Ken Betnstein, NBCT high school teacher and blogger, asks whether Americans would elect a racist.
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/7/1535415/-But-will-it-matter
Ken looks at two columns today. Both say Trump has demonstrated his racism.
“I find myself asking that question after glancing at two very pointed columns in today’s Washington Post. One, by Dana Milbank and titled Republicans finally discover that Trump is an actual racist, goes through all the elements of Trum’s’ expressions that support that assertion, but quite possibly could be summarized in one sentence partway through the column:
‘You know you’re in trouble when you’re being lectured on sensitivity by Newt Gingrich.’
“The other is by the inimitable Eugene Robinson and titled Endorsing Trump will leave a mark, begins with a similar assertion:
‘Bluffing is Donald Trump’s one great talent, and he brazenly bluffed his way to the Republican nomination. Now he is showing his cards, however, and they are utter garbage: racism, ignorance, capriciousness, egomania and general unfitness for office. That should be — it must be — a losing hand.
“The question of course is on whom will that mark really fall.
“Yes the press is now willing to challenge Trump. As Milbank phrases it
‘A confluence of three factors has caused a sudden and sharp change in Trump’s fortunes. The media scrutiny has increased significantly since he secured the nomination, and journalists, rather than chasing his outrage du jour, are digging in to report more on Trump University, Trump’s stiffing of charities, his lies and his racism. Hillary Clinton has, finally, made the shift to attacking Trump vigorously over his instability. And Republicans are, belatedly, discovering that their presidential candidate wasn’t putting on a show during the GOP primaries: He’s an actual racist.'”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You seem to think it is appropriate to elect a felonious mishandler of classified information and a rapist enabler. So anything is possible.
If you read Trump’s explanation of his opposition to the judge in the Trump University case, you could conclude that Trump is not a racist. However, that would not fit the narrative of the failed establishment.
Both are bad choices.
Absolutely Joanne. I think the question is which is worse.
The establishment, politicians, bureaucrats, corporate media, 0.1%’ers, are able to act undemocratically, arbitrarily, with impunity. Hillary Clinton is clearly part of that cadre.
Trump is a loose cannon. The more he harms the establishment, the better off the average American will be. All the establishment folks above fear him, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Florida teacher,
Trump is not your friend. He will cut taxes on the 1%, treat climate change as phony, and alienate every ally. If you like a vulgar, crude bully who spouts racist nonsense, he is your guy
I’ll take crude over the wolf in sheep’s clothing any day. You would think that you could recognize the special brand of polito-speak that people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Jeb Bush, et al. employ to give you a false sense of security. The only difference between Trump and the politicians is that the politicians are really good at hiding their flaws, biases, and motives.
HRC is not a rapist enabler. Rather, the women involved with Bill, were willing or unwilling, at the time of the events, has not been determined. Hillary, showing anger at women, who do not respect marriage, is not enabling. If you want to claim, a different point, that Hillary acted in a way that suggests she thought her husband demonstrated that he valued marriage, when he had sex with other women, where’s the proof?
Some may think Mr. and Mrs. Clinton stayed married, b/c she chose to forgive him for alleged multiple transgressions.
If any person from labor, including teachers, vote Republican, they and their families get, just what they deserve, in wage cuts, no pensions, no due process on the job, no Social Security, no health insurance for pre-existing conditions, no protections from Wall Street’s legalized schemes, a polluted environment, privatization of water and prison, so that money can be made off of the misery of others, loss of common goods like parks and services, etc.
“If any person from labor, including teachers, vote Republican, they and their families get, just what they deserve, in wage cuts, no pensions, no due process on the job, no Social Security, no health insurance for pre-existing conditions, no protections from Wall Street’s legalized schemes, a polluted environment, privatization of water and prison, so that money can be made off of the misery of others, loss of common goods like parks and services, etc.”
Well, agreed, but I hope you don’t think that the Democrats are any better on any of those points?
The Supreme Court justices, appointed by Dems, make the unassailable point that Dems are better. It is the left wing, of the Democratic Party, that highlighted Wasserman Schmidt’s payday lender, cheerleading, Koch’s anti-democracy war, etc. Should Democratic politicians be doing better? YES. But, there is NO expectation that the Rethugs will do anything to rein in the richest 0.1%. Look at Democrat, Cordray’s, consumer protection agency, which Rethug’s have tried to destroy from the beginning.
I don’t think we’ll have much of a choice about electing a racist unless lots of people are willing to get brave enough to vote third party. Sure, Trump is racist, but Hillary is too. She cheered on welfare “reform” and, worse, three strikes, the latter on the basis of “superpredators” who need to be “brought to heel”. And let’s not even talk about how many brown people Hillary is directly or indirectly responsible for killing in the Middle East.
Not too long ago, in a ‘Newsday’ interview, Hillary stated she would be willing to entertain the notion of “boarding schools for poor minority children, if we can do it right.” She made a similar statement about Haiti’s poor children. Not only did this statement make me cringe, it hit me as a red flag. If she does not understand the social implications of such statement, I am concerned.
Dienne… with the “superpredators” determination, it only helps enrich her Wall Street buddie who have investments in private prison corporations. Ah, the glory of the Free Market.
She also bragged about her role in Welfare to Work which is the prime factor in so many families living on Skid Row all across America.
So, do we now go to work to get her elected, with Drumph being so blatantly worse? I think he is deep into the throes of dementia, but his followers are ready to blow us up.
I thought that this paragraph from an article summed up the situation nicely:
“The contention that Curiel cannot fairly preside over a case involving Trump’s for-profit university because he is of Mexican descent and Trump has said some racist things about Mexicans is an impressive feat of circular racist logic, wherein those on the receiving end of Trump’s racism suddenly become less qualified by virtue of their imagined objections to it (it’s worth noting that Curiel has made no public comments about Trump’s views on Mexicans, nor is that an issue in the fraud cases; Curiel has done nothing other than exist to suggest that he is biased). Trump has also said that a Muslim judge may suffer from the same apparent identity defect of not being a white Christian male: When asked whether a Muslim judge would, like a Mexican-American judge, be biased against Trump because Trump has suggested that he would ban Muslims from entering the United States, Trump said, “Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely.” The conclusion that a federal judge cannot do his job because of her religion or where his parents were born is the definition of bigotry and racism.” http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a59496/donald-trump-racist/
Trump has also stated that a a woman judge could be biased as well. Everyone is biased except “the sun king” Trump. His narcisscism would be funny if he weren’t running for office.
I like a post by Bette Midler where she suggests (paraphrasing) that if we’d just give him back his EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME TV show maybe he’d go away. 🙂
Time for Trump! It’s painfully obvious that Hillary has no chance of winning. She may end up in jail… Why is it racist to say that you want “legal” immigrants and no more “illegal” immigrants. Just watch Europe. The whole western world is swinging right, and it’s a beautiful thing. If they don’t swing right and close borders in Europe there will be a Civil War and it will be much worse. Let’s stop all this politically correct garbage. Let’s do it before transgender bathrooms, please!
Refusing to treat people with respect is not “avoiding political correctness,” and calling people “illegal” is not showing strength.
I’ll ignore most of your drivel, but just one point: you do know that you’ve already used a bathroom with a transgender person, right? So have your wife and daughters.
In France, men and women share the same facilities. It is a good (not perfect) answer, to prevent preying on the vulnerable.
Either way, we’re toast. Racist rants keeps the masses divided and distracted.
Trump is so busy self-imploding that it’s likely someone else will step into the GOP presidential candidate shoes. Hillary’s coronation will go forth as planned.
Meanwhile, Hillary refuses to release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs and the pro-charter Boston Consulting Group.
Obama’s administration refuses to release Clinton’s e-mails regarding TPP until AFTER the election, 489 days after journalist David Sirota filed the FOIA request. ( http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/state-department-blocks-release-hillary-clinton-era-tpp-emails-until-after)
Hillary’s campaign is studded with charter school proponents and representatives from Monsanto.
I have been voting for 40 years, and am fed up with the way this country has regressed. The Democratic party left me a long time ago; identity politics and the fear card just won’t work on me this time.
Americans are like junkies; they have to hit rock bottom before getting back up.
Jill Stein 2016.
Standing ovation.
Yes.
I have been voting for close to 50 years.
And I have been quoting for quite some time, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.” 😦
As horrifying as the prospect of Trump is, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that he is the only racist representing a major political party in this election. Indeed, the genteel, more insidious racism of his Democratic opponent is equally disconcerting. While Trump can’t speak without uttering bigotry, are we supposed to ignore his opponent’s racist slurs against Native American’s with her infamous “off the reservation” remark? Are we to excuse her vile “super-predators” speech where she says that “we have to bring them to heel” in reference to children of color? I understand her apologists excuse that kind of racist rhetoric, but any of us that live and breath social justice are in agreement with the distinguished Professor Michelle Alexander, who says, “Hillary Clinton” uses “racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals.” And while Trump talks about border walls, Clinton proudly reminds us “I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in…” Clinton and Trump’s use of the racist term “illegal” is in itself bigoted and nativist. In fact, even the Associate Press stopped using the horrible phrase some time ago. We can discuss how terrible Trump’s rhetoric is on issues of immigration, but Clinton has an actual record to scrutinize, and it is a record of the most vile bigotry in practice: ( https://www.academia.edu/25839824/Lesser_Evil_The_Democrats_and_immigration_policy_in_the_era_of_neoliberalism ).
I’ll stop here because I realize that speaking truth to power on this issue will do little more than evoke lesser evilism responses. No one will actually be able to defend Trump or Clinton’s records on the issues I’ve raised, because they are indefensible. I’ll be voting for the same feminist this November that I did in 2012 — her name is Dr. Jill Stein. Stein, by the way, has the best stances on education. She opposes charters and vouchers, opposes high-stakes standardized testing, stands with teachers, and called the Obama Administration out on its appointment of the doltish John King. It don’t recall the candidates from the major parties ever taking such principled stands.
*applause*
^^^^^Yes. Exactly this.^^^^^
Yes, America would elect a racist, they have before. The only difference is that Trump acknowledges his racism and others hide it. The bigger question is does America want Donald Trump to represent who we are?
Well said.
Obviously, Americans at some point will admire every flavor of evil.
The electorate chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.* That alone is enough evidence that as a nation, we still don’t know up from down.
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*(With the vast amount of electoral fraud, DNC and MSM manipulation of procedures, schedules, and perceptions, we’ll never know by how much Hillary won, or if Bernie would have won on a level playing field)
As I have stated here before, America, in my lifetime (a short period remains) will become a fascist state long before it will become a liberal one. Most white people retain the “feeling” they are the real Americans. This has nothing to do with intellect but the connection to the founders. Perhaps one reason “Hamilton” is popular is because it connects to the future of America, one in which whites will be a minority.
In the short term, most will not see Trump as racist. The logic escapes them.
Hopefully, I am wrong.
If we end up a fascist state, it will be accomplished from the left. It’s the left that has the blind faith in government to solve problems, and it’s the government that will try to take away our liberties.
It’s ironic that the meaning of liberal at its core is “generous,” but modern liberals are mostly generous with other people’s money. Even the current hero of the liberals, Elizabeth Warren, is an uber rich 1%’er who enriches herself from the misery of others. Her net worth in 2015 was at least 6 times higher than the lowest 1%’er. Is she willing to give up even 50% of her income to help the poor? LOL.