I can’t remember where it comes from, but there’s a common self-improvement refrain along the lines of “you are who you surround yourself with.”
Some of the most vocal groups of Trump supporters are Qanon followers, Holocaust deniers, and Neo-Nazi/KKK members. Obviously not all Republicans and Trump supporters believe these things and I have some faith they are a vocal minority, but when vocal Qanon theorists start winning primaries, I think it’s important to look at the groups who support the things you do and consider why these groups, who stand for things you hopefully find abhorrent, are so passionate to support Trump.
It doesn’t take much to see how the coded language of Trump matches up so closely to David Duke during Duke’s own political campaigns. Give the most recent season of Slow Burn a listen and you can hear Duke, in his own words, use very similar language to Trump. Or a recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver where Oliver plays tape of a political strategist for Reagan and H.W. Bush stating since they can’t use the N-word anymore in public, they need to use racist, coded language instead in order to appeal their base.
When there are “good people on both sides” at a rally for Neo-Nazi’s and KKK member’s where they chant “Jews will not replace us” but “thugs” at Black Lives Matter protests, the language from the current president says it all. No decoding necessary.
People are more important than property. It shouldn’t need to be said, but apparently that’s where we are. And while you may believe protests should not turn into riots; arrests should not turn into murders. Nobody wants to riot, but just remember it was only a few years ago when kneeling was abhorrent and the wrong way to protest (which is complete bullshit), but still nothing changed when people were outraged over men dropping to one knee. Obviously things will escalate when people’s and an entire race continues to be ignored when voicing their concerns about being muttered in the streets by police officers.
To those Republicans who believe Black Lives Matter and aren’t huge fans of Trump and his followers but still plan on voting for him: I’m guessing you’ve said or believe something like this: “I’m fiscally conservative and socially liberal”. Well good on you, I’m sure you think you deserve a pat on the back for believing other humans should have equal rights. But if you vote in favor of the fiscal half over the social half then you don’t actually give a fuck.
What that says to me, is you care more about your wallet than then ensuring all individuals have equal rights to your own.