Let's assume for a moment you're right. Donald Trump is racist.
BUT if that's true:
- Why would he sign and support 250M of annual funding for historically black colleges? Why would his administration provide more than $500 million in loans to historically black colleges?
- Why would he create an environment that supported RECORD LOW black unemployment? Why would black American incomes increase 2.6%?
- Why would he support and sign meaningful criminal justice reform, like First Step Act?
Prepare to watch brains explode.
Back in 2016/17 and when I was way more active in debating people about politics (back before Reddit handed out an electronic Star of David to all supporters and policed wrongthink- seriously some amazing conversations in some of the old debate subs), I heard this one a lot and usually just followed it with “Could you explain or go further?”
Nine out of ten times, they’d go for the wall or his travel ban. They’d say something like he hates Muslims or hates Mexicans or blah blah blah, same old parroted talking points we’ve all heard them chant. Once you had a good idea of where they were coming from, it was pretty easy to rip their arguments to shreds. For the travel ban you had a host of things to choose from - the Obama Administration were the original ones to select those nations; of the nations listed it was something like one of them made the top ten for Muslim population (total or percent) (it’s been awhile, can’t remember all details), so if he hated Muslims why wouldn’t he select the other nations that did make the top of the list?; the nations selected have shown enormous spikes in terroristic capabilities and anti-American sentiment; I could keep on and on and on. (Pew had a lot of good info on this.)
With the wall, you just needed to start talking about things like the uptick in cartel influence and drug smuggling, cartel related crime along the border, the proposal of barriers by previous administrations that were never called racist, pull out quotes of Trump saying he has no issue with immigration so long as it’s legal (a good one he said in a primary debate was something like “I’d love if that wall had a big beautiful door in the middle of it”), talk about the stress illegal immigrants put on things like the public school system, wage depression, again, there’s plenty to talk about.
Main point I’m getting at though. I’ve found it’s best to ask them to be specific and clarify how Trump is [insert whatever is trending as the new insult]. Make them point to very specific things and layout their reasoning as to why they claim he is these things. Once you understand how they built their shitty Jenga tower of logic, it’s pretty easy (and fun) tearing its foundation out and watching it crumble.