US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4686

On August 10 2016 04:44 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


-facepalm-

On August 10 2016 05:27 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I totally agree that trump did not threaten to send gun nuts after hillary.
But, what do you think he was saying there? Like, specifically, is the 'By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I don't know.' part just a joke about someone maybe assassinating her, or what do you think he's saying?

It seems like you've kinda jumped off the trump train so I'm not really asking you to defend him here, I just wonder what a reasonable trump-sympathizer actually thinks about stuff like this. I think a 'trump tries to get hillary clinton assassinated' headline is totally off target - maybe what he was going for for all I know, but.. It's like, there are only like, 3-4 ways for me to interpret this statement kinda. a) a pretty terrible joke - you don't joke about someone shooting your political opponent in front of huge crowds for a multitude of reasons. b) trying to play the headlines game, say something that can be interpreted as incitement of violence but which most of his base won't interpret in that way (they will interpret this interpretation as part of the liberal demonizing machine) c) he just blurted out some words without thinking about the meaning of them at all or d) was actually trying to incentivize people into assassinate hillary clinton, which would be justified because the leftists already assassinated Scalia.

I agree that jumping straight to assuming this is d) is not really reasonable, but I am not really comfortable with reasons a-c either. What do you think was the case/ is there some other explanation that I've missed?

People who have guns will be able to do something to stop Hillary appointing judges

On August 10 2016 05:32 Plansix wrote:
Joking around about shooting any public official is a pretty good way to get arrested.

On August 10 2016 05:43 Mohdoo wrote:


Part of me thinks Trump is trying to skirt the line just enough to get arrested or somehow otherwise legally taken action against. He's trying to justify the world being against him by having the world actually against him.

On August 10 2016 05:27 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I totally agree that trump did not threaten to send gun nuts after hillary.
But, what do you think he was saying there? Like, specifically, is the 'By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I don't know.' part just a joke about someone maybe assassinating her, or what do you think he's saying?

It seems like you've kinda jumped off the trump train so I'm not really asking you to defend him here, I just wonder what a reasonable trump-sympathizer actually thinks about stuff like this. I think a 'trump tries to get hillary clinton assassinated' headline is totally off target - maybe what he was going for for all I know, but.. It's like, there are only like, 3-4 ways for me to interpret this statement kinda. a) a pretty terrible joke - you don't joke about someone shooting your political opponent in front of huge crowds for a multitude of reasons. b) trying to play the headlines game, say something that can be interpreted as incitement of violence but which most of his base won't interpret in that way (they will interpret this interpretation as part of the liberal demonizing machine) c) he just blurted out some words without thinking about the meaning of them at all or d) was actually trying to incentivize people into assassinate hillary clinton, which would be justified because the leftists already assassinated Scalia.

I agree that jumping straight to assuming this is d) is not really reasonable, but I am not really comfortable with reasons a-c either. What do you think was the case/ is there some other explanation that I've missed?

On August 10 2016 05:59 KwarK wrote:
There are an awful lot of Americans who genuinely believe that Obama is a foreign born Muslim, that Hillary killed Ben Ghazi, that Michelle is a man, that Scalia was murdered and so forth. They just never had a spokesman until now. But if you keep in the dank Facebook forwards loop this is all common parlance. People talk about these things all the time, it's just the elitist establishment refused to give them a voice.

And don't think it can't happen to the Democrats. We could just as easily have a black candidate screaming about how Flint was an attempted genocide literally equivalent to Auschwitz, that cops deliberately murder blacks and that fluoride causes black crime.

On August 10 2016 05:32 KwarK wrote:

What he said was, and I'll paraphrase but not add anything that he did not explicitly include so that I can't be viewed as interpreting his words,



I used people who have guns to replace "Second Amendment folks" and cleared up the double negative of "there will be nothing you can do except Second Amendment groups" but that's all and I don't think it substantially changed the meaning.

The problem is literally what he said, it's not about spin, it's that he said that Second Amendment folks will be the exception that are able to do something to stop Hillary.

As for Scalia was not supposed to die, well, logically given the mortality of humans, everyone is supposed to die. Surely someone had that talk with Trump when he was younger, maybe with the help of the passing of a beloved family pet. What he meant can only really be interpreted as "Scalia was not supposed to die yet" which ties in with the pre-existing Scalia murder conspiracy theories. And he didn't say that was a joke. There's no "lol, Hillary probably had Scalia murdered, what a scamp that woman is" context. He straight face said that Scalia was taken before his appointed time.

On August 10 2016 06:03 oBlade wrote:

I don't know whether I count as reasonable, but it sounds like he was alluding to the "if you want my guns, come try to take them" type of people. It's just the way he talks, like vague banter.

He does get headlines but he doesn't have to consciously or deliberately craft a phrase beforehand with that intent, it just happens when he's being himself.

Donald Trump on Tuesday said "the Second Amendment" may be the only way to stop Hillary Clinton from getting to appoint federal judges if she wins the presidential election in November.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” he said, in what appeared to be a joke. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”


The reference to the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, could be interpreted as a joke about using violence to stop Clinton or her judicial picks.

Trump was speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he repeated his regular claim that Clinton intends to “abolish” the Second Amendment, presumably by appointing liberal justices to the Supreme Court. But Trump punctuated that line with an aside, suggesting that Second Amendment supporters might be in a position to stop her even if she’s elected.

The Trump campaign rejected the notion that Trump was inciting violence against Clinton or anyone else with his aside at the Wilmington rally. Instead, the campaign said the Manhattan billionaire was simply appealing to the collective political muscle Second Amendment supporters possess.

“It’s called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power," Trump's senior communications adviser Jason Miller said in a statement emailed to POLITICO. "And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.”

Clinton did not take any questions after her event in Miami on Tuesday, but reached for comment, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook condemned the comments. "This is simple—what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way," he said in a statement.
Following Trump's remark, the main super PAC supporting her, Priorities USA Action, immediately circulated the clip with the subject line, "Donald Trump Just Suggested That Someone Shoot Hillary Clinton."

Congressional Democrats piled on. "I don't know if this is statement is intended to incite violence, but Donald Trump is a reckless individual who will say or do anything," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "That’s inciteful to use language about the Second Amendment ... it should be denounced,"

Rep. Eric Swallwell, a California Democrat, called on Twitter for the Secret Service to investigate. “Donald Trump suggested someone kill Sec. Clinton. We must take people at their word. @SecretService must investigate #TrumpThreat,” he wrote.

(Martin Mulholland, a spokesman for the Secret Service, did not directly address the question of whether the agency – which provides protection to both Trump and Clinton -- plans to investigate the remark, but he wrote in an email to POLITICO, “The Secret Service is aware of the comment.”)

For some die-hard gun rights backers who had been wary of Trump, his comments were confirmation that he doesn’t really get their movement. When the National Rifle Association endorsed Trump in May, Bob Owens, the editor of BearingArms.com, reasoned that he was the best chance to beat Clinton, who has embraced gun control. On Tuesday, however, Owens refused to buy Trump’s explanation that he was talking about voting.

"That was a threat of violence. As a REAL supporter of the #2A it's appalling to me,” Owens tweeted. Bearing Arms had sponsored the May meeting of the NRA’s lobbying arm where the group formally endorsed Trump.

The NRA itself defended the first part of Trump's comment, in which Trump said that Clinton would appoint anti-Second Amendment judges to the Supreme Court.

".@RealDonaldTrump is right. If @HillaryClinton gets to pick her anti-#2A #SCOTUS judges, there’s nothing we can do. #NeverHillary," the organization tweeted from its official Twitter account.

The group subsequently encouraged members to vote for pro-gun rights candidates. "But there IS something we will do on #ElectionDay: Show up and vote for the #2A! #DefendtheSecond #NeverHillary," the group wrote on its Twitter account.

On August 10 2016 06:13 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Isn't the 'if you want my guns, come try to take them' crowd actually saying that they will murder appointed law officials if they try to confiscate their guns (even though this would be a policy consequence of democratic elections)? Is this really a group Trump should encourage?