…except he doubled down on his assertion. From yesterday’s Hugh Hewitt interview:
"Hewitt initially attempted to get Trump to tone down his comments. “I
know what you meant, you meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the
peace,” Hewitt said.Trump wasn’t having it: "No, I meant he’s the
founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the
most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary
Clinton."Hewitt responded, "But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them."Trump was undeterred.“I don’t care. He was the founder. His – the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”
And then later, in typical Trump style, he added: “No, it’s no
mistake. Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the
most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I
gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that.”"
from anon73629133(formerly known as f͇̯̝̹̼͈͉̗̩̩̭̼̦̙̣̒͊͌̊ͭ̆̌ͦͧ̋̑̀͟͢u̴̯͍͖̱͓̠͉̺̤̖͔̯̲̖̻ͦ͊͛͌͌̏̽̅͊̚͜͠n̸̡̟͎͖̭̹̮ͫ͌ͨ͗͋̏͛̚͢r͆̂̐ͤ͐ͥ̿͆̈́҉͎̹̙̼̘͚̩͕ͅu̪͔͇̝͖̯͚͖͇͉̥̻̠̝̥͌ͫ̉̓ͮͥ́ͩ̇ͫ́̐͗͆͠͠ͅl̛̛͚͕̳̤̮̩̻̙̻̗̰̬͙ͥ͆͊̍ͩͭͧ̌ͦͯ̍̓̃ͯ̌̏͘͟͝y̶͉͚̯̜ͯ̓̄ͯ͒ͬ̆̑ͮ̂̋̀́̚͢)
“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS,” Trump said. “I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.”
…that’s basically confirming the idea that he’s using “founder” to mean “caused the creation of.” (bolded part is the slightly coherent part) …and being weirdly insistent about the terminology?
I would have argued that al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq, or al-Zawahiri who took over after al-Zarqawi’s death and renamed the organization to ISIS was the founder of ISIS. One can argue about responsibilities for the creation of the causes and conditions that allowed them to found the organization (with the Iraq invasion as the root cause and condition), but the founders themselves are, you know, the actual founders, not the people who created the conditions for the founders to create their organization.
No, he won’t be shown to have his pants around his ankles because they’re not actually debates. He’ll get to make crazy statements like this and not have them followed up extensively where he has to back them with facts.
I get what you’re saying, I do. And I would completely agree with you if we were discussing a person with through processes that made sense to normal humans. But if someone tells me multiple times that they mean something ridiculous, I stop trying to interpret for them and take them at their word.
Even if he doesn’t truly believe the literal interpretation (and he probably doesn’t), he’s actively trying to make other people believe it.
Trump can’t explain the real problem where modern war is a self perpetuating machine, designed, maintained, and governed by people like Clinton and the US defense industry, or else he would be in danger of opposing it himself.
Instead, just blame clinton for the whole damn thing, it’s what the voters really want to hear anyway.
It’s inarguable that Trump and similar nationalists have done their best to promote ISIS through rhetoric of hate and xenophobia of even US-based Muslims.
