![\"robocall_SNL\"](\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2016\/01\/robocall_SNL.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cAre you a human?\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked this question when answering the phone in a bar the other day. Someone else in the bar did a double take. After I hung up, they asked \u201cDid you just ask someone if they are human?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, no. I asked a robocall if they were human.\u201d This is what I do when I suspect I\u2019m getting a robocall. As a former telemarketer, I try not to hang up on sales calls and I\u2019m polite to telemarketers so that, when I ask them to take me off their call list, they actually do it. But robots? Even better. No hurt feelings, no nastiness. Just \u201cAre you a human?\u201d Click.<\/p>\n
So I wonder how people are responding to the new robocalls in Iowa urging them to support Donald Trump. I imagine for folks in early-voting states\u2014people who are courted so amorously during presidential elections that it must be both flattering and exhausting\u2014that they have one of two reactions: immediately hang up, or listen intently to see if this message will help them to decide who to vote for. And I wonder how Iowans felt about the message itself<\/a>, which boils down to: I\u2019m a white nationalist and I support Donald Trump. If you are also a racist, you should too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time Trump\u2019s gotten a white supremacist endorsement. In August, former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke expressed enthusiasm about Trump\u2019s popularity. Trump responded that he neither wanted nor needed Duke\u2019s support, but as white nationalist Jared Taylor told The New Yorker<\/em><\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me, but his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.\u201d White nationalists love Trump, whether he wants them to or not.<\/p>\n If this is even a problem for the Trump campaign\u2014and I\u2019m not convinced that it is\u2014it is a problem of his own making. He kicked off his campaign by accusing Mexican immigrants of being rapists, has threatened to ban all Muslims from entering the country, and has made it downright acceptable<\/a> for his supporters to beat the hell out of black protestors at his events. Politicians often use various degrees of dog whistle racism, but Trump has no whistle. He doused the whistle in gasoline, set it on fire, and chucked it into a ravenous audience of supporters who pummeled it to death.<\/p>\n But Trump knows how far this obvious racism can go, and blatant white nationalism is one toe over the line. It\u2019s an icky label, not palatable to those who consider themselves less racist than practical. It\u2019s not unlike the Reddit phenomenon wherein, given the right circumstances and context, Stormfront copypasta gets massively upvoted for spreading racist pseudoscience and bad statistics that suit the more subtle racist arguments endemic to the site. It\u2019s maybe a little embarrassing when it\u2019s revealed to originate from a super duper racist source, but it confirms something that cultural studies scholars and sociologists have known all along\u2014these hegemonic, oppressive, and dangerous ideologies are always bubbling just below the surface of \u201crespectable\u201d discourse. It was always already there. It\u2019s only the label that we don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n Research suggests that robocalls don\u2019t work.<\/a> But these things are difficult to measure\u2014you can\u2019t exactly create a controlled environment in which to evaluate their effects, and elections are so incredibly complicated that knowing what tactics will sway a voter base is largely guesswork. In fact, robocalls might just annoy potential voters to the point that they\u2019re dissuaded. But, they\u2019re cheap. They\u2019re easy. They\u2019re legal. So we keep using them.<\/p>\n But how effective can these calls possibly be when they\u2019re so brazenly white supremacist? How many white nationalists can there really be? Probably more than you think. It\u2019s hard to track for obvious reasons. As organizations like the KKK have become less socially acceptable, many hate groups have gone underground. The internet allows hate groups to operate anonymously, which means that individuals can spout whatever hateful ideas they want without fear of criticism or consequence. For all you know, your polite neighbor who brought you Christmas cookies last month may be the editor of a holocaust-denying newsletter.<\/p>\n