The fine people video you watched was a cleverly edited hoax. In the same breath, without prompting he said he wasn't referring to neo-nazis or white supremacists who should be "condemned totally.". Here's the proof:
The group of people protesting in Charlotte were chanting blood & soil and carrying confederate flags. Anyone joining in that protest, is explicitly supporting that cause by being in that protest. That makes the entire crowd complicit in white nationalism. Trump's claim is that these people who are happy to protest in a coalition of white supremacist and neo nazis are very fine people and not themselves white supremacists? It's absurd.
The Charlottesville protest was a racist, bloody affair that ultimately resulted in a counter protested being killed after a white supremacist drove their car into the crowd of protestors. But, Trump felt it was very important to defend the protestors and in particular defend Robert E Lee, a man responsible for leading the war to keep a state's rights to slavery. The idea that this is somehow not racist and Trump is a man of equality, is again, absurd.
Again, if you watch the full context he speaks to this. Trump believed there were people there who simply supported the statues. If he was wrong about that, it doesn't take away from his clear, full throated condemnation of neo-nazis and white supremacists. It means only he was incorrect about who all attended.
Donald Trump has a long history of racial animus. Yes, he is a racist. The racist five year lie of birtherism he told before he was even a running for office, to delegitimize the first Black president, and the sitting president at the time of these racist and conspiratorial attacks. Trump's racial animus in the case of the Central Park Five, before and after they were exonerated, is well documented. Trump's racial animal in federal housing discrimination cases, is also well documented. And his dog whistles over the past six years, well documented. Yes he's a racist.
I also won't give a pass to the deeply ignorant. They are demanding a right to be treated like foolish children, somehow innocent of the decision they're making to remain ignorant of the fact Donald Trump is a racist. I mean come on, of all the difficult things to do on planet Earth, admitting Trump is a bigot is difficult? Grow up.
American society continues to give racists a pass. This includes Nixon's Southern Strategy as told by Lee Atwater in his 1981 interview. It's called plausible deniability. The idea some people are so ignorant they cannot be aware Trump is a racial bigot, and thus they can support a racial bigot while simultaneously denying they are one themselves. It's not believable. And I won't believe it. It's not my burden to take people's word at face value. Grow up. Stop being an infant, stop demanding that people treat you like you don't know better or can't know better.
I am 100% confident there is a Republican out there you can support instead, who has all the boilerplate Republican policies you like, without the bigotry.
Protesting the removal of a statue commemorating Robert e Lee is fundamentally racist, Trump defending this is racist. Equivocating it with Washington is an absurd statement that lacks any historical context or nuance.
And again Trump the thinking that it’s okay to protest and give support to Neo nazis by protesting with them, is a racist incredibly privileged stance to take. How do you watch this speech and come away thinking Trump is not racist here?
I will fully agree that tearing down a statue of Ulysses Grant is ridiculous. But Robert E Lee was a man who was willing to lead a nation into a civil war for the right to own black people. And Trump thinks the people who want a statue to this man to commemorate him are very fine people?
Some people believe that over time symbols can come to mean different things than they meant when that symbol was created.
When people tour Dachau they are not exhibiting support for Nazis.
When I was growing up in the South and all my black friends and schoolmates were wearing "No Fear" brand shirts with confederate flags on them, I doubt they were supporting slavery.
I can easily explain both of those examples and why they’re left standing. I find it interesting that you do not explain why the Robert Lee statue is important to remain standing. And why “very fine people” think it’s so important that it’s worth protesting with neo nazis and members of the kkk. Which again, if you protest with members of the kkk, people carrying nazi flags and people chanting blood and soil, you’re not a good person.
To your other argument, Dachau was never a monument to the Nazis. It was left standing as a testament to the horror of the Nazi regime and is a historical place.
The Robert Lee statue was erected sixty years after the end of the civil war. And this statue was erected as part of the historical revisionist “lost cause” movement, that has tried to frame the south’s decision to secede from the union as just. So, the origin of the statue is racism, the man the statue represents is also racism. And this is entirely consistent with the kkk and Nazis protesting the statues removal.
To compare this to a person of color who has reclaimed a symbol of hate, such as the confederate flag. Makes no sense. In order to make your argument you need to explain what the statue means to these people. And how that can possibly be worth it, given what this statue represents to people of color and the fact that they’re supporting Nazis and the kkk while protesting this.
All we have to do is read the letters of secession from the slave holding states. They tell us why they seceded, and it was over slavery. We can read the Constitution of the Confederate States, and find slavery mentioned ten times, enshrining it in the highest law of that land.
The "lost cause" is an uncivil demand to remain an infant, and an uncivil demand that others shoulder a disproportionate burden of coming to terms with the sins of this country.
Here's a really simplified response that once I say it will probably seem obvious. People can be both stupid and/or insensitive without being racist. In fact, I would argue most people are stupid and insensitive regardless of whether they are racist.
This is my last time I’m going to respond, but feel free to reply again and get the last word.
Being stupid and insensitive is when you complain you’re not sure how to spend your bonus to your cash strapped friend. Protesting with Nazis and the kkk to defend a statue of the leader of the confederate army, is a blatant act of white supremacy. I see there’s a fundamental disagreement here, where you think this act is not racist and I do. I don’t think either of us are going to be convinced by the other ones argument.
To add some more color here anyway. These people marching through Charlottesville were also chanting “Jews will not replace us”, again I don’t see how a very fine person hears people around them chanting that, sees people carrying nazi flags, sees members of the kkk and continues to protest with them. This is not stupid and insensitive, this is white supremacy.
You're over-estimating people. I would bet money that at least a few people at that rally had no idea who Robert E. Lee is, but thought the statue was pretty.
White nationalists do not typically advertise themselves as such. They recruit by gentle indoctrination. If you look at the posters for the event, they seem pretty innocuous if you weren't already woke to the names of the speakers. You're taking information you know after the fact and assuming that everyone there had that information at the time they showed up.
There were more than two groups there. It was a public event. While there were Nazis there, it wasn't advertised as a Nazi event. Nazi flags doesn't make everyone there bad in exactly the same way Hammer and Sickle flags and some Che Guevara shirts don't make everyone at a left wing rally bad.
I'm sorry, no you've been hoaxed. We saw the debates and post-Charlottesville terrorist act press conference where he outright refused to condemn white supremacy.
It also doesn't matter if you threaten to kill me once, then say you didn't 38 times, I still won't believe you, I just know you're a lying.
This sense of ESP and omniscience you have is an illusory side effect of human consciousness. Actual reality consists of all things that occur, but your virtual representation of it is ultimately based on alterations to it as you consume it, and in post processing, and other things that are not well understood.
If you believe he failed to condemn white supremacy in the post Charlottesville press conference, then you clearly didn't watch it. That finepeople.org link has the unedited clip where he says they should be condemned totally.
His worst response on this issue was the debates where he said "sure" to whether he'd condemn white supremacy. And then he was asked about the Proud Boys which are a multi racial group with a black leader.
I did watch it. He didn't. There were audible gasps in the room when he refused. Literally everyone I know who saw it had the same reaction. I'm not going to stand for this revisionist history.
>According to a transcript of a press conference on 15 August, President Trump did say - when asked about the presence of neo-Nazis at the rally - "you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
During the same press conference, Mr Trump went on to say "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally."
Trump just suddenly throws this in that line at a totally unrelated contractor permitting press conference for one sentence. It's really crazy, if Trump says one thing to the people of Charlottesville and a totally contradictory thing later in the most obscure circumstance, are we to give him the benefit of the doubt? I don't, there is no doubt.
I see, in a later press conference, after he'd given a full throated condemnation of white supremacy, someone asked him about his fine people comment and he reaffirms his belief that there were people supporting the statue. Again, something that could be false.
The idea that literally dozens of times he directly and clearly denounced white white supremacy, that he practically couldn't shut up for four years about all the great things he was doing for black people, that he passed the criminal justice reform bill, that he funded historically black colleges more than any administration in history, that he created opportunity zones to bring investment into black communities... He's going around the country bragging about these things constantly, but his off the cuff response in a press conference where he reaffirms his belief that there were some non-racist statue supporters... That's when the real truth came out, that was his big signal to the white supremacists that he was on their side in spite of significant policies and repeatedly proclaiming the opposite. That's a wild belief.
Trump didn't create "opportunity zones" for black people. He didn't fund historically black colleges. He didn't pass a crime reform bill. He didn't denounce white supremacy. He just lied about these things and you believe him.
Where are these opportunity zones? Where are these educational opportunities, where was the crime reform, a fantasy. You are taking a known lier at face value. Why? I can just easily dismiss anything you say because Trump accomplished nothing all empty words.
>And under the Trump administration, federal funding for HBCUs has increased by more than $100 million over the last two years, a 17% increase since 2017.
We've come a long way. We started with the idea that he had said Nazis are fine people. We debunked that totally. Now we're all the way down to the much smaller claim that even though Trump consistently and publicly signals his support for black people you believe he is lying. Progress.
I just now believe people like you will support without question any comment he makes. It's just the type of cult-like brainwashing that I'd expect. Who cares if he openly praises police brutality? He "publicly signals" something else!
Listen to yourself talk. He a 100% said Nazis are fine people, you were debunked. As Trump would say "You know it, I know it, everybody knows it!"
Isn't it interesting to observe how the self-perceived "logical" human mind reacts to evidence that obviously contradicts their constructed narrative based perception of reality? How this pink elephant in the room continues to avoid direct discussion in the mainstream is fascinating.
What specific lie do you refer to? There seem to be many lies in play as far as I can tell. Some people might even go so far as to say that the entire conversation is composed of mostly lies, although that presumes conscious intent, which I would say is not the case.
The tent pole lie of the fine people hoax where Trump instead explicitly condemned white nationalists. He did the exact opposite of calling white supremacists fine people.
Ah ok I see, I thought you were disagreeing with me.
That's a good website, I had literally never seen that video before. That's kind of what I mean by my comment, it's downright hilarious to come here onto forums and watch people argue about their respective perceptions of reality, while the vast majority of people think they are actually arguing about reality itself (which is what your video shows). That it has zero effect on most people (well, maybe makes them even angrier) is what is so mysterious about the working of the mind.
Michael Malice has outlined the 4 major red pills in approximate order.
1) I'm being misled systematically
2) I've been misled since school
3) They are fully aware of what they are doing
4) Given the choice, they would prefer me dead over defiant
In my estimation this is clearly establishing 1 & 3. The people arguing on this forum are victims of their trusted information sources. But there is no way the Biden campaign and professional media whose job it is to suss these things out had no idea.
The hard part is not falling into Gell-Mann amnesia. We saw this with our own eyes and know they misled us. When the next news story comes out, will we just accept it as fact? Most will, I admit I catch myself struggling with this.
I saw Malice on Lex Fridman, he seems like a pretty smart guy. Any idea if he has a blog or anything less time consuming than one of his books?
> But there is no way the Biden campaign and professional media whose job it is to suss these things out had no idea.
That's what's so hilarious about reading forums, especially populated with intelligent people. It's like, do you guys really think not a single politician or member of the media can spot the gaping holes in these stories? Or, does it seem plausible that almost half of voters opted for reelecting Trump because they're racist, cult members, etc? But then those questions are answered on the regular in comments and voting.
> The hard part is not falling into Gell-Mann amnesia. We saw this with our own eyes and know they misled us. When the next news story comes out, will we just accept it as fact? Most will, I admit I catch myself struggling with this.
I am really looking forward to the drastic swing we're going to have in narrative, and observing how the masses react to it. Reddit is already well underway, but once the momentum gets going it will be awesome. Will be interesting to see how long it takes before we need to engage in some regretful military intervention in the middle east. Seems like street level terrorism has suddenly reappeared out of nowhere in Europe, seems like a decent enough base for some narrative spinning.
Ya I've seen the COVID narrative change too. In my local city, the popularity of the lady running our PR campaign has been off the charts since the get go, and rightfully so, she is calm, cool, evidence based, no fear mongering whatsoever. All business + compassion/calmness, and the perfect personality for it. But then the last announcement we had, we had an absolutely massive spike in cases (larger than anything in the first phase), well deserving of increased prevention measures in response (at least from a consistency perspective). Except this time, the specific recommendations were...let's say "weird" - like, completely nonsensical. Zero alterations at all to bar or restaurant policies, no increase in mask requirements in stores, only recommendations for minimization of gathering in personal homes. I cruised on over to my local city subreddit, where one would usually find overly enthusiastic cheerleading for the fine job she was doing...but this time, I can only describe it as...like, total confusion, helplessness, a perception of cognitive dissonance on behalf of these decisions. I assume this will be noticed and adjusted for, but it was something to see.
BLM (or at least media coverage of it) died right before the presidential debates got underway, in magical coordination across all media. I don't expect to hear much about the topic again either, depending on the quality of the Republican ticket in the next election of course. Malcolm X explained how that works to us all in the past. That's another weird quirk of this whole production, why were none of the historic speeches of serious black intellectuals entered into the public discourse? I guess not a single person thought of it.
I hope you are enjoying your silent downvotes as much as I am enjoying mine. What a time to be alive! :)
https://finepeople.org/
Here's a compilation of 38 times he condemned racism and white supremacy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears you've been systematically misled on this issue.