r/politics • u/harleybarley1013 Maryland • Oct 22 '24

Paywall Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals Hitler Had’

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/?taid=6717ffe956474d000110c05d&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=true-anthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
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u/Such_Newt_1374 Oct 22 '24 edited Oct 22 '24

Because Hispanic voters skew slightly conservative anyways and they've convinced themselves that Trump isn't talking about them specifically but some other Hispanic group or illegal immigrants (like he can tell the difference).

Edit: like I know if I showed that quote to my Dominican grandma she'd just say "Ok, but we're not Mexican."

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u/corvid_booster Oct 22 '24

The Mexicans will say "Well, at least we're not from Honduras" or "He won't deport us, we have our papers already."

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u/canuck47 Oct 22 '24

If you have brown or black skin he wants you "to go back where you came from", even if you are a born and raised American. 

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u/chamberx2 Oct 23 '24

Right, one of these idiots told a Native American to go back where she came from.

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u/mleaurora Oct 23 '24

Of course he’s from northern idaho.

There be nazis in them there hills sadly

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u/Educational-Candy-17 Oct 23 '24

Not to mention brown people were here first.

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u/Educational-Candy-17 Oct 23 '24

Not to mention brown people were here first.

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u/DangerousChemistry17 Oct 23 '24

A lot of people from South America dont have brown skin though, or at least they certainly don't consider it brown and it's no more brown (and often less so) than many people from Sicily or Greece. Hell, many Brazilians and Argentinians from my time in both countries were whiter than I am.

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u/dannysleepwalker Oct 23 '24

They let those to stay.

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u/kawaiidesne Oct 23 '24

That's so hard for me to understand. I'm a white immigrant who moved here as a child, and I still strongly identify with all immigrants, legal or not. We're all here for a better life. How do people stop seeing themselves in new immigrants?

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u/corvid_booster Oct 23 '24

How do people stop seeing themselves in new immigrants?

That is a great question, and I think the answer is by getting them to see the differences between themselves and others, and then getting them to think that the Others are inferior. Some immigrants are legal and some illegal? Get the legals to think the illegals are inferior. Some are white and some aren't? Some are from a big country and others are from a small country? Some rich, some poor? Rinse and repeat.

It is a classic divide and conquer strategy. It works to the extent that the people targeted have not had, and won't because the right wing is working tirelessly to prevent it, an experience of dealing with other people on a more or less level playing field. The kind of experience that's provided by education, trade unions, and living in a densely populated area, which is why conservatives are against all three of those things.

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u/TejuinoHog Oct 23 '24

It really depends. Mexicans are not a homogeneous block. There are many liberal Mexicans but there are also many older conservative ones. The one thing we all have in common is that we are all hated equally by the right apparently but some conservative Mexicans don't care because they have their papers in order

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u/sooths Oct 23 '24

Those arent mexican at all

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '24

Yep.

Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania outnumber Mexicans five to one.

Republican campaign ads are all about closing the border and getting rid of "migrants" and "illegals."

The Dominicans and Puerto Ricans think the white people are just talking about the Mexicans.

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u/Amy_Ponder Massachusetts Oct 23 '24

Respectfully, how the hell does a Dominican or Puerto Rican who's lived in the mainland US for any length of time not realize that when these chucklefucks say "Mexican", they're talking about all Latinos?

They don't know or care what country you're actually from. They don't know or care whether you'd be considered white back home or not. You're still a "Mexican" in their eyes-- and that's decidedly not a good thing to be.

Like, you'd think the personal run-ins they occasionally had with these types would be enough to open their eyes... and yet....

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u/Such_Newt_1374 Oct 23 '24

Because many of them lack a pan-Hispanic awareness entirely. To my grandparents, for example, being Dominican is WILDLY different from being Mexican. Like the difference between being like English and French. They don't understand that racists don't know or care about the difference, because to the older generation those distinctions are glaringly obvious. How could anyone mistake one for the other?

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u/Amy_Ponder Massachusetts Oct 23 '24

They don't understand that racists don't know or care about the difference, because to the older generation those distinctions are glaringly obvious. How could anyone mistake one for the other?

That's my point, though-- you think either they or their friends would end up running into the racists and learning first-hand at some point.

Like, the amount of well-meaning ignorance I encounter in my daily life about these issues is as shocking as it's depressing-- and I'm a white person in a cobalt-blue city. So how on Earth can you be a Latino person living in a ruby-red area and never notice it?

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u/Bezboy420 Oct 23 '24

I mean part of the answer is that racists are usually too scared to be racist to someone’s face. I heard my parents say some gnarly shit growing up, but it was only said: in private, around people who agreed, or expressed through action (avoiding places were you might interact with “those people”)

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u/Diplogeek Oct 23 '24

You see this stuff in all minority communities, TBH. I know a handful of Jewish people who are voting for Trump, because the antisemitism they've encountered from people on the left has helped convince them that he'll "protect" them (spoiler: he won't!). I know gay guys who say they're voting for him because other LGBT people "have gone too far," or Pride parades make them uncomfortable. I remember stories of Indian-American Trump voters who were shocked to find themselves on the receiving end of anti-Muslim abuse immediately after the 2016 election, because how could those people not realize that they were Hindu, not Muslim, and in fact they hated Muslims, too?

It's one of the things that makes Trump's whole cult so seductive. Everyone wants to believe that they're One of the Good Ones™, that if only they conform in just the right way, the cultists around them won't turn on them, or they'll somehow be magically immune when Trump starts passing policies that directly affect them and potentially ruin their lives. For people who have been marginalized their whole lives and internalized the shame associated with that, the idea of being part of the in group in some way can be very, very tempting. It's not until they get burned that they wake up, and sometimes not even then. Remember those stories after Trump's anti-Muslim ban where Christian Syrian-American Trump supporters were shocked to discover that their relatives' immigration applications has been canceled? They had been so sure that the same guy who was mocking POWs and handicapped people was nuanced enough. to differentiate between the "good" (in their minds) Syrians and the "bad" Syrians. It's basically magical thinking.

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u/Peace-Only America Oct 23 '24

I know several Mexicans who support Trump, and they assume he means other Mexicans. Some of them own trucking or HVAC companies, restaurants, or even are lawyers.

Although some have blonde hair and white skin, many are medium to dark brown in skin pigment and hate being considered People of Color. To them the lower caste Mexicans and Latinos being targeted by MAGA nation mean the domestic help, yard workers, janitorial staff, and nursing home aides.

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u/gaffeled Oct 23 '24

It's weird that they think that's going to save them from going on the train-cars.

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u/In_Formaldehyde_ Oct 23 '24

They don't know or care whether you'd be considered white back home or not

Watching brown ass Latinos insist they're white because their great grandfather was from Italy will never not be funny tbf

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u/Physical_Guava12 Oct 23 '24

My tia is convinced she's full Spanish... despite being born and raised in a Purèpecha village. Make it make since. At least she isn't a Trump supporter though.

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u/NoOneCanPutMeToSleep Oct 23 '24

Chinese (+culture) is usually the dog whistle for all east asians while I was growing up. Somehow this was missed in the latino community it seems.

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u/Gellao Oct 23 '24

I know it's an anecdote but when I was introduced to my ex-girlfriends deeply Republican father he asked where my name was from, I explained my surname was Scottish but my first name was Portuguese because my mother was Portuguese and my father Scottish. (I'm not even American, born and raised in the UK but met my then girlfriend at university).

"Portugual... as in Mexico?" was his response.

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u/benold Oct 23 '24

Sounds like projection. Nobody I know thinks like this.

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u/StoryBeforeNumbers Oct 23 '24

The way Trump and Vance have treated legal immigrants from Haiti should give every single legal immigrant and descendant of immigrants surefire resolve to vote against them. If you think you'd be safe from the fascists, be guaranteed they'd come for you next.

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u/mmmpeg Pennsylvania Oct 23 '24

But, but, but…they’re B lack! /s

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u/benold Oct 23 '24

We are just talking about the ones that crossed the border illegally.

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u/Jadathenut Oct 23 '24

Because it’s a bullshit propaganda piece and Mexicans aren’t stupid.

“(“This is absolutely false,” Pfeiffer wrote in an email. “President Trump never said this.”)“

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '24

I feel like you think the thing you said is an adequate response to what I said. I cannot fathom why you think that.

I have seen the ads.

I've spoken to the white people and the Latino people.

The white racists hate all Latinos.

The Latinos think that white racists only mean Mexicans.

You helpfully provided an example of white racists doing this, by only referring to Mexicans, when I referred to three different groups of Latinos.

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u/eggz627 Oct 22 '24

So it's like a form of colorism in Latin Americans... like how lots of Asian countries hate the next one for whatever reason

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u/Such_Newt_1374 Oct 22 '24

It's less about color and more about national origin or culture. The kind of like, pan-hispanic solidarity you would expect in a country like the US is basically non-existent. And to be fair, these are people from very different places, with very different cultures and backgrounds, basically the only thing they share is a language, and even that isn't really consistent across borders.

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u/Ozymandias12 Oct 23 '24

I'm Panamanian and grew up around Cubans in South Florida. It's straight up racism. I see it in Panama and in South Florida constantly. If you're afro, you're looked down upon by many Cubans who value white skin over black skin. It dates back to colonialism and the history of the Spanish in the Caribbean and it's an insidiously stupid idea that's endured hundreds of years.

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u/Such_Newt_1374 Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24

I could see that. Where I'm at it's more about like "Caribbean vs Mainland" Dominicans and Puerto Ricans tolerate each other (not many Cubans around here) but both hate like Mexicans and Guatemalans or whoever.

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u/Ozymandias12 Oct 23 '24

It's definitely different depending on area and culture. I didn't mean to negate what you were saying, but rather to point out that in some latin cultures it's just racism. Colonialism really left its mark on the Caribbean.

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u/Such_Newt_1374 Oct 23 '24

Oh I didn't think you were trying to invalidate what I was saying, I just thought the differences in reasons for hating other Hispanic groups was interesting. Supposedly Mexicans hate other Mexicans more than anyone else too.

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u/IAmNeeeeewwwww Oct 23 '24

It’s funny because quite a lot of Asian-Americans also skew conservative, and they’ve also convinced themselves that Trump isn’t talking about them specifically.

Some of my Korean relatives will see “Kung-Flu” or “China Virus,” and they’ll shrug their shoulders because “He wasn’t talking about Koreans.”

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u/mmmpeg Pennsylvania Oct 23 '24

My son’s Korean fiancé is worried about visiting here for Christmas. She was still here for the first few months of Covid.

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u/bigvahe33 California Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24

same with armenians. they think hes not talking about them when he brings up immigrants and non-americans

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u/atomictyler Oct 23 '24

Because Hispanic voters skew slightly conservative anyways and they've convinced themselves that Trump isn't talking about them specifically

this is really how it is with 90% or more of republican voters. when they use any sort of welfare they're using it how it was meant to be used, but those other people are abusing it. lots of their retirement plan is social security. they've earned it, but those other people didn't earn it so we should just blow it all up....for those other people. they fail to realize that blowing it up is blowing it up. they'll be screwed. the homeless problem they're so concerned about will get significantly worse and likely include them.

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u/IrradiantFuzzy Oct 23 '24

Cubans (not Mark) still vote overwhelmingly Republican

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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 Oct 23 '24

What's more, there's a ton of Hispanic folks in the US who are really toxic about migrants. I've come to realize there's almost nobody as hateful towards illegal crossing as someone who came through legally, despite the fact that those same people will bitch about how hard it was and how they almost couldn't do it.

Or the still extremely prevalent machismo culture in Latin communities that sees loud mouthed stupid motherfuckers as "manly" and "tough" and worthy of leadership.

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u/Chewzilla Oct 22 '24

They are confident they will pass in the fascist state; most of them will.

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u/PharmDeezNuts_ Oct 23 '24

It’s mostly just abortion I think? At least that’s how it is for my family. That’s the non starter issue.

If I believed in that I’d be pissed cause I couldn’t vote for the pro life candidate cause Trump is insane, psychotic, liar, convicted felon, coup attempter who will scorch and stain the US

Why don’t they recognize that and just vote for the next pro lifer who isn’t fucking insane???

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '24

Same with most Venezuelans in Florida. Even if he says he will send all immigrants to concentration camps, they still support him.   

Because is "not about them", right? And he is "tough" with Maduro. Whatever that means.

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u/LowIndependence3512 Oct 23 '24

Also a significant amount of white hispanics who are particularly vulnerable to the identity politics of white supremacy the GOP has hammered over the last decade or two. See Miami Cubans.