Comment by mattnewton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattnewton | Hacker News Reader

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“You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can't let that happen” “If you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore”

“Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down, any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

Full transcript here: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-sav...

Afterwards tweeting: These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,

Cherry-picking. You forgot this part:

> Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer, and we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people.

I’m not cherry picking, I’m telling you where “the order” was to March on the capitol. He says “we” are marching on the capitol, multiple times; too many to list here even. I include the full transcript for context.

If you wanted to cherry pick to show nonviolent intent, there is a much better passage than the one you picked (which I read as disavowing niceness, he is clearly implying that they are too nice and that’s why they are in this bind!)

He explicitly says “peacefully” when describing the marching at one point: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

However, if I tell someone that their country is under attack, that they have been too nice about it and have to show strength, and then say to march peacefully and patriotically, does the peaceful adjective whitewash the rest of the incendiary speech? Does it change that he falsely claimed electoral victory and called on his supporters to reclaim it in a show of “strength”? I would argue no, but it’s certain to be the key passage in his defense.

Trump is pushing a catastrophic narrative that logically leads to violence.

https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/only-the-church-can-tr...

> After all, when people believe our national destiny hangs in the balance, they often respond accordingly. Or, as I said in a December 4 newsletter warning about potential violence, “if you argue that the very existence of the country is at stake, don’t be surprised if people start to act as if the very existence of the country is at stake.”

Kinda like yelling fire in a crowded theatre?

“Fight like hell” is very common language in politics.

A lesson all politicians need to take to heart is that there are people running around in our population who take everything very literally and very seriously. The hyperbole of political rhetoric needs to adapt to the deinstitutionalization that is modern society. But an accounting of politicians using this kind of hyperbole would show no favor to either party - in fact IME more often than not it’s the party not in power at any given moment that uses the most impassioned rhetoric.

We can scold Trump for using playing with matches in a dry forest, but let’s not pretend this is uniquely inciting language. That standard would convict politicians of all stripes.

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