Is Trump racist?

[sonicfan1373]

I do not believe Trump is a racist. I believe that, as with many other politicians, he is more of an opportunists. The reason I say this is because he is not consistent on many issues. He has flip-flopped on many issues thus far in his political career so that he could find a group of people to appeal to. I actually believe he is similar in many ways to Hillary Clinton. Now the base that these two are appealing is key differentiator.

I would say that a significant part of Trump's base (though of course not everyone) includes people who are more racist in their views. Some of them, like the American Nazi Party, are overtly racist; some of them are angry about the state of the post-2009 financial crisis/post-manufacturing economy (some of these people channel their anger towards illegal immigrants, sometimes legal immigrants, China, etc); and there is a group of people who are currently afraid due to the terrible things that are happening right now in the Middle East as well as the unfortunate terror threat and the migrant/refugee crisis in Europe. I should also mention that the three broad categories I have created are not mutually exclusive. I would also like to mention that not everyone who is in the Trump camp holds racist views.

I have heard many people say that Trump is simply telling the truth, and while I do believe he has raised some important issues (although none that were not previously raised , I am speaking of the issues of illegal-immigration, security and the economy which I would argue never really left the limelight). However, I do not believe that what he is saying is the whole truth or anything close to it. As with many politicians, he is simply saying things that his base wants to hear. In a hyper-polarized political environment getting close to the truth, which is often much more complex than many politicians would like us to believe, is quite difficult.

Personally speaking I cannot support the current positions of people like Donald Trump (though I am a Canadian so I cannot vote in the US elections anyways). I do not believe uprooting 11 million+ illegal immigrants and deporting them is morally right or economically practical and I believe that these people should be given a path to citizenship; though at the same time I believe that securing the border and holding those who employ illegal immigrants accountable is quite important. Similarly, speaking as a gay Middle Eastern-born Christian convert who is a Canadian citizen, I have met people and have people in my extended family from all walks of life (including of various backgrounds, faiths, cultures, all with different stories to tell) and so I heavily disagree with the generalizations made by certain folks who support people like Trump; one common generalization is that Middle Easterners are incapable of integrating into Western society, and that is simply not the whole truth because people like myself and my immediate family along with many others have integrated successfully (we work, we speak the commonly spoken language, we believe in Western ideals [such as secularism of the state itself and the promotion of equality, which is one reason why many of us came to Western countries], we do not isolate ourselves and interact with others from all walks of life, etc). At the same time it is also true that certain individuals do not desire to integrate and that can be problematic to them and society as a whole and so I believe that proper immigration legislation should not target people based on what region they come from but rather the individual's willingness and effort to integrate. Moreover, I also heavily disagree with some of the race-baiting he has done in regards to black people, which has up to now been less overt and come more in the form of bogus statistics (many of which have been debunked).