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The president decided to interrupt his rival party’s self-immolation with a tweet calling on four members of Congress to go back to the countries they came from—when three of those countries are the United States. We wonder at his reasons in this podcast. Give a listen.
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I dont think Trump tweets with political intent. He’s not running these tweets through a political filter – or any kind of filter – which is why they’re so widely read. They’re a clear honest portrayal of what he’s thinking. (unfortunately) Never seen before, and highly unlikely to ever been seen again. I think he did it simply to refocus attention back on him – he gave them 2 days of uninterrupted media attention, and he couldn’t contain himself any more than that.
Now suggesting they go back where they come from, isnt racist. They all come 3rd world swamps, of economic stagnation, political corruption and some of the most violent cities in the world – like Detroit. They would be heroes if they could fix Detroit, but they can’t they don’t have the imagination – they cant imagine that problem is their policies.
This bit of dialogue was a nice return to old:
When I first started listening to this podcast in (I think) 2017, what most attracted me was how Noah or Abe would provide an in-depth explanation of an issue of the day and John would every couple of sentences interrupt with little identifying taglines like “He’s the Senator from Ohio” or “That’s the pro-choice organization that last year said this or that”.
They did that sort of thing several times this episode and it was wonderful. I’ve missed that dynamic a great deal and I hope it’s come back to stay.
It was refreshing to hear JPod give I believe the most charitable defense of Trump’s tweets when he said it was like saying, “If you like the Soviet Union, then why don’t you go live there?” The point being, it is about ideas and not race or ethnicity. Of course, he had to do the required throat clearing and asides that he doesn’t support in any way Trump’s tweets. Trump was getting at a concept that bothers a lot of Americans; why don’t some Americans have any gratitude for being American?
Sorry. That’s a motte & bailey argument. The Left does this all the time and it drives me crazy.
Person X will say something awful and get castigated for it and then Person X’s defenders will say “Heh, heh. You misunderstood. What Person X was really trying to say was (fill in less controversial, more anodyne statement here). Now, could their remarks have been phrased a bit better? Of course. But lets not lose sight of their true intention.”
Thus is nobody guilty of hate-mongering.
“Heh, heh. All so-and-so was saying was blah blah blah blah.”
It’s an intellectually dishonest tactic. And well worth avoiding.
@filmklassik,No, I’ll defend Trump on the merits here. That was my description of JPod’s surprising defense of Trump’s tweets. People also forget he tells them (which of course would only refer to the foreign born Omar, but Tlaib defends Palestinians as if she from there abouts) to come back! If this is the traditional racist trope then you don’t tell those you believe inferior to come back. Trump’s point, straight up, was their ideas suck. And their ideas largely are foreign origin so Trump was saying let’s see those ideas work anywhere.
Sorry — what?? A lot of words and verbal contortions there (I frankly couldn’t follow what you said) to defend a patently asinine and risible tweet.
One thing I’ll never understand is why Trump’s staunchest defenders seem unable to hack through the Left’s insanity with a friggin’ machete while also calling out their Commander in Chief in strong, no-uncertain, after-the-but terms.
And the “after-the-but” part is key. It’s everything. It speaks volumes. It speaks libraries. Their strong criticism of Trump, when it comes (which is rare) is always before-the-but, never after.
Thus, occasionally we will get variations of:
”Does Trump act like a jackass sometimes? Of course. But the Democrats are blah blah blah blah…”
But we never, ever get:
“The Left is vile, dishonest, gross, and destructive and needs to be stopped in its tracks, but I do wish Trump wouldn’t act like a friggin’ idiot, which only undermines our cause.”
Sometimes they’ll say the first thing (or variations thereof), but never the second. And intellectually honest Conservatives experience no such conflict.
Oh I have been told several times it is because we must follow Reagan’s commandment to never speak ill of Republicans. Of course that commandment doesn’t apply to Trump himself or even to Trump supporters who feel free to attack any Republican who doesn’t bend the knee sufficiently.