Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans in disarray!

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

This fight is for everything.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

T R E 4 5 O N

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

Bark louder, little dog.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

You are here: Home / Politics / Open Thread: Trump is a Racist Pig, But Then We Knew That

Open Thread: Trump is a Racist Pig, But Then We Knew That

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Jonathan Capehart is pissed.

We have long known that former president Donald Trump is the kind of racial arsonist who brings a gas can to an inferno. But not even I thought he would fool around with an accelerant like the n-word.

What? You didn’t hear about this? I’m not shocked. The actual n-word is so noxious that even its equally loaded euphemism can discomfit people into moving along and pretending nothing ever happened. For others, the euphemism offers just enough cover for them not to have to speak up.

Well, I’m in neither of those groups, and I refuse to let Trump slide on this one.

The incident happened two weeks ago at a rally in North Carolina for Rep. Ted Budd, the MAGA Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. I only heard about it thanks to a tweet from Brennan Murphy of the Recount that I happened upon last week. Surrounded by his adoring flock, Trump bellowed, “You know Putin mentioned the n-word. Do you know what the n-word is?”

Trump figured he was being cute, I’m sure.  So a bunch of people in the audience (of course) shouted the word we all know as the n-word, and then he pretended to really just be talking about Putin making veiled nuclear threats.  He of course got exactly what he wanted, was a bunch of people shouting the actual n-word.

Here’s the gift article from the Washington Post.

I am not including either the video or the tweet with the video, because that just gives them more clicks.

Doug Jones is pissed, too.

Doug Jones, the former Alabama senator who successfully prosecuted two of the Klansmen who bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, called out Trump’s tip of the hood to white supremacists for what it was. “Folks, no one uses the term ‘n-word’ when talking about nuclear weapons. That term refers to only one thing & Trump used it for a MAGA candidate running for the Senate,” Jones tweeted. “This is the kind of white nationalist, dog whistle rhetoric that has no place in America.”

True, that kind of rhetoric ought to have no place. And yet it’s everywhere in this country, and on purpose. Republican operative Lee Atwater bluntly broke down the strategy in a 1981 interview: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N—-, n—–, n—–.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘n—–.’ That hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff.”

Jonathan Capehart:

And even if Trump’s backers did denounce an outright usage, the damage of their silence now is done. In some ways, where we already are is just as bad: Trump gets to dance all over his kindling, waving his matchbook, but because he hasn’t struck a flame, he can claim that any fire that results is no fault of his own — and so can his enablers.

That’s why they’ve stayed so quiet: These people are just fine letting Trump burn everything down as long as they get control of the ruins.

The entire Republican party is disgusting.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  3. 3.

    Mike in NC

    Of course the “highlight” of a Trump hate rally involves singling out some non-white person, preferably a female member of Congress, and bellowing that they should ‘go back where they came from’. The Deplorables love it.

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    I saw this mentioned on………Seth Meyers, I think? And yeah, it’s disgusting, and it’s painfully obvious exactly what he wanted to crowd to say. I 1000% believe trump has said the word himself a million times, he just manages to have the tiniest shred of sense necessary to know he shouldn’t say it anywhere in public. But instead, he gets others to say it for him.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Was just going to mention that. Tuberville seems to believe that “Blacks = Criminals.”

    There was a clip from one of the Sunday shows (CNN?) with a panelist fulminating against Tuberville, making the point that he (as coach) got rich and famous off the physical labour of a great many young Black athletes.

    TOMMY TUBERVILLE IS GARBAGE.

  11. 11.

    Tony Jay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    As near as I can figure it using my Inner Wanker Translator, Tommy Tube-Vile seems to be saying that ‘they’ (white Liberals) want to give reparations (white people’s money) to black people, because they always want to give white people’s money (welfare, social security, etc) to ‘the people who do the crime’ (black people).

    Either that or he’s taking a big old leap into slavery apologia and saying that reparations shouldn’t be paid because all of the black people sent to America as slaves were captured and sold by other black Africans, thus ‘the blacks’ could be said to have ‘done the crime’ themselves.

    Either way, he’s a disgusting and reprehensible man. Which is why MAGAts like him.

  13. 13.

    Scout211

    Sometimes his schtick in front of his fans reminds me of a stand-up snarky comedy routine, sort of like Don Rickles back in the day. Throwing insults and innuendos and nastiness and dog whistles just to get a few laughs and loud audience participation—it’s all he ever does.  The fans eat it up and he eats up their loud adoration.

    Disgusting.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    @Tony Jay:

    Too complicated.  He means that Dems want to give Black people white people’s money because we love criminals, which is what Black people are.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @geg6:

    It just kills me that a good, decent person like Doug Jones was rejected by Alabama voters in favour of vile trash like Tuberville. This is what worries me about this year’s GA Senate race. I fear voters in the South are more aligned with their football tribalism than with, oh, I dunno, constituent services and fair representation and rule of law and helpful policies and shit.

  17. 17.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Lake: Let’s reminisce now. Let’s go back to the good old days just a few years ago when Trump was in charge. Remember this? We had a record breaking economy, law and order… We were optimistic. Everything was going well.

    Greene: Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, your jobs, and your kids in school. Coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture

    The wiminz are just as horrible.

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Remember that old saying about “Sorry this letter is so long, I didn’t have time to write a short one”?  Tony’s been working on that particular comment for weeks!

  21. 21.

    mrmoshpotato

    The entire Republican party is disgusting.

    Ain’t that the truth.  And fuck Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, etc for spending their careers building the monster factory that finally created a monster. (h/t Driftglass)

    Unintentional Box. 

  22. 22.

    hells littlest angel

    Imagine being such a shitty human being that on the day you die millions will unabashedly celebrate.

  23. 23.

    Eolirin

    @Sure Lurkalot: They’re already erasing the pandemic. Wow that was fast. Kind of like talking about how safe and prosperous everyone was when W was in office.

  24. 24.

    evodevo

    @Sure Lurkalot: I get this shit from the Facebook MAGAt I torment from time to time….EVERYTHING was GREAT when the Orange Mad King was in office, and now it’s all gone to shit, so we need Repubs back in charge….he’s absolutely impervious to economic facts or anything else…and he’s STILL a covid denier…

  25. 25.

    chrome agnomen

    watching the Republican Party now is somewhat akin to monitoring a patient with a grave illness about whom the doctors are saying, ‘it’s now up to the patient.  they will have to decide whether they are going to live or die.’

    I’m at the point of reading fewer and fewer stories in any depth which try to reason out their behavior.   it’s just not worth my time of day.   I know they are in a death spiral, which has the unfortunate side-effect of affecting many not of their tribe.   I know what they are, but they are the ones who will have to change.   having become untethered from such notions as decency, morality, and any thought to honoring the social contract, they are unmoored from the reality most of us wish to use as a construct.

     

    it’s commonly said that there is no bottom.   there certainly is one, but it’s also evident that they do not feel they have reached it, not is it evident to the few who despair of their party’s ideology, how to back away gracefully from it, and join the civilized.   the rest are the same lost causes we have undoubtedly had since the dawn of man, and must be borne.  how to rescue the non-true-believers is the quandary.

    sorry about the chaotic messaging.

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Trump bellowed, “You know Putin mentioned the n-word. Do you know what the n-word is?”

    Yes; Narcissist.

  31. 31.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t think it’s football. Tuberville coached Auburn, and at least half the state despises Auburn and everything it stands for, and Herschel hasn’t been relevant to Georgia football fans in 40 years.

    I see this as pure tribalism.

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tony Jay: a lot of that there, the old line that those Coastal Elites (used to be called Limousine Liberals) want to take your money and give it to them!

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Lake: Let’s reminisce now. Let’s go back to the good old days just a few years ago when Trump was in charge. Remember this? We had a record breaking economy, law and order… We were optimistic. Everything was going well.

    Not so much that last year, though

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @evodevo:

    Customers complain all day to me about higher food prices. I overheard one older woman I was helping mention to a cashier that she hoped people “voted the right way this time”. I told her that this all was going to happen no matter who was in charge. She just shrugged in response.

    It’s not a good sign when this kind of talk is in the air imo.

    Honestly, does it necessarily mean anything that I never hear anyone I meet in person at a grocery store complain about/mention Dobbs but bellyache about higher prices? I guess things like abortion aren’t going to come up as much as prices would, so that makes sense. Still, it disturbs me I never hear about it from people

  43. 43.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): somebody said that Lake is just using this as a stepping stone to a gig on Fox and I think that is correct. Heck, I am praying it becomes a stepping stone to Fox in December.

    BTW none of this stuff matters to MAGATs. Its a fucking cult and stuff like this just eggs them on because they think they’re owning the libs. I’ve told a couple of MAGAT women abortion is not about the pwecious baybeee, its about control over women and girls. I don’t know if it made a difference but it at least seemed like it at least got them to think.

  48. 48.

    Anyway

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Don’t recall ever talking about prices to cashiers — what’s the point? They don’t set prices. Weather, maybe how crowded it is — that’s about it. These days I go thro’ the self-service line so almost no convos with grocery store staff.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Remember this? We had a record breaking economy, law and order… We were optimistic. Everything was going well.

    I remember that Trump inherited a robust economy from Obama, and that his Attorneys General acted like they were his personal mob lawyers and not the nation’s. A lot of Americans (and not only Americans) were horrified. Everyone was afraid the wheels would eventually come off.

  52. 52.

    Anyway

    Noticed that that after weeks of trending down gas prices went up 30 cents this week. Trepidation about the timing —

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anyway: I’m resistant to conspiracy theories, usually, but when it comes to gas prices I absolutely have my tinfoil hat on.

  60. 60.

    Ellenr

    @Anyway: This is due to the plant in Toledo that exploded 2 wks ago.  No gasoline for MI, WI, OH.  No info on when it might be back online

  61. 61.

    Leto

    @Anyway: tinfoil hat, but OPEC (specifically Saudi’s) and Russians are desperate for Republicans to be back in charge. Another reason our shift to green energy needs to keep moving forward.

  62. 62.

    Suzanne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I see this as pure tribalism. 

    I think the football associations contribute to a generalized image of toxic masculinity, and that’s appealing to that tribe.

  63. 63.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I guess things like abortion aren’t going to come up as much as prices would, so that makes sense. Still, it disturbs me I never hear about it from people 

    Lots of women are never going to discuss abortion or reproductive matters with dudes.

  65. 65.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid:

    I remember that Trump inherited a robust economy from Obama 

    The thieving son of a bitch (fuck Barbara Bush) inherited a budget surplus.

  67. 67.

    eddie blake

    @Sure Lurkalot:  it’s… AAAARGH…. soooo does that roid-addled fascist meathead know there are well over 340 million people in this country?

    that five million new folk (though that’s really an exaggerated number) can be absorbed effortlessly?

    that they pay taxes but can’t get government services?

    great googly moogly she’s a fucking innumerate idiot.

  71. 71.

    eddie blake

    @gwangung:  i guess that’s good for us the next time they start a civil war… takes a little bit of math to understand how outnumbered they are. takes a lot of math to make their artillery shells land in the spot they’d want…

    and they hate math almost as much as they hate democrats.

    eta- it’s NOT forty five percent of the country. it’s forty five percent of the voting populace, considerably less than the total population.

  72. 72.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Remember that it is an abstract political topic of debate for many men, and often a deeply personal and non-political experience for many women. Talking about one’s (or that of friends or other loved ones) miscarriages, rape, bad relationships, youthful mistakes, disapproval and lack of support from family and community, health problems with oneself or a wanted baby, etc…. that’s all painful stuff. That’s part of why so many dudes underestimate how many people they know who have abortions: the women they know do not want to share that information with them.

  74. 74.

    eddie blake

    @Suzanne:  they SHOULD though. men need to know. most men have no clue. men need to know the consequences of their actions. because as events have shown us, SOOOO many men are sheltered from the consequences of their actions and people DON’T talk about them…

    so the responsibility of men falls down the memory-hole.

  75. 75.

    Suzanne

    @eddie blake: I have had an abortion, I don’t regret it, though looking back on the entire situation makes me sad. And I can guarantee you that I am not ashamed about it, but I also have no desire to talk about it with anyone who I don’t know to be cool. I have no energy for other people’s judgment. Increasingly, I have more desire to go off the damn grid, so there is no chance that I’m going to get embroiled in a contentious political debate with a bunch of strangers in public.

  76. 76.

    Shalimar

    @Tony Jay: Tommy Tuberville is a notorious idiot.  He only sounds coherent compared to someone with actual brain damage like Herschel Walker.  He isn’t remotely smart enough to come up with your second possibility.

  77. 77.

    Jackie

    @eddie blake: I’m pretty sure any women in their lives are filling them in.

    And, LOTS of men have daughters. They are aware. When Roe became law, my DAD took me (and pretty sure my sisters) for a “milkshake drive.” He let me know if I “got myself in a ‘difficult situation,’ he was there for me. 1973. He also told me if I wanted to go on the Pill, he would insure I could get access. I was 17.

    My Dad was one in a million, and I miss him.

  78. 78.

    eclare

    @Suzanne:   Totally understandable.  In addition to beauty salons, I bet a lot of women in locker rooms at gyms are talking about this.  At least they would be at the gym that I went to in my 20’s.

  81. 81.

    eddie blake

    @Suzanne: i didn’t mean with a stranger in public.

    i meant to the men close to them in their lives.

    i don’t know how to put this but simply: my college girlfriend got pregnant, we decided to abort, a mutually-agreed upon decision as neither of us were in any shape nor place to be parents. it was an awful experience for her physically and mentally and it haunts me to this day.

    i have gone out of my way ever since to make sure i never put any of my partners or myself in that scenario again.

    the point being… most men don’t know how many women in their lives have had an abortion and even FEWER know how traumatic it is. they have no clue. it’s an abstract. it’s probably why so many feel so free to craft legislation concerning things they barely understand.

    it’s experiences people should talk about. abortion-on-demand needs to be a thing not up for legislative debate. contraception needs to be a thing not up for debate. body autonomy needs to be a thing that is not up for debate.

  82. 82.

    Suzanne

    @eclare: I am scared of being assaulted or shot by some MAGA or incel lunatic. I’ll put it this way: I always know where the closest exit is. I won’t canvass anymore. I love the idea behind #shoutyourabortion, but I also recognize that it’s in effect asking women to leave themselves vulnerable to harassment in the hope that it will educate men, and, like, quite frankly, y’all should be able to grok the situation without women putting themselves at risk.

  83. 83.

    HinTN

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I fear voters in the South are more aligned with their football tribalism than with, oh, I dunno, constituent services and fair representation and rule of law and helpful policies and shit.

    Sadly, this is true of a substantial minority.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    @Anyway:

    Just had to fill the tank last week here in SoCal. Cheapest gas within reason was $5.89/gal for regular. Cash. The highest I can find is $6.89 Thankfully I have a car which gets over 30 average and can get in the low 40mpg on a trip.

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