Thread by @JShahryar

I just want to add to the last tweet a bit because I think it's important. The reason you can't reach Trump voters, and really, any group of racist people is because their main creed - the defining trait the possess - is racism. It dictates any and all their beliefs.

You can find a video of Trump, on his knees, kissing Putin's feet and saying, "I will do as you command me, master." and most Trump supporters will be indignant in their support for him. It's not because they can't see or understand #TrumpPutin or #TrumpCohen. It's racism.

These people have lived their entire lives believing that they are superior to people of color - ESPECIALLY Black people. The subjugation of people of color - ESPECIALLY black people - makes them who they are. Their sense of self-worth is inexorably tied to it.

We have abundant data that shows people feel happier not when they are better of on an absolute sense, but rather in a relative sense. In other words, White Trumpkins are happier so long as Black people are more miserable than they are as opposed to if both are prosperous as fuck

They have believed this all their lives. That being White makes them well-off. That Whiteness is capital in itself. That even if the economy was in the tank, so long as people of color - especially Black people - are worse off than them, then all is absolutely hunky dory.

It's not that they don't KNOW that Trump is a liar, or a Kremlin puppet, or that he is unfaithful to all he says he loves, breaks marital vows constantly, is destroying American farms and tanking its economy. THEY KNOW THAT! They can see that. They are living it.

It's that White Trump supporters KNOW that no matter HOW BAD things get in America under Trump, they - White people - will still be better off than people of color and that no matter HOW GOOD things get under anyone else, they will have to share prosperity with PoC.

You can't reach White Trump supporters not because they are idiots, or uninformed or illiterate... Nahhh. They are smart, informed, and if not holders of PhDs, they aren't 3rd grade dropouts. How do I know that? Because they keep finding ways to keep the racist system going.

You can't reach White Trump supporters because they truly believe that Trump won't just keep the racist American system alive, but that he will kick it into hyperdrive. For that, they are willing to sacrifice pretty much everything, including their own god damn family members.

It baffles me to see people say they lost their parents or grandparents or siblings to FoxNews. No, you did not. You lost them to racism. It's not that they were brainwashed by a cable network. It's that they already thought Black and Brown people were inferior to them.

What Fox and Breitbart do is monetize racism. They put out programs that precisely echo the beliefs of racists all across this country, making it clear to them that they are not alone in their racism. That the whole country is full of them. It's not brainwashing. It's solidarity.

These people weren't made racist. They were racist. Their forefathers were racist. They grew up in racist households. In racist communities that were in states based on racism in a country that was founded on the genocide of Natives and slavery of African-Americans based on RACE.