Trump suggests people shoot his opponent or vote against her—hard to tell

GOP 2016 Debate

Yesterday, after telling a crowd of his supporters in Wilmington, North Carolina that Hillary Clinton wanted to “abolish” the Second Amendment, Donald Trump warned that gun owners would face disaster if she won the presidency and got to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. Then he seemed to allude to the possibility of assassinating her. Here’s video:

If you can’t watch it because your work doesn’t allow videos that threaten candidates for president or the Secret Service is monitoring you or something, Trump said, “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is. I don’t know.”

That’s by no means an explicit call for violence against his opponent. It does, however, allude to something “Second Amendment people” can do after the general election, when democratic avenues to prevent President Hillary Clinton from appointing judges have failed. These “Second Amendment people” are presumably gun owners, but that, too, is ambiguous. Maybe these unspecified people could do some unspecified thing to prevent a duly elected president from appointing judges to the Supreme Court—Trump doesn’t know. He’s just running for president, saying these things.

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No one in Trump campaign expected Melania to get caught

Classy

Classy

It would be unfair to ask Melania Trump to write her own speech for the Republican convention. As the third wife of a billionaire 25 years her senior, she was not selected for her oratory skills. And can you imagine what it would be like to start in a Slovenian village and go on to marry the loudest asshole in America? Between Sevnica and Cleveland, she probably did some things she did not at first enjoy. My point is that Melania is through working, and we should leave her to peacefully wait out this last year of her husband’s life. In the meantime, hire a ghostwriter. Newt Gingrich would do it for lunch, I bet, and you could get somebody really good for money. This brings us to the question of whom the Trump campaign got—because, as you’ve no doubt heard, a portion of Melania’s speech sounded just like Michelle Obama’s speech from 2008.

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Trump exploits 60 Minutes appearance to render satire useless

An uploaded copy of a Twitter image of a screenshot of a Twitter ad

An uploaded copy of a Twitter image of a screenshot of a tweet

I have several questions about the advertisement pictured above. First of all, what was the worst Trump shirt designed by veterans? Did it say “Veterans stand behind, in front of, surrounding, but not technically in the same space as Donald Trump?” Was it just a dick with “Trump” written on it? Because this shirt has cleverly arranged the phrase “the D” into the shape of a dick, making me wonder if it was based on an existing design. Also, who is “she,” exactly? Judging by the styles pictured, these shirts come in two sizes: men’s medium and young child. I guess it’s funny to dress your four year-old daughter in this shirt, but you probably shouldn’t expose her to so much irony. Also, did you see Gawker’s supercut of Trump’s appearance with Mike Pence on 60 Minutes last night? Discourse after the jump.

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Friday links! Put the T in the P edition

The official logo of the Trump-Pence campaign

The official logo of the Trump-Pence campaign

For a candidate who usually benefits from foreign tragedy, Donald Trump sure drew the deuce yesterday. He was all set to announce Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, but then a truck driver killed 84 people during Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, France. Newt Gingrich called on us to realize that we are at war with “people who seek to destroy our civilization,” which is about the level of insight he offers. Chris Christie refused questions from his front yard, after a storm knocked out his power and a former aide pled guilty to bribery charges. Similarly contending with forces beyond his control, Trump postponed his announcement of a running mate out of respect for Nice, then had to announce early this morning, apparently to beat Indiana’s deadline for gubernatorial candidates to withdraw from the race. Then he released the vaguely sexual logo above. Today is Friday, and even the luckiest people in the world get snakebit sometimes. Won’t you savor the comeuppance with me?

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George Saunders identifies Trump’s comedic appeal

can-these-random-things-make-donald-trump-likable-2-21142-1449603297-5_dblbig

I strongly oppose Donald Trump as a candidate for President of the United States and probably also as a person, but I kind of like him. I don’t think he is good. I wouldn’t want to hang out with him. But I like reading about him in a magazine or watching him on video, the way I like watching Eric Cartman.

He’s not quite a rascal. A rascal doesn’t pander. For a while I thought he was some sort of dickens, deepening our affection by continually testing its limits. He sure works the same cute audacity. But a dickens is a fundamentally submissive character, challenging us to make even his rebellion an expression of our love. Trump doesn’t want to be loved. He wants to be envied, maybe, or finally respected. He wants people to believe he would make a great president, even as his boasting implies he’s not so sure himself. He’s winking, but he still thinks we might believe him.

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