Cotton says Trump’s ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ comment was him ‘obviously making a joke’
Cotton says Trump’s ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ comment was him ‘obviously making a joke’
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This is absolutely an example of the media - and you, the internet - making the wrong point out of context.
He was speaking to a conservative Christian group making the point that if he were elected he would "fix" it so there wouldn't be any reason for Christians to vote any more. Meaning everything they care so much about would be done. It would be like if a Democrat "fixed" climate change, gun safety, the Supreme Court, consumer protections, health care, etc.
Yes - it's batshit crazy because: (1) they believe he has the power to do everything they want him to do, (2) what they want him to do is unconstitutional, (3) he doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself and even got booed on the same stage for saying he supports limits to abortion, (4) just because the government passes "all" the legislation you support does not mean you should stop participating in democracy.
Was he "joking"? Not the word I would use but I can see how it was chosen.
Does he want to be Supreme Ruler and kill off democratic elections? Possibly.
Was that the intent of this particular sound bite? No.For me, it's just really frustrating when so much noise is generated, even with good intent, around misinformation. It obscures the things that are really meaningful.
This is a distraction.
The conversation that should be had around this statement is: what exactly is it that Christians want him to do so they'd never have to vote again.
A responsible journalist would take his statement and investigate what it means. Instead, what we get are headlines that generate an emotional reaction so we click on sites that profit not from educating the public but from serving advertisements.
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Edit: Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Raw Story states that "the comment raised alarms that Trump was hinting he would refuse to leave office, or cancel elections." and fails to actually put the statement in context or offer a reasonable explanation for it. Instead of explaining that Trump was offering a campaign promise to Christians, they look at whether he would leave office at the end of his term - entirely unrelated and frankly difficult for me to wrap my head around the jump. "Raw Story", ironically, fails to link to a source for their article.===
Raw Story: Trump scrambles to explain what he meant that voting won't be necessary in four years.Former President Donald Trump triggered outrage when he told supporters at an event in Florida last week if he's elected, “You won’t have to do it anymore."
"Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine," he said. "You won’t have to vote anymore. In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”
The comment raised alarms that Trump was hinting he would refuse to leave office, or cancel elections.
In an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Monday, Trump tried to clarify his words a bit, and walk back any possible implication of that.
You won't have to vote in four years, he said, "because the country will be fixed, and frankly, we won't even need your vote anymore."
"I thought everybody understood it," Trump added.
Ingraham proceeded to ask him if he would leave office voluntarily after four years. "I did last time," said Trump. "I keep hearing it, he's not going to leave, he's not going to leave. Look, they are the threat to democracy."
Trump was at the center of a scheme to deny the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory in 2020, which culminated in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump is currently under federal indictment and state indictment in Georgia over these efforts. Both cases are on hold until after the election.
LOL i was wondering when someone would play the "oUt Of CoNtExT" card. this comment reminds me of christians who try to spin "turn the other cheek" to mean "shoot them in the face" iN tHe RiGhT cOnTeXt
gtfo
If you want to spend your time and emotional energy participating in meaningless bullshit, have at it.
I hope others are a little more responsible and realize The Internet and Cable News and Social Media are the wrong places to get real information. Don't count on fourth and fifth hand reporting. Watch CSPAN, watch political leaders speaking in context. Everything else is, sadly, only "reporting" enough to get you worked up enough to click on ads and generate revenue for them. Russia, China, and Iran know this. They know we're gullible, emotional, and broken. It's actually refreshing to observe news as it happens in real time rather than reading the bile that others spew for your attention. It's bonkers how much of "the news" is just out of context sound bites. It's been happening irrespective of political affiliation. And it's destroying this country and our respect for one another.
I watched the speech. There was no context outside of He is planning on ending Democracy
I watched the speech. There was no contedt outside of He is planning on ending Democracy
This is a lie. That was 100% NOT the context of this statement. He has said this in other statements and speeches but not at this event.
https://youtu.be/fHXI-k8dD5g?t=3261
and vote vote early vote absentee vote on Election Day. I don't care how but you have to get out and vote. and again. Christians get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. 4 more years, You know what? it'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote in any more my beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out you got to get out and vote. in 4 years. You don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed So good. You're not going to have to vote.
Never once in your clip did he give any context. You posted his exact words. He said they wouldn't have to vote again because it would be fixed. That's all of the context.
The context, if I need to define this for you, is the words he is speaking, who he is speaking to, and where and when he is saying it.
He said they wouldn’t have to vote again because it would be fixed.
Correct! And what does this tell you?
Does this tell you that he's going to be supreme leader? That he'll refuse to leave office? That he's going to end elections?
Or does this tell you, that as he is speaking to a room full of christians, that he is going to fix the country in such a way that these "beautiful Christians" will never have to vote again?
Yea, I got that context, which doesn't add anything to support your point.
His words say he will fix 'it' so they won't have to ever vote again.
He is speaking to a group of Trump thumping Christian Nationalists who's view consistently align with, "Everyone should have to fall in line with my religious views regardless of what they think or what the constitution says".
He is speaking at a rally leading up to the general election after having taken it to the chin the last couple of weeks and getting backed into a corner.
The most important part that you left out though is, "who is saying it", which is a twice impeached, felon, rapist, man child that is as corrupt as space is big and is on the record stating he wants to be a dictator if reelected.
With all of that context, I believe he's telling his cult that he will fix their "problems", which to them are Democrats, and elections won't matter in the future. It tells me that he does want to be supreme leader, Jan 6th shows that he tried and would very possibly try again to not leave office, and his previous rhetoric and actions to suppress voters show he would happily stop all elections.
Even if you ignore all of those red flags and write it all off as speculation and take it as you interpret it, the idea of what would have to happen for these "Christians" to be complicit and to never need to vote again is just as bad. It means Christianity has completely superseded the constitution and US law, which is bad by itself, but would never be able to happen through legal, non-corrupt means in a 4 year span.
Ok. You're adding your own context and feelings into the story to re-interpret what he said. That's reasonable.
That's not what he said though and the media is irresponsible for publishing that.
You're removing context. You have no context if you remove the person saying it. You can't take this moment, put it in a vacuum and ignore everything else leading up it.
The media posted exactly what he said, and questioned the intent take into account the person making the statement.
If Jesus were alive today and was the person the Bible claims him to have been, if he made these same statements, I'd think, "cool, he's got a good track record of helping everyone out and being a good dude. I'm sure he's got the best intentions". When Trump says the same words, the implication is different, because his past actions change the context of the conversation. He doesn't get the benefit of the doubt and should be scrutinized accordingly.
Gotcha. I’m not living in the same reality as you. That seems to be a reasonable explanation for politics today. Unfortunately, our different realities impose consequences on one another.
And... you're absolutely right. THIS is exactly what we should be discussing. The media should be pulling notes from the Christian agenda and discussing what a president can or can not do. It should be looking at historical records and Supreme Court rulings to inform the voters if what DT is saying is factual or realistic. The media should be cross referencing what Christians want and what's in Project 2025 and informing the public of what threats another Trump presidency really means.
Instead, we get these false flags about Trump saying he doesn't intended to leave office - which is a blatant lie by the media.
This may be a part of the agenda but there's so much more going on. For the people who think they want a dictator in office, they need to be informed of what that looks like - for better or worse.
We're discussing this because the media called him out for his comments. The media has also actively been shining more light on project 2025. The media can write more than one story at the same time, and since the universe is canonical, those stories feed into each other and with that bring context.
The media can't just report on past supreme court ruling and reference precedent, when the man saying there will be no need to vote again is the primary reason for the courts corruption. By high lighting his statement and even suggesting that he maybe talking about voter suppression and dictatorship is the media illustrating the threats of another Trump presidency. They are doing exactly what your saying, but on this one particular message, you're fighting to defend him, like this one time is different than the rest.
Here's the thing missing in all your arguments: for the highest job in the country you have to be deliberate in everything you say. Even he knows his every word will be analyzed to wits end. He has just been afforded the leeway to doublespeak by apologists who just care about the execution of their plan and by dupes who want to give him the benefit of the doubt after failing at every measure to deserve it.
To pretend that this group of people here on Lemmy are not well versed on sifting through good, lousy and disinformation is complete crap.
for the highest job in the country you have to be deliberate in everything you say
I agree that a person attempting to hold the highest office in the country should be held to the highest standards. Evidently you and I are in the minority.
he knows his every word will be analyzed to wits end.
This has been the case since day zero. Regardless and in spite of all the lies and intentional disinformation he has spewed, has only excelled in his objectives. He does not care if his words are dissected. He's a moron. And it doesn't matter in this reality we reside in.
He has just been afforded the leeway to doublespeak by apologists
Wrong. He's been afforded the leeway to doublespeak by agencies claiming to be exercising journalism.
To pretend that this group of people here on Lemmy are not well versed on sifting through good, lousy and disinformation is complete crap.
I mean, that's just hilarious that you think this forum maintains some higher level of decorum or intellect. It's barely a shade better than reddit. And as evident by this thread, you're verifiably wrong.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/us/politics/trump-christians-vote-ingraham.html?smid=url-share
I mean I'm just saying...
Maybe you'll take this article to reinforce the point you're trying to make but contrast it with what you've been saying to other commenters above.
Yes. I quoted that interview somewhere here to make my point.
January 6th, 2020. Where he went out and tried to get a mob to kill his christian VP, because the guy refused to install him as a dictator.
You're aware that Trump already tried to end democracy, right? When he tried to have the Georgia election results tossed out, and sent hundreds of his sycophants to the Capitol, instructing them to "take the country back," we saw him try to end democracy once. He now says he's going to do it again, and you argue. Why? Because you're getting a paycheck to do it?
We know what he means, and if you keep arguing, we know you're not interested in facts.
you're sitting there trying to convince everyone that trump means something OTHER than that he plans to crown himself supreme dictator, which he's been implying for YEARS. in ALL the contexts.
i AM emotional, and maybe even broken. but one thing i'm NOT is gullible. "it was a joke" please... again, GTFO with this "out of context" bullshit. trump said voting is going away if he wins. cotton said it was a joke. the end.
Your argument is that Trump said he wants to be supreme dictator so when he says the sky is pink we should interpret that statement to mean he wants to be supreme dictator.
I'm arguing that we should focus on why he's claiming the sky is pink in addition to focusing on the threat of him intent on being supreme dictator.
Donald Trump: I will be a dictator on day 1.
Also Donald Trump: You won't have to vote any more! We'll fix it and you won't have to vote again.
You: But what could he MEAN by that? WHY would he say that? Only an enlightened intellectual such as myself could reasonably tussle any logical meaning out of such complicated statements of intent.
Thank you for proving my point so succinctly 😩
Donald Trump: I will be a dictator on day 1.
This has nothing at all to do with this topic.
I wish people actually gave a crap about words and context and responsible journalism. There are real issues to discuss and this is a gigantic distraction. I genuinely don't understand how people are so blinded by their emotions that they can look the facts in the face and reject them.
Our inability to separate rhetoric and disinformation from facts, or in this case, our inability to separate two entirely different statements, is our greatest threat. It's all garbage in garbage out. It's terrifying.
It has everything to do with this topic. You can't just ignore years of precedent and take a current snapshot in time and say nothing prior matters.
The words used matter, and responsible journalism will call out when someone says something like this. We should be less accepting of rhetoric like this, and if it was just poorly phrased, then he seems to do that a lot and should be scrutinized and lambasted for it.
I edited my post since you want to be obtuse about this.
I don’t understand why you’re jumping through logical hoops to defend this imagined context.
You’re claiming that he is more likely to be saying “once legislation is passed, voting is no longer necessary” (which is literally never how this country’s version of democracy has ever worked or ever should) than he is to be saying “once I’m in power I will reduce/remove the efficacy of voting” (which is something he has clearly supported in the past and is pretty much the entire Republican goal)?
I'm literally doing the opposite of jumping through logical hoops.
I'm attempting to illustrate how so many others are jumping through logical hoops to make one group of words mean something entirely different.
Apparently I'm not doing a very good job.
Try to think about why you vote. Perhaps you enjoy or feel obligated to participate in the democratic process. Perhaps you don't vote unless there's something very important to vote about. Perhaps there's a historically significant reason to show up to the polls.
Trump mentions in the speech that Christians historically don't show up to the polls. He's trying to convince them that they should elect him to office to pass all the legislation they want over the course of his four year term. Once he has done everything they want government to do, they won't have to vote again.
That's the context of this statement.
So, if you want to argue about him claiming to be a dictator or not intending to leave office, that's a valid conversation that could be had in the context of other statements he has made. That is not valid in the context of this statement.
If you want to build a case to support the idea that he wants to be a supreme leader, perhaps you could use this statement and re-contextualize it in a clever way to support that case in accretion to other statements he has made.
But you’re just doubling down on the assertion that he expects people to believe that “once favorable legislation is passed, voting is no longer necessary” which is fundamentally illogical except in the case of a transient democratic event under authoritarian government.
- There is no more unconstitutional when it comes to the president.
- Can you really take that fucking risk? If there is a 0.01% chance that fucker was being serious, and this isn't the first time hes outright said he's gonna be a dictator, you're willing to bet the free world on it?
this isn’t the first time hes outright said he’s gonna be a dictator,
My point is that he did not say that in this speech. He has said it in other speeches but not here. Why are we all focused on this event when we could be discussing the real issues of this speech and / or the other speeches where he threatened to be a dictator?
@oxjox @kbin_space_program Aren’t you creating a distinction without a difference? If things are “fixed” so that everything will forever remain the way his audience wants it (so they won’t have to vote), doesn’t this negate the right to vote? It seems to mean that anyone who DOES want something different is SOL, cause their votes would no longer change anything. If you don’t have to vote to reaffirm your agreement, you’re in an autocracy.
The context in my situation is he already tried to install himself as a dictator.
See his actions and plan on January 6th, 2020.
doesn’t this negate the right to vote?
Obviously not. Perhaps it may negate your interest in voting, but certainly not your right to do so.
So when he says you won't have to vote, that's different than saying you'll be unable to vote.
There's a lot more to this country than the few things Christians care about. Even if he were to fulfill the promise, the world still goes on spinning.
@oxjox As a practical matter, if any vote other than one approved by the existing ruler is rendered meaningless, one has lost the right to vote. It’s not a vote if only one choice is allowed. Any other spin is just semantics.
While I tend to agree with this sentiment, the counter argument is that it's a thinly veiled cover story for what he actually means.
And after the whole "I want to be a dictator on day 1" comment, I don't think this voting suggestion is as innocent as you and I would like to believe.
Great. So let's address that and see why this has me concerned.
"Dictator on day one" or some variation of that has spread to mean that DT intends to fully overstep all boundaries and become a dictator. Because of how the Internet works - because of the old game of telephone - this has taken many turns to mean the greatest threat to ever face the country. Biden has even used this in many speeches.
I wonder how many people have actually looked into what he actually said, what the context was, and what he may have meant by it.
Does it matter? Isn't it great that we can use a presidential candidate's own words against him to generate clicks and manufacturer a propaganda campaign to benefit one political party? I mean, just take Trump out of this and look at the foundation of what's happening.
So what did he actually say? And, given what we know about the dumbest person to ever be elected president, what did he mean?
I'm shortening the exchange found on Snopes.
HANNITY: Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
TRUMP: Except for Day One.
TRUMP: He says, "You're not gonna be a dictator, are you?" I said no, no, no … other than Day One. We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator, OK?Four days later,
"No, no. I am not going to be a dictator," Trump said.
"I'm going to manage like we did," Trump continued, referencing his first term in office. "We were so successful that the country was coming together. It was actually coming together and coming together well. It was a beautiful thing to see. And we're going to do that again."The context of the dialog was that he wants to "abuse power" and be a dictator on day one in regard to the border and drilling for oil. This is certainly something to have a concern for but, in and of itself, is not this whole story about Trump intending to be a president-turned-dictator.
What's more concerning is Project 2025 which certainly has more intent to work around the barriers of the presidency and form a pseudo-dictatorship.
To put it another way...
On Jan. 6, 2024, Trump told a crowd during a campaign rally in Iowa that he had been "kidding" when he was interviewed by Hannity. He also called the news media "sick" and "so corrupt."
I actually find myself sympathetic to Trump's point here. I am by no means sympathetic to the person but just putting a couple words together in a sentence allows the internet to make a claim that I am sympathetic to him. And, if I were sympathetic to the person, that would be an entirely different subject than the issue of the media being corrupt.
I the problem is assuming, in any way, that Trump is a rational actor.
When he was in office he lied, what? 30,000 times? 30,573 to be exact:
I remember thinking it was bad when the entire Bush administration combined to lie 935 times about Iraq.
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/search-the-935-iraq-war-false-statements/
Neat Trump apologia, bro 📸
Blocked for extreme stupidity. There is no trump apologia in their comment.
The context of what he said immediately said was, "Christians, get out and vote, just this time," before Trump said that because in 4 years, it will be fixed so good they won't have to vote anymore. That something along the lines of "fixing the country of its problems" was implied by the word "fixing" in this context is a massive stretch, and Trump voters usually take away from something they like to hear.
The party claiming that Trump "says things like it is" are spending a lot of time re-interpreting their leader's words.
Nuance is hard here
My conclusion: fair reporting is saying something like-
45’s boasting, applauded by a Christian audience, alarms Democrats who hear a dictatorial message
or
Alarm Bells Ring as 45’s Ambiguous Promise to Christian Audience Sparks Fears Among Democrats
or
45’s 'No More Voting' Vow to Christians: Supporters See Optimism, Critics Warn of Constitutional Threat
Then the article should point out the danger in the ambiguity, regardless of how innocently the audience interpreted it. The impeached president deserves no clicks and attention from unfettered sensationalism. Fetter it a little! 😉 Impede his strategy ever so slightly.
Fair reporting would be '45 promises his conservative Christian base that he'll get everything they want done in four years.'
THAT is his point.
The wording about not having to vote is less relevant than the point that he'll get things done - because he wants them to vote this one time. Any presidential candidate could use the same wording about not needing to vote any longer because they'll get everything done that the voters want. It's an incredibly stupid thing to say because 'democracy' but it's a reasonable assertion to a group of voters who only care about a few issues.
If Harris were to "fix" the Supreme Court, "fix" gun regulations, "fix" health care, "fix" climate change, "fix" inequities; it's a reasonable assertion that I may not have to vote again.
TD says a lot of stupid shit. He says a lot of scary shit. Nothing he says should be taken lightly or ignored. However, a lot of it is taken out of context or re-contextualized. Even his statement about being a dictator on day one, as scary as his genuine intention is in an of itself, is misconstrued.
This isn't about nuance. This is about people inserting their emotions into the statements of others. This is about the media blatantly lying. It happens all the time regardless of party or politics or venue or subject matter. It's exhausting and it's something we should all be greatly concerned about.
The conversation that should be had around this statement is: what exactly is it that Christians want him to do so they’d never have to vote again.
Agree with all your points. This sounded like an election promise to me.
Thank you.