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Comment by hairofadog | Hacker News Reader

There are some important distinctions between Black Lives Matter and Trump’s camp.

BLM’s mission is to strengthen democracy and justice with the unfortunate side effect of the fringe propagating violence. The core and leadership would rather the violence and property damage wasn’t taking place.

Trump is an authoritarian who is trying to subvert democracy, and his supporters consider violence to not only be acceptable but to be a necessary virtue.

If it were possible to remove disinformation, violence, and property destruction from each movement, BLM would still have an important message, while on the MAGA side I’m not sure what values would remain. What’s the coherent message beyond spite toward the left?

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BLM's mission is to improve (and lengthen) the lives of black people.

The protestors mission was to prevent the subversion of democracy.

I don't think using one side being mistaken about whether their actions help with their mission as a justification for surpression is fair.

As for the general MAGA message? I'm not red tribe and have no friends who are so take what I say with a grain of salt:

* The USA has gotten worse.

* Immigration is bad and one of the reasons for the USA decline.

* Our (Red tribe) economic interests are not being defended or advanced.

* Red tribe social norms and interests are not being advanced or defended by the centres of power. E.g. values related to family.

* Acceptance and promotion of alternative sexual expressions is bad for the world.

* Globalism is bad.

The distinctions are that you like and agree with BLM, but hate Trump and think he is evil.

Well, that's one distinction, it's true.

I agree and like Black Lives Matter because they have a valid point to make, and while it's unfortunate that there are fringe elements causing property damage and there have been instances of violence, that's not central to their mission and most people I know who support Black Lives Matter are against violence and property damage.

I dislike Trump because he's corrupt, incompetent, racist, sexist, a sociopath, and an authoritarian. I feel like it's a valid position to be against those things. However, any politician on any end of the political spectrum can be all those things, so setting those aside, let's look at his actual policies: the only one I can think of is isolationism.

I mean I'm mostly just repeating myself. Feel free to make a counterargument.

> most people I know who support Black Lives Matter are against violence and property damage

I take it "punch a Nazi" wasn't popular in your circle then?

Btw: I think Trump is an incomptent, a populist and a con man. But he's no more racist and sexist than the average american.

> But he's no more racist and sexist than the average american

Jeez, I hope that's not true.

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