AGAIN! Just because you voted for Obama doesn't mean you aren't a racist!

[Coventina]

(I am using "you" in an abstract sense, I don't think there are any Trump voters here).

I posted this about a week or so ago, but it seems some might have missed it.


McCain and Romney, while they had their faults, were NOT preaching racism during their campaigns.

These former-Obama-voters-now-Trump-voters TURNED THEIR BACKS on a qualified, experienced candidate to instead vote for an unqualified racist.

And don't tell me Hillary didn't have the policies and message, SHE DID!!!

They just happened to like Trump's racist message better.


PLEASE DUers! STOP DEFENDING RACISTS on DU!

[The Polack MSgt]

1. never forget this

45 beat more than a dozen regular, quietly racist Republicans and had more primary votes than any candidate - ever.

All of the cheeto horde, all 59+ million of them chose racism. I DO NOT believe that was a coincidence.

And I keep hearing about these Obama voting Trump supporters, but I'm not convinced that there are that many.

Sounds a lot like the "I have a black friend" dodge

[KingCharlemagne]

2. Hillary's popular vote total and percentage largely mirrored Obama's

in 2012 (even if its 2016 distribution was skewed just enough to get Trump over the 270 EV line). So i have to agree with you, at least as far as 2012 and 2016 are concerned. Very few people who voted for Obama in 2012 turned around and voted for Trump in 2016. Or Trump would not have lost the popular vote by 3 million.

[Tom Rinaldo]

33. There were some Republicans who voted for Clinton also, who had supprted Romney

I have a friend from business who is in that category. He's a Republican, but he couldn't stand Trump. I'm not claiming huge numbers of them, but they are out there, and in more than tiny fringe numbers. Some Bush Republicans, some national security Republicans, and some women Republicans also, who are centrists who were repelled by Trump and liked the idea of electing a woman President.

All of the above shifts of Romney voters to Clinton helped balance out 2012 Obama voters who shifted to Trump.

[KingCharlemagne]

35. Good point! - nt

[KingCharlemagne]

3. In their screwed-up heads, voting for Obama proves to them they are

not racist. And voting for a candidate who openly touted anti-Latino sentiments repeatedly does not make them a racist, because you see, they voted for Obama. That is their 'racism Get out of Jail Free' card.

And I agree with the other poster. Most of them did not vote for Obama anyway. They are lieing about their earlier votes to 'prove' they are not racists.

[mountain grammy]

4. White women.. 54%

I don't think I'll ever get over it.

[truebluegreen]

5. I don't know--I kinda think it does mean that.

Not that there aren't plenty of racist Trump voters. I just think there are plenty who voted for him for other reasons (maybe bad ones, but still "other&quot .

[Coventina]

6. Nope. Trump never opened his mouth without spewing hate. No one voted for him that wasn't OK with

that.

[leftstreet]

8. A lot of voters don't watch debates, or listen to candidates

They just vote based on a 'feeling,' or knowing how their family/friends are voting

[Coventina]

9. Nobody voted for Trump who didn't know he was racist and was going to enact racist policies.

No one.

[leftstreet]

10. Not sure how you could ever prove that n/t

[truebluegreen]

12. Yeah, those categorical judgments are hard to back up, aren't they?

[Coventina]

13. Really? You are saying that Trump voters never watched a single news program, never saw a

newspaper or news magazine, never surfed the internet during the entire campaign?

Sure, that sounds possible.

[leftstreet]

16. Where and when did the media specifically call out Trump's racism?

The same media that helped legitimize Trump.

If you were scanning newspapers or FOX segments, what did you actually see and hear?

[Coventina]

17. Trump called out Trump's racism. Why are you trying to give racists a pass?

It was ALL OVER that he refused to disavow the KKK, that the KKK endorsed him.

That he was in favor of nationwide "stop and frisk".

This was EVERYWHERE. Nobody gets a pass for not knowing.

You would have to be literally out in the woods with no radio, no TV, no internet connection, and no subscription to any printed media to be ignorant of these facts.

[LanternWaste]

21. one would have to be living in a cave on a deserted island on a different planet to have not heard

Given media saturation of all demographics, in the here and now one would have to be living in a cave on a deserted island on a different planet to have not heard Trump's loud, obvious and in Technicolor racism.

One never had "to listen" to Trump any more than one has "to listen" to the clan to hear the obvious.

[truebluegreen]

11. Oh, OK.

So the people who voted against Hillary because she was a woman weren't sexist, they were racist.
It wasn't the Russians, it was racist.
It wasn't Comey, it was racist.
It wasn't 20 years of Repuke BS, it was racist.
It wasn't BernieBros, it was racist.
It wasn't Jill Stein, it was racist.
It wasn't outright stupidity, it was racist.
.
.
.
.
.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some...but is that what you want to say? Not one single person who voted for Trump did it for any reason other than racism.


"An answer that explains everything explains nothing."

[Coventina]

14. Maybe they had other axes to grind as well, but they were OK with racism.

Being OK with racism is being racist.

That's how it works.

(And, I'm not saying the Russians weren't involved, they most definitely were. They were also supporting the racist candidate.)

[truebluegreen]

19. Saying there are "other axes to grind" means, obviously, that they had other reasons.

So you say yourself. And then you go from there to claim that those "other axes" weren't the reason for their Trump votes, racism was. You say in effect that racism was always present, that it was not possible for a lack of racism to be over-ridden by another issue (like, say, lack of good-paying jobs in places that used to have them).

They're racist, so they voted for Donald Trump, which proves they're racists.

Definition of circular reasoning.

[Coventina]

20. Sure, racists can have other concerns than racial hatred. Nobody denies that.

Yes, I do say that racism was ALWAYS present in a vote for Trump.

Lack of good paying jobs does NOT explain a vote for Trump. If that were the case then he would have a much larger following in POC.

A vote for Trump was a vote for racism. That's what he campaigned on.

[truebluegreen]

23. Sorry but you can't see into the hearts and minds

of 62,000,000 voters and say that racism was a factor for all of them. Many, even most, but not all. That may be convenient, and even comforting in a weird way but no, sorry, the world just isn't that simple.

[Coventina]

25. Racism is what Trump was/is all about. It really is that simple.

It doesn't matter what is in their hearts and minds.

They chose to actively vote for a racist.

There is no forgiving that.

[uponit7771]

28. This is alternative facts relative to racism. Racism doesn't stop or start at hatred

[truebluegreen]

34. Whut?

[jmg257]

7. What's frightening is that they would vote for Obama, and STILL vote for trump over Hillary.

Which means they were more worried about Hillary then whatever trump was preaching.

[qdouble]

15. The "I'm not racist because I voted for Obama" argument is similar to the "I have a black friend"

argument. Simply because you don't hate each and every person of a particular race does not mean that you don't view the majority of the people of that race unfavorably, nor does it mean that you don't have racial biases.

[YoungDemCA]

18. Obama had more support among white voters in years of popular anger directed specifically at the GOP

Some of these people - specifically outside of the South along with certain parts of the Interior West, the Lower Midwest, and Appalachia (I'm looking at you, West Virginia) were willing to vote for a black Democrat - the first black presidential nominee and President of the United States, mind you - in years in which John "The fundamentals of our economy are strong" McCain and Mitt "The 47 percent are lazy 'takers' were the Republican nominees.

But for a Republican candidate, Trump was unusually appealing to less educated, modest-income white voters. And it really didn't help us, unfortunately, that Hillary Clinton was widely perceived as the epitome of the "Beltway Establishment", especially in a year in which a lot of voters were really wanting an "outsider" who would "go in there and really shake things up." (Careful what you wish for... )

Also, Hillary simply didn't receive the turnout boost and enthusiasm among black voters and other voters of color along with young voters that Obama benefited from so much in both 2008 and 2012. And the presence of Jill Stein and Gary Johnson on the ballot certainly didn't help matters, either. And yes, voter suppression in certain Republican-controlled states (Wisconsin being a pretty fucking blatant case, IMHO) was also a real factor.

All of this needs to be factored in even BEFORE including Comey's unprecedented actions and "Emailgate", the alarming amount of influence from Russia, the self-serving assholes at WikiLeaks, the Great White Backlash at Black Lives Matter + other social justice movements along with the heightened sense of unease and fear among white Americans from the advent of black political power during the Obama Presidency and the recognition of demographic decline (proportionately speaking) among white Americans in general (which seemed particularly relevant this past year among many rural and working class white Americans), anger at Clinton and the DNC from Sanders supporters, a disgustingly negligent and dangerously careless mainstream/corporate media that cynically profited off of both Donald Trump's constant barrage of bullshit as well as any whiff of controversy or scandal - manufactured or not - involving Hillary, the backlash from Black Lives Matter and Obama, and yes, all of the misogyny, sexism, and long history of "baggage" and "scandal" that has followed Hillary Clinton like a crowd and has been created in many ways and constantly exploited by the "Vast, Right-Wing Conspiracy" (which yes, IS real, well-organized, and ruthlessly disciplined and persistent) that Hillary so aptly described back in the 90s.

And even with all of this, Hillary Clinton STILL got more votes overall than Donald Trump (On behalf of the great state of California: "You're welcome!" ), and is still objectively more popular than Trump and the Republican Party as a whole. So yeah, we must keep this all in perspective as we discuss these things.

[JI7]

24. And many of them are lying anyways

And using it as an excuse for the trump vote.

[potone]

26. Two things that complicate that thesis:

the first is that 12% of the black vote went to Trump, according to Henry Louis Gates, and also there was a post-election study done that showed that the most salient factor in people's voting for Trump was sexism, in particular the belief that the presidency is not the proper role for a woman (sorry that I can't cite that study now). Gates pointed out that for black supporters of Trump, the issue was the economy. I suspect that was the case for the women who voted for him, too. In other words, some people wanted to send a message to Washington about their feeling that their economic security was being ignored, and they were willing to overlook other things about Trump that they didn't agree with.

I view this as a wake-up call to the Democrats to pay more attention to their grassroots, and I think it is working. Some of them clearly are feeling emboldened by the demonstrations against Trump and the messages that they have received from their constitutents.

[Coventina]

27. I don't think it shocks anybody that racists are often sexists as well. It's the same kind of

bigotry.

And, one of the most cruel side-effects of systemic bigotry (like racism and sexism) is that some proportion of the despised population buys into it (Bill Cosby, Phyllis Schlafly).

[uponit7771]

30. enabling racism is still racism ... there's no alternative facts about that and 8% of black vote...

... to Benedict Donald on par with other KGOP prez

[uponit7771]

29. +++++++++++ TOLERATING IT IS BAD ENOUGH !!!!! +++++++++++++++++

[ananda]

31. People are defending racists here?

Oh dear. I didn't realize ...

Also, 45 and cronies are egregious racists and white supremacists, nazis in essence.

That is why there is strong and persistent resistance right now.

Before, when the Reeps were using code language and actively pretending to have values, there wasn't much resistance -- and that was when we actually needed it the most.

It feels as though it's too late now!

[Coventina]

32. Just read this thread!

And the many, many other threads encouraging us to feel sympathy and cozy up to these poor, misguided souls.