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Saying, they're all just closet racists/fascist apologists is just as much a "thought-terminating cliche" as anything being called a snowflake, liberal cuck.
If Trump didn't openly and unashamedly represent facist, racist behaviours and viewpoints then you might have a point there. The fact is that he does, and yet these 'demonstrably quite intelligent' or 'non nazi flagwavers' were content to overlook these despicable traits because something something, it suited their purposes.
If you're not a fascist, but you're prepared to vote for a fascist because it serves your purpose-well intended or not-then you might as well be a fascist anyway, and you definitely shouldn't get upset when people mistake you for one.
I have no tears for the stories of illegal Mexican immigrants who voted for Trump now finding their partners or children deported, they quite literally welcomed the fox into the hen house on that one.
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you might as well be a fascist anyway, and you definitely shouldn't get upset when people mistake you for one.
Yeah, I'm not doing much hand-wringing. A line I've used in this debate is "I don't think you're a racist, but all the racists' votes went in the same pile as yours."
and yet these 'demonstrably quite intelligent' or 'non nazi flagwavers' were content to overlook these despicable traits because something something, it suited their purposes.
Well yes! That's the point, it did suit their purposes sufficiently for them to overlook the other shit. When they cast their vote for Trump we're left with a couple of possible analyses: one is "aha! they were fascists all along, I knew it!", which doesn't seem very plausible or useful to me. Another is "how fucked up are things right now that a huge number of my countrymen are prepared to vote for this guy despite his obvious faults?!" That seems more useful to me.
If Trump/brexit voters are failing to learn from history, then perhaps we should. There was nothing particularly uncivilised about Germany in the 1930s. I'm pretty sure the majority of people living then were morally normal and yet Hitler was legally elected.
There was a great analysis published a while back (I think on slate.com) by a liberal, city-dwelling writer who grew up in a steel/coal town in the USA. Her main point was that when people in those communities say their way of life is disappearing they're not being metaphorical. Trump was the only one talking about trade and in extremis, many people will vote for the person who promises them a job and to put food on their family's table, even if they don't agree with their social policies.
ffm
I'm assuming that your comment is pretty tongue-in-cheek, but just in case. Given that not everyone who voted for trump is a nazi-flag waver and some of them are otherwise, demonstrably quite intelligent, there is presumably something a bit more subtle going on that's worth looking at. When pretty much half of your voters vote for something that is partly hateful, you have to ask what is it about the other parts that makes them overlook the hateful bit. Saying, they're all just closet racists/fascist apologists is just as much a "thought-terminating cliche" as anything being called a snowflake, liberal cuck.