You Are Still Crying Wolf

I tend to agree with this article; I don't think Donald Trump, a New Yorker and a businessman, is a racist.

However, the people who he surrounds himself with, are. This article makes no mention of Steve Bannon, who suggested too many Asian CEOs is a threat to civic society [0], and ran a website that peddled anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. Come January 20th, he'll be the chief strategist for the nation's highest office.

Nor does it mention Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who has ties to white nationalist groups [1]. He's now on Trump's transition team.

I don't doubt Trump's intentions, but it's looking like the alt-right is using his campaign (and will use his administration) for their own ends.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bannon-flattered...

[1] https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/11/02/what%E2%80%99...

May I ask you what you hope to achieve by raising these points?

This question is not meant to be facetious, I would like to hear from you what effect you hope to have by raising them and who you hope to influence.

I have seen many many people raise points like this over and over again and have come to the conclusion that it seems mostly to be tailored towards people who already think such point raised are 'bad' and so it's of limited effect on those who might support Bad Thing regardless.

But I may well be wrong.

I'm aiming to come across as non-combative here and am interested in hearing how you or others who raise point like this hope them to influence others.

Perhaps you don't intend for them to do so and are just sharing an opinion? I have seen lots of people share this sort of thing e.g 'He's not X but others near him are X so I imply you shouldn't support him'.

That might not be your intent, but if it is, can you expand on how you think this would be effective?

And again, this isn't meant to be singling you out, I'm interested in the conceptual argument of how we influence others.

> I have seen lots of people share this sort of thing e.g 'He's not X but others near him are X so I imply you shouldn't support him'.

"Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are"

It's absolutely pertinent to the discussion what kind of people Trump willingly choses to put into positions of influence.

As for why people are responding... I don't understand. The premise of the article is Trump's attitudes (and therefore possible actions) towards people of other races. If we disagree with the article, isn't this the place to discuss it?

I'm not really sure that this answers my question.

I'm interested in how what we share hopes to influence others of a different viewpoint.

So to you:

"It's absolutely pertinent to the discussion what kind of people Trump willingly choses to put into positions of influence."

To someone else it wouldn't be, so I'm interested in, for example, how you'd go about influencing/debating with someone who didn't share that viewpoint?

The GP post does something I've seen a lot and raises a point with an implication that because they find that point to bad, it obviously is bad and no further persuasion is needed.

For instance:

"I don't doubt Trump's intentions, but it's looking like the alt-right is using his campaign (and will use his administration) for their own ends."

That's reads as an implication that this is a bad thing, perhaps because alt-right is bad.

I'm interested to hear how the poster would hope to influence someone of the opposing view (that alt-right is good). To me, it would seem that raising a point that someone else thinks is actually good wouldn't be a way to change their mind, but I see almost everyone in this and other debates do it.

So I guess I'm just trying to understand what/how raising points like this (one the poster holds self-evident if holding their viewpoint but otherwise unpersuasive) could hope to persuade someone who thought the point raised was actually good.

I'm also trying to avoid sounding like a dick over this. I don't know everything so my view that this sort of point raising might not work may be wrong, so I'm trying to ask about the actual process of influencing others who share different views.

"I'm interested to hear how the poster would hope to influence someone of the opposing view (that alt-right is good)."

That isn't the point. If someone believes that the alt-right is good, it is very difficult to convince them otherwise, and this isn't anywhere near an argument towards that end.

Instead, this is an argument for people like me, who are unsure of Trump's intentions and who are looking at the article's arguments that Trump is not leaning in unsavory directions.

The idea is that, even if Trump is no worse than any traditional Republican, he is surrounding himself with people who are.