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US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4367

Forum Index > General Forum
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!

NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.

Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.


If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45343 Posts
August 28 2024 18:53 GMT
#87321
On August 29 2024 03:44 oBlade wrote:
Guys if "would" is too hard you should at least be able to go by what "if" means, it's beneath everyone to pretend not to know how to speak English, and deny basic reality like this. Retarded incorrect paraphrases from secondary articles- written by people containing obvious tells such as:
Show nested quote +
McGraw, who fawned over Trump earlier this summer, followed up:

Show nested quote +
Trump was given the opportunity to rule out breaking the law if re-elected, but he refused to do so.

do not replace the content of primary quotes.


It sounds like you're trying to pull a BlackJack and make a poor semantics argument too. Please don't. Trump said he got more votes than Biden did, in California. That means that Trump is saying that he deserved California's electoral votes, because he won California, and that the only reason why that didn't happen is because the election was rigged and the vote talliers lied (and because Jesus didn't count them).

Instead of trying to make it sound like Trump didn't say what he said, maybe try asking him how he could know the true numbers of votes for him and for Biden in California. What evidence does Trump have that he actually won California? Is there a separate set of results somewhere?
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5932 Posts
August 28 2024 18:57 GMT
#87322
You have to be semantic to differentiate between different things, because things being different can affect whether they are true or false, or right or wrong.

Before I address all those separate beautiful questions, can you just do me a favor and point me to the exact sentence Trump said that he got more votes in California.

The only sentence I see is
Donald Trump insisted in a meandering interview with television host Dr. Phil McGraw on Tuesday that he had actually won California

which is again not from Trump but some yahoo writing an article on Yahoo. Any idiot can do that. Just because he is wrong doesn't mean we need to copy him.

Do you have access to the full interview which is only available on Dr. Phil's platform "Merit Street Media" by chance? Because I scoured the Youtube interview and it doesn't contain a segment about California? If you're holding out on us please share, copyright be damned, but despite perusing the 3 minute read Yahoo article I can't find a sentence saying what you say.
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
BlackJack
Profile Blog Joined June 2003
United States10574 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-08-28 18:59:11
August 28 2024 18:58 GMT
#87323
On August 29 2024 03:49 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 29 2024 03:38 BlackJack wrote:
On August 29 2024 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On August 29 2024 03:21 BlackJack wrote:
The link you’ve provided doesn’t contain Trump saying he won California in 2020


It's very clearly at the beginning of the article. He's saying he had more votes in California:

"Donald Trump insisted in a meandering interview with television host Dr. Phil McGraw on Tuesday that he had actually won California, adding that all he needed was an “honest vote counter”—Jesus Christ, to be exact.

“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter—I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done—but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”

Dr. Phil, sounding surprised, replied: “You think so?”

“Oh I think so,” Trump said. “I see it. I go around California, they have Trumps signs all over the place...It’s a very dishonest [state], everything is mail-in. They send out 38 million ballots, I think it is,” Trump continued, forging ahead into a monologue about how California is a dishonest system.

“Any time you have a mail-in ballot, you’re going to have massive fraud,” he added."


I get that the Yahoo article says that Trump said that. But you can clearly see from the quoted text that he didn’t say that.

I think the more interesting take here is why you can’t trust the mainstream media and shouldn’t believe everything they say. The other take - that Trump is so full of himself to the point of delusion is already common knowledge.


Trump clearly said it. It's in the article. He said he got more votes than Biden in California - which means he said he won California - and that the reason why California was given to Biden is because there was lying/cheating in regards to the vote tallies. Please don't play dumb, or try to make this a semantics thing. It's not. Trump said that more Californians voted for him than for Biden - that all those electoral votes from California should have gone to Trump (if only the election weren't rigged against him).


Here, I compiled a checklist of things Trump actually said contained in the article for your convenience

[ ] I won California in 2020
[ ] I got more votes than Biden in California
[ ] More Californians voted for me than Biden
[ ] All those electoral votes from California should have gone to me
[x] If Jesus Christ was the vote counter I would win California

The top 4 seem to be from your imagination, but of course you will be undeterred and try to convince me that my lying eyes are making me unable to see the truth
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45343 Posts
August 28 2024 19:06 GMT
#87324
On August 29 2024 03:57 oBlade wrote:
You have to be semantic to differentiate between different things, because things being different can affect whether they are true or false, or right or wrong.

Before I address all those separate beautiful questions, can you just do me a favor and point me to the exact sentence Trump said that he got more votes in California.


“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter—I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done—but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”

He's saying he got more votes and won California but the vote counter was dishonest and misreported it as a Biden victory.

I guess I got my answer to the question of "how could Trump asserting he won California be defended by anyone" - muddying the waters and denying he actually said it. This isn't semantics. If you or BlackJack end up with a different argument besides refusing to read the article while commenting on the article, let me know.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
BlackJack
Profile Blog Joined June 2003
United States10574 Posts
August 28 2024 19:21 GMT
#87325
On August 29 2024 04:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 29 2024 03:57 oBlade wrote:
You have to be semantic to differentiate between different things, because things being different can affect whether they are true or false, or right or wrong.

Before I address all those separate beautiful questions, can you just do me a favor and point me to the exact sentence Trump said that he got more votes in California.


“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter—I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done—but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”

He's saying he got more votes and won California but the vote counter was dishonest and misreported it as a Biden victory.

I guess I got my answer to the question of "how could Trump asserting he won California be defended by anyone" - muddying the waters and denying he actually said it. This isn't semantics. If you or BlackJack end up with a different argument besides refusing to read the article while commenting on the article, let me know.


There's two big clues he's not talking about 2020 here.

The big clue is he says "I would win" not "I won" or "I would have won." We all read beyond a 3rd grade level so I'm not going to elaborate further here.

The 2nd big clue is he says "I do great with Hispanics, at a level no Republican has ever done."

Trump's support among Latinos, at least in polling has improved dramatically since 2020

How do you explain away the fact that "I would win California" is not past tense? Are you going with Gorsameth's claim that Trump is just bad a grammar and he really meant to say "I won california in 2020 and all those electoral votes should have gone to me"?
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5932 Posts
August 28 2024 19:29 GMT
#87326
"Scour" means "search thoroughly" not "refuse to read."

For the sake of argument, can you entertain one more curiosity of mine? If Trump wanted to simply say that if we had an honest vote counter, he would win California, how would he phrase that?

Since saying if we had an honest vote counter, he would win California, actually means that he got more votes and won California but the vote counter was dishonest and misreported it as a Biden victory, I'm wondering what expression he could use if he wanted to simply say that if we had an honest vote counter, he would win California. Is this just a flaw in Trumpese that it has no perfect modals? Or past perfect tenses? For example in English we might say "if we had had an honest vote counter, I would have won California," which now that I think of it also means the opposite of "I won California," but I don't know if Trumpese has such big grammar but you seem to be the expert.

Also what word translates from Trumpese to "2020?" As far as I know he's been in 4 elections in California and lost two. Two in 2016 and two in 2020.
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2654 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-08-28 19:45:54
August 28 2024 19:38 GMT
#87327
On August 28 2024 20:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 28 2024 19:58 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On August 28 2024 19:34 Magic Powers wrote:
On August 28 2024 19:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On August 28 2024 19:10 Magic Powers wrote:
On August 28 2024 11:21 Fleetfeet wrote:
On August 28 2024 10:20 Magic Powers wrote:
On August 28 2024 07:31 Fleetfeet wrote:
On August 28 2024 07:22 Magic Powers wrote:
On August 28 2024 07:06 BlackJack wrote:
[quote]

Right. I said I would commit murder in certain circumstances. Uldridge said he would commit genocide in certain circumstances. You really can’t figure out why I’m picking on you and not Uldridge? It’s not because I think “not murdering anyone no matter what” is morally worse than genocide. It’s because it’s a facade of bullshit that you’re standing behind to pretend to be morally superior and you’re too stubborn to acknowledge the flaws in your logic. As someone else said earlier, you just want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to be morally superior by not murdering the one person but also you don’t want all the Jews to die. It’s simply the most obnoxious answer to the trolley problem. You’re trying to deceptively give an “I would save both” answer without saying it blatantly because you know it’s counter to the entire thought experiment.


No, I can't figure out why you're not picking on Uldridge but instead you prefer to pick on me. Explain it, please. Elaborate. Why exactly is the willingness to commit genocide less bad than the unwillingness to commit murder?


Because "I would stop at nothing to defend my children" is a more sensible and relatable human position than "If someone held a gun to my family I would not murder them because human life has infinite value"

The morality of it is not at question and never has been. The practicality of it is what we question. "Peace on earth, and no murder or crime or sin from anyone ever" is a similarly empty ideal. Great on paper, but far from human.

Like it just doesn't work. Run a thought experiment envisioning a world where everyone adopts "Human life has infinite value" with your understanding that the important parts of human life is that everyone is born, lives, and dies.

There's no calculation for quality of life, and as infinite is a maximal value, there is also no calculation for length. Therefore, in a world where everyone believes human life has infinite value, the single most important thing is the number of lives experiencing this infinite value. People should be solely interested in *producing life*, regardless of that life's quality or length.

...But even that isn't accounting for infinite value, because 10 babies experiencing "infinite value" is the same value as one baby, or one parent, or a thousand parents. As long as there IS life, the value is infinite. Death, murder, starvation, torture, genocide, joy, birth... all irrelevant.

Do you see how quickly the ideal "Human life has infinite value" becomes entirely meaningless? There's no depth to the statement at all. It doesn't mean anything and is not an ideal you can apply any practicality to. Your trolley calculations don't change, because as long as one thing survives we're still at the maximal possible value for human life.


I see the disagreement between us stems from the fact that you define murder completely differently than the law. Look up the definition. Self-defense is covered and is not considered murder. The defense of your family is considered self-defense.


So your statement isn't "Human life has infinite value", it's "Human life has finite value, evaluated by how much of a threat or benefit they are to other human life"

Murder, my definition of murder, and the law all have nothing to do with the statement "Human life has infinite value". Its only connection to murder is because you brought it up in the calculus justifying your equation "1 x = 1000000 x" because X can only solve as 0 or infinity (sorry mathematicians for being wrong and reductive).

I'm taking the x (x = human life has infinite value) from that equation and seeing if that value holds up anywhere else. That's how you should test whether or not you're on to anything. Murder is irrelevant to trying to determine whether or not "Human life has infinite value" holds up anywhere else in life, or if it was just convenient in this singular.

This is why I present the murder hypothetical of someone murdering your family and you not acting in self defense - not because I don't know how to define murder, but because in THAT calculus, 1 x is not equal to your family x. This shows that the value of human life cannot be infinite and must be finite. Murder is irrelevant.


You still don't understand what murder is. Murder is willfully taking an innocent life. It's also an act of destroying infinite value.


That's your personal addendum for "murder", because of how you claim to value each life. The ethical and legal definitions of murder don't say anything about "infinite value". Just because people disagree with your personal addendum or are skeptical that you truly believe in that addendum or think you're applying that addendum illogically, doesn't mean they "don't understand what murder is".

Also, there's no such thing as "infinite value", and the abstract, hand-waving "infinity" math you've been doing to support your position is utterly ridiculous and not applicable to actual physical events, like murder. I'm referring to your statements like this: "Infinity times a million is not a greater infinity than infinity times one. It's the same. One murder equates to a million murders." I've been trying to ignore it, but you keep doubling and tripling down on your position, despite everyone poking holes in it from all sides. I guess I have myself and my fellow math educators to blame, when it comes to people casually asserting "infinity" to avoid doing actual arithmetic or logical reasoning.


I'm not using the legal definition of "murder" to arrive at "infinite value". I'm using the legal definition to prove that people have conflated all forms of killing with murder in this discussion without realizing it because they don't know what murder entails and how self-defense is different from murder.

From the start I've used the term "murder". People in their minds thought I was including self-defense in that. I wasn't, never was.


The issue isn't with murder vs. self-defense. The issue is with your statements like "I attribute infinite value to every single individual life." That's not a thing. Nobody can attribute infinite value, because infinite value is a meaningless phrase. You asserting that you magically grant infinite value to each life, just so you can provide a post hoc rationalization that 1 arbitrary murder is as bad as 100 or 1,000,000 of them, "because anything times infinity is infinity", is just bullshit and a bastardization of math.


The issue is definitely 100% with people's misuse of "murder".

This is what Fleet said:

[image loading]

Fleet held the (incorrect) view that self-defense is murder. He believed that if someone (i.e. an aggressor) threatened his family with a gun, killing that aggressor would constitute murder. It's right there in the quote.
He's wrong. Objectively, 100%, provably, demonstrably, guaranteed, by all means, wrong.

And he's not the only one who apparently made that same mistake in this discussion.
You can keep blaming me for this, but the mistake is squarely on others. If people don't even know what words they're using and yet they're using them anyway incorrectly, the logical conclusion is that they are the ones who made a mistake. You're shifting the blame to the wrong person. You gotta look at Fleet and others who misused the term "murder" and equated it to "self-defense".


I held your hand and walked you through why murder was irrelevant. So have others, at this point. Your position is naive and you're clearly unwilling to engage contest on it, so I'm moving on.

You are correct that the quote is an incorrect use of the word 'murder'. You are incorrect in thinking that is relevant in disproving 'human life has infinite value'.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45343 Posts
August 28 2024 19:41 GMT
#87328
On August 29 2024 04:21 BlackJack wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 29 2024 04:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On August 29 2024 03:57 oBlade wrote:
You have to be semantic to differentiate between different things, because things being different can affect whether they are true or false, or right or wrong.

Before I address all those separate beautiful questions, can you just do me a favor and point me to the exact sentence Trump said that he got more votes in California.


“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter—I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done—but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”

He's saying he got more votes and won California but the vote counter was dishonest and misreported it as a Biden victory.

I guess I got my answer to the question of "how could Trump asserting he won California be defended by anyone" - muddying the waters and denying he actually said it. This isn't semantics. If you or BlackJack end up with a different argument besides refusing to read the article while commenting on the article, let me know.


There's two big clues he's not talking about 2020 here.

The big clue is he says "I would win" not "I won" or "I would have won." We all read beyond a 3rd grade level so I'm not going to elaborate further here.

The 2nd big clue is he says "I do great with Hispanics, at a level no Republican has ever done."

Trump's support among Latinos, at least in polling has improved dramatically since 2020

How do you explain away the fact that "I would win California" is not past tense? Are you going with Gorsameth's claim that Trump is just bad a grammar and he really meant to say "I won california in 2020 and all those electoral votes should have gone to me"?


"Had" is literally past tense, and he used that word twice. So is "came". So is "was". I'm happy to agree that Trump's grammar isn't perfect, but that doesn't change anything. Also, Trump says he does great with everyone, everywhere, all the time. Whether or not he's doing better now than he did in 2020 with Hispanics doesn't change his assertion about California.

If you want to believe that he's saying he's going to win California this time around, then go for it. He's wrong about that too.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45343 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-08-28 19:49:18
August 28 2024 19:46 GMT
#87329
On August 29 2024 04:29 oBlade wrote:
Also what word translates from Trumpese to "2020?" As far as I know he's been in 4 elections in California and lost two. Two in 2016 and two in 2020.


I already went through grammar and verb tenses, so I'll just focus on this part. When you say two in 2016 and two in 2020, are you including his California Republican primaries? Because he won both those, so he wouldn't be complaining about losing those. (He also won the 2024 California Republican primary, which I guess makes 5 elections in California.) Therefore, he's definitely talking about general elections, because those are the only ones he lost in California.

So I suppose there's a chance that he's asserting that he would have won the 2016 California electoral votes instead of the 2020 California electoral votes, sure. Or maybe he's saying he won both? I don't know if any of these options are any better, because they're all incorrect, but that's a fair point. Maybe he thinks he beat Hillary in 2016 California, instead of Biden in 2020 California.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5932 Posts
August 28 2024 19:54 GMT
#87330
Ah okay I got it. If he actually meant what BlackJack and I stupidly think he meant, by reading the words he said, he would have said

"If Jesus Christ will come down and be the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” because that's the actual grammatically perfect way to express the thought that we mistakenly think he was trying to express. As you can plainly see, the front of the sentence contains the future tense and not the past tense. Trump's used the past tense, so it must be in the past. Just like in the parallel example, "If I had a billion dollars, I would buy every user involved in this altercation a dictionary," the "had" is talking about the past because I used to have a billion dollars but I don't anymore, which is why none of us have dictionaries and this ridiculous discussion has arisen.
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
Acrofales
Profile Joined August 2010
Spain18232 Posts
August 28 2024 19:57 GMT
#87331
I can't believe I'm siding with oBlade here, but I think this is all Yahoo (and maybe Dr Phil as well) misinterpreting Trump's nonsense for something even more delusional than what he said. Going purely off the snippets in the article, I think it's a very fair interpretation to say Trump is saying that he would win California in the 2024 election if only there weren't wide-scale election fraud. There's no evidence there has ever been wide-scale election fraud, let alone at the amount it'd take for California to flip Trump, but it's his usual blathering, not a new delusion about past elections: a hypothetical contrafactual about the upcoming election fits the grammar better, and let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He's sure to say something truly covfefe again tomorrow, we don't need the hype machine today.
Sadist
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
United States7326 Posts
August 28 2024 19:58 GMT
#87332
This is a dumb arguement.

We all know Trump speaks English bigly. The biglyest of anyone. Only nasty people dont agree he had a perfect conversation and never mixes up tenses. 93% of people support.

Why you guys twist in pretzels trying to defend him I will never know. Hes lost the benefit of the doubt. If he said the earth was flat youd argue that hes talking about at the subatomic scale or something.



How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal and you have to be willing to work for it. Jim Valvano
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45343 Posts
August 28 2024 20:00 GMT
#87333
On August 29 2024 04:54 oBlade wrote:
Ah okay I got it. If he actually meant what BlackJack and I stupidly think he meant, by reading the words he said, he would have said

"If Jesus Christ will come down and be the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” because that's the actual grammatically perfect way to express the thought that we mistakenly think he was trying to express. As you can plainly see, the front of the sentence contains the future tense and not the past tense. Trump's used the past tense, so it must be in the past. Just like in the parallel example, "If I had a billion dollars, I would buy every user involved in this altercation a dictionary," the "had" is talking about the past because I used to have a billion dollars but I don't anymore, which is why none of us have dictionaries and this ridiculous discussion has arisen.


I'm fine with agreeing that Trump doesn't have perfect grammar. Many people don't. However, if the majority of his verb tenses are past tense, then it probably isn't ideal to assume he means future tense. That's the last note I'll make on the issue.

If you think he meant 2016 California general election, then he's wrong.
If you think he meant 2020 California general election, then he's wrong.
If you think he meant 2024 California general election, then he's still wrong.

Cool.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Byo
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Canada210 Posts
August 28 2024 20:04 GMT
#87334
Is this where we discuss literally what Trump says? Cuz i'm pretty certain Jesus Christ isn't coming back, and if by some miracle he comes back I certainly hope no one is expecting him to be counting votes. Give the guy a break.

Just weird if you ask me, but I know, no one did (ask me).
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28756 Posts
August 28 2024 20:09 GMT
#87335
I think it's a bit ambiguous but tbh my reading is that he's saying he would win the 2024 california election if not for the election being rigged.

Here's the caveat though - this is actually a worse statement than him saying he would have won it in 2020 if not for the rigged election, because it's him already building up the narrative that the 2024 election will be stolen from him (if he doesn't win) and I'd be pretty surprised if it doesn't lead to some fairly wide spread riots, should he lose.
Moderator
BlackJack
Profile Blog Joined June 2003
United States10574 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-08-28 20:23:08
August 28 2024 20:12 GMT
#87336
On August 29 2024 04:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 29 2024 04:21 BlackJack wrote:
On August 29 2024 04:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On August 29 2024 03:57 oBlade wrote:
You have to be semantic to differentiate between different things, because things being different can affect whether they are true or false, or right or wrong.

Before I address all those separate beautiful questions, can you just do me a favor and point me to the exact sentence Trump said that he got more votes in California.


“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” Trump said. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter—I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done—but if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.”

He's saying he got more votes and won California but the vote counter was dishonest and misreported it as a Biden victory.

I guess I got my answer to the question of "how could Trump asserting he won California be defended by anyone" - muddying the waters and denying he actually said it. This isn't semantics. If you or BlackJack end up with a different argument besides refusing to read the article while commenting on the article, let me know.


There's two big clues he's not talking about 2020 here.

The big clue is he says "I would win" not "I won" or "I would have won." We all read beyond a 3rd grade level so I'm not going to elaborate further here.

The 2nd big clue is he says "I do great with Hispanics, at a level no Republican has ever done."

Trump's support among Latinos, at least in polling has improved dramatically since 2020

How do you explain away the fact that "I would win California" is not past tense? Are you going with Gorsameth's claim that Trump is just bad a grammar and he really meant to say "I won california in 2020 and all those electoral votes should have gone to me"?


"Had" is literally past tense, and he used that word twice. So is "came". So is "was". I'm happy to agree that Trump's grammar isn't perfect, but that doesn't change anything. Also, Trump says he does great with everyone, everywhere, all the time. Whether or not he's doing better now than he did in 2020 with Hispanics doesn't change his assertion about California.

If you want to believe that he's saying he's going to win California this time around, then go for it. He's wrong about that too.


Using "was" in "If Jesus was the vote counter I would win California" doesn't imply he's talking about 2020. "Vote counter" is a title that can be assigned before the election. A few months ago you could say "If Kamala was the nominee..." it would still refer to Kamala being the nominee in an upcoming election, not a past election.

It's also just a really odd argument to say "well he also used some past tense verbs during his rant so it makes sense to assume 'I would win California' can also refer to the past." Also worth noting that you keep bringing up "electoral votes" saying that Trump said he would have won those electoral votes or they would have gone to him if it wasn't rigged. "Electoral votes" doesn't appear anywhere in Trump's quote and it also doesn't even appear anywhere in the article at all. This truly is a case of you making up what you want to believe.

Anyway, the fact you and Gorsameth both quoted the same line from the article at me before you both quickly realized it was Yahoo saying that and not Trump saying that causing you both to rush to edit your posts got a chuckle out of me. Well worth the digression. I think I will bow out now before I get accused of "nitpicking" because I love defending fascists or whatever.
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5932 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-08-28 20:13:29
August 28 2024 20:12 GMT
#87337
On August 29 2024 04:58 Sadist wrote:
This is a dumb arguement.

We all know Trump speaks English bigly. The biglyest of anyone. Only nasty people dont agree he had a perfect conversation and never mixes up tenses. 93% of people support.

Why you guys twist in pretzels trying to defend him I will never know. Hes lost the benefit of the doubt. If he said the earth was flat youd argue that hes talking about at the subatomic scale or something.

You went the wrong direction but yes. The universe is flat at cosmologic scales. The smallest scales it might be more curly.

Trump is not the one mixing up tenses here.

Grammatical tense is not necessarily directly related to the time things are happening. Especially in (apparently) complicated esoteric expressions like hypotheticals.

The question "What would you do if you won the lottery?" is not answered by "I didn't" in serious circles. Despite the fact "won" is past tense. The sentence "I go to the bar on Fridays" is not answered by "It's Thursday, you idiot" just because "go" is in the "present" tense. The sentence "I'm meeting a friend tomorrow," isn't answered by "No, you're sitting down right now." Grammatical possession is the same. It's just grammatical. When you say "I love my country" it's not because your country physically belongs to you and you can put it in your bag just because that's what "possess" means.
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26345 Posts
August 28 2024 20:16 GMT
#87338
Ok let’s say, I dunno the Arsenal manager who’ve finished runners-up in the English Premier League said, ahead of this season ‘If the referees were fair I would win the league’

People would, I think rightly infer that the manager is only making that comment of their future prospects, because they felt negatively impacted by it in the past as well.

Otherwise, why would you have come to that conclusion and made the comment?

Sometimes a coach will say something like ‘we didn’t deserve to win tonight, but the referees were terrible’.

Which also isn’t something Trump said either. If he’d said something like ‘Hey I lost California in 2020 fair and square but believe me unless Jesus Christ comes back I’m not gonna win it in 2024’, then yes

Let’s go to a topic you bring up quite frequently, higher admissions standards requirements for Asians for schools like Harvard. If you see a Tweet like ‘Attempt number 3 coming up! If admission standards were fair I would get in’ It would entirely be reasonable to assume, if you have knowledge of the context that said individual isn’t purely making a future prediction, but commenting on the past as well.

If said same individual said ‘hey I fucked my exams those past 2 times, but I’m gonna nail it this time, shame admission standards are still gonna keep me out’ it’s open to quite a different interpretation with that caveat

Ok, he didn’t explicitly say that he won California in 2020. Fair enough

It’s an entirely reasonable contextual extrapolation. Or, alternatively if we go full Men in Black and wipe our memories and read it entirely literally, divorced from that. Well he’s just ‘merely’ saying he thinks the electoral process is rigged which is better how?

'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26345 Posts
August 28 2024 20:20 GMT
#87339
On August 29 2024 04:58 Sadist wrote:
This is a dumb arguement.

We all know Trump speaks English bigly. The biglyest of anyone. Only nasty people dont agree he had a perfect conversation and never mixes up tenses. 93% of people support.

Why you guys twist in pretzels trying to defend him I will never know. Hes lost the benefit of the doubt. If he said the earth was flat youd argue that hes talking about at the subatomic scale or something.


He’s like some final boss for some rather talented devil’s advocates and contrarians the world over.

He’s probably amongst the least deserving of public figures for the extension of the doubt going, but hey folks love a challenge
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26345 Posts
August 28 2024 20:31 GMT
#87340
On August 29 2024 05:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I think it's a bit ambiguous but tbh my reading is that he's saying he would win the 2024 california election if not for the election being rigged.

Here's the caveat though - this is actually a worse statement than him saying he would have won it in 2020 if not for the rigged election, because it's him already building up the narrative that the 2024 election will be stolen from him (if he doesn't win) and I'd be pretty surprised if it doesn't lead to some fairly wide spread riots, should he lose.

Exactly this.

For this one, while I blame Trump for the obvious reasons, it’s a far bigger damning indictment on the GOP more widely. Trump is gonna Trump, it’s what he does.

That they didn’t have the balls to draw the line on the bogus claims of electoral fraud given where that lead last time round is positively disgraceful.

Not just cowardly on a moral or principle level, but indicative of a real inability to read the room. People aren’t buying into this narrative as an anti-GOP one, but as a very specifically anti-Trump one. Which means the former can’t diverge from the latter without inviting the same fury. ‘Hang Mike Pence’ being the most obvious example of what happens when you try to get off the tiger
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
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