Journalists Need to Stop Giving Bigoted Trump Supporters a Free Pass

[DemocratSinceBirth]

There are two trials happening in different parts of the country that ought to give pause to all of those guilt-sodden editors who insist on sending reporters out into the wilds of the middle of the country to see how most of the people who saddled us with this grotesque of a presidency are doing. (I'm looking at you, this morning, Tiger Beat On The Potomac.) These two trials are in sharp counterpoint to the Forgotten American narrative that's become so beloved of many of our coastal elites since the election.

The fact is that, out there in Real America, there are some dangerous goddamn fools with some dangerous goddamn ideas, and those ideas aren't any more connected to reality than are all the dreams that people have about the return of the golden age of coal or the notion that the president* cares so deeply about the concerns of the people of Youngstown that he's willing to upend the economic elites in order to reopen the steel mills. (I'm sure foreclosure king Steve Mnuchin, who will be the Secretary of the Treasury before first light on Tuesday, is keen to help.) Also, guns, too. Lots and lots of guns.


...


There is something more than faintly wrong about the whole salt-of-the-earth genre of journalism that's sprung up since the presidential election revealed to many editors and producers that there is a country between the coasts. I have grown tired of the expeditionary journalism that seeks to explain why so many Americans suffering from serious economic and social dislocation voted for a transparent charlatan who sold them snake oil by the bucketful.

I also am tired of these stories soft-pedaling the fact that a lot of the appeal was pure nativism—racism and xenophobia blended smoothly into a cocktail. (By comparison, imagine a story about a black community that is suffering from serious economic and social dislocation that doesn't mention street crime. You can't, because there aren't any.) There's a lot more going on between the coasts than shuttered stores and giant, blank-staring mils. Journalism does nobody any favors by pretending otherwise.


http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53096/trump-supporters-bigots/

[cilla4progress]

1. I agree

Talk of making nice with these racist bigots gets no quarter with me!!

[Johnny2X2X]

2. The end game is a holocaust

The End Game for about 20% of these Deplorables is genocide. The want to purify our country of non white, non straight, and non Christian people. That is the goal of some of those in the Trump administration too. And for everyone who is for genocide, there are 2 who could easily be scared into going along and actively participating in genocide. So stop coddling this level of hate, they are sickening.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. It's hard to affix numbers...

I suspect a lot of the Deplorables are authoritarian, maybe half of them. Out of that half approximately half are genocidal too.

That begs the question. What percentage of our fellow Americans would countenance genocide?

10-15% ?


I was going to start a poll, but I am afraid it might be over the top.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. All it takes is a few

The Nazis weren't 100% monsters. There were dissenters among them, and there were those that were truly monsters, but the bulk were probably made up of those that were scared and those that were following orders.