Interesting article over at The Bleacher Report about how Trump’s candidacy has divided sportsball locker rooms, largely along racial lines:
In mid-May, as Trump became the presumptive nominee, two NFC teammates—a right-leaning offensive lineman and a left-leaning linebacker—began to re-examine their friendship because of Trump.
They had known each other for four years. Their wives talked on occasion. Their kids sometimes played together. They sat next to each other in team meetings and went to dinner several times per month. They often joked that politics were off-limits because of their disparate viewpoints. Then, after their first offseason team workout in May, the lineman revealed he would be voting for Trump—and everything changed.
The linebacker, a Clinton supporter, began finding excuses for not going to dinner. The families stopped talking. When the lineman confronted his now former friend, he recalls receiving a blunt response: I can’t be friends with anyone who would vote for Donald Trump. I’m sorry.
Can’t blame the linebacker. I recently found out through another friend that two mutual acquaintances (a couple) are big Trump supporters. I don’t know the couple very well, but we’ve spent enjoyable time together. Receiving that news was like finding out the pair had robbed a 7-11 — they aren’t who I thought they were. Fuck them.
From my own observations of fellow white folks, there is a divide, with some recognizing the bigotry at the heart of the Trump campaign — the racism, sexism, anti-Muslim bias, xenophobia, etc. — and others denying it. Until I found out about the couple mentioned above, I didn’t personally know a single Trump supporter who I didn’t already know was also a bigot. That’s why hearing of the couple’s support for Trump surprised me. I thought they were better than that. More from the article:
Black players who might otherwise back a more conservative candidate said they have abandoned Trump because they view him as anti-black. Multiple players cited Trump’s embrace of so-called birtherism—the lie that President Obama isn’t a natural-born citizen—as one of several reasons they dislike Trump.
“A lot of black players believe saying the first black president isn’t really American is racist as f–k,” one player told B/R Mag.
That’s because the birther thing is racist as fuck. Anyone who can’t see that is just too goddamned dumb to vote, IMO, like the Trump-supporting lineman:
“That’s an issue with this country,” said the lineman, who said he planned to vote for Trump. “We can’t have conversations anymore. We are too sensitive. It’s OK to disagree about things.”
Actually, no — it’s not OK to disagree about some things, not if you want to retain your claim to my presumption of your basic human decency. Anyway, 33 more days until the Crazification Factor is revised upwards.
PS: It’s muggy and breezy here on the western side of FL as Hurricane Matthew approaches the eastern coast. You Easties stay safe, you hear?
catclub
But, but, but They told me Obama was the most divisive President evar.
pacem appellant
Family members–evangelical xtians mind you–have figured out how to jump on Donnie’s bandwagon. I’m disappointed, sure, but I can’t say I’m surprised. All chickens come home to roost eventually.
MJS
Hmm, rich white people who have the means to live in gated communities like Trump, and really don’t want to deal with black people, unless that’s the only way they can make a living. Who knew?
shomi
I just want it over.
I recently found out some people I know are Trump fans. They are very normal decent people. The reason as I see it is that they are very old and don’t see any consequences to that decision.
Their reason? “I think it will be interesting if he was president.”
He’s interesting….wtf?! That was it. He’s this crazy nutcase and they like that. All they do all day is watch game shows and Nancy Grace and Judge Judy so they like the idea of a carnival barker/game show host, like all these other people, as prez.
Started in on them about how his ideas are dangerous and nuclear war and blah blah. They just shut down and never said a thing. I knew there was nothing I could say that would change their mind.
Hal
@pacem appellant: One Facebook coworker who’s an evangelical christian is voting for Trump. Some of his friends either say God is using Trump as a vessel, or it’s Pence and Trump is going the way of the dodo once he’s elected. Oh, and Hillary’s emails and she murdered people.
bluefish
Thank you for stating this so clearly. It really is as simple as that and needs to be put out there just like that, that baldly, over and over again. Most all of my cousins and their many children have been on the right for decades now. They will go with Trump. Same for some of my old high school buddies scattered around the country. (Graduated HS in 73). We are polite with one another but the divide has infected our feelings, mostly unstated, for one another. I’m lucky in that my family of origin is on the proper side of the fence and we support one another–and volunteer. This current scene isn’t just a divide — it’s a chasm. For the reasons you state so directly. The young player who first knelt started something and I’m grateful to him. Takes courage to state the obvious these days so publicly.
Percysowner
When a candidate stokes hatred, espouses racism and denigrates people who belong to a certain religion, then anyone who supports them is supporting all of those views. This isn’t a people can hold other views kind of thing. This is supporting a man who says he is going to do harm to citizens that he deems less. Deciding not to be friends with them isn’t shutting down discussion, it’s making a stand based on a moral position.
Mnemosyne
I do feel very lucky that I only have one Trump asshole on my Facebook feed, and he’s just an in-law. Everyone else is either staying on the DL or is a Hillary supporter.
Oh, I have one cousin who’s a retired suburban cop who’s voting for Johnson in IL because he despises Trump. He’s been voting Republican since Reagan’s second term, so this is actually a really big step for him. Plus he acknowledged that he has the luxury of voting for Johnson because IL is very blue, and urged everyone he knows in less blue states to vote for Clinton.
gogol's wife
Luckily I do not know anyone personally who is going to vote for Trump. The farthest right person I know, whose big issue is Israel, says he won’t vote for him, but he also won’t vote for Clinton “unless it looks really close.” I Godwinned the hell out of him, but am not sure it did any good.
And I’m pretty sure that if my parents were alive today, they would not be voting for Trump. (Aunts and uncles, not so much, but they’re all gone so I don’t have to deal with it.)
Tokyokie
I’ve been avoiding acquaintances whom I figure are Trump supporters, because I can’t understand how one can support him without being racist, and I can’t understand how anybody can be racist without being stupid and evil.
JPL
@pacem appellant: This answer is why I’m with her.. link
Evangelicals would rather be with the rac.ist pig.
redshirt
Good for players speaking out.
Kaepernick has really lit a fire in these guys, and in athletes everywhere. He made a real difference.
JPL
Here’s another Hillary ad.. link
This one is good!
redshirt
Also, as a huge Pats fan, I’m glad Brady has shut up about Trump. But I assume he is a supporter, so fuck him.
catclub
It is amazing to me that a coach, who needs all his players to work as a team, would not realize that Trump being racist as fuck might be a problem for the black players on the team.
OTOH, I have read LGM posts that do not rate him very high in the necessities for being a good coach.
pacem appellant
@Hal: The “God works in mysterious way” angle is awful, and I hope for most evangelicals it’s a cop out because they can’t fess up to why they’re really voting for him: he’s a bigot, like them. One relative works in the service industry and they like the vehement anti-immigrant position as they have been upset about immigrant labor keeping wages down in their industry. So I get that (I don’t agree with them, but I get it). The rest are either so entrenched in the Pro-Life ideology that they can’t see anything but red, or they figured that they vote for all the other conservative bigots, why not this one as well?
Betty Cracker
@pacem appellant: I am 100% certain that many of my family members are voting for Trump, most of whom also claim to be Christians. They’re family, so I will not disown them over this — we haven’t talked politics for years by mutual agreement anyway. But I can choose my friends…
Punchy
I can handle friends who chose to vote McCain or Romney, or 3rd party this time, but not Trump. A vote for him is either an indicator of latent racism or absurd stupidity. If/when I find colleagues expressing support for Trump, they’re gone-zo as friends.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t see it as such a big step. I have loads of friends who are what I call Embarrassed Republicans. They’ve never voted for a Dem for president and don’t intend to start now. Back in the 80s they’d be the “oh I’m socially liberal but fiscally conservative” spouting crowd–all done to cover their inherent Republican voting. Yes, they are overwhelmingly white, middle class, college edumacated professionals.
They can’t abide Trump but still espouse all the noxious things that are Republican Policy. They need an “out” so glibertarian it is! It goes like this:
They spout something along the lines of “These are the worst two candidates of my lifetime if not of the entire existence of our country. I’m a libertarian and we’re not as far apart as you might think. It’s too bad Johnson’s coming across as if he smoked too much weed growing up. This is the perfect time for a 3rd party candidate to shake up the establishment and send a message.”
Again, I hear that crap from the same people ALL THE TIME. I don’t bother to point out the laundry list of shit Johnson and the glibertarians espouse that runs at least a page in length that’s totally opposite of what a liberal, governing agenda is all about again because they fail to see their views as being what they are: typical Republican stuff that candidates like Little Mario or Jeb! would have run with but not done so with all the public racism of Trump or kookoo-for-Cocao-Puffs religiousity of Calgary “Ted” Cruz. So, such Embarrassed Republicans vote for Johnson because “he’s a libertarian” but I can guarandamntee you they’ll vote for every other Republican on the ballot.
redshirt
In other news, how was the vacation Betty? Was the houseboat fancy?
Betty Cracker
@redshirt: I’m glad Kaepernick took a stand on racial bias in policing, but he sounds like a “both sides” idiot when he gets on the topic of politics, at least in the one interview I heard. Basically, he said there’s no difference between Clinton and Trump, which is a profoundly stupid statement, IMO.
AnotherBruce
Well, by showing that they are a bunch of opportunistic money grubbing racist and sexist pigs. The Evangelicals have once again showed us who they really are. Their morality takes a deep back seat to their lust for power.
Betty Cracker
@redshirt: It was a great vacation, but we had to cut it short due to the stupid hurricane! It was not at all fancy — like a floating camper!
MJS
@redshirt: Brady is a big Trump supporter, which is pretty much all the evidence I need to know that he did, in fact, have those footballs deflated, and likely had a hand in Spygate as well. Cheaters hang with cheaters.
ET
The problem with the lineman’s quote is that he is using it as a way to make himself look better.
What he wants is to support Trump without being called a bigot. The problem is, that most of Trump supporters are bigots and Trump says A LOT that is just racist and bigoted — what he says is a big part of his appeal. What Trump says cannot be divorced from who he is and who most of his supporters are and most people are recognize this. But in the head of the lineman because he works with African Americans he can’t be a bigot. That his co-workers see Trump’s comments the way in which they are intended, would mean that they are calling him a bigot when they call him on his support for Trump. The lineman like a lot of white America has little self-awareness about this. They come up with all sorts of pretzel logic to make themselves not look racist or bigoted when they are to varying degrees. In their head the only white racists wear white robes and belong to the KKK. Anyone else – even those spouting the exact same drivel but wearing a suit are because they aren’t wearing robes.
redshirt
@Betty Cracker: Bummer!
You’re trip has made me think a lot about houseboats for some reason. I’m picturing a really nice one – like a floating hotel, but just for you and yours.
Didn’t Quincy MD live on a houseboat?
Dmbeaster
I agree that Trump is so bad is such evil ways that it is hard to find any good motives in Trump supporters. I can understand people not liking Hillary (even if it is all endless GOP lies), and I can understand conservatives being unwilling to vote for Hillary. None of that explains embracing Trump, unless you are truly too stupid to know better. It is a moral distinction, and if you have half a brain and are not sociopathic, embracing Trump does make you a evil bigot.
redshirt
@MJS: Bah!
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
people who concentrate intensely on one aspect of their lives often lack insight into other aspects. There was this Dr Carson, gifted surgeon,
no clue about politics.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not the ones that you start with, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body, but you have to admit….”
Mnemosyne
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
My cousin is an Evangelical retired cop who’s voted Republican his entire life and hates the Clintons. Believe me, in context, this is a really big deal. He’s never even made a pretense of being socially liberal, but MAN does he hate Trump.
catclub
@ET:
The present term of art is: If you did not personally shoot Medgar Evers, then you cannot be white and racist.
? Martin
This happened for us in 2008 more around Prop 8 than around Obama. The anti-gay marriage explanations would come out and we’d think of our kids, too young to know their orientation, and wonder how they would be received by our neighbors, etc. voicing these explanations. We didn’t have any rifts with the McCain supporters. Ideological differences are easy to deal with, but bigotry is not.
Thankfully I don’t know any Trump supporters. All of my conservative friends are either voting Clinton or Johnson.
? Martin
@redshirt: I suspect Brady’s South American immigrant wife communicated her opinions on Trump, and that ended the Trump-curious phase.
MJS
@redshirt: The owner, Kraft, is also a Trump supporter, as well as a supporter of Rush Limbaugh. In fact, Limbaugh was in the owner’s box for at least one Super Bowl. How can you root for that team?
chris
@redshirt: Travis McGee lived on a houseboat in Ft. Lauderdale, the Busted Flush. With “an acre of bed.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good Clinton endorsement from Tampa Bay Time, with charts!
redshirt
@MJS: If we judged a team by their ownership, there would be very few teams to root for.
Doug R
@Betty Cracker: Yup. CK’s comments on Hillz sounded profoundly ignorant.
gvg
Yeah, Trump support is a big barrier to friendship for me. I have a cousin who probably will but I already knew she was a bigot. She doesn’t know it though. I am not close to her so I’ve never know how to work on her except to yell until she quit forwarding to me racist crap on Obama and before that stupid forced birth stuff.
The thing is I want to help my nephew realize that people can be friends without agreeing on everything. You never agree perfectly with anyone and you can’t insist on having your way for every game or choice or you won’t have any friends. Important lesson for grade school. he makes friends easily. And now we have Trump and he is old enough we have to explain about it plus I am expecting several years more of nuts throwing tantrums…we will have to explain most things aren’t that important but a few things really are. Easier said than done but I guess that’s reality.
slag
Trump to all minorities and women: “You don’t deserve equality and personal sovereignty because you’re not real Americans.”
Democrats to Trump: “That’s fucked up, and you’re an asshole.”
Republicans to Democrats: “Why are you so sensitive?”
Irony. It ain’t just another word for denial.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@redshirt: to say nothing of the players…
The Ricketts family could be problematic for some Cubs fans, but daughter/partner Laura is a major Obama/Clinton fundraiser, and Theo Epstein went to an HRC fundraiser in Chicago
gogol's wife
@JPL:
Wow, something in my eye here.
liberal
@pacem appellant: IMHO it’s entirely appropriate to be against high levels of immigration. The problem starts when people come at it from a racist angle, and when the proposed solutions are ones directed at the immigrants (and won’t be very effective anyway) instead of ones directed at employers (which would be very effective).
Johnnybuck
What’s funny is that most goopers I know seem fairly unaffected by his sexism, racism, insult comic personality, they don’t like any of that, but it wasn’t until the tax issue came up that any of them started to have a problem with the Donald. They hate that.
I don’t consider them friends, but the fact that it was taxes that became a bridge too far (we’ll see about that) for them says everything you need to know about Republicans.
MJS
@redshirt: Haven’t seen Limbaugh in any other owner’s boxes. And being a lifelong Rams fan, had Limbaugh actually been accepted as part of the ownership team a few years ago, I would have been gone.
Roger Moore
@redshirt:
I made a comment about this yesterday. I was dismissive of Kaepernick when he started his protest, thinking it was just grandstanding and wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I’m surprised and happy I was wrong about that. I think it shows something important to remember when it’s time to stand up for what’s right: movements always start with one or a handful of people and have to grow to become big enough to create change.
schrodinger's cat
I have severed ties with my “independent” friend who says she is not going to vote for Trump, but reads Brietbart for balance.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
Did you watch “black-ish”? They don’t do much with Diggs, but he fits in well.
bystander
@gogol’s wife: If I were related to anyone who would vote for Trump I’d be hoping they lived in Port St. Lucie.
And can somebody tell me what an Orthodox Jew is eating at Nobu? Kosher lobster?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Mnemosyne:
It sounds like he only hates the *face* of the party at this moment in time. I’d bet that if Little Marco or Jeb! had been the nominee, he’d be voting for them. We’ve got to stop treating glibertarianism as if it were a genuine “3rd way” totally different from regular conservatism. It’s just a makeover term for Republicans who are embarrassed by Trump. Johnson is simply a bog-standard Republican everywhere that it matters.
Ask him if he’s voting straight Repub on the rest of the ticket. Not that he’s under any obligation to answer that particular question.
elm
Whether for good or ill, November’s election won’t elucidate the crazification factor because it’ll have misogyny mixed in with crazification.
liberal
@catclub: or like any number of billionaires.
gogol's wife
@bystander:
I see what you did there.
FlyingToaster
@catclub: Brady’s not a coach. He’s a QB, married to an immigrant. I don’t vouch for his intelligence off of the gridiron.
I have no idea if Bill Bellicheck (the Pats’ Coach) is even registered to vote. He sure as F doesn’t spout political opinions.
@MJS: Location, Location, Location. I’m well inside of PatriotsNation. Though frankly, I’m still a Chiefs fan, and HerrDoktor still whines about the Dolphins.
gogol's wife
@bystander:
I liked that wig she wore to modestly cover her hair along with the shell-pink tight sleeveless shift dress at the RNC.
redshirt
@Doug R: What did Kaep say about Hillz?
prufrock
@Betty Cracker: I take to heart something one of my fellow engineers told me long ago. He owned a really nice 34 ft two masted Catch. I asked him if he ever considered living on it.
“Hell no! That’s just living in a really expensive trailer!”
Opened my eyes, that did.
MCA1
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I know and socialize with dozens of these people. In fact, I’d say they constitute the majority of my non-work acquaintances. And they still use “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” as a marker. It sounds better than “They absolutely suck on regulating women’s wombs and I personally think it’s kinda ridiculous to keep gay people from getting married and I’ll say that out loud, but I will nonetheless vote for all Republicans all the time because my personal tax rate is the only thing that actually motivates my ballot markings, period, end of discussion for all time.” That’s depressing, of course, because (a) it’s partly responsible for the GOP’s failure to address the scourge of its own base, because of a lack of electoral punishment for its embrace of the wacko right wing, and (b) because that mentality makes it really, really difficult to get otherwise sane, well-meaning people to be anything but willfully obtuse about income inequality, criminal justice problems, etc. unless there are pitchforks involved.
All that said, I do think voting libertarian this election is actually a big step for these people, because it indicates that Trump has pushed the boundaries of that formulation too far. They’ll probably go right back to their prior comfort zone as soon as Ryan and Rubio and more respectable seeming people reclaim power over the party’s direction, and never address their complicity in where we are right now, I know. The “Trump was this weird, alien fever that has passed” theory of the 2016 election will prevail for them, with no recognition of the fact that only one party was a potential host to that illness. And that’s also depressing. But for the time being, I do give them some credit for saying there is a line beyond which their partisanship does not extend.
Tokyokie
@catclub: Back in the day, Frank Broyles fired Lou Holtz’s ass as Arkansas’ football coach because Holtz cut a TV spot for the repellent Jesse Helms (whom he’d gotten to know when he was the coach at N.C. State). I don’t know how forward-thinking Broyles was, but when Holtz broached the idea with him and sought his permission, Broyles denied it, saying it would be used against the school in recruiting black football players. Whereupon Holtz declared that his boss couldn’t tell him what to do or think in the political sphere, because Constitution arglebargle, and went ahead an did the Helms ad. And although Broyles offered Holtz the cover of resigning, he fired Holz’s right-wing butt. And ever since then, I’ve admired Frank Broyles and despised Lou Holtz.
And when I see a picture of my school’s defensive coordinator beaming under a “Make America Great Again” gimme cap, I cringe, wondering just how stupid can he be? But most Saturdays, the awful defensive play answers the question for me.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@redshirt:
So true. Every Baltimore Oriole fan I know (and I know lots) love their team but will be the first to admit their owner is one of the bigger pricks in that club. They’ve been loving the fact that Little Danny Snyder’s antics over the last decade with regards to his professional sports franchise has taken a lot of the spotlight off of their asshole.
currants
@MJS: Errmm…might as well ask why watch football–the entire league is a scurvy-ridden parasitic beast.
cope
Just checking in from the Orlando area (near Wekiva Springs if you have been there). NHC maps show us getting at least 40 mph winds with strong possibilities of 60 mph or more (good bye power lines) and up to 10 inches of rain. We’ve taken all the precautions we can (stowed potential airborne missiles, stockpiled necessary supplies, put both cars in the garage, saturated the pool with deadly chemicals, etc.) and now we’re just waiting.
I’ll be checking the 2 PM NHC report and go from there.
Betty Cracker
@slag: Very well stated. Thank you.
Gemina13
The only people I know that would vote for Trump are people who I’ve had no contact with for 5 years. I plan to keep it that way.
I despair of the few friends who insist that they have to “vote their conscience” in this election. They’re all white and well-to-do, and vocally supportive of progressive causes–but they think Hillary is corrupt because emails, etc. We live in a blue state, but that’s no excuse for playing the special snowflakes. At least they’ve all stopped crowing about Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, now that those two have shown what idiotic wankers they are.
Punchy
How do all these racists go back into their closets on Nov. 9th? Is pulling their “Trump Pence” signs going to hoodwink enough neighbors to restore their reputation as reasonable folk?
I know I’ve made special note of the few peeps in my subby who are sporting Trump signs/stickers. Their house will be a no-go zone for me and the fam going forward.
pacem appellant
@liberal: Being against immigration quickly becomes being again immigrants. I know that the distinction can be difficult, but my relative is having trouble seeing the distinction between the people and the policy. Trump makes it easy, the people are the policy. And that’s racist, period.
Mnemosyne
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Oh, he’s definitely not a glibertarian. He’s a conservative Republican. That was my entire point: Trump is too extreme even for lifelong conservative Republicans. He really is getting the racist rump of the party.
MJS
@FlyingToaster: I get “location”, but what I don’t get is supporting a team whose owner is close friends with an out-and-out racist. Remember, ESPN canned Limbaugh for his race-baiting. What satisfaction would any decent fan get of seeing such a person standing in the middle of the field accepting the Lombardi trophy? And, FWIW, I’ve never been anywhere near Los Angeles or St. Louis.
pacem appellant
@Betty Cracker: An FB friend (from HS) is *this* close to getting the boot. His saving grace is that his wife smacks him down when he goes Full Trump, and his daughters are sooooo cute!
Betty Cracker
@cope: Stay safe!
redshirt
@Punchy: Me too. The problem is there are so many Trump signs in my area I’ll have a hard time remembering them all when they’re gone. Alas, I will not forget the old man and wife at the end of the road who I hitherto considered nice folks.
Punchy
@cope: True story — I was in Orlando the last time (I think) a ‘cane when through (95?). Had all these tix to Disney shit, and then Disney closed down the parks and had a crew at the ready to dismantle the castle (yes, it can be dismantled for this very reason). The ‘cane went Cat 1 and so all we got was a shit-ton of rain and broken trees, and the castle wasn’t touched, but I wonder what they’ll do if this monster looks to turn inland…
Amir Khalid
@bystander:
I know Muslims who drink alcohol. It’s always been less not-okay than eating pork.
LurkerExtraordinaire
Sometimes, it’s best to just cut sling load.
MCA1
@MJS: Yup. I was in the car with my kid a few weeks ago (same kid who I mentioned in another thread last week, discussing how he said Trump’s campaign slogan was “stupid” because “America’s already great”), and we were talking football and he said “I can’t stand Tom Brady.” Why, I asked. “Because he’s a cheater. He took footballs and blew them up…” He didn’t have the basic facts quite right, but whatever. I said, “You know, he’s a big Trump fan, too?” “OMG! Now I can’t stand him even more!”
This has, if nothing else, been a very clarifying election. The silver lining of the otherwise really depressing phenomenon Betty chronicled in the main post here has been that at least some of the otherwise hidden loathsomeness is out in the open now, and can be chronicled and filed away. People who are deplorable, deluded or clueless enough to desire Donald J. Trump as President of the United States so much as to be vocal about it are doing me a service, by essentially putting a mark on their forehead that says “I am not worthy of your respect.”
schrodinger's cat
Repeating my story from yesterday. I know efgoldman pooh poohed by saying that since I live in the blue part of a blue state its not a big deal.
I went for my haircut and the talk the turned to Trump. This is highly unusual, the talk at the salon is never heavy, its relaxed and fluffy. I don’t remember discussing politics ever, in all my adult life when I go for a haircut or any other stuff. All the women in there (5 including the stylists and the customers) were horrified by Trump. Most women hate Trump because they have known someone like him IRL.
Villago Delenda Est
Yes, I disagree with Herr Hitler about how the Jews should be rounded up and killed. Sure, we can disagree!
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
He was a thumping moron/unpleasant individual before the protest and it can’t have changed much. (Can you tell I’m not a fan?) Despite my feelings about him I support what he’s doing on the sidelines and with other players around the league. But he can shut the fvck up about the presidential campaign if all he can gin up is “boff sides.”
Jeffro
@catclub:
Oh man, Owen Ellickson has Carson SO nailed in his recent Tweets…you’ll cry, you’ll be laughing so hard…
schrodinger's cat
@liberal: What does that mean, high level of immigration. High compared to what?
AnotherBruce
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s good to know. I know that Ricketts has been a good team owner. He often sits in the stands and gives out baseballs to fans.But yeah, I know he’s a conservative. I just hope he’s not too wingnutty.
trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat:
And maybe that’s one difference for me with this campaign–in settings I would have never experienced political discussion it’s happening this year. Kind of miss the old days.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Gemina13:
Ah, more purity ponies so deep into their white privege enclave they honestly think they can survive a Cheeto Donnie presidency. I think a commenter here in the last couple of weeks likened it to “they think they’re hobbits in the Shire and nothing will impact them because they’re so insulated.”
They’re worse than core Trump supporters quite frankly. Trying to pretend the choice is anything but binary is pure fatuousness. It’s the electoral equivalent of sending thoughts and prayers. It again shows you that the right doesn’t have a lock on extreme stupidity.
Mandalay
Trump desperately tries to pivot on his pigs, dogs, slobs and fat shaming comments….
I’m sure women everywhere are forgiving the cheeky scallywag. Or not.
Clinton in a landslide.
slag
@Betty Cracker: Thank you. It came from the heart (esp the fucked up asshole part).
Seriously, though, it is irritating that, even with all paths of plausible deniability seemingly shutoff, they keep finding new ones. Now that I think about it, maybe denial really is a river (or at least retains many of the most destructive properties of water).
Jeffro
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
W was great for “Libertarian” recruiting/label-switching, too.
trollhattan
@cope:
Best wishes for an uneventful day. Ten inches of rain is nearly half our annual total…in a day? She-yit.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
It came up with my hairdresser a few months ago. She immigrated from Taiwan, so she was very relieved to hear how much I hated Trump.
Also, too, check your email — I have a post saved for you on WordPress.
bystander
@Amir Khalid: She had a fruit salad, for all I know. But as Gogol’s wife points out above, her clothes and what appears to be her actual hair belie the notion that Ivanka is Orthodox. Plus Rosie getting in the middle of it again.
geg6
I can’t go to the places I’ve always gone in my town, the local bars and restaurants. My John and I have always tried to patronize the locally owned mom and pop places. First, because we like to buy local when we can and second, we know everyone (or at least, John does) that hangs out in them. Well, that’s over for now and possibly forever. Twice now, we’ve gotten into shouting matches at the bar of two local restaurants and we can’t set foot in the VFW where we are social members because the talk about Hillary and Obama there is so unhinged.
So we are stuck with going to the local Applebees and Texas Roadhouse. No one ever talks politics there and no one assumes that everyone in the place all agree on politics. It’s a relief. But I’m sad that this is how this election is playing out. The only other time I’ve ever lost friends over politics was in the run up to the Iraq War. But even then, I never lost entire businesses that I couldn’t patronize any more because it made me so uncomfortable and, in some cases, afraid for my safety.
Betty Cracker
@pacem appellant: Yep — Trump demonizes immigrants as people. He uses the families of victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants as props, implying that the perpetrators’ lack of documentation was a factor in their criminality — when immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. It’s a very dangerous, unconscionable and indefensible way to run a campaign.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: My stylist’s family came over with the Mayflower, her reaction to Trump was the same as your stylist’s.
hueyplong
Many more than half the people I deal with are “conservative.” I don’t ask anyone about Trump because of the way I now think about the person who outed himself on that topic. If someone who isn’t being asked volunteers his/her Trumpdom, that’s two-strikes-and-you’re-out.
There is no dog-whistling here, nowhere to hide the essence of your core if you proudly out yourself as a Trump supporter.
goblue72
You are going to need to stop watching football then. Or probably most sports.
From that article:
Who knows how scientific that poll was, but those are some REALLY stark results. But I would not be surprised if a significant number of white pro athletes will be voting for Trump. I guess you could stick to just watching NBA games, where white athletes are well in the minority, such that you could root for most NBA teams and not feel like you are supporting Trump voters. But otherwise…. So next time you root for the Steelers, keep in mind, you are more likely than not rooting for a good number of Trump voters.
Anyone who attended a public high school in this country should not be surprised by any of this or that the white guys on the football team (or the basketball team or baseball team or hockey team or…) grew up to be Trump voters.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: He is doing more than that he is conflating falling afoul of immigration laws, a civil infraction in most cases with criminality. Pence did the same in his debate.
MattF
My family, right now, is all-Clinton. The older generation, my various aunts and uncles (there were about twenty of them), had a few open bigots, but they’re all gone now.
Villago Delenda Est
@pacem appellant: Fundigelicalism is intimately tied to white supremacism. The origins of fundigelicalism can be traced back to the breakup of denominations over the issue of slavery. The antecedents to the fundis went South.
OGLiberal
Many of my Trump supporter acquaintances are smart enough to realize that he’s lying, that he’s unprepared, that he’s a jagoff, etc, etc. Their support, at least as far as I can tell from their explicit statements, is based on the fact that they just can’t stand Hillary…thinks she’s the devil, a criminal, too establishment, etc. But then they also actively post stupid stuff Trump says and they HATE the BLM movement with the fury of nine raging volcanoes. So methinks it more than just Hillary hatred.
My guess is that these same people were asking their Democratic Party friends in 2008 how they could support a Kenyan black dude over Hillary and how she, while they supported McCain, would be a much better president than the commie usurper. And some of them probably also said they would have voted Democratic had the party just nominated the much more experienced and qualified Hillary.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Thanks! I will check it out.
OGLiberal
I hate Tom Brady. I admire him as a QB. I admire his talent, his ability to win even with a bunch of second stringers. I’m not a Pats fan but I’ve rooted for him and his squad in the playoffs/Super Bowl, except when my Giants took him down…twice. I think any cheating that ever went on was probably Bill’s doing and not Brady’s. But I still hate him because he strikes me as an incredible d-bag. And if he actually supports Trump, rather than just chumming around with another celebrity, that just confirms my feelings.
Also, eff all those old white ex-NFL/college coaches who support Trump. Pretty certain their choice of candidate tells me how they felt about the many minority players they coached, the guys who won the games that paid their bills. NO RESPECT!
Cckids
@Betty Cracker: I have a sistee-in-law who I just found out is a Trump supporter. I’m dumbfounded. She’s been s Republican for a while, but I figured her for either Johnson or not voting.
We got into it on FB last night, and I’m still reeling. She lives in Shreveport (on PURPOSE!), and has a mixed-race son & grandson.
I asked her how she talked to them about Trump & his open, proud bigotry & she replied with a rant about thd EEEVILS of Hillary.
I just do not have the strength for this. I ended by sending her a link to that GQ “Screw You if You Vote for Trump” article. I do not expect to hear back from her.
And I can’t find it in me to regret that.
Jeffro
@OGLiberal:(I’ve rooted for him and his squad in the playoffs/Super Bowl, except when my Giants took him down…twice)
For which we are eternally grateful…me & my family have a love for Eli Manning & the NYG that’s rooted solely in this…
Joel
That BR straw poll had 100% of white NFL players supporting Trump (small sample sizes and all, but still…)
I thought baseball was the wingnuttiest team sport but I may have to revisit.
Yoda Dog
My parents are diehard Trumpers… I’m so ashamed, I don’t know what to do or how to even get past this… Any other Trump supporters? fuck’em, no problem.. But my parents?! (cries silently..)
eclare
@slag: I too appreciated your comment. Trying to commit it to memory so I’ll have it at the ready if I encounter another “we just can’t talk about things anymore” type person.
trollhattan
@goblue72:
Here is one white NFL player definitely not voting for Donny.
Elmo
I’m sure people here are tired of hearing me talk about my Trumpkin brothers, but it’s directly on topic so I’ll mention them again – their FB feeds are a mishmash of “lookit these cool cars” and “ooo yay classic rock” together with hideous lies from “Conservative Tribune” and Breitbart and Shoebat.com. Here’s the real kicker: they’ve fully embraced the title “Deplorables.”
So yeah, I’m going with Maya Angelou on them: “When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.” They don’t choose to think of it in these terms I’m sure, but they would both vote to invalidate my marriage. They are my brothers, and they would absolutely both vote for Pence, or Huckabee, or Ben Carson, right along with Trump. They are my brothers, and they would vote to strip my disabled wife of her health insurance and right to Social Security survivor’s benefits.
Fuck them.
OGLiberal
@goblue72: I think a lot of the white dudes in the NFL come from the Midwest or Texas/Oklahoma so the Republican/race stuff is kind of baked in. Mostly lineman, maybe a few TEs. And the white QBs, and there are a lot of them, tend to come from upper class to wealthy families who, while not necessarily social conservatives, loves them some politicians who always talk about cutting their taxes so they can be richer than they already are.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
By a strange coincidence, I am reputedly a Mayflower descendant (on my mother’s side, which is why my name doesn’t seem to indicate it). My brother has the genealogy paperwork somewhere.
redshirt
@Elmo: I drive by a gun store that has a sign so they can post their sales and their witty political insights. After Orlando they had a sale on AR-15’s and offered free cleanings to anyone bringing in their AR-15’s. Nice, right?
Now their sign says “We are Trump deplorables” as you say, they’re proud of it. But I’m sure they think they’re good christians and are fundamentally good people. And yet… the evidence.
They’re assholes and proud of it.
goblue72
@trollhattan: He’s a punter. Nobody cares what he thinks.
I kid, but generally, if there’s some white NFL player saying something progressive/liberal sounding, my first guess is “Is he a punter or kicker?”
Again, that straw poll was a small sample size, but given how severe the Trump v Hillary divide was along racial lines even in that small sample…. Would not surprise me in the least if the majority of white NFL players – or even the majority of white pro athletes as a whole – skewed very strongly Trump.
Which voter group most strongly skews Trump? White men. Why would that be any different if those white men are also professional athletes?
MomSense
@JPL:
That is a fantastic ad. Made me a bit teary.
jenn
@redshirt: I think it’s important to separate out Kap’s protest and players speaking out, both for Kap and other players. Players have been speaking out for quite some time, long predating Kap’s protest, and I know in the Seahawks’ case, what is said will (usually) make local/Seahawks’ news and (occasionally) blip into national sports news. What’s different is that Kap’s protest was controversial enough that it made national sports and regular news, and in particular, sustained national news. And for that he definitely deserves credit, both for doing it, and for bearing the brunt of the the resulting backlash. It has given those who were already speaking more of a microphone, and has opened up space for those who hadn’t been speaking/demonstrating to do so.
As for owners, I’m pretty happy with Allen, and (egads) York has seemingly been surprisingly good at supporting Kap over this. York’s a terrible owner, footballwise, but here he seems to be doing well.
Also, one of the things that I appreciate about the Hawks is that Carroll gave official team meeting time to discuss these issues and brought in people for the team to talk with to help them figure out what it was they were really trying to achieve, and how best to move that forward.
trollhattan
@goblue72:
Well it would surprise me. I should think you’d find more fertile ground correlating Trumphilia with I.Q., and the lower the I.Q. the more likely the player is to spout dumb things out loud, skewing any survey attempts.
eclare
@goblue72: Wasn’t there a punter/kicker for the Vikings who was pretty outspoken about LGBT issues years ago?
jenn
@trollhattan: There’s no way Hausch is voting Trump. Unfortunately, Jon won’t be voting in the election at all because he’s a Canuck. :*)
jenn
@eclare: Yeah, Kluwe.
Joel
@goblue72: Scott Fujita has espoused liberal views in the past. But he retired some time ago.
trollhattan
@jenn:
Oooh, good point. Wait, he married the comedian so does that make him dual-citizen?
Jonny Scrum-half
@Tokyokie: Really? I’m not trying to be provocative, but people are complex. I know many Trump supporters, some in my family and some very sane, good people. I also believe that Trump support is largely a racial phenomenon, but I don’t see that as, by itself, sufficient to characterize a person as “stupid” or “evil.” Every person has many sides, and some of those sides can be both very good and very bad at the same time.
redshirt
@jenn: Yeah, I’m not a fan of Carroll (for what he did to the Pats), but I like the way he manages the Hawks and the smart guys on the team. Sherman and Baldwin might get in trouble on other teams, but Carroll gives them the space to be themselves and part of the team.
glory b
@redshirt: He said don’t talk to me about her, she’s a criminal and should be in jail.
But LeBron!! Making Ohio Blue!
sunny raines
this post is exactly right. Some people say you don’t talk politics in public (because you’ll make enemies). Well phuck, who you vote for in this day and age is very fundamental to who you are as a person. A self-described liberal relative says he has republican friends. He also has 3 daughters. friends that are republican have having daughters are completely incompatible, means your freinds with people supporting making life worse for your children.
Used to be (pre-reagan) a lot over lap: republicans left of many democrats and vice versa. Not so today because reagan started making republicans go the purity ball swear oaths of allegiance – party over country.
MCA1
@Joel: No, it’s still baseball, but mostly due to the much lower level of blacks in the Majors. I’d venture that the average white guy in the NFL, however, is substantially more inclined to be part of the Drumpfenproletariat that his baseball counterpart. Why? Because football is a game of pure physical dominance (and a degree of team-centric orientation way beyond that in baseball and basketball), which has led to a culture of military-like discipline and blind acceptance of authority. That leads to a more open embrace of lockstep rigidity, and a mentality that you’re always under siege and need to work together or you’ll be slaughtered. Being a “distraction” is considered the gravest of sins in an NFL locker room. It’s no wonder to me that white guys who’ve spent their entire lives in a culture like that would find a would-be fascist’s bullying, berating, dominance and submission is all there is style appealing. It’s not unlike what they’ve been hearing from coaches forever.
jenn
@trollhattan: It wouldn’t surprise me if he eventually applied to become a dual citizen, but that hasn’t happened yet so far as I’ve heard!
glory b
@AnotherBruce: The Steeler’s owners are (I think) the only strong Dem owners in the NFL. Then again, they were steelworkers one and two generations ago, and the Steelers are the only asset they own. They didn’t make big money somewhere else and buy a team.
catclub
@MJS:
I don’t even get location. They are businesses. Let me know when people cheer for Boeing or GM, or the local Hospital.
I quietly cheer against the local team, because when they are winning the fans are much bigger assholes. When they are losing, the fans are quieter.
glory b
@Jonny Scrum-half: Yeah, my ancestors repeated that to themselves as they were getting lynched.
Sorry if some of us are so blind to the goodness in their hearts.
MisterForkbeard
Coming in late to this thread, but I do completely agree that there are some political opinions worth ending friendships over – they teach you about that person.
The single most unifying trait I’ve seen in Trump supporters is a lack of empathy. With Trump, I have friends and relatives who will vote for him. They’ve refused to acknowledge that he’s made racist or sexist comments, and honestly don’t understand why others are treating them weirdly. They feel like they’re the victim.
But none of them can think of being in the position where Trump is treating them like trash. I’ve tried to explain this to some of them: “Assume you’re hanging out with some ladies, and Bob comes along and starts telling them they’re fat, or one of the ladies informs you that he’s told her “she’d look better on her knees”, or any number of other things. And then you respond with ‘I like that guy. He should president.’, then you’re goddamned right most of those girls would disown you on the spot.” And the same thing applies to black people, asians, mexicans, jews, and all the other groups Trump has publicly insulted.
Not to mention that Trump obviously doesn’t have any idea how policy or government work, or that he has the temperament of a 10-year-old. Your friends are going to look at your support of Trump and say “Well, you aren’t supporting Trump for policy or personality reasons, so what else is there?”
But none of the Trump supporters I know can figure this out or acknowledge that it’s a valid thing. Most of them just say “He’s been rude, but hasn’t been racist/sexist/bigoted, and Hillary’s emails.” It’s mind-boggling.
The single
PaulWartenberg2016
It’s raining now in Polk County.
catclub
@goblue72:
Less brain damage? Not really kidding.
NorthLeft12
THIS^^^^ is exactly what I find most infuriating about the right wingers. They spew and support bigotry and racism and then have the audacity to categorize people’s civil rights as a “thing” on the same level of other matters. I cannot abide the willful ignorance and hatred by these people.
I am a Canadian, but I have lost a lot of respect for my father due to his sharp turn to the right and vocal stereotyping of different groups of people. If he was in the states, I have no doubt he would be a Trumpster. He is in his eighties and I think his wife has got through to him not to talk about these issues in front of me and the rest of my family [wife and daughters, and brother and sister and their families too]. It keeps the peace but the damage is done.
Mnemosyne
@MisterForkbeard:
I saw Our Bloghost getting into a Twitter fight yesterday with someone who was arguing that a comedian who made a cruel racist joke was being mean, but not, like, racist. Somehow, some people can’t get it through their heads that saying something racist is mean, by definition.
Tom Q
@goblue72: Yes, but the fact that these particular pro football players are not just white but often from Southern/rural roots emphasizes the GOP lean. The divide discussed here isn’t really surprising, given that white players come from places that are most tribally Republican, while American blacks are overwhelmingly Democrats. I’d guess the military has much the same breakdown — the black enlistees dominantly Dem and the whites solidly GOP.
If you watched Samantha Bee last night, she highlighted one of the most racist things Trump has done yet: this notion that the race will be rigged, and that we need to look at “certain areas — you know what I’m talking about”. This is the kind of not-saying-it-out-loud-but-basically-screaming-it bit of racism that the press is pretending not to notice, and I’d think all non-whites in this country are seething that they’re letting it slip under the radar.
Shorter: this campaign is overtly racist, and the press has spent a year trying to pretend it isn’t. I’m an aging white guy and it offends me; I can’t imagine what it must feel like from a minority’s point of view.
NorthLeft12
What I find interesting [and completely unsurprising] is all the right wingers who vote for Republicans [and Trump in this case] and justifying it based on reduced taxes.
But then they turn around and howl about working people voting for Dems because the Dems give them money! Yeah, no hypocrisy there.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Doncha know, that being called a racist is worse than being a racist, in Trump’s America.
Tom Q
@efgoldman: If you’re basing your team-rooting on the political stances held by the players, liberals are going to be pretty much limited to the NBA. A good many white athletes just come from Republican country, and the fact that they’ve been made super-wealthy only encourages the likelihood they’ll go wingnut. Name me any baseball/football team, I can find a star player who’s stridently GOP.
Joel
@MJS: A significant majority of white professional athletes, from Tom Brady to Bruce/Caitlin Jenner, are wingnuts.
Jonny Scrum-half
@glory b: Of course that’s not what I’m talking about. People can have generally racist views that guide their voting without ever otherwise acting on those racist views, except perhaps to say some inappropriate things when they think that it’s okay to do so. That doesn’t make them right, and it certainly is a negative as far as I’m concerned, but these are real people, who make real sacrifices for people and go out of their way to help others when they don’t need to do so. Like most people, they’re a combination of good and bad.
A very public example is Lyndon Johnson, who as far as I can tell was pretty much a psychopath and a bully, but who when he became President used his power to do some very great things.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Can we hate the Washington Racial Slurs for political and ideological reasons?
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: My feelings wuz hurt.
Roger Moore
@bystander:
Anything with fins and scales, like salmon, tuna, cod, monkfish, etc. It’s actually easier to be kosher eating fish than meat, because you don’t have to worry about kosher butchering.
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
Much better than being a poo-slinger. :-)
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: Everyone should hate the Washington Football Concern.
Uncle Cosmo
@goblue72:
You might think it would be different because they’re white college-educated men…until you consider that nearly everyone who went to college on a football scholarship & ended up good enough to play in the NFL got precious little “college education” in any subject except football.
patroclus
I think pro (male) golfers are far more right wing than any other sport, especially the team sports.
catclub
@patroclus: Even Lefty is a right-winger. I’ll be here all week.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
People do that right now. I’ve personally met people who say things like “I’d rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford”, or who can spend hours explaining why Apple is so much better than Microsoft. People from Seattle cheer when Boeing gets a contract, and Bostonians are very proud of Dana-Farber.
redshirt
Most pro athletes are rich and rich people are more likely to be Republican, ergo….
Gravenstone
@catclub:
This presumes that Ryan perceives Trump as being racist. More likely, he doesn’t see him in that way and thus never anticipated any negative impact on his team.
Shalimar
@catclub: and their corollary: if you are black and say the name “Medgar Evers” or any of a dozen others aloud, you are a racist trying to make white people feel guilty.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: And don’t even get me started about programmers.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
EMACS rules!
scav
@Major Major Major Major: There have been sullen silences for weeks between members of my family over differences of opinion over the relative merits and descriptions (!) of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.
Chris
I’ll always love this about conservatives; they despise and reject as “moral relativism” anything that implies that they might not be right about everything, mock liberals as “being so open-minded their brains fall out” and “too broad-minded to take their own side in a quarrel,” endlessly complain that political correctness is ruining us all by requiring us to be nice and polite to everyone. Yet as soon as you put them on the spot for their own beliefs, they instantly revert to whining about tolerance and open-mindedness, and how “well, that’s just my opinion and you should respect it no matter how anti-factual it may be.”
Chris
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I notice this among fallen Republicans all the time. There’s a category of people who are able to shed their “GOP good” conditioning when the party eventually reaches a point that’s too far for them, but not their “Dems bad” conditioning – presumably they can admit that they’re wrong, but admitting that the people they’ve loathed and rejected for all these years were right is a step too far. So instead, they fall into apathetic fringe “both sides do it” Paultardism, or apathetic disengaged “both sides do it” centrism.
(For all that, I still find these people far more bearable than the actual Republican voters. Even if they’re still sometimes, riddled with many of the same issues, the fact that they’re no longer actively voting for the party that’s trying to screw me and millions of other Americans does a lot to neuter my desire to punch them in the face).
Brachiator
Actually, it is OK to disagree about things. The problem is that a lot of white people think that their view is de facto, the true and accurate view, and that any other view is unpatriotic and heretical.
And there are variations of this that are not race dependent. But in America, the stupid ass view, “there was no racism before Obama was elected” really means “we never had to pay attention to racial problems before Obama’s presidency raised expectations that long simmering problems would actually have to be faced and solved.”
Chris
@Brachiator:
… but then when they’ve in any way been put on the defensive about that de facto true and accurate view, they suddenly revert to demanding that their very reasonable and respectable opinion which is just one among many that reasonable people can disagree on be treated with much tolerance and respect, because after all, everyone deserves a fair hearing.
scav
Except, of course, the exact sole, necessary and unique greeting for any expressions of holiday cheer and best wishing in December. That is something worth going into a months-long annual media-fueled huff about. Maaay-be a few other things.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Jonny Scrum-half: Are you saying that *VOTING* for racism isn’t “acting on racist principles?”
Brachiator
@Shalimar:
Last night’s episode of “blackish” was tailor made for people like this.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Hey, Trump already destroyed one professional football league, why not go for two?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the USFL wasn’t going to stick around anyway, but Trump smothered it in the crib before it had a chance to die a natural death.
Somebody needs to ask about the New Jersey Generals at the next debate, just to rile him up.
Villago Delenda Est
@MisterForkbeard:
Thus providing more support for Hannah Arendt’s observation on the extermination camp guards.
Gindy51
@Punchy: We plow the driveways of our neighbors (for free, good atheists and DEMs that we are) and there are several who are going to have to pay to have it done by outsiders this winter.
MCA1
@patroclus: This is true. At least among American golfers. (A) They make shitloads of money and it’s all taxed as personal income, so they’re extraordinarily driven by lower tax messages, (B) there’s a very high prevalence of bible thumping evangelicals on tour, and (C) they work alone and don’t share the glory with a team other than their caddies, so because doing so nets them ridiculous amounts of money, they’re perhaps more susceptible to the temptations of personal mythmaking about their own greatness, with the attendant result of empathy bleeding, and IGMFYism.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: No. That’s why I said that their racism affects their voting behavior without them “otherwise” acting based on their racist beliefs.
MCA1
@Chris: Very astute observation. Both sides do it centrism is usually proxy for “I’ll go right back to voting for any Republican who can polish up so I can outwardly support them without being sheepish about it.” Will be interesting to see how many people who’ve moved into that box this cycle are there just temporarily before falling in love with the next Mitt that comes along, and how many will go the full Cole.
schrodinger's cat
@MCA1: In my small sample size of Republican friends, age seems to be the determining factor. Older people seem to want to believe in Republicans. Republican politicians are like the Pied Piper to older, more well off white folks.
Soylent Green
My brother is a raging Trumpist. In his youth he was a Marxist anti-war and progressive activist. Then he made a ton of money, and lives in Colorado Springs. Presto chango.
We don’t discuss politics because he will allow no discussion. Mind made up, and as arrogant as his hero. If I try to engage him, he starts spewing racist venom.
What I wonder is if someone goes that route, was there ever any truth to his earlier convictions, or was the alter ego always in there waiting to take control?
Major Major Major Major
@Jonny Scrum-half: They probably do act on their racist beliefs. If we take as accepted that we all do (micro-aggressions, crossing the street, etc.), deeply racist people are going to be worse about that. Or with cops–I would not be at all surprised to find that cops are on average more racist than other groups, and we know that people already racistly think black people are impervious to pain (this is even reflected in drug prescribing behaviors!), and older and stronger than they actually appear, etc. Everybody acts on racist beliefs, deeply racist people more so.
schrodinger's cat
@Soylent Green: Husband kitteh’s uncle in India followed the same path. Marxist to Modi Bhakt, rabid in both cases. Some people just want to be told what to believe.
SenyorDave
I go for the simplest explanation, many of them are just self-entitled, thoughtless shitbags. Take it away, Jack Nicklaus:
While touring one of his courses near Vancouver, British Columbia, Nicklaus was asked by a Vancouver Province reporter about the paucity of blacks in golf. Nicklaus responded by saying “blacks have different muscles that react in different ways.”He also said he didn’t “buy” that he and other players could have taken stronger action in helping end discrimination in golf.
This was in 1994, but this guy lived through a time when blacks couldn’t even get on most golf courses unless they were a caddie or a waiter.
Brachiator
@Soylent Green:
I prefer the saxophone, myself.
It’s not always just about money. I have a longtime friend (since jr high school) who I will sometimes gently chide about her selfishness. When she was younger, she was semi-Marxist (Zeppo, not full Harpo) and progressive. She wanted free college long before the Bernie Bros. And all kinds of gummit services. She is still more liberal than not, but having married very well, wails about high taxes and wasteful government programs.
The common thread: she has always wanted whatever social system would most benefit her. When she was younger and more poor, that meant a government with generous social programs. Now that she is older and well heeled, that means a government that taxes her less (but she would like forgiveness of her children’s college loans). However, the good thing is that she does not vote to hurt poor people and still has more of a progressive streak than anything else.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
And once retirement looms and medical bills start getting into the joint replacement/cancer/heart attack-level stratosphere, she’ll probably want socialized medicine and a government-backed pension. I believe this is the traditional ‘liberal’ (Phil Ochs-style) American trajectory.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Major Major Major Major: I agree with everything you wrote. The people I’m talking about range from “not-obviously-racist” to “pretty-openly-racist,” but wherever they land in that range they really can’t be easily categorized. They don’t, at least obviously, discriminate against minorities, they work with/for people of color, are friendly with them, even sometimes marry them, but still they somehow repeat racist crap that’s fed to them by the vast right-wing conspiracy. Human beings are endlessly confusing/fascinating.
Regarding police behavior, I’m developing the view that the stuff we see on video can’t be simply described as “racism.” I was thinking about how to respond to conservative arguments that a particular shooting can’t involve racism because the shooter was a Black cop,and I concluded that a better description is that people in power, and certainly authoritarians like the police tend to be, will mis-treat people from marginalized groups more often than people not from marginalized groups. As a practical matter, that means that Blacks/homeless/youth/mentally ill are going to be on the wrong end of police mis-behavior more often simply because of where they fall in the perceived social hierarchy.
Major Major Major Major
@Jonny Scrum-half: Re: the cops thing, it’s not just that they shoot black men, it’s how quickly they do and how many times they do. Like I mentioned, even doctors think black people can’t feel pain. These are racist thoughts. And authoritarianism and racism are heavily correlated. Minorities can be racist. Etc.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Major Major Major Major: I agree. I look at my concept of the “marginalized groups” as consistent with racism.
agorabum
they just refuse to see all the outright racism of birtherism and arab-phobia and latino-phobia from Trump and take the position that if he’s not using the N word, he’s not a racist. The way they see it, he had all kinds of folks on the Apprentice and does business with anyone. They don’t see hyping stop and frisk as wrong either. And if pressed, a lot of those people would say “well, the minorities are responsible for crime, so of course there are more police.”
It’s like they just swim in an atmosphere of casual racism and bias and are so used to it that they can’t see it, even when others point it out (because when someone points out all the racist things Trump does, they think “I do a lot of that too, and I’m not racist! I just tell it like it is! Just like Trump….”)
debbie
Brady’s looking a little thin up top. I can’t believe this photo of his new floofy haircut is his own hair.
WestTexan70
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: But his son is a pretty liberal guy who understands that the club has a responsibility to the community. It’ll be nice when he becomes the full owner of the team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Angelos
HRA
I have only read half of the comments and find myself filled with a very lot to think about in response.
It is sad to contemplate losing friends over political differences. Especially when you think of this campaign’s short period of time compared to the time to enjoy the longer life of having a friend.
It’s difficult to understand the labeling of racist onto someone not voting as you deem they should vote. I know everyone has their own perceptions of measuring this label. Sometimes that labeling is totally wrong and often too easy to use. Fascist and Nazi are two other terms of the same category.
This election is the most painful one I have ever seen. Koepernick’s (sp) saying the same for both candidates is how many people feel as well.
The linebacker is on my Bills team. He is noted previously in another team on being a troublemaker. Rex Ryan is a noted jerk even before he came here.
I’ll slip back to a lurking reader now.
Stay safe down there in FL. My great nephew decided not to evacuate from the coast. :(
Brachiator
@HRA:
People who acknowledge themselves to be white supremacists are in key positions of the Trump campaign staff. People who acknowledge themselves to be white supremacists profess how Trump inspires them and how they expect him to deliver on their desires.
It is not about “labeling” people.
I heard today about a PEW research study indicating that 40 percent of liberals have blocked or unfriended someone because of their views. Yeah, the polarization may be tough, but it is in some ways a matter of chickens coming home to roost.