Rex Kerr
2 min readNov 12, 2020

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No, I don’t need a history of people’s racism and racist views. That isn’t what I’m questioning here.

You have a thesis, at least for evangelicals, that “They embrace Trump because he validates their own hate, greed, misogynism, racism and every other vile attitude and belief.”

I have a thesis that it’s not universal and those attitudes are held weakly by many, “But are many of them very resolutely any of those vile things?”

Your thesis seems to be yes, they are resolutely these vile things: “These aren’t rash opinions. […] They are what we think they are”

I continued to express doubts about the prevalence.

You replied with justification including: “Whites will not, won’t not, and will absolutely never admit their racism or that it even exists,”

Except then I found a link that both (1) shows that plenty of whites do admit that racism exists, (2) some even openly express negative attitudes towards some races, and (3) it’s true of both Democrats and Republicans, though Democrats are moderately more likely to admit that racism exists, and Republicans are moderately more likely to express a negative opinion of non-white races.

Maybe you’re doing a “no true Scotsman” thing, where by “whites” you mean “those racist whites who believe exactly what I charge they believe”. But that doesn’t address my original point: how common is it?

Or maybe you’re using straightforward definitions, in which case you have to explain things like how 45% of Republicans (and more Democrats) say blacks face “a great deal” or “a lot” of racism, while simultaneously it being the case that “whites will absolutely never admit racism or that it even exists”. (See the “who faces discrimination” table in https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theres-still-a-huge-partisan-gap-in-how-americans-see-discrimination/.)

If you say something like, “There are far too many evangelicals who support Trump because he vindicates their own hate, greed, racism, etc.”, then I’d say: yeah, absolutely. Way, way too many.

But what I don’t see evidence for is that these “vile attitudes and beliefs” are so widespread that it’s worth giving up on the entire group. Or them plus any other Trump voter. Or them, plus Trump voters, plus white Republicans. (Can’t quite tell who you’re talking about at this point.)

It’s easy and maybe satisfying to vilify groups, especially when there are quite a number of actual villains as in this case. But that doesn’t make it accurate or fair to everyone in the group, or good strategy if you want to enact change for the better.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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