Originally Posted by
BCR
I’m undoubtedly a racist by the standard definition. In the nature v nurture argument, I’m strongly in the nature camp in regards to raw intellect. I’m strongly in the nurture camp as far as to what degree parents churn out productive members of society. I think inherent intellect lends itself to fostering a nurturing environment in most cases.
I think Trump thinks, on some level, largely as I do. Jews are incredibly intelligent on average, which lends itself to ending up with a lot of assets and power. I think the raw intellect of the different racial makeups is rather self-evident. Our past as a nation and the misuse of eugenics type programs has led to us ignoring pretty obvious truths.
If one is being honest, no one is betting on the black kid in the science fair against the Jewish and Asian kid, and even if they were all raised in the exact same controlled environment. I’ll give you the entire population of the world in the Olympic 100m if I get someone with dna from west Africa. Same for NBA mvp. No one is taking that bet. I don’t know why we can so clearly recognize the relative strengths in athletics and pretend to ignore the rest. We all have our strengths.
Trumps narcissism is what makes him dangerous, rather than his racism. He puts himself at the top when he’s pretty clearly, at best, of average intelligence. He’s strangely street smart given his affluent background. He has a primitive acumen for being a predator. A good gut feel for manipulation of people who he shares almost nothing in common with.
So I don’t think he’s any more racist than I am. I think he’s incredibly delusional and mentally ill. I also think he’s borderline genius at manipulation, so any notion that he’s not fully aware that he courts the dumbest white nationalists and plays to them is silliness. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I don’t think he’s anti-Semitic, but he doesn’t do them any favors as far as chilling his base out and pointing out their contributions to America and the world, because that would cost him, and it’s always about him.
He does populism better than anyone I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing to become the champion to poor dumb white trash given the giant silver spoon he was born with. I would have thought it undoable if I didn’t watch him do it. And he’s done it through racism and fear. At the root of their love for him, it’s always that.
Make America Great again is simply make America white again and anyone smart knows this. Its genius because it sounds harmless. It’s so easy to defend. Who doesn’t want America to be great? Where he’s dangerous is that he’s emboldened a bunch of dumb white people who would have never been great in any America, under any circumstance, even when the deck was stacked in their favor. The type of white people who think the white kid would win the science fair if not for all the Jews and Asian kids being given some leg up. That’s a more dangerous racism. I’d blindly bet against the white kid even in a controlled environment. I’d occasionally lose, it isn’t the 100m dash, but I’d win most of the time. To me that’s the difference between casual racism and white supremacy. I’d take the Jewish kid. I think I’m likely smarter than the average Jew, but I’m not of the mind I’m taking down the top % in any intellectual pursuit anymore than I ever looked at a black team I was playing against and assumed I was likely faster.
So it isn’t really his personal beliefs that scare me. He’s a garden variety racist in the way most are if being honest. It’s his courting of some incredibly dumb people and his personal narcissism that may possibly lead to serious trouble. Thinking you’re the smartest person in the room when you’re clearly not and you’re in charge of the worlds largest superpower is a precarious spot. That’s the dangerous part of Trump. That he fires up the poor white trash is temporarily problematic, but we were already an incredibly divided country anyway. If he makes dumb white people feel their fail lives are someone else’s fault, I see little distinction between that and some black activist who convinces the black community they are not largely causing their own problems. People reside in trailer parks and the hood for mostly the same reasons. Bad choices and generational family dysfunction.
He’s way more divisive than an Obama, and I find those comparisons silly. He’s more divisive simply because poor white working class people were pretty complacent to their plight. More depressed than angry. He gets them angry. Black people were already angry.
If he was giving tough love to everyone, I’d almost admire him. That would be leadership. That’s where I can’t understand the love he gets from chamber of commerce Republicans beyond tax cuts. He’s a white Sharpton or community activist. He has the same message to a different audience. He’s simply telling white people it isn’t the four kids by three dads and abandoning your kids and neck tattoos that’s causing the problem, it’s the system thats rigged and the Mexicans and whatever when that’s rarely the cause. That’s not leadership. It’s the same message the other race provocateurs preach. If he was yelling unpleasant truths in a constructive manner some of what he does would be productive rather than divisive.
It’s a shame he’s so mentally ill. We needed someone like him as a country in many ways, the guy who isn’t afraid to say anything, just not one with his obvious shortcomings.