Ambiguity kills (maybe)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Most of us may've already heard of the latest scandal (crafted scandal? tempest in a teacup?) where Trump made some remarks about Hillary Clinton intending to stomp upon the precious rights of gun-toting 2nd Amendment fanboys and fangirls. The problem arose from the ambiguity of his words (typical for him), where he made some insinuations, which then in turn went on to be heavily spinned by both opponents and supporters alike. The words:

“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” he said, adding: “Although the second amendment people – maybe there is, I don’t know.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/09/trump-gun-owners-clinton-judges-second-amendment

One side now says it's not so subtle a threat on his opponent's life, their argument being that this is yet another occasion where Trump has incited violence, and because words do have power, some of his followers might actually attempt to follow them quite literally. Elizabeth Warren, who's been tweet-trolling the thin-skinned Donald, has even called him a coward who can't help making threats because he's mad that he's being beaten by a girl. (OH, SNAP!)

In the meantime, the right-wing side of the barricade (led by their flag-bearer FOX of course) has argued that this is yet another example of the liberal lamestream media machine using every occasion to try to destroy Trump by crafting scandals where none have existed - essentially, an effort of character assassination. Their argument is (and Trump's campaign has stated this position as well) that he clearly meant that 2nd Amendment supporters have tremendous political influence, and they should stand up and use their voice to stop Hillary from becoming president and potentially taking their guns away. Which, while possibly being yet another example of fearmongering for the sake of scoring political points in a hotly contested election, is not exactly like inciting violence and calling for the murder of a political opponent.

I think I already know where most of our forum denizens would stand on this matter, but I guess the more interesting point here is, Trump has again been unable to control his mouth, or rather, the words that come out of it, and the way they come out of there. Because words do matter a great deal, especially when you're in the public focus. They can be interpreted in many ways if they're not put in the right order within a sentence - and this could cause enormous problems. Whether this is a misunderstanding or just another troll-bait on Trump's part, my prediction is that it won't matter one iota in the larger picture of things. After all, he has proven time and time again that no matter how horrible the things he says are, he's Teflon Donald, and his supporters are still going to keep supporting him - or maybe exactly because of that. Question is, do you imagine such a divisive person being a proper president? Me being an outside observer of all this, I'd rather think in terms of LOLs. Although he *could* be dangerous for the rest of the world as well if he keeps up with this sort of shenanigans, and moves them to a new, presidential level.

Comments

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Well, either Rush Limbaugh (http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/rush-limbaugh-second-amendment-donald-trump-democrats/2016/08/10/id/743077/) is right and the media are in cahoots with Hillary to assassinate Trump's otherwise stellar character - or - the Secret Service (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/10/politics/trump-second-amendment/) had a very good reason to contact Trump's campaign about those 2nd Amendment comments.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

If she gets to pick her judges, I'm pretty sure that means she won - and in that case, there is no more voting...

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

So if they don't want her to be able to pick her judges, they're supposed to vote in advance against her and prevent her from getting elected - right?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Eh, I suppose you could read it that way. But, you can only vote in advance. In the hypothetical situation he set up at the beginning of his statement - she has already won, there is no voting left. So, his excuse doesn't really hold up.

I would've just gone with the stupid joke defense.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Well, to be charitable, he could be calling for the assassination of the judges she nominates.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

So...he either doesn't understand that she'd get to pick their replacements also, or he doesn't understand the presidential line of succession.

Either way, he doesn't understand a fairly simple concept....

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

"he doesn't understand a fairly simple concept."

He has pretty consistently screwed up on basic civics. Considering he is well educated and fairly smart, this has actually been surprising.

[garote]

Define "well educated"..?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

What frustrates me the most about Trump is that I'd love to see an intelligent, honest conservative with integrity who just happens to disagree with me on the best way to accomplish things like prosperity and peace. Instead, we constantly get guys who aren't merely wrong (in my opinion) about the issues, but who are literal monsters spouting dog-whistles all over the place (or nowadays just outright saying things) and we're left with one party full of the people who actually seem willing to do the work of governing and coming up with solutions to the real problems facing us, and a party full of people whose best ideas are nothing more than fear-mongering and bubbled self-delusion. And it's so frustrating. I want a strong Republican party offering viable solutions. I might not agree with them, but in the give and take of national politics between their good ideas and my side's good ideas, compromises would be reached, and workable solutions that everyone could live with would be put forward, and that's the only way democracy really continues to thrive. Instead, we've got... well, I don't know what we've got. I still love Hillary Clinton. I think she has good ideas. But I wish so many other folks didn't have to vote against Trump because of what he says and who he is, but merely because they like her ideas better. Our entire process has been cheapened.

Maddow, several years back when Obama was re-elected, talked about this a lot more eloquently than I can, and while it's a 15 minute video, I recommend watching it all. It's still true today. The really relevant bit starts at about 8:25 in, but the entire thing does give more context.

Thing is, I want Clinton to win. I want the ideas I agree with to be the ones implemented. But I want that to happen because in an honest conversation about ideas, my side presented them better, convinced more people. I don't want it to be a contest between one side with some good ideas (and some bad ones, admittedly) and another side just spouting nonsense, lying to itself, and completely insulted from reality and anything even approaching facts. The "marketplace of ideas" where is all supposed to be hashed out has just been completely upended, and we saw it in 2012, and what we have now is the same thing taken to a brand new extreme:

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

The ranty bit starting at 12:50 is the summation where Maddow really lays out a frustration I too feel.

[garote]

I agree with this - it's very frustrating to see one of the two major parties put up a circus clown as applicant for a job that demands gravitas and sophistication.

But to understand how we got here it's worth pointing out that Obama only beat McCain by 3.9% of the popular vote in 2008, and only beat Romney by 2% of the popular vote in 2012. Two percent!

I live near San Francisco. Around here it's possible to spend an entire week roving around the city chatting people up and never meet a single Republican. (They're around, but they mostly keep their mouths shut and keep to themselves.)

People around here talk about a lot of good ideas, and know a lot about the good ideas and good policy that are embedded in the Democratic party, but they also freely mix that information with conveniently selected stories and references that demonize and parody the Republican party. As a result it's easy to get a very skewed impression of what the voting membership of the Republican party actually cares about, and/or listens to. Those people are not crazy. It's just that the party system that was supposed to serve them betrayed them worse than it betrayed the Democrats.

Around here the Democratic party also suffered an internal version of this when Bernie and Hillary supporters went diving at each others' throats for most of an entire year. We have the benefit of watching the dust settle and forming a more sensible - and factual - impression of the winner now. But we also need to keep in mind that the same thing is happening for Republicans. The party gave them a long parade of people, and they rejected each one, almost one at a time, until the one left was the one least interested in pandering to - or even being subject to the control of - or even listening to - the party officials. This was a pretty big "fuck you" to their own party, intentional or not, but now that the process is done and the dust is settling, is it any wonder that they're starting to lose interest in their "fuck you" candidate?

If Trump loses as big as we all think he will, perhaps this will be the decade that the Republican party finally (finally!) ditches the things that have stopped working for it: Courting huge, rich donors, goading religious conservatives into politics, and drumming up nostalgia for whitebread 50's post-war America. If they rebuild their platform into something that befits the 21st century it will be a really huge help for democracy in this country. In that case, bless Trump for being the clown too big for the clown car, and crashing it into the telephone pole of progress.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Me being an outside observer of all this, I'd rather think in terms of LOLs.

I'm seeing a "Did it for the LOLs!" tombstone, attractively perched over a post-nuclear hellscape.

In all seriousness, I have no idea which meaning Trump had in his head at the moment he said the words, but since the idea of "2nd Amendment Remedies" is still floating about in the zeitgeist after the phrase was used by a Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle, about Harry Reid in 2010, I don't think its in any way weird, or a stretch, for people on the other side of the divide to see such statements as threats of violence in response to political opposition.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Assuing that there's someone left to make that tombstone.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

* assuming, even

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

Patti Davis (http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/11/patti-davis-denounces-trump/) manages to put together some words nicely:

To Donald Trump: I am the daughter of a man who was shot by someone who got his inspiration from a movie, someone who believed if he killed the President the actress from that movie would notice him. Your glib and horrifying comment about "Second Amendment people" was heard around the world. It was heard by sane and decent people who shudder at your fondness for verbal violence. It was heard by your supporters, many of whom gleefully and angrily yell, "Lock her up!" at your rallies. It was heard by the person sitting alone in a room, locked in his own dark fantasies, who sees unbridled violence as a way to make his mark in the world, and is just looking for ideas. Yes, Mr. Trump, words matter. But then you know that, which makes this all even more horrifying.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

But, but, whaddabout Freedom of Speech!!!1!

[paft.livejournal.com]

d: Me being an outside observer of all this, I'd rather think in terms of LOLs. Although he *could* be dangerous for the rest of the world as well if he keeps up with this sort of shenanigans, and moves them to a new, presidential level.

I'm having a hard time laughing about it. I live in a city renowned for its liberalism, but I have family members living in the American south, where his violent rhetoric is likely to be taken seriously in the worst possible way. The right wing domestic terrorism he seeks to incite is not an abstract to me.

And "COULD be dangerous to the rest of the world on a presidential level?" Surely you don't really think there's a question about that.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

I don't have clairvoyant abilities.

[paft.livejournal.com]

They're not necessary when it comes to recognizing a dangerous and unstable candidate for president.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

They're necessary for predicting the future with the level of certainty that you seem to exhibit on the matter.

[paft.livejournal.com]

So far I've been shown to be right, dreamville. And I'm not clairvoyant.

I predicted hateful and violent rhetoric towards Muslims, liberals, nonwhites, etc. was likely to be more and more mainstreamed. That's exactly what has happened.

The connection between violent rhetoric and violent acts was firmly established in the 20th century. There's no need for "clairvoyance" to identify someone who uses it before large, cheering crowds as a dangerous candidate. Just a basic knowledge of history does the trick.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

So far I've been shown to be right

Good for you.

[paft.livejournal.com]

It's not about being "good for (me)." It's about a reality we all were supposed to have learned several decades ago.