It gets complicated with Trump because of his mouth. He constantly says things that are completely offensive, and that can be construed or misconstrued as being racially insensitive. In this case, I think he deliberately played on a meme/dog whistle to provoke a reaction that middle America may believe is unwarranted. It's gospel truth on the left that "go back where you came from" is inherently racist. For the rest of the world, there's nothing about it that is racist on its face, and for many it actually seems like a completely non-racist statement. In fact, when you are listening to individuals who clearly think systems that fail in foreign countries are better, or clearly champion positions that aren't mainstream American it even makes sense - if you hate America and like x country better, you should just put your money where you mouth is and go there.
I'm going to take a middle ground on this. "Go back where you came from" is
often racially insensitive at best. Frequently racist at worst.
But there are uses that are more neutral or nuanced. Someone who has lived in Colorado for 40+ years telling a Californian to "go back where you came from" isn't meant to imply they(the California transplant) should "go back to their ethnic motherland" but should instead move back to California rather than trying to make Colorado into California 2.0 for example.
But context also matters. For the racist, "Go back where you came from" has a
strongly implied "
and don't come back" part attached. Something Trump actively countered by including a return criteria.
Which can take us to:
It appears he has doubled down on the statement since and at least to me, it sounded very "race neutral" to my ears. but "you guys" are off chasing bogeymen. Everything is racist for you and most Democrat elites, it's plain as day for all("Trump voters") to see.
Really that sounds neutral to you? Even though they actually came from the US, not from those "*censored*hole" countries he wants to deport them to?
Take the politics out of it. Picture yourself in a seven-11 and somebody tells a brown man to go back to where they came from. Are you really ok with that?
Context matters, in most cases where it is encountered, it is not okay, and certainly is intended to be racist. But at the same time, that doesn't mean a non-racist usage is impossible. By the logic being used on Trump, there are a LOT of Black men who are White-Surpremacists, as much time as they spend throwing "the N-word" around, I mean, it's a word a Skinhead would use, that must mean they're all skinheads rights?
So Trump, with his words, gives his haters the tools to make the claims they want to believe are true, or more likely in my view, that they believe are damaging to assert - in other words - they see this as "proof" they can sell that Trump is racist. Now why is it fake news? Because the media is aware of the nuance, they're aware that Trump isn't really a racist, but they are completely desperate to tear him down and they think this is a powerful tool, so they ignore that and they run with Trump is a racist, and again it exposes them as hypocrites, Bill Clinton and Harry Reed have a conversation about Barack Obama getting them coffee, which is just as arguably racist - and would be seen as such if it were Trump and McConnell having the conversation - and it's just an unfortunate comment to be explained away, not a story about how they are racists.
Trump has become this generations ink blot test. That he's deliberately playing on "dog whistles" that the left has been parroting about for years makes it even more interesting to watch play out. Pavlov's Dog is alive and well to this day it seems.
Biden actually says he found common ground to work with racists and opposed busing and he's not a racist, he just has some positions that he's refined. Compare that to how far out of context they took Trump's quote about good people on both sides (of the statue debate) to mean that he thought there were good racists (which he specifically denied in they same speech).
I think the amount of criticism he received from the Democrats over that same item further helped cement a lot of future voters behind the Republican Party for 2020. They twisted Biden's words around like a pretzel, used it to attack him, but at the same time also demonstrated that the favored Approach of many Democrats in the current crop of "rising powers" have an approach to resolving problems which is very un-American,
and very non-viable in the long term for anybody who has much in terms of life experience. Amazingly enough, Biden was right about something, and the Democrats ran him over the coals for daring to say such a thing.
So what is the REAL news here? Is it that Trump's a racist (that seems a fake story to me). Or that Trump said something that seems racially insensitive, but that arguably isn't (much more likely to be true). Or that Trump rightfully called out certain Congresswomen, who as a matter of policy seem to trade on hating America and a good chunk of Americans, whom they don't believe have legitimate views? Which story did you hear?
I heard a repeat of the story from 2016, people voted for Trump then because they felt the Democratic Party was heading down a path where people could not speak plainly about certain things "because it had racial undertones" associated with them, for fear of the social(and possibly legal) costs of doing so. They've seen the fears of Social costs writ large since then, but because Trump's the one in Office right now, they don't need to fear the legal aspect, for now.
They'll be voting in 2020 to make sure it stays that way. When simple truths cannot be spoken "because that's racist!" the ability to have any meaningful dialogue on how to move forward is impossible. But as the Democrats seems to make everything racist, it appears the time for dialogue is not happening anytime in the foreseeable future.
