No, Donald Trump isn’t a racist. Mexicans aren’t a race. He wasn’t targeting Mexicans as a race, his campaign focused on anti-immigration and Mexicans were the most obvious example.
This is like the “Islam isn’t a race so you can’t be racist against Muslims” argument. It’s pedantic and completely misses the point. Mexicans and ‘Hispanics’ are obviously a racial category in people’s minds. They aren’t ‘white’. They are ‘other’ than white. Like if you said “a white dude and a Mexican dude walk into a bar” everyone knows what you’re talking about. Trump obviously played off peoples’ mistrust of alterity in his campaign rhetoric. I think you really have to shut your eyes tight not to see this.
I wonder if you ever talked to a Trump supporter in your life rather than listening to what CNN tells you.
Yeah, I argue with Trump supporters all the time. I don’t know why you think I watch or read CNN. I despise CNN.
You keep saying that SJWs are not “real leftist,” yet you keep using the same arguments they use.
No, my politics are different than ‘SJW’ politics. I am not saying “white men are bad, minorities are good”. I’m not saying “white men are privileged and need to apologize for it”. I’m not trying to censor or ‘cancel’ anybody. I’m not doing any of these things at all. If you’re paying attention, I’m saying Rogan should be more responsible about how he uses his platform. I like Rogan and I like his show. But I can’t deny the negative impact certain segments have on the real world.
Moderate leftists realize that Trump’s success can mostly be attributed to the white middle class’ economic problems and their sentiments of disenfranchisement. Those are rational points, not the “Trump is a racist because he said X and Y.”
We actually have research now that shows pretty conclusively that vote-switching to Trump was motivated primarily by racial antipathy rather than economic hardship. The loss of cultural ‘status’ and fear of ‘replacement’ were a huge part of this phenomenon. Now I don’t at all deny that economic factors are bound up in this. As a materialist, I think almost all cultural trends have a material basis. You simply cannot decouple globalization, neoliberalism and deindustrialization from white working class resentment.
The alt-right now supports Andrew Yang. Does that mean that Yang is tapping into people’s underlying racism? I sure hope not!
No, not at all. And the difference is I have seen Yang come out strongly and unequivocally against it. He is clearly uncomfortable with their support whereas Trump gives a ‘nod and wink’ to it. The YangGang is mostly a bunch of nihilistic 4Chan guys who still hate Jews and minorities but figure at least they’ll get $1k per month with Yang. In their eyes, immigrants are still flooding the country and Trump is giving foreign aid to Israel. So fuck it.
It’s actually sort of funny watching the split in the alt-right community. Some of the ‘ironic nihilist’ memers who still support Trump are actually getting upset about the YangGang and it’s forcing them to take serious policy positions and ‘care’ about something. They come off as dopey ‘moralfags’, in the old ‘Anonymous’ parlance. Very entertaining. Disgusting, but entertaining for sure.