With Trump’s position in the polls continuing its downward slide, The Donald winkingly suggested to his “second amendment people” at a rally today that they could, you know, assassinate her if (when?) he loses the race.
This is probably not news to anyone reading this, but if you haven’t watched the video itself yet, it’s even creepier than a mere transcript. He and his apologists have tried to spin this one away but there is no credible way to “explain” this as anything other than a call for the literal assassination of a political rival.
We need to do everything possible to keep this man from being elected. Do we also need to prepare for what might happen if (when?) he loses? How exactly, I’m not sure. Obviously the solution to Trump supporters with guns is not Hillary supporters with guns.
Discuss. No MRAs/Trump apologists/calls for revolution, etc.
@Alan: Interesting article at Wonkette on that. The basic premise is that Trump is trying to be the class clown, but he’s rich and powerful enough that he’s used to people laughing at his shitty “jokes”.
http://wonkette.com/605315/donald-trump-is-losing-because-at-heart-hes-the-class-clown
@ leftwingfox
Wow, that article does make a lot of sense. Yeah, I can really see that. He’s almost the classic case of “you need to differentiate between good attention and bad attention”. He’s like an evil David Brent.
So basically it’s just a desperate cry for attention. Aww, deep down he just wants to be loved.
Hmm. Alternatives to trumpland… Cloud Cuckooland has always seemed more of a whimsical sort of irrationality – building a giant wall on the ground to protect a city floating in the sky – where the GOPer’s world is much more apocalyptic and terror-filled like a bigoted, semi-sentient, poo-filled pastry monster stomping around the world. Also not really wanting to slander the wonderful weirdness of Wonka by associating it with the GOP; additionally, the tangerine is anti-vaxx while Roald Dahl was vocally pro-vaccine after losing a child to measles.
Planet Wingnuttia, Rightwing Fever Swamp, Saint Reagan’s Colon (via cranio-rectal inversion), Fox News, Glenn Beck’s Blackboard, Limbaugh’s Lavatory, The Michael Savage Cesspit, …
An interesting thing about the electoral map that was pointed out to me recently: The line of states from Texas to the Dakotas (including those states and also Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska) haven’t voted Democratic in any presidential election since at least 1964.
A lot of Confederate soldiers settled there after the Civil War. (Also probably in Oregon, Idaho and Washington — they seem to have a lot of homegrown hate groups and neo-Nazis, of which David Neiwert has made a life’s study.)
@axe: thank you for the voting video link. I’m moving to Kansas next month, and it’ll be useful. I’d like to do my part to turn the state blue this year ?
Back to lurking.
He’s getting desperate. Good. Eagerly awaiting his eventual meltdown.
In good news, it looks like the idea of “Stochastic terrorism” is becoming more mainstream, thanks to several articles that i’ve seen today:
http://www.peacock-panache.com/2016/08/stochastic-terrorism-trump-24130.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/trumps-assassination-dog-whistle-was-scarier-than-you-think-w433615
http://bluenationreview.com/trumps-violent-incitement-against-hillary-stochastic-terrorism/
And one on the ‘just joking’ excuse:
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/9/12417100/donald-trump-assassinate-hillary-clinton-joke
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dan-rather-donald-trump_us_57aab5abe4b06e52746e5caf"rel="nofollow" . Let’s hope more articles like these continue. 🙂
Argh. That last quote was supposed to be for Dan Rather calling out Mr. Drumpf.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dan-rather-donald-trump_us_57aab5abe4b06e52746e5caf
The excuse I heard at work was that it was some random guy and not even Trump that said it.
That pretty shows how escaped from reality most of his supporters are.
(Especially when they were screaming about how persecuted Trump and his supporters are so loudly I could hear them half-way across the building.)
Yes? There basically is. Nazism is a pretty well-known and well-defined ideology; I don’t think there’s a whole lot of debate about who the Nazis are, and to the extent that there is a debate, it’s about labeling people Nazis who would not describe themselves that way.
“Anarchism” does not refer to one consistent ideology with an agreed-upon set of principles. There are several anarchist traditions with incompatible beliefs, and they’re prone to arguing about who the “real” anarchists are. Thus, it’s safer to refer to people as “self-proclaimed” anarchists if you don’t know which subtribe they’re from, or simply wish to avoid giving the appearance of taking sides.
Here’s your periodic somewhat-OT reminder that the down-ticket races are important! Hate Clinton and think Trump is dangerous? Don’t stay home! There are more races on the ticket than the Presidency! The House is locked up for Republicans because Republicans own so many statehouses, and the statehouse gets to draw the House district lines! Those state offices are super-important! VOTE IN THE DOWN-TICKET RACES I BEG YOU
Fishy Goat: Yep. To go against the grain for a second, I was very disappointed that none of the liberal/leftist blogs I read had anything to say about the 20-year-old British immigrant who attempted to assassinate Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/21/why-isnt-the-assassination-attempt-on-donald-trump-bigger-news/
To be fair, Trump didn’t make a lot of hay out of it either, as the idea of a white man motivated as much by Glenn Beck as by liberal commentators, and didn’t play into the narrative Trump is building.
The rhetoric matters. Many people on relatively moderate blogs have been calling out the dictatorial impulses of Trump, and comparing his anti-immigrant rhetoric to that of Hitler (and frankly, with just cause). The key is knocking out that 3rd pillar; to condemn acts of violence and calling out attempts to normalize violent rhetoric against political opponents.
We need to be better at that part; because we should not be using violence as a position of first resort, or worse, as a preventative measure.
And people think Hillary is scary! I’m not a fan of her myself but I actually prefer her to Trumplestiltskin. Wants to KILL his political opponent, yet he is so “pro-life” that he wants to penalize doctors who perform abortions. Maybe Hill and her supporters should hide in wombs (sarcasm). Apologies if this doesn’t make sense…I’m just rambling.
Is it just me, or can anyone else not stand how Trump forms sentences? Take for example:
This just drives me up the wall. The sentences start, and then switch to a tangent, and are never really finished. What will happen if Hillary gets to put her judges in? We’re tied because Scalia what? What wasn’t supposed to happen? I’m abreast of US politics enough to fill in the blanks, but this style of communication is just outright painful for me to try to process.
@dlouwe
It’s the rambling form of speech, where the people can interpret anything from it and it sounds pleasant.
So for a select group, that basically canonizes Scalia as a martyr and Hillary as some borderline antichrist figure.
@dlouwe
He’s not expressing ideas. He’s sending feelings, particularly scary feelings. Feelings don’t need really coherent sentences
ETA: Basically, you’re not meant to “process” what he’s saying. If it speaks to you, as it unfortunately does to plenty of people, there’s no processing necessary. Just feel it
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants:
That’s a very interesting analysis. Yes, thinking about it that way, I agree.
I’ve observed a number of men whose attitude to boundaries is that they’re entirely uninterested in doing the things which are consented to, and stop being interested in new things the moment they stop being forbidden. It’s the crossing of the boundaries that they’re interested in, not the actual acts themselves.
I believe that the word for such men is “contemptible.”
@WWTH:
Interestingly, 538’s analysis gives Texas a one-third chance of turning blue. That would be a magnificent coup.
I’m guessing that if Texas turns blue it’ll be because of the Latin@ vote, and thus may not remain if the GOP remove Trump and replace him with someone less uniquely offensive to Latin@s. You know more about politics than I do; does that sound reasonable?
@EJ : I think it’s better to wait for the opinion of an actual american, but aren’t most republican extremely repulsive to latinos ? Like the best of them get like 20% sympathy from them.
@ axe
“Duckspeak”
(Hmm, maybe there should a corollary to Godwin for bringing up 1984)
@dlouwe – It’s the half-formed, lazy speech of someone who thinks in black-and-white stereotypes. A single word or phrase (“Wall!” “Muslims!” “Second Amendment!”) gets tossed out as shorthand to trigger fear and anger, and then the job is done, so his attention span wanders. 3/4 of what he says is meaningless filler. Oftentimes he’ll try out a phrase and then, if it gets a reaction, repeat it. If it doesn’t work, he’ll go on to something else.
I think Trump favors circumlocution over concrete nouns and direct speech because then nobody can pin him down on the exact meaning of what he said. It’s like Old Norse kenning, but far less poetic.
By the Nine! I checked the BBC online news feed for any more news of this and he’s apparently saying he was totes misunderstood and meant the voting power of 2nd amendment supporters. Yeah right. And even if he did mean that maybe that’s what he should have said! Then I was happy because the page linked me to another one with lots of comforting graphs showing Trumpence plummeting in the polls. I can go back to getting that last achievement for Kingdoms of Amalur now without the prospect of nuclear armageddon to worry about.
dlouwe said
Nope, not just you. It’s stream-of-consciousness from a fascist on overdrive. Cant. Deal. *cue the Nope Llama*
I really like my MSNBC two-hour bloc of Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, but I have taken to watching them from the DVR for the duration of the election season. Why? Any time Trumplethinskin is doing a rally or giving a speech, they (often as not) switch to it live, sometimes for the duration of the speech. I need to be able to fast forward through that mess to avoid a spitting headache!
ETA: I meant “splitting” but spitting works, too, in this case. Trump? Patooie!!
@EJ
Latinxes in Texas don’t vote much. Most Tejanos (I think that’s appropriate terminology) are young (under 30), and the young don’t vote nearly as much as older people. They also tend to be under educated, slightly more than the Hispanic average, another low turnout pool. They also live in Texas, so voter suppression and other disincentives exist for minority voters there more than in Cali or New Mexico. Even if those measures are stuck down, the psychological effect of them having existed in the 1st place depresses turnout
@Ohlmann
Closer to 30%
@varalys
Reckoning is such a good game! And fuck Curt Schilling 🙂
@Axecalibur: Word. I haven’t played it since 2012 but I recalled I only had one achievement left to get in it (collecting ten of each alchemy reagent) and decided to replay the game from scratch so I could monitor my progess more easily than jumping back into an old save. I consider it one of gaming’s great tragedies that due to financial mismanagement this graphically beautiful, superbly written, brilliantly voice-acted and fantastic to control game will probably never get a sequel.
I can’t stand Trump’s speech patterns either. So many times he’ll start a sentence, then break off and start on one of his rants. It seems like he can’t stay focused on what he is doing. That is not encouraging to see in a potential president.