Trump: "If I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath."

[Electric Circus]

How did meta-commentary about this line become such a focus? We are reacting to a speech in which Trump also claimed:

(1) that "crime is way down" throughout the world because countries from every continent are sending us their drug dealers, murderers, and gangsters
(2) that he could solve the Red Sea crisis in one phone call
(3) "Joe Biden is throwing Granny off the cliff to fund welfare, healthcare, and free housing for illegal aliens"
(4) that illegal immigrants will bankrupt Medicare and Social Security
(5) that "nobody comes close" to experiencing the persecution that he has personally experienced, including Abraham Lincoln ("in all fairness he did have a civil war")
(6) that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he had been re-elected
(7) "virtually 100 percent of the jobs under Biden have gone to foreign-born workers"

That's just my personal top seven. I'm sure that most people reading this thread could dive into the transcript and pick out more examples just as easily.

People need to step away from reacting to inconsequential punditry and social media buzz, and focus on what the candidates and their direct surrogates are actually saying. It's not as much fun, but it's a lot more informative.

[Electric Circus]

This sheds some light on how this line became the biggest campaign story of the weekend:

Millions of people pay attention to the Florida-based Filipowski, the Minnesota-based Rupar, and the anonymous Acyn, a video editor in Los Angeles who works under Filipowski at the activist liberal news site MeidasTouch. They have a combined 2.3 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, though only Filipowski pays for a blue check. And their editorial judgments have immense influence on campaign coverage and the political discourse.

That was proven over the weekend when Acyn clipped 17 seconds from Donald Trump’s Saturday rally speech in Ohio — a riff on his plan for a 100% tariff on foreign cars, warning that “if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath.” The text of Acyn’s post quoted Trump, but did not include his comments about the auto industry, enraging Republicans who complained it was misleading. Democrats, meanwhile, leaped to demand news outlets cover it as a major story that underscored Trump’s violent intentions.

The Biden campaign shared a shorter clip of the same moment 58 minutes later, and on Sunday and Monday, Republicans who ventured onto news shows were confronted with a “bloodbath” question, rejecting the premise, but failing to stop its spread.

More here: https://www.semafor.com/article/03/19/2024/the-viral-bloodbath-clip-and-the-rise-of-the-liberal-video-influencer

The defining moments of this campaign might come down to a few Libs of Tiktok-esque accounts that are effective at identifying compelling bits of short video and spreading them.

That's why this spread, and not the other ridiculous moments. This is the one that worked on scroll-happy content junkies with 15-second attention spans.