There are at least two distinct groups of people, white supremacists and Qanon, with overlapping beliefs that look for “secret signals” from Trump and Co. I’m not entirely convinced that Trump is smart enough to indulge them. But there are people in the administration, like Stephen Miller, who are.
So its very clear that “stand back” and “stand by” means something very specific to you. But it isn’t about what you think. The message was directed at a certain group of supporters and they received that message clearly and are acting on it. And that’s what is important.
In the end, of course it’s not important what I think about what Trump said and what he meant. Obviously if you and others are right, the consequences could be enormous. But this is the Dope, where people give their opinions about things, and that’s all I’m doing here. So, to the extent that anyone here cares about what I think, this is about what I think. And it goes without saying that everyone is free to disagree with me.
In the peoples US presidential debate he called on a white supremacist group to obey him and to wait for orders. Why isn’t that bigger news than that he wouldn’t condemn them? He advertised that he was with them.
It’s a deliberate Trump tactic - using phrasing designed to give him a fig leaf of deniability when he’s called out on his words.
In a way it’s a passive-aggressive move against his supporters, requiring them to accept some implausible explanation for his words…over and over and over again, until it erodes their ability for clear-headed reasoning.-
Those of us that aren’t so crazy about Trump might buy it the first time or two, but after the forty-seventh million time we figured it out.
You don’t have to examine everything Trump says and does without reference to his history and record in order to treat him fairly. If someone has a long history of lying or using coded language, that’s how his words are going to be interpreted and that’s not unfair.
Without having to go into details, I agree with all that you wrote. Among other things, Trump has no doubt used coded language in the past, while allowing him a plausible (at least in the minds of his MAGA supporters) explanation as a way out. I will just say that my posts on this are about last night, and nothing more.
I’m largely with Peghead on this. You guys are trying too hard to put thoughts in Trump’s head. This is doomed to fail because he’s such a dumb-ass that he doesn’t HAVE any thoughts in his head, other than “grab them in the pussy”. You’re going to argue that Trump has the cognitive ability–in the middle of a raucous debate where he’s taking a dump on the stage–to have the wherewithal to give an order to the Proud Boys? Nope; I’m not buying it.
The actual problem is that–as Peghead said–Trump tried to give the most tepid condemnation of white supremacists possible. He used “stand down” because those were the words Wallace used; “stand by” probably because it’s close to “stand down”; remember, this is the idiot who thought “person woman man…” was the epitome of intelligence. He mentioned “Proud Boys” because Biden suggested it.
So the first half of his statement is barely condemning white supremacists. The second half of the statement is typical Trump–using Tu quoque to minimize Republican issues by overstating problems on “the left”. It wasn’t a command to the Proud Boys; I wouldn’t be surprised if he had no idea who they are, other than as people who like him.
If you want to argue that Trump is such a dumb-ass that the words that spurted out of his mouth accidentally coalesced into something that could be taken as a command then I might buy that. The fact that the Proud Boys gleefully interpreted as so means little–they’re just looking for legitimacy.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. It’s hard with Trump because there’s plenty of malice and so much stupidity that it’s easy to conflate them. I think this one is mostly stupidity mixed with his unwillingness to condemn racists.
And sell merchandise. Trump was an idiot but it played into exactly what the Proud Boys wanted-“legitimacy”. They managed to get shirts on Amazon and banned in less than 24 hours.
Trump praises nazis, he was endorsed by David Duke in 2016 and again this year. He claims ignorance while he panders to white supremacists. He claims ignorance so that a certain percentage of voters say “he’s too stupid to talk in white supremacist code.” Then he does it again.
TRUMP: "I don’t know who the Proud Boys are. You’ll have to give me a definition because I really don’t know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work. … As people see how bad this radical liberal Democrat movement is and how weak, the law enforcement is going to come back stronger and stronger. But again, I don’t know who Proud Boys are, but whoever they are, they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work.
From 2016:
“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” Trump said on CNN’s State of the Union . “I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.”
On this, something similar occurred to me, and that is that it did not seem that Trump saw the question coming from Wallace, and so he had to come up with what seemed to me and unplanned and off-the-cuff response. He stalled at first, asking Wallace whom he should condemn. I think what was going through his head then was, how do I answer this so I sound reasonable, but don’t piss off my far right minions. If Trump had intended to send out coded messages last night, I would think he would of had something ready.
He’s smarter than the people who are saying he’s too stupid to be a white supremacist, as if the Klan is MIT. He’s smart enough to manipulate corporations and banks to prop up his con game and he’s smart enough to have become president of the United States.
No one is too stupid to be a white supremacist; in fact I think it helps. I do believe, though, that Trump doesn’t have the cognitive ability to intentionally turn a phrase that skirts the line so closely like his “stand down” comment.
How do you explain the many, many examples of him doing just that in this thread? What do you think the birther conspiracy was, if not a dog whistle to white supremacists? Do you think he just won the lottery to become president and it’s all a coincidence that his base is made up of uneducated white racists?