Anti-Trump Hysteria At Universities
posted by Winston Smith at
3:33 PM
Sunday, April 17, 2016
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6 Comments:
Yeah, er, not entirely bullshit, Winst. I mean, obviously a fair amount of this should be filed with the rest of the whiny / hysterical / 'safe space' / snowflake nonsense, but there are real issues here, and Campus Reform is seriously reaching with some of these cases, in a way that tends to discredit the whole story.
A [USC] professor published an op-ed in HuffPost calling Trump’s views “fascist” and asserting that his supporters are the “least educated segment of the population.”
[NYU]’s Director of Medical Ethics co-authored an op-ed comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler based on his “racist rhetoric.”
How are these stories a symptom of anything wrong with higher education? These people are just telling the truth.
Look, the guy is kind of a fascist, and his rhetoric is racist. You call him 'Trumpo the clown' -- but do you think people didn't think Hitler was ridiculous before he came to power? You think Mussolini wasn't ridiculous?
In line with this, there are legitimate issues concerning not just offence but threats. The story includes a lot of vague references to 'pro-Trump chalkings' -- how likely is it these were limited to stuff like 'Trump 2016'?
There are plenty of immigrant kids at universities. They have to look at 'Deport them all', 'Build the wall', 'Make Mexico pay', 'Send them home' and God knows what else? Why should a university student be expected to put up with messages like that on campus? Everyone knows that Trump has effectively threatened that his supporters will get violent if he doesn't get the nomination, and he's overtly praised violent bullying of blacks and Latinos at his own rallies. The whole Trump thing is not just political speech, it's genuinely sinister.
what?What?WHAT?????
WHYINEVER
We got some kinda dangerous dissenter here in aisle 5...
You're first up against the wall when...uh...never mind...
Hmmm... Well, I certainly agree that Hitler was rather a buffoon, and Mussolini was off the scale...but no, I don't think Trump is a fascist, and I don't think there's any case to be made that he's anything like Hitler. Seriously...I mean...not anywhere *close.* Trump sucks bad...but there are degrees of suckage so far beyond Trump that the mind boggles at the comparison...
I mean, I could be wrong, obviously...but that's what I think about it. I'm wiling to listen to arguments...
The Michigan piece does say, if you follow the link, that in addition to 'Trump 2016', there were also chalkings that said 'build the wall' (which I don't think is racist in any way, nor do I think you can justify calling that hate speech even if you *are* an immigrant. Look, building a fence is just way--a just way--of helping enforce our (just) immigration policies.)...but also 'Stop Islam'. That's a tougher one. Would 'stop Christianity' be allowed? I mean...there's a fair bit of anti-Christian rhetoric at universities...there's an asymmetry in the cases...but I'm not sure how much that would matter....
Well..look, I'll totally step back and re-think this one, and I appreciate your trying to keep my on the straight and narrow...
Gotta say I agree with Darius on this one. Been following your blog a long time but it seems disturbingly undisturbed by the irrationalism and yeah let's be real fascism of Trump. Reasonable people can disagree about whether this is fascism, I guess, but to dismiss these concerns casually is a huge mistake. Think about how his rhetoric sounds to Mexican-Americans or Muslims in the country for just a hot minute. Sorry but this blog has become so one sidedly focused on the times his opponents act dumb and almost silent on the countless times Trump has done things that I would've thought a blog like this would have strong words for. Trumpo the clown is all ya got? Really?? I write this as someone who has genuinely admired this blog in the past.
TWO ON ONE IS IT????
Duly noted; attempts to slap some sense into me always appreciated, at least in the abstract. And there's no doubt that Trump himself has faded into the background in my mind--and the other stuff has stood out more of late.
I'm not sure I'll agree with you upon reflection...but (aided in the quest for virtue by not having any time right now) I'll reflect before responding substantively.
Not to pile on, but... 'I don't think Trump is a fascist'? Really?
So he boasts of his intention to forcibly deport huge numbers of people -- to prohibit all Muslims from entering the US -- to build a wall and 'make Mexico pay for it' -- he openly smears Mexicans as 'rapists' and frequently has recourse to openly racist language -- he openly winks at violence against minorities at his own rallies -- he refuses to discourage or condemn, and in fact encourages, 'rioting' among his supporters if he doesn't get the nomination -- he endorses war crimes and mass murder (TV interview: 'We're fighting a very politically correct war [in Syria]... you have to take out their families' (this last repeated three times -- 'Even Milosevic wouldn't say stuff like that in public', as the New Yorker commented)) -- announces he will change libel laws so he can go after his enemies -- everything underwritten by a promise to 'make America great again'... and this is just the stuff he's telling us he's going to do. It would be completely insane to have any confidence that he wouldn't contemplate the destruction of any political institution or tradition that stands in his way. It may be that Cruz poses a greater immediate threat to the country (although I'm not convinced of this by any means), but Trump definitely poses an incomparably greater threat to the future of the republic.
What does he have to do, actually kit his supporters out in actual brown shirts? I mean, what do you think a fascist is, Winst? Some kind of extra-terrestrial? Fascism is not necessarily something that happens elsewhere, to other people. And, notoriously, it adapts itself to the culture of the country in which it is being incubated. I'm wondering whether you're unwittingly assuming it's just axiomatic, or even analytic, that no US politician could possibly be a fascist.
No, pile on, pile on. It's cool.
But...no, I actually don't think he's a Fascist...and I really doubt that you think he is either.
I mean...first, just me: I don't think Trump is a fascist, because I don't think Trump is *anything*, really. He just *says* shit. Whatever comes into his scrambled mind at the moment, whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear. He's a liberal, he's a conservative, he's for abortion, he's against it... There's just no *there* there... He doesn't have the resolve it takes to be a Fascist. If you're worried about that...well...don't be.
He doesn't have *any* of the economic positions required to be a Fascist. There's no hint of covert control of the means of production, nor any pressure to use private property only for the good of the country, nor of central planning, nor any such thing.
Trump isn't particularly militarist. He's an idiot, but he isn't particularly anti-intellectual. He's not particularly a nationalist, though he sometimes plays one on tv...
He's no Fascist.
To compare him to Hitler...well...that just shows a failure to appreciate Hitler's world-historical horribleness...
He wants to forcibly deport people who came into the country illegally. That's not a great idea, and it's not going to happen, but it isn't Fascist. It may be too much law-and-order for your taste, bit it doesn't make him a fascist. It may be authoritarian...but not all authoritarians are Fascists.
He wants to build a fence *to keep out people who are circumventing the immigration system.* there is absolutely nothing Fascistic about that. "making Mexico pay for it" is absurd...but it's not Fascistic.
Wanting to keep out all Muslims...well that's some fucked-up shit right there. Not every psycho is a Fascist psycho...but I'm not particularly inclined to defend Trumpo on this point...
Oh, heck, why not: he said he wants to keep out all Muslims...which...he probably doesn't and probably wouldn't in case that matters...or so I guess...but he wants to do so because he's worried about terrorism. Surely that's at least a vaguely plausible excuse? It's not to keep *Der Volk* pure, nor because Muslims are inherently shifty...but just because he falsely thinks that a large percentage of Muslims are terr'ists. Irresponsible, yes. Fascistic? Well...probably not. But assholish. That's for sure...
He did not call Mexicans rapists. That's utter bullshit dude. He said Mexico was "sending" us rapists. That's also some bullshit right there...but it's light years away from saying that Mexicans are rapists.
He openly winks at violence against protesters at his rallies. Do you honestly think he'd *not* wink at violence against white protesters? If so, I don't think you've seen enough of Trump...He's almost certainly more egalitarian about such things than you think... Winking at violence is enough for me...I don't much care the color of the victims...
What do YOU think a fascist is, DJ? Do you think 'Fascist' just means *some kind of right-wing asshole* or other?
Trump is so all over the place that you can find him saying some of almost anything. I do agree that someone who sometimes says the same shit Fascists say is of concern...but, of course, I've never denied that Trump is of concern. That's just fabricated. You think Trump is interested to complain about. I don't. His awfulness is a given, as I've made perfectly clear. As I've clearly said, the very fact that he's even being considered as President of the United States degrades the very idea of America. Ridiculing some special snowflakes who are weeping that somebody near them supports Trump *in no way* means that I don't think Trump is an asshat. Where on Earth would anyone even get such an idea?
But, that having been said: no, Trumpo the Clown is not a Fascist.
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