But when it comes to crafting policy that is beneficial to their businesses, or driving a wedge into their political enemies, or mobilizing blocs of voters, raising money or setting one group against another and exploiting that conflict for economic and political reasons–of course they will pursue racist policies. Its called divide and conquer, and its about class, not race.

Its not that they want to pay blacks or Mexicans or women less for the same job a white man does, they’ll grab on to ANY excuse they can to justify cutting their payroll. If they could figure out a way to screw left-handed red-haired people they’d do that too. And the blacks, Mexicans, Jews and women who operate at that level will do the exact same thing, even to their own race or gender. It’s not bigotry, its the market.

As Tattaglia told Corleone, “Don’t take it personal, Michael, its just business.”

But it’s all generalizations. In fact, it’s an all out prejudice.
I’ll admit I’m guilty of it too.

It’s a spectrum, not just a few emission lines.

He may not feel blacks are inferior because of their skin color, but because they are stupid, violent,lazy and criminal. Like too Many Conservatives, he feels this is not “traditional” racism because it is connected with psychological traits, not racial ones. His “proof” is that not ALL blacks are like that, and SOME whites ARE like that. Therefore he feels he is free of racial prejudice.

The new Conservative racism fails to recognize that when an entire community is plagued by poverty, crime, social breakdown and other signs of decline it is because it is caused by social conditions, and those social conditions are the result of government policies which are being implemented that cause these problems to get worse.

But the new Conservatives don’t want to do what it takes to solve these policy and social problems because their taxes are going to go up, and their prosperity will be diminished.

Its not just black Racism. Its Latinos, its Muslims, its Indians on the Reservation, its the Appalachian in W Va, its any community that is in decline because it is neglected. But when the white, middle class community gets into trouble, be it unemployment, crime, drugs, high cost of an education, high mortgage rates, health care, whatever, all sorts of programs suddenly are proposed to solve those problems.

Look at how differently the crack epidemic and the opioid epidemic were handled.

This isn’t about race as much as it is about class. And Trump’s followers are basically those people who have suddenly realized they are being shoved down into the lower classes. As long as it was someone elses problem, they didn’t care. Now that it’s happening to them, they are desperate to hear any story that will tell them its not their fault, and that “those people” are really responsible. And Trump, and the Republican party, have been selling them that story, that the reason their prosperity is crumbling is because those people, the welfare queens, the blacks, the muslims, the latins, the foreigners are taking their stuff, and they must be stopped.

Really?

“MLK nephew: Trump ‘racially ignorant and racially uninformed’” -CNN

Whatever your take, it was a stunning display of integrity on the part of Farris Jr.

All they care about is their tax cut, and their property values, and their office jobs, and their fancy SUVs and the vouchers they get so they can send their kids to private schools, and the fact they don’t have to pay taxes to send some poor guy’s kids to public schools, or to a doctor when they’re sick.

As long as they get that, they really don’t care how crazy or how dumb or how evil their President is. Its not their problem.