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Comment by anonymars | Hacker News Reader

"Is Trump racist?" and "do racists vote for Trump?" are different questions from "did Trump get elected because of racism?"

I don't think the amount of racism in the US suddenly increased from its baseline*, and thus I think that writing off his electoral victory as "because racism" and nothing more than that is an uninteresting feel-better exercise

*Even one inch deeper of an analysis would be more interesting, like if someone countered with "Well, I think the election of Obama was a bridge too far for racists that had previously been quietly holding their noses" or something. On the other hand, both Obama and Trump were the "change" candidate against the "status quo" candidate.

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Except Obama was the "change" choice to move things forward, while Trump is the "change" choice to move things backwards - you could even say that it is the "info change" candidate.

And what is changing things backwards? Yes, it is getting back to good old racism and putting white people above anything colored.

Riddle me this: why did people with immigrant spouses/families vote for Trump and then end up surprised to find them on the chopping block? Over and over you hear "but Trump said he was going to go after the criminals" (also "no new wars"). You may have known better but that doesn't mean the general population is particularly effective at lie detection. Which goes back to my original statement: "people are living in different realities" because they are being fed completely different news and media. Target this post code and tell them Trump is better (or Harris is worse) for Palestine. Target that post code and tell them Trump is better (or Harris is worse) for Israel. And so on.

You really think they are hapless to notice the lies? Trump has been on camera for decades. He was the butt of the joke for the Simpsons and countless shows. That was far before he got into politics!

The reality (that those people will never tell you about, instead pretending to be surprised) is that they knew he lied, but to others, and that he was going to shaft the others but not them. Why do you think people "fall" for scams like pyramid schemes? They know it is "too good to be true" but they think they are the ones that will scam others, they will get out of the scheme on top. Here they think others will get screwed more than they will; they thought Trump would ruin and destroy the woke, the women, the trans, the brown-skinned, the most recent immigrants, and they would have never cared a single second about it; but now he has driven up the price of gas and stuff, and they are suffering as much as everyone else; that is what is unacceptable, and a treason, for them.

You pretend people mean what they say and that they can be reasoned with; I say, and everyone who actually interacted with MAGA knows this, that the whole movement is based on bad faith and dog whistles and stuff that can't be said out loud. The lies, the pretense is there to toy with you, they are in on the joke and you are not.

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