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I suspect that there's overlap between people who accuse Trump of inciting the riot on January 6th despite his explicit call for 'peace' and people who believe that the 'bloodbath' comment is evidence that Trump is ready for a civil war even though he was clearly talking about the automotive industry.
I think that Trump should be in the past for the good of this country, but when we can't even agree on what words mean anymore, I don't know that I think there's a lot of hope.
Sometimes I think about how we got here. Something I've seen a lot of leftwing people talk about recently is: "The system is what it does." The left is what it does, not what it says it does. The postmodernism, the communism: there's this sense in which I just want to say we can see you. But there's always equivocation about 'the left.' They call it 'essentializing' the left even as they apply their reductive reasoning to Trumpism.
And I'm old enough to remember that Obama came in on backlash to the Bush administration. "Cthulhu swims left" is the sort of thing neophytes say on encountering politics for the first time: it follows that Cthulhu swims right in a great drumbeat. Much of the surveillance apparatus that creates our authoritarian present was built during the Bush administration.
I'm afraid of what people will turn to if Trump isn't enough.
Maybe there aren't firm conclusions in here, but there's no one else talking today, so here I am.
'Trump said there will be a bloodbath for the country' is still less of a lie than 'the election was stolen.'
/shrug. Both sides are largely stupid and dishonest, because people are largely stupid and the incentives around politics reward dishonesty.
Which election, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2016 or 2020?
2000 is the most objectively stolen election in recent memory, the rest are fine.
Not what I was asking.
You said the "bloodbath" quote was "less of a lie" than the election one. Now, in context, that refers to 2020. Now you say 2000?
You were comparing Trump to Al Gore, and positively? That reframes the whole thing!
I think we're getting confused.
I thought you were making a joke, I was replying with a joke.
If your original comment wasn't a joke then I don't know what you mean.
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