Consequently, the standard for avoiding mistakes is now the same for you as you have been applying to others for your whole career. When accusing Trump of making some inaccurate statement, if you get that wrong once it outweighs nine times that you got it right. And, just between you and me and the lampost, you aren’t close to getting it right 90% of the time just now. so in the minds of the public, you are digging yourself in deeper and deeper. Fresh examples are best. There was a lot of excitement this past weekend about Trump claiming something had gone wrong in Sweden, but there hadn’t been any big incident that anyone could recognise. When I first read it, I thought What the hell is Trump talking about there? I thought the story plausible, because Trump does stuff like this. Then I saw the transcript, and without even knowing the rest of the story, I thought Unh, there’s some window there. It’s a little clumsy in the wording, but he could be talking about events in general in Sweden, maybe an “Every Friday night…” You shouldn’t try to slam dunk these, because they keep hitting off the rim. So when I read the full response, that Trump had watched Tucker Carlson on the news Friday with a story about the increase in rape and violence in Sweden due to immigration, it made entire sense.
The people who always believe you – the people who will believe any bad thing about Trump (and his minions – don’t forget his minions) will throw up their hands, roll their eyes and say “Aw come on, that’s a ridiculous excuse. You got caught out, you old windbag. Don’t try to bring that crap in here.” Except it’s not ridiculous at all. That’s exactly how Trump talks, and how he thinks. He’s been talking like this for years. His claim is entirely plausible. It not only could be true, so you can’t get your slam dunk, it is actually the most likely thing that happened. Because why the hell else would Sweden suddenly occur to him? The news story was in his stew, it bubbled to the top, and he spooned it.
Net result: Your pals, no change. They still don’t believe Trump but even if he had some sort of definite proof they would just scowl and wait for the next time. (We’ll get him next time.) Trump’s pals, no change. Even if you had proof they’d just shrug it off. People in the middle, that one-third of the population, most will now remember They lied about Trump again, about something really small and pointless like it was a big deal. Maybe a few will think you scored a point, but also notice that it doesn’t much matter. Small potatoes. So now you need to catch him nine times, without a miss, to make up for it. Welcome to the world you made. How does it feel to be on the receiving end?
Remember the first rule of holes.
Worth reading in full.
Thanks, Jonathan. He has a good view of where we are.
It happened again today after his CPAC speech. Some Leftists on Twitter were complaining/ridiculing Trump apparently misspeaking while expressing a line derived from his inaugural speech, “Whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots”
He didn’t quite say it that way today. He said, “No matter our background or income or geography, we’re all citizens of this blessed land, and no matter our color or the blood, color of the blood we bleed, it’s the same red blood of great, great patriots.”
The transcript reads like he misspoke. His teleprompter may have cut out just before because he seemed to stop reading it, so it may have been a bit of ad-libbing.
However watching and hearing the words actually sounded like something different.
There was definitely a suitable and substantial pause between “no matter our color or the blood” and “color of the blood we bleed” which indicated something different from the literal transcript.
The pause made “no matter our color or the blood,” a subordinate clause that should have a semicolon after it.
Then this made the next words one phrase which really meant, “the color of the blood we bleed is the same red blood of the patriots” (instead of a comma and it’s), and that was clear to listeners. That’s the way people in the room heard it.
But the critics heard something else. Including blood in the subordinate clause planted seeds which led to all kinds of speculation among some about whether he was actually speaking of class divisions, Blue Bloods, descendants of royalty. Maybe he’s referring to the police TV show and their recent anti-Catholic and black lives matter plot biases? Maybe it’s some alt-right crypto-Carolingian code??
All kinds of things just from one word and one pause.
Of course, then Sweden breaks out in the rites of burnt cars in a “no go” zone. The msm gotcha’s were meant to keep up the very deception Tucker Carlson was trying to uncloak. And that, too, is why with Trump we feel free – even those of us who certainly didn’t like him are coming to see him as the truthsayer. That we do makes those arguments by the msm ineffective.
Walter Russell Mead:
“So blind does hatred make them that they cannot understand how their own behavior is driving American public opinion in directions that bode ill for liberals in the future. In the first place, suppose Donald Trump does not in fact turn out to be the second coming of Benedict Arnold. Suppose instead, as is much more likely, that he turns out to be a very hawkish president, one who quite possibly will make George W. Bush look like Jimmy Carter…… The media and Democratic Party leaders will have staked huge amounts of credibility on a position that turns out to be laughably untrue. Six months or a year from now, they will have to flip from calling Trump an anti-American traitor and Russian plant to calling him a dangerous, fascistic ultranationalist whose relentless hawkishness is bringing us closer to World War Three.”
So what do you think? Did Trump anticipate and exploit this? Is exposing this more winning by Trump?
I think the State Dept and FBI leakers are playing with fire if Trump catches them. The felony indictments of rioters in DC should send a sharp warning but they may be so used to the dominance of the left that they will be unwary.
Sessions looks like a hanging judge to me.
LOL. You have a lose cannon. Following one around, and trying to explain it’s movements, will just get you crushed.
An astonishingly ignorant man.
He is getting an awful lot done for such an ignorant man.
LOL. You have a lose cannon. Following one around, and trying to explain it’s movements, will just get you crushed.An astonishingly ignorant man.
PenGun, some unsolicited advice follows. If you are going to call someone “astonishingly ignorant,” you don’t help your case by showing YOUR ignorance of basic rules of spelling and grammar.
“It’s” is a contractions for “it is.”
Additional advice: It would actually be “loose” cannon, not “lose” cannon. Just saying.
PenGun doesn’t need no stinkin’ grammar!
Or spelling.
Usually, I try to avoid being a grammar Nazi but this time it was appropriate.
LOL. Mea Culpa.