←back to thread

You Are Still Crying Wolf

(slatestarcodex.com)
104 points primodemus | 6 comments | 17 Nov 16 14:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
Show context
SamBam ◴[17 Nov 16 15:12 UTC] No.12978054[source]▶
1. Kudos to him for putting in the "Edit" about the inaccuracies in exit-poll data, but it's a really big "Edit" and casts doubt on most of his initial premise.

2. No mention of Bannon? This article was written yesterday, and we knew Trump had chosen Bannon to be his right-hand man long before then.

3. No mention that Trump believes that an American judge of Mexican heritage can't judge him? Of the birther claims? Or of playing to white fears with completely make-believe images of "inner cities" being war zones?

4. The jiu jitsu over saying that banning "All Muslims" from entering the country isn't really racism because "most Muslims are white(ish)" is nonsense.

5. And yes, it is special pleading. The author goes out of his way to explain things in a way that is unique to Trump:

> 15. Don’t we know that Trump supports racist violence because, when some of his supporters beat up a Latino man, he just said they were “passionate”?

> When Trump was asked for comment, he tweeted “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country”.

> I have no idea how his mind works and am frankly boggled by all of this, but calling violent protesters “passionate” just seems to be a thing of his. I think this is actually a pretty important point. Trump is a weird person.

Oh. Ok. He doesn't support beating up people. He's just "weird."

----

Edit: Also the author seems to have confused two statements of "passion." Trump's tweet about "small groups of protesters" was made just the other day. Instead, after the beating up of the Latino man, he said

"I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate, they love this country, they want this country to be great again."

Note that not only is he calling those men "passionate," he is essentially justifying their actions by bringing up their "love of country," which is particularly telling in the case of men beating up an immigrant.

replies(4): >>12978127 #>>12978225 #>>12978234 #>>12978638 #
tptacek ◴[17 Nov 16 15:26 UTC] No.12978225[source]▶
How seriously are we meant to take an article on Trumpist racism that includes:

"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Note how totally non-racist this statement is. I’m serious. It’s anti-illegal-immigrant. But in terms of race, it’s saying Latinos (like every race) include both good and bad people, and the bad people are the ones coming over here. It suggests a picture of Mexicans as including some of the best people – but those generally aren’t the ones who are coming illegally.

It's not just that Alexander chooses as the first words following Trump's most famous racist quote "note how totally non-racist this statement is", but also the degree to which his logic insults the reader's intelligence. Mexicans "include some of the best people" (note that Trump didn't say that --- he said that their best people don't come here), just not the ones who come here illegally (note that Trump didn't say that --- he's talking about all Mexican immigrants). Alexander's own paragraph isn't even coherent on this point!

replies(4): >>12978292 #>>12978496 #>>12978518 #>>12983822 #
scrollaway ◴[17 Nov 16 15:33 UTC] No.12978292[source]▶
I also disagree with that section but why do you feel it affects the article as a whole? For that matter, I disagree that the article is about "trumpist racism"; that's just a symptom of what it talks about.
replies(1): >>12978362 #
1. tptacek ◴[17 Nov 16 15:41 UTC] No.12978362[source]▶
The whole article is like this. It's just a sequence of showily contrarian takes that fall apart when you read them closely. The author is counting on you not doing that, just like Steve Bannon is counting on Americans to just take his word for it when he says he has nothing to do with the "alt-right".
replies(2): >>12978431 #>>12978536 #
2. NhanH ◴[17 Nov 16 15:47 UTC] No.12978431[source]▶
You're just nit picking on his writing at this point (the part about "best people"). Instead, if you think it doesn't hold, can you explain how Trump's quote would be categorically different than the 2 other quotes he has in that section?
replies(1): >>12978631 #
3. scrollaway ◴[17 Nov 16 15:57 UTC] No.12978536[source]▶
That seems like a super weird comparison? There's some odd local conclusions being drawn/methodology being used but it doesn't seem to me to be the point of the article. Mostly what it gives is a run down of how else you can perceive these things about Trump.

What the author seems to be concerned with is: How does a guy that is blatantly evil in many ways in the eyes of so many people actually get a large percent of the vote? How did we get there?

It's making a pretty solid case that there is a lot of either baseless or unnecessary attacks against Trump's character which dilute the actual issues. Or maybe I'm extrapolating from what I believe is already the case, but it does give some other perspectives.

It doesn't matter that these perspectives "fall apart", the author isn't actually defending Trump. When you talk about perspective, it could be written by a bowl of soup and still be valid.

replies(1): >>12978730 #
4. tptacek ◴[17 Nov 16 16:07 UTC] No.12978631[source]▶
"Picking on his writing"? Look at the article we're talking about. It's the rhetorical equivalent of a game of Operation.
5. tptacek ◴[17 Nov 16 16:17 UTC] No.12978730[source]▶
It's a super weird comparison if you grant the author's premise and don't read critically. But the author has selected a tendentious premise; there is no setting on the "charitable" knob that allows Alexander to downplay or ignore instances of overt racialist rhetoric from Trump, since the whole point of his piece is to immunize Trump from charges that he's a racialist candidate.

I mean, for fuck's sake, he tries to claim that Trump is less racist than Mitt Romney. There nobody in the world who believes that, except for Alexander's readership, who want badly to believe it.

replies(1): >>12978818 #
6. scrollaway ◴[17 Nov 16 16:27 UTC] No.12978818{3}[source]▶
I don't know the author but I'm sensing you do and that's causing some bias. My read of it was that the "racist" label is being applied too quickly, too liberally and too often. The question of whether Trump is racist matters less than the issues that arise when a label like that becomes a weapon.