[Bartweiss]

This is serious question-begging, though.

Most of Trump's supporters don't accept that he's racist, or generally sexist, or the other charges being made. The ones I've talked to largely believe that he's just rude, and sometimes directs that through traits like race, gender, and disability. On policy, they would say that opposing things like illegal immigration isn't actually racism.

Laugh at that if you want, say they're stupid, but realize they're saying the exact same thing about you and the claim that Hillary is dangerously corrupt. "No she isn't, it's just..." - same structure.

My point is that you can't rescue a stance of "fire Trump supporters" by saying he's the bad guy. If that were consensus reality, the election would be over.

So you're absolutely opening the door to retribution from people who think the same way in reverse. That's exactly why the value of having a norm against punishing people for holding popular opinions, no matter how divisive.

[DoofusOfDeath]

> Most of Trump's supporters don't accept that he's racist, or generally sexist, or the other charges being made.

I wonder if we have enough evidence to reach that conclusion? Respectfully, I'm not sure you've talked to enough supporters to generalize about the whole group.

Speaking only for myself, if I end up voting for one of those two, it will be for Trump. I accept the strong possibility that every one of the negative personality traits he's shown are genuine.

I think in policy matters he's basically a wildcard. But I find Clinton so undesirable as a candidate that I would prefer a wildcard.

Does this mean I approve in any way of Trump's apparent personal characteristics? Absolutely not.

[Bartweiss]

This is a reasonable point.

I should probably have said "don't accept that he's racist or sexist in a way that precludes voting for him". The claim I meant to make is that most of his supporters are not voting for him because they feel that racism and sexism are good. That claim, I think, carries no matter what the breakdown between "he doesn't mean it", "he's racist but I'm not", and "he means it but I don't think it's racist". Certainly, I've seen all three assertions.

My broader point was simply that "but Trump is worse, false equivalence" is absurdly circular reasoning. There are plenty of people (yourself included?) who could make the same charge against Clinton.

For myself, I wouldn't want to be accused of 'tacit acceptance' of the stances of any of the candidates. Everyone running (third parties included) has at least one view or policy that I find abhorrent, so I get personally uncomfortable about the idea that voting for someone means accepting their stances.

[gdilla]

Yes we do. Grab em in the pussy = sexist attitude. Nationwide stop and frisk in the inner cities = racist. Central Park 5 fiasco - also racist. Denying black people housing in the 70s - racist too!

[gdilla]

Just look up his behavior on the Central Park 5 (and he still thinks they're guilty, even after all the evidence). Also his nationwide stop-and-frisk desires. None of that has to do with illegal immigration and it's very racist.