Former President Donald Trump says a lot of plainly absurd and ridiculous things, as even his own supporters will concede. But recently, national media outlets have curiously chosen to take a particular line out of context.
Over the weekend, in Ohio, Trump took to the stage and spoke at length in his characteristic rambling style.
This is a lengthy quote from that speech to read, but here’s what he said:
“Let me tell you something, to China, if you’re listening, President Xi … those big, monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us? We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars, they’re building massive factories.”
Read or heard in full, it’s not a particularly complicated line of rhetoric from the former president.
Trump is appealing to auto workers with promises to keep the American car-making industry competitive by imposing very costly taxes (tariffs) on imported vehicles.
Trump suggests that if he loses, American car manufacturers will be outcompeted and will suffer drastic economic consequences.
It’s standard Trump economic populism with standard Trump hyperbole.
But you read, listen to or watch many media outlets, you’d think that Trump was advocating for national bloodshed.
“Trump says country faces ‘bloodbath’ if Biden wins in November” declared the normally more sober Politico.
“Trump defends his warning of a ‘blood bath for the country’” declared the New York Times.
Trump has said and done many outlandish and disqualifying things as a candidate and as president. The sloppy or deliberate mischaracterization and hysterical pearl-clutching over what he said in this specific instance, however, is glaringly apparent to anyone who bothers to invest a few minutes of their time.
As even the Washington Post has conceded, “Trump might indeed have been speaking metaphorically in this case.”
Well, yes. That’s because he was. It is doubtful he was literally referring to a national slaughter as a result of Chinese car manufacturers outcompeting American car manufacturers.
As National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar notes, “It isn’t just self-defeating, it’s offensive: January 6 was real enough, and enough of an enormity, that any attempt to raise a false alarm about Trump’s rhetoric only diminishes the impact and importance of what he has actually done.”
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Yes, Trump’s rhetoric is routinely over the top and damaging to national discourse. Yes, Trump appeals to the worst instincts of his fiercest supporters.
Oh, and by the way, the 100% tariff idea on foreign cars is a simply terrible, economically indefensible one.
But Trump, like any politician, should be criticized and challenged without cutting corners and leaving out basic context.