Donald Trump ranted to a captive audience of graduating West Point cadets about military drag shows, urging the students to focus on killing America’s enemies.
“The job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures, but to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun,” the president said. “The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America anywhere, anytime, and anyplace.”
While college commencement addresses are usually a chance to celebrate the graduates’ achievements, the more than a thousand West Point cadets and their families were treated to a recounting of Trump’s war on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the military.
A USA today article seems to dispute this slightly. It’s a minor tweak but in the sake of fairness it completely changes the interpretation.
“The job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures (and) spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun,” he said. “The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime and any place.”
Does anyone know whether he said “but spread democracy…” or “and spread democracy…”?
If the former like this post suggests, then it is indeed another notch in Trump’s belt of horrific quotes that would get any other politician at any other time in American history vilified. If the latter like USA Today is reporting then he seems to be arguing that the US military’s role is not to “spread democracy at the point of a gun.”
In Helldivers today I played around with someone with the username Democrussy Spreader. Funny a saw these words together twice.
He said “but to spread democracy.”
OP’s says “but to”, this one says “and”. Now that’s a different number of syllables. We’re really starting to stretch how much something can be misheard.
I’ll give him credit and say it’s “and” since that would make more sense in the flow of the sentence. He’s a terrible orator, so even the basic things said by him can be confusing. Not a fan of the heavy hand of military, but Eisenhower warned us we’d get like this. A strong defense is a good offense, but I think the US politically, economically, and even socially embraces that a little too much through history, and we definitely have war hawks in control right now.
What Eisenhower “warned” us about happened within his lifetime. I put warned in quotes because it was really already happening, so more of an observation than a prediction.
to be fair, anything (any thing) a state does is under threat of violence. be it from “spreading democracy” or not paying your taxes because you disagree with how your town of 12k is spending.
a state cannot “rule” without violence.
He said “or” not “but”. Just listened to confirm. The transcript is wrong and completely flips the meaning of that sentence.
Then you are deaf. He definitely said “but to”.