Because when I heard him say 9, I thought of the Supreme Court.

You are right everything is code.

5 and 6 seem to be most common historically.

You're correct. It's a game he plays. He's been playing it all his life but anyone with a functioning brain knows exactly what he means.

“it’s what hippies used to say.”

contrarian takes and I found him often to be humorous. For the last few years I have heard him say things that I absolutely don't agree with. Now I wonder if he has just been saying contrarian things to get a rise out of people all along. Maybe those things that he said that I agreed with he didn't really believe.

Anyway I haven't had cable since AT&T kept double billing me in 2008, so I don't see him very often.

Least surprising news of the day.

he/she is losing the argument.

Only Magats believe that what TSF said was taken out of context.

is that gaslighting too?

He can't say that directly, so he implies his meaning by talking about his "beautiful white skin" instead.

And that's the way it is with everything he "rambles".

He's actually not rambling at all. His words have purpose.

that's straight up racism. how are magats defending that?

They don't perceive it as racism - since they think they are correct.

from his congressional testimony, under oath.

u r exactly correct. the man’s only skill is deceiving.

eta- when dementia closes is, u r reduced to your core. this is his core. lies and bullying.

It's well known he has a fetish for 1970-80's NY crime bosses (real or fictional) and he emulates them in his vaguely "coded" speech and dogwhistling.

He was riffing about her being a war monger, a firing squad popped into his mind, and he blurred it out.

He has no filter and no impulse control.

Any media/Republican attempt to defend what he said after the fact is sane-washing, not evidence that he had some grand scheme to weave a firing squad int an otherwise only offensive rif about her being a coward so he could say what he wanted to say in order to have a ready defense.

It's the same way with the snake story.

And the great Alphonse Capone comments.

And the Hannibal Lector comments.

And his "beautiful white skin" comments.

When it pops into his mind, usually as a result of some adjacent thought (in this instance war hawk Cheney). His lack of filter prevents him from saying it, or disguising it. His handlers, after the fact, try to explain it away using the context that triggered the thought.

He simply doesn't have the executive functioning necessary to pull together the sophisticated Let-me-figure-out-how-to-say-it-so-I-have-built-in-deniability. I have significant experience with people with loss of executive function. His "weaves" using a combination of repeated fixed (false) elements and stream of consciousness triggers is exactly what it looks like.

He is saying exactly what he means - he just isn't capable of creating any sort of clever disguise to give it deniability. That deniability is hastily crafted, after the fact, by people trying to salvage his campaign.

He doesn't have the executive functioning OR the self control to carefully plan out what he's going to say and then say it. The idea of him being capable of that is laughable, imo.

I've heard the rationale that he was talking about sending "war hawk" Liz into battle to see how she likes facing armed combatants, and I'm not buying it. I could believe that was one of the things he had in mind when he started talking, but I think that train of thought got derailed by his deeply felt desire to execute her and what he ended up saying was a mashup of those two things. When he said the last part, about rifles being pointed at her, I believe that he was definitely imagining her facing a firing squad (and enjoying it way too much).

The whole thing was a deeply disturbing peek at the dark fantasies he used to be able to keep hidden but now can't always control. It's like he's full of evil gremlins that are showing their ugly faces more and more often as his dementia weakens his ability to keep them in check. Pretty soon the gremlins are going to be completely in charge, and he had damned well better NOT be anywhere near the oval office when that happens.

also shown when he fellated the mike yesterday.

Any code he used to use that Michael Cohen mentioned is beyond his mental capabilities now.

He was talking in code. And perhaps he retains the instinct and reflex for it, because even if he's got dementia he's still a malignant narcissist. But the guy is out of his mind and doesn't know what he's saying. He's gone over to dementia world and he ain't coming back.

The reason he said rifles lined up and shooting at Cheney is because he couldn't find the word "firing-squad". He would have said it but he's too far gone to use common compound words.

His language ability is deteriorated to the point that just about every sentence he says, he struggles with. His language is so disinhibited that he'll say anything that pops into his malignant mind. But most of the time he can't find the words for it.

And the idiot GOP still want this adled fool to be president, errr...king, of the United States. The guy should be in the mental care unit of an old folk's home.

...he's been lying and pathetically coding his speech his whole life since he first saw whatever NY mobster film he saw first.

He thinks it makes him clever.

In fact, his repetitive telling of take tales is part and parcel of his mental decline. It is a self-soothing reassurance to him that his memory isn't going, even though what he remembers is false. This is exactly what my spouse does - in other words, I'm speaking from years is personal experience with at least two of the characteristics Trump is displaying.

But scheming to hide the lying by adding context to allow you to pretend that what you said was being taken out of context is far beyond what little executive function he still has. Again. I'm speaking from personal experience of several years dealing with a spouse with this deficit.

And the things being discussed in this thread aren't lies. The one that started the thread is a threat/cash to execute Cheney.

...the decline of cognitive habits present differently with each person and have no set or predictable pattern to the various facilities that are affected or when they are affected.

trump has used that particular form of verbal deceit his entire adult life, and he has not stopped yet.

She had already begun to do the same kind of gap filling/"memory" creation Trump does all the time. The event is recognizable - but many of the details were added in the early remembering to fill in gaps - or create a more entertaining story. She will tell stories of things that happened to me in the first person - and truly "remembers" them happening to her. She remembers fantastic events that justify a particular outcome (her grandmother was in a coma for years, so they let her die when she has a UTI - when, in reality, her grandmother was responsive but incoherent until the day she died). This is exactly the same kind of early gap filling, which then persists over time that I see with Trump.

As a compulsive liar, he has learned that he must always leave himself an escape.

He just says everything and anything in such a way that he can backtrack on it without sounding like he's backtracking on it.

Creating an ability to backtrack requires a level of executive functioning that he no longer has (if he ever did).

...no executive functioning needed.

Lying plus creating cover to make it easy to claim he didn't say what he did - no. There is a difference between lying (no executive functioning reqiured) and deliberately creating plausible deniability. The latter requires the ability to think two or three steps ahead. I have seen zero evidence he has that ability. All of the backtracking I've seen comes from others picking apart what he said, in his stream of consciousness rants, to sanewash it.

Additionally it isn’t just him crafting these mesages. He has the likes of Stephen Miller helping to craft hos messages. Trump loves himself some Hitler text and I think he and his people are using the same messaging style Gitler did to turn people against the other.

This was no simple off the cuff remark. He may wander and wade here and there but the overall message is scripted.

And I'm not saying he doesn't mean exactly what he says. I'm saying his cognitive functions aren't high enough to build enough context around them to give his handlers cover.

Individual bits are like comfortable old friends to him - the ones he repeats verbatim, over and over. But he weaves in those bits of comfort food whenever his stream of consciousness flights of fancy take him near close enough that there is some tangential connection. How they are woven in is not scripted.

I have way too much personal experience with this kind of mental decline. By now he's farther along than my spouse - but the three deficiencies are virtually identical: remembered/packaged stories that get repeated ad nauseum (either completely false, or significantly altered from reality by gap-filling which becomes real memory in the mind of the teller); significant ability to add fluff and move seamlessly from stream of consciousness into these stories - but a complete inability to think logically, and (increasingly for both) bursts of anger.

Include references to a firing squad (or anything to do with guns trained on another person) ….how can he think that is a good idea to include in a speech, a tweet or any public statement? More likely, it is a sign that his ability to pick his topics and phrases carefully is rapidly diminishing. In plain language, his filters are slipping, revealing a really sick, demented mind underneath.

Anyone who has heard his comments about Liz Cheney and still thinks he is their guy, their representative in the White House, is as sick and f’d up as he is.

We on Earth One are shocked and recoiled by the thought of mass deportations, internment camps, machine gun nests on the banks of the Rio Grande, but things like that, and firing squads for the “traitors” to the MAGA cause? They eat that stuff up.

This is not dementia, misspeaking, or hyperbole. Trump made this statement with no excuse he is sane. Believe people when they tell you who they are.

…Like Stalin. Like Hitler. Like Mao. Like Kim. Like Castro. Like Pinochet…in front of the wall.

He’s not that smart

It's about his method of communicating his entire life.

It's how he speaks in order to send a message, or to intimidate.

It's innate with him.

He doesn't know any other way.

that will criminalize stochastic terrorism with sentences up to 20 years in prison.

it comes automatically to him. For instance, when he wouldn't admit that people in Springfield were not eating pets and the interviewer said the mayor or another government official had stated that it was not happening, he instantly says, "Maybe he thought he should say that," or words to that effect. It was spontaneous.

Extremely ugly and hateful freak.

Well done

Is his vile rhetoric calculated, pathological, or both?

Breaking all bounds and norms of civil discourse with streams of bald-faced lies and vulgar insults was a big part in gaining a huge cult of devoted followers who propelled him to the White House.

In the closing weeks of this campaign his rhetoric has grown even more vile, insulting a wider swath of the electorate.

Is that calculated to gain more support from undecided voters, or is it a manifestation of mental pathologies in the declining brain of a malignant narcissist sensing his impending defeat?

I think the latter is more likely.

And his mind is going, so that brings out his most basic ways of being.

J6 is proof of his willingness to use violence to hold power. He has also always been a gaslighter and a "code speaker." I am not sure whether his remarks about Cheney were part of his code speak or evidence of dementia rambling. But they were definitely an expression of a wish for Cheney to face violence. Violence is as natural to Trump as gaslighting and code speak.

A deliberate, calculated intent behind the mention of violence against Cheney would be a code call for someone to take shots at her.

The significant part of his remarks, IMO, is the specific mention of 9 shots. If he was only speaking of putting her in the front lines of a war, there would be no need for or point to mentioning 9 shots.

9 shots could mean a firing squad. The number 9 could be a SC referencce.

Whatever the case, he was depicting Cheney as facing violence against her as a consequence of having voted in favor of war. That much is indisputable fact.

I highly doubt that.

Maybe the worsening rhetoric will spur MAGA to GOTV.

I don't think that he cares about the number of votes that he gets. Relying on persuasion and vote numbers is too uncertain for Trump.

Instead, his focus is on controlling the process through manipulations of the election system, gaslighting to claim a win, and physical force as backup to obtain and hold power and control.

In Trump's mind, attracting new voters is for losers and suckers.

Both sides are gearing up for that fight.

He would have said it but he struggles with every sentence he speaks.

He is disinhibited in his language. It's so common with dementia patients. So, if it pops into his head, he says it. And his mind is very malignant.

But frequently he can't find the words to express his hate. So, instead he describes the word he's looking for. Hence the nine rifles lined up.

The man is crazy. He's in dementia world and he's not coming back.

He's no evil genius.

That's why I said the other day, "Some idiot in Montana is already cleaning his high-powered rifle."

"Donald Trump speaks in CODES!"

DonOLD tRump speaks in CODES!

But I think you're giving his shriveled, dried up brain cells waaaay too much credit.

be a shame if something were to happen to it.”

You’re spot on, Lucky Charms. Is he slipping into dementia? Absolutely.

Does he speak in Mob-ese? Absolutely.

“Who will rid me of this meddlesome former congresswoman from Wyoming?”

He said it, period. His claim of Cheney being a war monger is merely an excuse. You want context think of the J6 Committee or all Cheney's public statements about who and what Trump is or most recently (and perhaps more to the point) Cheney actively campaigning for Kamala Harris.

The context is Trump's lack of impulse control, the fact he is a small, vindictive, hateful individual who fantasizes about perpetrating violence on his perceived enemies, women in particular.

Time to rid ourselves of this maniac!

"She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her there with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, ok? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face."

Weirdly, when I first heard this comment, I thought he was calling back to when he was shot at, perhaps alluding to feelings he had later, knowing that when he was shot, his SS snipers were likely viewing his face through their scopes, trying to locate the shooter? And perhaps he knew that there were nine such of his protective detail? It was the emotion in his voice at just that moment that sounded like it was a personal memory. He seems convinced (or wants to convince others) that Dems were somehow responsible for that attempt on his ear. That's what I thought he was talking about when I heard that comment; I did not immediately think of "firing squad" until I saw others' comments.

But now I think it was his classic stochastic-terror dog-whistle to put that image into his rabid, violent cult's mind.

Gah, I can't wait til we can stop thinking and talking about that creature.

If there were any karma in the universe, he'd have been born in agony and suffered horrifying pain every second of his decades-overlong life. Or at least drown in a vat of hot liquid pig shit.

But here we are.