Trump supporters: Tell me why the President *isn’t* super-racist.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Hillary voters: tell me why you're *not* a horrible waste of air.

When did you turn into such a nasty, low-effort poster? It's like having a less-clever knock-off of publicunofficial.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Hillary voters: tell me why you're *not* a horrible waste of air.

When did you turn into such a nasty, low-effort poster? It's like having a less-clever knock-off of publicunofficial.

I don't engage the other side in serious debate anymore because they simply do not approach the issues with any sense or pretense of intellectual honesty.

You can point out a thread is dumb (and this thread is dumb) in a less childish way, though.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Hillary voters: tell me why you're *not* a horrible waste of air.

When did you turn into such a nasty, low-effort poster? It's like having a less-clever knock-off of publicunofficial.

I don't engage the other side in serious debate anymore because they simply do not approach the issues with any sense or pretense of intellectual honesty.

You can point out a thread is dumb (and this thread is dumb) in a less childish way, though.

Why? You guys cheered the baseball shooter, regularly dismiss assaults on Trump supporters, call out everyone as fascist while using brownshirt tactics on the streets, and generally exaggerate every possible "scandal" to get past the fact that Hillary lost to him. I don't owe you any civility or pleasantries. I'm amazed that you all can dish helping after helping of chickensh-t salad but refuse to eat any yourselves.

Okay. This post is so hysterical and ridiculous that it doesn't deserve a response. Maybe you should go cool off. Sorry I hurt your feelings.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Thanks for proving my point! Not one valid response. Typical.

Because your post is idiotic. Nobody cheered for the baseball shooter. Antifa is a political force that is so small that it's hardly worth discussing and the number of people who support it here is very small. You're acting like any criticism of Trump is cover-ass for losing to Hillary even though there are tons of Republicans on this board who also rag on Trump all the time. Your criticism about overplaying scandals is dumb because you reflexively downplay any misdeeds of the administration as liberal hysteria regardless of what the offense is or how serious it is.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I get that honest conversations about racism are virtually impossible these days, but wow... this thread was a *fun* read. I think this thread was doomed from the start though, since I really don't think Democrats are convincing anyone to join their side with accusations of racism, or trying to catch people in the act of racism. Now, I do personally think that Trump is racist. What I'm saying is that trying to prove that he is isn't going to turn people who support him away from him. Either they're convinced that he isn't, and nothing is going to change their mind, or they don't care (as Santander pointed out.)

This is a bone I have to pick with the "pro-diversity/multiculturalism" ideology of the Democratic Party. I'm saying that as a left-winger who likes diversity and thinks multiculturalism is not only a wonderful thing, but necessary in the world of today. Unfortunately, I think too many liberals only promote being "multi-cultural" or "anti-racist" for the sake of their image, claiming moral superiority, and enjoy chewing people out as racists. Calling someone out as a racist is hardly ever helpful, even if it's accurate.

Democrats have to do a better job of selling multiculturalism (often through the form of immigration) as something positive, and not coming across as wanting to label everyone as a racist. It's going to be tough, because accepting other cultures and understanding people with very different backgrounds is most often not easy. Speaking as someone who's lived in another country before, coming into direct contact with other cultures can be very uncomfortable at times, even if you think you're the most forward-thinking progressive on the planet. I think we need to understand that a lot of Americans are not immediately going to be in love with the idea of a multicultural America, and instead of denouncing anyone uncomfortable with that idea as a racist, we need to sell the idea to them, and understand their hesitation to get behind it.

Some Democrats want to reach out to Americans who have been turned off by the left recently, others want to double down on being pro-immigration and multicultural. I want to do both.

One of the best posts in Atlas history.  Seriously.

If this sentiment could get through to the Democratic Party, they just might have a trifecta in 2020. 

No offense, Fuzzy, but I have a really hard time believing that you (and many others on this board) will accept any argument in favor of multiculturalism. And I don't mean that as a way of saying you are a racist. I just think that 1) any argument in favor of multiculturalism is going to activate identities (both political and racial) that will make certain people much less receptive and 2) I don't think multiculturalism is as compatible with your value system as its opposite.

So, as thoughtful as that post is, I don't fully agree with it. It seems to suggest that people can be persuaded that multiculturalism is good, but the right argument hasn't been found yet. I don't think there is a right argument for many, many people in this country.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I'm not saying that literally everyone can be convinced, simply that many people who might be written off as racists might be more willing to hear out the left if they changed their tone. Some of the damage may already be done, but I'm not buying the idea that a high percentage of Americans will be anti-immigrant/against multiculturalism no matter what. I don't think FuzzyBear's response was disingenuous. Saying that many like him are completely incapable of accepting any form of multiculturalism seems to be going a bit far to me, but I suppose I'll let him speak for himself.

To respond to David's post, I'd say that my post was more about attitude than policy, and I'm not saying that the Democratic policies are flawless. I'm definitely not pro-PC, and I have mixed feelings about affirmative action. While the concern about the job opportunities that exist for citizens (if immigration increases) is legitimate, I think the solution is job creation rather than turning more people away at the border. Democrats are right to call BS on Trump's promise to "bring jobs back", but they need to come up with a clear solution for creating new jobs for people in places like Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. Jobs related to clean energy can be part of that solution, but it has to be more than a talking point meant to placate these voters. I'm not trying to argue that multiculturalism is "correct", and anyone who doesn't like it is just wrong, I'm saying that the way in which liberals have talked about it has put off a lot of people who might not be as opposed to the underlying idea as they come across. And I think even the people who have strong concerns about it are not necessarily "racists", and deserve to be heard.

I wasn't saying that Fuzzy (or other posters) were being disingenuous. I think, rather, that they're in denial about what arguments they are and are not willing to accept. My point was that if one accepts the premise of your post, it's essentially cover, shifting the blame from people who accept racist ideas to people who don't accept racist ideas because either they aren't making their arguments well enough or because they're being "smug" and "condescending".

I will agree that you're totally right that the way that some people adopt an air of superiority about the issue is not constructive. But, no matter how many times the fact that immigrants broaden tax revenue bases, don't disproportionately commit crimes, and don't withdraw disproportionately from safety net programs gets brought up, you see blatant mistruths about all of those issues (and others) being parroted by posters over and over again. These aren't arguments; they are cold facts. And yet somehow it's my fault for not making good enough arguments when those on the other side aren't willing to accept facts?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I understand what you're saying here.  The response to this would be in how one defines "multiculturalism".

If by "multiculturalism" one is speaking of "pluralism", that's one thing.  The idea of persons from diverse backgrounds contributing to a common culture, making that common culture richer and more varied, is a good thing.  I have lived most of my life in multicultural environments; Greater New York, Tampa Bay, and now the East Coast of Florida.  I don't live in the part of Florida that is the rural South, but I have lived in parts of Florida where the old and the new intersect.  This kind of multiculturalism is a good thing, in that it brings into a common culture a variety of traditions, while making an area diverse.  And while I believe that everyone emigrating to America needs to learn English, I'm not bent out of shape by the degree everyday business offers the option of dealing with Spanish-Speaking (or even Creole-Speaking) persons.  

If, however, one is speaking about multiculturalism as a concept with no common culture, that is another issue.  This strain of multiculturalism is what is in Europe, where Muslims are poorly assimilated into their nations.  The outcome has not been good over there, and such a multiculturalism over here is the sort of thing that nurtures long-term racial and ethnic resentments and keeps centuries-old grudges alive.  My reasons for despising this brand of "multiculturalism" are many, but the main reason is that its development would preclude the basis of a common culture by which our leaders can appeal to all Americans AS Americans.  We have a complicated history as a nation, but out of a complicated history came, I believe, a GREAT and a GOOD nation, and that principle is an indispensable ingredient in any American common culture that can be a basis for the national unity of a diverse people.  This type of "multiculturalism" will permanently block any kind of national consensus to move to solve even the most important issues.

I'm very much for the former.  Not the latter.

Thanks for your response. Even though we disagree a lot I enjoy reading and engaging with you.

In my experience, the type of multiculturalism we experience in this country very much is your former, and not your latter. For one thing, unlike in Europe, America has a (relatively short, but still significant) history of cultural assimilation and mixing. For good or for bad (and some of it certainly was bad, like forced enrollment of Native American children in culture-erasing boarding schools) I don't see any reason why this would reverse itself. I grew up in an diverse suburb of D.C., with neighbors next door who were black, families on my block who were Chinese and Korean, and Afghan and Indian families living the next street over. I rode the bus with all of their children; we talked about NFL football, Family Guy, our favorite pizza place, and whose parents were getting deployed to Iraq. My High School was exactly 25% Asian my freshman year, and somewhere in the mid-teens for Hispanics. I had a great, diverse group of friends in high school; interracial dating was common, we went over to each other's houses and ate chinese takeout and played video games. I had class with Hispanic kids when local news was warning us about MS-13 and we had mandatory class sessions about the dangers of gangs. Those kids I had class with talked about youtube videos, soccer, smoking weed, but they were never anything like what the News or the Adults told us.

The point is, I grew up in a super cosmopolitan area where people of many cultures were thrown together, and coexistence and exchange happened naturally. Aside from the fact that my high school had different pigmentation in the average American school, we all lived typical, peaceful middle class/upper middle class lives. What's wrong with that? A common culture emerged in the children pretty naturally. They lost some parts of their parents identity, which I am sure was difficult for them and their parents to go through, and there were times where I was made aware of how my "whiteness"  led to characteristics that not all of my friends shared, which was weird. But, my argument for multiculturalism is that I'm the product of a multicultural neighborhoods and suburbs, and I love my friends and neighbors, we all turned out fine.

Also, this doesn't fit in with the rest of my post, but re: nurturing long-term resentments... did you see that thread a couple weeks ago about the Civil War? That stuff is going to happen regardless in this country, whether it's racial, political, cultural, historic, etc.