You may have heard—maybe not, if it is part of your mental hygiene to ignore the annoying distortions promulgated by the day’s news cycle—that former President Trump referred to a bloodbath that would occur if he does not get elected in November. I myself am not bothered by his use of a common figure of speech. What bothers me is that he calls Xi Jinping a “friend.”
There will be bloodbath
“Bloodbath.” That’s an exact quote.
Former President Trump—who invented casually violent metaphors in order to be able to use them during campaign appearances and is obviously up to his hips boots in this particular metaphor, which he used and which nobody ever used before except all his hysterical left-wing critics—did in fact say “bloodbath.” This much must be admitted.
That’s established. He uttered that word. “Bloodbath.” If you want to contend that Trump did not say the word “bloodbath,” well, you’re just wrong. The reports from all quarters are unanimous. He used the word “bloodbath.” It’s probably also on video.
Snopes, too, evenhanded flayer of fakery and fallacy, has confirmed that Trump used that word (“bloodbath”). Snopes has also confirmed that Trump should have known in advance as he was cobbling together his extemporaneous riffs how all his arch enemies looking to make something out of nothing would have descended on this usage (of the word “bloodbath”) like carrion-starved vultures.
The attribution is “accurate,” Snopes snurbled, even if there was more than one way to interpret the words that Trump said…. Yes, Snopes has invented a new category of accuracy, the accurate deliberate misrepresentation of words that the victim of the misrepresentation should have known in advance would be misrepresented, therefore did know in advance, to get his secret message out, controversial history of violence-tinged words, something something something, thus, etc. Trump could avoid all this sort of thing if he were to simply stop using words. Conclusion: accurate.
And it’s true. Trump said that word. “Bloodbath.” At the risk of repeating myself: “bloodbath.”
If you’re saying you don’t see the problem, it’s clear that you are not paying attention. There is no problem. That’s the problem. Be smarter.
No friend
Trump said that if he’s elected president again, his policies will mega-help the auto industry. If he’s not elected, well, the auto industry will not benefit from his policies, and it, and indeed the whole country, will, instead, suffer a—are you sitting down? because I don’t want to blindside you with an undainty collocation of such words as “blood” and “bath”—bloodbath.
Will the American auto industry be blood-bathed if Trump doesn’t get elected? I don’t know. At the present juncture, I don’t want to commit myself, not without further study and contemplation, regarding the substance of Trump’s proposed auto-industry policies and whether in a second Biden term Biden would be able to complete his strangulation of the American auto industry. What I do know is that former President Trump used the word “bloodbath.”
It doesn’t bother me that Trump used the word “bloodbath.” I might use the word myself one day. What bothers me is that in the same remarks he called Chinese Dictator Xi Jinping a “friend.”
Complaining about automobile manufacturing plants in Mexico and China, Trump said that if he gets back into the White House he will impose massive tariffs on any Chinese-built vehicles imported into the United States.
“Let me tell you something, China. If you’re listening, President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal,” Trump exclaimed before grousing about China building auto plants in Mexico. “We’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line. You’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected!”
Xi Jinping is not your friend, Mr. Trump. He is not a friendly rival. He is the totalitarian dictator of China, and he is responsible for authorizing or accepting many oppressive and murderous policies. For a person with any good moral qualities to call someone a friend is to pay a kind of compliment. If American politicians feel that for the sake of diplomacy they must in public avoid honestly characterizing such heads of state as Xi Jinping, who is evil, they should at least refrain from calling them pals.
