O. J. and the Irish _____(a two-fer post)

[underpants]

Well they came out last across social media.
They were allowed on to broadcast media.
Defenders of "their guy" to the end.
Reading through many of the responses two things struck me:

Orenthal James Simpson
The comparison between O. J. and Trump's devout supporters is impossible to miss
Both are famous for being on TV
Neither one has anything in common with their supporters
Both routinely disparage and openly mock the people who support them
Both left any connection to their supporters' world in the dust a looong time ago
...but yet, like moths to a flame, "their people" just can't turn away
Evidence and facts be damned.

Irish need not apply
For YEARS a common excuse given by, well, racists went something like this,
"I'm Irish and when we came to this country we were treated like dirt!
You know what we did? We WORKED HARD* and proved we should be here!"

-So your people were from a "shithole country" right?
Was that accurate? By your own example (legend and lore) clearly it wasn't.
-What if your people weren't allowed to come to the US because they were from a "shithole country"? They certainly weren't college graduates. They certainly wouldn't have passed any merit-based criteria.
-At its root this line of bullshit has always been racist - only white people have a work ethic and the ability to rise themselves and their families up.

*some combination of WORK(ed) and HARD is going to be heard a lot over the coming days.
It's a dog whistle.

[mreilly]

1. You make a good point about O.J. supporters...

... they do indeed remind me of Trump fans. I was online debating these idiots back in the mid nineties... until I realized there cannot be a "debate" with people who just deny reality and make up bullshit, so then I switched to ridiculing them.

According to devout O.J. fans, EVERYONE in the world was lying except Simpson. All the evidence was planted. All the testimony from Nicole's friends and family stating she was terrified of him was bullshit (even her diary entries were dismissed as the product of an angry ex-wife who wanted to smear her husband). All the cops were racists who were "in on it." All the crime lab techs who stated the evidence indicated O.J. committed two murders were part of the conspiracy. Witnesses who saw Simpson speeding through the neighborhood just after the murders were just fame whores making up crap. Even documented incidents they couldn't dismiss like Simpson being brought in for domestic abuse were twisted; "it was his wife's fault! She tried to beat him up and he was only defending himself!" Simpson going on the run was no confession of guilt, they insisted, but rather his fear of being wrongfully convicted by a racist justice system.

The entire city of Los Angeles, apparently, was embroiled in a diabolical plan to BRING DOWN O.J. SIMPSON.

At the time I remember laughing with fellow friends on my side of the aisle, commenting that "Jesus, these idiots have an answer for EVERYTHING!" More than that, the mindless devotion to this fucking obvious murderer, this arrogant scumbag who walked away from the black community then cried racism when he was caught committing two murders, this piece of garbage who would go on to actually try to PROFIT from the murders was inconceivable.

So far as I can tell there's no difference between Simpson and Trump with the exception we don't have any evidence Trump killed anyone, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if something surfaced indicating he at least had someone "rubbed out."

[Maeve]

2. Some Irish-Americans have forgotten their (our) own history

The average lifespan of the Famine Irish in America was 7 years--they starved, died of poverty-born diseases, were worked to death. They were given jobs that were considered too dangerous for more valuable slaves to do; they were more easily replaced. But they organized, they fought--became the police and the politicians, but also the crime syndicates; the household servants and the petty thieves. The Irish were finally accepted because they came in overwhelming numbers and changed the face of the country--and became more American than the Americans, more prejudiced than the nativists. It's not all a pretty picture of "working hard", altho that is a part of it. No, they wouldn't have passed the tests that tRump wants in place--many barely spoke English and had never owned shoes when they got here. But they were scrappy, they persisted in spite of it all. And we, their descendants owe the same chance--no, a better chance--to those who ask for our help up onto this "shining hill".