Comment by dqv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dqv | Hacker News Reader

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That source chain is really weird to me. It goes Guardian -> Independent -> filthy.media - a news company founded in 2016. I guess they have a license to the content? Otherwise, I don't get why Guardian wouldn't just link to the original Playboy interview.

Okay, on to the Guardian article, which does well to quote the original content.

>When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world—

Honestly, I don't know what that means - it's bordering unintelligible. The way he used pronouns in that sentence completely obfuscates who he was calling vicious and who he was calling strong.

So, I can go with how I feel about Trump as a person and use the Guardian as my source for how I should interpret what he said: "he praised the Chinese regime". Or I can just go with what I really feel which is "I have no idea what that means."

It's tricky but translatable. He's saying that the government was vicious as horrible, but it worked for them because they where forceful. Then he maps it back to the US, saying that we need to be forceful to be successful (presumably we won't be horrible and vicious, though)

Strength is bad when evil people (THEY) use it but good when good people (US) use it.

He's using the King Arthurian logic of "Might makes Right in this world, but WE shall use Might in the service of Right" and holy cow my required liberal arts elective is directly applicable to modern government policy.

Trump does not have a core set of principles, so you cannot presume and read between the lines, you can only take what he says at face value.

Are you really having difficulty parsing what he's saying? I thought the pronouns were clear.

If that was someone describing a sports match, would you quibble with the word "praise"?

"When the <opposing team> poured into <the area>, the <home team> almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our <team> is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world—."

Is it just because you know the current president of the USA is describing the deliberate murder of about 1000 pro-democracy protestors by an authoritarian state that you're experiencing cognitive dissonance and not wanting to accept the obvious interpretation?

He has a bunch of these kind of comments, about how Saddam used a little gas, and "everyone went crazy". You can watch some of them on on video, so no-one can influence your take on them.

I personally find that when Trump is talking about some atrocity that say a terrorist group has committed, he seems more angry that we're not allowed to behead or set fire to people or whatever, than he does about the fact that some individual got their head cut off or got set on fire. But maybe that's just my take.

You skipped over the most ambiguous part of what he said...

>Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength.

Silly question but how did you find the source? Must be overlooking it but I don't see Independent listed anywhere on that page.

It's the link captioned "Trump told Playboy magazine" -> https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-has-praised-the...

Gah, so all I needed to do was RTFA. Here I was looking at the top/bottom and doing Ctrl+F. Thanks!

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