What the “Trump Bump” tells us about today’s GOP
July 6, 2015

 
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Two weeks ago (June 16th), “dead rat toupee enthusiast” Donald Trump officially announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination before a crowd of paid-to-cheer casting extras in one of the most offensive, bigoted, dystopic announcement speeches since Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948 as the “States Rights” Party (sound familiar) nominee vowing to fight efforts to end segregation. The week before Trump’s big announcement, he stood at 4% support among GOP primary voters, just between Chris Christie (4.8%) and Rick Perry (3.0%). Five days later, a Fox “news” poll shows him in second place at 11%, just below Jeb “what’s-my-last-name?” Bush (15%). Lest you believe it was simply the standard “post-announcement bounce” EVERY candidate enjoys (as one person tweeted me), Christie & Jindal both also announced last week. Christie fell from 4% to 3.8% following his announcement and Jindal… who still polls 50% lower than the margin of error… saw a “bump” from 1.2% to 1.3% (ibid). “Trump’s Bump” is (was?) not some “hmm, let’s hear him out” sudden mild rise in interest, this is cheering enthusiastic support as a DIRECT result of his offensive race-baiting speech. And that speaks volumes about who his supporters are.

When other mega-corporations, from Univision to Macy’s… all who cater to a large minority population… started to sever ties with the real estate mogul, Trump did what any offensive deluded bigot with no self-awareness would do, he doubled-down. During a national news talk program, when asked specifically about calling Mexican immigrants “rapists”, Trump’s response was “Somebody is doing the raping!” Can’t be white guys, and it’s impolitic to accuse “the blacks” (that love him so), so it MUST be the Mexicans. They’re all that’s left. Since race has little-to-nothing to do with how likely a person is to be a rapist, such statistics are typically not tallied, but in the last report for which we do have data… a survey conducted in 1995 (pdf):

56% of arrestees for rape in 1995 were white, 42% were black, and 2% were of other races. White arrestees accounted for a substantially larger share of those arrested for other sex offenses, composing 75% of those arrested for these types of offenses in 1995. (ibid)

“Somebody is doing the raping!” It must be the “illegals”. Actually, 47% of victims are raped by someone they know, making it less likely to be someone that entered the country recently.

But why the sudden concern for “raping”? Are rapes suddenly on the rise to the point it has become a presidential campaign issue? If Wiki can be trusted, between 2003 & 2010, reported incidents of rape have declined from 32.2% to 27.3%, including a 0.1% uptick in 2004 and the greatest decline from 2009 to 2010 (and “reporting” has gone up not down over the last 20 years, so it’s not that.)

So why is Trump suddenly decrying “Mexican rapists”? Because he knows his audience, that’s why. And clearly, it worked.

Of course, Trump didn’t just complain about Mexican “rapists”. According to him, they’re “drug dealers” and “murderers” too. Setting aside for a moment that the most egregious & lethal drug dealers in this country are the billion dollar pharmaceutical companies with a network of licensed pushers around the country (you call them “doctors”) that’ll dispense 100% legal narcotics so long as they have a brand name stamped on them (like “Pfizer”), in fact, if you are white and middle-class, you are seven times more likely to use drugs yet less likely to go to prison.

Even if we give Trump the benefit of the doubt and claim all those poor white folks are victims of Mexican pushers (and if there is one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s how deep “white victimhood” runs in GOP-Land), there is almost no way for him to know statistics regarding the race of Drug Dealers because it is not widely reported. We DO know however that if you’re a white drug dealer, you’re more likely to get off. More people of any particular race being arrested does not necessarily mean more of them are actually committing crime, they are just more likely to be found guilty (by juries that… by simple math… are more likely to be white.)

Ditto for murderers.

It bothers me that after becoming The Birther King, demanding to see the birth certificate of the nations first black president, Trump wasn’t called out for his blatant racism, and NBC continued to carry his “reality” TV show for five more seasons, only to suddenly be “Shocked! Shocked!” by Trump’s comments about Mexicans years later.

There is no statistical data to support Trump’s racist claims. If the numbers were on his side, one could at least argue he was simply stating a documented fact. He isn’t. He’s doing what all racists do and that’s make a broad generalization about a group of people that makes him feel “oogy” because he knows his audience… an entire sub-class of low-information racists looking for someone to blame for the “hellhole” they have been told America has become (a place where unemployment “really isn’t” 5.3%, the National Debt is over $22-Trillion and ISIS is hosting gay weddings in an abandoned North Texas Wal*Mart.)

(UPDATE 1: 12 More notorious racist Trump comments.)

(UPDATE 2: Trump says the “initial” response to his comments were “overwhelmingly positive” and he received “numerous calls & letters of congratulations”… only making my point.)

(UPDATE 3 – 7/17/15: Trump now leads the GOP field at 18%, ahead of long-time leaders Walker & Bush, up 7% in just one week. Adding credence to my claims that Republican’s embrace a “victim” mentality and “persecution” complex, rallying around a guy they now perceive as a “victim” of the Media.)
 

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July 6, 2015 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, myth busting, Partisanship, Politics, Racism, Right-Wing Insanity

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