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Comment by happytoexplain | Hacker News Reader

I think everybody is (reasonably) confused by the use of the words "anything other than". It's usually used in phrases that express the speaker's opinion to the opposite ("as if this is anything other than performative" means "this is performative"). Based on the clip, it sounds like Kimmel unfortunately used it literally: "trying to portray [him] as anything other than...", as in, "they're jumping the gun on his portrayal and blame placement", and not, "I know which team he's on." I could be wrong, but that's what it sounds like in context (and would make more sense too).

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This by the way is an example of construction that confuses is non English natives.

Another one is "he was all but dead" which can be understood as "he was really in a bad shape, almost dead", or "he was absolutely not dead, as opposed to what they say"

There are a few more like these (especially in short titles, where I have to analyze word by word the sentence to make sure I got it right)

Yeah, English is very confusing (or at least I get the impression that it is more confusing than other languages - it's the only one I speak).

Even in your example, I think you misunderstand. "He was all but dead" is never used to mean "he was absolutely not dead, as opposed to what they say". That would be "he was anything but dead".

However, there is a caveat, since even native speakers increasingly over the years speak English "wrongly". Of course, when they do it enough, it's no longer wrong. So maybe you did hear a native speaker use the phrase "he was all but dead" with the latter meaning, but I would put that usage in the "wrong" camp as of 2025.

> Even in your example, I think you misunderstand. "He was all but dead" is never used to mean "he was absolutely not dead, as opposed to what they say". That would be "he was anything but dead".

ah, sorry I was not clear - what I meant with the "or" is that there are 2 ways to understand this sentence, one of them being incorrect :)

Ah - yes, I misunderstood your description of misunderstanding.

I am a native English speaker and I don't actually know what he was trying to say, but it just seemed like he was talking about the MAGAs trying to quickly pin blame on not-MAGA. This is why I'm not a monologue writer.

This is a good insight. I don't think Kimmel should be pulled for either meaning, but it does help explain why some people might be talking past each other.

To be fair, even if I'm right, I don't think I'm going to convince anybody who wants to interpret it the other way. The difference is large semantically, but subtle linguistically.

Thing is, even if the "trying to portray [him] as anything other than..." reading was intended and the correct reading, the statement is still closer to the opposite of the truth.

Granted, it is not reasonable to expect everyone to have been terminally online for this issue, but even before this statement was made, it was clear if you visited places with right-wing bias (e.g. 4chan) that almost no one was concerned this guy might be MAGA. And if you looked at more grey tribe places (e.g. ACX open-thread comments / discussion), it was also already clear the preponderance of evidence and reason in fact definitely point to it being far more likely the guy was left than right (or at minimum some idiosyncratic, but definitely not "groyper" or "MAGA" rightist). Heck, this was even clear if you read through enough Reddit comments sorting by "controversial".

Also, it was abundantly clear the sentiments were: Blue tribe social media desperately looking for evidence against obvious left/progressive connections, Red tribe media gleefully pointing out left/progressive connections, and gray tribe places generally having the usual mix + typical frustration at the over-certainty of everyone else.

I.e., the reality is that the "desperation" was almost entirely on the left (understandably) trying to disown the shooter. What there was on the MAGA right was maniacal glee about all the potential (and prima facie more reasonable) left-wing connections. I doubt noting these overall patterns instead would have saved Kimmel, but choosing to frame the whole thing as "desperate MAGA" was just an insinuation that really ran directly opposite to the facts and reason.

>almost no one was concerned this guy might be MAGA.

But that's not what he's saying. He was saying "they were quick to paint him as blue tribe before knowing his tribe." It is just constructed like a sentence that ambiguously also means "desperately constructing that he was not red tribe."

>Red tribe media gleefully pointing out left/progressive connections

Which is synonymous with what JK said. That the reaction was "he was a them, not us, therefore justifying our prejudices."

He literally said "with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them". Interpretation hinges on the "desperately" here, but your reading of this as him saying "they were quick to paint him as blue tribe before knowing his tribe" is far too distant from the literal words. The right were not "desperate" to distance him from MAGA or red tribe, because that was never a strong position given reason and the evidence, which pointed, if anywhere, towards blue tribe. The "desperation", if anywhere, was on the left linking him to MAGA, because it was very clear, even then, to anyone who read beyond Reddit "best" comments, that the links to the left were far stronger and more reasonable. Kimmel's phrasing not just implied, but directly stated that the desperation was in the opposite place to where it was in actuality, and so strongly implied a preponderance of evidence in a direction opposite to the general direction dictated by reason and evidence already known at that time. So no, there is not the synonymity you claim.

As others have pointed out, this kind of insinuation is very hard to see as anything other than deliberate, given basic media literacy and how modern media operates (https://www.themotte.org/post/3263/culture-war-roundup-for-t...). To save you a click:

> The "desperation" implies a sort of losing battle that they're grasping at straws to prove something that's factually wrong, rather than simply stating truths that are obvious, evident and obviously evident. "Desperate" is a subjective judgment call, of course, so Kimmel absolutely deserves zero government censorship for this, by my lights; all it does is show that his judgment is so bad that it reflects poorly on the judgment of people who hired him as a host for a show like that. That MAGA was trying to characterize the murderer as anything other than MAGA is arguably a bland, neutral fact about reality, but that MAGA was desperately trying to do so is a judgment call that shows extremely poor ability to observe reality or to discern reality.

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