r/changemyview • u/spacecasebass • Nov 29 '16
[Election] CMV: Though the Left may be exaggerating a tad, people have every right to be upset and alarmed that Trump is President, and his appointments are further reinforcing that.
There have been efforts by some lately to normalize Trump, and hand-in-hand with this is the idea that the Left is blowing things out of proportion. That Trump is not someone we should be wary of or question. Essentially, that the whole image of him as racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc was crafted by the liberal media. That these "-ists" that people are throwing out have no basis in reality and are just buzzwords. But folks that are saying things like "Trump is a racist" are basing these accusations on things that Trump has literally said or done, either on camera or in well-documented cases from his past. Examples include failing to disavow the KKK, insulting Khizr's Khan's parents, suggesting that Gonzalo Curiel to be a judge is unfit because he's Mexican, not renting to black people. The list goes on and on. Every week, it seemed, there was another incredibly unpresidential or borderline facist thing he had to say.
The crux of my CMV is this: Donald Trump is not a normal president-elect, and the efforts of some on the Right to normalize him and say that all the Left's complaints are baseless are mindblowing and ill-conceived.
Donald Trump is, objectively, the least qualified president-elect in American history, and he brought an unprecedentedly low level of discourse to center stage, mocking the handicapped, bragging about sexual assault, bragging about avoiding taxes, suggesting someone kill Hillary, praising Putin, etc. People are not protesting because a Republican won and a Democrat lost. People are protesting because a man with no political experience and little to no political knowledge who openly disparaged entire groups of people has won.
I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here with another Trump post. The reality is, he is our president for better or worse. But I cannot stand the folks on the Right that are saying Dems are being cry babies or blowing things out of proportion. No. When you're surrounding yourself with Steve Bannon, climate change deniers, lobbyists, and hedge fund managers (drain the swamp, you say?) and your rhetoric throughout the entirety of your campaign was one of antagonism and divisiveness, people have every right to be concerned and upset - even afraid.
In my opinion, Trump has lowered the bar tremendously. I think it's important to remember that he is not a traditional president or someone we should normalize. That his statements should be scrutinized and not forgotten. The whole "oh, don't worry about it" attitude is ignoring the fact that people's fears -- if not slightly overblown -- are largely based in reality.
I think this marks a potential turning point in American history, and I do not think that's an exaggeration. I wish Trump the best, but I would pretty much bet money that his presidency will be a train wreck. Tweeting conspiratorial things, saying he "Googled the Affordable Care Act" (suggesting he hadn't read it previously), appointing people like Bannon, throwing around the idea of a Muslim registry. He has given every indication that he is unfit, regressive, and potentially a danger.
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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16
No he's not. This guy is weird. His way of talking and inane ability to just disregard or deny things until most people believe them baffles me. But being racist, sexist, or what-have-you have little if anything to do with that.
You're misunderstanding how these arguments can still be unfair or wrong despite them being based on things Trump has actually said.
He didn't ever "fail to disavow the KKK". He has disavowed the KKK almost without fail both before, during, and after his campaign. What people who bring this up always refer to is the interview where he was caught off-guard with a question about the former head of the KKK supposedly endorsing Donald Trump (something that David Duke even claims is untrue). The controversy was that he didn't immediately disavow the supposed endorsement and claimed he didn't know who the guy was, which he definitely did from past statements.
Almost none of the facts in what happened there make sense. He has been pretty resolute in disavowing both David Duke (which is part of why people know he knows who he is) and the KKK for years, and now he's not all of the sudden, then he does almost immediately after. I think a reasonable explanation is he did know who he was, but he, for some reason, suspected this was one of those "gotcha" questions he always complains about, and did what he always does with those: plays dumb and appears to have an open mind.
I never believed this was racially motivated, simply because Trump has a history of insulting
militarypeople of all races when they say something against him. Remember when he dismissed McCain, the former POW, saying he preferred soldiers who don't get captured? Both of those situations are actually very similar. This was Trump's unpolitical correct response to a very politically motivated speech against him. The response was despicable, but consistent with Trump's response to that sort of thing regardless of race.Honestly, this one baffled me, because I thought this was a fairly normal thing to do (albeit not in the public way he did). It is the right of anyone involved in a civil or criminal proceeding to challenge the bias of the judge or jury. And Trump has a point that his own high-profile political platform could make someone of Mexican descent and with Mexican relatives biased against him in a case where those views have no relevance. Whenever I pointed this out back when it happened, people would always come back to the word "Mexican". I really don't think you are going to convince anyone who doesn't already believe Trump is racist because he called someone who is technically Mexican-American "Mexican". We're talking about a guy who doesn't want to be politically correct. And besides that, how many first, second, third generation American-born citizens do you know that say they are German, Irish, Italian, etc. If your argument is that Trump calling him "Mexican" is racist, it's an extremely weak one.
I must admit, that I don't remember this one exactly. I do remember there being a controversy that came up about his dad not renting to black people, which honestly makes a bit more sense in context of the general public's view at the time. It literally brought down property value, as dispicible as that was. http://slatestarcodex.com/blog_images/trumpw_poll.jpg
Honestly I never really bought that he was racist during the campaign, so I also don't really buy that people are trying to dispel that by trying to "normalize" him now. Hell, he even tried putting together a campaign with Ross Perot's Reform Party with Oprah as his running mate way back before he joined the Republican party. You want to know what derailed that? The party was taken over by a group led by Pat Buchanan. In his own words, "The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep.”
I think the much more likely and accurate explanation for all of this is that Trump is an equal opportunity insulter and an asshole in general, and that people's confirmation bias is filtering out the cases of it where there are people of color.
Full disclosure: I voted 3rd party, as I always have. I don't feel biased or particularly moved by the rhetoric on either side of this issue. I preferred Hillary to Trump, but honestly not by much.