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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Just Said that Wages Will Have an Impact on Racists.
Wow. I guess the economic anxiety of the Neo-Nazis will be soothed with more money.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)VermontKevin
(1,473 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Meanwhile, the hateful rhetoric continues and women and POC are under attack everyday.
VermontKevin
(1,473 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)To sound less harsh. People were speculating he was afraid people would blame him for that baseball game shooter? I don't know, it's just not a good look.
mythology
(9,527 posts)It's a supported premise.
http://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/far-right-parties-always-gain-support-after-financial-crises-report-finds/
Humanity has an exceptionally long history of proving that it's really easy to cover economic or othrr issues with hating some other group. Whether it's Germans deciding that Jewish people were the cause of economic problems, or Milgram's experiments proving that people can be pressured into shocking people, or the Rwandan genocide, or the brutality in the Yugoslavian wars. We (yes including almost all of the people who swear left, right and sideways that they wouldn't) have the capacity for evil inside us.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)loyalsister
(13,390 posts)And people who work more than one job are especially unimpressed by those numbers.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)And although he brought great improvement, racism grew exponentially. It's not economic anxiety. No matter how desperately people want to paint it as such, it's not accurate.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)it is a denial of US and even world history to dispute that there is a connection between economic anxiety and racism.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Especially since economically we have a big variance to the pattern you're pointing to. It's basically a reversal of the pattern and that has nothing to do w Obamas skin color? Oh please. It's fear of the future, not a reaction to anything real.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)There has been a major hunger problem in my state and high poverty. Somehow the people having those experiences were unconvinced when he talked about great economic indicators.
I'm talking about people who have difficulty feeding their kids. What they don't want to hear is cheerful bragging about how great things are for everyone else. Then the rhetoric about jobs good being stolen was pushed hard along with the enduring talking point about a disappearing middle class.
The republicans successfully shifted the blame from congress to their fellow citizens of color. It was very convenient for them that there were people who were still not doing so well with the black manager. The republicans tapped into the big lie that white supremacists have always been selling. The one dad and grandpa repeated regularly about the negative influence of racial advancement on their employment and potential for success.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Seriously? Can't do that. His skin color is why people were so easily turned against him. Why they could ignore the reality in the ground.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)You're excusing the scumbags
The erosion of middle class buying power started 35 years ago!
Most of these clueless drones weren't even born yet
They're dickheads because they've chosen to be dickheads!
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)There are people working more than one job and barely surviving. Adults with at least one child have to have an income of less than $5000 annually before they qualify for Medicaid. They can pay rent and pay the fine or buy health insurance.
That is by design. The republicans refused to expand Medicaid. The people I'm talking about have barely enough energy to get through the day. They are reasonably pissed and would rather blame an outside force than their families.
It's as popular to blame them for our conditions as it is for many of them to blame minorities. Different target, same m.o. and the same brand of hate.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)I'd surmise they were already racists.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)I'm not saying they didn't harbor the same kinds of racist attitudes I see even among people who claim not to be. I'm saying that they were encouraged to blame particular groups of people and they went along with it rather than blame policy makers.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)Yeah, that makes perfect sense. The economic situation put them in the position where they were looking for a scapegoat and then along comes "it".
I get you now!
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Politicians have done it again and again. People in dire economic straits don't want to blame themselves or the children they have to clothe.
So, in election years the "they're stealing your jobs" "you haven't gotten rightful promotions because of them." Directing, harnessing, and stoking anger towards an "other" is a campaign technique US politicians have been using as early as our founding when Native Americans came to be known as the intruders. People from a range of economic demographics responded to a message that suggested an other planned to or already was stealing from them - the real Americans. A theme Teddy Roosevelt pushed and every president since has endorsed.
The "American Dream" and "American exceptionalism" are both built on racism and convincing the majority to be workers with little reward, and even to fight and die in wars of choice because they are the desired "real" Americans. It is deeply embedded in our culture and pretending that there is just a flawed set of humans who have bad ideas that have no basis in historical or cultural ideals is ignoring a big part of what drives it.
What just happened in Charlotte and the 2016 election is exactly who we are as a country.
Charlottesville is America. For far too many Americans, we are not better than this, and we never have been. The arc of American history has much more bending to do before justice even enters the frame.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-charlottesville-teaches-me-what-i-got-wrong-about-ferguson/article_129a8335-4831-5670-a9db-201a530ce5dc.html?utm_content=bufferdc10a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=LEEDCC
I have seen and heard justifications for police shootings, and criticism of civil disobedience protesting institutional racism among my liberal friends.
spanone
(135,874 posts)there is no other reason for any of his behavior.