I was actually going to write an article about Donald Trump not being a racist, but a populist, catering to the attitudes and prejudices of those who he intended to con. Then I watched clips of him in speeches, interviews, and testimonies before political hearings on subjects from his casinos to Indian affairs. This guy is a racist bigot who should never be allowed within a thousand miles of the white house, let alone in it. His sexism knows no bounds as well. His adolescent remarks both public, and private, have inhabited the airways since the beginning of his public life. Saying that Donald is not a racist, or a sexist is like saying that Martin Luther King was not black or a preacher.
The problem that Donald and many of his racist minions is that they don’t think they are racist. Racism comes in many shapes, sizes and degrees. You don’t have to wear a hood and lynch black people to be racist. In fact, many people who are racist would be mortified by such actions, coming to the conclusion that they, for that reason alone, are not racist. They’re functioning under a false assessment. If you walk around all day saying that “that’s just how “those” people are, you’re a racist. It’s a fact. Kind of like global warming is a fact, or gravity is a fact. Denying it doesn’t make it less of a fact, it just makes you look like a moron.
Donald is that old school racist that thinks most black people are shifty, Mexicans are lazy, Jews are cheap, Irish are drunks, and Italians are greasy. He also thinks women rule by emotion, not logic, and homosexuality is a choice. These attitudes, and the actions that support them are the worst kind of racism. These ideas enable people to make sub-conscious decisions that can negatively impact the minorities they deal with every day. When you’re some guy working at a fast food joint in Alabama that doesn’t mean much. However, when you’re the leader of the free world it means everything.
Donald’s racism is overshadowed only by is demand for attention. He’s like the class bully who thinks that any degree of the teacher’s notice on someone other than him should be regarded as a threat and must be dealt with in belligerence and violence. He’s a knuckle dragger. Had Donald not been born into wealth he’d be a just like all the other idiots who blame their meager existence on everyone but themselves. Now he just uses his riches to take advantage of the idiot class.
What Trump did during the election is insidious. He brilliantly used racism, fear, and hate to engender power. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. He was able to take the fear and hate that has been boiling in middle America, call it Political Correctness, and then turn a large group of mostly white, mostly poor, mostly uneducated, predominantly male, and completely ignorant voters and tell them “It’s OK. You’re not racist. People are just being sissies.”
This is the reason Donald likes the uneducated so well. They are the easiest group to manipulate. Educated people are a little harder to win over. This is due to the fact that a four-year education is geared around critical thinking. You can’t just look at the surface of what is being said, you have to take the time to dig a little deeper. If someone says for instance “Hilary Clinton ran a child prostitution ring out of a pizza place in Washington D.C.” you know that quite possibly this is ridiculous. However, this was a headline in conservative corners and 75% of the people that read it thought, and still think, it’s true. This isn’t a group with any critical thinking skills.
I’ve even had people come to me and say “Rex! How can you think that? There are a host of successful people and billionaires who support him.” Yes there are. They too are a fuckload smarter than you. They know that to keep their wealth, they have to keep you stupid. They’re very good at it. You’re fed so much shit you don’t even notice it anymore. It’s like being slowly poisoned. You might figure it out in the end, but by then it’s going to be too late.