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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

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I can't believe I'm asking this years after the fact - but did Trump actually say "They are rapists"? Because in that sequence of words, it's obvious to me it's possessive 'their'. As in 'their drugs, their crime, their rapists'. But everybody up to a VP candidate in the debates just so conveniently interprets it as him calling Mexicans rapists or whatever. And now it's one of those things that "Everbody knows he said" like the fine people smear job, the koi fish smear, and 'Tim Apple'.

I hope you understand that this is one of the many reasons people who aren't already persuaded by this hackery place low value in your assessment of what constitutes moderate or far-right.

And even if it was "they're" rather than "their", I would interpret it as "the subset of Mexicans illegally migrating to the US are rapists" not "all Mexicans are rapists". Radically different in meaning to how it was presented.