The article you just posted shows that half of evangelicals supported Trump in April. In most primaries Trump won the majority of the evangelical vote against Ted Cruz before he even attempted to court them.
Native tribespeople.
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I see your point, and I’ve often thought that the great weakness of the political left (as compared to the US political right) is an unwillingness to accept that evil exists, and that some people knowingly and gleefully advocate and support evil. The right tends to be the opposite - willing to ascribe evil as motivation even when that’s nonsense - but at least they recognize evil’s banal presence. (apologies to Hannah Arendt there).
But I’m not advocating tolerance for the intolerant. I’m advocating changing the attitudes (or at least the behavior) of the intolerant, using methods that empirically work. I integrated my mother’s family’s yearly reunion, and converted my in-laws to supporters of marriage equality. I didn’t do it by castigating them, I did it by helping them become better people.
Strongly agree! Media can take approaches that are not available to individuals.
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Do they? You see, I thought so too. Then I saw Trumps poll numbers. While anecdotal stories of individual success are wonderful, the nation writ large are now embracing a racist candidate in a way that would be unheard of 40 years ago when the encouragement and understanding movement began. It seems to me that decades of understanding and tolerance have created a nation that is more racist than before.
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Here is the key stat. Note the support in April. Here is a link to the
South Carolina outcome as an example. He clearly won the primary but not
the majority of votes.
It doesn’t really matter much to my original point.
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Well, because you never made that point…
Then everyone is a racist because studies have shown that everyone has prejudice, whether they’re conscious of it or not. You’re living in a dream world if you think that people choose all aspects of their biases and racism. They don’t (and neither do you).
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I don’t know if he’s racist - but I certainly hope he is, since the alternative is to think that his epic race-baiting is a calculated charade designed to get his long-time friends in the Democratic party elected. I don’t want him to be that competent, I prefer to think he’s really a racist!
But for most of my life, and for most of the history of the USA, presidential candidates have been racists. It’s far more notable when a candidate isn’t a racist, as in the case of Bernie Sanders (and, arguably, Hillary Clinton).
Personally I see a great retreat from understanding and tolerance since Reagan’s election (from both the right and the left) with the 911 atrocities ramping it up even more.
But as Theodore Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” The world I inhabit is clearly less racist than that of my youth; most of the harmful discrimination remaining in my area is structural, and could be destroyed in a single generation by comprehensive education reform.
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The overt racists are fighting a rear guard action. Part of the reason they are so vocal is because it is no longer a matter of due course to say racist things in public, in the media, etc. and get away with it and have people just nod and agree. People are actually aware when they say something racist or act overtly racist that a large part of culture sees them as assholes and doesn’t agree. That’s a win folks. We just need to keep pushing this forward.
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True but then “my own people” is “American citizens.” If I really want to push who I identify with it is “people that are encultured as Americans” which usually means they spent most of their time growing up here or have lived here for decades. The only reason I’m against completely open borders is that we have a lot of economic and societal problems that will only get worse if anyone could move here and set up shop. We do need some kind of regulation of these things.
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Getting an entire community to admit that it’s racist is a big ask… Denial is a powerful thing and most people won’t even admit to themselves they could be racist. Ran into this on Usenet on one of the most liberal forums back in the 90s… realized that I’d never really be able to fit in with them right then and there.
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It was a struggle to get birth control covered and faith based only focuses on abstinence and lies. In places around the country that have comprehensive sex ed and access to birth control, the birth rate among teen girls is lower. In places where the government is nearly absent and churches cover this stuff, the birth rate is much higher. You want less abortions, then you have easy access to birth control and comprehensive sex ed. Faith based programs usually frown on both.
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I work side-by-side with those people every day. They’re my comrades, my brother & sister workers. Let them come, let’s get organised and let’s vote.
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I bow to your superior knowledge! 
As a woman in America (who grew up in a red state), I certainly do understand how underserved we are when it comes to sex ed and the relationship that has to people’s understanding of their bodies and sexuality. so thanks.
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Do you remember the early days of Internet surveys where everybody was a CEO making in excess of $150000 a year until even marketing departments worked out the data collection method was flawed?
Works the other way too, of course…
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I think you have put your finger on a serious problem here. Who do you define as “American citizens” who are “encultured as Americans”? The US is sufficiently large and diverse that trying to classify people based on geographical origin or long term residence isn’t going to provide a huge union set of characteristics. Lumping people together by geography is generally called “nationalism” and that tends to get a bad press in centre-left circles, for some historical and contemporary reasons.
The idea of the US as some cultural melting point has always struck me, as an outsider experiencing a number of different groups in different states, as something of a fantasy. Watching the same movies and eating the same fast food, even swearing allegiance to the same nominal concept of government, isn’t enough of a common bond to justify it.
It has always struck me as interesting that the country which generates the largest amount of pornography (and has done since long before the Internet, as people in the publishing industry have told me) is also associated with a level of sexual education and control of women that is usually expected of really backward European countries like Ireland (all of it) and Southern Italy. And Eire is really throwing off the Catholic yoke these days.
Interesting but, considering that the melting pot idea isn’t necessarily valid, possibly unsurprising.
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No, not really.
I’m an American. I think my government, composed of Americans, should serve the interest of my fellow citizens first.
I suspect it will suffice for more than, say, 280 million people out of our population. I could be wrong. It could be over 300 million.
So you’re saying that there is no distinct American culture or cultural identity amongst its peoples? Really? We’re all vastly different, no shared culture or history at all? No shared self-identity?
So, do you have kids raised here? Are they like other Americans, if so, or are they like people from your original homeland?
There is an overall American culture as well as various regional differences or variations.
This is pretty far afield from the main conversational thrust though, which is “The American government should look out for the interests of its citizens first and Americans should prioritize America over other groups or nations” as a basic starting point. We’re arguing about who is “American” now but, really, most of the country was born here and is pretty clearly American. Unlike Trump and right wing nutjobs, I think this includes non-“white” Americans. Black folks, descendants of slaves, are just as American as I could hope to be. The same goes for Jews, Muslims, and everyone else.
I’m making the point that I’m happy to identify folks who come here and settle into the states as Americans too. Their kids definitely are if they grow up here, which is how most of the existing body of citizens became Americans. My great-great-grandparents were Germans. Their kids? Not so much, though they spoke German. My grandmother wasn’t allowed to learn German at home because her parents wanted the family to be Americans (and this was just after World War I too when the family changed their name from a German name).
I understand that you are an immigrant so you have a different perspective but I think you’re devaluing American culture and identity.
BTW, the first is not dependent on the second. I’m not saying, “If you’re an American citizen but not encultured, you aren’t an American.” If you think I’m saying that, I’d challenge you to find a direct quote where I say that.
If someone has taken the step to become a citizen, that’s good enough for me. Even if their values are different from most Americans, they aren’t so different that they didn’t become a citizen and, again, any children they have will be as American as anyone else’s has been, historically.
There are plenty of nations where this isn’t the case, at least from the point of view of Nativists. I’ve known people who were native born in another country but who had immigrant parents and still had other citizens call them foreigners. A few places in Europe come to mind.
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I have to rate that “Mostly True*” but the OWL Program is a really notable exception to this.
* Mostly meaning “almost completely, except for this one specific outlier.”
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