Liberals Warned Me About MAGA’s Racism. I Didn’t Believe Them—Until Now.

I’ve often thought about that moment—the unnecessary injection of racial anxiety into my otherwise normal school day—when I think about the irony of progressive identity politics. My parents, both born in India but educated in America, would laugh about their well-intentioned but misguided friends who, in their eagerness to ward off the idea of “otherness,” ended up contributing to it.

So the people who knew the country well enough to see what was coming told you what was coming. You ignored them, your parents laughed at them.

But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

Huh.

But now, we must all reckon with an ugly part of the MAGA agenda they did not realize existed.

Everyone who's head wasn't buried in the sand or laughing about "the irony of progressive politics" realized they existed.

And so, if Trump’s win is a revolutionary moment for MAGA, the people who voted for the revolution need to define which MAGA they believe in. Does “making America great again” revive the ideals of this country—or the grievances of a group of “native-born” Americans? If MAGA chooses the latter, those on the left who were dismissed as hysterical for crying racism will be vindicated in the worst way.

Whew, still not getting it I see. MAGA has made that choice already, and it hasn't moved one bit during the time MAGA has existed.

I didn’t want to fracture that pride with the news of an ugly turn in our country’s politics. How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

I think you can only tell them to pay attention next time and not laugh at those trying to give you a clue.

My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

Your grandfather empowered them and is part of the problem.

Damn, it's only January and my schadenfreude gland is already getting fatigued.

Apparently the writer has barely paid any attention to what's been going on over the last 10 years...

Her turning point:

But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

Same old story:

My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump. They are family members and neighbors, cafe owners who greet me by name, doctors, cleaning ladies, the mailman, my Cape Verdean babysitter-turned-friend of many years. All of them opposed illegal immigration while defending Trump from critics: “He’s not anti-legal immigration, he’s anti-illegal immigration,” they’d said. “I’m pro-legal immigration—make it easier to do it the lawful way,” they’d say.

I will never understand how people can't see it's thinly veiled racism when it comes from the GOP.

How brave. Going out and broadcasting to the world just how dense you are.

Whaaaaaat? You mean the bigotry and vitriol of the GOP isn't limited to Mexicans, Hatians, Chinese, Guatemalans, Columbians, Cubans, Women, Gays, Transgender, Liberals, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Athiests, Americans wanting affordable healthcare, Americans wanting a living wage, Americans wanting affordable housing, Americans wanting renewable clean energy, Americans wanting a clean environment, immigrants, healthcare workers fighting a global pandemic, journalists, hecklers, and generally anybody who does not vote Republican?

Please add any groups that I forgot.

"But then a few days ago...."

What, you crawled out from under a rock?

Vivek fucks up recently so the racism against Indians surges, and now this person finally can't ignore it any more. "Oh wow they don't just hate Mexicans, Muslims, Haitians, illegal immigrants, and so on, they hate people like ME too?" And she's so deeply affected that she... doesn't say anything about it to her Trump voting family members for risk of upsetting them. You're a day late and a dollar short, lady. Or a decade late, a decade full of telling people who were warning you the whole time that they're wrong.

Do we just have to wait for the infighting to swallow up all of the token "good ones" one by one then try to pick up the pieces afterwards?

How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

I think these three words in this sentence says a lot about the author. My guess is they felt that America didn't really have a racist population or felt it was small? When in reality it's always been quite large but mostly quite. Where now this population doesn't need to whisper anymore and they are seeing it for the first time.

I wish there was a poem about what happens when they start rounding up undesirables while you stand by and do nothing, and then they come for you in the end.

Well then you're an idiot and deserve whatever MAGA does to you. You literally asked them to do it.

It's pretty unfortunate that so many humans are so stupid that they have to suffer before learning obvious lessons. The unfortunate part being that people with regularly functioning brains have to go along for the shit ride with them.

Liberals Warned Me About MAGA’s Racism. I Didn’t Believe Them—Until Now it affected me, personally

A tale as old as time

My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

that "part" has always been there, other "parts" of that movement just chose to fucking ignore it for decades upon decades

Yeah they didn't really hide the racism inherent in their anti-immigrant demagoguery.

How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

"The guy you voted for doesn't like you because of where you came from"

MAGA is founded on racism.

A good many of the “H1-Bs” from India are Modi supporters and by extension also supported Trump.

They had money to be able to live as the middle class, and thought that brought them acceptance. They didn't realize they were lulled into voting R only to be discarded after the vote.

A friend of mine was raised Republican; he'd say, fiscal Republican. He was certain that people without healthcare could just get treated for free for whatever they needed and that POC brought it all on themselves. Generally, he thought that people were nice and good and would take care of each other as long as the people in need weren't miscreants.

Then he met a nice black girl, got married, and had some kids.

Now he's seeing how they're treated differently when they're not together, and how he's treated differently when he's with her.

How family is now all at odds as the grandparents are still in the old camp and aren't sympathetic to his findings and struggles.

The propaganda is hard to work around. They want to believe that there's good and evil in the world and good prevails. It's what their churches tell them. It's not until each one of them individually experiences hardship that they realize that something is off, and they still remain confused as to what's real and what's now.

My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump.

Another word for those people is "Idiots". Trumps base lives off racism. Anyone who did not understand this from the start basically deserves being hit by it. This includes both the idiots who did vote for Trump as well as the idiots who did not care to vote. I'm really sorry for all the other people who will fall victims of this political desaster, though.

Something something leopards eating faces

[Scene opens on a wide, desolate savanna at dusk. The camera slowly pans over a leopard lying under a tree, its large body barely able to move. The sun is setting, casting a cold, dim light over the scene. Soft wind rustles through the dry grass. The leopard’s eyes are dull, its breathing labored.]

Narrator (soft, somber voice): In the wild, leopards are meant to stalk, to hunt, to climb. But for some, this is no longer possible. These are the leopards of the forgotten savanna... the ones who can no longer live the life they were born to lead.

[Cut to a close-up of another leopard, this one lying next to a watering hole, panting heavily. The camera lingers on its enormous, bloated body, its paws barely able to reach the ground. The leopard’s eyes seem vacant, devoid of the wild spark they once had.]

Narrator: Overfed and unable to move, these leopards have been left to a slow, painful existence. They can no longer hunt their prey, no longer climb the trees to escape danger, no longer feel the thrill of the chase. They are trapped in their own bodies.

[Cue the soft, mournful opening chords of "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan. The camera slowly pans over a third leopard, sluggishly trying to rise, but its massive weight prevents it from standing. It lets out a heavy sigh, its once-strong legs buckling beneath it.]

Narrator: They are the forgotten victims of a world that has abandoned them. Too fat to run, too weak to fight... These leopards are slowly fading, one breath at a time. They need your help.

[Cut to a shot of a leopard staring out over the savanna. The camera lingers on its face, eyes half-closed, its expression one of quiet resignation.]

Narrator: For just $3 a day, you can provide the care and support these leopards so desperately need. A donation will help give them the chance to live a life of dignity. Help them find their way back to the wild they were meant to roam.

[The music swells as the camera fades to black, and the words "Your donation can make a difference" appear in white text on the screen.]

Narrator (whispering): Please, don’t let them suffer in silence. The time to act is now.

[The music fades out, and the SPCA logo appears in the corner, along with a toll-free number and website for donations.]

People who think politics is some kind of sports fandom are dumb and annoying.

The only desi people MAGA likes are tech bros who bring in the dollars, or insane people who are able to keep themselves off the radar by causing damage to the libs they dislike even more, Kash Patel, Ajit Pai, Vivek Ramaswarmy, and that one maga movie guy Im forgetting the name of, who was either sanctioned or imprisoned, and I believe pardoned by trump the first time.

for everyone else, you're just like everyone else, you're a vote, and then after you've outlived your usefulness by giving them the vote, its back to leopards at my face.

But they voted republican with a soft R

Action, I would like you to introduce you to Consequences...

Variations of this narrative are commonplace. Back the spew until it happens to you.

it wasn’t liberals warning them

Feeding time for the leopards.

Leopards are already stuffed, but the grub is so tasty they'll have just one more bite!

This attitude consistently surprises me because it isn’t some complex, nuanced topic that takes years of study to understand. The racism has been about as obvious as possible since long before Trump. Don’t try and tell me how smart you are when you’re just discovering that, huh, the Republican Party doesn’t seem to like brown people.

Stop associating Trump with the working class. MAGA is a petite bourgeois movement. Workers don't go for Trump because they're racists, they go for Trump because their boss likes Trump and they're a little politically backward, and that's for a whole host of cultural and institutional reasons.

One thing that is interesting to me is how small business owners or like mid-upper management types will take on all these worker affectations like trucks, country music, cowboy hats, etc. but don't get it twisted, one exploits and the other is exploited, and the worker who needs their boss to survive, aspires to be like him. And their boss has huge trump flags everywhere, signs in their yard, and he seems like someone just like me!

I understand not listening to liberals. I try not to listen to them whenever possible, but Trump is obviously worse than them, in essentially every way.

It's like people have this natural tendency to support whoever stands in opposition to the people they don't like, regardless of whether or not they are any better. Like people think, "hmm, I don't really like liberals, and this Trump fella says he doesn't like liberals either, therefore he must be good." You can't do a little more critical thinking thank that?