The best thing about you is the colour of your skin, and you even managed to use that to sow division.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-virginia-hope
The best thing about you is the colour of your skin, and you even managed to use that to sow division.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-virginia-hope
I do find it quite extraordinary that the bien-pensant types all agree that Trump's election speaks of a horribly divided USA in which disunity, mutual resentment, racial division and political polarisation are at a particular high, etc, etc, but no-one ever follows through and suggests that maybe some of the blame can be laid at the feet of the guy who was running the place for the 8 years.
So you agree the place is a mess, but the bloke who was in charge while it became a mess gets a free pass? It's bizarre.
The one I like is when people claim Trump's election was fuelled by racism, when his election relied on the votes of millions of people who had previously voted a black man into office.
So how does that work exactly? Obama was such a bad President he turned people racist?
Well of course Obama's election was fuelled by racism, but in a slightly different way. Basically, as you say, his only USP was being black. This meant that nearly all black people and vast numbers of white people who wanted to show they weren't racist voted for him not because of his perceived ability, but because of his skin colour. Equally, his race meant he was horribly over-hyped to the point where it was assumed he would fart thunder and shít lightning. When he singly failed so to do, it was inevitable that disillusionment set in.
Essentially, the rule is that if you're going to play on your race to get into the White House, don't then be surprised that race is a political issue.
I think his victory speaks of an economic division, particularly geographically, that has grown hugely in the last decade, for obvious reasons. He exploited this by discussing the types of solutions the political mainstream wouldn't touch because it involves tariffs, bashing climate change etc etc...... those issues helped him hugely and were a significant part of the victory.
The populist stuff (Mexicans, the wall etc) is politically divisive but I doubt it involved anybody actually changing their mind. He gave a voice to the 'silent majority' and the rest reacted the way they always do, with unabashed fury.
I think we drastically underestimate the extent to which race is always going to be an issue in US politics. As a social issue it is off the charts in terms of our own issues.
It is a little unfair to say he had nothing but race on his side. National politics is performance and he was more than capable of that, particularly when you look at who he ran against.
Trump v Obama would have been a great campaign.....
Oh, I do appreciate that. You can't run a country that for its first 190-odd years enslaves, disenfranchises and legally discriminates against a large proportion of its citizens on the basis of their race without it being an absolutely epic political fault line.
Our racial (N.B. not religious) situation is vastly better and we have the legacy of having run the biggest empire the world's ever seen, ffs!
However, the mistake lies in thinking that a weight of historical wrongs is enough to convince white people whose lives are shítty now to just put up with it because black folks have had it worse. People just don't work like that and calling them 'racist' because they vote for a guy who says he's going to make it better is a remarkably silly response.
I'm not saying he had nothing but race on his side. I said it was his sole USP. Think about it: would a white senator with Obama's experience, charm, speaking ability, etc have got anywhere near the media traction he did? Of course not. He had the race card and he played it rather skilfully. I don't blame him, I just don't think you can do that and then complain about race being an issue.
As a side note, of course, what's pretty funny is that an awful lot of black Americans don't actually see Obama as properly black. Rich, half-white, born in Hawaii (supposedly ;-) ) and with an African father rather than being the descendant of slaves. They would argue that he never really lived the black experience. That's how fücked up questions of race are in the US.
Yes. In the heat of a 'common sense' election campaign they are great ideas. In the real world they are more complicated which is why he hasn't actually done any of them. He made promises he couldn't keep but at least he was too ignorant to know he couldn't keep them. Its an honesty of sorts.
THe others know they
I think the point is that race is always an issue. Without question there were millions of americans who were terrified of having a black guy in the White House. For the first black President, race is always going to be the issue that overshadows everything else.
The colour of his skin divides the country. Trump's campaign was incredibly divisive but there is an odd quality here isn't there- isn't all partisan politics divisive? Isn't that the entire point of it?
Of course there were. The fact seemed to drive Chief over the edge, in fact. On that level, I accept that there is an endemic racism in the states that is unconsciously predicated on the superior status of white people over black people. A black man in the White House basically blows that paradigm apart and with it - it would seem - an awful lot of people's minds.
However, it is also worth remembering that an awful lot of white people voted for Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. Lumping them in with the racists in order to 'shame' them is reductive and counter-productive.
Yes, but Clinton - like Blair - got a relatively easy media ride because both ascended after more than a decade of conservative hegemony. The largely left/Democratic-leaning media were always going to lap that up. Although, of course, the backlash to that slavish devotion came in the form of the establishment of Fox News to provide a counterpoint.
I must admit to not paying much attention to the details of his campaigns but the fact that he beat the twin evil warmongers of both John McCain and Hilary Clinton in 2008 is something I will always give him credit for.
Then he got a nobel peace prize and went on to become the first POTUS in history to spend every day of his eight year term at war, bombing more countries than George Bush in the process. :hehe: :-|
Still, could have been worse. It could have been Clinton or McCain.
No, but there is an inevitable effect on the public mood brought about by long periods of one party in office - especially if that party is right-leaning. Media tend to strain under the perceived yoke and then treat whoever comes along afterwards as though they're Jesus and Geoffrey Boycott rolled up into one for quite a long time.
Its similar to our own issue with immigration. One can be opposed to immigration without being racist but if one is racist one is bound to oppose immigration. Politics tends to lump people together with the other people voting the same way.
I dont think Trump ran a racist campaign but he ran one that deliberately targeted the premise of political correctness and challenged it. At times, this involved perpetuating racial stereotypes in the more subtle forms and then refusing to apologise for it. Millions of people loved him for that. His sentence on Mexicans was almost genius- he didnt they say they were rapists but he phrased the sentence to make it sound as though he was saying it.
His real genius was in making the White House sound far more important than it actually is, endowing it with the power to change anything it wanted. Powerful President= powerful USA.
P's point, I think, is that despite that, you would never catch anyone in the "political mainstream" saying it :hehe:
It occurred to me the other day that, with people demanding various past political donations be returned, for one reason or another, that, in that case, the Donald himself must be owed a few quid from many who are now defaming him.
The drugs thing..... its the obvious route for drugs. It doesnt mean that those crossing are bringing drugs with them. Plus the drugs are the crime so it is effectively two for the price of one. And anyway, drugs are cool and people want them in the country.
Rape isn't great, admittedly.