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DiggyJohnson | on: Trump wins presidency for second time
This is just taken wildly out of context. And that’s coming from me, who can’t stand DJT. You’re literally fishing for a retort that doesn’t even make sense.
rootusrootus | parent | next
I am having a heard time reading his exact words and understanding them to mean something else. When he says to 'my beautiful Christians' that in four years you won't have to vote again, what is he trying to say? What is the missing context?
squigz | root | parent | next
The full quote being:

> "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."

One can reasonably interpret that as meaning that in the next 4 years, Trump and his party are going to fix the country so much and so well that Christians won't have to go out to vote next time.

lolinder | root | parent | next
Not only is that the most reasonable interpretation of the words, it's the one he explicitly gave when asked [0]. The only way to arrive at the alternate interpretation is to be coming from a place where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy.

I think there are reasons to have arrived at that place (Jan 6th), but this quote is not evidence for it unless wildly misinterpreted.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/dona...

rootusrootus | root | parent
> where you already assume Trump is a threat to democracy

You know, the people who see him as a threat to democracy are not just putting words in his mouth. Maybe they just listen to what he says, and believe him. Is that unreasonable?

squigz | root | parent
Well we've already covered one quote that was grossly misinterpreted. What others have you got that implies he's a threat to democracy in America?
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rootusrootus | root | parent
So the most favorable interpretation of his words is that his supporters are delusional? What is their interpretation of "fix the country"? Because if it does not involve changing the constitution (a very tall order) then every single thing he does can be undone with the same effort by the next democratic president. Surely these people know that, right? How could they possibly believe that he will magically "fix the country" so they don't have to vote any more, unless they anticipate that he means something permanent?
DiggyJohnson | root | parent
Because they don’t take things so literally.

I’m not trying to be flippant, that’s genuinely the answer to your question. Trump is literally being dramatic and funny by putting it like that. And you’re taking the bait and missing the joke.

I know I sound like the enemy and I dislike including this paragraph: But keep in mind, I can’t stand Donald Trump and didn’t vote for him.

zo1 | root | parent
Come on. We all know Trump effing talks weird, that's just part of his weird personality that no one likes. I don't like it, think it's confusing and winding around requiring much mental parsing to understand even for normal stories/sentences. But to take this tiny little sentence as definitive proof of some giant plan that's coming to end democracy is just... mental gymnastics in search of meaning for a narrative that they've already decided it means.

Here is the Full quote so everyone can see it. He even explains in the end what he means.

> "And again, Christians: Get out and vote! Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians, I love you Christians, I'm not Christian, I love you, get out, you gotta get and vote. In four years you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."

From Snopes:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vote-four-years/

rootusrootus | root | parent | next
I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means what he says. He is either insulting his followers, or he is telling them he will "fix" the country in such a way that they won't have to vote any more. You can interpret this to mean he will try to subvert the electoral result again, or you can interpret it to mean that he plans to make some kind of permanent change so that christian voters will no longer be required to vote to achieve their goals.

Which is it?

lolinder | root | parent
> I'm just listening to his words and assuming he means what he says.

That's not how language works. There's a whole field of linguistics called pragmatics that is about how context contributes to meaning [0].

You're taking a few seconds of his words, joining them to all of your priors, and interpreting them in that context.

His original listeners were taking his words in the context of the whole speech, joining them to their priors, and interpreting them in that context.

It's entirely expected that your interpretation would be different than theirs given that disconnect, and the most reliable way to interpret meaning is to look at who the audience was and how they would have interpreted it, because the speaker chose their words for that context, not for yours.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics

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dudefeliciano | root | parent
We’ll have it fixed so good could mean the system will be fixed, as in rigged. You are sanewashing the words of an unstable man
OmarShehata | parent | next
the missing context is that the Christian groups he was speaking to typically have low turn out/don't often come out to vote. He's asking them to please come out to vote, it's important this time. It's exactly the same rhetoric democrats use "this is the most important election, you really need to vote this time, this time it really matters"
dudefeliciano | parent
“You know, FDR 16 years – almost 16 years – he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/19/trum...

he has vowed to be dictator on day one

https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritar...

On February 27th-the Reichstag in Berlin was set on fire. 4 weeks before, Hitler was appointed to chancellor. Hitler placed an urgency regulation to ban all political activities. He destroyed democracy in one month. Trump can now do it one day.

he is definitely signaling something, whether it will come true or not is another question.