Until recently, it was considered rude or worse for people to openly express racist thoughts or make racist remarks about other people. This wasn’t true everywhere or for everyone, of course—nothing about human behaviour is ever universal—but it was common enough to be a sort of ethos.
Not anymore.
The above post from the AmeriNZ Facebook Page was my reaction to a post an old friend made. My main point was that America has always had a problem with racism, so the racism now being unleashed with increasing frequency isn’t actually new. What IS knew is that the person occupying the White House has used racist language, excused racist violence, and provided encouragement for racists to express their racism boldly.
Against this backdrop, the current occupant of the White House is threatening his opponents:
Trump warns his critics to "take it easy." 👀— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 1, 2018
"I hope the other side realizes that they better just take it easy. They better just take it easy b/c some of the language used, some of the words used, even some of the radical ideas I really think they are very bad for the country" pic.twitter.com/1v5PzZQO6z
And there’s also this from Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters:
Asked about bringing the country together, Trump subtly implies that his base will kick the shit out of liberals if they keep it up. pic.twitter.com/6ojvzG13yt— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) July 1, 2018
So, the current occupant of the White House is openly threatening his opponents, blames Democrats for all his own failings and refusal to act, and emboldens racists to openly and publicly launch racist verbal (mostly, so far) attacks on people. And the Republican Party stays totally silent because, one must assume, they are in complete agreement with of the leader of their party and endorse his insanity.
How can this end well? By voting all Republicans out in November. That’s the only hope the USA has left. That won’t cure the cancer in the American Body Politic, but it will stop its spread.
Related: ThinkProgress published a piece on the PR puffery interview on the Fox Propaganda Channel that was excerpted in the Tweet above: "Maria Bartiromo’s embarrassing Trump interview". Also from them: “White House uses its official Twitter account to attack Democrats for criticizing ICE”. This is NOT normal or rational behaviour.
2 comments:
Yes, and I think that has two huge implications. First, they reinforce his belief that his support is massive, that it's only a tiny minority who oppose him, something that feeds into his severe narcissism personality disorder, The other is that it gives him the opportunity to rile up his most fervent fans, and among them are people who could be moved to violence by the rhetoric and language the current occupant of the White House uses.
So, on the one hand the current occupant has his delusions of popularity reinforced, and on the other he continues to promote division, resentment, and even hatred among people who have in their midst potentially very violent people.
Worse still, all of that could get him elected in 2020 (since, having lost the popular vote, "re-elected" could only legally be true, and because the first term was gifted to him as the result of an 18th Century compromise with slave owners…).
One of the most savvy things he's done are those campaign rallies. He speaks honestly (if somewhat insanely) and the crowds eat it up.
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