I agree with everything you've written here except for the one italicized sentence. I think we fundamentally agree on Trump's character, and are basically havi

I agree with everything you've written here except for the one italicized sentence. I think we fundamentally agree on Trump's character, and are basically having a discussion about semantics at this point. However, I do feel it can be a useful discussion. The people who write the N word and "Trump" all over someone's car are clearly racist. The people who say, "We don't want those people in our town. It's not a race thing, it's just that they're using up all the resources, and ruining the culture, and when I drive by the playground now, there aren't even any white kids there anymore," are probably racist, but legitimately don't believe they are. Trump may well be racist, but mostly he's opportunistic and self-centered, and in my opinion that's what his comment about the judge showed. The problem is, calling that comment racist cheapens the condemnation of the writing-on-car guy. It also causes the second group to write you off as out of touch, ensuring they won't listen to anything else you say on the matter. Even calling that second group racist, while true, is most likely counter-productive. Most people with racist (or sexist, or homophobic..) beliefs honestly believe they don't have "any problem with those people", so labeling them in that way again just shuts down the dialog, and if anything hardens their views. And what ultimately matters is that people treat each other decently, so we need to choose both actions and language that are most likely to encourage that.