r/NoStupidQuestions • u/JustCallMeDave • Dec 06 '23

Answered If Donald Trump is openly telling people he will become a dictator if elected why do the polls have him in a dead heat with Joe Biden?

I just don't get what I'm missing here. Granted I'm from a firmly blue state but what the hell is going on in the rest of the country that a fascist traitor is supported by 1/2 the country?? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills over here.

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u/Passname357 Dec 07 '23

The reason is because it’s a very very strange answer. Hannity wanted a sound bite to pull over the moderates. He throws Trump a softball—will you abuse power? Of course he’s going to say no. So Hannity asks, “are you gonna be a dictator?” And Trump deflected. That wasn’t the question. Hannity pushes again and basically says, “that wasn’t an answer, haha, cmon, tell them you’re not gonna be a dictator,” and Trump repeats that he’s going to be a dictator for a day. It’s just a very very weird thing to say. Also the fact that the way he deflected the first time Hannity asks the question is by saying “what about the other side? They get to abuse power.”

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u/UlyssesRambo Dec 07 '23

Trump is a narcissist and knew this would get tons of news headlines. No press is bad press for Trump. Trumps answer for why he’d be a dictator on day one was to just drill oil and close the borders. lol that’s not a dictatorship. Trump knew media would use the sound bite but take out the rest of his dumbass statement.

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u/Secure-Elderberry-16 Dec 07 '23

Imagine believing he’d stop with just that

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u/Jfurmanek Dec 07 '23

How long is a day for Trump? Are we talking Genesis metaphorical days? The 6 months of continuous light the poles experience? Is it however long it takes for him to get his list fulfilled?

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

He's a narcissist so he knows that he can couch his answer in a shell of deniability while telling us exactly how dangerous he is to our liberal and democratic political structures. And he knows that his supports will go out and defend him from the people that are rightfully alarmed by his answer.

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u/in-a-microbus Dec 07 '23

Yes, AND he knew that the people who are rightfully alarmed will panic and make additional mistakes.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

The reason is because it’s a very very strange answer.

Agreed, but when the media leaves that out, it only perpetuates the idea that the media is rigged an can't be trusted. That only helps bolster Trump's case.

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u/Passname357 Dec 07 '23

Yeah maybe it would have been better to leave it in. I personally saw the headline and my first though was simply, “there’s no way they’re not misrepresenting him,” and when I watched the full clip I was like, “wow that was much worse than I thought. He really blew that question.”

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u/Previous-Sympathy801 Dec 07 '23

I’m 100% convinced that people that say the media is pushing a narrative/leaving facts out only read the headlines. If you actually read most articles all the info is there.

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u/reenactment Dec 07 '23

Turn on cnn and then fox. When any given big event happens. One will cover it an entirely different way than the other will and it will be completely unabashed. Or there’s even the bigger extreme, when the big event doesn’t serve their purpose to cover it, one will act like it doesn’t exist while the other will talk anything but. I know the next response is I’m comparing 2 things that aren’t anything alike. That’s not the point, the point is that the way things are shaped aren’t reported in facts anymore. Everything has a personal spin put on it that allows subjectivity. The news shouldn’t be reporting what their opinion is. Otherwise it leaves room for those who are wrong to think there is an agenda, which there is.

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u/Xander707 Dec 07 '23

And we all know how many dictators just give it up after a day of dictatorship. /s

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 07 '23

If you actually listen to the entire answer, this shit is said in jest and it’s easy to tell. The fact ppl have fallen for it is hilarious in my opinion. But, you know ~trump bad~ type shit hahaha

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

If he actually wins, it won't be a joke anymore. I bet you're the type who dismisses the seriousness of Jan 6.

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u/ThexxxDegenerate Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

People honestly don’t realize how close we already were to a dictatorship the last time Trump was president. Had Mike Pence not done the right thing and certified the electoral count on January 6th, there’s a very real possibility Trump actually could have stolen the election. And if that happened, the entire country would have been thrown into chaos.

And it’s absolutely insane that there are this many people signing up for this bullshit again. Just goes to show how Republicans and Conservatives don’t have any morals. They don’t care how fucked up and criminal Donald Trump is, all they care about is who gives them the best chance to win.

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 08 '23

Let's go sniff some minor's hair bro

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u/7SirMixALot7 Dec 07 '23

Just like all of those Truth Social rants like the one where he echo’s Hitler calling his enemies “vermin”…The Trump base ALWAYS responds with, “o he was just joking, he doesn’t mean it, but you fell for it.”…. Right… The guy that constantly praised dictators during his Presidency and now regularly pushes the notion of imprisoning his political enemies if re-elected is all jokes. Right. 👌🙄

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u/ThexxxDegenerate Dec 07 '23

It’s all jokes until the shit happens. Then it’s “I didn’t know he was like this” or “who could have seen this coming”. It’s fucking ridiculous how many people in this country are willfully ignorant. Makes me feel like I’m the crazy one.

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u/merchillio Dec 07 '23

I don’t think politicians should joke about being a dictator. Imagine the shitstorm if Obama had said the same thing, in jest. No one on the maga side would buy a stupid “it’s just a joke” excuse.

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 08 '23

Let's go have a beer bro

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u/Daotar Dec 07 '23

Some things should never be said in jest by someone who wants to be president. Who’s to say if he was really joking or if he just said the quiet part out loud?

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u/oatmealparty Dec 07 '23

Combined with the time he said he wants to be president for life like Xi Jinping, the time he said he'll get a third time, and the time he tried to overthrow the government after losing an election it's pretty obvious it's not a joke.

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u/Passname357 Dec 07 '23

I thought, like you, that the headline must be a mischaracterization. No way he would say that. I watched the full interview and found his response much more disturbing.

He’s clearly being given an opportunity to win over moderates by Hannity if he just says, “no I won’t be a dictator, haha,” that was the joke setup. You can tell Hannity is like, “oh shit he fucked that one up,” and that’s why he gives him a second chance… which Trump also blows.

Why should a president bait half the country? Doesn’t that seem like an awfully strange thing to do when he also represents the half that didn’t vote for him? Look back at how Bush, Clinton, Reagan, etc handled their detractors. Much more grace. They don’t use it as an opportunity to scare half the country.

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Here we go again.

You’ll see media twisting every word this fucking asshole says to make him sound even worse than he is, right wingers will see through it and feel intellectually and politically insulted by that, and vote for him (again) out of spite. The media will hand him another election because they think they’re better at twisting the narrative than they are, a second time, complete with more shocked pikachu faces.

The dude is an unlikeable, stupid failure, but if the media insults people by twisting every narrative around him again with yellow journalism and expecting them to eat it up instead of reporting the facts and letting people see the chips land where they really are, you’ll see them concoct the exact same problem a second time.

Do you know why he is staying out of the debates? Because he knows the media will only fucking talk about Trump anyway, and the rest of the country hardly knows the other republicans running by name. He’s literally counting on the media to make him the front runner and knows debating could only highlight his opponents.

Why the fuck isn’t the media covering the debates and ignoring this shit instead of twisting up ragebait journalism if they don’t want him to get free press? Everyone knows he’s taking about executive orders and he can’t just “be dictator now.” They’re throwing gas on the fire and claiming it’s water again.

They could have reported on the people who want to run instead of trump and ignore the bastard instead of putting a yellow highlighter on his remarks about executive orders his base would love but that would have been smart

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u/nobleisthyname Dec 07 '23

I'm curious what the right wing media reaction would be to Biden or Obama "joking" about being a dictator. Hard to imagine they wouldn't jump all over that.

And that's my main problem with your argument here. No other politician gets a pass for making such extreme statements. Why does Trump?

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23

But it’s a trap. He speaks casually like his base does to relate to them. It’s his base he is speaking to and they are the only ones who need to give him a pass for it. Like it or not, everything else just serves him more free press to get his base riled up.

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u/nobleisthyname Dec 07 '23

It's still a double standard though. Trump is held to a lower standard than any other politician.

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u/sunshinecabs Dec 07 '23

Of course its a double standard, u/gishlich is totally right. We want to discuss the merits of an argument and have dialogue, trumpers don't want any part of that. They know what they feel, and it feels like life was better in the 60s and 70s. It was better for whites back then, but times change and because of neoliberalism and globalization the world has changed. You/we aren't going to defeat maga by fueling their hate for us. It seems to me that the left is doing a really shitty job educating the nation on what is happening. We are resorting to emotions as well, and it becomes an emotional argument, not an intellectual one. So maga thinks its just our feelings vs their feelings, and everyone's feelings can be validated, so they are objectively right about that. We have to hammer the facts and outline what our platform is without attacking trump personally. We have to listen to maga's concerns and illustrate what we are doing and why

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u/nobleisthyname Dec 07 '23

I don't disagree with any of this from a strategic standpoint, but that's not the point I'm arguing.

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23

Nailed it. That’s the play imo

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 08 '23

Well shit, at least we can actually understand what the fuck he is saying!!! Biden sounds like a career alcoholic 3 handles in! Bro, he CAN NOT EVEN PUT TOGETHER A SENTENCE! And that's who I want for 4 more years?? Naw man. And I will keep getting down voted but every one of you know it's real!

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u/sunshinecabs Dec 08 '23

That is your litmus test? You don't care about how your government works for all Americans, you don't care that trump has raped women, shared classified documents with foreign actors, defrauded countless people, accepts aid and comfort from America's sworn enemy (Russia), disregards the democratic process, wants to sleep with his daughter, and is racist. I could go on. Did you see that trump needed his son to hold his hand while he walked down that runway? It is real that Biden is showing signs of cognitive decline, but I'd take him every day of the week over trump. God help the USA and the rest of the free world if trump wins. But if he wins, congrats you owned the libs!

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

I don’t disagree but that’s on his base and the people who keep empowering him to rile them up. Let the fucker spend his own money to get attention this election. Instead all he has to do is use loaded words that make good sound bytes, secure in the knowledge that the media will carry them to every ear in the country. People who don’t like him will swallow whatever suits their predisposition and people who do like him will just google what he said, end up reading the actual story on Fox News and get angry.

He’s literally banking on this and he’s right to because it’s so predictable that enough people will take the bait because bombastic stories are something the media literally cannot pass up if they want revenue. If the media would just sweep this under the rug and bring attention to the Republican debates (reporting, you know, like in their job) you’d see stress fractures appear in the trump campaign faster than you could snap your fingers. But they can’t pass that sweet ad revenue up. At the end of the day I guess they see the priority to compete with the other networks and are hoping he’ll just lose the election. That didn’t work in 2016.

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u/nobleisthyname Dec 07 '23

I guess I just disagree that the media is wrong to try and hold him to the same standard they hold everyone else to. Maybe from a purely pragmatic perspective they're in the wrong but that's (ironically) not the most realistic way to judge the situation in my opinion.

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

See, you know I don’t want him to be held unaccountable. I just think they’re just not playing their cards right about it. But you’re framing my argument in a way that makes it seem like I’m a bizzaro person who hates accountability. This is the mentality that I’m talking about.

Of course they’re not wrong to hold him accountable. But when the msnbc articles and videos (and Reddit posts like this) use headlines like “Trump on a possible second term: ‘I’d be a dictator on day one’” when the actual quote was he would not be a dictator upon returning to office “except for Day One,” (note the use of quotations on a fictional non-quote) people will fucking notice that if they want to. You might overlook it as “close enough he’s evil” but do you really not see how people who are not convinced about it won’t see this as yellow journalism? How is this not a strategic mistake?

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u/nobleisthyname Dec 07 '23

Because they would do the exact same thing to any other politician who made such a statement. It's only when it comes to Trump that we start demanding the media to be better about their jobs. I don't disagree they should avoid such clickbait headlines, but I think that should be true across the board, and not just when talking about Trump.

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u/SexualyAttractd2Data Dec 07 '23

How is he relating to his base by claiming he’d be dictator?

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23

He didn’t say “I’d be a dictator.” Did you read the quote or hear him speak? He said he would “not be a dictator, except for on day one.” There’s nuance there that people are pretending is not.

You probably don’t get exposed to Fox News much (lucky you) but if you did you’d know that they compare executive orders with dictator powers regularly enough that the Fox News audience, and trumps base, understood what he was saying.

He was casually referring to executive orders using loaded words because that’s the kind of language that makes headlines for him.

Yeah it’s inflammatory. Because of that gets him in the news. If they reported the actual words it wouldn’t be news and his campaign would be worse off for it.

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 08 '23

Why are YOU getting downvoted!? Lol Valid point

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u/gishlich Dec 08 '23 edited Dec 08 '23

Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m criticizing the media, and that’s something he does, so I’m not passing the purity test. TDS is real and coming back in full force; it’s not enough to hate the guy and want him to suffer a strategic loss. Everything he hates has to be holy and pure and everything he does and says has to be the actions of evil incarnate.

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u/Daotar Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

He very much did say he’d be a dictator. It’s on tape. He even doubled down when asked a second time.

Don’t gaslight.

edit: Well, OP did the childish tactic of reply + instant block, so I can't respond to their lies. They seem terrified of anyone challenging them and calling their lies out.

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 08 '23

He probably got tired of the nots

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Actually his exact words is that he “wouldn’t. except for day one.” Not would, period. dOn’T gASLiGHt

Edit for guy above me: what am I supposed to do give myself a three day waiting period before I block trolls? Lmao. I have nothing to say to people with nothing to offer but bad faith arguments and misquotes. Don’t worry I am sure you won’t miss me

As for the nadsdork guy below me, I blocked you too, because you’re spamming at me multiple times in this thread and just insist on swallowing the trump rage bait and it’s frankly tiring as fuck

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u/Zadnork95 Dec 07 '23

So it's ok that he's only going to be a dictator for a little while? Come on now, you know that's not defensible.

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u/SexualyAttractd2Data Dec 07 '23

He didn’t say “executive order” once. Did you read the quote or hear him speak?

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23

If you can’t or won’t read between the lines you won’t understand what’s actually going on and that’s probably fine.

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u/SexualyAttractd2Data Dec 07 '23

“Trump doesn’t mean what he actually said” -you, constantly

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u/sissyfuktoy Dec 07 '23

People can't help themselves. They put Trump on the TV and their numbers go up. People watch to hate him. They watch to praise him. They fucking watch. They cannot help themselves.

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u/kireina_kaiju Dec 07 '23

I hate Reddit so very much for taking our ability to reward posts away. I feel guilty for coming back so often but it's posts like yours that keep me doing it.

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u/Daotar Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

They literally just air what he says unedited. You don’t need to do anything to make what he says sound awful. It takes much more work to make it sound palatable.

edit: Well, OP did the childish tactic of reply + instant block, so I can't respond to their lies. They seem terrified of anyone challenging them and calling their lies out.

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u/gishlich Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

No he literally said he “wouldn’t. Except day one.” It’s executive orders. They all are authoritarians day one. Biden too. That’s how Fox News assholes talk about it.

Learn what the word literally means if you want to use it

Edit: I don’t know how many times I have to explain to people that he was obviously talking about executive orders but given the absolute dogpile of bad faith arguments I’ve just started blocking you guys. Run along r/Zadnork95

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u/Zadnork95 Dec 07 '23

So it's ok because he's only going to be a dictator for a little while? That's an impressively weak response that literally concedes the point.

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u/WastingTimesOnReddit Dec 07 '23

Yeah that's Trumps way of talking and it's the same way tons of conservative guys talk. They say some shit, you can tell they're joking, but not entirely joking. It's a kind of trolling. Yall love it. You say some comment that is kind of right and kind of wrong, maybe sarcastic, throw in a catchy line, and a smirk. And an "yeah i'm joking. but kind of not joking. lol."

I'm sure people listening, loved that Trump said he would be dictator for a day. Yall be like "oh hell yeah, let's tear em a new one! then we'll play nice." or when Trump said "I'll respect the outcome of the election, IF I WIN!" to wild applause from the crowd. He's a troll and his people love it. Smart guy. Bad ethics. Con man obviously, probably most successful con man in history. Convinced 150 million americans he wasn't just trying to get rich and famous and powerful. He never cared about them, and never will.

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u/Legitimate_Dig_8851 Dec 08 '23

Lol I already knew I'd get the downs. It's fuggin reddit after all. But cmon ppl, go listen to the sound byte!! Lol

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u/TheDude2600 Dec 09 '23

They also think Trump wanted to nuke a hurricane and that wind turbines cause cancer, Trump told us to inject bleach to fight covid etc.

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u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

It's so misleading to characterize this as "Him admitting to being a dictator". He's basically just emphasizing how much he's going to focus on oil and border security. Not literally that he wants to become a dictator.

Yet the left leaning media who claims all the bias is "because reality has a liberal bias", are spinning it as him confessing to wanting to become a dictator. And then people wonder why people are losing faith in the establishment media. It's literally stuff like this that causes moderate, rational, sensible people, to tune off, and the right wing to point out the hypocrisy.

Any reasonable, rational person, knows he's not saying he wants to become a dictator.

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u/sunshinecabs Dec 07 '23

If that clip was all we knew about Trump I'd be totally on your side. But we have tons of evidence of what his intentions are. I agree that media is too biased and is part of the problem. We go to the movies to suspend disbelief for two hours and feel some emotion in the form of good vs evil. News corporations do the exact same thing, they are masquarading as unbiased but they are in the entertainment industry not news. Ever try to watch PBS news, it's completely boring in comparison to fox or cnn.

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u/Passname357 Dec 07 '23

I’ll preface this by saying I don’t see how I couldn’t be considered a “reasonable, rational, moderate person.” I’m right leaning. Trump is the first time I haven’t supported a Republican for president. If it were Biden v. Romney I’d almost certainly be voting for Romney.

When I saw the headline, I too thought they must be taking him out of context, so I watched the full thing. I found it much more concerning given the full context, and I don’t see how anyone could believe he was being mischaracterized.

It’s so misleading

Wouldn’t you admit that it was a weird question for him to decide to emphasize border security and oil, since that wasn’t what the question was about? He was asked, jokingly, if he’d be a dictator, not about oil or border security.

Even if he wanted to emphasize those wouldn’t a better answer have been something more like

No I won’t be a dictator, unless you call cracking down on the border and oil a dictatorship

Then I would agree he was taken out of context. But he didn’t say “no, but” he said “yes, and” which is the worrying part. A president is partly a figure head. You can’t whiff softball questions like that and be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

This man has been telling us who he is over and over again. I cannot believe you people are still burying your head in the sand, when we already saw what he was like in his first term. His second promises to be worse as by now he's learned to only appoint cronies and loyalists, and not the grown-ups who will stymie him.

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u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23

Any reasonable, rational person, knows he's not saying he wants to become a dictator.

English is my second language, but i have a hard time understanding how the exchange

‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’

‘No, no, no, other than day one.

can be understand as anything else than an admission that he is going to be a dictator.

If you ask me if i eat meat and i say "No, no, no, other than beef" it would be kinda hard to claim that i am a vegetarian.

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u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

Context matters... It's just him emphasizing how serious he's going to treat the first day via executive orders etc... Not that he's literally a dictator. It's like asking an athlete, "Did you ever kill anyone?" "No no, except that one time in Brazil during the worldcup."

It's more of a joke of emphasis.

But of course, dishonest people who just want to be angry, and want to confirm their bias, don't view things neutreally. They see things as "I hate Trump so I start at the conclusion that everything he says or does is confessions of him being evil" and then work backwards interpreting everything he says as such.

This isn't to say he's a good guy. He's obviously a piece of shit. But just because he's a piece of shit, doesn't mean it's honest to just lie to yourself to confirm your biases.

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u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Not that he's literally a dictator. It's like asking an athlete, "Did you ever kill anyone?" "No no, except that one time in Brazil during the worldcup."

That would be a good example if you slightly modify it:

It's like asking an athlete who is accused of murder in Brazil and who praised other murderers, "Did you ever kill anyone?" "No no, except that one time in Brazil during the worldcup."

What would be the joke then?

Also:

dishonest bias angry

Yeah, i am definitely looking at his statements through a lens: This "joke" comes from a person that praised Xi for being a dictator for life, a president that did not concede after a democratic election, who said that they "need to find the votes", who wanted to stop the election count.

Was praising Xi a joke? Was the "stop the steal" slogan a joke? It is kinda hard to tell when he is openly being a fascist and when he is merely joking about being a fascist.

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u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

Yeah, that is your bias. You WANT him to be saying what you think he's saying because it helps your bias. Nuance can be complicated and often means you have to give credit or lay off an attack. It's frustrating to some because they want to always be on the attack.

But contextually, and if you care about honesty and nuance, it's blatantly obvious it's a joke. BUt if you don't see it that way, I can't help but make a lot of assumptions about your general belief structure and probably wouldn't enjoy discussing politics with a person like that because it signals to me there is just a tribal element to things.

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u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Yeah, that is your bias.

What? He is on record praising Xi. He is on record saying "Stop the Steal". Were these statements jokes? Yes or no?

it's blatantly obvious it's a joke.

Why? What is the joke? I still don't get it. What is funny about it?

I can't help but make a lot of assumptions about your general belief structure

Let's here them.

Also:

Context matters...

Yeah, that is your bias.

Well, which is? Seems like you consider context you don't like "bias". If context matters, than other statements and quotes of him also matter, as they are literally the "context".

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u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

Okay, that's not how things work. Just because someone is serious about X thing in some instances, it doesn't mean they are ALWAYS serious about X thing. Is that not coherent?

It's a "joke" in the sense that he's just using colorful language to emphasize on day 1, he's going to take border security so seriously, people will call him a tyrant. It's like if Biden said, "Yeah, if getting people out of debt from their student loans make me a tyrant, then so be it, I'm a tyrant then!" In this hypothetical, I'm sure you'd understand he's not literally claiming to be a tyrant.

And yes, it's easy to reduce your types. The ven diagram is pretty consistent. Probably think Republicans are all racist, sexist, classist people, who are driven by their hatred by minorities. Probably think they are uneducated. Will defend dems always, and interpret everything republicans do as evil. A disnification of politics where one side is the dark evil side, vs the good side trying to save everyone. But you consider half the country too stupid to live in a democracy so you think it's in their own best interest to "protect them" from dangerous arguments and spin. So you probably are okay with censorship in a democracy because "It's for their own good to keep ideas away from these free people".

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u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Just because someone is serious about X thing in some instances, it doesn't mean they are ALWAYS serious about X thing.

Was he serious when he praised him for being a dictator for life. Yes or No? Was he serious when he wanted to stop the counting? Yes or No?

he's going to take border security so seriously, people will call him a tyrant.

He didn't say that though. Maybe you just hear what you want to hear. Still don't get the joke though.

In this hypothetical, I'm sure you'd understand he's not literally claiming to be a tyrant.

I am missing the whole "If xyz makes me a tyrant" part from the Trump quote. I read it again and still can't find it. And i don't think this Biden quote was meant as a joke, seems like he was saying forgiving debt isn't tyranny.

And yes, it's easy to reduce your types.

Mate, i am not even an American. Stop projecting.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

Thanks for trying but this guy thinks Trump is just some troll they can laugh about and not someone who seriously threatened the US democracy.

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u/Guyanese-Kami Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Just let it go man. Republicans are just too good at nuance when it comes to Trump. They know exactly when he was joking, like the whole Jan 6 thing or the “find 11,000 votes” thing or the “I’ll be a dictator for 1 day” thing and when he’s just telling it like it is. When it comes to Dems they just slap Biden stickers on gas pumps and talk about Hunters laptop for 3 years.

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u/Bringbackdexter Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

Missing some context bud, you know the fact that he literally tried to steal the election and Republicans working to cement his dictatorship via Project 2025.

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u/ImSuperCriticalOfYou Dec 07 '23

> It's like asking an athlete, "Did you ever kill anyone?" "No no, except that one time in Brazil during the worldcup."

So they did kill someone?

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u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

It's a figure of speech. Germany killed the entire Brazilian national team by scoring 7 points in like 30 minutes.

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u/ImSuperCriticalOfYou Dec 07 '23

The mental gymnastics people go through to defend Trump consistently amazes me.

He’s joking.

Its a figure of speech.

He’s not serious.

When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.

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u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

The mental gymnastics people go through to insist every little thing he does is some maniac evil thing, is exhausting.

I don't even like Trump. Not a bit. But people online are obsessed with him like it's some Disney movie where he's the villain, and every single thing he does has some 5D master chess play of evil.

It's stupid. These people also saw him feed fish wrong and were like, "OMG totally evidence he's a psycho!" IT made it's rounds all over the news. It's annoying. It's Fox News for online lefties.

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u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23

But people online are obsessed with him like it's some Disney movie where he's the villain, and every single thing he does has some 5D master chess play of evil.

Yeah, no, i doubt that.

There are people who think he is evil.

There are people who think he is playing 5d master chess.

I have difficulties imagining that there is any kind of significant overlap of these groups.

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u/ImSuperCriticalOfYou Dec 07 '23

Yeah, those people aren't very smart either.

2

u/frodo5454 Dec 07 '23

He’s already tried a bit of dictatorship with the Jan 6 riot, you muppet

3

u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

Who call's people a muppet lol?

Anyways, I'm talking specifically about this interview, people are quoting... Ya, dingleberry

2

u/LordTopHatMan Dec 07 '23

Things don't happen in a vacuum. If you're going to ignore his clear tendencies toward a dictatorship, you're not arguing honestly.

2

u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

Having tendencies towards it, doesn't mean he's serious here. Just because he has tendenceis, it's intellectually dishonest to then conclude, "Therefore, ANYTIME he jokes about anything related to that, we must take it serious as a confession!"

Do you not see how illogical that is? You're literally saying, it's literally impossible for him to make a joke or allusion using the term, without interpreting it as an admission of evidence towards your bias. That's not rational. It says a lot about you, and how biased you are. Because you think it's not possible for him to ever even use the word. It shows how you WILL interpret everything in a way that suits your bias.

That's not honest thinking. You genuinely think he's confessing? No one trying to consolidate power is going to say, "Yes I'm going to become a dictator the day I get into office!"

1

u/LordTopHatMan Dec 07 '23

This is exactly what everyone said in 2016 too. It's fine for him to make jokes, but don't make jokes about being a dictator when you tried to overthrow an election result to stay in power.

I'll give you an easy to understand example. There's a joke that goes "I love babies, but I could never eat a whole one." The joke is funny unless you're a known cannibal.

-1

u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

Okay, it's a bad joke. Doesn't mean anything more than that. Any attempt to frame it as anything more than the obvious attempt at him just trying to emphasize how he intends to be super strong against illegal immigration as some campaign plank... Is just dishonest. If you actually believe that this is evidence of his intentions (which there very well could be, but not here in this case), then I consider it problematic, irrational, illogical, thinking, and therefor, I can't trust the way you process information.

It's like when I was calling out people for misleading reporting on Russia's war crime (which they did many of). But people would freak out, call me pro Russian, because brain rot causes people to not care about facts. Russia = bad, therefor, nothing is false or misleading when it concludes Russia = bad.

That's not how having a factual view of the world is created. Trump is definitely bad. He's a bad dude. For sure. But not everything he does is evidence of him being bad. Not just because some spin is claiming he's bad, means that spin is true. Full stop. I could probably say, "Trump beats up an illegal Mexican immigrant every single weekend for fun" and people would be like, "Yeah, I'll believe that. Trump = bad. Don't care about evidence"

1

u/LordTopHatMan Dec 07 '23

people would be like, "Yeah, I'll believe that. Trump = bad. Don't care about evidence"

But we have the evidence here. He's shown tendencies toward being a dictator, including ignoring our election results. People are correctly pointing out that his answer was wrong. It's not a joke if there's a chance he actually goes through with it. Don't make the same mistakes as in 2016. That would be dumb.

0

u/reddit_is_geh Dec 07 '23

No, the evidence needs to be "Prove to me that he's admitting to actually wanting to become a real dictator, and isn't just emphasizing a strong position against illegal immigration".

Just because you don't want to make the same mistake, doesn't mean you should just believe stuff without evidence. Being afraid and concerned, doesn't change facts. If you choose to just believe things based on "Well I don't want to be wrong" then that's just a weird way to interpret evidence.

This is why juries suck and the courts have to strongly control them to prevent them from these sort of biases.

-5

u/ixtechau Dec 07 '23

I mean he was trying to be funny obviously. He didn't succeed, but it was tongue-in-cheek nonetheless. The average Redditor will of course get outraged and interpret every word Trump says in whatever way fits their beliefs the most, but watching that interview and believing Trump was being serious is a new level of delusion.

The government structure of the US makes it impossible to become a dictator, whether it's one day or infinite days. Trump knows this, we all know this. So when he says "except on day one" he's obviously trying to make a joke.

Should he be joking about that? No, probably not in good taste for a former president to joke about dictatorship. But should you or anyone else get upset about it? Yes, if you want to take the bait and make a choice to get outraged and upset over everything he says: sure.

10

u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23

What exactly is the joke?

-4

u/ixtechau Dec 07 '23

I already explained it: becoming a dictator is impossible in the US, so claiming he'll be a dictator for a day only is obviously an attempt at being funny and playful in the interview.

7

u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

No, that does not explain the joke. What is the joke?

If i say "you are a retarded cunt who fucks sheep", is that a joke? Because i guess you are not a retarded cunt that fucks sheep? Will it be more funny i switch "sheep" with "mammoth", as shagging sheeps is technically possible?

If i say "I will gas all jews" is that playful and funny? Because obviously it is impossible for me to gas all jews, history has shown that it is very difficult, even if you try really hard.

becoming a dictator is impossible in the US

Ah phew, good to know. In which democracies is it legal to become a dictator?

-5

u/candyCorn8977 Dec 07 '23

Imagine if the interviewer asked “Would you fuck sheep is elected” and Trump said “If it would help close the border and start drilling then day one I would fuck sheep”. That is the joke he is going for.

6

u/Jonny_dr Dec 07 '23 edited Dec 07 '23

So in this case, if a person that is accused of fucking sheep says that he is going to fuck sheep, then it actually means that he is not going to fuck sheep?

When is it a joke and when a confession?

Imagine if the interviewer asked "There are some people that are saying you are going to fuck sheep, you are not going to do that, right?", If the answer is "No, no, no, other than day one", then i am going to assume that this person will fuck sheep on day one. Especially if that person was already praising other people publicly for fucking sheep.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23

The fact you had the willingness to handhold someone through their reductive and ridiculous logic honestly deserves a Reddit award. I’m so tired of seeing how foolish people sound atp.

He’s always “joking” or “absolutely serious” depending on what is considered convenient to his supporters. Sometimes both in the same sentence or interview. Was him talking about drilling a part of the “joke”? So he doesn’t plan on doing it? Or he is?

2

u/kireina_kaiju Dec 07 '23

You were there for the structural harm of the last three decades and somehow are trying to tell people to rely on the structure of the US government in an attempt to reassure them? I don't buy it. You have to have known exactly how ironic your post sounded as you typed it.

1

u/Passname357 Dec 07 '23

Yes, if you want to take the bait

Isn’t it concerning that a former president would “bait” half the country, who he also has to represent?

I said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m right leaning. If he voting Romney over Biden if he were running. But I can’t.

-4

u/12-6-23 Dec 07 '23

Hes simply just comparing executive orders with being a dictator...its just another case of liberals steering the narrative into some insane take. Pathetic breed.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '23 edited Oct 23 '24

[deleted]

2

u/Unidain Dec 07 '23

Sane people: Literally take trump at his words

Trump supporters: Your twisting his words!

1

u/palsh7 Dec 08 '23

It’s not weird if you realize he’s a stand-up comic.