People can’t stop cracking up over the former president’s bizarre, bumbling speech.

Speaking outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Donald Trump left everyone confused when he attempted to explain the Battle of Gettysburg, praised (and invented a quote from) Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and generally had no idea what he was talking about.

When his off-the-cuff remarks hit late-night television on Monday, the hosts couldn’t hide their laughter.

“You have to hand it to this guy: On the weekend before his unprecedented criminal trial begins, he somehow manages to overshadow it with this broken-brained interpretation of what happened at Gettysburg during the Civil War,” Jimmy Kimmel quipped.

  • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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    6 months ago

    What exactly do people see in Trump? He’s got no idea what happened at Gettysburg, why even bring it up?

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      6 months ago

      He lets people who “believe in him” let go of all guilt, shame, and self-doubt. It doesn’t matter if you’re racist, sexist, or homophobic, it doesn’t matter if you commit crimes, perpetrate injustice, blaspheme, or maliciously harm others, as long as you believe in Trump, he forgives you. It’s intoxicating to some people. He’s like the opposite of Jesus. Some kind of “anti-Jesus.”

      As far as why Trump even brought it up, he’s a narcissist who has never had boundaries or been held accountable for anything. He just says and does whatever he wants in the moment.

      • SwampYankee@mander.xyz
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        6 months ago

        He’s like the opposite of Jesus. Some kind of “anti-Jesus.”

        I wonder if the bible has anything to say about that…

      • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        anti-Jesus

        You might say the Jesus character in the Bible is a projection of the Yahweh character’s internal need to excuse his own horrendous behavior in the same way that Trump excuses his base’s behaviors.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It doesn’t matter if you’re racist, sexist, or homophobic, it doesn’t matter if you commit crimes, perpetrate injustice, blaspheme, or maliciously harm others, as long as you believe in Trump, he forgives you. It’s intoxicating to some people. He’s like the opposite of Jesus.

        I hate to burst your bubble, but that literally is the canonical conceptualization of Jesus.

        “As long as you accept him into your heart as your lord and savior, all is forgiven” is basically the lifeblood of modern Christianity. It’s why you have people proselytizing to death row inmates to “save them” before execution.

        There’s a lot of other aspects that are antithetical to canonical Jesus, who I don’t recall having golden toilets or being tried for fraud in paying off a porn star to keep quiet about an extramarital affair - but “he forgives everything” is pretty on brand.

        • protist@mander.xyz
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          6 months ago

          Yeah I get that, and could have expounded more. He is just like Jesus in that one way, but he actively encourages bad behavior and is basically the anti-Christ in many other ways

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      What di they see in him? He is a schoolyard bully with opposition defiant disorder, a fraud, a racist, and a rapist. They are looking in a mirror and they approve.

      • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You’re right

        Dichotomies provide limited options, so choose choice! Choose Ranked Choice or STAR voting or something

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You asked for a rebuttal below, so here’s a quick one:

        You present a clearly false dichotomy.

        If your hypothesis of “no difference” was true, we should expect to see extensive Biden merchandise worn by the “blue team” and golden statues of him.

        Biden isn’t beloved and worshipped by Democrats. They just think “this guy is a lot less bad than derpy Hitler” and maybe even “you know, despite inheriting a lot of lemons in his first term this old guy is pretty decent at making lemonade.”

        That is markedly different from the “red team” who is photoshopping their candidate onto muscle bound bodies and desecrating the flag with that abomination which they then turn into boxer shorts to wear to rallies where they chant for the Biblical destruction of the other team.

        So yeah, you’re getting downvoted. Because it’s a ridiculous false dichotomy that’s readily apparent to any objective analysis. Even if there’s a kernel of truth in there being rampant partisanship and team identity, the literal worship of the right for Trump is unique to them.

          • kromem@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I get where you are coming from, but your analysis is wrong.

            The right doesn’t just like their candidate because he’s the Republican candidate, they worship him.

            And yes, it didn’t used to be that way. In fact, I can think of no time in American history it was that way, and need to look to places like North Korea or authoritarian regimes of days past to find parallels.

            They get very excited when he speaks. Particularly about retribution.

            He ends his speeches with prayer music over his words.

            And it’s not just that he’s who is on the ticket. The old school Republicans that support him for the hope of a tax break may be like that, but his base is unique in the history of American politics.

            You’re being downvoted because your both sides-ism ignores the severity of the present danger.

      • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        Dude. It’s even stupider than that. It sounds like cynical ignorance masquerading as profound clarity.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        LMK when the blue team guys are taking campaign notes from Nazi Germany, selling classified documents to America’s adversaries, or committing insurrections and then we can bothsides this one.

          • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            You became extremely mad because all you have available is the “both sides” shit. It falls apart when you notice one of the side is literally insurrectionists trying to dismantle the country. You then fall back to insults because you have nothing of substance to say.

          • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            Yeah I’m sure “finish the job” “Muslim ban” Donald would have done a much better job with this conflict. Repubs are going to expand this genocide the first chance they get.

              • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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                6 months ago

                So you’re the bothsideser pretending it is a team sport but as soon as someone points out one side is rationally choosing the less awful option you scamper away screeching insults. I mean, you admitted you were incorrect several time already, good enough for me. Not worth trying to get you to calm down and think about what you’re writing.

      • Talaraine@fedia.io
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        6 months ago

        I don’t know why you’re getting downvotes, it’s true. The DNC and RNC railroad unfit picks to the ballot every damn time based on criteria that are NOT GOOD FOR YOU, ONLY THEM. All y’all who don’t see this are blind.

        I agree with CaptainSpaceman. Choose CHOICE!

        • admiralteal@kbin.social
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          6 months ago

          Oh, he’s getting downvotes for being a bothsider.

          The dems have changed profoundly between Obama and Biden. Doesn’t even take any kind of deep political knowledge to see that. No, they haven’t become a revolutionary socialist party, but sorry, democracy doesn’t mean getting exactly what you want all the time. The party is vastly different. Maybe not as different as the Republicans from Bush to Trump, where they abandoned all pretense of Liberalism and switched to being a fascist cult of personality, but different nevertheless.

          The bothsiders like you and he pretend political parties never change and aren’t influenced by their voter at all, contrary to evidence that anyone who had even PRETENDED to follow news and politics during their life would have seen. Then use that complete nonsense premise to justify the argument that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, it’s all the same, you shouldn’t bother.

          It’s just a brain-dead political take. One that actively and constantly suppresses political turnout, hands elections to the far right, and prevents the exact progress you claim you want.

          • Talaraine@fedia.io
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            6 months ago

            You’re interpreting my take as brain dead when you haven’t read it. These parties do have better candidates and they never make it to the ballot. The DNC and RNC are directly to blame.

            • admiralteal@kbin.social
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              6 months ago

              You jumped into this comment tree defending someone claiming elections are meaningless team sports.

        • protist@mander.xyz
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          6 months ago

          Lmao please, there are political conversations literally all over Lemmy. There are only so many times one can type out a response to some troll repeating the demonstrably false line “both sides are the same.” You assuming your tired thought is worth more than a downvote…the vicarious embarrassment is painful

            • protist@mander.xyz
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              6 months ago

              Lmao you literally said “both sides are the same”

              He’s the red team pick, so the red team likes him. No different from whoever the blue team pick is for the blue team.

            • protist@mander.xyz
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              6 months ago

              You’re arguing against a straw man. I’m not voting for Biden because someone else is telling me to vote for Biden. I voted for Bernie in the '20 primary, but he lost and threw his support behind Biden. Biden got the most votes in the Democratic primary. Rather than view that as someone “telling me who to vote for” I recognize that is the reality of our primary system and first past the post voting system.

              Now the choice is Biden or Trump. I agree with Biden on 80% of issues, and agree with Trump on maybe 5%. I don’t think anyone criticizing Biden is “an idiot,” I think anyone saying “both sides are the same” is an idiot, because the difference between their political positions is incredibly stark

                • protist@mander.xyz
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                  6 months ago

                  The tariffs on Chinese goods, not super opposed to that. It’s probably more like 2%, or 0.5%

                • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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                  6 months ago

                  KILL FISA

                  I mean, we know he doesn’t want it because he is a criminal who is doing crimes. He should be wiretapped. He is probably selling classified documents. He’s right about the law, tho.

                  Well, he was right. He is backpedaling that one.

                • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few other people that see how awful the two party system is. You just wouldn’t guess it by looking at all the mindless red and blue(mainly blue) knights galloping around here. It doesn’t have to be that everyone just gets assigned a guy and then they go about pretending how they love the guy oh so very very much.

                  Of course having only two major parties is awful. No fucking shit. We all know that. First-past-the-post is a terrible voting system and needs to go.

                  But we also live in this thing called “the real world.” Here in the real world, we can’t do anything about FPTP or the two-party system in time for the 2024 election. In the real world, we’re facing a situation where one of two ancient men will be president. One of them is a fascist rapist, the other is a relatively standard politician.

                  In the real world, the last time the fascist was in power he managed to secure a 6/9 majority on the US Supreme Court. He managed to undo decades of regulatory work. He tried to torch the post office so it could be spun off and privatized. He tried to ban Muslims from entering the country. He moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and would absolutely be worse for Gaza than Biden.

                  The choice between these two men is one where there is a clearly superior choice. Pretending that because both are distasteful you’re somehow superior for voting third party is absurd. Trump is so significantly worse than Biden that voting third party is a stupid, naive move that reflects a lack of understanding.

        • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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          6 months ago

          Tagged you as “selfish child devoid of self-control”. It’s totally understandable that you loathe people who remind you of how pathetic your actions are. Hopefully, one day you evolve enough to at least be able to see how much worse the world is due to your current form of existence. Believe it or not, your actions have actual consequences.