• perishthethought@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Does anyone have a link showing what actual American conservatives are saying about Trumpā€™s quote? How are they trying to defend this? (Not the media - actual people, on the street, as it were)

    • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They will likely never even know about this. Right wing media is incredibly insulated. They live in a different reality most of the time. Theyā€™re programmed to shut out and discount any and all information that doesnā€™t fit with their worldview.

    • Elderos@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      They will just repeat what Trump said with a shit-eating grin. There is no original thought going on there.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I am more than a little bit doubtful that theyā€™ve heard anything about it. On the Fox News website, I can find exactly two articles about it:

      • One titled ā€œTrumpā€™s NATO comments trigger fierce media and European opposition: How serious is he?,ā€ which focuses more on European response to the message (and in fairness does have some pretty strong words for Trumpā€™s statement), but was written by Howard Kurtz, who is generally considered a ā€œRINOā€ or worse by rank & file MAGAts. That article currently has about 500 comments.

      • And one titled ā€œWhite House responds to Trump encouraging Russia to do ā€˜whateverā€™ they want to some NATO members: ā€˜Unhingedā€™,ā€ which focuses (as suggested by the headline) more on the White Houseā€™s response to Trumpā€™s statement than on the statement itself, before going on to provide an apologia for Trumpā€™s remarks in the form of a weird, pseudo-self-righteous paraphrase of a section of the NATO charter. That article currently has about 4,500 comments.

      The big comments on both articles are either regurgitations of Trumpā€™s statement itself, regurgitations of the apologia in the second article, or a spectrum from ā€œhe was just using a rhetorical device to make a pointā€ up to ā€œI support him, countries that donā€™t pay should be punished.ā€