Trump: Jews who vote D are ignorant and disloyal

[Dill]

(08-23-2019, 01:32 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Yes, they do. Sure, there have been Republicans that have said racist things and deserved to be called racist. But, there have been MANY Republicans and conservatives who have been branded a racist, not for saying or doing anything racist, but for being a Republican/conservative.

There's a reason that, since I've been voting, every Republican presidential candidate has been called a racist and NONE has said or done anything remotely racist - well, aside from Donald Trump - and it ain't because they're all racist.

Dill Wrote: If you do mean that Trump and the far right do call "select people 'traitors'" then that seems to negate your claim that "both sides don't do it."

It would seem. Except in previous discussions you and I have had over "both sides" doing something, you've made it clear when one side does it more, than both sides don't really do it. 
I'd be willing to concede that both sides are guilty of calling people of certain groups who vote different from a majority of the group as traitorous or something like that. And I'm not even asking you to agree that Democrats do it more (though they do  )

Not sure which previous discussions you are referring to. The ones I remember have turned around undoing false equivalences and whataboutism, or specified actions (like Gingrich's Gopak Memo or Trump's misogynistic rhetoric as president) which cannot be attributed to "both sides."

As far as extreme rhetoric, I have never denied that one cannot find it in rank and file Democrats.  But both sides don't accept that in their leadership. That is an important difference (which I have explained to you before).  So there is not a Dem president publicly calling women "dogs" and warning people of "Mexican rapists," and calling the press "the enemy of the people" and otherwise WEEKLY shocking the world with his vulgarity.

 Not sure when you began voting. It matters here who is calling whom racist and under what circumstances. We have tape of Reagan and Nixon's clearly racist language.The Clintons and Obama were all called "racist."  Glen Beck famously pronounced that Obama had a "deep-seated hatred of Whites."   Looks like EVERYONE running for president gets called a "racist."  It is par for the course.

Could Republicans be accused more often than Democrats?  I don't see why that isn't possible. Seems like an empirical question, which could be answered once we agreed on clear metrics.

That raises another empirical question: What accounts for the difference? Are the accusations inaccurate or unfair? Is there a PERCEPTION that one party typically works against civil equality more than the other?  If so, that would explain why the rhetoric of beneficiaries of Civil Rights legislation might be especially sensitive to this--e.g., some black voters calling other black voters "uncle Tom."

If members of the "wounded " party were sufficiently upset about the aforementioned PERCEPTION, they could work to make sure their party's civil rights record was impeccable. E.g., their own voters could hold them to greater accountability. That's one option, and how democracy is supposed to work. Another option would be to ignore the perception or deny it could be rooted in fact. In that case, shoot the messenger.

No way to answer any of these empirical questions though, if the starting assumption is that ALL Republicans just always are accused of racism whenever some are. THAT perception seems to be driving much of the right-wing defensiveness whenever the issue of race appears US politics. And it seems to detach the issue from any possible research or measurement.