President Trump

So many cars were destroyed in that movie its not even funny.

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Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies...

HA!!! Yes it was. It was very funny. You sure got me with that comment, Rex. Still remember myself laughing into a coughing fit watching that scene.

So Im making a list of Things Donald Trump Comes To The Defense Of. So far I have

1. Vladimir Putin
2. Nazis
3. Child Molesters
4. Wife Beaters

Am I missing anything? Kids who were brought to this country by no fault of their own? Uh nope.. POW's? Nah sorry. He doesnt like people who get captured. NATO countries? Traditional Allies? Nope and nope.

The Junkman

Hi Irex.

As my pal Yoda might say (to me)... sources?

P.S. I'm thinking of changing my ID to Captain Steel Dossier! Whaddaya think?

Sources for what?

Such as what "Nazis" does Trump defend?

Were you not around for his "some very fine people" comments about the Nazi march in Charlottesville?

Yes, I was around (we had some debates on this site).

In my opinion and that of many others, Trump's comment was made in regards to a controversy over removing historical statues and was a reference taken out of context due to what had just taken place in Charlottesville and because he failed to spell out exactly the full expanse of what he was referring to. And then having the out-of-context distortion expanded by the media.

The statue controversy had been brewing for a while long before the violence erupted in Charlottesville. There were people who wanted statues torn down and those who didn't for a variety of reasons.

Among those who did not want statues destroyed due to their significance as historic pieces of art (and who long preceded the questionable groups that filed for permits to hold public protests that culminated in conflicts with Antifa & one Nazi nut driving his car into a crowd that injured several and killed a woman) were local residents, historical societies, town councils, university staff, students and groups such as the Daughters of the Confederacy who, despite how people may feel about the group's name, helped influence the country to adopt memorial day as a national holiday for all fallen service people, as this group began the practice of tending graves of soldiers of both sides after the Civil War.

Trump's reference were to people on both sides of the statue controversy (including just regular people who don't desire monuments to be destroyed), not to the groups that had conflicts in the streets that one weekend.

I have to ask, realistically, does that explanation not make a little more sense then a President making a public statement where he actually wanted to express that "there are some good Nazis?"

I realize Trump often acts foolishly, but I don't think he's so stupid that he'd publicly say that there are some very fine people in neo-Nazi groups or desire the public to believe he thinks that.

The problem is he didn't go on specify the full breadth of what he was referring to, once again relying on the public's common sense to realize he was talking about the fine people on both sides of the long-running statue controversy, recognizing that both sides had some legitimate points.

People may disagree with this interpretation, but it is the most logical as it would be difficult to prove that Trump supports Nazis when he has a Jewish daughter, Jewish grandchildren, and has staunchly supported Israel. Those same mindsets that have accused Trump of being some form of Nazi (or just catering to some kind of National Socialist Supremacist base) have later said he is some kind of Zionist for acknowledging Israel's capital. It's a bit difficult to reconcile a U.S. President being somehow, simultaneously both a Nazi and Zionist.

Pleas stop twisting yourself into knots to defend Trumps comments regarding Nazis... Its really quite simple... When Nazis march openly on a college campus shouting Nazi slogans and making Nazi salutes and it results in violence and death you DONT in ANY way try to make ANY excuse for ANY of the people involved in that kind evil. At the very BEST he is the stupidest person on earth for using that opportunity to defend people on the side the Nazis were on. More likely hes supporting people he knows support him and helped him get elected. And by the way the Nazis and the white supremacists took his words as SUPPORT for their efforts. They released public statements thanking him and were super stoked that the President of the United States was "coming to their defense" on the issue.

So just stop... Trying to defend Trump trying to defend hate groups does you NO good... Believe me... Especially using a simple tongue in cheek comment about Trump's history of defending bad people and not good people (you really didnt see the pattern at all?) to spring board into some long silly speech about the TECHNICAL aspect of his words and how its all a BIG mistake. Get ****ing serious. It was one more brick in the wall showing what a terrible terrible person he is. And we got that yet again this past week when he defended people in his administration who beat their wives. Or are you going to post some nonsense about how TECHNICALLY he wasnt defending them either when he said they were good people who did a "great job"?

In 99% of political situations I think this is a good posture to take, particularly towards our ideological opponents.

That said...I'm not sure it applies much to Trump, who has a long history of blurting out absurd things without thinking about them, so I don't think we can appeal even to his own sense of political self-preservation for deniability.

Anyway, you can exclude Nazis from the list entirely and the list of people he reflexively defends is still pretty bad. People had a field day with this "due process" comment, because it didn't take them long to discover lots of examples of him (on Twitter) denying others that same "due process" by declaring them guilty based on whatever he'd heard. Did it constantly on the campaign trail, too.

I take it you disagree, Irex.

Okay, assuming your stance (which is a popular one) is entirely correct, does this mean that Trump was also saying there were some fine people among Antifa - who showed up armed, with battle gear and makeshift flamethrowers, who began physical attacks, who hurled balloons full of feces and urine at people (let's face it, saving up enough feces to make a balloon arsenal takes some major planning - this wasn't a spur of the moment thing).

He had to have meant that the violent sh*t hurlers who ended up hurting innocent bystanders were "fine people" because that's what he said - that there were FINE PEOPLE on BOTH SIDES - so he HAD to be talking about the ones with the flamethrower and the piss balloons and the car killer. Right? Because he said "both sides." (Did he mean both sides of those starting riots?)

I don't think so because afterward he condemned all the people who engaged in violence, and Antifa members acting violently were not the only people surrounding the statue controversy - as said earlier, it was going on long before the 2 days when things exploded and there were just regular people, some just local people supporting the monuments of their southern heritage and some who found offensive in them (fine ones among them who were neither Nazis nor about to burn or hurl poop at people).

Still, assuming Trump is a Nazi - how could he let his daughter marry and convert to Judaism? Maybe he was powerless to stop it, but he could have at least disowned her as any good Nazi would. But instead he makes her his top business associate and advisor and makes his Jewish son-in-law an international envoy!

I mean, it's still understood that Nazi's haven't gone progressive, right? They simply do not allow people who openly accept or even condone Jewish relatives into the group - that's probably like one of their top qualifications.

Last, how does this Nazi, get up in front of the world and support Israel, and not just that but recognize their right as a sovereign nation to name their capital (for which most of the world wants to crucify him)? Pretty dangerous stance, not just for a President, but for a Nazi? If a Nazi did that, it's a pretty sure bet they don't want to be a Nazi.

Serious question - how do you reconcile Trump being a Nazi (or at least a Nazi supporter) and loving Jews, having Jewish family that he interacts with regularly, appointing minorities to cabinet positions, and being allied with Israel and currently their greatest supporter? Last checked, being a Nazi and a Pro-Semite were still mutually exclusive.

Did he say he was a Nazi? I thought he was saying he had sorta defended them, which is quite a different thing.

Is it?
Do you know a lot of people who defend Nazis (and I'm not talking about defending rights to free speech, but Nazism itself), but reject all of their ideals?
If you reject bigotry, racism, ethnic supremacism, intolerance, fascism, tyranny, murder, terrorism, genocide and the "final solution" what, exactly is there left to "defend"?

You just rejected defense of Drumpf, not his defense of Nazis. That's ancient history now though.

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First, you didn't actually make the case that these two things were the same: you merely repeated his position back to him as if he'd literally called Trump a Nazi. That's not an honest or fair representation of the thing you were responding to.

Second, I mentioned defending "them," which is not the same thing as defending any specific ideal. And I know you understand this distinction, because this is exactly how you describe your relationship with Trump: not really agreeing with a lot of what he says, but still defending him against what you see as rhetorical overreach, or things of that sort.

Third, your question assumes a level of forethought that isn't really in evidence. Trump has a clear history of spouting off about things perfunctorily based on nothing more than disliking whoever's attacking them. This might protect him from charges of really believing any of this stuff, but not from carelessly offering them indirect support.

Also, you seem to be describing mid-20th-century Third Reich Nazism in your response here, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about neo-Nazis, whose self-described beliefs are considerably diluted, at least compared to that. Let's agree that the idea of Trump supporting, I dunno, ethnic cleansing, is absurd. Is it similarly absurd to think he might sympathize with some of the "white genocide" stuff about white people essentially being replaced over time?

Yeah love the ridiculous bait and switch tactic he uses to misrepresent my point of view.

Just for the record, allow me to quote myself from page 118 of this very same thread:

I respect your opinion, but I feel you're being a bit extreme in your interpretation specifically of Trump's comment over the statue controversy and that it demonstrated that he defends Nazis - I explained why several times. I thought Yoda's term of "rhetorical overreach" was a good one.

If you choose to believe he was referring to Nazis who incite violence as fine people as opposed to all others surrounding the statue controversy such as little old ladies in the local historical society, I realize I can't change your interpretation.

You say I'm pulling a bait and switch, but that's not my intention because I see a direct inference between saying some defends Nazis to them being one themselves.

Here's why: saying someone defends Nazis without implying that they share Nazi beliefs is a bit hard to separate. Nazism is a philosophy so extreme and so absolute in its beliefs, practice and history, that I don't think anyone can casually defend or support its beliefs (since it does not have a single good one) without sharing the ideology - unless perhaps they have no understanding of what it is (such as a child who thinks drawing swastikas is cool because they saw some in a comic book).

As far as I'm concerned, involvement is the same as with terrorism - not just those who strap on a bomb belt are the terrorists, but those who share, support, justify or defend the ideology - and it's an ideology that is so extreme that if you're in for a penny you're in for a pound. Being a tacit supporter of terrorism is a ruse, just like being an infrequent defender of Nazis - these are ideologies so evil that you either accept them or condemn them because there are no grey areas in ideologies of genocide. Whether it's Nazism, or Jihadism, due to their inherent absolutes, there is no middle ground - if you support or defend any aspect of these evil ideologies, then you are complicit in and part of those ideologies.

I cant believe you're still wasting energy on that incident . Werent the statue incidents 6 months ago? Surely he has said something of worth since then?

Indeed! (See I.Rex's post a page back on the other people Trump is defending now.)