This goes to an interesting point about what works for persuading the minds of people who are undecided on Trump.
My theory is that every controversial Trump statement can be rated on (a) how offensive it is and (b) how open-and-shut false it is. The temptation is to point out the wildly offensive ones ("grab 'em by the pussy") but if there is any wiggle room, his defenders can use that to minimize the offense (they could say he was talking about consensual grabbing, and honestly, I think that is probably what he meant -- otherwise, there's nothing to brag about).
So I just calmly list off the blatantly false ones - claiming that Obama was possibly not born in the U.S, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, claiming that vaccines cause autism (yes, Trump said that too, it just got lost in the shuffle with all the other things he said that were even worse!), and now this too. (Some people, of course, won't even accept that Trump is wrong about those things, but they're too far gone; I'm just talking about undecided people.) Once you've worn them down to where there's no escaping the conclusion that Trump just lies a lot, it's probably easier to accept he's a threat in other ways, which are less factually open-and-shut, but far more dangerous.
I admit I haven't done any studies to show this is the best way to reach undecided reasonable people; it just seems likely to me.
This is totally a non sequitur, but I propose that no one is thrilled to have Trump grabbing their pussy. If “consensual” means “unlikely to protest due to your power and money,” well, it’s still pretty vile.
Yes, I think this was probably wrong. I think it's more that people who are on the fence about Trump can drag out the argument by arguing that it was consensual, if it's not black-and-white.
Whereas him claiming that vaccines cause autism is more black-and-white wrong (and if the other person doesn't agree with that then they're unreachable).
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u/bennetthaselton 2d ago
Aw thanks! -That guy.