Trump Suggests "Animals" are Despicable

[Airbrush]

"Animals" is the worst thing Trump can say about any group of people.  He calls the gang members of MS-13 "animals" because they torture, kill, rape, and other terrible things that bad people do to innocent people, AND they are Latinos.  But, strictly speaking, this assumes that "animals" in general are despicable.  Calling a group of people "animals" sounds Nazi.  When I go down the list of animals that I am familiar with, there is a long list of LOVELY creatures:  dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, rabbits, horses, deer come to mind when I think "animal".  Trump loves to eat meat.  Are those animals that give up their lives for his pleasure despicable?  Trump must be thinking of animals that are man-killers, lions, tigers, crocodiles, any dangerous animal.  But even they are ONLY doing what is natural in their environment as humans continuously encroach on their natural habitats.  Trump needs to come up with a better example of what is despicable.  Maybe he should call MS-13 gang members "despicable" (deserving of hatred and contempt)?  

Edited June 6, 2018 by Airbrush

[Ten oz]

In Conservative speak "Animal" typically is used to emphasizes that a person or group isn't white. 

[swansont]

15 hours ago, Ten oz said:

In Conservative speak "Animal" typically is used to emphasizes that a person or group isn't white. 

Which makes it easier to do nasty things to them if you think of them as not being human. Like separating children from their parents, splitting up families via deportation, or (historically) other efforts at ethnic cleansing. 

[Scott of the Antares]

Things must be different in the USA as in the UK animal is not a racist term but is a general insult implying sub-human/ uncivilised traits. These may incidentally include bigots but is never associated with them in particular.

[swansont]

Just now, Scott of the Antares said:

Things must be different in the USA as in the UK animal is not a racist term but is a general insult implying sub-human/ uncivilised traits. These may incidentally include bigots but is never associated with them in particular.

Tex Oz didn't say it was American slang. It's a conservative dog-whistle. You say "animal" and they associate it with "darker skinned"

"Urban", "states rights" and "forced busing" are used much the same way. "New York values" is code for "Jewish" There's plenty more.

 

AFAIK, UK politics is not immune to such signaling. It was present in Brexit campaigning.

 

[Scott of the Antares]

That may be the case in American conservatism the term ‘animal’ is associated with dark-skinned, I was saying that in the UK it isn’t.

And regarding the use of animal in Brexit canvassing, I think that might be a case of fake news as it wasn’t  mentioned here during the lead up to the referendum. And again, it has not been used to reference dark-skinned people in our country:)

Trump and some American media outlets have made some right gaffes by saying thing like parts of Birmingham are no-go zones due to Muslims; that is compete hogwash! 

Edited June 7, 2018 by Scott of the Antares

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Tex Oz didn't say it was American slang. It's a conservative dog-whistle. You say "animal" and they associate it with "darker skinned"

"Urban", "states rights" and "forced busing" are used much the same way. "New York values" is code for "Jewish" There's plenty more.

 

AFAIK, UK politics is not immune to such signaling. It was present in Brexit campaigning.

 

Conservatives have a sophisticated use of language in this regard. Just look at gun violence: ethnic minority shooters are animals & criminals, Muslims shooters extremists/terrorists, and white shooters lack any specific name at all but rather a total shift in topic to mental health. For those who do not follow polotical and social issues closely the propaganda is easy to miss but the subliminal impact is still profoundly felt. 

[Scott of the Antares]

10 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Just look at gun violence: ethnic minority shooters are animals & criminals, Muslims shooters extremists/terrorists, and white shooters lack any specific name at all but rather a total shift in topic to mental health.

We don’t have access to guns, so murderous atrocities in the U.K. have been by bomb, sword or vehicle. But the many cases of Muslims attacks in the U.K. have all been ideological based whereas other ethnicities are generally motivated by personal reasons. There have been white people in court on terror offences though where their motivational was ideological (I.e. idiot supremacist). I think the U.K. courts determine the intent behind the act and include that in the case. 

Here there is unfortunately a lot of crime in the poorest inner city areas at the moment with lots of people of all ethnicities involved in knife crimes, especially in London. A large proportion of these offenders are black. Thankfully we do not label them as animals/terrorists/extremists as you say elements of American society does.

I would say that they are all criminals though and find it surprising that white perpetrators in the USA are not classed as criminals!

[swansont]

37 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Conservatives have a sophisticated use of language in this regard. Just look at gun violence: ethnic minority shooters are animals & criminals, Muslims shooters extremists/terrorists,

Sadly, the media is often complicit with this.

Quote

and white shooters lack any specific name at all but rather a total shift in topic to mental health. For those who do not follow polotical and social issues closely the propaganda is easy to miss but the subliminal impact is still profoundly felt. 

White shooters are often quiet, misunderstood loners.

[StringJunky]

30 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

We don’t have access to guns, so murderous atrocities in the U.K. have been by bomb, sword or vehicle. But the many cases of Muslims attacks in the U.K. have all been ideological based whereas other ethnicities are generally motivated by personal reasons. There have been white people in court on terror offences though where their motivational was ideological (I.e. idiot supremacist). I think the U.K. courts determine the intent behind the act and include that in the case. 

Here there is unfortunately a lot of crime in the poorest inner city areas at the moment with lots of people of all ethnicities involved in knife crimes, especially in London. A large proportion of these offenders are black. Thankfully we do not label them as animals/terrorists/extremists as you say elements of American society does.

I would say that they are all criminals though and find it surprising that white perpetrators in the USA are not classed as criminals!

Yes, it's not labelled a 'black problem'. because, at the end of the day, they are British and it is therefore a British problem.

[Scott of the Antares]

5 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Yes, it's not labelled a 'black problem'. because, at the end of the day, they are British and it is therefore a British problem.

Agreed, If anyone wanted to be more specific, I would say it is an economic problem.

[Ten oz]

36 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

We don’t have access to guns, so murderous atrocities in the U.K. have been by bomb, sword or vehicle. But the many cases of Muslims attacks in the U.K. have all been ideological based whereas other ethnicities are generally motivated by personal reasons. There have been white people in court on terror offences though where their motivational was ideological (I.e. idiot supremacist). I think the U.K. courts determine the intent behind the act and include that in the case. 

Here there is unfortunately a lot of crime in the poorest inner city areas at the moment with lots of people of all ethnicities involved in knife crimes, especially in London. A large proportion of these offenders are black. Thankfully we do not label them as animals/terrorists/extremists as you say elements of American society does.

I would say that they are all criminals though and find it surprising that white perpetrators in the USA are not classed as criminals!

In the U.S. there has been an evolution in how conservatives discuss immigrants. Conservatives use to call them "Aliens" and the left pushed back with the "Immigrant". Then it became "Illegal Immigrant" and the left pushed back with "undocumented Immigrant". Now the right just uses  "Immigrant"  and "immigrated". An "Immigrant" being an undesirable ethnic minority and someone who "Immigrated" being a desirable person who has successful assimilated. 

In the U.K. there is a similar evolution at play. More and more the word "Refugee" is being used broadly to describe all ethnic minorities. Entire neighborhoods and sections of various towns are said to be "refugee communities" and saying such typically associates those communities with crime. It is no secret refugees were used as a prop to scare up votes for Brexit. 

[Scott of the Antares]

28 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Entire neighborhoods and sections of various towns are said to be "refugee communities" and saying such typically associates those communities with crime. It is no secret refugees were used as a prop to scare up votes for Brexit. 

 

There may have been a hint of this by bigoted campaigners, but us Brits are not easily swayed by racist arguments.

I think the true motives of voters in favour of Brexit is the fact that we are small country that is a highly attractive place to live. The problem is that there has been no investment to increase the demand that our infra-structure requires; There are not enough houses being built so prices have Sky-rocketed; the same for hospitals and doctor’s surgeries and health care service has fallen; class sizes in schools have increased from ~20 to ~30 and in some desperate cases ~50! It is fine to have an open door immigration policy, but there has to be the infra-structure to support it and successive governments have failed to address this.

Another big factor is that the EU is undemocratic; it fails to adapt or allow concessions to its member state’s needs, and it is highly corrupt; it has never published independently audited accounts. It has also undermined member states democratic process’ by installing leaders in those countries that igonored the EU’s austerity policy, despite the population of those countries voting against austerity measures.

It is a complicated mess for sure, but I think that these are the reasons Brexit won the vote, but portraying it as primarily racist decision is a way to undermine the British democratic process perpetuated by the losing side. As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of fake news surrounding this topic.

[Ten oz]

5 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

 

There may have been a hint of this by bigoted campaigners, but us Brits are not easily swayed by racist arguments.

and yet Brexit passed.

[StringJunky]

45 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

In the U.S. there has been an evolution in how conservatives discuss immigrants. Conservatives use to call them "Aliens" and the left pushed back with the "Immigrant". Then it became "Illegal Immigrant" and the left pushed back with "undocumented Immigrant". Now the right just uses  "Immigrant"  and "immigrated". An "Immigrant" being an undesirable ethnic minority and someone who "Immigrated" being a desirable person who has successful assimilated. 

In the U.K. there is a similar evolution at play. More and more the word "Refugee" is being used broadly to describe all ethnic minorities. Entire neighborhoods and sections of various towns are said to be "refugee communities" and saying such typically associates those communities with crime. It is no secret refugees were used as a prop to scare up votes for Brexit. 

I think the main driver of Brexit was that many don't want total integration with the EU, which is is what France and others want.

[Ten oz]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

I think the main driver of Brexit was that many don't want total integration with the EU, which is is what France and others want.

All the polling I have seen shows the majority of people in the U.K. don't support and or regret Brexit. It past in large part over the way the framing of migrants made people feel. That is the whole point of dog whistles. To subliminally plant feelings. 

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I think the main driver of Brexit was that many don't want total integration with the EU, which is is what France and others want.

It's always someone's fault.

[CharonY]

43 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

There may have been a hint of this by bigoted campaigners, but us Brits are not easily swayed by racist arguments.

I think this is an overly positive self-view, which is ignoring actual issues. It seems to be prevalent in much of Europe, we do not talk about racism in the open, hence it does not exist. Part of it is that much of the public broadcasters such as BBC and the German equivalent for example have a attenuating effect on public discourse. 

 

43 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

I think the true motives of voters in favour of Brexit is the fact that we are small country that is a highly attractive place to live.

Economic anxiety has also been put forward as why Trump was voted in. In both cases (Brexit and Trump) subsequent studies have found that xenophobia and racism the actual driving factors. For Brexit check de Zavala et al (2017, Front Psychol).

Quote

More specifically, we examined whether collective narcissist (i.e., individuals who believe in their nation's unparalleled greatness, Golec de Zavala et al., 2009), authoritarians (those who obey authority and social conventions and reject dissenters, Altemeyer, 1988) and people high in social dominance orientation (those who want to maintain group based hierarchies, Pratto et al., 1994) were more likely to vote to leave the E.U. because they felt threatened by immigrants.

[...]

All three robust predictors of prejudice were related to the Brexit vote and the support for the referendum's outcome via the perceived threat of immigrants: collective narcissism, right wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation. This suggests that, the Brexit vote was motivated by different concerns instigating prejudice: the collective narcissistic concern regarding the recognition of the national group's uniqueness, authoritarian concern regarding protection of the normative status quo, and the concern regarding protection of the national group's elevated international status, relevant to people high in social dominance orientation. The individual difference predictors of xenophobia explained the variance in the Brexit vote and the support for the referendum's outcome over and above demographic predictors such as age, ethnicity or education (frequently commented on factors that predicted the referendum vote, Waugh, 2017).

[...]

To the best of our knowledge, the present results are the first to demonstrate that all three predictors of xenophobia are related to the rejection of the superordinate group that would undermine the strength of the boundaries between the national ingroup and outgroups, i.e., citizens of the E.U. 

43 minutes ago, Scott of the Antares said:

Another big factor is that the EU is undemocratic; it fails to adapt or allow concessions to its member state’s needs, and it is highly corrupt; it has never published independently audited accounts.

This is misinformation. The European Court of Auditors is the formal independent audit institution, and they publish regular audit reports. The issue is that many folks do not inform themselves how the EU works and are easily swayed by misrepresentation or outright lies by the leave campaign.

I do think those folks that think themselves most resilient to this kind of propaganda and racism are among the least likely to notice when they are being influenced by it. And I am talking about subtle misinformation especially in complex issues not outright hatred. One has to recognize that the most common form of racism is not the full on neonazi-type ideology, but rather the subtle feeling of otherness or vague threat of ones own identity, for example. En masse, they can have massive influence on the political landscape as folks like Bannon found out.

Almost everyone has some sorts of prejudice and one has to slow down and navigate those in order not to trip oneself up. This is especially relevant when one has some power over others, but also collectively as a society.

Edited June 7, 2018 by CharonY

[Scott of the Antares]

Are you from the U.K. CharonY?

Edited June 7, 2018 by Scott of the Antares

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, Scott of the Antares said:

Are you from the U.K. CharonY?

Does it matter?

[YaDinghus]

46 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Does it matter?

I wouldn't think so, either. I am not from the UK, but I have many friends who are, and some family living there, so I'm well tuned in. Though they are mostly on the liberal-labour end of the political spectrum, so a tory would say my perspective is somewhat biased. I would hold against that the fact that I grew up in the military and you get plenty of conservative there.

My personal opinion is that there are useful conservative ideas (useful to peace and prosperity for all). But the rhethoric of conservative politicians, and those who these rhethorics are aimed at, are beyond provocative on the verge of incendiary. It's like they are preparing a reverse revolution, which is pretty radical. 

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by YaDinghus

[Ten oz]

6 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

My personal opinion is that there are useful conservative ideas (useful to peace and prosperity to all).

Many systems of govt exist today and have been tried in the past. Nothing any conservative wing in operation today, that I am aware of, advocates for anything new. It has all been tried re-branded and tried again several times over. We can look at outcomes and know what has and has not worked. Arguments which assume inclusion of ardent supporters from all side must be heard ignore the fact that some sides have all ready been heard ad nauseam.  Very few of the solutions pitch to solve the challenges Western Democratic Countries face today new.

[Phi for All]

34 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Many systems of govt exist today and have been tried in the past. Nothing any conservative wing in operation today, that I am aware of, advocates for anything new. It has all been tried re-branded and tried again several times over. We can look at outcomes and know what has and has not worked. Arguments which assume inclusion of ardent supporters from all side must be heard ignore the fact that some sides have all ready been heard ad nauseam.  Very few of the solutions pitch to solve the challenges Western Democratic Countries face today new.

Historically, conservative stances always fall to progress. And I can't think of a case where the vast majority doesn't agree that progress overall is better. People gripe about how things used to be, but when pressed usually agree that "we've come a long way since those days". I had an argument about this the other day with a friend who bemoaned not being able to work on his car engine like he could back when there was plenty of room. I reminded him they had lots of room in the engine compartment because they broke down a lot more.

Bottom line, a conservative stance against "others" isn't sustainable now, unless the aim is to hide in a bunker, or force others to bow to our will, or justify killing everyone who isn't what we want them to be. A global community of humans working to solve problems for all seems like an inevitable and hopeful goal, so I'm not sure why there is so much "othering" going on. I think it has more to do with money than hate, though. Fringe hate is being stirred up to make it look more pervasive. Get folks together face-to-face and you see a lot more commonality, and far less division.

[Ten oz]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Historically, conservative stances always fall to progress. And I can't think of a case where the vast majority doesn't agree that progress overall is better. People gripe about how things used to be, but when pressed usually agree that "we've come a long way since those days". I had an argument about this the other day with a friend who bemoaned not being able to work on his car engine like he could back when there was plenty of room. I reminded him they had lots of room in the engine compartment because they broke down a lot more.

Bottom line, a conservative stance against "others" isn't sustainable now, unless the aim is to hide in a bunker, or force others to bow to our will, or justify killing everyone who isn't what we want them to be. A global community of humans working to solve problems for all seems like an inevitable and hopeful goal, so I'm not sure why there is so much "othering" going on. I think it has more to do with money than hate, though. Fringe hate is being stirred up to make it look more pervasive. Get folks together face-to-face and you see a lot more commonality, and far less division.

I started a thread back in 2014 specifically asking for examples of successful Conservative policies. None were provided. Their ideas simply do not work. 

Quote

 

Posted June 28, 2014

Every country in the world that we (USA) would generally consider first world are socialist in key markets if not outright. As I look around the world I struggle to identify any countries that succeed or have succeeded in the past using the limited government capitalism first models Conservatives here in the states advocate for. No country with a standard of living equal to or superior than the United States have lower taxation, less industrial regulation, or free market only solutions for healthcare, education, retirement, unemployment, housing, and etc.

What are the legitimate examples of the successful use of Conservative policies?

https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83950-examples-of-conservative-idealism-success/

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by Ten oz
Changed there to their

[MigL]

We have strayed a little off-topic from the OP.
The biggest problem with a perceived offence is the fact that it is based on subjective perception.
If a normal person compares a group of people with animals, the common interpretation is that they have no morals, are barbaric and don't get along well in society.
When someone like D Trump says it, because of his history of intolerance for immigrants, the perception is that he is comparing them to animals.
Whether that's factual or not, that is the general perception because that's the bed he's made for himself.

I don't think its fair to say that all conservatives think along the same lines as D Trump, Ten oz, or even all Republicans.
That is a broad brush generalization which you have often railed against, but somehow you see fit to use that brush to paint people who you don't agree with or like.
I consider myself a fiscal conservative, and have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why I should change my views.
(  Phi has tried )