Joe Scarborough: I was never pro-Trump | Back in the real world, Scarborough said he was ready to take a VP offer if Trump made it.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) August 10, 2016
Trump’s allies haven’t exactly offered a unified explanation for the candidate’s “Second Amendment people” line https://t.co/7ibmHIG4tG
— Caitlin MacNeal (@caitlinmacneal) August 10, 2016
… Running mate Mike Pence followed with a comment to NBC Philadephia that Trump was simply “urging people around the country to act consistently with their convictions in the course of this election.”
Katrina Pierson, the campaign’s national spokeswoman, told CNN that Trump was “talking about unification and coming together to stop Hillary Clinton,” who she called a “gun grabber.”
And when Sean Hannity explained to his viewers Tuesday night that Trump meant that “if people mobilize and vote, they can stop Hillary from having this impact on the court,” Trump agreed that there could be “no other interpretation” of what he said at the rally. But Trump’s remark was still widely interpreted as a suggestion that gun owners could assassinate Clinton if she is elected president. MSNBC’s Kate Snow pressed Pierson on Trump’s phrasing Wednesday morning, noting that the order of his remarks made it seem like Trump was suggesting what “Second Amendment people” could do once Clinton was elected.
That’s when Pierson offered a completely different interpretation of Trump’s comments. She argued he was referencing the ability of the National Rifle Association to convince senators not to support any Supreme Court nominee appointed by Clinton…
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), an early endorser of Trump, also defended Trump by dissing the Republican nominee’s speaking skills.
“He is not a politician. He is not a person like you who’s very articulate, very well spoken,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday evening. “He’s a business person who’s running for president. So I don’t think the way he said that, and the sequence of his statements, I’m not going to judge him on that, because I don’t think that’s what he meant. And I think he can be inarticulate at times.”
.@realDonaldTrump spcl counsel Michael Cohen to CNN on nom's #2A comment: "U can't apologize to the whole world for their misinterpretation"
— Michael Mathes (@MichaelMathes) August 10, 2016
Trump team insists he was simply urging voter turnout, not joking. Ryan says joke gone bad. If Ryan's right, joke can only mean one thing.
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) August 10, 2016
Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:
… But what of Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, who won re-election by a historically fat margin later in the same day that He, Trump made his infamous remarks in Wilmington, North Carolina? Surely, as a national leader and a public intellectual, he would rise to the level of the threat posed by his party’s nominee.
Right, L.A. Times?
“It sounds like just a joke gone bad. I hope he clears it up very quickly,” Ryan told reporters after he handily won his House primary. “You should never joke about something like that.”
Leadership!…
Oh, it’s a mess for them all now. Up in New Hampshire, Senator Kelly Ayotte, who saw Susan Collins of Maine beat her to the last lifeboat off the listing hulk on Monday, is caught in an impossible position, having endorsed El Caudillo de Mar-A-Lago long ago. Newt Gingrich thinks everything’s dandy because Andrew Jackson. Sean Hannity seems to be steadily losing what’s left of his mind.
It’s a gloriously floundering death for a politics that has done so much damage to the rest of the country. And, even with all that, none of them get it—that nearly four decades of conservative politics, and the techniques those politics used to attain and maintain power, made someone like He, Trump inevitable. They ate the monkeybrains long ago, and this is what happens when the prion disease reaches its terminal stage. You don’t even remember how you got so crazy in the first place…
@JohnJHarwood of course, Trump was specifically saying the court is lost IF and AFTER the vote for HRC; thus, he wasn't talking about voting
— Quin Hillyer (@QuinHillyer) August 10, 2016
Take hope for the future, at least…
RNC suffers spate of @realDonaldTrump-related departures: “Personally I wasn’t comfortable working to elect him” https://t.co/PTHsql0OX0
— POLITICO (@politico) August 10, 2016
waspuppet
Gosh, those accusations of domestic violence against Trump seem SO far-fetched now, don’t they?
OzarkHillbilly
This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes, again
Can you picture what will be, so limitless and free
Desperately in need, of some, stranger’s hand
In a, desperate land
Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane, all the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
There’s danger on the edge of town
Ride the King’s highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake, he’s old, and his skin is cold
The west…
Cermet
So thanks to the thug’s, a country that operated with compromise and mostly respect has developed into a country where the thug nominee thinks threats of murder are part of free speech – truly sick. Thank’s to Raygun and the pro-death squad (i.e. the utter loons of anti-abortion rabid dogs that the gop unleashed with their talk of murder) this country is edging to real violence using guns when one doesn’t get their why in voting.
MariedeGournay
Reading about the Trump campaign increasingly gives me the same sensation as opening a trash can and finding maggots crawling around inside.
Baud
Trump’s tweets are like Shakespeare — so many layers of meaning.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
MattF
And when the polls go against him, he raises the threat of violence and goes off into fantasy-land. Not a strategy for getting a majority of votes in a general election. And it’s only going to get worse, believe it or not.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I think I’ve found Trump’s new legal counsel.
Mustang Bobby
@MariedeGournay: @MariedeGournay: No, it’s more like opening the trash can and finding the rotting corpse of the raccoon that got in there last week to steal garbage and the lid closed and locked behind him.
p.a.
Repubs: the problem is not what he believes, it’s that he expresses it. #nodogwhistle!
Villago Delenda Est
Prezactly. They started eating the monkeybrains when Joseph McCarthy first served them up, then Nixon (who had some experience with monkeybrain eating himself back right after WWII) made it the way to win an election in 1968 and 1972.
They have not looked back since then.
The GOP needs to go the way of the NSDAP and the CPSU.
?BillinGlendaleCA
And Morning Joe leads with Hillary’s emails. Mika is concerned.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Villago Delenda Est:
I know that just asking this question makes your point for you, but I have to ask anyway. Who?
Schlemazel
@p.a.:
“I like him, he says exactly what he means!”
You mean like inciting violence?
“He didn’t really mean that”
you mean like using nuclear weapons?
“He didn’t really mean that”
Repeat as needed
TS
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And the reality – no-one cares any more about the damn emails – despite the media trying so hard to equate them to Trump’s second amendment solutions.
Waldo
Well, ya know what they say: If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
And if you’re explaining your threat to kill your opponent, you’ve already lost.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
For Joe’s mental stability?
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’d be concerned if she wasn’t concerned.
Amir Khalid
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
The National Socialist German Labour Party (i.e. the Nazi party) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
SectionH
@OzarkHillbilly: the West
is the best.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: At least show the correct video.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Joe’s not there, he’s playing his guitar tonite.
PsiFighter37
Gail Collins takes down Susan Collins very nicely in her column today. The kicker comes at the end, where she reaches out to Ralph Nader, who says he won’t vote for either Trump or Clinton. Glad to see he’s learned his lesson…not.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Amir Khalid: Ah. THOSE parties I’ve heard of. I was thinking they were obscure American political parties with fringe beliefs, perhaps only eating purple food or something.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TS: I think Kay covered it pretty well in yesterday morning’s thread. The email that they were showing yesterday and today were approved behavior by Chief Justice Roberts. The foundation asked who this guy should talk to, they replied “the ambassador”; no meeting ever took place.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: I’ve been saying this since 2000, Fuck Ralph Nader.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The tell for me is whether the news is talking about “emails” or whether they are giving specifics. If it’s the former, it tells me it’s a nothingburger with cheese.
Schlemazel
@PsiFighter37:
He knows once the GOP makes things bad enough the nation will turn their weary eyes to Him who can save us!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Ooopps, my bad. Good thing you’re here to pick up my slack.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: They mentioned the specifics, but only in passing. Mika’s started on the emails again; CLICK!
Baud
@PsiFighter37: I think he’s a full fledged libertarian these days. Doesn’t excuse his vote, but it’s different from 2000 when people thought he was a liberal leader.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “In passing” is all I need to know.
satby
By November everyone will be so sick and disgusted by the state of politics in this country that no one will show up to vote. Which might be the latest voter suppression plan, and the most effective one ever.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Out in these parts, we call those people the “common clay of the West”.
Baud
@satby: I don’t care if we win every state by a vote of 2-1.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I don’t know if that was an unreasonable view in 2000. He may have been unhinged then, but more Jill Stein unhinged than libertarian.
But I can’t be sure. I try to pay as little attention to him as possible.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I added 4 360 degree pics to the album I posted yesterday.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: So Nader no longer believes in pushing for safer products from industry? That’s quite a change.
satby
@Baud: whatever works.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Say what you will about the NSDAP and CPSU, each had an interest in competent governance and the party existed to serve the ideology, not vice versa like today’s GOP.
Mai.naem.mobile
Trumpy Dumpy is going to be on Squawk Box on CNBC this AM. Thankfully Joe Kernen is on vacation so he won’t get a total FOX-type interview.
TS
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
thanks – I did see Kay’s comments. She explains it all so very well. Really doesn’t matter what they find/say about Hillary any more – Trump keeps hitting the home goals & takes over the airwaves regardless of what anyone else does or says. Must admit I’m enjoying the look of pain on Mark Halperin – he of the weasel yes sir/no sir interview on Trump’s plane.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know. Each of the few times I’ve heard him speak, he’s spewing a libertarian talking point. I haven’t heard him talking about product safety in forever.
Central Planning
Haha, Bernistas are having a sad because Bernie bought a $575K vacation home. All sorts of conspiracies – it’s the money he got from Hillary to get out of the race, wallstreet paid him to support Hillary, etc. Hilarious.
Baud
@Central Planning: They should look in the mirror. $27 contributions add up!
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Speaking as a Corvair fan:
FTFY
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I haven’t paid any attention to him in damn near forever, so I really have no idea what he’s about beyond himself.
jon
I would write down Trump’s words as “Second Amendment, people” rather than “Second Amendment people” which would make a difference in both meaning and context. Trump’s halting style of speech makes punctuation of his words seem almost arbitrary, so maybe there’s no way to be certain. But I doubt there’s a prepared remarks version that exists because Trump doesn’t prepare.
Has anyone else thought this, or am I lost in some partisan wilderness and having flashbacks to my Representative being shot in the head by a deranged man?
HRA
They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to excuse what was evident to the majority of the country.
I highly resent the excuse of Trump not being articulate since he is a “business person”. Trump was supposedly educated in some of the best schools in the US.
My Dad was a business person. He came to the US as an immigrant at age 27 after he fled his occupied country and made his way across Europe. He quit grammar school at an early age. It is a possibility that he did go to school here for he was very articulate and to the point of having no foreign accent. If he was still here, I know he would have certainly been amazed and disgusted to see Trump as a candidate for president of the US. The US was my Dad’s country the moment he arrived here.
Central Planning
@Baud: $575K at $27/contribution is just over 21k contributors. I think math is hard for Bernie supporters. Actually, that was pretty obvious during the primary season.
TS
Good lord – MJ folks discussing the role of the media in helping Trump with his outlandish statements – shocked, I’m shocked – they ARE the media.
Edit: Silly me – they are talking about social media – that is the bad media – still not accepting the blame for what they have done
jon
@jon: I’m sure someone with a Nexis account could check if Trump ever used the phrase “Second Amendment people” before that day. They could also check if he says “people” as a regular part of his speeches. It’s not as if he’s been quiet for the past year, so there has to be some way to analyze this explanation.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
Woodward is “both sides” mediocritysplaining, once more.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
Bob, incompetent fuckwit, his kids are an integral part of his campaign.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer: Woodward has some love for the Magical Balance Fairy.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Apocalypse Now without the bombs.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Yet.
Iowa Old Lady
@jon: I also wondered whether “people” was direct address which would require the comma. It’s hard to tell from his inflection.
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
To me, it was pretty clear listening to him. He said it without the comma.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
@Central Planning:
hahhahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahhahhahahahhahahahhahahah
aahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahhahahahahahahhahahahhahahhahah
hahhahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahhahhahahahhahahahhahahah
aahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahhahahahahahahhahahahhahahhahah
hahhahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahhahhahahahhahahahhahahah
aahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahhahahahahahahhahahahhahahhahah
Gin & Tonic
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: I fail to see reason for outrage. Guy makes $174k/yr, seems to live frugally, and his wife sold a house in Maine she’d inherited from her parents. $575k is not a stretch from what I can see, and the new place is 1,800 sq ft, so hardly a mansion. It’s also not at all out of line for similar places with Lake Champlain shorefront.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: With or without the comma, his meaning is pretty clear when he follows it up with, “that would be horrible”.
D58826
@TS: Any mention of ‘old little hands’ accusing Obama/Clinton of being the founders of Daesh? Sounds like he is accusing them of treason. All the while the crowd chants hang the b*** and lock her up. When he loses in Nov. (one of Nate’s forecasts gives Hillary a 96% chance) this free floating rage is not going to go away.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic:
Obviously, you weren’t a Berniesta.
D58826
@Gin & Tonic: I just got a laugh at the ‘optics’ of it. Three homes and all of that, why some might think he was a capitalist:-)
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
@Gin & Tonic:
BWHWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAHHA
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Trump hints he may get even crazier: ‘I think maybe they want tougher rhetoric’
Central Planning
@Gin & Tonic: I think most of us fail to see the outrage.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Welcome to the world of Hillary supporters.
Emma
@Central Planning: Good lord, people are stupid. They sold a vacation home his wife inherited and bought another one, but that can’t be it. It has to be — tadah! — a Clinton conspiracy. Occam’s razor need not apply.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
My Maserati does one-eighty-five
I lost my license, now I don’t drive
I have a limo, ride in the back
I lock the doors in case I’m attacked
I go to parties, sometimes until four
It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door
It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame
Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed
They say I’m crazy but I have a good time
I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life’s been good to me so far
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
Ian
@one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer: In the book Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton it is noted that fascist parties do not adhere to specific ideology. The ideology of the day is whatever gets the voters to push them into/over the top. Benito Mussolini went from communist left to monarchist right in his efforts to be appointed to prime minister. Hitler’s Nazi’s swung from left to right trying to get voters in different areas to vote for them. That is why National Socialist Labor party seems like such an oxymoron to us, but it made sense at the time of appealing to as many people of different views as possible with a lowest single common demoninator. Fascists do not need to be ideologically sound, they need to win. Sound familiar?
Woodrowfan
@Baud: How the f! can you be a libertarian and support consumer protection and environmental laws??? (that’s yelling at Nader, not you)
Steve in the ATL
@jon: if you watch the clip, he clearly said “Second Amendment people”, no comma.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: This. Buying a ~$600K “vacation house” immediately after running a campaign about how everyone else is corrupt would make ANY POLITICIAN BESIDES BERNIE SANDERS an instant legend of political tone-deafness ESPECIALLY TO THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE BERNIE SANDERS. “In a year where there is such widespread Anti Establishment Sentiment ™ and Voter Anger (c), Senator Doe’s purchase is sure to raise eyebrows or worse.”
laura
@jon: nope, not alone at all. As I recall, the silence of the Palin was deafening, and the the pretzel logic about her cross hairs targets on the Congressional map could not, no way,mean what it so obviously meant.
Dishing it out – check. Taking responsibility for the consequences of actions – not at all.
Party of personal responsibility.
msb
I think all the sane people will be so terrified they’ll show up to vote in droves.
satby
@msb: God, I hope so.
jon
@Steve in the ATL: Just watched it three more times. And while he doesn’t pause there, I still think “Second Amendment, people” makes more sense. He was talking about something in relation to an if, because he was saying there’s nothing they could do. Adding the bit about “it would be terrible” really needs that pronoun to have a more definitive antecedent, but maybe that’s getting into tinfoil hat territory.
If there’s another instance, ever, of Trump referring to “Second Amendment people” from before this instance where I doubt that’s what he meant, I’ll concede the point. Until then, I’m transcribing it my way.
lollipopguild
@laura: The GOP has become what it always accused the Dems of being, the Party of ” If it feels good do it or say it” Trump has no filters and feels any attempt to control what he says is an attack on him personally.
Plantsmantx
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I ran across someone on Twitter who accused Mika of “sticking up for the Clinton Foundation”. I asked them if they watched the show in another dimension.
Rand Careaga
@jon:
That is exactly how I took it.
O. Felix Culpa
@msb:
Anecdata, but we are getting lots of walk-ins to the HRC campaign office eager to volunteer and the positive response rate to our calls for volunteers is also good, enthusiastic even. The prospect of a Trump presidency seems highly motivating to a wide swath of the populace.
ETA for clarity: Highly motivating in that they want to defeat him and elect her. :)
Plantsmantx
@jon: “Second Amendment, people” goes against his own “explanation” of what he meant.
catclub
People are saying that Trump made donations to NAMBLA, which is why he won’t release his tax forms.
also, Dan Savage and Santorum
jon
@Rand Careaga: The Huffington Post is now looking into it, too.
catclub
@D58826: NPR was happy to play that quote from Trump, but not the one where he calls on 2nd amendment people to solve the Hillary Clinton problem.
Trump hates Obama more, but does not realize that the rest of the country knows Obama will leave office soon, and is not Trump’s opponent.
So he has to remember to bring in Hillary into the story.
catclub
@Rand Careaga: Baloney. Trump had been going on for a while that ‘Hillary wants to abolish the second amendment’, so why would you need to bring up the 2nd amendment.
craigie
Not to be dense, but what would the difference be, exactly? It seems pretty bad to me either way you parse it.
Frank Wilhoit
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: Trump can’t win this election. He can do either one of two things with it: he can lose it, or he can pre-empt it.
The way he loses is very simple: if he loses momentum. But his momentum is like that of the bubble economy: the second derivative (the rate of growth of the rate of growth, in this case of rhetorical escalation) has to stay above zero. Right now he is losing, and he knows it, and the only way he can think of to try to turn that around is to goose the second derivative. It’s pretty hard to top self when you’ve already incited to assassination. The remaining cards are really only two: incitement to genocide on the Rwandan model, and an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons as a first strike against any nation that checks the U. S. in any way. One rhetorical face-card (dast we say, “trump”?) is good for about a week. There are twelve weeks to go.
The only way for Trump to avoid a loss is to reduce the country to such a state of chaos that it does not matter what the outcome of the election is or even whether it is held. He will do whatever he can to prevent a loss, and the kindest thing that may be said of him is that he is radically unaware of the larger consequences of his actions.
shomi
If anything this nonsense distracts from more damaging attacks. That list is long and deep. His tax returns for example. That should be the #1 story 24/7 if the media was doing their job. Also Trump U scam. His history of not paying people. It just goes on and on.
Redshift
It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that both the “second amendment people” and “founder of ISIS” lines are more instances of Trump giving the standard GOP line without the dogwhistle. So all of the GOPers jumping ship now should be remembered as people who are okay with politicians believing these things, just not with saying them out loud in a non-deniable way.
Vhh
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym: NSDAP = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = Nazi party. CPSU = Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (KPSS in Russian).
Craggiest
@Redshift: this++
John
@one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer:
So what I hear you saying is… I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude. At least it’s an ethos.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
In a recent interview, Nader attributed Trump’s popularity to white men being angry that it was not socially acceptable for them to use racial slurs or shout sexual compliments to women on the street. Nader was explicit that he thought this was a reasonable, justified anger and white men were oppressed by political correctness. That interview is now my go-to for any discussion of Nader’s political motivation.
rk
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
,
Has Trump ever heard of World Wars I and II, pol pot, Stalin or the crusades or the rape of Nanking? These are just a few off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many many more. The world has never been free of atrocities. Of course we’re heading towards a major one if Trump becomes the president.
FlipYrWhig
@jon: That’s the way I heard it, too, and it has a very 1970s-’80s NJ/NY ring to it. All of my teachers would say, “People, people, listen, shh, sit still, people, please.”
It’s true that the campaign spokesman said “2nd Amendment people” when clarifying. But IMHO the only difference in meaning is that “Second Amendment people” refers to an identifiable group with guns, like the NRA; while “Second Amendment, people” would refer to a more nebulous and general popular armed uprising.
O. Felix Culpa
@FlipYrWhig: I’m not really understanding what material difference this comma parsing makes. Upshot is he’s calling on people with guns, nudge, nudge, wink wink.
Miss Bianca
@Central Planning: It’s been amazing to me (not!) how quickly the most vocal/rabid Sandernistas turned on Dear Leader. Which just proves to me – as if I needed further proof – that they had no idea who the guy actually was, or that he actually WAS a politician, and that he really was just more an empty suit to them that they poured all their authoritarian/anti-authoritarian fantasies into.
ETA: @Gin & Tonic: The point is that it shouldn’t be THAT outrageous. In any other politican, it wouldn’t even be cause for remark. Except if Hillarty bought it, of course. ; )
FlipYrWhig
@O. Felix Culpa: Agreed. I think it’s the minimal difference between the “Second Amendment people” as a subset of “folks” in the first option and the “people” being the same as the “folks” in the second. But both lead you to the place where only people with guns can stop Hillary’s looming tyranny.
MCA1
@FlipYrWhig: Y’all are wasting your time. If a comma was what was intended and it lessened the outrageousness of what was said, at least one person in the Trump camp would have put this interpretation forward by now. That not a single one has outside of a bj thread is all the evidence needed as to Drumpf’s intended meaning.
FlipYrWhig
@MCA1: I didn’t say that it lessened the outrageousness, though. I’m just an inveterate interpreter of words and punctuation.
catclub
@craigie: The difference is that it would be the 2nd amendment itself stopping her. But that makes no sense when the whole previous rant of his speech was that ‘Hillary wants to abolish the 2nd amendment’. They are dropping THAT context from this ‘explanation’.
catclub
@shomi:
Exactly!
people are saying that Trump made donations to NAMBLA that he wants hide by not releasing them.
JustRuss
Ya know, Gulf War I started because Sadam Hussein misunderstood the US ambassador when he said the US had no interest in Iraq’s border dispute with Kuwait. Words frickin matter, and “Trump just says stuff” isn’t a great endorsement.
les
@rk:
Every crisis or worry is always existential, always the worst ever. Conservatives are the biggest chickenshits imaginable, it’s flat amazing. They live in constant terror.
daves09
@one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer: If the CPSU had an interest in competent government then we need a new definition of competent. They had an interest in power and nothing else mattered.
daves09
@HRA: but he’s got the words, the very best words.
Villago Delenda Est
@les: They do not belong in a country that touts itself as the “Home of the Brave”.
J R in WV
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
NSDAP is, from Wikipedia, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (help·info), abbreviated NSDAP), commonly referred to in English as the Nazi Party – National Socialist German Worker’s Party loosly translated,
The CPSU is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Villago Delenda Est
@J R in WV: I hadn’t responded to Ceci myself since others did it for me :)
J R in WV
@FlipYrWhig:
He also has a “Book” coming out in November, probably a sizable advance on that little effort, low millions at least. So they will be able to afford luxo flights to Europe, etc going forward. Good!
I would hate for them to have to settle for plain old routine coach seats. So sad, too bad…
J R in WV
@MCA1:
No one in the Trump campaign knows enough about English grammar and punctuation to have a clue that a comma in a statement might change the meaning of that statement. Especially not Trump.
And of course, in speech, who knows where the commas go? because it isn’t written down before he speaks it’s completely arbitrary how it’s punctuated. Except that they don’t know how to use the Language to be specific, so who cares…
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
@jon: When you watch the video (or listen to the audio) of what Trump said, it seems awfully fucking obvious what he was getting at. The notion — as Trump himself is now claiming, along with many of his apologists — that he was referring to some heretofore-unmentioned cohort called “The 2nd Amendment People” is ludicrous. Here’s the key portion of what he said (I know, we all have it memorized by now):
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothin’ you can do folks. Although the 2nd Amendment people… maybe there is, I don’t know…”. The italicized emphasis is mine, of course, but it’s the critical phrasing he used that demonstrates — without a doubt, far as I’m concerned — EXACTLY what he was insinuating, and to a crowd (many, most, I don’t care) who understood EXACTLY what he meant by that insinuation. He was speaking their lingo, no fucking question, talking about “2nd Amendment remedies”, i.e., “watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants”. Whether he meant assassinating President Hillary, assassinating her judicial picks (unstated, but surely SCOTUS nominees), or perhaps inciting general rightwing general violence (the least likely, I think) what difference does it make?
Here’s why I find the phrasing I italicized instructive: “Maybe there is…” Maybe there is what? Obviously, he’s referring back to “nothin’ you can do”. Saying, well, wait a minute maybe there is something that can be done. What is that “something”? Why the 2nd Amendment, which he held out just before saying “maybe there is” as the potential thing that can be done. Not some group he calls “The 2nd Amendment People”. A group of people is not something you “do”. The 2nd Amendment — as in, using your 2nd Amendment “rights” (as the rightwing absurdly, and horribly, claims them to be) to take up arms against homegrown tyranny — is something you can do. Plus, Trump says “people” all the damn time directly addressing his audiences. It’s what he did here, plain as fucking day, don’t give a shit where anyone puts commas or not.
And finally (sorry for the long comment) here’s the tell on his employment — right after “maybe there is” — of “I don’t know” followed by a long pregnant pause: it’s used deliberately to immediately distract from his call for 2nd Amendment remedies, in an attempt to provide cover and plausible deniability in the exact same way he does all the time when he says some outrageous thing and predicates it with “many people say” and even “maybe, I don’t know”. Everyone knows what he’s doing there. It’s the exact, identical thing here. If he was somehow clumsily and indirectly mentioning the 2nd Amendment in reference to the tremendous political power of the NRA and the millions who fervently believe in the absolutist gun rights position, why would he say “maybe, I don’t know”? That political power, that position, is (sadly) mainstream in America. It’s de rigueur for the rightwing here, of course, no need for a rightwing candidate to hedge with “maybe, I don’t know”. None whatsoever.
I’m stunned that anyone could fall for such obvious bullshit as “The 2nd Amendment People”. It’s not even the first thing his apologists led with — they trotted out the “joke” nonsense first. Seriously, who the fuck is fooled by any of this? It seems so blatantly obvious to me; it’s like Carlin’s old “two guys on an elevator, one guy farts, everyone knows who did it”. Or “who you gonna believe, me, or your lyin’ eyes?”. The plain truth — and the spin — is just so bleeding fucking obvious.