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Wednesday's Most Active Threads

by Jeff Steele last modified Aug 01, 2024 01:20 PM

The topics with the most engagement yesterday included former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's appearance before Black journalists, a Trump-supporting husband, the rights that Trump will take away, and the assassination of Hamas' leader.

Yesterday was another day in which the "Political Discussion" forum dominated. Fully 8 of the top 10 most active threads were posted in that forum. That includes three of the top four threads  that I will discuss today. The most active thread was titled, "Uh, seems like Trump's visit to the NABJ is not going well...". This thread is about an appearance by former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists. As the title suggests, things did not go well. Trump's attendance at the conference was controversial before he even arrived. Convention co-chair Karen Attiah resigned in protest over the invitation to Trump and other journalists boycotted the event. There were enough controversies during Trump's appearance — which ended prematurely when Trump's aids intervened — to fill a book. Right out of the gate Trump called ABC News "fake news" and described a question — in which panelist Rachel Scott listed several of Trump's statements about people of color — as "very rude". Then Trump questioned Vice President Kamala Harris' ethnicity, saying that he had known her for a long time and she had always been of Indian heritage. Trump claimed that she suddenly "turned Black". Trump spewed lies at such a rate that the panel of journalists questioning him couldn't keep up correcting him and, eventually, simply gave up. When Fox News' Harris Falkner asked Trump whether his running mate, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance would be ready on day one to run the country if necessary, Trump ignored the question and argued that historically the pick for Vice President didn't affect the election. That was not much of a vote of confidence for Vance. Within the thread the topic that caught on the most was the issue of Harris' ethnicity. Like Trump, several of his supporters in the thread sought to downplay Harris' race. Both Trump and his supporters seem to struggle with the concept of being biracial. Pro-Trump posters pointed to instances in which Harris has identified as being Indian as if that is proof that she is not Black. One poster made the false claim that Harris' father was half-White. These allegations harken back to Barack Obama and claims that he was not "Black enough". It is not at all clear to me what Trump and his supporters hope to gain from questioning Harris' race. The number of Black people who will be convinced that Harris is not Black based on what Trump has to say must be close to zero. Maybe a few White people might go along with Trump, but the likelihood that they would have ever voted for Harris in the first place is also probably close to zero. Basically, this is a stupid tactic with no real benefit and Trump's supporters in this thread are simply stupid enough to go along with it.

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