Important Question for the GOP "Intellectual" Class: What Percentage of the GOP Do You Estimate Actually Are Irredeemably Racist Deplorables?

There are several possible answers to this.

One answer -- which "Consistent Conservatives" used to offer as a matter of course -- is that of course there are some racists and anti-Semites in the GOP, or at least who try to mix in GOP circles, but 1, this is a small fraction of the GOP, a fringe which has no power nor influence, and 2, the Democrat Party has a roughly equal fraction of racists and anti-Semites. Probably more, actually.

Witness Obama's condemnation of those ill-educated racists of Pennsylvania who "cling bitterly to their guns and religion" and harbor a hatred of those who look different or hail from different countries.

Another possible answer is that there are so many racists -- or near-racists ready to become full racists are soon as the Go Sign, the Racist Bat Signal, is flashed up to the sky -- that it requires the extreme measure of throwing a presidential election to make sure that this faction is checked and the party is kept from being "hijacked" by this largish force.

No conservatives have previously claimed this -- though a lot of ex-conservatives have claimed it on their way out the door, in their The Party Left Me salutation.

So for the NeverTrumpers making the argument that Trump must be stopped to keep this faction from being "empowered:"

Just how large of a force do you think these Racist, Anti-Semitic GOPers constitute?

Apparently the latter -- apparently it's such a large fraction that if they are given any succor, anything that Team Racist can call a "win" on Twitter, the party will naturally and inexorably join the Dark Side and hate on minorities.

So it seems that question is answered, by implication.

So let me ask you some more interesting questions:

1. At what point did you realize the party was jam-packed full of racists and anti-semites, so many, in fact, that it becomes a moral necessity to tank an election to prevent them from taking over the country?

Have you always suspected this? Or did this revelation occur the day Trump won enough delegates to become nominee?

And if it's the latter: Do you think maybe you're living in the echoes of a powerful emotional experience, and perhaps should discount your emotional response a little bit?

2. Do you think that, after you successfully throw the election to Hillary, all these racist voters can be successfully re-programmed to be non-racist?

Or do you just hope to use the racists for more useful ends, such as being needed votes for TPP and amnesty and bombing Syria or whatever?

On that last point: If you intend to re-assimilate the racists into your party to regain political power, but use them to your own ends, you're still kinda depending on/courting these racists, aren't you?

3. Assuming, once again, you agree that the party is so stocked with racists and anti-semites that it's necessary to throw an election to keep their twisted claws off any kind of real political power: In what sense do you disagree with Hillary Clinton's claim that "about half" of Trump's supporters could be put into a "basket of deplorables," irredeemable in their racism?

It seems to me the only sense you could disagree with her is in an insincere sense. You would disagree out of obligation -- without actually finding any large error in her claim. Maybe you'd disagree it's not one half of Trump voters; merely two fifths.

4. If you really believe the party is this stuffed with Jim Crow revanchists, White Supremacists, and outright Nazis -- what could possibly compel you to remain part of such a disgusting company?

I know if I believed those premises, I wouldn't stay.

I know, for example, that I now believe the party to be controlled by people with very deep cultural sympathies to the urban left, to such an extent they feel more of a tribal loyalty to the left than with the party they ostensibly champion - and that alone is enough to drive me out of the party.

I personally have no more emotional attachment to it -- and note that my objection is a lot less serious than objecting that it's a nest of vicious racists.

So what's keeping you guys here, if the party is indeed so filled with irredeemable deplorables?

Open Thread.

I expect absolutely no answers to these questions, by the way.

It has become the practice that the conservative media, like the liberal media it shares so many affinities and inclinations with, to ignore any impertinent questions from the cultural inferiors whose opinions must be managed, guided, and kept on the road via cultural guard-rails.

PS: Bonus:

5. We're still all claiming the Southern Strategy wasn't racist though, right? We're all still on board with that spin, huh?

PPS: Are you guys who think the party is chock-a-block with racists sure you're not just spending too much time on Twitter?

Yes, it was a weird, alarming thing when several hundred "CelticWarrior69" and "OdinsTears77" accounts sprung up at once and began tweeting out racist and anti-semitic memes.

But many of you suspect -- with good reason-- that many of those accounts are actually bogus accounts created by Russian Intelligence to fuck with American politics.

So... why are they being treated as real in some circumstances, and fake in others?

Also: Do you not get that Twitter isn't real?

It's, at most, a simulacrum of the real world. It is emphatically not the real world, however.

You know that, right?

The map is not the territory, guys.

The map is not the territory.

posted by Ace at 07:20 PM

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