Ceeboo wrote:
... My thoughts on what Trump has done (or what Trump has not done) have exactly and totally nothing to do with the irresponsible implications and negative labels that you have attached to millions of white American citizens that exercised their right to vote.
Maybe we could try to take this step by step? That way it will be clear where our views diverge, and why, and we might be able to understand one another even if we don't agree. So here are some propositions that you might or might not agree with:
A. The right to vote in a democracy comes with moral responsibilities. Thus one ought not to vote for a party or candidate without taking the time to learn about what policies they advocate and considering the likely impact of those policies on the country as a whole. Your fellow citizens have the right to expect that you will not use your vote without such due consideration, or simply to amuse yourself. (Of course the right to vote is not CONDITIONAL on the voter carrying out such civic responsibilities. However, one's continuing respect for a fellow-citizen might be so conditional.)
Are you with me there? OK, then we go on to:
B. Having cast an informed vote and put a party or a person in power, the citizen who voted for them cannot avoid sharing in responsibility for the consequences of the policies they voted for being put into practice. (If the citizen simply voted at random and in ignorance of the policies in question that criticism does not apply , though others do.)
How about that? Basically it's this: "Candidate X said clearly he would do Y. You voted for him and he was elected and proceeded to do Y. So you share responsibility for the consequences of candidate X doing Y."
Now we come to particulars:
C. Candidate Trump, from his very first announcement of his intention to run, foregrounded hispanic immigrants as a major and immediate threat to the personal security of US citizens ('murders, rapists ..."). He referred to this threat repeatedly in campaign rallies, and promised tough and coercive action to end the threat ("Build the WALL!" and so on). In office, he has continued the same rhetoric, and acted on it.
Basically the case, or not, would you say?
So finally we come to:
D. Having voted for Trump in full knowledge of his stated policies and attitudes, a voter can reasonably be said to share some responsibility for the consequences of his policies. And those consequences are certainly an increased tendency in US society to view all hispanic people as potential threats, and thus from time to time to motivate unstable individuals to act on those perceptions by attacking innocent people, purely on the ground that they are, or appear to be, hispanic. And it was not hard, listening to candidate Trump, to see that this kind of thing was likely to happen.
I'd be interested to know at which point in the above listing of propositions our views part company.