Comment by Bartweiss

I'm not sure if it holds up poorly, or if it just cuts both ways.

I mean, Nixon's FBI tried to blackmail civil rights leaders and drive them to suicide. Strom Thurmond was in the Senate until 2002. The Klan endorsed Reagan, regardless of what he said in reply.

I agree that Trump has been frighteningly slow to condemn white supremacy, and that it holds more sway now than it did a decade ago. But on any time window longer than perhaps 15 years, I think it's fair to ask whether Trump is consequentially worse than his peers. Less diplomatic and more overt, to be sure, but is he actually driving more racial violence than Nixon did? I don't think so. The bar has been set horrifyingly low for a long time.

There seems to be a large excluded middle. Arguments that Trump's actions are not racist in consequence look downright absurd, but the claim that they could only be caused by Klan-level racism and are entirely dissimilar to similar modern politicians seems more like rehabilitating other racists than condemning Trump.