4 ms·

1. Kudos to him for putting in the "Edit" about the inaccuracies in exit-poll data, but it's a really big "Edit" and casts doubt on most of his initial premise.

by SamBam 10y ago

1. Kudos to him for putting in the "Edit" about the inaccuracies in exit-poll data, but it's a really big "Edit" and casts doubt on most of his initial premise. 2. No mention of Bannon? This article was written yesterday, and we knew Trump had chosen Bannon to be his right-hand man long before then. 3. No mention that Trump believes that an American judge of Mexican heritage can't judge him? Of the birther claims? Or of playing to white fears with completely make-believe images of "inner cities" being war zones? 4. The jiu jitsu over saying that banning "All Muslims" from entering the country isn't really racism because "most Muslims are white(ish)" is nonsense. 5. And yes, it is special pleading. The author goes out of his way to explain things in a way that is unique to Trump: > 15. Don’t we know that Trump supports racist violence because, when some of his supporters beat up a Latino man, he just said they were “passionate”? > When Trump was asked for comment, he tweeted “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country”. > I have no idea how his mind works and am frankly boggled by all of this, but calling violent protesters “passionate” just seems to be a thing of his. I think this is actually a pretty important point. Trump is a weird person. Oh. Ok. He doesn't support beating up people. He's just "weird." ---- Edit: Also the author seems to have confused two statements of "passion." Trump's tweet about "small groups of protesters" was made just the other day. Instead, after the beating up of the Latino man, he said "I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate, they love this country, they want this country to be great again." Note that not only is he calling those men "passionate," he is essentially justifying their actions by bringing up their "love of country," which is particularly telling in the case of men beating up an immigrant.

maxerickson 10y ago
At least a couple of the other arguments also have problems. He tweeted twice about the protests: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/donald-trumps-twitter-responses-to-the-anti-trump-protests-were-contradictory-and-disconcerting/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/do... The first one was dismissive, the second one was supportive. Why not discuss them both? The other one that jumped out at me was the taco bowl. I'm pretty sure lots of racists like tacos, tacos are delicious. So liking tacos doesn't say a whole lot. I'd go so far as to say that ham-fisted pandering using a taco bowl says more than liking tacos.
- SamBam 10y ago
  And the taco-bowl picture is captioned with "I love Hispanics!" Most people don't talk this way, but everything he says about minorities lumps them together: "The Hispanics." "The Blacks." "The Muslims." > “I have a great relationship with the blacks, I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” [1] > “The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they’re going to love Trump.” [2] > “I’m doing good for the Muslims,” [3] [1] http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/14/6471219-trump-i-have-a-great-relationship-with-the-blacks http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/14/6471219-trump-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-border_us_55b17c0be4b0224d8831ac3a http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-border_us_5... [3] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-don-lemon-cnn-interview/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-don-lemo...
  - jerf 10y ago
    "If you classify people into ethnic groups, you're a racist" is waaaay too powerful to use to prove "Trump is a racist". Unless you're willing to accept that pretty much everyone is a racist. Which perhaps some people are ready to accept, but it's not a very useful classification at that point.
    - SamBam 10y ago
      It's more that showing him tweeting "I love Hispanics" is an unintentionally hilarious way try to prove that someone isn't racist.
      - iainmerrick 10y ago
        I'm seeing this criticism in a few places, but in context, it's a strong argument, and in fact a nice summary of the piece as a whole: What if there’s a candidate who does something more like, say, go to a KKK meeting and say that black people are inferior and only whites are real Americans? We might want to use words like “openly racist” or “openly white supremacist” to describe him. And at that point, nobody will listen, because we wasted “openly white supremacist” on the guy who tweets pictures of himself eating a taco on Cinco de Mayo while saying “I love Hispanics!” In other words, if this guy is already a 10 on the racism scale, what do we do when somebody even worse turns up? Do a Spinal Tap and turn it up to 11?
tptacek 10y ago
How seriously are we meant to take an article on Trumpist racism that includes: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Note how totally non-racist this statement is. I’m serious. It’s anti-illegal-immigrant. But in terms of race, it’s saying Latinos (like every race) include both good and bad people, and the bad people are the ones coming over here. It suggests a picture of Mexicans as including some of the best people – but those generally aren’t the ones who are coming illegally. It's not just that Alexander chooses as the first words following Trump's most famous racist quote "note how totally non-racist this statement is", but also the degree to which his logic insults the reader's intelligence. Mexicans "include some of the best people" (note that Trump didn't say that --- he said that their best people don't come here), just not the ones who come here illegally (note that Trump didn't say that --- he's talking about all Mexican immigrants). Alexander's own paragraph isn't even coherent on this point!
- scrollaway 10y ago
  I also disagree with that section but why do you feel it affects the article as a whole? For that matter, I disagree that the article is about "trumpist racism"; that's just a symptom of what it talks about.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    The whole article is like this. It's just a sequence of showily contrarian takes that fall apart when you read them closely. The author is counting on you not doing that, just like Steve Bannon is counting on Americans to just take his word for it when he says he has nothing to do with the "alt-right".
    - NhanH 10y ago
      You're just nit picking on his writing at this point (the part about "best people"). Instead, if you think it doesn't hold, can you explain how Trump's quote would be categorically different than the 2 other quotes he has in that section?
NhanH 10y ago
Can you explain the problem with Trump's comment with the judge for me please? Assuming that Trump thinks/ knows he's being offensive to Mexican at large, wouldn't the idea of a judge, even an American one, with some relations to Mexico might not be impartial toward him be a reasonable idea? Is it the notion of a judge being unprofessional to the point of biased an unacceptable thing to imply?
- SamBam 10y ago
  For the same reason we don't say that a black judge is unqualified to judge on issues regarding race. Do you agree that such a suggestion in that case would be out of line?
  - NhanH 10y ago
    I actually didn't know, so I went ahead and did a quick search on your example. On [0], it does mention a case with that situation. > In 1974, Federal Judge Leon Higginbotham issued his decision in Comm. of Pa. v. Local 542, Int'l Union of Operating Engineers, explaining why he as an African American judge with a history of active involvement in the civil rights struggle was not obligated to recuse himself from presiding over litigation concerning claims of racial discrimination. Further thought and I agree that the judge should not need to recuse himself from said case (in your question). However, that's a distinction on whether the suggestion itself is out of line. In the quoted snippet, the judge did have to point out an explanation for his sitting it, so at the least, there seems to be some consideration for the suggestion. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification
    - SamBam 10y ago
      It is out of line, because the suggestion is only being made to the black (or Mexican, or female, or...) judge. Has a white judge ever needed to explain why he didn't excuse himself on a case regarding race? Why not? Why is the white judge the default "impartial" judge, and the black (or Mexican) judge the one who is assumed to harbor bias? (Edit: An in your example, it's really the "active involvement in civil rights struggle" that is more pertinent, not his race. We judge people by what they do, not the color of their skin or the origin of their grandparents.)
ant6n 10y ago
I think the main point the article makes, and maybe I'm willing to come around on it, is that the term 'overt racism' when referring to Trump is maybe exaggerated. Maybe it is 'only' 'subtle racism', while 'surrounding himself with open racists'. But another issue that this article completely ignores is the subtle sexism that permeated the Trump campaign. Catch phrases like 'Trump that Bitch'; or when Guiliani says "Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails?" Note this was distorted by people on the left to show that Guiliani is openly sexist by ending the quote after 'woman', and pretending it didn't continue. But as a full statement, this juxtaposition of man and woman, one glorified and the other dismissed, phrased as a rhetorical question, actually reads pretty sexist to me. I also tend to think the alt-right movement much bigger than the 50K that the author claims. It's not very monolithic, there are many related off-shoots. For example, the associated /r/TheRedPill has 170K members, and that's just one of them.

by SamBam 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

At least a couple of the other arguments also have problems. He tweeted twice about the protests: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/donald-trumps-twitter-responses-to-the-anti-trump-protests-were-contradictory-and-disconcerting/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/do... The first one was dismissive, the second one was supportive. Why not discuss them both? The other one that jumped out at me was the taco bowl. I'm pretty sure lots of racists like tacos, tacos are delicious. So liking tacos doesn't say a whole lot. I'd go so far as to say that ham-fisted pandering using a taco bowl says more than liking tacos.

SamBam 10y ago
And the taco-bowl picture is captioned with "I love Hispanics!" Most people don't talk this way, but everything he says about minorities lumps them together: "The Hispanics." "The Blacks." "The Muslims." > “I have a great relationship with the blacks, I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” [1] > “The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they’re going to love Trump.” [2] > “I’m doing good for the Muslims,” [3] [1] http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/14/6471219-trump-i-have-a-great-relationship-with-the-blacks http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/14/6471219-trump-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-border_us_55b17c0be4b0224d8831ac3a http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-border_us_5... [3] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-don-lemon-cnn-interview/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-don-lemo...
- jerf 10y ago
  "If you classify people into ethnic groups, you're a racist" is waaaay too powerful to use to prove "Trump is a racist". Unless you're willing to accept that pretty much everyone is a racist. Which perhaps some people are ready to accept, but it's not a very useful classification at that point.
  - SamBam 10y ago
    It's more that showing him tweeting "I love Hispanics" is an unintentionally hilarious way try to prove that someone isn't racist.
    - iainmerrick 10y ago
      I'm seeing this criticism in a few places, but in context, it's a strong argument, and in fact a nice summary of the piece as a whole: What if there’s a candidate who does something more like, say, go to a KKK meeting and say that black people are inferior and only whites are real Americans? We might want to use words like “openly racist” or “openly white supremacist” to describe him. And at that point, nobody will listen, because we wasted “openly white supremacist” on the guy who tweets pictures of himself eating a taco on Cinco de Mayo while saying “I love Hispanics!” In other words, if this guy is already a 10 on the racism scale, what do we do when somebody even worse turns up? Do a Spinal Tap and turn it up to 11?

tptacek 10y ago

How seriously are we meant to take an article on Trumpist racism that includes: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Note how totally non-racist this statement is. I’m serious. It’s anti-illegal-immigrant. But in terms of race, it’s saying Latinos (like every race) include both good and bad people, and the bad people are the ones coming over here. It suggests a picture of Mexicans as including some of the best people – but those generally aren’t the ones who are coming illegally. It's not just that Alexander chooses as the first words following Trump's most famous racist quote "note how totally non-racist this statement is", but also the degree to which his logic insults the reader's intelligence. Mexicans "include some of the best people" (note that Trump didn't say that --- he said that their best people don't come here), just not the ones who come here illegally (note that Trump didn't say that --- he's talking about all Mexican immigrants). Alexander's own paragraph isn't even coherent on this point!

scrollaway 10y ago
I also disagree with that section but why do you feel it affects the article as a whole? For that matter, I disagree that the article is about "trumpist racism"; that's just a symptom of what it talks about.
- tptacek 10y ago
  The whole article is like this. It's just a sequence of showily contrarian takes that fall apart when you read them closely. The author is counting on you not doing that, just like Steve Bannon is counting on Americans to just take his word for it when he says he has nothing to do with the "alt-right".
  - NhanH 10y ago
    You're just nit picking on his writing at this point (the part about "best people"). Instead, if you think it doesn't hold, can you explain how Trump's quote would be categorically different than the 2 other quotes he has in that section?

NhanH 10y ago

Can you explain the problem with Trump's comment with the judge for me please? Assuming that Trump thinks/ knows he's being offensive to Mexican at large, wouldn't the idea of a judge, even an American one, with some relations to Mexico might not be impartial toward him be a reasonable idea? Is it the notion of a judge being unprofessional to the point of biased an unacceptable thing to imply?

SamBam 10y ago
For the same reason we don't say that a black judge is unqualified to judge on issues regarding race. Do you agree that such a suggestion in that case would be out of line?
- NhanH 10y ago
  I actually didn't know, so I went ahead and did a quick search on your example. On [0], it does mention a case with that situation. > In 1974, Federal Judge Leon Higginbotham issued his decision in Comm. of Pa. v. Local 542, Int'l Union of Operating Engineers, explaining why he as an African American judge with a history of active involvement in the civil rights struggle was not obligated to recuse himself from presiding over litigation concerning claims of racial discrimination. Further thought and I agree that the judge should not need to recuse himself from said case (in your question). However, that's a distinction on whether the suggestion itself is out of line. In the quoted snippet, the judge did have to point out an explanation for his sitting it, so at the least, there seems to be some consideration for the suggestion. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification
  - SamBam 10y ago
    It is out of line, because the suggestion is only being made to the black (or Mexican, or female, or...) judge. Has a white judge ever needed to explain why he didn't excuse himself on a case regarding race? Why not? Why is the white judge the default "impartial" judge, and the black (or Mexican) judge the one who is assumed to harbor bias? (Edit: An in your example, it's really the "active involvement in civil rights struggle" that is more pertinent, not his race. We judge people by what they do, not the color of their skin or the origin of their grandparents.)

ant6n 10y ago

I think the main point the article makes, and maybe I'm willing to come around on it, is that the term 'overt racism' when referring to Trump is maybe exaggerated. Maybe it is 'only' 'subtle racism', while 'surrounding himself with open racists'. But another issue that this article completely ignores is the subtle sexism that permeated the Trump campaign. Catch phrases like 'Trump that Bitch'; or when Guiliani says "Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails?" Note this was distorted by people on the left to show that Guiliani is openly sexist by ending the quote after 'woman', and pretending it didn't continue. But as a full statement, this juxtaposition of man and woman, one glorified and the other dismissed, phrased as a rhetorical question, actually reads pretty sexist to me. I also tend to think the alt-right movement much bigger than the 50K that the author claims. It's not very monolithic, there are many related off-shoots. For example, the associated /r/TheRedPill has 170K members, and that's just one of them.