Trump has three basic groups of people that he thinks he can use as scary bogeymen to stir up fear among voters: 1. Central American immigrants 2. Black people 3. Muslims He basically cycles back and forth between these three bogeymen, as circumstances allow.
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Well, I don't think we are in much of disagreement here. The key difference seems to be that I don't think, in the long run, Trumpism will matter for that much. A lot of sound and fury whose impact will be forgotten in a couple of decades, I suspect.
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I should modify this by saying Trumpism will not matter much on the basis of racism. That provides a more relatable short term problem that obscures the fundamental systemic problems associated with it that are far more dangerous in the long run.
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I don't understand that argument. Can you explain?
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I think Trump and the environment that gave rise to his presidency represent breakdown of the functioning of US political institution in general. Where there have been worse social and econ crises, the political system was robust enough for US to survive. 1/
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E.g. the Great Depression, the 60s, and so on. Mostly b/c the political institutions were run on the hypocrisy of the "functioning" kind, where pols were willing to cut deals. Less so today. Political institutions are generally reviled. Dealmaking is anathema. 2/
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And name calling and moralistic posturing substitutes for politicking. And Trump is very good at this sort of dysfunctional politics--he got there b/c of this. The racist nonsense is an important part of this act. But dysfunctional politics, even if it weren't racist, is.. 3/
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Still dysfunctional. The key challenge for me is to find a way to reintroduce the "productive" hypocrisy back into politics so that deals can be made and productive things can actually get done, while the moralistic posturing can be suppressed. 4/
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So, to me, racism is a symptom, rather than the cause. Very serious symptom, but not as serious as one might think--as you pointed out, the racism against Muslims and African Americans, for now at least, has little or bite, and I think even that aginst Hispanics is... 5/
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