Another day, another news cycle
dominated by The Donald. This time
it’s hemming and hawing over what he did or did not say about “Second Amendment
people” doing something about Hillary “if she gets to pick her judges.” And
we’re off: Trump goes off the cuff (and off the rails) and then gets to enjoy
millions in free publicity while he and his surrogates equivocate and his
opponents exacerbate.
I realize it’s a fool’s errand to
apply logic to virtually anything DJT says, but I still believe in the rules of
language and reason, so let’s try.
Set aside the lowest-common-denominator
divisiveness. (The US is divided by which amendment(s) we like most?)
Never mind that Hillary has no
interest in “abolish[ing] the Second Amendment.” (She is an advocate
for the right to bear arms in balance with concerns for public safety and
health.)
And let’s not quibble over “whose”
judges they are. (The Supreme Court belongs to The People, not the President
who nominated them or the Senate who confirmed them.)
Let’s just focus on the sentences
that have everyone up in arms:
“By the way, 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.”
His
opponents claim he was inciting
violence: Tacitly (coyly) encouraging his supporters to think about
assassination if Hillary were elected. That would, indeed, be egregious. (To be
fair, I’ve heard more than one person romanticize about killing Hitler before
1933 in direct relation to the current campaign. But Clinton has never even
hinted at such a scenario, which is a yuuuge difference.)
Trump and his
surrogates are claiming he was misinterpreted: He was actually talking about
the voting
power of gun rights advocates: “Donald Trump is absolutely correct,” said
Jennifer Baker, a strategist for the National Rifle Association. “If Hillary
Clinton is elected, there is nothing we can do to stop her from nominating an
anti-gun Supreme Court justice who will vote to overturn the individual right
of law-abiding citizens to own a gun in their home for protection.”
That’s their argument: He’s not talking
about taking up arms; he’s talking about the voting power of gun enthusiasts.
But let’s parse what he actually said: If she gets to pick her judges, then there’s nothing anyone can do,
except “maybe” the Second
Amendment folks...
Of course, DJT’s
acquaintance with the US Constitution is vague at best, but here’s a
refresher: You don’t get to pick judges until after you are elected. You know, after the people (Second Amendment people and Fourteenth
Amendment people and other people) have already voted.
In which case (i.e., after
the election), according to Trump, there’s nothing anyone can do. Except…
(wink) maybe the Second Amendment
people… I don’t know…
(I disagree with Trump: The NRA has tons of influence after
the polls have closed to influence legislation, confirmation hearings, etc. But
that’s not what he said. Not at first. At first he was talking about voting.
You know, the thing that happens before
Clinton gets to pick “her” judges. After which, it’s only the Second Amendment
people who can…maybe… do “something.”)
Considering the Second Amendment deals with guns, and only
guns (and a well-regulated militia… but what’s that?), it is not a reach to
argue that Trump may have been
coyly encouraging violence against Hillary after
the election to prevent her from picking “her” judges. If, in fact, he
was actually aware of what he was saying when he was saying it (a yuuuge
assumption). At the very least, it’s not a stretch to say he was tacitly planting
that seed in the minds of some of his most fervent supporters.
(Of course, you’d have to take out Kaine, too… but then Paul
Ryan gets to be President, and Ryan
scores a 93% from the NRA.)
Did he say that? Clearly not. Could he have meant something
else? Sure – but any other deduction is just as speculative, since his
equivocations have confused the issue. No one knows what he was actually trying
to say (least of all him, it seems), so we just have to speculate from what he
actually said, and then try and find our way through the spin cycle afterward.
Nevertheless, this kind of ambiguous coded language is
clearly meant to incite fear, and it wouldn’t be the first time Trump has
incited violence. It just happens to be both more explicitly dangerous (guns)
and more vague (“I don’t know…”) than wanting
to punch Michael Bloomberg in the face or recalling the “good
old days” when you could “beat the crap out of” protestors with impunity.
Either way, it is not true that his words are being
misinterpreted. The words themselves were describing an after the election scenario, at which point voting for the
person who gets to pick judges is moot for four more years. To say he was
encouraging violence is not the only
plausible interpretation, but it is well within reasonable parameters.
If, as he claims, he was talking about voting, then he “misspoke.”
But to say that would mean admitting that sometimes The Donald just runs off at
the mouth without knowing the implications of what he’s saying (like inviting
Putin to spy on Clinton). That happens daily with DJT. But he wants folks
to believe that the “mainstream media” and those who don’t already love him
just doesn’t “get” what he does. We just don’t understand him.
But we do. We hear what he’s saying. Sometimes folks draw
conclusions that go a bridge too far. But actually listening to what DJT says
is enough to be fearful for the fate of language and reason, not to mention the
whole world, if he is elected. This is just the most recent, albeit not even
the most dangerous, example.
