Comment by umvi
5 years ago
> The leader of the United States encouraging law enforcement and the military to shoot American citizens for looting
That's an extremely literal interpretation of his words. Most people would interpret that phrase to mean "you better think twice before looting because I'm not going to sit idly by and let you do it" but in the form of a vaguely threatening, yet catchy rhyme.
> The phrase was used by Miami's police chief, Walter Headley, in 1967, when he addressed his department's "crackdown on ... slum hoodlums," according to a United Press International article from the time.
> Headley, who was chief of police in Miami for 20 years, said that law enforcement was going after “young hoodlums, from 15 to 21, who have taken advantage of the civil rights campaign. ... We don't mind being accused of police brutality."
This is where the quote comes from.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-...
Edit:
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-quotes-cop-sparked-rac...
> The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence found that Headley's remarks and policing policies had been a significant factor in sparking the riots.
> Headley died four months after the riots. The Times in its obituary noted his policies had caused "growing resentment" among black Miami residents.
Our President fully understands the gravity of those words. This is what he wanted to say. This is what he meant. This is what he believes. This is WHO HE IS.
There are many ways I would describe Donald Trump, but “deeply knowledgeable about American civil rights history” is not one of them. I can almost certainly guarantee you that Trump’s statement was not intended as an homage or reference to a Miami police chief from the 1960’s.
Two paths here: - Trump is old enough to conceivably remember such quotes, he doesn't have to have a deep knowledge of American Civil Rights history, just a few memories of catchy rhymes - If Trump is not penning his tweets, then the choice of quotation is even more likely to be intended
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The President keeps surprising me. Like, I keep thinking I have an accurate mental model of him being generally hateful and clueless and instinctive, but then things like this happen and underscore to me that he is deeply knowledgeable and sophisticated with these kinds of historical cultural references. So, still hateful, but not a dummy. That phrase was not an accident.
Agreed, it was not an accident. He hired Miller and Gorka. Also not by accident. Gorka left after Bannon, but Stephen Miller is pretty knowledgable as well as open about his views on race and fascism, and often seems involved in messaging strategy.
Could be it was just a catchy rhyme that stuck in his head and bubbled out, rather than a deep and sophisticated understanding of history.
> That's an extremely literal interpretation of his words
Yes, which is better than a reasonable interpretation of his words would show them to be, because going beyond a mere literal reading to consider the deliberate historical reference and the implicit subtext makes the statement worse, not better.
He's fairly good at riding that line of plausible deniability.
Just yesterday, he retweeted a guy calling for Democrats to die. "Well, not literally of course"... wink wink.
People are choosing to give him plausible deniability because he's white. If Obama sent a tweet calling for Republicans to die, all politicians whether Democrat or Republican would forcefully condemn him.
He's really not a mastermind genius playing 4-D Chess. He is openly calling for violence, and has already inspired terrorists to mail bombs to prominent politicians, and people are choosing to play dumb about how evil he is.
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> Most people would interpret that phrase..
Even if you're right, which you're not, what is "Most" here? 51%? 63%? 90%?
Are you saying that it's bad if the majority of people are riled up to engage in violence following his tweet, but OK if 40% do? 10%? 1%?
Probably depends on what you think of the intentions of the person. Some people think Trump is the devil and assume he means the worst-case thing when he says something, others look at it in other lights.
Previous US presidents were careful with their words, as they know people will interpret them in different ways if they aren't crystal clear. Trump just does stream-of-through -> keyboard -> twitter, and we get to see the results. Which tends to leave lots of what he says open to interpretation based on the perspective of the reader.
What's vague about 'When the looting starts, the shooting starts'? It seems extremely specific to me.
> Most people would interpret that phrase to mean "you better think twice before looting because I'm not going to sit idly by and let you do it"
What do you base the knowledge of how most people will have interpreted this statement on?
The historical experiences of different classes of people can have a profound impact on the perspectives they have in relation to the government. An 80 year old black man might have a very different relationship with governmental authorities than a 30 year old Latino, or a 40 year old Caucasian.