A large majority of the Republicans I've known personally have been racist.

[DanTex]

Way before Trump, and part of why their current embrace of overt racism is not all that surprising.

From my non-scientific personal experience, I'd say non-racist white Republicans are about as rare as black Republicans.

Not generally "in your face", in my experience, but it slips out. Like "why do they get to call us honkys" or "black people are the real racists" or some gripe about affirmative action or whatever.

The non-racist Republicans I've known have usually been pseudo-intellectual libertarian "pro-business" types -- which is a mental illness of its own, and is often accompanied by racism, but not always.

[RKP5637]

1. I've pretty much found the same to be true. Often not overtly apparent, but it is there ...

generally covered up by something else ...

[katmondoo]

2. I have to agree knowing some in my family and a lot in my daughters in-laws.

[spike jones]

33. A little off topic, I just heard Rush Limbaugh use the expression, "Conservative intelligentsia."

I rolled off the couch laughing.
BTW, I have listened to him for years. I click him on and listen until I hear a lie, then click him off. Over the years I have heard a total of twenty minutes of his shows.

[RKP5637]

50. Yeah, Limbaugh is a real case of nuts! n/t

[dewsgirl]

51. Stuck in car yesterday, listening to him go on and on

about how Dump isn't the least bit racist and maybe they should go back to their own countries(of course failing to mention 3 of them were born here), if they don't like it here, they should leave etc
I don't know why I can't just listen to music like a normal person. All listening to him does is piss me off.

[RKP5637]

53. Yeah, same here. I find him so outrageous I sometimes listen to him, but pissed off the whole time!

I also do that sometimes with Alex Jones too! They are so wacky it's incredible. It's scary that some listen to them and believe absolutely everything they say.

[dewsgirl]

60. I think that's why I listen, because I find it so outrageous that people actually believe it

It's mind boggling.

[demigoddess]

59. I used to listen to him. ten minutes and I would be so mad

I could clean my whole house in less than an hour.

[dewsgirl]

61. I used to do that when someone would make me mad enough, I would clean like crazy.

You may be on to something here. I think I'll give it a try next time I get stuck listening to one of these fools

[Gothmog]

56. There is no such animal in the real world

[jberryhill]

3. That about sums it up

[mitch96]

4. Same here, rPub friends, their parents and many of my relatives..

I’ve witnessed things that made my skin crawl...
m

[maryellen99]

9. My late FIL, when playing cards, would call the black poker chips "n chips"

My husband’s late parents would’ve LOVED trump.

[Merlot]

5. I was in a meeting once when two of the people started complaining

about how since their kids were white, they had to work so much harder to get into good colleges, because...you know...

Oh, the indignation they suffered!

[stopdiggin]

30. since Nixon

it has been an article of faith among MANY whites that any type of affirmative action is really reverse discrimination. So accepted that they are actually surprised at any challenge to the belief. (the "messaging" from the Rs has been at work for a long time)

[dawg day]

54. "It's not FAIR! Rich white people have to BRIBE AND PAY to get their kids into good colleges!"

LOL. If anything demonstrates what losers rich kids are, it's that after getting all the advantages wealth can bring-- good nutrition, private schools, no financial stress, great healthcare, paid for test-prep, paid for recommendations-- they STILL can't get into colleges without bribery and cheating and nepotism. Look at the Trumps.

And they scorn the kids who had to fight through a system that deprives almost half the population of decent housing and schooling, and who succeed and work hard and achieve, who get into college because of their extra hard work, talent, and drive being recognized-- as "not good enough" because they're poor and/or non-white?

[treestar]

67. Heard a lot of that over the years

Affirmative action is the reason they can't get a job. Someone who interviews them will tell them that is why they are not going to get the job. It's why they can't get into X university, and so on.

[Hoyt]

6. Agree. They may not be lynch mob racists, but they are fine with gerrymandering, oppose affirmative

action; fine with immigration from Scandinavian countries; believe minorities are undeserving of the same help that whites take for granted, and worse.

[CrispyQ]

14. This: "They may not be lynch mob racists, but..."

Representative government was okay as long as the uppity women, people of color, & gays knew their place. Once those groups started demanding equality & equity in the system. then suddenly, for the racists, anyway, representative government ain't so hot. Maybe a dictatorship with a nasty white guy in charge isn't so bad after all. It's why I will never look at my republican family & acquaintances the same.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

7. I have yet to meet one that isn't!

[Paladin]

8. That's been my experience, as well.

The racist school kids I grew up with have by and large remained racists throughout their lives---and they're all Republicans.

[kimbutgar]

13. The one girl I knew from catholic school who was a repuke was a racist been then

And I remember when RFK jr was shot she said she hoped he dies. The girl was always mean to me and called me the n word one time, when I saw her at our reunion she pretended she didn’t know me and when I told her my name she backed away. She was squat and fat and I was tall and skinny compared to her. She left early because a lot of us were of different minorities who attended.

[Paladin]

45. I see no reason to cut people like that any slack, regardless of how many years have passed.

At my reunions, I have strived to avoid such people. None of them seem to have improved with age.

[dawg day]

57. I was once riding with an in-law's friend to a party--

and she told me not to stop at McDonald's to grab a coke because 'those colored hands have touched the cup!" (really).
Then-- can't make this up--
Her car got a flat on the highway right after that comment, and there we were, not sure what to do (never changed a flat either of us), and a guy in a pickup truck stops and jumps out and says, "Let me help you!" and changed the tire in about 3 minutes. He was, of course, a black man. She didn't say anything about "colored hands" at that point.

She didn't even thank him, though. And she never stopped saying racist things, though every time she did, I reminded her of that nice black man who changed her tire even though she was a racist.

Tires are a lot more reliable now, but I had a blowout a couple years ago on a very busy interstate. I was terrified to even try to change the tire because it was on the side next to traffic, and the tire lugnuts had been tightened at the factory way too tight for a human to loosen. Every single person who stopped to ask if I needed help or tried to help was a person of color. It was striking. (I'm white, btw.) No one could get those darned lugnuts off, but some spent a long time trying. The last one said, "Let me call my friend whose got a wrecker," and the friend came and the two of them used a machine drill-thing to loosen the nuts and then they changed the tire, and sped off before I could even ask if I could pay them.
I just remembered that when I thought of Racist Rita and her fear of "hands".

[kimbutgar]

62. Great story

Someday she might end up in the hospital or a convalescent home. I wonder what she will say when some black and brown hands change her diaper or a bandage?

[Thomas Hurt]

10. That has been my experience as well...

their general excuse seems to be they aren't members of the KKK, they don't wear sheets and burn crosses, etc. so they can't be racist.

Everything else short of assault and murder is wrapped in "freedom". They should be free to discriminate and so on.

The moral creed of the Trumpist right: If it ain't illegal it is moral and lets work on centralizing gov't so that we can make more things legal.

[kimbutgar]

11. My first political memory in the 60's was my Dad saying repukes we're bigots

“Dirty stinking lousy racist republicans”, he would say.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. I would absolutely agree with that.

But there are other avenues to "get there."

For example, from my observation, when you have someone in the family who had a bad experience with one black person, unless they get therapy, it affects the family and affirms racist points of view from all members within that circle.

I always wonder, if they can feel this way with one bad experience with one person of a race, why can't they understand how we feel when we have bad experiences with large groups of them.

[CrispyQ]

17. Bet they don't feel that way when they have a bad experience with a white person.

Which when you think of it, is way more likely, since there are more white people than black people. But hey, if the person is white, it's an isolated incident of one asshole, but if the person is black, it's indicative of all black people.

Years ago before Denis Miller went right wing, he said, "It's stupid to hate someone for the color of their skin, when if you spend just five minutes talking to them, you'll find plenty of valid reasons to hate them." It's sort of a misanthropic take on racism.

[Baitball Blogger]

19. +1

[Trumpocalypse]

15. Not every Republican I know is a racist

but every racist I know is a Republican.

[dalton99a]

16. Non-racist white Republicans are as rare as Trump charitable donations

[Bleacher Creature]

18. Same here, but very few were ever overt about it.

Trump finally gives them license to be more open and free about it, which is why they adore him.

[llmart]

20. That is my experience also.

I would also add that they are usually the first to proclaim how religious they are.

[zipplewrath]

21. It's their history

During the '50s and early '60s, the national democratic party was moving away from segregation and towards civil rights. The party desegregated the southern party structures and forced them to have integrated delegations to the national conventions. This brought the rise of attempts in the south to form their own parties such as the "Dixiecrats". Kennedy had to face this in his election. As southern politicians saw that they couldn't stay in the democratic party, and the alternate parties would have no national influence, they began to gravitate towards the republican party. Up until then, the GOP was the party the VAST majority of African Americans joined. But as the segregationists started to show up at the state level, they began to push out the African American members. In some cases they were physically pushed out, or barred, from state conventions. Both Goldwater and Nixon embraced this transition as a way to break up the "solid south" of the democratic party. It's how Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms both ended up in the GOP.

In the end it became the party most friendly to racists because the party would give them the justification for their racism with things like Willy Horton and "Welfare Queens" and the like. They would couch it in economic terms, but it was all grounded in racism and white privilege.

[magicarpet]

31. Not just racists,...

... but most are also proud Fascists.

[Duppers]

22. +100

Especially "mental illness."

I've yet to meet a Repub who is not a racist.

[xxqqqzme]

23. My mother's side were all

hard core racists, extreme right wingers. This was during the cold war era.

Thankfully they are all gone now.

[paulkienitz]

24. libertarian covert racism

Conservatives in general, whether clever or foolish, whether with advanced degrees or a GED, all tend to be good at doublethink. You can hear dozens of different philosophies and systems of thought which go in different directions, but all just happen to agree on preserving white christian advantages. Some libertarians are cult dupes, but I think most who use the label are using it exactly the way the inventors of the libertarian movement intended it to be used: as an intellectual cloak for the defense of privilege. And even the very smart ones are mostly unconscious of this, I think... at bottom, the core difference between liberals and conservatives may be one not of compassion, but of consciousness, or mindfulness.

[FakeNoose]

34. +1000 Whoo! You say a lot here, friend

It's all good, I think this is awesome. I love how you describe libertarianism - it's an intellectual cloak for the defense of privilege.

[TheRealNorth]

38. I have always considered Libertarians the epitome of selfishness

Freedom for me, not for thee

[KPN]

25. "which is a mental illness of its own"

Just want to say thanks for the unexpected chuckle in the midst of that OP! But also, I can't argue with anything in your OP.

[stopdiggin]

36. yep, I liked that one too (nt)

[NRaleighLiberal]

26. Totally agree. One of my good friends...slightly center left,

Social liberal (with some things) but fiscal conservative...he is quite wealthy, also very churchy, so lots of hypocrisy...would even admit to it. And of course he projects and assumes wevall are too.

[Tiggeroshii]

27. Problem is, much of the apathetic voting base are made up of avid white supremacists.

This rhetoric will likely wake them up to a larger extent than in 2016.

[uponit7771]

28. *** DIET RACIST *** are the ones who are the most cowardly. They can't be full out racist because of

... the positions they are in in life (normies) so they hide behind other bullshit.

[Bettie]

29. Republican is just another word for racist

these days.

Come to think of it, so is Libertarian...

[Golden Raisin]

32. Yup! And you don't have to dig too deep with most Republicans

to also hit paydirt concerning Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Gays, Latinos, Asians --- basically fill-in-the-blank of anyone not like them.

[calguy]

35. My best friend is a rabid republican

He wasn't always that way. When we were in the Army together in the early 70's he was as liberal as I am. He is a carpenter and in the 80's, when Rush first started broadcasting, they listened to him everyday at the jobsite on the radio as they were working. As the years passed he got more and more conservative as Rush brainwashed his thinking. Today he supports every single republican position without even thinking about it, no matter what it is.
He'll tell you he's still a liberal thinker.
When we spend time together we have an unspoken agreement to not even mention politics. He's still my best friend and I'll always love him like a brother. Looking at his mental evolution the past 40 years has given me a deep understanding of why these people think like they do and what we're up against in every election.

[CousinIT]

37. The ones I know are racist and sexist.

The Republican party is where most racists & sexists go to belong.

[NickB79]

39. One of my co-workers called the Mall of America, the "Mall of Africa"

She did it on multiple occassions. When I finally asked her what she meant by that, she just stuttered for a few seconds before spitting out, "well, it's always such a zoo!"

Apparently since we're all white in our department, I was supposed to "get" what she said. It was clear no one had ever called her on her subtle racism before.

[Ohiogal]

52. That kind of comment sounds very familiar.

My sister, since I called her on it once, wont say the N word anymore, but instead says "ghetto people". Like that is some kind of improvement???

Like once we were talking about her old house. She said she was so glad she moved out of that neighborhood because now that area of the city is full of "ghetto people."

It's the meaning behind what they say. And the assumption that everyone agrees with them. I can't say I've ever known a right winger who wasn't racist. I can just picture them all secretly cheering Trump for his hideously racist comments this past weekend. Actually I don't think they care if anyone accuses them of being racist. They all like to say "he tells it like it is." It's so depressing that so many in this country feel this way still.

[RestoreAmerica2020]

40. It may be true that not all republicans are racist, yet it seems all racists & bigots are republican

..with a smattering of independents in the mix. I could be mistaken--maybe, maybe not.

[ismnotwasm]

41. Some of the males reach out to pan-Asian communities

To find brides. And then claim immunity from racism

[TygrBright]

42. A large majority of the white people I've known personally, including me, have been racist.

The difference is, some of us work to overcome it.

And I've rarely seen that in know GOPpies.

wearily,
Bright

[maxsolomon]

44. Great point. All of us have internal Prejudices to overcome.

White Liberals are not exempt from Racism/Bigotry/Prejudice. We live in a Racist society which shaped our choices and attitudes. So many Whites that harbor these attitudes have little to no contact with POC. Living in a diverse city like Seattle sure helps see the common humanity in everyone.

Even considering that White Privilege (or Male Privilege, or Straight Privilege) exists is overwhelming to many. Let alone admitting it, let alone acting to change it.

I've had prejudiced thoughts, made bigoted jokes, felt distrust of people because of their race. I'm working to practice Anti-Racism: awareness, active listening, and advocacy.

[mwb970]

49. Is it still racism if you FAVOR a group other than your own?

Maybe it's because I'm a musician, but everything else being equal, I'd rather hang out and jam with a black guy than another white guy. Am I an anti-white racist? Gosh, I hope not.

[NNadir]

43. In general, I agree. Being a defacto Klansmen is just playing to the base.

I note that the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the House just signed on the dotted line as racists.

It's no longer in code.

[mwb970]

46. I've had the very same experience.

A lot of them were otherwise very nice, but the racism just pops out all the time. They don't even seem to know they're doing it.

[cbdo2007]

47. I know racist Democrats and I know racist Repubes.

That's why this is such a delicate issue to overcome. I've heard the same guy here at work over the past day defending the Democratic congresswomen who Trump disparaged, and making his own remarks about some Indian coworkers that were in a very similar vein.

Dem or Repube, human nature is to fear those who are different from us whether by skin color or orientation or just belief systems.

What we really need right now is someone to step up and be a leader through these times the same way Martin Luther King Jr was in the 1960's.

[CCExile]

48. As a southerner, I must concur...

and that touches on the crux of the problem. Conservatives think all "normal" people are the same, since they tend to be around like minded people from birth to death. How can they be racists since racism is bad, but all the people they are related too, are friends with, hang with, and marry are just fine folks? It is another reason the electoral college may end us.

[Gothmog]

55. A number of the republicans I know or represent are republicans for economic reasons

I am a corporate attorney and so I deal with some very high net worth people or what I have heard referred to as "country club republicans". Many of the country club republicans are republicans for purely economic reasons in that they want lower taxes. A good friend who is very well off gave Rove $3 million in 2012 because he wanted lower taxes. One of my client's friends managed to die in 2010 which was the year where the estate tax was zero and I heard what a great deal the heirs of this friend got. I have other clients who are top donors to the Greg Abbott. These country club republicans are not racists but are motivated by economic reasons.

I also run into a number of rank and file republicans and most of these idiots are racists. I had the chair of the county republican party tell me that voter id was a good thing because people who do not drive should not be allowed to vote. This racist idiot really did not want poor people or non-whites to vote. I know the lawyers who tried the Texas voter id case and I read all or most of the briefs and so had fun dumping on this idiot with the studies cited in that case. The Texas voter id law was so racist that even the very conservative 5th Circuit had to gut this law.

The rank and file republicans who the key to the trump base are mainly racists. The country club republicans do include some racists but mainly include people who are looking solely out for their own economic self interests.

[Bayard]

58. I've known a few Rethug's who were not racist

But they still had the wealth fixation, and how to protect it.

[GulfCoast66]

63. Yep. But most truly don't think they are!

Cause they don’t use racial epithets, their kids play with black kids and, well, you know the story.

They have been conditioned to have some crazy white victimization and truly believe it.

It boggles my mind.

[clementine613]

64. They're ALL racists and xenophobes.

Every. One. Of. Them.

[Skittles]

65. they ALL are

you cannot say you are not racist while supporting a party that is clearly racist

[leftyladyfrommo]

66. All the Repubs I have known were wealthy white guys.

Golf is their game. That and playing big deal business games.

[brush]

70. Most repugs are not wealthy. 7 out of 10 walking around white guys are repug trumpers...

We're talking men in the trades, co-workers next to you, at the supermarket, in the car next to you on the road, cops, military.

trump appeals to many of these guys—he's disresects women, is on his third, arm candy, trashy wife (my opinion) he talks like them, uses the same vernacular phrasings. There's nothing intellectual about trump's speeches at rallies or his tweets. He comes off as "one of them" who succeeded as a self-made billionaire. Not really of course as he inherited money from his racist father's real estate holdings—and it wasn't any one million as he likes to say. It was hundreds of millions and he cheated his siblings after his father's death to get most of it.

And he's most likely not a billionaire—probably, with all his bankruptcies he's not much richer than what he stole from his siblings (he's got constant schemes going on though, like his nearly every weekend tris to his own resorts which pours money into his pockets as the federal government shells out bucks for rooms, fees, food etc. for SS agents and all of trump's staffers who come with him. Nothing like a scamming president to engender admiration from certain voter types.

It didn't used to be like that. Sanders always talks about getting those voters back but that ship sailed generations ago, started even before Reagan with the "hardhats" vs the hippies in the late '60s. They aren't coming back and we really don't want 'em back as we'd have to change our party to appeal to them. Let 'em stay in the "white peoples'" party, which is what the republican party is when you come down to it. And actually it's the white men's party as repug women office holders are few and far between.

.

[leftyladyfrommo]

71. I worked in a bank. Money is their thing.

The president went to Washington and had lunch with Nixon (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Came back and gathered all the employees together to tell us how Nixon was a Prince if a man.

Charles Price (Ambassador to the Court of St. James under some Republican- I forget) was the owner of the bank. Also husband of Carol Swanson Price- Swanson Foods, Swanco Broadcasting, Price Candy and some other companies.

[VOX]

68. Not all Republicans are racists, but all racists are Republicans.

And trying to get a Repug to coherently define racism is impossible, unless it’s perceived to be something that liberals and/or POC do/say about right-wing whites themselves.

If the “Racism 101” slur “Go back to [wherever]” doesn’t do it for the current GOP, then they really are lacking any basic empathy for fellow human beings. (Which we see demonstrated at the southern border on a daily basis.)

[Nitram]

69. We used to tread lightly when it came to calling Republicans racist. No longer.

Anyone who supports Trump supports a hard core racist.