That's peculiar, because I see:
I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest
How does "I'm building a wall" in any way tell you that "absolute" and "inherent" shouldn't be taken at face value?
*sigh* I don't even know what you expect by this point. You wanna somehow wring bigotry from a conflict of interest?
No, it's from the part where the conflict of interest is
that he's a Mexican.
Because "race" was involved? I've gone over this. You say I "tried" to explain otherwise. In no way do I believe you've refuted that. I don't know how you can honestly look at the above quote and not immediately understand exactly what is being conveyed.
Well, for starters, you've excised the parts where he mentions the judge's race. Kinda galling that you'd talk this much about context and then exclude the bit the entire disagreement has been about, and then rhetorically wonder how anyone can look at the "above quote" and come to a different conclusion.
Also, race was not "involved." He specifically mentioned the judge's race as being the
reason for the conflict of interest. Multiple times.
Now you're assuming what Trump means.
Nope, I'm simply applying context. It works both ways: if it's reasonable to look at how these words are sometimes used by others, you have to also look at the circumstances under which they're used that way. And while people use lots of literally incorrect words for emphasis, they don't usually do so when talking about people's race, questioning their professional conduct, or in semi-formal, written communication, let alone reiterate it later under questioning. This is not something he blurted out and then walked back or qualified, it's something he put out in writing, used more than one adjective for, and then doubled down on again later.
It's not a matter of being against literalism, there are more and less plausible interpretations of any text or speech. It depends on the speaker, what is being spoken, where it is being spoken, and when it is being spoken.
Agreed. And the context of a
press release and subsequent defense from someone who's been a public figure their entire adult life should not be compared to the tweets of two random people.
This doesn't contradict anything I've said either, I said this in direct response to the statement:
"being Mexican renders the judge incapable of impartiality, that's what he literally said."
That is false. This never happened. He never spoke those words
Yeah, we
did this part already: I pointed out that you can literally say something through logical inevitability, and you (seemingly) agreed.
and we've established that you don't even care what he means.
This isn't true; half the arguments I'm making are still about what he means. And I also think that his intellectual and verbal habits are such that saying he doesn't "mean" a thing isn't saying much, anyway. At minimum, you're left with someone who's willing to make unfounded assumptions about other people based on their race if he thinks it benefits him. I don't know exactly how I'd draw the line between being racist and exploiting race for personal gain, but I know it'd be really, really thin.
It really didn't require that.
It requires that you claim that when he said absolute, he just meant a lot, and when he said inherent, he just meant a lot AGAIN. And moreover, that this interpretation is not just the most likely, but
so obviously true that anyone who thinks otherwise is essentially lying. I'm not sure you appreciate just how incredible this position is.
The entire fricken' argument revolves around reading meaning into what is obviously not intended.
Let's try this: if someone isn't a racist, but uses the n-word...did they make a racist statement?
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