You don't think that the "birther controversy" was racist in nature?

No.

You think this whole thing is a coincidence?

Racists do not generally like Obama because he has an African father. This is incredibly surprising? Do a google search for racist epithets and say Condoleezza Rice.

Are you really saying that if Democrats had a white candidate on election day 2016 and Republicans a black one, you wouldn't find the appropriate slurs online?

You think this type of thing doesn't happen?

Of course it does. Do you have evidence it happens often enough to be a concern rather than pointing out anecdotes? Also what has this got to do with Republicans rather than American society as a whole?

You think this is a complete fabrication?

No why would I? A mere two decades before that there was basically a new splinter party just on the segregation issue.

This seems like a complete failure of critical thinking.

I will say the same. You seem to have utterly failed at the principle of charity if not outright straw manned my position.

I am not an American. I'm not a Republican. Yet the examples you picked seem to target a CNN caricature of a Fox News viewer. Why did you pattern match me to that? That this post got up voted to 3 karma before my response suggests filling a post with solid partisan digs can be a good way to gain votes on LessWrong and is an indication of us suffering a lack of diversity.

If this isn't what you're saying, could you say plainly what it is you believe and why?

I believe most people in America and the West have on a conscious level an irrational aversion to racism two or three orders of magnitude out of proportion to the actual utilitarian damage it causes. This is partially caused by virtue signalling spirals.

The opportunity costs of this are non-trivial.