Captain Crimson wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 7:03 amI stand by my statement, even if you can't apply the literal letter of logic to it, as a natural consequence of the fact half the country doesn't vote or participate in civic affairs, so that the ratification of equal-rights laws are slow to implement. That's true for all laws, like cattle-rustling from the 19th century. We don't have the information to the motives of why those people don't vote. It also might seem outdated to some in these states because they foolishly assume racism is dead.
I actually laughed there. And not mockingly. I loved that little jab there. I can admit I was trying to overcompensate a little to try and make a point. Well played.
Then I'll get more direct. My larger assertion is I strongly object to placing a dividing line on a vote thrown to Mr. 45 as the place you cannot come back from, and label anyone who does so a bigot. He said other stuff past his racist and sexist policies which could have prompted people to vote for him. And there are also the party loyalists who felt deeply conflicted. What percentage within the greater voting electorate do they make up? Democrats have them as well. It's why I'm suspicious about people citing these claims because they tend to have an agenda they want to push, whether they admit it or not. Yellow press is insidious a force as ever, and it's making it very hard to discern lie from truth.
Ratification is done by the state legislature actually, and doesn't require a popular vote (except inasmuch as the legislature is elected). So that means no legislature in any of those states at any point since the ERA was proposed thought "oh hey, we should probably ratify this, seeing as how not ratifying it is sending a very particular message". A number of other states have, most recently Nevada, and yet there's a few holdouts.
I'm not saying that Trump's racism and sexism mean that every single person who voted for him is racist and sexist. [url=https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/]This article is worth a read.[/url] Yes, I know it's cracked. Despite that, good article. I think a lot of votes for Trump were a "vote for a brick through the window."
Regardless, the article makes a good point about passive racism - there's a lot of racism that's "black/asian/etc. people are fine,
as long as they're exactly like us." In other words, there's no particular moral difference between listening to rap, playing basketball for fun, and admiring street art vs. listening to country music, playing football for fun, and admiring demolition derbies. But these sorts of differences in non-white people immediately trigger a response.
And yes, no one party has a monopoly on racists. But I think it's impossible to ignore things like Trump retweeting white supremacists, Charlottesville and the constant presence of racist and Nazi imagery in alt-right rallies, and the growing presence of racism as an explanation for our problems. America is very fucked up right now, and like Germany of the past, it's easy for demagogues to point to an outside group that's different and go "it's nothing we did! We were doing everything right! It's those evil outsiders who were plotting against us and making us weak! We have to purge them!
Is a quarter of America racist? Yeah, probably. This is a very interesting poll in many ways: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/