gtn130 wrote:montestewart wrote:gtn130 wrote:There was literally a Nazi/KKK rally this weekend that resulted in an actual terrorist attack, yet people on this board still want to coddle racist Trump supporters lmaooo
Yes, there most definitely was a right-wing racist rally, ostensibly to protest the erasing of history through the deaccession of Confederate statues (but obviously intended to argue for the Confederacy, slavery, racism, white power, etc.), perpetrated by outside agitators, visited on a peaceful community, erupting in violence, intended to erupt in violence, containing a right-wing terrorist act that resulted in death, with the Trump/right-wing disinformation machine in full swing spewing out the Fakest News Possible! about all aspects of the event. Trump's weak response to the events, like his weak responses to Russia and Putin, are very telling when contrasted against his lightening fast and venomous attacks to anything else, no matter how trivial. Oh well, some people really didn't know Liberace was gay.
If you feel it helps you make your point, you can call out me or anyone else here, just make sure to keep it civil (no name calling) and within the terms of service. I find it more productive discussing messaging than singling out rank-and-file messengers who are absent (which starts to sound like the comment section of news sites). I don't see the coddling you're talking about. DCZards, Zonker, and plenty of others here have pretty strongly and directly addressed right-wing messages and messengers here in the past and in the present.
I take issue with the idea that we should go easy on Nate because he's a 'good guy' or whatever. Seems like you guys have a nice relationship with him, and that's cool, but that doesn't begin to excuse some of his most abhorrent posting here.
Sharing insidious fake news is one thing, but Nate made a lot of legitimately racist posts backed by specious and lightly sourced 'research' (basically white supremacist propaganda) and has been a vocal Trump defender, more or less unconditionally. I think his brand of posting was significantly different than anyone else's in that regard, and that's why I'm calling him out.
Like, I think there's a non-zero chance Nate sympathizes with these hate groups, and he's a mod here...
I don't feel like I'm coddling anyone. I see the cherry picked stats and scientific studies offered scattershot with what I perceive as an agenda of racial stratification and classification. Blacks, Latinos, and any sort of indigenous people are "dumber" and inferior, Jews and East Asians are "smarter, inscrutable," and thus inferior, and South Asians and Middle Easterners are classified as "inferiority-to-be-named-later."
The few posters who have consistently said positive things about the Trump administration may be absent as the connection between the rhetoric of Trump (and his extremist cronies) and the accompanying rise of an explicit and emboldened White Power movement becomes more and more clear. Trump supporters are kind of caught in a bind now, some in total denial, some rationalizing, some denouncing the behavior without denouncing the administration, some now denouncing the administration, and some more openly embracing the new found freedom of being white, proud, and
superior.
I know it repels some people, and probably chased a few of my favorite posters away. It doesn't repel me. I've got a few relatives and friends who are struggling with this right now (including a favorite nephew). If I call them
idiot,
coward,
racist, whatever, (as other friends and relatives have done), they'll never listen to me, and they really aren't letting too many alternative sources in. I'd rather try to be that alternate point of view they haven't shut out. Maybe that sounds naive to you, but I've seen it work before.
Obama's quote of Mandela on this subject seems appropriate here:
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
- feels like you need to beat him into the ground.