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Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The National Guard is not Batman.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans in disarray!

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / “Fourteen Words” from Trump in Poland

“Fourteen Words” from Trump in Poland

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Following up on Betty’s earlier post… when you type “fourteen words” into Google, here’s the Wikipedia entry at the top of the responses:

Fourteen Words, or simply 14, is a reference to a white supremacist slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Now, the original is from Palin’s official Twitter feed, but it’s not initialed, so presumably she didn’t write it herself. Quite possibly she doesn’t even know how piercing a white-supremacist dogwhistle that ‘fourteen words’ phrasing can be. But you’re not gonna convince me that the wanna-be supremacists (cough*Stephen Miller*cough*) who wrote that speech for Trump didn’t know how it would be interpreted — by “God Emperor Trump”‘s Reddit fans, if not the morans doing racetrack-tout journamalism for America’s Least Productive News Media…


THANK YOU EVER SO FUCKING MUCH, REPUBS!

Reader Interactions

142Comments

  1. 1.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    We have reached peak fascist. Or have we?

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    Somebody took a look at Palin’s post, and it looks as if that’s what you get if you click the “share on Twitter” link on the Young Cons website. The article itself doesn’t mention anything about 14 words; it only shows up when you share a link to the article.

  3. 3.

    MikeBoyScout

    Triumph of the Will encore delivered in Poland.
    It’s really that simple

  4. 4.

    Mike J

    On Facebook if you hit the tweet this button on the article Palin linked it, it added the “14 words” text that looks like it came from her.

    Which is no excuse. If you tweet it under your name, you’re responsible for what it says, even if the white supremacists who wrote it used a phrase you weren’t familiar with.

  5. 5.

    jl

    Did Cillizza read the damn speech.?
    It’s a mish mash of prettified low rent authoritarian and bigot dog whistles.

    What Pat Buchanan would like to pull off, but can’t.

  7. 7.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Honest to god, do people really “listen” to Trump’s speeches like they make sense or contain policy or might inform or inspire us? It’s gibberish all the way down.

  9. 9.

    Mike J

    @Yarrow: Absolutely not accidental. Especially since there aren’t any 14 word phrases in the speech.

    It still doesn’t let Palin off the hook. She tweeted it, even if she didn’t write it. You shouldn’t deliver a speech or tweet if you don’t understand it, so we should assume she does and stands by it.

  10. 10.

    Chyron HR

    Settle down, neoliberal corporatist shills. One of the 14 words is “secure”. It’s just a slogan used to express one’s economic insecurity.

  14. 14.

    Hildebrand

    Cillizza is the human embodiment of click-bait – he oozes in whatever direction will get him the most looks.

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    @Mike J: She doesn’t have much of anything to do with any of her Facebook posts or tweets. She’s got other people doing them. Still her responsibility. She just can’t be bothered even to write a Facebook post or tweet.

  18. 18.

    Yarrow

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Honest to god, do people really “listen” to Trump’s speeches like they make sense or contain policy or might inform or inspire us? It’s gibberish all the way down.

    Feel the same way. It’s not as if anything he says means anything anyway. He’ll read someone else’s speech from the teleprompter and then say or do whatever pops in his head later. There’s no there there. The rest of the world is figuring that out and the longer he’s in the office the more he’ll destroy our standing and role in the world. They work around us and we’ll be isolated from our allies. Putin’s plan is working out great for him.

  20. 20.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Hungry Joe: Off the 405 freeway here in LA, on the way to LAX there’s a cemetery that has a cascade flowing down a hill with a colonnade at the top. I’ve seen it since I was a young child, never knew what it was until a few months ago; it’s the Al Jolson memorial. BTW Andrew Breitbart is also buried in that cemetery.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @Yarrow:

    Doesn’t seem accidental.

    Absolutely not. But it does mean that people who just clicked the share button may have been sending out messages beyond what they intended.

  25. 25.

    Keith P.

    It’s getting to be a hell of a lot of work to flip between MSNBC and CNN to try to avoid watching a 90s retrospective.

  26. 26.

    dmsilev

    @jl:

    Did Cillizza read the damn speech.?

    Like apes and philosophy, pundits read these speeches but don’t (or refuse to) understand them.

  30. 30.

    hueyplong

    Trump’s pivot toward maturity and emerging thoughtfulness on socio-political issues really comes through in the portion of the speech in which he considers the freedom that comes from work, a work that makes one free.

    –C Cillizza

  34. 34.

    Major Major Major Major

    @schrodingers_cat: roughly, “Unsere Stärke ist unsere Schnelligkeit und unsere Brutalität. Dschingis Khan hat Millionen Frauen und Kinder in den Tod gejagt, bewußt und fröhlichen Herzens. Die Geschichte sieht in ihm nur den großen Staatengründer. Was die schwache westeuropäische Zivilisation über mich behauptet, ist gleichgültig. Ich habe den Befehl gegeben – und ich lasse jeden füsilieren, der auch nur ein Wort der Kritik äußert – daß das Kriegsziel nicht im Erreichen von bestimmten Linien, sondern in der physischen Vernichtung des Gegners besteht. So habe ich, einstweilen nur im Osten, meine Totenkopfverbände bereitgestellt mit dem Befehl, unbarmherzig und mitleidslos Mann, Weib und Kind polnischer Abstammung und Sprache in den Tod zu schicken. Nur so gewinnen wir den Lebensraum, den wir brauchen. Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?”

  36. 36.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Frankensteinbeck: Mussolini never had concentration camps, to my knowledge. He even made fun of Hitler for anti-Semitic policies.

  47. 47.

    stinger

    I had a heart-stopping moment when I thought all the people in the embedded video were giving Trump the Nazi salute. Then I realized they might be taking cell phone pics. Still, he did have a bunch of supporters bused in, so it could be the salute. That is certainly a very WHITE crowd.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: @Mike J: Here’s the explanation from the group that made the post she was referring to:
    thedailybeast.com/heres-why-sarah-palin-tweeted-the-neo-nazi-slogan-14-words?via=twitter_page

    Following publication of this article, Young Conservatives CEO Josh Riddle sent the following statement to The Daily Beast:

    “This is the 14-word quote the social media post is referencing: ‘Let us all fight like the Poles. For family, freedom, for country, for God.’
    “About 2 minutes of research would have revealed how there is a long history of our site (and countless others) using word counts in social media headlines. To jump to the conclusion in your article is slanderous, dishonest, lazy, and very unprofessional and harmful to our business.”

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    who is this we
    what is the west
    Our civilization, meaning what?

    “We”, “The West”, and “Our civilization” all mean white people. Exactly what classifies as white is left slightly, and deliberately, vague in the hopes that some people who Trump and Bannon don’t consider to be white can be fooled into going along until it’s too late.

  50. 50.

    jl

    Brings my thoughts to the timeless monuments to Western Culture.

    The West is the best, of course, of course,
    And no one can Best the West of course
    That is, of course, unless the best is the famous Mr. Trump

    Go right to the West and ask the best
    He’ll give you the pitch and you’ll invest
    He’s always sending the very best.
    Talk to Mr. Trump

  54. 54.

    divF

    @jl:
    Every time I see someone on this blog mention “Wilmer”, I hear in my head “Wilbur” in Mr. Ed’s voice.

  55. 55.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Roger Moore: So if all Europeans or those with their ancestral origin in Europe are one civilization, then the last 500 or so years of European history including the world wars, were just a figment of my imagination, right?

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: Traditionally the reference to the West meant fall into two different categories. The first refers to liberal democratic states and societies that are ultimately rooted in (European) Enlightenment values. So this includes Australia and New Zealand, which are not geographically in the West, but excludes Russia which never had/included itself in the Enlightenment.

    The second is rooted in an ethno-national and ethno-Christian concept. Specifically white Christian states and societies are the West. While this is a much narrower understanding, it does include Russia.

  59. 59.

    NCSteve

    I have come to realize an astonishing thing. When Cillizza was at WaPo, there were people assigned to the job of making what he wrote less banal, less superficial, less stupid, less purely the essence of the descent into trivia, banality and sportscasting that have been such a critical part of bringing our nation to the low place in which it finds itself today.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mike J: 1) I’m merely providing the news reporting, I’m not saying you should accept the explanation, nor that I am. 2) As someone who makes his fair share of typos and, as a result, don’t do the pedant thing, would you please be so kind as to translate the second half of your comment into English for me because I have no idea what you’re saying. Thanks.

  64. 64.

    Waspuppet

    @Roger Moore: Exactly. Because, no offense to any of our friends from Russia and Poland, but since when did those countries ( especially Russia) become part of the West?

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: I am not suggesting you accept the explanation. Given who actually wrote it for that group, a Breitbart writer with quite the special oeuvre, I’m not buying it either.

  68. 68.

    Jeffro

    Bigger picture: after today’s fake meeting with Putin, where Putin was “pressed” about hacking, denied it to Trumpov’s satisfaction, and now we’re talking about a joint cyber-hacking-whatever commission with the very people who not only hacked our election but ARE HACKING OUR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS, EVEN TODAY…it is long past time to switch from hating on the Orange Moron to putting serious pressure on GOP elected officials.

    Post Labor Day, of course, as we don’t want to “roll out new products in August” (FU Andy Card)

    There are multiple reasons why we need to do this, and do it quickly. We need GOP members of Congress…even if it’s just a few…to support the continued investigations into Russia’s attack on our country (especially if Trumpov starts thinking about firing Mueller, or Rosenstein and then Mueller). We have got to get them to step up and hold the line on this AHCA/BCRA nonsense. We need those GOP MoCs to start thinking about the 2018 elections. We need to push on them as the lackeys for “Dark Money” billionaires (and possible Putin enablers) that they are.

    I think we need to start thinking about a shift towards broader appeals and media strategies. Just pounding Congress with calls is wearing thin on both sides. They’re finding ways to not hold/attend town halls. Instead of marching on DC, we might need some broader, smaller demonstrations out in each red district…a more widely distributed “March For Shame”, as it were. Ways to point out that just six short months ago…all was going pretty well here. Six months ago, we didn’t have to worry about our president being a pawn of a murdering dictator. Or try to make sense of his tweet-gibberish. Or worry about 22 million people losing health care. And on and on. Enough is enough. We’re all in this abusive relationship and since setting fire to the bed is out of the question, we ought to start to think about who can bring this clown to heel…at least, long enough for justice to prevail.

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Waspuppet: The Russians, a century ago, were desperately trying to make themselves part of “the West”, especially after their humiliation by the Japanese in 1905. Then the Revolution came and they invented some crazy fusion of Marxism and what Peter the Great invented.

  73. 73.

    jl

    I think all ‘The West’ stuff is bullshit. You’re a white big shot and you see some white guys hanging around, and you think they might be helpful, they get a pass into the club. Or you got some white bigots that you need to con. It’s all tribalist power politics BS.

  74. 74.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: No, but you were the one who posted it (so it seems to come back to you), and yes, the statement by the “conservative” is a tour-de-force of bullshit.

  77. 77.

    jl

    @Jeffro: I agree. Important to start putting heavy pressure on state and local governments, who run the elections. And no reason to wait. People should be contacting state governments about the Trumpsters’ bogus voter fraud commission.

    Your state government should publicly protest the bogus commission. Not turn over any data voluntarily.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Roger Moore: “When I spoke of a final solution to the Jewish problem, I didn’t think that people would presume that I was proposing some kind of holocaust.”

  83. 83.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Adam L Silverman: I was aware of the first definition and was curious how Poland and our new overlords fit into that.
    Where does Miller fit into all this, because fans of the second line of thinking, the Putin fans, most certainly do not include Jewish people in the “us”. I had a student of Polish descent, who would see a Jewish conspiracy (from grocery store items to the class he was failing) in everything. It was extremely tiresome.

  84. 84.

    eclare

    @Adam L Silverman: I took one class in college about European history/philosophy, and it fell firmly into the first camp. I have never considered Russia as west, but then I am old enough to remember the USSR and CCCP.

  85. 85.

    AndoChronic

    Be sure to dick punch a fucking Republican at your earliest convenience this weekend. Is that “14 words” enough?

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Mussolini was happy to implement Nuremberg Laws in Italy, but he balked at actually deporting people. While Mussolini was in power, it was common for Italian soldiers to stop the concentration camp trains at the border and free the Jews inside.

    Once the Nazis overthrew Mussolini, the deportations went into overdrive, though.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: Poland has, through its history, made a number of attempts to be of the “West.” Swedes, Russians, Prussians, and others have made it very hard for them to do so for any sustained period of time.

  89. 89.

    jl

    A lot of this stuff is dog whistles. Really hard to tell how much Trump understands it, or means it, or cares. But that doesn’t make any difference, Many of Trump’s flunkies and their supporters, who do understand, are counting on my favorite West African Pidgin saying, rendered into overly explicit and formal English: Cows don’t understand the meaning of the whistle that herds them into the slaughterhouse.

    Bif for the killhouse, no ken de whistle.

    Edit: point being, that understanding these dogwhistles, that some want to dismiss, is very important.

    Edit: thing with Trump though, is, how much does he understand, or mean, or care about anything? So, that doesn’t excuse him.

  92. 92.

    catbirdman

    Pretty sure that “science” is typically thought of as part of the foundation of “Western Culture.” Except when we’re talking in dog-whistles, that is.

  93. 93.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @catbirdman: If we are talking of Western Culture as an off-shoot of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, then you are bang-on.

  95. 95.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus: Michele Bachmann once said that the Renaissance was “a mistake”. I leave it to your imagination as to what she thinks of the Enlightenment. I know that Pat Robertson doesn’t like it at all.

  96. 96.

    Hal

    Trump Gives Speech to the People of Poland, Says 14 Words That Leave Americans Stunned http://

    I can’t get over how click baity this line is. Trump does something so unimaginable, your dick will explode!! You won’t believe what this former Alaska Governor said when she found out even she is too unqualified to be in the Trump administration!!

  98. 98.

    Smiling Mortician

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m late, but . . .

    Our civilization, meaning what?

    Exactly what you think it means: white, nominally Christian capitalists, preferably male.

  99. 99.

    jl

    @Villago Delenda Est: Except for the TV machine, post office system, personal checks and money orders and associated banking system. Those godless innovations stemming from the Enlightenment are OK.

  100. 100.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: Miller has a completely self developed case of something akin to Stockholm syndrome. For whatever reason he developed a set of grievances when he was 15 in the wake of 9-11. Grievances that can only be resolved through white supremacy and white nationalism. So that’s how he has subjectively identified. One of his mentors in high school, who had him on his talk radio show a lot, is an African American man with the same grievances and subjective identification. His other major mentor, David Horowitz, is the same way.

    As Hannah Arendt’s cutting remark about Leo Straus and the NAZIs comes to mind: “he wanted to be join a party which would not have him because he was a Jew”.

  105. 105.

    RobNYNY

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes, I had a Lithuanian client who said that the Nazis treated Lithuanians quite well during WWII. When I pointed out that the Nazis murdered over 200,000 Litvak Jews, almost the entire community, he explained that they were not “Lithuanians.”

  107. 107.

    Steeplejack

    Interesting that the Chyron for that Fox video clip above says “POTUS: West saved by blood of patriarchs.” The transcript of Trump’s speech says “patriots.” Did he change the wording or did Fox get it wrong? In either case, it’s a weird substitution. I would think that the alt-right would flinch at the word patriarch and hear something Jewy. But also it would be bubbling at the edge of their minds.

  110. 110.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack: I don’t watch Fox intentionally, but I have noticed at the gym where it is on one of the over head TVs (along with CNN, a local channel, and ESPN) that the FOX chyrons and close captioning has a lot of errors. As if whatever programs they’re using are unable to accurately transcribe what is being said.

  112. 112.

    jl

    @Steeplejack: Christians have patriarchs too.

    Edit: though I’d have to look up the status of the Polish Orthodox Church to see what meanings that would have there if Trump had actually used it.

  120. 120.

    jl

    @Gian: Wiki says that the Polish Orthodox Church serves the Orthodox community in Brazil as well as Poland. So, people shouldn’t laugh. It’s a happening bunch.
    Newt Gingrich could write a cool alternative history about how great it would have been if only Trump had said ‘blood of the patriarchs’, which was what his true destiny demanded.

    Polish Orthodox Church
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Orthodox_Church

  122. 122.

    MomSense

    Isn’t trump the guy who kept My New Order ( a collection of Hitler’s speeches) by his bedside? He knows WTF he is saying.

  127. 127.

    jl

    Steve Bannon did say that the Trump program can bring back the excitement of the 1930s. He really said that. Not fake news.

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack

    All right! Ari Melber is going to get the 6:00 p.m. weekday slot on MSNBC vacated by Greta Van Susteren. Best political/​media news I’ve heard this week.

  129. 129.

    Yarrow

    @Steeplejack: That is good. He does a good job. I think it’s funny that NBC/MSNBC can’t get anyone to watch the former Fox anchors’ shows. I saw a few minutes of the Today Show one day this week. They had Megyn Kelly at some roundtable chat segment where they seemed to be talking about trending topics or something light and inconsequential like that. She seemed uncomfortable. I guess they’re trying to get the morning audience to warm up to her since she’s supposed to have a morning show in the fall. She seemed uncomfortable so I don’t know how well that’s working out for them.

  130. 130.

    Kraux Pas

    All these years we’ve been talking about peak wingnut. But what if peak wingnut is entry-level-fascist?

    Imagine being a political writer in this moment and being utterly unable to identify clear white nationalist dogwhistles.

    They can’t even get their heads around Republican dogwhistles to the kinder, gentler racists. I can forgive Chris Cilizza for not being steeped in white nationalist rhetoric. Unless he is and is trying to throw us off the trail…

  131. 131.

    sdhays

    @MomSense: He’s clearly pretty damn racist, but I also submit that there’s no proof he’s actually literate. If I had to bet, I would bet that he never read that book, no matter how long it sat by his bed side. I suspect his reading comprehension skills aren’t up to it.

    Just to add: someone certainly told him what it was about, so the fact that he kept it by his bedside, whether he read it or not, tells us really all we need to know.

  132. 132.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    I think it’s funny that NBC/MSNBC can’t get anyone to watch the former Fox anchors’ shows.

    NONE of the right-wing “journalists” or commentators are ever able to cross over into the mainstream. They can be guests on channels like CNN or MSNBC, but they belly-flop every time they’re exposed to a mass audience.

    They are not popular. They only thrive inside the greenhouse that is Fox News and talk radio and wither whenever they get wider exposure. The problem is that CNN and MSNBC and the rest of the MSM are inside the same greenhouse and don’t get how unpopular those people and their ideas really are.

    (Also, hi. Hope you’re doing okay.)

  133. 133.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kraux Pas:

    They can’t even get their heads around Republican dogwhistles to the kinder, gentler racists.

    This is directly connected. If they admit the existence of dog whistles, it’s a big step closer to facing the truth that they, themselves, are racist. Think about how often you’ve seen pundits and journalists leap enthusiastically onto the wagon of dog whistle policies.

  135. 135.

    henqiguai

    @sm*t cl*de(#134):

    Like, lose every feckin time?

    Thought that was only when the then outdated Polish cavalry, long noted as one of Europe’s best military outfits, went up against the then new mechanized military of the Germans. Horses against tanks is a guaranteed loser. Other than that, I always thought (not really a student of military history) the Polish military was considered one of the best.

    Yeah, dead thread.

  136. 136.

    sm*t cl*de

    @henqiguai:
    To be fair, the Polish military had few opportunities to display its prowess, after the Russian Empire engulfed Poland in 17-mumbledy-mumble.

  137. 137.

    Jinchi

    @Mike J: It’s been a while since I’ve used Facebook. Is there a reason why it would add nonsense text like “14 Words” to anything?

  138. 138.

    Jinchi

    @sdhays:

    If I had to bet, I would bet that he never read that book, no matter how long it sat by his bed side.

    He can read the author’s name well enough and he knew that he liked the man’s work.

  140. 140.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    Between this and quoting noted 20th C. American anti-Semite Ellsworth Pegler* in her RNC speech, no one should be giving Caribou Barbie the benefit of the doubt with this shit anymore.

    * to his eternal credit, my stepfather (raised in the wingnut cradle of mid-60s Orange County) caught Palin’s Pegler reference as it happened. Still blows my mind.

  141. 141.

    kindness

    There ought to be a list of all the abominations of pundits & journalists who are failing mankind by doing their jobs abysmally. With examples would be nice. In this world, in this time, it’d be a long list.

    You could kinda wikipedia it and allow the readers to vote on the order of most awful.

  142. 142.

    JAFD

    @henqiguai: Picture of cavalry charging tanks is 100% Nazi propaganda

    Note that September 11th, 1683, was the arrival of Jan Sobieski’s Polish army at Vienna, to lift the siege and defeat the last Ottoman Turk advance into Europe.

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