(Disclaimer: I will vote for some candidate this election, but I would write in a name before voting for Trump.)

I see this conflation in almost all the election news I hear - people assume that Trump supporters are against any immigration. In fact, the white, blue collar workers making Trump's base are okay with most immigrants. They (quite understandably) dislike illegal South American immigrants, who compete with them for a shrinking pool of manufacturing and menial labor jobs. While immigration may benefit the country as a whole, illegal immigration from South America does not benefit them; instead, it contributes to ever-worsening employment prospects. To convince Trump supporters of the benefits of immigration, one must present a solution which simultaneously addresses the lack of jobs for workers at the low end. Until then, the tradeoff is clear - blue collar workers would rather ship illegal immigrants home than have increased local competition for employment, which I find understandable. Trump is also in favor of tariffs, etc. to keep American manufacturing jobs, and has spoken against NAFTA. For a blue collar worker, he may be the best candidate left in the race - and his protectionist position combined with a strong stance against illegal immigration may mean that he has been the best candidate in the race for a long time. (Again, seen from the perspective of a white, blue collar worker).

For Thiel, I can see a few reasons why a protectionist, anti-illegal immigration stance makes sense. He may believe we really do have an overpopulation problem, and wishes to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into America on those grounds. A protectionist stance makes more sense - America's prosperity in the 70's and 80's and South Korea and China's relative prosperity today make the case for keeping a manufacturing base at home, coupled with a reasonably strong creative and technical sector.

Again, this is just speculation on the beliefs of others; my own beliefs are different. But I think it's important to consider that Trump supporters may have reasonably nuanced views on immigration too, even if they don't align with our own stance.

(disclaimer: also not a Trump supporter)

I don't think Trump's opponents assume that his supporters are against all immigration at all. I think his opponents deliberately misinterpret Trumps' message to paint his supporters as ignorant racists. That's not to say that there aren't Trump supporters who are actually racist, but I see little actual evidence that it's the norm.

Throwing the racist card has been a pretty effective tactic for the left over the past 8 years, so I can't blame them for drawing from that well until it's dry, but I do get tired of the rhetoric. It's not helping the divisiveness in the United States.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on..."

How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself?

"Throwing the racist card has been a pretty effective tactic for the left over the past 8 years..."

With all of the dark skinned people getting killed by police lately it seems more likely that the US has a huge problem with racism. In that context the notion of a "racist card" makes no sense at all in a logical argument.

Since there isn't even a Muslim race, all these claims of racism just seem to me like desperate heavings from people who hate dictionaries and love manipulating emotions.

Also, your last sentence effectively means "since racism is a thing, all accusations of racism are valid" which is almost offensively wrong.

You are being pedantic. Most Muslim's are non-white. It is implicitly racist to suggest we ban all Muslim's from the US.

My last sentence suggests we have a major problem with race relations in the US. You can twist my words however you want but it doesn't change that fact. The entire concept of a "race card" was manufactured to belittle legitimate claims of racism. Creating a term to discredit legitimate questions of racism is offensively wrong.

The racist label is interesting, I don't understand why that's the one that people reflexively reach for, especially when you could more accurately say that he is a bigot.

Bigot is more fun to say, plus it doesn't turn into an -ism when used in the adjective form. Because we have enough -isms.

This is a very weak argument that I see too frequently. Simply replace the word "racist" with the word "bigoted". It's no better to be a bigot than to be a racist so the complaint still stands.

>How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself?

While I do agree that banning Muslims from entering the country is a horrible idea, Muslim is a religion (and a choice), not a race. For what it's worth, Mexican is also not a race.

>With all of the dark skinned people getting killed by police lately it seems more likely that the US has a huge problem with racism.

I think it seems this way due to increased media coverage and the impact of social media. Undoubtedly there are some racist officers, but I am skeptical that the problem is as large as some would lead us to believe. As of the last count of which I am aware, 130 black people have been killed by police so far this year. It seems likely that the vast majority of these were justified (according to police procedure, which may be flawed but not inherently racist). Don't get me wrong, it's a huge tragedy whenever any innocent person is killed, but being a skeptic, I need some hard evidence to convince me that the US has a "huge" problem with racism. By hard evidence, I mean stats or studies that have NO other plausible explanation other than racism.

If this is the way you think about these problems you're ignoring thousands of years of historical evidence. The very nature of institutionalized racism is that it's largely invisible to those not directly affected.

Don't hold the victims to a higher standard of evidence then the perpetrators, when the perpetrators hold all the cards.

I am fully aware of the definition of race. The vast majority of Muslim's are non-white. To ban all Muslim's is to ban hundreds of millions of non-white's from the US. Banning hundreds of millions of non-whites from entering the US sounds pretty racist to me.

In regards to your comments on policing. I guess the black man who was shot today, unarmed, with his hands in the air and fully complying with police orders was just another outlier? How many black people need to be killed by police officers before you would consider race to be an issue? 130? 140? The prevalence of cell phone video has exposed an issue that has been present for a long time in the US.

Whether are not you think there is a "huge" problem with racism in the US, at least there is no doubt that there is a problem. Argue over the size of that problem if you'd like, but realize that openly racist groups have uniformly endorsed Trump for a reason.

edit: deleted reference to "white" officers because I don't think it is relevant.

Isn't it also possible that the fact that most Muslims aren't white circumstantial? If not, then why not? Isn't it possible that another explanation is that these people are scared of Muslim terrorists, and they are having a knee-jerk reaction (as humans are prone to do)? Why have so many immediately jumped to race as the only probable explanation with such shaky evidence?

As far as police debate goes, yes, that single person could also be an outlier, considering that there are somewhere around 13 million black Americans. If the police were truly "hunting black people", as the media and BLM would have us believe, I would think the number of black Americans killed by police would be far, far higher. As it stands, the odds of a black person being shot by police is extremely remote.

I would argue that the scope of the problem is very much important, given that racism will probably never truly disappear. Humans are inherently tribalistic. We find ways to divide ourselves by color, social status, political views, and which sports teams we support (sidenote: my dad was nearly killed by a Steelers fan for being a Bengals fan). It seems that it would take a major evolutionary shift for this to change.

As to the final comment, I would argue that Trump isn't fully responsible for the groups that choose to support him. For example, Hillary Clinton has received donations (via the Clinton foundation) from countries such as Algeria, where homosexual acts are punished by large fines and imprisonment. That does not mean Hillary Clinton is anti-gay.

I'll level with you. I think a Trump presidency would be a total disaster. I also think the police are far too quick to resort to violence and lack the training to properly defuse a situation or handle firearms. But I don't think the accusations of racism are entirely fair, and I believe in being fair, even to an enemy.

"In February 2009, NumbersUSA was called a nativist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center's report 'The Nativist Lobby', though the SPLC also stated that there is no evidence of racism on behalf of Roy Beck or his organization."[1]

There are plenty of people in the press who consider all discussion of immigration reduction or control racist. That doesn't make it so.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NumbersUSA

I've noticed a phenomenon for political words to lose meaning over time, and become fully general insults. The right uses "socialist" excessively for example. The left uses words like "racist" in a similar way. Most people called socialist would say they don't support socialism or socialist policies. Most people called racist would say they don't think their race is superior or that we should discriminate based on race.

Most people called socialist do indeed support socialist policies - they support government programs like medicare, public schools, and other social welfare programs.

Those calling them socialists are probably a bit socialist too, though.

This only fuels your argument that political words lose meaning over time.

It isn't you are just changing the mix of who is coming. One could argue that decrease low skilled immigration and upping higher skilled immigration would boost those at the bottom. Raising wages at the bottom while reducing the price of some more complex services.

I guess it's under the whole idea the immigration drives down wages. It's likely true that it does drive down wages for certain individuals but the net impact is at worse break even. Wages are an expense after-all, and if you cut the expense and prices go down, everyone benefits by at least the amount that the price had dropped. Some lose out by losing their job so their losses would be offset by the gains of others by having lower prices. This ignores the fact that more people are buying the product at the lower price. And this also assumes that markets are competitive and that the company can't just continue to charge the same price and pocket the difference, which I don't think is unreasonable in a competitive market economy.

So the many get lower prices, and pay taxes that compensate the concentrated few that are affected by the job losses or lower wages.

Companies benefit a ton from cheaper labor. But the existing laborers lose out because of competition driving down wages.

There might be a neg positive effect on the economy, but the benefits go to the rich and the immigrants, at the expense of the local poor and middle class. Prices are not going to fall that much because of immigrant labor, and certainly not enough to make up for the decreased wages.