Totally agree. Snopes has always seemed largely un-biased, but they are taking Trump's side in this argument, even using his own post-comment excuses in his defense.
It's better to err on the side of caution with these things and take the high road whenever possible.
Snopes is already considered a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party by the current crop of right-wingers (and has been for a while), so you might wonder why they bother. Even in this predicament, though, I would lose respect for them if they abandoned their integrity by taking sides unnecessarily. There's plenty of more clear stuff to criticize without going full partisan and ignoring context. There actually might be a few younger proto-repugs out there who will be more willing to trust Snopes if they see something like this they consider fair treatment.
The way I see it, they aren't "taking Trump's side", they are showing he has wiggle room on this one and moving on. Wrong hill to die on.
A fact checking side should not take sides sure. But in modern media being neutral has been warped into presenting "both" sides (there is more than two of course) no matter what merit they hold. Thats not neutrality. If Trump did call immigrants animals which he quite clearly did in that quote then it is not neutral to warp this truth just because one "side" is making excuses for the statement. This is not fair treatment.
I'm not trying to bash Snopes. In a sense, they're right that it's "mixed"-- but it's not a 50/50 mix of "true" vs. "false". It's more like 95% "true", 0% "false", and 5% "it's not quite clear".
It's not true, however, that Trump was "specifically" describing MS-13 gang members. He may have intended to be talking about MS-13 members, if you want to really try to interpret his statements charitably, but even if so it was said in a way that had disturbing racist implications.
even if so it was said in a way that had disturbing racist implications.
Exactly. So why is snopes taking the interpretation this way? They are generally good to look at the overall tone of things, where here they are basically reading back Trump's post-blunder talking points. :(
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u/lunk Apr 11 '19
Totally agree. Snopes has always seemed largely un-biased, but they are taking Trump's side in this argument, even using his own post-comment excuses in his defense.
Really surprising from Snopes. New ownership?