Another take?
Translation: You won’t have to vote, because the people who voted against me will -disappear-. 
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I have to say I’m happy that the applause seemed to die down when he said that, rather than ratchet up.
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I hate to be the cynic about it, but that’s not because they were horrified about what he said; they are embarrassed that he said it out loud, on camera.
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I mean I think this is it. Because the big voices of media platforms are just determined to try to normalize Trump even though nothing about this is even a little bit normal or ok really.
We should not be even a little bit “unclear” on whether the next president will be dictator for life. There should be no confusion or ambiguity at all there.
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Yeah, in this context, they’re actually the same; here “fixed” means both. Trump may be using it as (or at least focusing on) the ‘repair’ meaning of ‘fix,’ but the nature of his promise also requires it to mean ‘unchanging.’
I don’t think anyone here is denying that - there’s only the question of whether what Trump said can be interpreted in some other way. Although Trump of course will deny he meant it that way, despite the fact that it can only be interpreted the one way.
The media will try to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to claim he didn’t mean what he said, so I do think it’s important to dissect it and point out that what he said really only can be interpreted one way, and it’s very, very ugly.
I think here is where the ambiguity of his statement does come in - he’s explicitly promising the end of democracy, but he’s leaving the how unexplained. (Will he stay in office? Will he reshape government such that only the “right sorts” ever have power again?) I think the fact that he doesn’t explicitly say, “And I’ll accomplish this by staying in office forever” becomes a sort of red herring that distracts from the fact that his promise fundamentally requires him to be a dictator who ends democracy.
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Or, you cheer when someone offers you a thousand dollars, and you are stunned into silence when they offer you a billion.
But yeah, I think your cynicism is justified.
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And if Democrats quote Trump, the media will say they are dangerously heating up the rhetoric.
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Giving Donald Trump the “benefit of the doubt” is like deciding to get a haircut at Sweeney Todd’s barbershop AFTER you’ve seen the basement. 
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Except for some people, the cut is being done to other people. At least at first…
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And they happen to like the pies.
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Not gonna lie, we do tend to get that way on Boingboing - I admit guilt to that as well. In our defense, these are overwrought times.
I sometimes assume that people here know me well enough to know what I’m getting at, but it’s not the case. I’ve come to realize that if something I said about a fraught topic can be misinterpreted, even if I thought I was pretty precise in my language, it will be, and I need to articulate it in the clearest, most careful way possible. (And I’ll still fuck it up, somehow.)
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Are you suggesting inferred conclusions are more accurate than explicit statements? Perhaps so in some instances where edited speech is presented well out-of-context, but I do not think that is the case here. Yes, as you suggest, “Let’s stick to what he is actually saying…”.
I find his words reprehensible, irresponsible and vile. I think the same adjectives apply to his tone, his character and his frame-of-mind.
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Exactly. We’re all on the same side here.
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And if ‘splaining to all us unreasonable people what T**** means is your thing, I really don’t want there to be.
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Everyone here at bb has to stick together, although there might be some differing opinions, we’re all on the same side, the side of reason, peace, science.
Reminding myself of this, for whatever comfort it may provide:
When a US Secretary of Defense takes office, they take an oath of office similar to other federal officials. The oath is as follows:
“I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
The top echelons of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, like all commissioned officers in the U.S. Armed Forces, take the Oath of Office upon commissioning. The oath is as follows:
"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
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I can’t imagine what’s so difficult to understand about this. What The Actual Fuck?
ETA:
I understand it, I just can’t figure out why someone else wouldn’t understand it.
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What I hear sometimes is that since he was talking to his “beautiful Christians,” he meant he’ll make things in the US so permanently Christian that THEY won’t need to vote anymore; there would still be voting. But yeah, even if so, that ultimately just don’t make no sense, to me at least. If he did mean that, it still reads to me like a wink about the end of democracy, where no one “needs” to vote anymore, which that audience is supposed to think is fine because the fascism will be Christian flavored. 
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Funny, the NYT was just busted quoting a ‘former Democrat’ who was so MAD about all the Biden stuff that she was voting for Hair Twittler
Turns out she was a scamster who was previously in jail (iirc) for putting a severed human digit in her chili and trying to extort Wendys (at least I think it was Wendys). Yeah, she’s a reliable ‘voice of the people’ all right…
sheesh
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