitriol was just a ploy to convince the plebes that he isn't one of TPTB... What would really change under Trump? Coke and Pepsi taste the same to me.
- cerebrum 10y agoChange: no WW III. Seems good enough of a difference to me.
- rtpg 10y agothe alternative to denouncing outright support for racist and sexist position is accepting it as normal political speech, which sounds worse. There's this trope that attacking this position doesn't harm (or even helps) Trump, but polling has shown the contrary. The scandals involving his comments about women, about the muslim veteran, his mocking of a reporter with disabilities, have always been followed by drops in polling for him. His tax policies, a bit less so. Talking about how Trump's positions are terrible cause his numbers to go down. If that's not effective political speech, I don't know what is. EDIT: Nate Silver made this point better than me in a mini-tweetstorm (tweet-shower?) https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/784777881482170368 https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/784777881482170368
- Bartweiss 10y agoDenouncing, sure. But what we're seeing is a push to fire, exclude, and not engage with Trump supporters. Think of how many people insist that they don't know a single Trump voter. That's not something which hurts his candidacy. It convinces his supporters that they're under attack (they literally are), and encourages people to keep silent rather than admit that they like any of what he says. Ignoring him might have worked at 5% in the polls, but at ~50% you need to engage his supporters. That doesn't mean treating his positions as 'normal', but there's plenty of room between that and firing donors and banning campaign signs.
- rtpg 10y agoRight, polling shows that 95% of Romney Voters are voting Trump (or at least this was the case a couple weeks ago), so excluding everyone is a bit much. There are many degrees of support to be given, as well. Thiel is not just a Trump supporter though, he's a major donor. Out there doing fundraising and fullheartedly defending Trump's positions through money. At what point do you have to actually take responsibility for your actions if not after writing a million dollar check? At what point does SV decide that having someone materially supporting a fascist as a major player in the community is not super hot? Fun side note, there was some polling done that showed that Americans are now extremely unlikely to date someone who supports a different political party.
- tptacek 10y agoTrump supporters believe in a batshit conspiracy theory. That doesn't mean reasonable people should change their behavior to mitigate those concerns.
- bbayles 10y agoOne concern with this line of argumentation: reasonable people shouldn't have to change their behavior, but rational people might want to. That is, suppose you believe (as I do) that D.T. and his supporters are quite dangerous. If they are using my behavior to gain strength, it behooves me to change my behavior!
- tptacek 10y agoSometimes, perhaps. But not if that change in behavior itself gives support and comfort to bigotry, deception, and authoritarianism, as it would here.
- Bartweiss 10y agoI'm deeply uncomfortable with the narrative where support for Trump is a basis for excluding a person from discussion and employment. He's a major party candidate, supported (if sometimes disliked) by roughly half the population. That's not a number of people you can fire or silence! The usual argument runs that this time is unique, that Trump has embraced racism and violence and his major-party status should not bury that. That he is effectively (sometimes "literally") a facist, and should be treated as such. I think it's an inadequate, alarming response. Just about half of voters will back Trump. At that scale, silencing and marginalizing them is impossible, so whether it's moral doesn't really matter. Shunning influences people when it cuts them off from their social circles, but most of the people embracing shunning admit they know 0-1 Trump supporters. It's not going to marginalize anyone, just deepen a divide between the groups. Even if Trump were quite literally Mussolini 2.0, firing and shunning his supporters wouldn't end his candidacy. In fact, refusing to engage with facists has historically pushed them further, letting them build their beliefs unopposed. I respected Altman's explanation. It doesn't matter that Trump is different, or that Thiel donated an exceptional amount (particularly since it was in line with his wealth). Firing people for simple support or donations makes this problem worse, so no amount of importance is a justification.
- tptacek 10y agoNobody is suggesting excluding Trump supporters from employment.
- jessaustin 10y agoWould anyone be shocked if that came up in Part II? Brendan Eich wouldn't be...
- tptacek 10y agoThere's no political argument that you can't turn into a slippery slope like this. You can get to Brendan Eich with just a few more hops from a starting point of "refusing to donate to Trump". So that argument isn't very interesting. What might interest you more is that I agree with you about Brendan Eich. I think Eich's situation is nothing at all like that of Thiel's. Eich was a full-time employee of Mozilla. From what I know of the situation, Eich hadn't made any of his employees at Mozilla uncomfortable. Eich's support for Proposition 8 was quiet: people dug it out of a database to use against him. And while I disagree with the stance he took against marriage equality, opposition to marriage equality doesn't challenge equal access to the channels of democracy. Eich wasn't campaigning to remove the Muslims from our country, or to imprison those who disagree with him. What happened to Eich was wrong. But nothing like that is happening here.
- macspoofing 10y ago>Posts like this play directly into Trump's hands. I'm not sure that's true. Trump is a narcissist who wants to be loved. He's not trying to be hated. What these posts do is create or reinforce cultural and political divide in a very ugly way. The message is that if you're a Trump supporter you're immoral and because you're immoral there's no way to compromise with you. The author may get brownie points from other members in his bubble, but his attitude is destructive and should be stopped. All you're doing is incentivising lying about political beliefs and further radicalizing conservatives.
- webXL 10y agoWell put. I could write a 500-word post attacking Marco and all Hillary supporters for this behavior, but that's not going to change any minds. We're much better off scrutinizing ideas rather than candidates who frequently change their ideas based on who's listening or their chances to get into/hold onto office.
- PopsiclePete 10y agoIf his support is unchanging, the "global elite" have nothing to worry about, as long as people show up to vote on 11/8.
- mikeash 10y agoTrump's support is way down from the summer. 538 had Trump and Clinton pretty much even at the end of July. Right now they predict an 87.4% chance of a Clinton victory, with about a 7% difference in the popular vote (which, for modern elections, is a pretty big margin). The highly partisan nature of American politics puts a pretty hard floor on what any major candidate can expect for support. The Democrats or Republicans could run a half-eaten bagel for President and they would still get about 40% of the vote. It's no coincidence that this is about the level where Trump is polling right now. Sure, posts like this just reinforce Trump supporters' beliefs. But so what? They're going to vote for him anyway. 80% of the electorate knew which way they were going to vote before the primaries even began. Nothing is going to sway them. What matters is convincing the 20% in the middle. They're rejecting Trump pretty hard right now, and pointing out how horrible he is certainly seems to be helping.