I now see that Trump is going to play into the identity politics to get himself reelected that got him elected.  Makes sense too.

Believe it or not white supremacy isn't what got him elected, if that's what you mean. If it is what you mean, he's not doing that anyway. Have you ever listened to his speeches? Have you seen what's happening to the black and hispanic unemployment rates? He is very inclusive of minorities as long as they're legal citizens. What you mean by "racist" is simply him not accepting illegal aliens. You are redefining being supportive of a legal immigration policy as being a white supremacist.  That is ludicrous. Step out of your emotional hate for Trump for a minute and try to connect the logic dots.

Logic 101:  Not wanting illegal aliens in the country does not equal racism if black and brown legal immigrants are accepted, which they are. Trump himself promotes streamlining the legal immigration process.

The question is whether the voters in 2020 can see through the bullshit and vote on reality (booming economy) instead of petty shit slinging. In Azure's defense, I don't have a lot of faith in the general pubic. They get their news from Facebook and CNN and it's all being spun against Trump.

Also nit: Lucifer talking about what gets your panties in a twist is speculation; we cannot read the minds of others.

But otherwise Azure, I'm sorry, Lucifer is absolutely spot on. What the Dems did in 2016 is way worse than petty shit slinging; it was criminal, unconstitutional, corrupt and traitorous. If the 2020 election is only a shit slinging fest we will doing a lot better than 2016.

And Trump is not stirring the pot first. In every case he is reacting and defending himself against vicious ongoing relentless attack from the left both in Congress and in the media. I have never seen anything like this in my life. It is the worse case of character assassination I think this country has ever experienced.

The Democrats are doing and have been doing everything they can to tear this man down, to make him fail, to ruin his presidency and they don't care a fuck about the country. They would have the U.S. crash and burn if it meant destroying Trump, they will burn down everything we have built in 200 years just to get revenge for the fact that the voters dared reject their Anointed One and place a scrappy outsider in the White House.

But Azure, you are right about one thing: we are becoming tribal. The divide is now deep and possibly irreconcilable. But I disagree with Number 7 that you are a far leftist. I think you are remaining above the divide, still undecided where your true loyalties lie. Or if you're like me, you don't join one or the other, but remain objective on a case by case basis, forming opinions on issues, not which group you most identify with. However the day may come when you'll have to pick up a gun and decide which side you're going to shoot from.

I agree as to his INTENT. But he used a trope (go back to where you came from) that was ripe for being interpreted in exactly the light that it has been by the MSM and most Dems.

Again, the issue in my mind is not whether Trump is a racist - I don't know whether he is or not, but I give him the benefit of the doubt. His choice of phraseology, though, sucked and gave his political enemies ammunition, totally unnecessarily when he could have phrased what he said differently and still made the same point.

I stand by what I said: he needs to stay off Twitter and learn to control himself.

I have to agree with you from the standpoint of MSM and the herd wanting to believe "go back home" is racist regardless, and so it will be interpreted that way. Possibly it's not the best tact for him to take.  If it turns out this sort of thing hurts him in 2020 I will be agreeing with you even more.  I don't know whether it will hurt or help.  For me personally, it has absolutely no impact whatsoever. I vote based on my wallet and sense of national security, and hope for the economy. I don't care a flip about what he tweets. But I do care if it impacts how other people vote.

He has no filter. It's like when my mother said to a black lady sitting in the doctor's waiting room, "You all look alike" and she meant OLD PEOPLE whether black or white. She complains all the time she can't recognize anyone anymore, because they all have white hair and are shriveled up using walkers. There's basically two people, black ones and white ones, and within each race they all look alike. This is NOT RACISM. But the comment has taken on such racial overtones it cannot be uttered without offending. And because my mom is 92 she has lost her filter; her brain cannot manage censoring her words because of the possible meaning other people might wrongly ascribe.

I don't want to think Trump is suffering from age related loss of filter but it certainly is possible. This does raise concerns about his judgment as CIC, I'll give you that.  Maybe he has always not had a filter though, maybe it's just part of his personality. Or maybe he does have a filter and it's all calculated and he knows exactly what he's doing and it's all only going to end up in a landslide victory in 2020. Who knows?

Sort of. They are playing the victim card because they can - and because Trump really outdid himself this time and gave them something they can actually run with and use to their advantage.

I've said Trump's presidency is a mixture of good and bad, and now, it seems, ugly. If his impulse control is as bad as it seems, then Trump needs a fucking handler and he needs to stay off Twitter.

Anthony beat me to it.  I was going to ask exactly what Trump said that was racist?  Nothing at all.  Here is his complete tweets:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly.....

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

My analysis:  The comments about "originally coming from (other countries)" apply only to three of the four.  Pressley was born in Ohio and raised in Chicago, the best I can tell of black parents descended from slaves.  So Trump is out of line to direct the "go back to where you came from" comment to her.

Of the other three, only one was actually born overseas, Omar, who was born in Somalia. His comment is completely appropriate to her.  Go fix Somalia then tell the U.S. how it's done. If it's so bad here in America, why the fuck are you here?

The other two are second generation extracts from Puerto Rico and Palestine respectively.  For those two Trump's comment could be interpreted that they may go back to where their parents were from, and the spirit of it holds true: Fix those places first if you want to be so critical of the U.S.

The only possible way you could interpret this as racist is if you buy into the "go back to where you came from" line as inherently racist, which it is not, despite the current PC overly sensitive interpretation of it these days.

I am not saying Trump's comments are good or nice or appropriate. I am saying they are NOT racist. They are criticizing these four women's views on how to run government and society, specifically how, being progressive, they hate America's capitalism and Constitution. "Go back home" is not saying we don't want you here because you are not white, it is saying we don't want you here if you hate this place and only want to transform it into another third world shit hole.

I don’t like it when either side of the debate makes shit up and calls it science.

Where did you find the original paper?  The article in the link provided no real information.

Click on “paper”, the second word in the article.  The paper presents the results and conclusions of their own experimental observations. Nothing wrong with that. Now it is up to others to duplicate those results. Until efforts to duplicate have been made and failed, their conclusions can be presumed valid for now, or at least plausible and cannot be ignored.

Yes! And I hate the way the MSM (specifically PBS/NPR, I assume the others are similar) gives anything to do with LGBT so much attention, always with a left-leaning political slant. It is always done in a very self-conscious, virtue-signaling way, very much the same way they handle issues related to race. IMO that is NOT what the news should be about, it should be about presenting facts accurately.

Also it is not just that the left has claimed LGBT - I can't think of a single lesbian that I know who isn't at least left-leaning. I have one close friend who is far-left progressive, and another who is only a little to the left of where I am today. I don't think I've ever met a conservative or even libertarian lesbian or gay person, though I know there must be many out there. But there is very strong peer pressure in the community toward leftism.

Lucifer, thanks for the links... I'm not surprised that Rapinoe is an activist and wouldn't be surprised to see her run for office. I just hadn't seen that stuff before - I don't generally watch CNN or MSNBC, and even the PBS Newshour feed that had the ticker tape parade got dropped here for some reason, so all I caught were short clips that aired later.

I’m sure there are still lots of conservative and libertarian gays but I’ve been out of the community pretty much for 30 years.  Things are different now, possibly gays, lesbians and trans don’t feel comfortable admitting they aren’t leftist, maybe there are closet conservatives. Back when I hung out with them, most in my circle were libertarian. A gay male couple that lived near us who we used to double date with when we first got married were conservative Republicans. We knew no one who was a progressive leftist. The community was largely underground and while they were socially liberal (wanting gay marriage and so forth) none of them were hard left socialists or communists. They believed in America and free enterprise. Many were small business owners. None of them would have supported what the far left is proposing now (universal guaranteed income, socialized medicine, destroying our energy industry, and taxing and regulating the economy to death.)

Back then a gay person could talk about being a fiscal conservative and nobody thought a thing about it, it was a non-issue. But now I get the idea the leftist gay community would violently reject one of their own for revealing they had such opinions. Just like the black community is brutal toward conservative blacks. It wasn’t like that back in my day. Gays just wanted equality with their romantic relationships, they didn’t tie it up with a whole communist thought system. It’s very disturbing the level of mind control the left demands from their “victim” groups.

Colleges have their own mental health centers?  Yikes.  I did my undergrad at a small midwestern college. They had a health center, but it was typically used for athletic physicals, athletic injuries, allergy shots, flu, mono, and the occasional penicillin shot. 

Anything more serious and you were sent to a local specialist or hospital. 

I know very little about mental health issues, but I wonder if those centers are taking care of people who should really be talking to guidance counselors, friends, and parents instead of psychologists.  With young boys being medicated because they act like young boys, no wonder everything seems to be elevated to a “mental health issue.”

Yes they have mental health centers now, and guess what is behind it? School shootings. Universities have started "mental health programs" as a way to potentially identify anyone likely to go postal. That is the main driver or at least was at first. This is also behind the new requirement that students have to document they have health insurance, including psychological coverage.

Of course this will do absolutely nothing to prevent school shootings. But it helps cover their butts from liability.