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Donald Trump, the N-Word, and the GOP
It’s not okay for white people to use the N-word. I thought this was generally understood and widely accepted for … like a few decades now, but apparently I was wrong. (By the way, if you’re a white person, and you think you’re somehow a victim or being oppressed because you’re not allowed to use the N-word, I pity you.)
This has come up in discussion recently because word once again is circulating that there is a tape (or tapes, plural) of “Apprentice” outtakes that include Donald Trump (among other things) using the N-word.
This story isn’t new. It made the rounds in 2015 and 2016. (Anyone who is aware of Donald Trump’s history of overt racism wasn’t surprised.) I don’t know whether such a tape exists, but some are concerned about it because when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked this week, she couldn’t guarantee it didn’t exist.
In anticipation of the existence of such a tape and its potential release, we’re already seeing rationalizations (including here on Ricochet) and explanations of how, if Donald Trump was caught on tape using the N-word, it’s either okay or it doesn’t matter.
Okay, so two things: First, it’s not okay. Second, it does matter.
If this tape does exist, and it comes out for all of us to hear, it’s going to do enormous damage to the Republican Party. Because what will certainly follow is legions of Trump apologists explaining how it’s okay.
At which point, the Republican Party will become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party. If you care about the electoral success of the Republican Party, you don’t want it to become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party.
Further, if you care about conservative governance in the future, to the extent that Donald Trump is associated with that conservative governance, it’s a big problem. If things like deregulation are associated with the Republican Party, and the Republican Party is the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party, then deregulation becomes It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word-deregulation. All those conservative federal judges become It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word judges. Tax cuts become It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word tax cuts.
For Republicans, if you become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party, your brand will be irreparably damaged. For conservatives, if you become the philosophy of It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word, it will be the end of conservatism. Any claim of moral superiority will be gone. The decent people will have to separate themselves and find some other name to call themselves.
If a tape comes out, you don’t want to be trapped on the wrong side of things. Certain things are beyond the pale. This is one of them. If that tape comes out, don’t rationalize it, because what you hear will not be okay.
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Shoot? Québécois? I didn’t know.
(Looking for the “unfriend” button….)
Incredible. Not a single word of that sentence is true.
And there is your sin: “which is it?” Implying that there are only two choices.
You probably think there are only male and female, too. Neanderthal.
How long are you planning to wait?
Absolutely true, or this thread wouldn’t exist.
Penn Jillete confirms: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-2018-apprentice-alum-penn-jillette-says-1534351721-htmlstory.html
Your reading comprehension is as poor as your mind reading.
My dad had about nine lives, eight of which he lived before getting around to starting his second family (us) as a Greatest-Generation widower. When he immigrated to the US, he grew up in enclaves with a mix of mainly Jewish and eastern European immigrants. The crowd he ran with in his youth used ethnic slurs not too differently from how blacks who use “nigga” tend to use it toward each other:
It was a sign of in-group trust: we’ll call each other something that would insult us if it came from someone in our out-group, in order to signal that we’re all in the same in-group.
It’s normal and human to develop in-groups where affectionate insults are allowed and even appreciated, even when those same insults wouldn’t be tolerated coming from someone in the out-group. Yes, it’s a double standard, and no, it’s not really fair. But there aren’t only two choices here, rather four = 2 x 2. There’s the choice to use the word or not, and to use it in the in-group or not.
Has anyone seen my credit card? I seem to have misplaced it again. Thought it might be in this thread.
Just a minor point of logic: Whether or not proof of President Trump’s use of a particular racial epithet exists (and I have no opinion on the matter, other than to consider it completely compatible with my sense of Trump) is irrelevant to Fred’s broader point that we should not defend the use of the word in question.
There is a legitimacy to defending its use: some people can use it in a socially-accepted fashion and some can not, and that seems unjust in the color-blind society in which many of us think we should live. The original post would have been more balanced had it acknowledged this innocent and understandable motive.
There are pragmatic reasons to take a different approach and avoid any appearance of defending the use of this word. I favor that approach, because I like winning. Further, I’d argue that we should discourage its use by anyone of any color, because I would like black people to thrive and flourish and I think the use of the word is a small part of what holds them back.
There is no need for President Trump to be mentioned when discussing this topic. The issue is bigger than President Trump. It would have been a better discussion had the original post not mentioned the President.
Hi Midge. I was actually trying to make a joke about gender diversity. But I do understand the in-group aspect, and why the word in question is offensive or not based on the context and speaker.
The idea I’d like us to spend more time focusing on is that there’s a lack of wisdom in creating an “in-group” that consists of all black people and only black people, given that we are a nation that once defined that group through the institution of slavery. Rather than preserve that particular group distinction, I think we should encourage its breakdown. Encouraging everyone to stop using racial terms that emphasize the distinction seems wise to me.
No, Hank. It wouldn’t even be a topic for discussion if the Nevers weren’t so desperate to take down the President that they’ve become advocates for a madwoman.
You aren’t sounding much different than the white leftists constantly apologizing for their whiteness.
Back when I was in college, a female student claimed to have been sexually assaulted outside one of the dorms. The whole campus went into near lockdown mode. Men were banned from women’s dorms after 9:00 pm. Escorts were required at all times. There were workshops and meetings where male students were instructed that they were all predators in waiting . . . and this was in the comparatively sane 1980s.
Then the student admitted that she made up the attack.
But the lockdown continued because “it could have happened.”
But it didn’t. But it could have!
What have we come to when we operate out of fear of what could have happened but didn’t? Enact total lockdowns. Curfews. Nobody allowed in the streets after dark? Because of what might happen? All men treated as rapists because they might do it?
Or, more broadly speaking, what laws and regulations could get passed because well-meaning people focus on what could happen?
To this topic, should we excoriate all white people because one of them might say the N-Word?
Let’s concern ourselves with what did happen, and stop trying to control people based on what could have happened.
And an additional choice to use it within quotation marks? Which strikes me as a perfect solution for using either word in a discussion such as this.
You might be right.
To have a huge impact that tape would actually have to be shocking. Trumps opponents, on the Left and Right, are consistently calling him a racist. There is no shock value here. In this thread there have been claims that calling MS-13, a criminal terrorist organization, animals is racist. For this to work MS-13 is either a race or all/most members of a race are MS-13 members.
Similarly he called Omarosa a dog, this is clearly racist because it calls an a black person an animal. Except Trump uses it like the word “loser” not in a racial way. He calls white people, black people and Hispanic people dogs. It just is not racist.
There is no shock value to calling someone racist for two-three years and then listening to an old tape and shouting racists.
It’s a topic I’ve discussed since long before Trump, Drew. I think it’s an interesting topic, but one best discussed apart from Trump. Which was kind of my point.
Is it wise to encourage such an in-group? Is it wise to expect such an in-group to entirely disappear? I suspect we’re roughly on the same wavelength here. Affirming in-group solidarity often comes at a cost to getting along with the wider world. When is the cost worth it? Not always.
Another choice each of us has is how to respond to the use of words such as these. My choice: suggest that there are other ways to express oneself or I might just be quiet.
Did you let Fred in on this?
You might be right, so I will put some meat on the bones.
The pardon power is unlimited, and Jimmy Carter pardoned all Vietnam era draft-dodgers. Trump could pardon his son, Paul Manafort and all of the Mueller Probe current defendants. That would be legal, but would be an abuse of power.
The ability to pull a security clearance is likely very strongly in the discretion of the Presidency. However, instead of following procedure, Trump removed John Brennan’s security clearance and did so very publicly, in what appears to an effort to push Omarosa and the “n” word off of the top of the news. Trump could remove the security clearances of Robert Mueller and all of the members of the Mueller Probe. That would be legal, but also would be an abuse of power.
Trump has very broad discretion in the area of stopping entry into the United States. However, his first two Executive Orders were terribly over-broad on their face.
Trump has very broad discretion to deport aliens. However, he has encouraged ICE to deport aliens who are otherwise law-abiding.
Can you provide a reference for this? I’ve heard it before but I haven’t been able to find anything demonstrating this action as preferred.
And yet you insist you can read Trumps mind.
So those illegals who are “otherwise law abiding”
You mean they don’t work in the US?
So except for entering the US illegally, staying in the US illegally,and working in the US illegally, they are “law abiding”. Unless of course they drive without a license, don’t have their cars registered, or have insurance on them, or have a fake social security number, or DL. Just law abiding folks.
What percentage of the current American Black population is actually descended from slaves? An awful lot of black people emigrated here after slavery ended (because, you know, black people love to move *to* a racist country. But I digress).
The really bad part about encouraging the such an in-group is that some significant percentage of that group has zero connection to it.
Yes, I'[m curious about the ground for deporting aliens who are law-abiding. By definition, they would have to be people who didn’t enter illegally. Is Trump really sending ICE after people with valid visas?
If you can hear the dog whistle, that makes you the dog.
So far, all I can find a statements of examples where the Obama Administration placed an alien (usually the parent of American citizens) on “probation” and did not remove that parent, but instead had them check in periodically. Thereafter the Trump Administration deported these aliens when they checked in.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/08/11/experts-say-law-abiding-migrants-greater-deportation-risk-under-trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-deportation-tough-talk-hurts-law-abiding-immigrants/2017/12/10/9a87524a-a93b-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html?utm_term=.95132343e7c4
There are some statistics in this article.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/dec/19/have-deportations-increased-under-donald-trump-her/
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You are right. To be in the country illegally is to be here illegally. I am trying to distinguish between maids and members of MS0-13.
Gary did say otherwise law abiding.
Do you mean law-abiding except for the fact that they’re here illegally?
Last time I checked one of the fastest tracks to go from illegal to legal was through children who are citizens or legal residents. Are you sure we’re not talking about the parents of DACA participants, i.e. the one ones who brought the children here illegally.