I'm a little bewildered by this sort of prediction. How will you update your priors in 2028 when this doesn't happen? What will be the excuse for why this didn't happen?
This is just taken wildly out of context. And that’s coming from me, who can’t stand DJT. You’re literally fishing for a retort that doesn’t even make sense.
I am having a heard time reading his exact words and understanding them to mean something else. When he says to 'my beautiful Christians' that in four years you won't have to vote again, what is he trying to say? What is the missing context?
> "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
One can reasonably interpret that as meaning that in the next 4 years, Trump and his party are going to fix the country so much and so well that Christians won't have to go out to vote next time.
Not only is that the most reasonable interpretation of the words, it's the one he explicitly gave when asked [0]. The only way to arrive at the alternate interpretation is to be coming from a place where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy.
I think there are reasons to have arrived at that place (Jan 6th), but this quote is not evidence for it unless wildly misinterpreted.
> where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy
You know, the people who see him as a threat to democracy are not just putting words in his mouth. Maybe they just listen to what he says, and believe him. Is that unreasonable?
The only people arguing it was misinterpreted are people who support him. Not by providing any context that actually supports it meaning something different.
How about the innumerable times he claimed the election was rigged despite lacking any evidence to support it? Does denying that free and fair elections exist not count pretty specifically as being a threat to democracy?
I totally get that he has an artful way of making alarming statements over and over, but doing it with just a hint of humor, so that his supporters can claim it was all just a joke. In your view, at what point do we get to take a politician at their word?
> The only people arguing it was misinterpreted are people who support him.
Bullshit. I'm as anti-Trump as they come, but I don't let that blind me to reality. What he meant is obvious to anyone who isn't already looking for proof of their preconceived ideas.
I'm not even arguing that he's not a major threat to democracy—I think he is! I disagree that that quote is useful as evidence of that fact, and I disagree with the tactic that the left intentionally adopted of twisting the truth to make a point. People saw through that tactic and it contributed to Trump's victory.
The facts about Trump are scary enough, there was no need to twist his words.
What you are doing has a name these days, they call it sanewashing. Had Harris or Biden said anything even close to trumps comments the maga crowd would have yelled bloody murder, but somehow for trump everything is excusable and can be explained away.
So the most favorable interpretation of his words is that his supporters are delusional? What is their interpretation of "fix the country"? Because if it does not involve changing the constitution (a very tall order) then every single thing he does can be undone with the same effort by the next democratic president. Surely these people know that, right? How could they possibly believe that he will magically "fix the country" so they don't have to vote any more, unless they anticipate that he means something permanent?
I’m not trying to be flippant, that’s genuinely the answer to your question. Trump is literally being dramatic and funny by putting it like that. And you’re taking the bait and missing the joke.
I know I sound like the enemy and I dislike including this paragraph: But keep in mind, I can’t stand Donald Trump and didn’t vote for him.
Come on. We all know Trump effing talks weird, that's just part of his weird personality that no one likes. I don't like it, think it's confusing and winding around requiring much mental parsing to understand even for normal stories/sentences. But to take this tiny little sentence as definitive proof of some giant plan that's coming to end democracy is just... mental gymnastics in search of meaning for a narrative that they've already decided it means.
Here is the Full quote so everyone can see it. He even explains in the end what he means.
> "And again, Christians: Get out and vote! Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians, I love you Christians, I'm not Christian, I love you, get out, you gotta get and vote. In four years you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."
I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means what he says. He is either insulting his followers, or he is telling them he will "fix" the country in such a way that they won't have to vote any more. You can interpret this to mean he will try to subvert the electoral result again, or you can interpret it to mean that he plans to make some kind of permanent change so that christian voters will no longer be required to vote to achieve their goals.
> I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means what he says.
That's not how language works. There's a whole field of linguistics called pragmatics that is about how context contributes to meaning [0].
You're taking a few seconds of his words, joining them to all of your priors, and interpreting them in that context.
His original listeners were taking his words in the context of the whole speech, joining them to their priors, and interpreting them in that context.
It's entirely expected that your interpretation would be different than theirs given that disconnect, and the most reliable way to interpret meaning is to look at who the audience was and how they would have interpreted it, because the speaker chose their words for that context, not for yours.
> It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.
Basically "the country is screwed up right now because ${reasons}, if you get out and vote I'll fix it for you for good and you can go back to not voting again". It's more or less the same line that politicians say every election to try to motivate the less-likely-voters in their base, just said in Trump's classic meandering way and with explicit permission to vote only this once if you want.
So a couple untruths, and something ambiguous. Evangelicals have been a key voting bloc for years (I don't want to say Christians, because there are a huge number of Christian democrats too). If anything they're key to GOP success in the recent past.
But you kinda skipped past what I was asking. How and what do those voters think he was going to fix for good? And do they perceive themselves as being politically inactive except for just this once?
It sounds like you're just giving him a pass because hey, all politicians lie to get people to vote. At that point, why do we even care what a politician says, whether we agree with them or not?
I'm a "supporter" and I know exactly what he means. Means he'll fix all the voting shenanigans so that illegals can't vote and so that democrats can't "rig" and stack the election like last time. See? Not so much a hateful whistle as it is understanding your supporters, what's important to them, and appealing to that with your own words.
It does not even matter than there was no rigging, no illegals voting, no shenanigans. The truth has never been an effective counter to rhetoric, I get that. But it's an entirely plausible explanation for what a supporter would think.
But after yesterday, maybe we will all agree together than the elections are rigged? ;-). You guys can't put that genie back in the bottle. Everyone thinks it's totally cool until the other side uses it right back.
the missing context is that the Christian groups he was speaking to typically have low turn out/don't often come out to vote. He's asking them to please come out to vote, it's important this time. It's exactly the same rhetoric democrats use "this is the most important election, you really need to vote this time, this time it really matters"
On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire. 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor. Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump can now do it one day.
he is definitely signaling something, whether it will come true or not is another question.
That was the line the news media took for the first year or two - "we can't read his mind, so we can't call it a lie!" It's a mistake not to at least credit his own words and the logical conclusions they result in.
As many times as people deliberately twist his words to mean something different than he meant?
I despise Trump, but it's really disheartening to see how the elite doesn't realize that they actually lost the election in part because they lost credibility by fighting dirty. The ends do not justify the means, and the means were deliberate distortions, out of context quotes, and politically-motivated prosecutions.
I held my nose and voted KH because I think Trump actually managed to be even worse, but I can hardly fault other voters for deciding that the Democrats had it coming to them after all the intentional distortions.
How is it twisting words when the context is Trump refusing to say he will accept the results of the election every time he's asked, "joking" about staying more than two terms, and actually trying to overthrow the Republic on Jan 6th?
That will never happen because there are too many other power-hungry people in the GOP who are not going to just let Trump sit in the White House indefinitely, if for no other reason.
He's 78. I think there would be plenty of people willing to enable him to sit on his throne indefinitely because they know that's really only ten years or so at best. And then, once he's gotten it warmed up and did the hard job of making it the norm, they get to take his place.
That is the same kind of thing people have been saying since the day he rode the escalator down. Ten years later, why does this argument still get made? Trump has power for one reason, and one reason only -- because enough voters love him. Many people on the conservative side loathe him and want nothing more than to see him gone, but they kiss his ass and fawn over him anyway, because why? The voters love him, and hate anyone who does not kiss the ring. Over and over and over this plays out.
If Trump wants to stay in office after this term is finished, all that matters are what the voters think. The supreme court will likely side with him and find an interpretation of the constitution that makes it work. But even if they don't, so what? The court doesn't have an army. Even if they did, if the voters want a king, that is what they will get. The republic is a reflection of our collective will and we can destroy it if we so choose.
I'm a citizen of a country where the authoritarian leader captured the state and mostly destroyed democracy.
So we managed to find out whether he was a danger to democracy or not (he was). What sucks, is that when it is proved, then there is already too late to do anything about it (because by definition you can not send them away in an election).
So my 2 cents: if there are any signs that someone is a risk to democracy, it is better be safe than sorry, and just choose a different candidate. Everything else can be corrected in the next election, but not this.
> if there are any signs that someone is a risk to democracy
All due respect, I'm curious as to what these signs actually are for Trump. Everything I've seen and heard has been horrifyingly taken out of context -- "dictator on day one" and "you won't need to vote in four years" and "he'll prosecute his political enemies", or exaggerated past the point of recognition, like "he tried to steal an election" or "he wants to put journalists in jail".
Under the Biden administration, we have seen actual criminal charges against Trump. Not theoretical, not threats, not innuendo, but actual criminal charges for trivial administrative offenses. We have seen extensive media collaboration with the administration (and the opposition when Trump was in office) in an attempt to distort Trump's words to portray him as being dangerous.
I do not agree that the US, under Harris or Trump, is at any risk of becoming an authoritarian nation. The "signs" here from both sides are all imaginary trivial things and political rhetoric. But if the watchword is "any signs" then I've got to say that I don't see how you can vote for anyone but Trump.
My forlorn hope is that people who think that Trump represents a threat of authoritarian backsliding can, in four years, revisit their assumptions and realize that the markers they have chosen to represent that threat are all wrong. They're just incorrect. Update your priors.
The most important sign is that he already tried to keep the power when he lost last time. And he still does not accept that he lost.
This alone is more than enough reason to never vote for him.
He literally attempted a coup, it's pretty amazing people are still trying to act like this is exaggeration or unreasonable.
It's not guaranteed, no, and I sincerely doubt we are going to see Trump literally cancel elections, but it's a very reasonable assumption that they are going to do what they've said they'll do and tried to do: install judges that will swing things their ways, suppress voters who don't support them, punish anyone who opposes them, inspire and promote political violence against anyone who opposes them, and gerrymander as much as possible. That's enough to functionally end US democracy if they do it well.
That's not some wild prediction or unlikely outcome, it's the logical continuation of their previous actions. Someone attempting something they tried before isn't unexpected. He actively tried to subvert democracy and the public have rewarded him, why would he not?
The USA uses a gerrymandered, two-party, first-past-the-post system with electoral college to boot. I for one would stop short from calling that a system that accurately reflects the will of the populace.
> I sincerely doubt we are going to see Trump literally cancel elections
The logical path here is for red states to cancel elections and appoint electors to send in January 2029. The feds cannot do it themselves, but they do not need to.
The elections clause of the constitution does not apply to presidential elections, and all the constitution says about that is that the states may choose how to appoint electors, as long as it all happens on the same day.
It's a fact he attempted a coup, the evidence is in the public record, the Trump–Raffensperger phone call was literally recorded and we have it. He was calling around everyone certifying the results pressuring them not to do so, and asking people to "find votes" for him. The mob storming the capital was a part of the whole, not the coup in its entirety, focusing on it as though it was the whole thing is absurdly misleading.
> If you have listened to the call or read the transcript and come away thinking "wow, Trump really tried to rig the election" then I don't know what to tell you. It's just plainly obvious that he did not do that, and I struggle to even comprehend how that could be a reasonable conclusion.
This is probably just sea-lioning, but I went back to re-read that transcript on the chance that this was an earnest comment and my previous view was colored.
There is no other way to read this transcript than Trump trying to strong-arm them into refusing to certify the election results. He says "find me this number of votes" multiple times, and the direct context was "you're facing criminal charges for this if you don't do as I am saying".
Here's a few of the relevant snippets, with context, for anyone reading this far:
----
> Trump: But I won’t … this is never … this is … We have some incredible talent said they’ve never seen anything … Now the problem is they need more time for the big numbers. But they’re very substantial numbers. But I think you’re going to find that they — by the way, a little information, I think you’re going to find that they are shredding ballots because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are unsigned. The ballots are corrupt, and they’re brand new and they don’t have a seal and there’s the whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt.
And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I’ve heard. And they are removing machinery and they’re moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal finds. And you can’t let it happen and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.
> Trump: No, but this was. That’s OK. But I got like 78 percent in the military. These ballots were all for … They didn’t tell me overseas. Could be overseas too, but I get votes overseas too, Ryan, you know in all fairness. No they came in, a large batch came in and it was, quote, 100 percent for Biden. And that is criminal. You know, that’s criminal. OK. That’s another criminal, that’s another of the many criminal events, many criminal events here.
Oh, I don’t know, look Brad. I got to get … I have to find 12,000 votes and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state. That’s before we go to the next step, which is in the process of right now. You know, and I watched you this morning and you said, uh, well, there was no criminality.
But I mean, all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff. When you talk about no criminality, I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.
I guess there's just a disconnect here. Threatening someone with legal action for breaking the law is basically okay in my mind. Trump thought that there were unsigned ballots that were counted that were being destroyed, and that Raffensperger was either aware of it or was ignoring it or was just not doing the due diligence necessary to prevent it. He wanted to provoke Raffenperger to action by reminding him that he faces criminal liability for looking the other way.
If you are starting from the position of "Trump knows he does not have the votes and wants to cheat" then you can read this as extortion. I don't think you have to even go so far as to call Trump a saint -- he wasn't saying "you have to hunt down and prosecute all of these people for all of these things" so much as "just hunt down the people enough to get the 11,780 votes".
Or to put it another way -- in a call with Raffensperger with his attorney on the line, probably being recorded, what is it exactly that you think could have happened here? Even if Raffensperger wanted to cheat? In a state that was already being carefully watched? What possible course of action would have made sense here?
The only course of action that would have made sense was if Raffensperger could uncover widespread fraud of one of the forms that Trump described. Then exposing that fraud and showing that more than 11,780 votes were compromised would have been a huge deal. But people would have looked at those ballots. They would have listened to this phone call.
No reasonable person would believe this, it's the equivalent of believing that when someone asked their associate to make another person "sleep with the fishes" they were talking about an aquarium trip. It's just obviously not true.
Even if he hadn't been president with access to actually legal paths to investigate and address these things (and a responsibility to act ethically with the power he had where even the appearance of corruption is harmful), even if he had any evidence of actual fraud, even if he hadn't already organised a set of fake electors before the claimed "fraud" happened, even if you didn't have four people who have plead guilty to conspiring on this, even if he hadn't then refused to act when a violent mob stormed the capital on his behalf after he worked them up, even if half of his closest allies from his first term (including his vice president) weren't actively telling you this was his intent and plan, no reasonable person hears him leaning on the guy to just find the exact number of votes he needs to win and threatening him and thinks this was all above board.
You have to intentionally take his statements in ways no person actually would, and intentionally ignore all the damning context and evidence. It's not credible in the slightest.
Attempting it and failing doesn't mean he didn't attempt it. He actively tried to stop the results being certified, he tried to get people to fraudulently invent votes for him. We have the Trump–Raffensperger call on tape, the evidence is right there, it's an indisputable fact by anyone who cares about reality.
And no, I wouldn't be wrong, because it's a fact he did try to do that, and even if they did—for whatever reason—decide not to try it again, that doesn't change it being what any reasonable person should assume they will do.
>The problem is will you admit you were dead wrong and potentially spewing propaganda if democracy survives Trump’s second term?
The answer to this question is the same as the answer to "what if climate change is a hoax", and that is that I would love to be wrong and would gladly admit it rather than live under a dictator or on a dying planet
... And then you have Trump refusing to say he would accept the results of the election every time he's asked, "joking" about staying more than two terms, calling bog standard politicians "internal enemies", wishing total obedience from generals and dreaming of using the military to crack down on civilians...
Brown shirts are just civil disobedience in your book?
Will you update your priors after searching a bit more how Republicans have already done huge efforts to eliminate parts of the voting population, between gerrymandering, voter rolls purges, putting polling stations in inaccessible places, counting prison population in the electoral weighting of districts...
It's insane, exactly the same slippery slope fallacy as "the left want to make your kids gay", people completely lost their mind on both side of the spectrum
On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire. 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor. Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump can now do it one day.
he is definitely signaling something, whether it will come true or not is another question.
