The Weekly Sift

The week’s most hotly debated line was Trump’s prediction of “a bloodbath … for the country” that will happen “if I don’t get elected”. Biden and others saw this as a call for political violence, while Trump apologists said the statement wasn’t really so bad “in context“.

Let’s unpack all that.

What he said, in context. First off, the reason we’re having a discussion over what Trump meant is that what he actually said is incoherent.

China is now building a couple of massive plants where they’re going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border. Let me tell you something to China. If you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends — but he understands the way I deal. 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? No. 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 cars 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 will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.

If Biden said something this disjointed, it would be taken as evidence of cognitive decline, because Biden typically makes way more sense than this. But OK, let’s play the what-did-he-mean-by-that game.

Immediate background. Chinese automakers like BYD build some really cheap cars, especially cheap electric cars, that haven’t been marketed widely in the US yet. Apparently there are plans to build such cars in Mexico, and the current trade agreement (which Trump negotiated and bragged incessantly about, remember) might allow those cars to come into the US without a tariff. NHK World (a Japanese news source) says:

A growing number of Chinese automakers have been constructing production plants in Mexico. The trade deal currently in place in North America allows tariff-free vehicle shipments from Mexico to the US if they meet strict conditions.

So at least at the outset, Trump is talking about not letting that happen: He’ll impose a 100% tariff if they try that. [1] The most generous construction to put on Trump’s words (and the one he now says he meant) is that the “bloodbath” is a metaphor describing what will happen to the US auto industry if it has to compete with those cars.

But he also said “that’s going to be the least of it”. It’s an open-ended expansion of the “bloodbath” in the auto industry to “the country”. Is it still metaphoric, referring to large job losses across all US manufacturing, or has it become literal, presaging the “civil war” that many of Trump’s supporters say they want?

Larger background. In his January 6 speech, Trump repeatedly urged his listeners to “fight”, which is a common thing to say metaphorically in a political speech. However, a mob of his listeners then did literally fight, attacking the Capitol and injuring over 100 police with bear spray and flagpoles they used as clubs.

Trump still defends those people. In the same speech where he made the “bloodbath” comment, he called them “hostages”. He has repeatedly promised to pardon them if he’s elected.

So like “fight”, Trump’s “bloodbath” is arguably metaphorical and arguably not. But in any case, it happens in the “context” of Trump’s large number of violent supporters. He knows they’re out there, just as he knew that some of the people listening to him on January 6 were armed. His promise of pardons for the January 6 rioters suggests that people who do violence for him in this election will also be pardoned.

Convenient ambiguity. Trump could, of course, clear this all up. He could give a speech where he unambiguously denounces political violence and disowns supporters who commit crimes in his name — including the January 6 rioters who are not “hostages” or political prisoners, but criminals who have been convicted by juries of their peers of breaking real laws (like assaulting police officers). He could echo what Biden said in the state of the union, that “political violence has absolutely no place — no place in America. Zero place.”

He won’t do that. Instead, he will keep doing what he did Saturday in Ohio: using violent rhetoric as part of a word salad that has no single obvious interpretation, while defending and offering aid to those who have committed crimes on his behalf. When called to account, he will howl about the biased media taking him out of context, and claim that his word salad should receive the most benign possible interpretation.

But he doesn’t deserve that kind of generousity. Voters and the media should apply a principle that lawyers call contra proferentem: If you write something ambiguous into a contract, a court will resolve the ambiguity against you.

Same thing here. Trump repeatedly and knowingly creates ambiguity about whether or not he is rallying his supporters to commit violence after he loses in November. Until he stops, that ambiguity should be resolved against him.

So yes, he did call for violence on Saturday.

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[1] There’s a whole other issue here: One of Trump’s big criticisms of Biden is over inflation. But just about every economic proposal Trump has would make stuff more expensive. This is just one example.