I’m waiting for Trump to announce that, “The earthquake off the coast of Mexico is the largest one every, there’s never been and earthquake like this, we’ve had more, bigger, better natural disasters in the first year of my presidency than in two terms of the other guy.”
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I know that’s a joke but given that he has remarked positively on the size of the crowds of people he addressed while visiting near storm-affected areas…
“So many refugees, so many. The media won’t tell you about it… they won’t tell you how many are here”. /s
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ftfy
ftfy as well.
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I found this essay challenging because I really want to believe that Trump’s election was not principally about racism. Not because I voted for Trump (I didn’t) or because I’m uncomfortable acknowledging my own whiteness (I’m used to that by now) but because I really want to think good things about friends, neighbors, coworkers, and possibly family members who voted for Trump. I know ‘racism’ has been a forgone conclusion from the beginning among Internet commentators, but in my own life, where I don’t live in an urban coastal bubble, Trump voters are not easily judged ‘others’ but are close and hard to easily categorize. I’ve thoughtfully considered stories bout the urban/rural divide, or changing economies, or neglected demographics, or Ms.Clinton’s unsuitability as explanations. But maybe I overcomplicate things and give Trump voters too much credit. I’m reminded of the civil war narrative. Growing up in the North, I learned it was mostly about slavery. Somehow as a young adult I bought into the idea that it was a complicated and multifaceted story of cultural and economic differences and politics and the US’s forever long struggle between the State and Federal governments. Then I read the original documents and what do you know, the simple ‘war was about slavery’ explanation was more accurate.
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Well, I’m half ethnically Jewish and haven’t heard lizard people used in that context before. I was most definitely referring to the shape-shifting reptilians. 
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I found it odd on the David Ike documentary. I think that the ADL were saying that people throughout the ages have used similarly strange coded phrases to disguise their antisemitism. So they assumed that Ike was using the term in this manner, rather than assuming that Ike really believed in Shape Shifting Lizards from Zeta Reticuli, or Nibiru, or wherever. I say I found it odd, because I just assumed that Ike was a bit of a nutjob.
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The sense I get from Icke and his followers is that they believe if someone is Jewish then chances are especially strong he’s also a shape-shifting reptillian from outer space. Conspiracy theorists can’t help but inject the Protocols into their particular brands of crazy (and indeed the Protocols themselves are based on an earlier conspiracy theory that was taken up by anti-Semites).
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The last paragraph is particularly relevant:
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A bit of a nut-job? He’s pretty much the full crunchy nut bar.
As far as the lizard people go, he definitely appears to genuinely believe in the actual space aliens and their descendants stuff rather than using it as code.
Anti-Semitic? He says not, but he does spout a lot of the same conspiracy stuff as people who are definitely anti-Semitic nutters (the New World Order, the Illuminati, etc.) and an awful lot of the people he claims are actually lizard people hiding amongst us are Jewish.
So while he may not actually be a duck, he does look quite a lot like a duck, waddle a bit like one and makes a very similar quacking noise.
The Wikipedia article isn’t bad:
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Oh, that sounds more than probably. So it is the difference between “When I say Alien Lizard People, I mean Jewish” and “When I say Jewish, I mean Alien Lizard People”?
I vaguely remember reading ages ago about the Nazis showing some Japanese diplomats a version of the Protocols, and getting very offended when the diplomats asked why the Nazis were working against rather than with these Elder dudes who seemed to have such a primo plan.
@L0ki, thanks. I was thinking that he really has a bizarre career arc; but, I guess no stranger than Albert Camus.
Edit: darn, I’ve been spelling his name wrong 
It’s “Icke”, “Icke”, baby.
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Speaking of disguised reptiles secretly ruling the world, there’s Robert E. Howard’s The Shadow Kingdom, his first King Kull story, that was published way back in 1929. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0603491.txt
Still worth reading, I think.
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It’s just locker room talk, folks.
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Definitely a nutjob. All of us who are in the know realize that the shapeshifting reptilians are astral entities, not “material” in the normal sense. Like duh, right?!
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(That was kind of my point. That “crossing gender lines” happens in every election except 2016, because there are only men running. So I didn’t understand why “crossing gender lines” was referenced as a special Trump phenomenon.)
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Good news then; California can’t get enough migrant workers to harvest crops, now. So there’s some nice low-skilled jobs available! Weird how none of the “they took our jerbs” people seem to want to spend 10+ hours a day harvesting strawberries in the 100+ California sunshine.
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That’s easy - it wasn’t. 
Are you disappointed?
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Sorry, this turned into a much longer rant than I planned…
I think the MAGA meme played a large part in this as well.
During the Obama years we made a lot of social progress that benefited in large part people who didn’t fall into the white (mostly male) population. Changes in technology as well as broad acceptance of climate change effected the economy and manufacturing jobs. Also corporations moving factories out of the US caused a lot of good paying blue collar jobs to disappear. These changes benefited the 1% but did nothing for the lower and middle classes.
So, we have life getting harder for the white man who not unreasonably feels that this is just wrong. At the same time whitey sees a lot of hype about groups and issues he doesn’t approve of getting rights/approval/funding. (LGBTQ rights/Black president empowering people of color/Woman running for president/Climate Change recognized/etc) It doesn’t feel like the government is doing anything thing for him because there aren’t new special programs aimed at him. He doesn’t realize he’s benefiting from the hundreds of years of the system being set up for him by all the whitey’s that came before him. He mistakenly feels like all the social improvements for others are causing his life/rights to decline. What whitey doesn’t realize is that life isn’t just getting harder for him. It’s getting harder for the bottom 90%.
Then along comes this flamboyant jackass running for president who is willing to say spout a lot off the things whitey has been afraid to say out loud. (Especially for the last 8 years.) He’s crazy! He’s Funny! Whitey used to watch him on TV! We can find naked pictures of his hot wife on the internet! A large part of his message is “I’m going to turn back the clock to when things were great!” (For whitey) “I’m going to screw all these damn government types and roll back these environmental/financial regulations so we business heroes can do what we’ve wanted to do all along! Create good paying jobs for Whitey!”
So they elect the dipstick. Then having Whitey in the White House and Congress empowers them to start chipping away at all the things they have been bothered by for years. The nutjobs are running rampant trying to roll back society while the big thieves (drumpfs/GOP/big business) are lining their wallets as fast as they can.
I’m not even convinced he ever wanted to be president. I think he started his run with the idea that he wouldn’t win but would amass a lot of money in donations. Then after bowing out of the election he planned to just pocket the remaining funds. It was going to be a win-win. He’d be in the spotlight, He’d get to keep a lot of money and it would all be short term allowing him to go back to his normal life. Then he started winning. He LOVES to win. All the winning made him think he could win it all. Did he start to believe his own MAGA hype? Is his erratic behavior due to not really having any interest or viewpoint outside of his business interests? As part of gaining support from various groups he is trying to follow up on his promises to them. Does he actually agree with these things? Eh, hard to say but since all the nutjobs came along for the ride they’re the ones shaping his current world.
Oh, and before “you people” (you know who you are) get all worked up at my use of the term “whitey” you should know I’m a 49 yr old white male who voted for Berni in the primary and Hillary in November. So kiss my butt haters!
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I’m a big fan of the sort of Tulpa idea; that all the weird shit is the product of the collective unconsciousness, and that Donald Trump is the hangover from a national nightmare.
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