Periodically I hold my nose and look at the Facebook group of the Republican Party in my county. It’s a swamp of hatred and stupidity. There’s a sample above. Notice that someone named Sam Hill calls Democrats “Demoncrats.”
Is the racism study cited above legit? I believe it is. Right-wing media made much of the study and naturally interpreted it to mean that Trump truly is making America a kinder place. That seems to be true where racism is involved, but not in the way that Republicans suppose. Trump’s true believers, a group that I’d estimate at about 35 percent of the population, are feasting on the official approval of their of hatred and meanness. But everyone else is increasingly disgusted. That disgust is liberalizing people other than Trump’s deplorables. People are seeing that racism is real and that racism is dangerous. People are seeing what Republicans are trying to do.
In other words, Trump’s endorsement of hatred and racism is backfiring, politically. While feeding red meat and meanness to the deplorables, Trump is driving all the kinder people away. Trump is far too stupid to understand this, or to care. But one would think that there are Republicans in Washington who can see that Trump actually is hastening the end of the Republican Party.
Dan Hopkins, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, writes about this at Five Thirty Eight. The article is “White Americans Say They’re Less Prejudiced.”
Hopkins writes:
But in fact, there is evidence that Trump’s election did not make Americans more racist; instead, it may have emboldened those who were already prejudiced. As FiveThirtyEight contributor Matt Grossman wrote last October, the research doesn’t show “an overall increase in racist and sexist attitudes among white voters; rather, the evidence shows that liberal-leaning voters moved away from [Trump’s] views faster than conservatives moved toward them.”
Though these are hard times for decent human beings to live through, and though the dangers are rising as Trump and his deplorables lash out, we can hope that Trump is expediting our return to a decent America, just by showing decent human beings how ugly the worst of us can be.
One Comment
I recently started a new profile on Facebook, mostly just to see if I could read the comments and not immediately delete my account. I’ve made it about two months, and within that two months, I’ve only had to unfriend two people – one I added having forgotten their politics and the other a friend from long ago whose politics I was unaware of. Strangely, both people are very similar – 30s, female, college educated (doesn’t imply smart), no children, never married, and from very well-off circumstances. I only recently unfriended them after the El Paso shooting – which the shooter made very clear was politically motivated (which by now doesn’t matter as he shouldn’t have had access to the gun he used). They both made declaratory statuses wishing for thoughts and prayers but also saying not to make the shooting political. At this point, I can’t tell if they’re delusional or just plain dumb.
I guess my point in relation to your post is that those who are his true believers are not even affected by the rapid escalation of racism, hateful politics, and mass murder. They either don’t see the connection between Trump’s politics and these shootings or it doesn’t make a difference to their political perspective. What then would make a difference? More obvious racist violence? It’s very disheartening to even try to relate to them.
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