You act like the guy didn't himself say he wanted to use the military on people who disagreed with him or that he just needed people to vote one more time and after that they would rig it so you didn't need to vote again. Comments like this make me wonder if people are actually paying attention.
"...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."
"I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics...and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military."
This is a groan worthy interpretation. He’s saying you won’t have to vote based on those issues anymore because they’ll be fixed.
In the second he’s talking about managing physical discord, not rounding up people minding their own business in their homes or saying whatever on twitter. And he’s saying it specifically in the context of protecting the election process. He’s literally advocating for safe and harmonic voting.
This is why anti Trump rhetoric is exhausting. People grasp at the shortest of straws and make claims that basically feel like I’m being lied to.
There are endless real things to attack Trump on. Please stop lying to me and telling me he’s literally Hitler. He’s not, he’s just racist and shitty.
No he isn't. He crapped all over Obama for ending the war in Iraq, along with most other Republicans. He kept the US in Afghanistan for his whole term and sabotaged the US exist on the way out, by setting a date far in the future, drawing down most US military assets, and negotiating the release of ~5000 Taliban who went right back to fighting. His policy toward Putin was pure appeasement.
Please find me any Republicans who gave Obama credit for ending the Iraq war - in his first term no less.
If you're talking about the same statement I think you are, he was saying he wanted to use the military to stop violence by radical leftists on election day. Yea, that's actually a good thing to ensure you have peaceful elections.
Why are so many people so clearly misinterpreting him? Do your own homework instead of trusting what activists on the internet tell you to believe.
> stop violence by radical leftists on election day
Yes, because, historically, leftists get incredibly violent on election day.
Also this is not ALL he said. He has pledged to recall thousands of American soldiers overseas and station them at the US border. Trump has plans for a mass deportation, affecting millions of Americans, many citizens.
Perhaps you were ignorant of this fact, for which I forgive you. But you are ignorant no longer, so next time I will be forced to believe you are intentionally deceptive.
> Yes, because, historically, leftists get incredibly violent on election day.
It doesn't matter. You misinterpreted his words with the intention of making it look like something it wasn't. You're either malicious or readily fooled by misinformation. Either way, it means everything you say on the topic is worthless.
And you completely ignored the rest of my comment, where I specified that not all Trump has said he will do with the military.
I'm paraphrasing Trump and his own ideology and policy. If that offends you, feel free to vote for someone who better matches your ideology.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. Meaning, you can't support Trump and simultaneously say he's lying, or he's just joking, or he's not really going to do that. You voted with the intention and belief he IS going to do that.
Who the fuck votes for someone under the pretenses they hope their policies fall through or are blocked? That makes zero sense.
Trump supporters have entered an era of such supreme shame that even telling them Trump's plans is "misinformation". I can't even ask Trump supporters for his policies, because they won't dare repeat them. I mean, it's absolutely crazy. I have to either listen to Trump directly or ask leftists, because Trump supporters are "know nothing" dishonest people.
I don't know, does that not concern you? That you won't even utter the policy and speech of the guy you voted for? Do you think that's normal? You should be very concerned about that. You should better understand what, and who, you're voting for.
His actual words show that your interpretation is wrong. Why do you still believe it? The extra information you added doesn't add any support your claim at all. Using the military to protect the border in no way means "use the military domestically to retain power and clean out the US".
Could you identify one of these too-objectionable-to-say policies of his, including the source of that information? History tells me that it will be your misunderstanding that's made it seem objectionable.
> hope their policies fall through or are blocked? That makes zero sense.
It makes sense if you're voting for practical outcomes instead of ideologically. For example, if they promise one thing you want and is achievable, plus one thing you don't want but is impossible anyway, then it can be rational to vote for them to get the thing you want and also not get the thing you don't want.
> Using the military to protect the border in no way means "use the military domestically to retain power and clean out the US".
Let me break this down:
The military would be deployed domestically, to clean out immigrants and some citizens. Remember, both Trump and Tom Homan have alluded to deporting naturalized citizens.
So how does it not mean that? Even if you disagree, can you see how and why I am making that claim and how it's logically consistent with what Trump has said.
> For example, if they promise one thing you want and is achievable, plus one thing you don't want but is impossible anyway, then it can be rational to vote for them to get the thing you want and also not get the thing you don't want.
You're working under the assumption the impossible cannot be made possible.
The left claims that Trump has his eyes on a dictatorship because of this difference between the left and right. The left believes Trump when he says you won't need to vote anymore and they believe Project 2025. The right thinks Trump is a liar.
I'm not saying the US will be a dictatorship. But, if you actually look at Project 2025, which will be and already is the template for the Trump presidency, it is very shocking.
Trump supporters have so far been able to employ plausible deniability. Now that Trump has made it clear he will dissolve the department of education and he has already committed to appointing many Project 2025 writers to his administration, the plausible deniability is gone.
If you're hoping the left steps in to stop a lot of Trump's policies, you shouldn't have voted for him.
I'll take your word for it that he would use the military to deport illegal immigrants. Why is that bad? The police already do that but the military has more resources so it could do more. Deporting illegal immigrants is perfectly normal, look how many were done per term of each previous president:
Obama: 1.5 million
Trump: 1.4 million
Biden: 1.1 million+ (still ongoing)
Where's the threshold from acceptable to "clean out the US"? Is it at 1.6 million so Trump will be doing the most in history? That's certainly not terrible by the standards of his predecessors.
How is that for him to "retain power"?
I just looked up Project 2025 and all its aims are reasonable compared to recent history in America and other western countries today. What exactly is too terrible to mention? Dissolving the department of education? So what? That just means decentralizing that part of education funding and control to states rather than the federal government. Just like pretty much every state (typically country) in the world funds its own education. Who's afraid to mention that?
You've been fooled by the "you won't need to vote anymore" misinformation where he was talking about fixing something for Christians which would remain in place - maybe it was the abortion law which actually happened through the proper process.
Right, so the conversation has pivoted from "Trump never said that!" to "Okay, Trump said that... but he doesn't mean it" to "Okay, he said it and I actually agree"
> Deporting illegal immigrants is perfectly normal
Not with the military it's not.
That also doesn't explain his attack on naturalized citizens and Tom Homan's talk about deporting citizens who have family which are illegal. This also doesn't cover DACA and other programs.
Trump is not aiming to deport just illegals, and my source for that is Trump, Tom Homan, and Project 2025. Again, this isn't about you taking me at my word. This is about you taking Trump at his word.
> Dissolving the department of education? So what?
Multiple reasons:
1. the DOE provides financial support for citizens for upward socioeconomic mobility, meaning they put people in college. That's very important for the millions of very smart, but very poor, Americans.
2. Many impoverished and typically red states rely on federal funding from the DOE. The DOE works as a big pot - every state contributes via taxes, and each gets some back. Some, like California, lose more than they gain. Some, like Oklahoma, gain much more than they put in. Red states like Oklahoma, which ranks 49th in education, rely on that funding because they have a weak economy.
This is also just one aspect of Project 2025, I merely used it as an example to show that Project 2025 is real. If you're not aware, Project 2025 is a blueprint for how to transition the US to a fascist regime.
Maybe it won't all be implemented, maybe it will. The fact you don't know about it, and the fact you refuse to listen to Trump, is mind-boggling to me. Okay, so why did you vote for him if you think he's a liar? It makes no sense. You're not doing your fellow republicans any favors - this is exactly the type of stuff that leads people to believe you're misinformed and largely make decisions based purely off of propaganda.
No. Your claim, which I disagree with is "he explicitly stated he wants to use the military domestically to retain power and clean out the US".
How is it to retain power?
> the DOE provides [...]
Yea, of course it does something. But it's not unspeakably bad to not have that department do that. As I said, nearly every other country in the world "suffers" from not having a DOE, because they have no other countries sharing a pool of education funding with them. Somehow their people seem to accept that and even favor independence.
> If you're not aware, Project 2025 is a blueprint for how to transition the US to a fascist regime.
I'm not aware. I just looked up their website which listed their aims. Fascist regime wasn't among them. What's your source for that?
Deploying the military as intimidation and using it to remove US citizens is a ploy to retain power.
That's in addition to his other power plays, such as stripping the bureaucracy and requiring all federal employees to formally announce their loyalty to Trump. That one's in Project 2025.
If that doesn't sound like fascism I don't know what does.
And you keep asking me for sources. Yeah, Trump, his administration, and Project 2025. You know, the stuff you voted for?
If you're trying to not make Trump supporters look like bumbling idiots you're not doing a particularly good job. Naturally, I already know most Trump supports are horribly misinformed about their own platform, so don't try so hard to further prove it to me.
> Deploying the military as intimidation and using it to remove US citizens is a ploy to retain power.
He wanted to use it to protect election security if there was violence or intimidation from "internal enemies". That's not intimidation, except to intimidate people trying to intimidate voters to corrupt elections.
Who are these citizens he wants to deport? Are they only naturalized citizens? Those people can already legally be deported anyway for reasons like a fraudulent application or committing a serious crime. Are those the same ones he wants to deport? In other words, does he just want to enforce the law that already exists? Regardless, that's not to retain power. You have no evidence for that part which is key to your whole claim. Everything else you claimed is just what the government should be doing anyway.
> trump is the most anti-war president of my lifetime, i don't know how anyone is accusing him of using or misusing the military
Trump is going to let Israel flatten Gaza, Russia take Ukraine, and possibly China engage Taiwan but anti-war. No one is accusing him of misusing the military yet.
> what is it specifically about a second term that allows him to rig all future elections? what is different this time that wasn't true in 2016?
A majority in Congress, a loyal Republican heavy Supreme Court, and the presidency as well as the desire to stay out of jail.
Exactly their point - I/they don't want the US to get directly involved in those situations. It would make it worse. The US doesn't need to be getting into wars, especially not with nuclear superpowers.
The supreme court balance is the same as it was when he was president, Republicans had the majority in the House from the beginning of Trump’s presidency in January 2017 until the 2018 midterm elections, when the Democrats won control of the House, and Republicans had the majority in the Senate for the entirety of Trump’s presidency.
literally nothing is different this time that's going to let him round up people into camps and turn himself into god-emperor. if he was interested in abusing power in completely new ways he would have pardoned himself before he left office.
The US is not directly involved in any of those situations and all of those situations have consequences for the US even if they are not involved, especially Taiwan.
Okay, so do something about it that doesn’t result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and displaces millions. So far that’s what the US does, and the US being unable to get our precious microchips doesn’t mean we get to bomb the ever living shit out of a foreign country
> The supreme court balance is the same as it was when he was president
I think it's a safe bet that Thomas and Alito will step down in the next two years and be replaced by similarly right-wing justices, just much younger. The court will be majority hard-right for the rest of my life.
> literally nothing is different this time
This time he and his supporters are prepared. If you look at Trump in 2016, he seemed genuinely surprised he won. His transition team was ad-hoc and clumsy. His cabinet and advisory picks ended up being sub-optimal for him, as he kept appointing people who wouldn't go as far as he wanted to. Project 2025 is a thing now, and is a playbook for weakening and subverting the US federal government -- except in areas where conservatives want to keep power so they can impose it on states that don't share their ideology.
And any time states complain, SCOTUS will tell them to stuff it.
The rhetoric has only amplified in negative ways since he came on the scene in 2015. I don't know who kicked it off, and don't think it matters. Both sides are equally guilty for the hatred they've spewed.
You're going to have to point me to when the Democratic nominee said we should kill political rivals. Since both sides are equal. Because I can point to when the Republican nominee said it[0].
> Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?
You generally don't give a rifle to people you want to kill. Trump was making an obvious and anodyne point, which has been made time and again, in song and story, which is that war hawks generally don't fight in the wars they cheer for.
Does he have any responsibility at all for the words that come out of his own mouth? Blaming the media has been the right wing propaganda strategy for the last 3 decades. Fox News and the alte unlamented Rush Limbaugh have made entire brands out of blaming the media, while also crowing about being the most successful media brands in the country.
