Anyone who thinks Trump was "just joking" about shooting Clinton is missing the point

[niyad]

Anyone who thinks Trump was "just joking" about shooting Clinton is missing the point

Updated by Zack Beauchamp on August 10, 2016, 8:40 a.m. ET @zackbeauchamp [e-mail]

https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VRfP9bliKPDg232CW-iM4wqLRm8=/118x0:4083x2643/1280x853/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50332477/587761268.0.jpg
At a Tuesday rally, Donald Trump said something that could easily be interpreted as a call for violence against a future Clinton administration.

"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said. "By the way, and if she gets to pick — if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know."

As is common with Trump, it’s unclear exactly what he’s saying — whether it’s a call for assassination, armed insurrection, or something else entirely. But one thing that people have debated a lot after the comment is whether it was a "joke" or meant seriously.

But in a certain sense, it doesn’t really matter what Trump intended. This tweetstorm, from Dallas lawyer Jason P. Steed, explains why. Before becoming a lawyer, Steed was an English professor. He wrote his PhD dissertation on "the social function of humor" and found something important: Jokes about socially unacceptable things aren’t just "jokes." They serve a function of normalizing that unacceptable thing, of telling the people who agree with you that, yes, this is an okay thing to talk about.

This, Steed explains, is why "it’s a joke" isn’t a good defense of racist jokes. By telling the joke, the person is signaling that they think racism is an appropriate thing to express. "Just joking" is just what someone says to the people who don’t appreciate hearing racist stuff — it shouldn’t matter any more than saying "no offense" after saying something offensive. Likewise, Trump is signaling that assassinating Hillary Clinton and/or her Supreme Court nominees is an okay thing to talk about. He’s normalizing the unacceptable.

. . . .

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/9/12417100/donald-trump-assassinate-hillary-clinton-joke

[liberal N proud]

1. Anyone who thinks Don the Con was joking is either in on the con or lying to themselves

I said this in another thread: Words have consequences, you can't shit from your mouth and call it a fart.

[oldtime dfl_er]

2. As Tony Schwartz said...

Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter of Art of the Deal, tweeted:

"As I've said: Donald Trump doesn’t joke. He is never subtle. When he makes a death threat, it's because he's feeling impotence & rage."

[cleveramerican]

3. Such disrespect for gun owners

Essentially calling second ammendment supporters his personal armed thugs

[lewebley3]

8. The NRA and Trump people believe in fascism and not the people governing

[kmanbanana]

4. A Joke?

@BB&T arena tonite @ 7PM, WFTL850AM host, Joyce Kaufman will be sitting in VIP section, behind DT. She is known for her rants of"if ballots don't work, use bullets" .shouldn't MSM report this?

[certainot]

5. normalizing this shit and racism is what rw radio is for

and it happens all over the country all day long and the left ignores it.

this morning limbaugh excused trump and turned it on clinton and the liberal media again - from 600 radio stations to tens of millions.

meanwhile just before him on a major wisconsin radio station a local walker blowhard played his 15 min taped rant about how dems fight voter id laws so that millions of illegals can vote in november for clinton - the same will happen all over the country in the next three months

in an emergency those stations are the loudest voices in the country.

this crap doesn't get better until the left gets off their ass and does something about rw talk radio - like stop allowing 90 major universities to endorse 270 limbaugh stations by broadcasting their sports on them.

[barbtries]

7. how exactly should the left go about

disallowing this?

[certainot]

14. protest the universities that support rw radio

all it would take is a campus discussion. whether the uni did anything or not the local gop would freak out and media would notice. then advertisers would flee and a lot of stations couldn't handle that.

other than that protesting the stations.

also, it is absurd that dem offices are not using modern tech to record transcribe and search major local blowhards coordinated with the gop and their think tanks. at least use volunteers to monitor them so their candidates don't end up playing catchup as usual. at a cheap $1000/hr x 15 hrs/day each rw station is worth about $1MIL for the next 3 months in free republican bullshit.

here's the list of 90 shameful universities supporting 270 limbaugh stations

ALABAMA 8 Auburn 3, Alabama 2, Southern Alabama 2, Troy 1
ARIZONA 2 Arizona St. 1, Arizona 1
ARKANSAS 3 Arkansas 3
CALIFORNIA 5 San Jose State 2, USC 2, Fresno St. 1
COLORADO 4 Air Force 2, Colorado 1, Colorado State 1
CONNECTICUT 1 Connecticut 1
FLORIDA 20 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
GEORGIA 14 Georgia 7, Georgia Tech 5, Georgia Southern 2
IDAHO 7 Boise St. 4, Idaho 3
ILLINOIS 7 Illinois 7
INDIANA 11 Notre Dame 6, Purdue 4, Indiana 1
IOWA 5 Iowa 4, Iowa St. 1
KANSAS 4 Kansas St. 2, Kansas 1, Wichita St. 1
KENTUCKY 3 Louisville 2, Kentucky 1
LOUSIANA 3 LSU 2, La.-Monroe 1
MARYLAND 2 Maryland 2
MASSACHUSETTS 1 Boston College 1
MICHIGAN 19 Michigan St. 11, Michigan 7, Western Michigan 1
MINNESOTA 4 Minnesota 4
MISSISSIPPI 6 Mississippi St. 3, Mississippi 2, Southern Miss 1
MISSOURI 6 Missouri 6
NEBRASKA 6 Nebraska 6
NEVADA 1 Nevada 1
NEW JERSEY 2 Rutgers 1, Seton Hall 1
NEW MEXICO 3 New Mexico 2, New Mexico St. 1
NEW YORK 7 Syracuse 6, Army 1
NORTH CAROLINA 16 North Carolina 8, North Carolina State 3, Duke 3, East Carolina 2
OHIO 10 Ohio St. 6, Toledo 1, Dayton 1, Bowling Green 1, Xavier 1
OKLAHOMA 5 Oklahoma St. 3, Oklahoma 1, Oral Roberts 1
OREGON 12 Oregon St. 7, Oregon 5
PENNSYLVANIA 14 Penn St. 11, Pittsburgh 2, Temple 1
SOUTH CAROLINA 4 South Carolina 2, Clemson 2
TENNESSEE 7 Tennessee 4, Memphis 3
TEXAS 16 Texas A&M 9, Texas Tech 4, Texas 1, Texas Christian 1, Baylor 1
UTAH 1 Utah St. 1
VIRGINIA 6 Virginia Tech 5, Virginia 1
WASHINGTON 6 Washington 5, Washington St. 1
WEST VIRGINIA 2 West Virginia 1, Marshall 1
WISCONSIN 4 Wisconsin 4

[ecstatic]

15. Interesting. Thanks. nt

[wickerwoman]

6. The point is that anyone with judgment poor enough to make a "joke" like that

is not fit for office.

His intent is not relevant. If anything, "it's just a joke" makes it worse. I'd take a sociopath president before a verbally incontinent buffoon.

[Skidmore]

9. He was singing the song of his people...

the Cliven Bundy types, the David Duke types, the religious cultist types.

[maxsolomon]

13. those are his marks

he has no people.

[niyad]

16. marks, not people--I think you have that absolutely correct.

[TomCADem]

10. Imagine Rush Limbaugh Running for President

That's what we essentially have with the racism and misogyny.

[niyad]

17. just without the drugs. . . . we think. . .

[downeastdaniel]

11. This was no joke, only a halfassed excuse for threatening Hillary's life...don is scum of the lowes

Order. Let's beat his racist anti immigrant and anti feminine ass sideways! Onward to November!

[maxsolomon]

12. It wasn't a joke, exactly

it was a "humorous aside", at least in his NYC Bullshit Artist pea brain. In some ways, he was insulting his audience of "2nd Amendment People".

The "that will be a horrible day" was the continuation of the earlier "Nothing you can do, folks" part of the scatterbrained sentence.

Hanlon's Razor tells me he fucked up. I wonder if his NPD allows him to realize it.

[UCmeNdc]

18. Deep down Donald Trump really meant what he said

Donald Trump would love it if Hillary Clinton was shot. He would just say that is a shame and say I guess I win now.

[niyad]

19. I think you are quite correct.

[Orsino]

20. He might really have been joking, but yes, that still misses the point.

Trump says a lot of things--hell, most things--without a plan beyond what he thinks sounds good at the moment. So he wanted to swagger a little, and sound tough? Easy; stick in a spurious joke about guns. He may have had no thought in his head (rately does) of someone actually carrying out an assassination. I could believe that, but the trouble is, about the same amount of brainpower goes into his most serious pronouncements as into his off-the-cuff remarks, and telling the difference is probably a waste of effort.

That wouldn't excuse him, but it would underscore one of the big reasons why he shouldn't be in government: he's kinda stupid. Not in a smart-guy-who's-endearingly-clumsy sort of way, but rather this is a man who's never had to learn much of anything in his life, who never learned how to learn, and will never learn to be even a bad president.

He should stick to doing what he does well, which is essentially nothing.

[niyad]

21. you pretty much nailed it.

[workinclasszero]

22. He's not joking and the crowd that was there and laughed at the prospect of Hillary

being assassinated are not kidding either!

This is the Republican party people! They HATE democrats and anyone else that doesn't worship guns, money, racism and violence!

Some of them will act out on this now that they have their marching orders from Trump.

Palin did the same thing and Gabby Giffords and her family paid a horrible price for it.