From Trump Assassination Attempt #1, one year ago: Why do the non-Deplorables deplore the Trump shooting?
I’m still baffled by the Democrats who say that Donald Trump is Hitler 2.0 and yet won’t wish him dead. But at least some are logical.
For example, here’s a 2/28/2025 Facebook post from a Democrat (my late mother’s cousin) who previously explicitly compared Trump to Hitler and who makes the logical inference:
Comments from her friends:
- …but then we’ve got Vance, who is no better.
- Today is not soon enough
- Echoes from a house in PA!
- I keep hoping for an aortic aneurism.
Another post from the same Facebooker:
Figure Grok 6 will replace the human in chief. They’re already replacing doctors & they’ve just about had it with human politicians.
So, here’s what I think that might reconcile it. One simple parameter I have observed having interacted with folks from different cultures is the ‘word-action delta’. I define ‘word’ as what a person is communicating verbally and non-verbally to others, so this become independent of high or low context cultures. And by action I mean what the person ends up doing, or what they are communicating with their actions.
IMO, since people are on an average becoming more and emotional (in the sense of ‘Amusing ourselves to death’), they tend to have a large word-action delta. So, when people say Trump is Hitler, it’s just a way to incite emotions in other people, not acting like Trump is Hitler. Calling Trump Hitler is more amusing than calling him ill-informed or something neutral like that, you’d agree, and that’s what we’re going for.
So, reconciling calling Trump Hitler and then grieving when he’s shot seems easier when we take into account the word-action delta parameter.
Is it really so difficult to imagine people worried for the future of US democracy* might not think encouraging and celebrating political assassinations will lead to a great future for US democracy? Both can be bad.
I mean, I have read enough of your thoughts to infer you tend to think very black-and-white about things, so probably “mixed feelings” don’t often come up a lot in your day-to-day (at least for politics). That’s fine, I imagine there’s a spectrum with the opposite end being “analysis paralysis”
*yeah yeah yeah, democratic republic
In my opinon, what’s being mocked is the use of an extreme word like Hitler to describe Trump, assuming that Hitler is used with some sincerity.
Philip, it is really simple: when Democrats or liberals say nasty and harsh things about Republicans or conservatives, it is “for the good of the country.”
If you cannot grasp this simple logic, I am sorry to break it to you: you are uneducated and lack critical thinking.
Orange Hitler is making inroads in Hamtramck MI!
I suggest two bumper stickers:
1. Palestinians for Orange Hitler (superimposed on Trump’s angry face)
2. My golden retriever is smarter than your college professor!
https://hamtramckcity.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Unofficial-General-Election-Results-for-November-5-2024-Copy.pdf
Well, many of the ingredients are there. Rhetoric about how we’re entitled to neighboring land? Demonizing and deporting the “undesirables” to foreign lands? (The “first solution” was Madagascar.) Threatening to revoke citizenship of political opponents? (“First they came for the communists.”) Instigating a failed coup? Railing against the “lying press?” Those are just off the top of my head.
(Now the strawman is to claim this must mean any critics are in favor of illegal this and criminal that rather than the obvious “due process protects the innocent, dummy”)
This isn’t to offer some magic solution or simple explanation, other than “inequality is fertile ground for hateful/divisive rhetoric” and “do you think the US is the only country that can do propaganda and destabilize governments?”
@Christopher, I fully understand all your points, but yet here we are. An “orange man” with all his flaws on full display, in public, has managed to win the presidency twice. If you are still unsure why, here is a comedian, a lifelong Democrat, who actually gets it and explains it in plain English. Let’s talk after you have had a chance to watch this ~8-minute clip.
BTW, I am not sure if there’s actually any real practical difference in the term of a president not playing with a full deck, average intelligence president, and an intelligent president. Perhaps only a dumb president (who’s very unlikely to be elected) and a really smart president can make any difference.
I am saying this because when there wasn’t so much connectivity and social media, how it was, say in the 80s, (which I read about in some books), maybe we wouldn’t have known how intelligent politicians are. And perhaps there might already have been worse presidents than the current one. Maybe it was better to not know in such detail about what the president is saying because it adds too much noise in the analysis of their policies which actually matter.
Philip, the posting screenshot has 5 comments but you gave only 4 comments descriptions. Was 5th comment yours? Did you react to the post? How do the creepy posts affect overall relationships with the relatives?