Trump’s rhetoric, throughout the entire campaign, has been based around, “These people are dangerous, these people are taking your opportunities, this must be stopped.” Mexicans are bringing rapists, murderers, and drug dealers over the border. Muslims are terrorists and need to put on registries or be barred from entering the country. This isn’t exactly “telling us to hate them”, per se, but it does paint a picture by which these people are dangerous and must be stopped, and providing ideas on how that stopping should be done. It’s classic incitement. If you want someone to hate a group, you can’t just tell them, “Hate this group”, you have to give them reasons to do so. And Trump has been doing that at length.
And it’s not like these speech patterns are unknown, either. It’s easy to go back through history and look at previous demagogues, and see the strong and ominous parallels, in what is said and how it is said.
So when Sanders calls Trump out, there’s a very good reason. Yes, we can’t quote Trump saying, “Hate Mexicans! Hate Muslims!” (If we could, it wouldn’t work very well!) But the subtext is there and blatantly obvious.
Just for comparison: what Adaher proposed is complete nonsense. Sanders’s ethos has not been “we need to threaten and silence and attack this vulnerable minority”. To any degree which his campaign has been on the warpath against any demographic, that demographic is by far strong enough to fight its own battles, and he hasn’t been advocating things like “a registry of the super-rich” or “barring the super-rich from entering the country”; he’s simply advocating a slightly more progressive tax plan - the kind of thing the rich have to put up with all over the world.
The OP has a point. None of us, including Bernie Sanders, can know what Donald Trump truly believes. We can observe that Trump says hateful things about Muslims and Mexicans but we can’t know that he genuinely hates them. Trump may be feigning his hatred because he believes there is a significant number of voters who hate these people and he’s trying to win their support.
Sanders’ didn’t say a word about what Trump believes in his heart. He observed, correctly, that Trump was telling us to hate the Mexicans and the Muslims. The OP is just trying to obfuscate Trump’s own lies and hatefulness.
Both choices in the end do help the ones who follow a hateful agenda. As noted the big flaw on that is that many Republicans do not agree with the hateful messages that Trump is making, regardless if Trump is the king of the naives or a racist.
You seem to be pretty upset that everyone is “lying” about Trump. Does it bother you at all that Trump is lying to you?
Far more than half of his statements fall under “false” or “pants on fire”. Only 7% of his checked statements qualify as “mostly true”, and 0% of his checked statements qualify as “true”. This is the track record of someone who either knows nothing about reality, or really hopes that his target audience knows nothing about reality.
Trump has repeatedly lied about seeing Muslims celebrating in New Jersey after 911. If you can’t see that is directly with intention to cause hatred of Muslims then there is no discussion to be had with you. Sanders statement is correct in that trump is trying to demonize both Muslims and Mexicans for political gain.
I didn’t want to kick the OP when he was down. But ironically, in a complaint about political misquoting, he misquoted what Sanders said.
I looked it up. Sanders’ never said “first he tells us to hate Mexicans, now he’s telling us to hate Muslims…” His actual statement was “A few months ago we were supposed to hate Mexicans. He thinks they’re all criminals and rapists. Now he thinks we’re supposed to hate Muslims.” (cite) So in point of fact, Sanders was expressing his opinions on what Trump thought not just on what Trump said.
Personally, I’d side with Sanders on this one. In casual conversation, it’s acceptable to simplify the issue and say “Trump hates Mexicans and Muslims” rather than the more precise “Trump acts in a way that a person who hates Mexicans and Muslims would act.”
But then we can also assume that Sanders hates rich people and CEOs, if proposing policies antithetical to their interests and criticizing their behavior is evidence of hate.
Vonnegut’s Maxim applies here, wherein you are what you pretend to be, and must therefore be very careful about what you pretend to be. Mr. Trump is evoking darkness and fear to gain power, what can possibly go right?
Addy? When I say stuff like sending the rich folks and the bankers to The Wall for People’s Justice, I’m kidding. Like a lot of modern lefties, I have a sentimental fondness for old fashioned leftism…you know, Wobblies, the proletariat, the undead status of Joe Hill.
But the Wall? These days? Six months at the Jane Fonda Self-Criticism and Aerobic Dance Camp, tops!
Earlier in his campaign I would have agreed with the OP.
Everyone was so eagerly anticipating the “Now he’s done it” moment that they’d exaggerate or take out of context everything he said. Not that he didn’t say hateful stuff, but there was no individual knock-out blow.
Now he’s said enough stupid things that I think summarizing as “He’s telling us to hate Muslims” is fair, as long as it’s not implied he actually said exactly “You should hate Muslims”.
Just about every single word out of Trump’s mouth is a lie; rapid-fire, one-after-another, to the point where one lie just eclipses the next. It’s rather unique in its brazenness-and effectiveness. There is never a chance to catch him on one lie, because he just steamrolls thru with a barrage of new lies to cover the first.
And someone is putting up a thread, complaining how other people lie about Trump Ha! Classic.