The big problem is not Trump. It is "Trumpism"

[Dill]

(04-29-2019, 09:53 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote:
I may be being optimistic but I believe the nationalism and racism is the fringe of the Republican party. The fear mongering about "Socialism" is more of a universal belief among Republicans and that will be the longer lasting legacy of this presidency and I'm not sure we can fix it before we start to see the gap between the 1% and the 99% widen even further than it already is.

A question I have, then, is to what degree do you see nationalism and racism expressed in Trump's speeches, tweets and policies?

Perhaps they can be separated from tax cuts and attempts to destroy the ACA, but are they only on the (metaphorically speaking) fringes of the wall and the Muslim ban, MAGA, and "America First"?

How do you explain the overwhelming support for Trump among Republicans, despite his inability to condemn white nationalism and his easy, disparaging references to populations of the Global South?

I doubt anyone thinks Trump invented racism or charges of socialism. His gift has always been for sensing anger against people of color, linked to a liberal big government supposed to dole out favors based on race and gender. That linkage of race to big government began right after the Civil War and has more recently, and creatively, been stoked by right wing media. But Trump's special success has derived from his contempt for social norms which, since the 1960s, have turned politicians away from rhetoric negatively stereotyping race and religion.  While Trump opponents see only constant deceit and lying in his public performances, his supporters see refreshing sincerity and authenticity when he speaks of Mexican rapists and "shithole countries."  As the Zakaria excerpt above suggests, most people looking at Trumpism as a sociological phenomenon read Trump as symptom rather than cause, but his effect has been to unify all these darker strains in U.S. history and policy into an angry mass movement very likely to outlast him.