Liberals Warned Me About MAGA’s Racism. I Didn’t Believe Them

I’ve often thought about that moment—the unnecessary injection of racial anxiety into my otherwise normal school day—when I think about the irony of progressive identity politics. My parents, both born in India but educated in America, would laugh about their well-intentioned but misguided friends who, in their eagerness to ward off the idea of “otherness,” ended up contributing to it.

So the people who knew the country well enough to see what was coming told you what was coming. You ignored them, your parents laughed at them.

But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

Huh.

But now, we must all reckon with an ugly part of the MAGA agenda they did not realize existed.

Everyone who's head wasn't buried in the sand or laughing about "the irony of progressive politics" realized they existed.

And so, if Trump’s win is a revolutionary moment for MAGA, the people who voted for the revolution need to define which MAGA they believe in. Does “making America great again” revive the ideals of this country—or the grievances of a group of “native-born” Americans? If MAGA chooses the latter, those on the left who were dismissed as hysterical for crying racism will be vindicated in the worst way.

Whew, still not getting it I see. MAGA has made that choice already, and it hasn't moved one bit during the time MAGA has existed.

I didn’t want to fracture that pride with the news of an ugly turn in our country’s politics. How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

I think you can only tell them to pay attention next time and not laugh at those trying to give you a clue.

My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

Your grandfather empowered them and is part of the problem.

Damn, it's only January and my schadenfreude gland is already getting fatigued.

Mfw I realize they don’t consider me “one of the good ones”
"But surely I'm going to be an honorary aryan?!"
India has its own problems with class/caste and the language that surrounds it. Officially it's no longer in play, but there are knock-on effects.
“filthy and undesirable.”
This already means something in the old caste system, specifically about the lowest "backwards caste" people ("untouchables"). Not to say that everyone involved has old-world bigotry in their hearts, but for those that do, this is likely an especially cutting insult.
- Thanks for that additional context!
he is not anti immigrant he’s only anti illegal immigrant.
You thought “they’re poisoning the blood of our nation” was talking about illegal immigrants only?
Are you stupid or just bigoted against everyone else because you think you are too established to be thought as “other”?
Conservatives be conservatying no matter the skin color - until they come for them.
- Well they lie about this constantly, every republican I've met will tell you 'I have nothing against immigrants'' but all them the details. Visa programs? (Legal immigration) nope, get rid of it. Refugee programs (legal and mandated temporary) That's the dog and cat eating black skinned ones, NO get rid of it! Amnesty seekers (our laws designate and protect them, not every other country, legal) nope that's the caravan of criminals roving free all across the boarder raping white women, kill em all. 'Chain migration' literally legal immigration, the majorly of legal spots to immigrate come from this and it takes UP TO 20 YEARS to get citizenship. Nope we don't need more fucking mesicans end it! There is literally no form of legal immigration they don't HEAVILY attack and hate.
What I hate most is that part of me understands. As a queer person, I've had people trying too hard to be cool and it's awkward, and I've had bigots treat me like just anyone else to my face. If I was a fucking moron I might come to similar conclusions to the author. But the reality is that trying too hard is a statement of genuine care and acceptance, it's an othering one, but one that says "you belong and I'll put in effort in an attempt to show you that."
I don't call Maga racist because it's trendy, I call it racist because I'm white and I've heard what they tell white people. They have a contingent that see any brown people coming into this country as stealing jobs whether those jobs are doing difficult low paid labor like agricultural work, skilled hard labor like construction, or extremely skilled labor like surgery. They don't care they'll claim surgeons coming in are stealing jobs from hardworking Americans even if those jobs are desperately understaffed. And they'll probably accuse the surgeons of being rapists and gang members or terrorists or communists.
- and I've had bigots treat me like just anyone else to my face. If I was a fucking moron I might come to similar conclusions to the author.
  It's much of this, as a middle aged white guy, other middle aged white people, m and f will say the most bigoted and racist shit I've ever heard. They assume becase I look like them i am a fucked up nazi like they are, this includes my 81 ur old mother.
  They are polite as pie when someone of color is around and I am reminded of thay quip about the most polite people in Germany were actual Nazis and I completely understand that now.

Apparently the writer has barely paid any attention to what's been going on over the last 10 years...

They were, this is classic "It's not racism until they're racist against me" development. It wasn't racist when it was against only Mexicans/blacks tho.
- This was my take as well. They only realized the MAGA folks were racist when they called Indians filthy.
  When they were calling mexicans rapists and murders 😴
  When they said africa was full of shithole countries 😴
  I could go on, but it is kinda exhausting. Coming up next is the working class people when they start getting called white trash. Its coming once they consolidate enough power and dont need them anymore.
The right being poorly educated isn't a quip; it's a designation. One they can neither accept nor escape.
Unfortunately, most people don't.

Her turning point:

But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

Same old story:

My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump. They are family members and neighbors, cafe owners who greet me by name, doctors, cleaning ladies, the mailman, my Cape Verdean babysitter-turned-friend of many years. All of them opposed illegal immigration while defending Trump from critics: “He’s not anti-legal immigration, he’s anti-illegal immigration,” they’d said. “I’m pro-legal immigration—make it easier to do it the lawful way,” they’d say.

I will never understand how people can't see it's thinly veiled racism when it comes from the GOP.

I will never understand how people can’t see it’s thinly veiled racism when it comes from the GOP.
They're morons. Wanna bet a lot of them were swayed by anti-abortion or anti-trans rhetoric? If not that then, 'demonrats are going to turn this country communist' propaganda?
- Paying attention is gay, woke, and demonic.

How brave. Going out and broadcasting to the world just how dense you are.

It's more than that, though. It's broadcasting that the writer is also a racist xenophobe because they didn't care until it affected their specific racial demographic.
"Wisdom has been chasing you, but you have managed to outrun it"
- really need to remember this for opportunities at work
They are so dense their brain is a black hole; not a single intelligent thought is able to escape.

Whaaaaaat? You mean the bigotry and vitriol of the GOP isn't limited to Mexicans, Hatians, Chinese, Guatemalans, Columbians, Cubans, Women, Gays, Transgender, Liberals, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Athiests, Americans wanting affordable healthcare, Americans wanting a living wage, Americans wanting affordable housing, Americans wanting renewable clean energy, Americans wanting a clean environment, immigrants, healthcare workers fighting a global pandemic, journalists, hecklers, and generally anybody who does not vote Republican?

Please add any groups that I forgot.

Don't forget military veterans, especially the ones that got captured and tortured, or sick or disabled as a result of their service. There's also treating Puerto Ricans like they're not part of the US.
- I mean, they're a colony, so unfortunately until they get the opportunity to free themselves/be part of the USA proper, Puerto Ricans are by definitions sub-citizens. Have the dems ever expressed the desire to change that even?
Communists, socialists, the educated, the poor, the homeless, vegetarians, people with hair coloring (except blond)
- I'm grey haired, and definitely feel very threatened by Trump's incoming presidency.
Hrm what did you miss...
At this point, basically all academics and scientists of pretty much any field who are not connected to a conservative think tank or corporate astroturf advocacy group...
Teachers...
Black Americans...
The Homeless...
Anyone that wants to watch porn...
Transgender is the correct term btw, the one you used is dated and derogatory
- Thank you. I've corrected my post.
Ah, turks maybe?

Vivek fucks up recently so the racism against Indians surges, and now this person finally can't ignore it any more. "Oh wow they don't just hate Mexicans, Muslims, Haitians, illegal immigrants, and so on, they hate people like ME too?" And she's so deeply affected that she... doesn't say anything about it to her Trump voting family members for risk of upsetting them. You're a day late and a dollar short, lady. Or a decade late, a decade full of telling people who were warning you the whole time that they're wrong.

Do we just have to wait for the infighting to swallow up all of the token "good ones" one by one then try to pick up the pieces afterwards?

This gif is gonna get some serious mileage over the next 4 years
The proof is in the pudding.
"Oh boy, I get to oversee this evil asshole's certification as president!"

Liberals Warned Me About MAGA’s Racism. I Didn’t Believe Them—Until ~~Now~~ it affected me, personally

A tale as old as time

Let’s just say that deep and systemic thinking is not a conservative voter’s strong point. Every problem is individual and can be solved individually by individuals. Nothing is real until it happens to me.

A friend of mine was raised Republican; he'd say, fiscal Republican. He was certain that people without healthcare could just get treated for free for whatever they needed and that POC brought it all on themselves. Generally, he thought that people were nice and good and would take care of each other as long as the people in need weren't miscreants.

Then he met a nice black girl, got married, and had some kids.

Now he's seeing how they're treated differently when they're not together, and how he's treated differently when he's with her.

How family is now all at odds as the grandparents are still in the old camp and aren't sympathetic to his findings and struggles.

The propaganda is hard to work around. They want to believe that there's good and evil in the world and good prevails. It's what their churches tell them. It's not until each one of them individually experiences hardship that they realize that something is off, and they still remain confused as to what's real and what's now.

I've got an old high school friend whose family migrated from Taiwan when she was a kid. She was dyed-in-the-wool "China Bad / Communism Bad" and quickly adopted the Texas brand of anti-Communist Republicanism. She got a law degree, joined the Federalist Society, started a practice in the Houston suburbs, and even made inroads within the local Republican Party as a team player.
Then she tried to run for an open judicial seat in her neighborhood, during the Republican Primary. Instantly bombarded with crazy racist attacks. Tarred as a Chinese Communist. Smeared as a Manchurian Candidate. Received a ton of hate mail. Got blasted on in the local radio. Came in a distant third place with pretty much only her local friends and neighbors supporting her, in a crazy low-turnout election.
Democrats came and courted her as a possible candidate on their side, because the Democrats in Fort Bend are far more plural with a big East Asian demographic (but just as "business-friendly" neoliberal). She outright rejected the offer and doubled down with the GOP. Now she's hosting dinner parties with Dinesh D'Souz and Charlie Kirk to fund-raise for the same Trump candidates in her neighborhood that smeared her. She's convinced her turn will come. People in the party keep insisting (quietly and in back rooms) that they do actually support her and a seat will open up for her eventually.
Absolutely fucking crazy. I don't understand it at all.
they want to believe their evil is good.
and that good in the world is actually evil.
- That's the thing though, that's how they wind up with that evil. It's that and the idea that their discomfort is always justified

How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

I think these three words in this sentence says a lot about the author. My guess is they felt that America didn't really have a racist population or felt it was small? When in reality it's always been quite large but mostly quite. Where now this population doesn't need to whisper anymore and they are seeing it for the first time.

It's pretty unfortunate that so many humans are so stupid that they have to suffer before learning obvious lessons. The unfortunate part being that people with regularly functioning brains have to go along for the shit ride with them.

It's even more unfortunate is how many don't learn by suffering. They simply blame the out group for it.
Since it is the same group they was trying to warn them, it's the easier path.
Bold to hope that they'll learn anything. Far more likely they'll buy into the propoganda saying all their problems are still someone else's fault.
This is the part that gripes me the most.
It would of course be best if more people had sufficient empathy to oppose the oppression of others just in and of itself, but I recognize that empathy isn't sll that common (and has its own drawbacks), so I don't really expect that.
But at the very least, anyone should be able to follow the simple chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusion that a system that's empowered to oppress someone, no matter who it is or what the excuse is, is a system that's empowered to oppress me if it happens to turn its attention my way.
It's as if people stand in the middle of a crowd as gunmen walk around, shooting people in the head, and they completely ignore it (or worse yet cheer it on) right up until the moment the gun is pointed at their own heads. And then and only then - far too late - do they think to oppose it.
- Conservatism doesn't allow for empathy. It isn't part of the ideology.

My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

that "part" has always been there, other "parts" of that movement just chose to fucking ignore it for decades upon decades

"Now"?? Really?

MAGA is founded on racism.

Yeah they didn't really hide the racism inherent in their anti-immigrant demagoguery.

A good many of the “H1-Bs” from India are Modi supporters and by extension also supported Trump.

That's the crux of it. The writer (and her family) are clearly upper-caste racists themselves - they just don't recognize their beliefs are racist.

My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump.

Another word for those people is "Idiots". Trumps base lives off racism. Anyone who did not understand this from the start basically deserves being hit by it. This includes both the idiots who did vote for Trump as well as the idiots who did not care to vote. I'm really sorry for all the other people who will fall victims of this political desaster, though.

But they voted republican with a soft R

They had money to be able to live as the middle class, and thought that brought them acceptance. They didn't realize they were lulled into voting R only to be discarded after the vote.

People who think politics is some kind of sports fandom are dumb and annoying.

it wasn’t liberals warning them

Yes it was. Edit: Maybe "not just liberals" would be a better comment
- Yeah the leftists knew what else was coming but liberal outrage was all about the racism and open corruption.
  The corruption needs to be deniable or people lose faith in the con, liberal leadership knows this.
Is this another dumbass leftist vs liberal comment or do you have something meaningful to say?
- no no, let’s just pretend that everyone left of ultra-right are neoliberals… a very narrowly defined political ideology… everything else just falls under the straw man of neoliberalism…

Something something leopards eating faces

The only desi people MAGA likes are tech bros who bring in the dollars, or insane people who are able to keep themselves off the radar by causing damage to the libs they dislike even more, Kash Patel, Ajit Pai, Vivek Ramaswarmy, and that one maga movie guy Im forgetting the name of, who was either sanctioned or imprisoned, and I believe pardoned by trump the first time.

for everyone else, you're just like everyone else, you're a vote, and then after you've outlived your usefulness by giving them the vote, its back to leopards at my face.

Stop associating Trump with the working class. MAGA is a petite bourgeois movement. Workers don't go for Trump because they're racists, they go for Trump because their boss likes Trump and they're a little politically backward, and that's for a whole host of cultural and institutional reasons.

One thing that is interesting to me is how small business owners or like mid-upper management types will take on all these worker affectations like trucks, country music, cowboy hats, etc. but don't get it twisted, one exploits and the other is exploited, and the worker who needs their boss to survive, aspires to be like him. And their boss has huge trump flags everywhere, signs in their yard, and he seems like someone just like me!

Leopards are already stuffed, but the grub is so tasty they'll have just one more bite!

Variations of this narrative are commonplace. Back the spew until it happens to you.

Back the spew until it happens to you.
I want this on a bumper sticker with a cop badge on one side and a trump logo on the other.

Feeding time for the leopards.

Action, I would like you to introduce you to Consequences...

I understand not listening to liberals. I try not to listen to them whenever possible, but Trump is obviously worse than them, in essentially every way.

It's like people have this natural tendency to support whoever stands in opposition to the people they don't like, regardless of whether or not they are any better. Like people think, "hmm, I don't really like liberals, and this Trump fella says he doesn't like liberals either, therefore he must be good." You can't do a little more critical thinking thank that?

I understand not listening to liberals. I try not to listen to them whenever possible, but Trump is obviously worse than them, in essentially every way.
She doesn't mean liberal in the economic sense, she means liberal/progressive in social sense.
- Well, I'm not personally interested in listening to either.

"I thought being a collaborator would foster upon me special class that would protect me and make me honorary white. That was proven wrong, and now I'm upset I'm being treated like everyone else"

This attitude consistently surprises me because it isn’t some complex, nuanced topic that takes years of study to understand. The racism has been about as obvious as possible since long before Trump. Don’t try and tell me how smart you are when you’re just discovering that, huh, the Republican Party doesn’t seem to like brown people.

Typical conservative, ignores all the warnings and evidence until it negatively affects them. Also I bet her Trump voting grandpa believes in the caste system like almost every conservative Indian in the West. The racism is only bad when it targets them.

This source is terrible.

That's a thing I've noticed. Sometimes progressives try too hard while conservatives treat you like everyone else. I've seen people of all types think that means conservatives are fine and not bigoted. Like no, most of them aren't going on bigoted rants to the face of the affected, but that doesn't mean the rants don't happen.

It’s like arguing with someone who goes into specifics and then overtime pulls them back.

“I only have a problem with hispanic, illegal, transgender immigrants”

“I only have a problem with immigrants”

“I only have a problem with you”