Trump Tower presser proved our president is far worse than a racist

Consider that to those injured in the murderous rampage that killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Trump tweeted “best regards.” Consider also that at the Trump Tower presser, Trump focused on how Heyer’s grieving mother went on social media and wrote “the nicest things” about him and “thanked me for what I said.”

Who chooses such odd words to say such peculiar things about such sensitive subjects? These utterances suggest a person lacking in empathy, a person incapable of feeling anyone’s pain but his own. They are hardly the only and certainly not the most egregious examples of their kind.

Recall Trump’s cruel mocking of a disabled reporter. Recall Trump’s attacks on Khizr Khan, who had to bury a son who died fighting for our country. Asked by George Stephanopoulos to compare that terrible sacrifice with his own, Trump responded: "I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. ... I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success.”

...

As the head of a family business in New York, luxuriating in his inherited millions or billions, Trump could live in a fantasy world of infallibility and invulnerability. In the White House, that fantasy world is repeatedly being punctured. For the first time the entire world is seeing — he himself is seeing — how severely limited he is.

Believing in nothing but his own greatness, concerned with no one but himself and the extensions of himself who are his children, the man we watched boiling over in Trump Tower, the president of the United States, the man who boasts “I’ve had tremendous success,” is a solipsist whose defective self is being inexorably destroyed as it falls under the relentless scrutiny that attends public life in our democracy.

so, to recap:

The President of the United States was recently criticised for refusing to sufficiently condemn white supremacists carrying Nazi flags who marched through a US city and killed a protester. He argued that the counter protestors were equally to blame for the violence, and is now suggesting that shooting Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs blood is a potential solution to radical Islamic terrorism.

Cool country you got there. USA#1

I buy that he's incredibly cynical. In a discussion with Pod Save America, the author Joshua Green of a book based on extensive interviews with Bannon from 2015-2016 says that his impression was not racist, but Islamophobic, dominion theological, anti-immigrant, anti-trade, etc. Notions we tend to view as racist, but are not explicitly anti racial minority.

That said, it is certainly impossible to square "Black Crime" with a non-racist reading of Bannon. Nor is it possible to square Breitbart's comment threads with Bannon's supposed desire to "crush" the white ethno state "losers" (he could have easily brought down the ban hammer, for instance). But he may have been speaking politically, in the sense that he views them as a liability to his agenda, similar to that 4chan picture posted in the LC thread. And he probably observes some fine distinctions on the spectrum of white supremacy that we don't see or care much about.

My best guess is that Bannon views widespread "light" racism as a benign and useful force in driving liberal tears to animate the base, whereas he finds torch-wielding, heavily-armed marchers who chant "Jew will not replace us" threatening and scary. But he doesn't see the connection from A to B.

Well it's definitely a work in progress.

Tipping point with whom?

This is completely true. My stance was theoretical in nature. Because I think people should realize that enslaving black people is much closer to the Holocaust than it is to even something as bad as apartheid. Most Abolutionists were probably racists. But the average American is not going to think this through.

Blacks' no opinion is pretty ****ing shocking.

I agree with this. I just think it might be wishful thinking to believe that the cultural issues are all epiphenomenal and will go away if underlying economic policy is addressed. But certainly I agree that one of Clinton's flaws as a candidate was her inability to sell this kind of economic message, and that it's a problem with the democratic establishment in general.

I have also previously ruminated upon residential segregation as one of the most important social issues in the US, so I agree with that. I also agree that loss of status ("relative to expectations") is important, but there's an important difference between loss of status and overall economic anxiety. Because if status anxiety is relative to a racist expectation that minorities should be worse off then improving economic conditions across the board won't entirely ameliorate it.

It's also not clear to me how these considerations really demonstrate your original conclusion at all, and this seems like a restatement of that conclusion, despite the caveats you go on to mention:

It seems to me that you've pointed out reasons to think the situation is more complicated than that, explicitly with respect to cultural politics.

Right. I think we basically agree as to the short-term practical solution (focus on working class economic populism and policy) as well as the long-term difficulty. And I largely agree with the argument you make for the strategy you're suggesting, and which I've snipped. But where I perceive we may disagree is that you don't seem as worried about the long-term problem of regressive cultural politics as I am. I agree that people on the left should focus a good deal of their energies, as you say, on issues of economic justice. But I also think the long-term problem of salvaging these folks' kids is important, and thinking about how issues of social justice and inequality should be framed is also important.

Saturday was my mother's birthday, and her family came from out of state for the occasion. My brother, father and I were also there. My father is a life long Democrat, was a union insulator, and was the president of his union. Never voted Republican in his life.

At one point he starts talking about how he knows how black are, and when he is worried about being assaulted he looks out for the b l a c k s. He told a story about how he and his brother were nearly jumped by a group of black guys when they were younger, and I said sarcastically that's something white people would never do. I then mentioned that white people used to lynch blacks in this country, and they were enslaved. He responded with, "Did I have anything to do with that? I'm a nice guy, I'll help pay to send them back."

He occasionally will mention how racist some people are. (not him, ofc)

ownage

Tony Schwartz, ghost-writer of Art of the Deal, is tweeting Trump is going to resign by end of year in exchange for immunity from the Russia investigation.

Looks like his random musings, not any inside information.

Trump people seem to be living in an alternate reality...

While I can't deny feeling some glee at watching people desert him, I am worried that the more isolated he becomes from his party, his business contacts, etc, the more likely he is to lash out in ways that either lead to war or appease his white supremacist base.

I'm curious how many African-Americans have no opinion as opposed to being undecided. For example, that's the option you'd have to pick in that poll if your opinion was... "I don't like seeing them and find them offensive, but I also don't want the racists to be able to whitewash history, so I need to know where they're going and what's being done with them before I can offer an opinion on removal."

I don't mean his fans. Lets start with corporate America. Then lets move to the politicians that represent them. I mean tipping point on the way out of office by whatever means. And, it's more hope than prediction, but he's by no means a lock to finish his term.

This is in no way a defense of Paterno, but the family were major philanthropists in State College. His notoriety in the region wasn't only because he was the PSU football coach.

Your mom said that?

Jeez. Sorry.

I seriously doubt the average person stopped in the street could tell you who is depicted by the various monuments or what they are famous for. I would have expected no opinion (for all races) to the plurality outcome if I had been asked to guess without seeing the graph.

Yeah, highly doubt more than 50% of adult Americans know a thing about General Lee.

Botting on Youtube at least seems pretty rampant today. The top comments of literally every single barcelona video are some variation of "trump was right", or "this is what happens when you let them in you lib cucks." But maybe I'm just continuing to underestimate the number of deplorables and their speed to come together in a mutual orgy any time a muslim does something bad.

Immunity from what crime?

Trump is never going to jail over Russia.

Why would he resign?

Maybe he sees courting their votes as a once in a lifetime opportunity to get the trade war with China that he seems to want so desperately. I figured that was why Sacramucci (whose Twitter was full of left-leaning posts prior to being hired) signed on; he had a once in a lifetime chance to make himself even wealthier.

Principles mean little when ambitious men have their eyes on the prize, so to speak.

Here is the thing, it is literally nobodies business except for the people in Charolletesville. These local municipalities can decide if they want this stuff or not. Nobody else has a right to input.

So many people think they are actual historic monuments from the Civil War era though and don't realize that most were put up by bitter people in the 1900s. I've even had to explain this to multiple people that think they should be taken down but should be done in a nice way. After hearing that they are like **** the statues.

The one in Boston was put up in 1963 and can't be taken down without permission from the Feds because it's on a National Historic Site. The libtards getting trapped by their own devices must be giving the deplorables a boner.

So instead they built a wooden box around it lolz.

That's a reasonable point, but there's a line that for that too, no? So, no. If Charlottesville puts up a Hitler statue **** them even if 100% of the city supports it. A Lee statue isn't much different. If all the white residents happened to want it up and all the black residents wanted it down, I'd be ready to help pull it down. I respect municipal borders to some extent, but it's still part of my world.

The American Cancer Society and the Cleveland Clinic both dropped events at Mar-a-lago. Why the **** were they going there in the first place?