I find that conservatives focus on the most simplistic and basic element of an issue while liberals see the larger picture.

A liberal points out that Donald Trump broke a campaign promise of Mexico paying for his border wall. They notice Trump rejected an offer of $25 billion for his border wall because it was attached to DACA guarantees (that he had stripped). They notice he rejected another offer and shut down the government (before Democrats took over Congress), hurting millions of Americans before reopening the government and getting nothing in return. They notice that the deal he finally signed gives him some money for border fencing, but much less than the offer he rejected before the shutdown. Then, he declares a national emergency, when there is not an emergency, to take money Congress has designated for other areas, like the defense department and disaster relief for California and Puerto Rico. Liberals challenge the constitutionality of Trump’s disaster relief. Conservatives who describe themselves as “Constitutionalists” get angry at people for opposing the national emergency.

A liberal believes that no company, such as Amazon, should be making $11 billion in profit while paying workers salaries that keep them on welfare. A conservative gets mad at the guy on welfare (and often while that conservative is also on welfare). A liberal points out that social welfare is only half of what the federal government spends on corporate welfare. A conservative gets mad at a single mom with food stamps while ignoring that Exxon gets $1 billion a year.

A liberal protests Trump ripping families apart, losing track of them, putting children into cages and forcing them to represent themselves in court. A conservative believes Trump is the Christian candidate.

A liberal thinks Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, and Alec Baldwin are funny. A conservative thinks the racial slur “Pocahontas” is hilarious.

A conservative will make a lot of noise about a gay, black actor they had never heard of previously who may have created a hoax about being involved in a hate crime. Yet, you’ll never hear the conservatives acknowledge the fact that hate crimes have increased during the Trump era.

If you talk to conservatives, you have noticed by now that they can’t argue for or defend Trump without bringing up Obama. One of their gripes is that Obama increased racial animosity in this nation during his two terms. Yes, racial animosity did increase during Obama’s presidency because conservatives freaked out that a black guy was in the White House. The entire Tea Party movement was a racist one. The Tea Party claimed they formed, before Obama even took office, to oppose wasteful government spending, yet were silent when George W. Bush financed two wars with tax cuts. What conservatives are doing is blaming Obama for their racism.

While blaming Obama for racial animosity, they ignore that Trump encouraged attendees at his rallies to attack protesters, promising to pay their legal fees. They ignore that Trump was endorsed by David Duke. They ignore that the Ku Klux Klan threw a parade in his honor. Most of all, they ignore that hate crimes have increased greatly during the Trump presidency.

The FBI reported last November that hate crimes increased for the third year in a row. In 2017, they rose 17 percent from 2016. Black people accounted for nearly half of hate crime victims last year, according to the F.B.I. report. Of those targeted based on religion, 58 percent were Jewish.

New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco saw the highest number of hate crimes in a decade. In Los Angeles, hate crimes rose by 13 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. New York saw a 6 percent increase, Chicago saw 26 percent, and Houston saw 173 percent. While Los Angeles, New York and Chicago saw declines in crime overall, hate crimes rose.

Last year during a runoff for the U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi, Republican candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith made jokes about attending lynchings. She won.

Last week, a small-town weekly newspaper in Alabama called for mass lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan to “clean up DC” writing, “Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again.”

Last year, a white man in Kentucky (where the FBI says hate crimes were up 83.5 percent in 2017), shot and killed two black men in a grocery store after failing to enter a black church. Also last year, a white man killed 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue after echoing Trump’s anti-globalists rhetoric on social media.

In 2017, Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil,” ultimately killing a young woman named Heather Heyer, and Donald Trump defended them by saying there were “nice people” among the Nazis.

It’s obvious Donald Trump has emboldened racists to come out from under their hoods and make themselves heard. For them, racism is “making America great again.” They are literally parading in the streets and running over people with their cars.

You won’t hear a conservative talk about any of that, but you will hear them talk about Jussie Smollett who may have staged a hate crime against him in Chicago. It’s the police in Chicago who are charging that Smollett faked his attack, the same police who claimed police-shooting victim Laquan McDonald had attacked them with a knife before a video was released (a year later) proving they were lying.

If Smollett did fake his attack, he should be held accountable. He should be held accountable, not just for the crime but for hurting the public’s awareness of the rise in hate crimes since Donald Trump became the champion of birtherism and claimed a black president was ineligible.

If Smollett is guilty, you’re not going to hear the end of it. You won’t even hear the end of it if he’s found innocent. But regarding actual hate crimes and the increase in the Trump era, all you’re going to get from conservatives and Trump sycophants is silence.

It’ll be like a Mike Pence speech in Europe. Silence.

Be Complicit

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