Clinton started accusing Trump of being a russian plan, a foreign agent, and a traitor way back at the start of the 2016 campaign. None of those accusations bore fruit, none of it was actually true... but that conspiracy theory was adopted and amplified by lower ranking dems, media outlets, and social media every bit as much as any of Trump's childish and moronic nicknames.
The rumors about Trump and Russia started circulating during his first term (Post Hilary). While it's debatable whether the focus was misguided, the rumor wasn’t created out of nowhere.
They started prior to his first term beginning, not post Clinton. The entire "hope they release her emails" happened during the campaign, before the election.
Harris has called Trump unstable and unhinged, has repeatedly compared him to fascist dictators, and similar. She has said that Trump is dangerous to americans.
Have you actually listened to Trump or seen his Truth Social posts? This accusation didn’t come out of nowhere. Just to be clear, I’m not arguing whether or not the claims have merit, but they certainly weren't invented out of thin air.
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Threatening the media? That’s not unhinged at all—surely not.
He's an asshole, no doubt. But there's also a fair bit of interpretation that goes into everything related to Trump. In this case, for example, you're assuming that Trump is threatening the media - and if you already believe that he's a tyrannical devil hell-bent on destroying the constitution and becoming dictator for life, that would seem to be a perfectly reasonable interpretation.
But it's not the only way to interpret it. Someone who isn't a prior convinced that Trump is pure evil might assume that he means that people in general aren't going to forget that 60 Min was complicit in replacing a poor interview with something scripted and trying to pretend that was how it really went - and that because people will remember that bit of shenanigans, 60 Min will suffer for their poor choice.
I'm not a mind reader. On the spectrum of possible interpretation of what Trump was thinking inside his comb-over-ed head, I tend to think he's wanted to sound tough but had no particular intent to actually pursue anything threatening toward the media. He's a pretty well-established blowhard after all. Of course, I tend to not believe a single thing that comes out of either of their mouths, and I tend to think that pretty much all of it is vacuous blather as performance art.
You might agree with her opinion - that's fine, you can have whatever opinion you like. But at least recognize that they're both engaged in the same type of negative smear-mongering approach.
The point isn’t whether I agree with her opinion, but rather whether it’s based on things Trump has actually said. Instead of addressing the criticism, Trump and his supporters dismiss these reactions as completely fabricated, claiming they aren’t in response to anything he’s said and are invented out of thin air. That's nuts. That’s like me responding to your reply with, "What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything—you’re crazy!
Now, contrast calling Trump unhinged for things he’s actually said, like "Obama founded ISIS,"
with Trump’s claims of a rigged election and accusations that Democrats fabricated or destroyed votes to cheat him. Where are the words or actions that justify those election-related accusations?
Edit: I misspoke, I meant (post Hilary). Edited to correct. To clarify further, I meant to say that by that point, Hillary was already out of the picture.
Yes, you're correct. Trump did say those words. He did say Obama founded ISIS. But it's also completely obvious that wasn't claiming that Obama *literally* started ISIS.
It's clear from context that he's using figurative language, and is implying that Obama made the situation in the middle east so much worse that ISIS is happy Obama is president. He's saying that Obama is responsible for ISIS arising.
Look - I don't agree with his assessment. The situation in the ME predated Obama, and while Obama didn't materially improve it, I don't think he really made it worse either. It was what it was - and pretty much still is.
But this is exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, those specific words came out of his mouth. And then the media and other people grab hold of it and present it as if Trump were speaking literally - they imply that Trump literally meant that Obama went out and said "Hey, let's start a terrorist organization!" This happens all the time - Trump does this regularly to his opponents - so do his supporters, for example when Harris talked about college students being idiots. But he's not the only one. Things get taken out of context, and then intentionally misconstrued by politicians and by their supporters. But it's highly selective - it's almost always a case of "Oh
my guy, obviously
my guy didn't mean it literally, it was just colorful language or a clever turn of a phrase. But
your guy - well, there's no way
your guy wasn't entirely and completely serious about it. It can only possibly have been meant absolutely literally".
Me, I'm sitting here observing that in context neither guy was being literal, and that all the people who think it was entirely literal have either lost their mind or have lost their integrity.
You know what? This is larger than Trump. I'm starting to think that people's inability to distinguish between figurative and literal language is going to be the downfall of our species. It's indicative of the loss of abstract reasoning.
