I 100% disagree with this line of thinking as applied to public figures who knowingly employ rhetoric that is widely regarded as racist. For example, I don't think anyone should care whether David Duke (i) actually thinks black people are inferior, or (ii) is just a selfish guy without a racist heart who has cultivated an explicitly racist persona because he likes attention.

I also think you are ignoring the external repercussions of your proposed line of thinking. Take Ann Coulter for example. Back in 2002, she said that Muslims shouldn't be allowed on airplanes and instead should take flying carpets. At a public event a few days later, a Muslim student told Coulter that she didn't own a flying carpet and asked what mode of transportation she should take instead. Coulter suggested a camel.

Did Ann Coulter actually believe those things, or was she simply cultivating her outre public persona? Who knows. Probably the latter. But if the default public response is to treat that sort of comment as merely an expression of selfishness and ignore the obvious racist/xenophobic overtones, Muslims not surprisingly are going to interpret that failure to acknowledge the racist/xenophobic overtones as tolerance for hateful speech at best, and complicity at worst. And it emboldens people who are inclined to talk about Muslims in the same way Ann Coulter talks about them. (That's why I am not surprised that coordi has seen an uptick in racially charged comments on his Facebook feed since Trump got elected. Of course he has.)

External effects are one of the reasons why your card game analogies don't always translate well in discussions of public policy. The bridge player in your example need not concern himself with how others outside the game interpret his play.

All that said, if your 80-year-old uncle is ranting about "welfare queens", I guess I agree that calling him a racist in a one-on-one conversation is unlikely to be persuasive and that you might have a marginally better chance of convincing him that he is selfish.

"But they never stand up to his racism or his corruption because they don’t believe that racism or corruption are bad."

-Whatever else you think of this journalist, this is clearly a straw man.

The problem with this rhetorical technique, especially for journalists, is that the next time he intones motivations and it isn't so obvious, the tendency will be not to give him the benefit of the doubt he is trying to be genuine, when maybe he is.

"Republicans were initially skeptical of Trump but have come around to his view that it’s good to have foreign intelligence agencies commit crimes against Trump’s political opponents."

-This is also very clearly straw manning.

What's the strawman in this scenario?

No. But it is ok to come to the conclusion the person might have been having a bad day, and it isn't appropriate to throw him in the same racist barrel as Trump, Bannon and Duke.

The benefit of doubt is journalistic malpractice at this point.

I am not and never was a politics forum regular under the previous regime. Asking me to weigh in on forum history isn't going to be very productive.

I guess one counterpoint is the last 3 (or more deleted pages) of people arguing that whatever Trump has done isn't racism so isn't that bad or maybe (slightly) racist but not that bad.

If there is a problem with the tweets, it's not a strawman problem. That's the wrong word.

Late to the party here, but I want to point out that latinos are an ethnic group not a race, therefore it is impossible for La Raza to be racist. Say it one more time and I will be forced to vote for Evo Morales.

Solid post, and more the type of argument I was looking for against my line of thinking.

Ive had a lot of bad days. Ive never once figured that my best option is to yell the N word during my frustration.

Saying "they never stand up to his racism because they don't think it's bad!" seems like a strawman.

Do you have a better explanation? Why dont republicans in power/trump voters stand up to his obvious racism?

i mean im pretty sure the people affected by the drastic rise in hate crimes under trump have had their day to day lives affected. but im sure we just experienced a random uptick starting around the time he started his rhetoric.

as for if he'd be elected today, i guess that depends on how many people are still ok with some corruption, racism, and bigotry if it doesnt personally affect them and might give them a 40dollar pay bump.

not that trump has personally bumped the ten year economy rise at all, he just hasnt ****ed it up as much as some thought, but he's been trying pretty hard with not having any idea what tariffs actually are and thinking trade wars are beneficial.

Obvious nationalism. Everything I've heard has been sympathetic to the plight of our minority citizens. He speaks poorly of immigrants. I'm certainly not keeping tabs on everything he says, so I could potentially be setting myself up for fail here.

I think there is a distinction though

Citations for point A? I certainly could see it being true.

Point C I'd disagree with. If you want to discuss that he's pumping the economy through management/manipulation of the fed, then I'm all ears.

FBI statistics from fbi.gov

2014- 5479 incidents 6418 offenses
2015- 5850 incidents 6885 offenses
2016- 6121 incidents 7321 offenses
2017- 7175 incidents 8437 offenses

before 2015 it had been on a decline in the US if you want to go check the statistics..

You gotta take crime stats with a grain of salt. It may be that hate crimes are drastically down under Trump, giving people more free time to call the police.

the economy is soo much better due solely to trump that people have more time to sit around and then racial differences emerge.

*double take sprains neck* Oh, not well named, just the avatar.

You think?

Pre-2016 anything like this this would literally have been a week-long story with dozens of hours devoted to it on FoxNews and all right-wing media.

Maybe we can get into the Grand Canyon-wide double standard for Trump vs. Obama. Remember "Golfer in Chief"? Remember the latte salute, tan suit and endless other much-ballyhooed examples of Obama disrespecting the presidency? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

I'm curious if the "CNN lies" crowd acknowledges how CNN still isn't remotely close to the propaganda effort put out by Fox and right-wing media.

I mean there is no lefty equivalent of this phenomenon. Maybe Chapo Trap House - but 80% of all Democrats don't listen to that.

My point is this: Americans live in the richest country on Earth and they should be grateful for that and they should be grateful that someone is trying to keep it as it is. This doesn't mean that within America there is no poverty. There is a lot of poverty in the US of course, but a non trivial percentage of it comes from playing Santa Clause, from transferring jobs and money to poor countries.

Just google the decline of the western countries while the poor countries made a massive step forward over the last decade. You guys paid for this, and me and my folks paid for it too by the way. We are very nice people, aren't we? Judging by the state of their town, the people of Detroit must be the nicest of them all. The best thing about it is that the whole World hates us nevertheless.

If I have to decide between giving away my money and feeling good about myself and keeping my money and hating me for it, I'd rather keep my money. I don't know about you, but I rather die as a rich old bastard than poor like a mouse but with a pure heart.