On your first point, I think those same vehemently racist beliefs have been there this whole time, only because as a white guy, those racist or just plainly prejudiced other white guys would feel more comfortable expressing those opinions around me until I would bring around a black ex-girlfriend or a Latino best friend, and the conversation on that topic would get contorted into a weird dance around the topic filled with qualified euphemisms.
And this was even during the Clinton era.

But I could watch this happen at the black barbershop next door to my parents business when we would get haircuts, or the Mexican restaurant on the other side when everyone switches to purely Spanish when they would see us or the barbers walk in, but you could hear the "mayate" and "guero" get dropped into the conversation. Mind you it was the patrons of those businesses is where you would hear it from, and the proprietors of the businesses all genuinely respected and enjoyed each other.

I think what's happening now is you're seeing racists feeling empowered by an atrocious human being who used racism and economic misery to weasel himself into power, which a lot of that rage was in reaction to Obama being in office for 8 years.
Obama used the same frothy rage of unhappiness and economic misery to get into the White House, much in reaction to 8 years of Bush. But I heard plenty of racist remarks in the background when Obama was elected, it just had no power, and was in fact fomented in part by the feeling of having no power.

The other aspect that I believe we're seeing is amplification. The Internet and social media have so much more power than they did in 2008, both in it's influence, and our perception of that influence.
But in reality, it's the same human dirt that has been there forever, with water added, and flung father than ever before.

However, the quote you posted in your original comment is subtly different than what you've said in your response to mine.
The way you understood the quote, I'm assuming, is that he was saying there aren't any racists. The way I read your original quotation was that he was saying that there aren't racists everywhere.
We can split hairs on that one, and English definitely doesn't provide any help, but I certainly don't want to dig in even a millimeter defending Trump's or Thiel's intent.

I'll get into that in the next block, but I've seen activists on both sides create mountains out of molehills with regard to parsing the intent of a poorly phrased statement.

> So why not just say this instead of saying that there really aren't racists? How is saying that there really aren't racists not a form of gaslighting?

I guess I would say it would depend on the intended audience. If they were trying to convince PoC that there are no white racists at all, then I would definitely consider it gaslighting.
But if they're saying no one of any ethnicity is a racist, I would tend to treat that as a political (and more "positive") spin of what Trump said about Charlottesville.

If their audience are whites, then I would say it's appealing to their base, who, while all prejudiced, the majority of which are not racist, but who are often spoken about as if they were, or should be ashamed for being a part of racism.

And there is the possibility it's both, which is the dark side of effective use of political speak. You can encourage "us" and try to discourage "them", while holding onto deniability about intent.

But personally, without having read or heard Thiel's exact statements in the interview you quoted, I don't want to guess at the intent of those specific comments.

And I think that Trump (and culturally, his entire regime) is a natural genius about using language to incite both sides to action or reaction, and yet he can play all sides to his advantage.

There are reams of ways to use language to not only avoid responsibility, but associate ideological contrary statements so that your average political base may feel compelled to endorse it even if they add qualifications and disclaimers around it (which are all ignored by the opposing side).

Kinda like my entire set of comments, I guess, though I am completely opposed to them, I think nuance on both sides is needed, moreso during these times :)