I wouldn’t be so sure that his backers think that.
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Fixed that for ya.
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Not mine, but: If America is an old dorm room couch, Trump is an ultraviolet light…
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I stand (sit) corrected, milliefink.
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And lo, Trump has already said something even more offensive than this, regarding the alleged impartiality of Mexican or Muslim judges.
He’s going to keep topping himself, over and over.
At just what point do his supporters start falling away over this? The longer he receives this unwavering support, the longer America looks like a nest of racist-sexist-nativist-chauvinist idiots.
Waver, people, waver.
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I honestly don’t think most American’s know who he was.
And just because someone bad said it doesn’t automatically make it “bad”. That quote still resonates with rising up over oppression. If Malcom X or Thomas Jefferson said it, it would probably be an inspirational cat poster.
I mean, if Hitler said something like, “Call your mom and tell her you love her.”, that wouldn’t be bad advice even if he was a horrible person.
Has anti-intellectualism got that bad over there? It’s not like Mussolini was an obscure figure from ancient history.
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Thought experiment: imagine if Hillary or Obama publicly and uncritically tweeted an inspirational Hitler quote, then defended it by saying they didn’t see anything wrong with quoting fascists so “people can talk about it.”
Is there even the tiniest chance that either of them would live that down or that the political opposition would shrug and let it go? EVER?
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I think that’s actually part of his survival tactic. Most of the time candidates only have a handful of things that make for good attack ads, so we get several consecutive months of pundits and political opponents drilling in “OBAMA’S PREACHER HATES WHITEY” or “ROMNEY SAID 47% OF AMERICANS ARE MOOCHERS” or “SOMETHING SOMETHING BENGHAZI.”
In Trump’s case there’s just such a flood of material that nobody even has time to focus on any one scandal before the next hits the air. It all just kinds of blends together into an incoherent mess that Trump manages to spin into “the media loves to attack me because I’m not part of the establishment.”
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Obscure enough. Germany gets all the good bad guy cred from WWII, followed by the Japanese. People in general are woefully illiterate on history. I am sure you have seen “people on the street” videos asking basic questions every non-brain dead adult should know - and yet they don’t know who won the civil war. Yes I realize that those gotcha videos do cherry pick, but still, in general people are ignorant of history. I would hope where ever you live is different, but I honestly doubt it is much better.
Oh sure, valid point. I am being a smart ass to a degree. Though my point is valid, how valid it is or isn’t doesn’t mean people won’t react to it. Neither of those two can say ANYTHING with out the rabid right reading more into it.
I bet Hillary could get away with an obscure Mussolini quote in the mainstream media. Again, I am betting 70% of Americans can’t tell you who Mussolini was. And that quote really has nothing to do with fascism (maybe it does in context, I dunno), but it echos past rebel sentiments such as “I’d rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.” - Emiliano Zapata.
So it isn’t that hard to see why this flew under the radar. Though I am amazed at how much derp he gets away with. Cognitive dissonance levels are high this year.
The only way I can see her getting away with that is if either
- Nobody recognized the quote, or
- She later claimed she didn’t realize the source of the quote and apologized for using it.
Neither was the case for Trump. He didn’t deny knowing where the quote came from (it was a retweet from a user named “@ilduce2016”, for crying out loud) and he didn’t acknowledge why quoting the founder of fascism might be in bad taste for someone seeking the Presidency of the United States.
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Not that I’m defending the ignorance that runs rampant over here, but America was a few more steps removed from the European theatre than, say, Europeans. Hitler pretty much gets all the credit in most of our history books, probably because our own soldiers faced Germans much more than Italians (unless I’m very misinformed).
It’s a shame that more time isn’t spent on history in our schools, and it’s downright embarrassing that many (if not most) students can’t pinpoint who Mussolini was, or where the second atomic bomb was dropped, or so many other important pieces of history that are often dismissed as trivia.
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And here is what Ms. Brewer Lane had to say about the NYT story she was quoted in… “They ( The NYTimes ) spun it to where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump, and I don’t appreciate them making it look like that I was saying that it was a negative experience because it was not,”
Just saying.
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The right would crucify her, the left would make excuses.
You know it wasn’t until you pointed it out that I realize the retweet was from someone using ilduce2016. Funny how our brains skip over details.
Political Correctness is one of those things which you find far more instances of people talking about opposing it than you find instances of it existing. Finding actual examples of it are rare. Finding people talking a storm against it are more common than dirt. You find virtually nobody talking or describing it as a proponent.
If anything it just serves largely as an excuse for boorish behavior.
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Some on the left, maybe. But I simply refuse to believe that the left as a group would wave away “what’s wrong with quoting fascists?” for Hillary to the extent that the right has done so for Trump.
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Actually, I last taught high school World History as late as last summer and Mussolini is definitely part of the California state standards (under authoritarian regimes of the 20th century). However, although time is spent on the father of fascism and Stalin, Hitler does indeed get more attention.
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Send her an email and encourage her to try it so we can find out ;o)
And no, they wouldn’t say “what’s wrong with quoting fascists?”, they would say something like, “That’s not what she meant. The quote was out of context. There was confusion over the origins.” Etc.
You know, like when one miss-remembers sniper fire. I mean who hasn’t done that? Totally understandable.
It’s not Trump supporters who said there’s nothing wrong with quoting fascists like Mussolini. It was Trump HIMSELF who said so:
Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. It’s OK. It’s a very good quote. It’s a very interesting quote. And I saw it and I know who said it. But what difference does it make, whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?
I have a very difficult time imagining Hillary not only surviving politically after saying something like that, but subsequently skyrocketing in popularity against her Democratic and Republican rivals.
There’s just no comparison here. Trump regularly says toxic stuff that would tank any other politician’s campaign in a heartbeat.
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