Racism Is Why Trump Is So Popular

octopus_ink@lemmy.ml to politics @lemmy.world – 497 points – Racism Is Why Trump Is So Popular
theintercept.com

Lots more good stuff with citations in the article, but this bit really ties it all together:

 

The right-wing obsession over racial demographics becomes obvious in the “pro-natalism” movement, which advocates for conservatives to have more children to take control of society. The mission of the movement is “to build an army of like-minded people, starting with their own children, who will reject a whole host of changes wrought by liberal democracy,” according to a fascinating recent story in Politico.

For the right wing, pro-natalism means looking for every possible means to increase the white percentage of the nation’s population. Through this lens, it’s not hard to see why Republicans remain virulently anti-immigration and strictly opposed to abortion.

Those two issues may appear unrelated, but in fact Republican positions on both stem at least in part from white demographic fears. Republicans want to halt the rise in the nonwhite population by curbing immigration. At the same time, they hope their abortion bans will boost domestic birth rates — staving off white demographic decline. They also want to ban contraceptives and no-fault divorce, forcing women to stay in marriages and have more children.

The Republican Party’s white nationalism is often justified in religious terms, since much of this agenda designed to enhance white power stems from the party’s Christian fundamentalist base. Along with Protestant evangelicals, the Republican religious base now includes fundamentalist Catholics, who stridently oppose abortion.

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Racism is the only reason why the entire Republican party is so popular

LBJ nailed how the Republican party gets poor people to vote against their financial interests. It’s all hatred of the other (black people, women, gays…etc)

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

I firmly believe that every person should have that printed on a card in their pocket, and refer to it every time Trump or a Republican says something.

I think the left and the right could benefit from a little heart-to-heart chat. Each side seems to have built up a mental caricature of the other.

Ok.

The Right: We want women to lose their physical rights, to have immigrants all removed from the country, to ban all porn, change all non-partisan roles into Right-wing party ones, to massacre education funding, reduce climate change mitigation efforts to zero then double down on more polluting, and in general create a real-world Gilead. Also cops should be able to kill anyone they want.

The Left: We want to protect those people, and not unfund those things, a-

The Right: See, you won't work together to help us create a white nationalist state! You're not arguing in good faith!

The Left: Sigh Ok then, we wa-

The Right: They're so nasty, aren't they, the Left? So nasty! When we have their people attacked, they fight back! So violent and nasty!

The Left: We t-

The Right: Yes, focus the cameras on me, not my opponent, especially not when they're speaking! I will create a perfect utopia of perfection like none other!

The Left: W-

The Right: And we'll stop the illegal immoral war on Oil and Gas, while we abandon Ukraine to Russia and Palestine to Israel!

The Left: Frowning, leave to prepare the guillotines

While entertaining, the hypothetical conversation appears to put words in the mouths of the other side.

When I sail my ship into conservative waters, those are not the arguments that I see being made.

We cannot allow them to take the term “pro-natalist” because it allows them to paint anybody who disagrees as “anti.“ Just like they can claim anybody who isn’t “pro life” is “anti-life.“ People need to stop giving them these PR wins.

“We’re for family values” = I am against families

“We’re for law and order” = I am against it

It forces us non-weirdos to introduce the nuance of what their terms actually mean which is a losing prospect.

Interesting thought. Do you have suggestions on how to counter nationalists seizing the label "pro-natalist"?

You can use an alternative term like “anti-choice” while reporting on them. You can also insist on defining the term whenever you use it. “Pro- natalists, who believe that unwilling women should be forced to give birth”, something like that.

You don't get to decide. Your oligarch controlled media do.

The Republican Party’s white nationalism is often justified in religious terms, since much of this agenda designed to enhance white power stems from the party’s Christian fundamentalist base.

Wait til they learn that Jesus wasn't white

And nothing says "love thy neighbor" like racial supremacism.

Their white supremacist, conservative, hateful, supply-side Jesus is weird. I'm an atheist but I much prefer the hippie, anti-materialist, socialist, anti-establishment Jesus I was grew up hearing about.

Heh. 😀

They think an election was stolen and that climate change and covid are hoaxes, so I'm doubtful they are capable of believing that no matter what evidence was provided.

When someone believes those things, it's probably not even the work of their conscious mind to just dismiss it out of hand when someone tells them Jesus wasn't white.

Trump's helicopter story is a different black dude:

“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.

“I guess we all look alike,” Holden told POLITICO, letting out a loud laugh.

Trump’s absolutely losing it, and we’re seeing his flailing and failing brain on display more everyday.

My theory on why he thinks Kamala “was Indian” and “turned Black one day” is that he’s fully confused Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris in his brain, and has conflated the two into one person.

And that's even scarier because we'll get rabid pro-life Vance who's going to wage a literal war on women and childless.

So, what color is Trump? White or orange? He needs to make up his mind. I'm confused.

Racism is a reason because the working class, or useful idiots from other classes, are abused and exploited by robber barons who need a scapegoat and distraction.

Most republican policies have been and continue to be hostile towards the working class. So what’s a convenient way to distract from that? Oh hey, that other poor fuck exactly like you is the reason I am stealing from you.

There’s no war but class war.

It's always "Immigrants stole your job" and never "The CEO hired an immigrant instead of you".

More like, the ceo doesn’t pay a living wage to immigrants or non immigrants alike. Immigrants are not necessarily cheaper, fyi. American workers need to unionize, it’s ridiculous that there aren’t more unions.

and the politician gave them a special visa for it that the employer can boot them out with for any reason, so they can treat them worse and pay them less

Transphobia is more publicly visible in his base.

That's because many of them are old enough to remember a time when you were supposed to be quiet about your racism because you knew the rest of society would shame you for it.

Unfortunately, America has never reached the point where a majority of people felt shame about their transphobia, so in their minds it's okay to be more open about that.

That and there is just a huge amount of stupid lemmings that are dumb as rocks.

Everyone including the media paint a picture that's it's just Trump .... it's just his followers ... it's just a political party ....

None of what they are doing or saying would be possible without the full support and financing of very wealthy and rich elites.... and none of it would be possible without the support and sometimes encouragement, acceptance and justification of a very pliable media, who are all owned by the same wealthy and rich elites.

How's the saying go? "There's no war but class war?"

Why does he insist on wearing such comically long ties?

Iirc long ties are supposed to make the wearer look slimmer, elongated, slinky or swift.

But the red makes it stick out too much, turning the intended positive effect into void.

I wonder how well this even works. I've seen a lot of folks who grew up in weird cults who rejected the whole thing.

Generally speaking, you're more likely to stay within a cult your were born in than joining one you weren't. Having as many children as possible is cult founding 101.

But for every one of them, how many of their peers are still in it? I'm the only one from my generation who got out of my terrible religious upbringing.

I don't know. It's a legitimate question because for every story I hear about people walking away, how many stayed and never told their stories. That's not a question I'm in a position to answer, just pose.

He stoked the flames of racism because Obama won the election and built up a nice little cult out of that. Dude got clowned by Obama at a white house correspondence dinner and it hurt is feewings

If they want to stop non-whites from becoming the majority, then why oppose abortion and birth control? All the non-white people already here will have more kids too. Do they not understand that?

I think this every time it comes up. But maga logic never really works, there's no point in looking for consistency.

Yeah, I think this article has an important message that needs repeating, but I don't buy this angle from it. Empowering men to control women has always been a simpler argument. Cultural reinforcement of "traditional" family and gender roles stem back to that, too.

Racism is not the reason Trump is popular, it's part of why he's not popular. Obviously, a premise of the article's argument is that Trump is popular in the first place, which is demonstrably not true. He lost two popular votes against 2 candidates who were themselves already extremely unpopular. In fact he lost so badly that of the 12 major party candidates to run in the 21st century, he came in 10th and 11th, only beating out John McCain's 2008 chaotic performance against the popular Obama. And according to some polls, he may give McCain a run for his money this year.

So we shouldn't be asking why Trump is popular, we should be asking why he's unpopular. I'd argue racism is no longer popular in the US, in fact there's been majority support among white people for interracial marriage since 1995. Trump grew up and became popular in a much more racist era than today, and that harms his popularity.

Regardless of the popular vote, racism is why he has such a rabid cult following, and it's why he won the Republican nomination.

I think what they may be trying to say is that the majority of Trump supporters are not the rabid followers. This is why they are so dangerous. The majority of his support is not the crazy people you see on TV. They are your friends, family and coworkers, your neighbors, people you know.

Trump is selling a solution to the political corruption that nearly EVERYONE is sick of. This is what makes him popular. The people voting for him will tolerate non-direct racism but they aren't choosing that side because of it. What you hear about from the media is the crazy people that make good stories.

And yes, Trump brings along a con-crew with their own agenda who are just as corrupt as those that Trump complains about. They've been scheming long before Trump, he's just the current tool.