He’s coming right out and saying it. What more do people need? You’ll be safe if you’re a white, cishet, Christian man. Anyone else who helps this guy into office could be potentially signing their own death warrant and he’s coming right out and admitting it. Promoting it.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Trump’s apparent embrace of the article seems to be his latest explicit acknowledgment that he is done with the guardrails, checks and balances, and other democratic institutions that restrain the powers of the American presidency.

    I don’t think that’s right - the bar for “explicit acknowledgment” is pretty high. The context of the post indicates to me that he’s saying “they used to claim I couldn’t win the election, but now that everyone can see that I can, they’ve switched to claiming that it would be really terrible if I won.” The message is “look how scared of me they are” and “look how powerful even they acknowledge I’d be” and not necessarily “I’m going to be as bad as they say.”

    (If I ever have the Washington Post compare me to Julius Caesar, I’ll be sending that article to everyone.)

    • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      When my loved ones and I are being marched to the gas chamber I know I’ll be thinking about whether or not we were charitable enough to the man ordering our execution back when he could have been stopped.

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I’m not telling you to be charitable. I’m saying that the words “explicit acknowledgement” actually mean something, such that this isn’t an explicit acknowledgement.

        • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          So you’re saying words mean something? This is what Trump said:

          “That’s why it was one of the great presidencies, they say. Even the opponents sometimes say he did very well, I have to say. ‘Take it back,’ they scream. his people say ‘Take it back.’ From that day on, our opponents, a lot of opponents, but we’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy.”

            • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Have you thought about the possibility that Trump wants to be a dictator? He’s said a lot of things that imply that or do you just think he’s joking? Usually when you have a failed coup and don’t want to leave your office, people see that person as wanting to be a dictator. A dictator is against democracy, it’s the definition of a dictator.

              • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                The question isn’t whether he’s against democracy (which he is IMO) but whether he explicitly said that he’s against democracy (which he didn’t).

                • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  tbh, he could have been saying in or on, Snopes is just one person’s opinion on a big site. Not sure why you’re fighting on this hill. We have the same opinion that he’s against democracy, so why are you sticking up for him on this instance? He’s not gotten credit for so many times saying he’s a fascist, why do you care if he gets credit this one time even if it isn’t due?

                  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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                    11 months ago

                    I think having correct knowledge is important for its own sake - if in fact he didn’t say it, I don’t want to have the incorrect belief that he said it. I also think that understanding what beliefs Trump and his supporters actually have is useful for understanding what they’re doing and what they might do in the future. Know thy enemy and all that…

              • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                What he’s saying doesn’t make much sense, even in context.

                From that day on our opponents, and we had a lot of opponents, but we’ve been waging an all-out war in American democracy. You look at what they’ve been doing, and becoming more and more extreme and repressive. They have just waged an all-out war with each passing day.

                Snopes believes that Trump misspoke, and that he meant to say that his opponents are waging a war on American democracy. I suppose he could also mean that he’s waging a war against his opponents in the context of American democracy. But I think it’s fairly clear that he isn’t saying that he’s the one waging war on American democracy.

                • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  I mean it’s not the first time he has said gibberish lol. I like being accurate if I can. Appreciate the snopes link.

                  I think in the context of his previous actions and the GOP Project 2025 that his and his party’s intentions are clear enough for most folks. I might have given him the benefit of the doubt in 2015 early on but within a couple months it was clear to me what he was all about. I just wished others had figured it out and voted accordingly. Ah well.

                  It will be interesting to see if Americans have learned anything since then or if we still have the collective memory of goldfish.

    • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Well yes, that is the dishonest “plausible deniability” he frequently uses for exactly this sort of thing.

      It’s just a super crazy coincidence that he keeps talking about destroying democracy and linking articles discussing himself as a literal dictator.

    • Cosmicomical@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      This kind of ambiguity is where these people thrive. Those who want to charge will hear him calling them to arms, those who want to ignore him can think he said nothing too bad.
      With this guy it’s definitely ok to interpret everything he does or says the worse way possible. We have seen him act in the past, he has lost the benefit of doubt.