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In 1980, white people accounted for about 80 percent of the U.S. population.

In 2024, white people account for about 58 percent of the U.S. population.

Trump appeals to white people gripped by demographic hysteria. Especially older white people who grew up when white people represented a much larger share of the population. They fear becoming a minority.

While the Census Bureau says there are still 195 million white people in America and that they are still the majority, the white population actually declined slightly in 2023, and experts believe that they will become a minority sometime between 2040 and 2050.

Every component of the Trump-Republican agenda flows from these demographic fears.

The Trump phenomenon and the surge of right-wing extremism in America was never about economic anxiety, as too many political reporters claimed during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It was, and still is, about race and racism.

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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    3 months ago

    I’ll use your method, and summarize what I believe your position to be:

    • You can do the right thing
    • You can do the wrong thing for the right reasons
    • You can do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons
    • We should not treat people who do the wrong thing for the right reasons as just as bad as those who do it for the wrong reasons
    • Because we cannot know the reasons that each individual holds internally, we should not condemn the entire group of wrongdoers

    END OF LIST (since the markdown lists don’t leave any space afterwards)

    I think I can see why this is leaving you with no definite threshold for labeling a group as inherently bad, and if I may offer a solution: you need to apply the concept of an Affirmative Defense.

    An affirmative defense is a legal concept that occurs when someone admits they have done something wrong, but argues that is was for the right reasons. It then shifts the burden of proof to them, to prove that their reasons made their actions right/ valid (e.g. “yes I shot them, but it was self defense, and here’s the proof”).

    Barring that, it will always be impossible under your system to “call a Nazi a Nazi”, because there can always be some hypothetical justification in their minds that you can’t know. This plays into your point that you can not truthfully claim certainty for/against God. You cannot claim to know what is in someone’s mind.

    When it comes to real-world harms, though, that cannot be a valid defense. Otherwise, a person can do anything and simply say, “but you don’t know if I had a good reason for it”.

    When it comes to real-world harms, it is beholden on the wrongdoers to prove that their reasons made their actions acceptable. Anything else will leave you unable to condemn and confront evil.

    Putting Trump in power is a real-world harm. I have yet to hear a valid reason for doing it.