this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Great. So let's address that and see why this has me concerned.

"Dictator on day one" or some variation of that has spread to mean that DT intends to fully overstep all boundaries and become a dictator. Because of how the Internet works - because of the old game of telephone - this has taken many turns to mean the greatest threat to ever face the country. Biden has even used this in many speeches.

I wonder how many people have actually looked into what he actually said, what the context was, and what he may have meant by it.

Does it matter? Isn't it great that we can use a presidential candidate's own words against him to generate clicks and manufacturer a propaganda campaign to benefit one political party? I mean, just take Trump out of this and look at the foundation of what's happening.

So what did he actually say? And, given what we know about the dumbest person to ever be elected president, what did he mean?

I'm shortening the exchange found on Snopes.

HANNITY: Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
TRUMP: Except for Day One.
TRUMP: He says, "You're not gonna be a dictator, are you?" I said no, no, no … other than Day One. We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator, OK?

Four days later,

"No, no. I am not going to be a dictator," Trump said.
"I'm going to manage like we did," Trump continued, referencing his first term in office. "We were so successful that the country was coming together. It was actually coming together and coming together well. It was a beautiful thing to see. And we're going to do that again."

The context of the dialog was that he wants to "abuse power" and be a dictator on day one in regard to the border and drilling for oil. This is certainly something to have a concern for but, in and of itself, is not this whole story about Trump intending to be a president-turned-dictator.

What's more concerning is Project 2025 which certainly has more intent to work around the barriers of the presidency and form a pseudo-dictatorship.

To put it another way...

On Jan. 6, 2024, Trump told a crowd during a campaign rally in Iowa that he had been "kidding" when he was interviewed by Hannity. He also called the news media "sick" and "so corrupt."

I actually find myself sympathetic to Trump's point here. I am by no means sympathetic to the person but just putting a couple words together in a sentence allows the internet to make a claim that I am sympathetic to him. And, if I were sympathetic to the person, that would be an entirely different subject than the issue of the media being corrupt.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I the problem is assuming, in any way, that Trump is a rational actor.

When he was in office he lied, what? 30,000 times? 30,573 to be exact:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/

I remember thinking it was bad when the entire Bush administration combined to lie 935 times about Iraq.

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/search-the-935-iraq-war-false-statements/