Probably because it's about time someone other than Trump said something stupid?
Probably because it's about time someone other than Trump said something stupid?
Hope is the denial of reality
Stupid? Seriously?
Are you saying this is the only thing he's said then that was stupid? Great he's miles ahead of Trump and light years more trustworthy than Hillary.
How's he such a bad choice again?
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Because we live with a 24-hour news cycle and they're always ravenous for something new to pretend matters somehow.Originally Posted by Veldan Rath
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
See Fuzzy's post. It's hard to get outraged over anything Trump says anymore, so anytime anyone says anything remotely cringe-worthy, expect the media to run with it. It's called chasing ratings. No need for conspiracies.
Hope is the denial of reality
Sounds like you both think it's a non issue then...carry on.
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I apologize for using logic. Carry on with your elaborate conspiracy theories.
Hope is the denial of reality
There is no conspiracy of course but like minded people (new media folks) can and will play favorites. It is at times difficult to do it with two major parties (don't want to be accused of bias) but making fun of the 'cooky 3rd party whaco who thinks we should have LESS government hahaha' that's fair game.
Journalists can spin a news story in a certain light. Journalists aren't given a choice of news stories; their executives do that. And I can assure you that those executives care far more about ratings than anything else.
Hope is the denial of reality
You ignore how much clout and pull big names have in journalism. Especially on 'minor' issues like this, they aren't going to care about it if it keeps the personality happy.
Didn't a similar incident happen 8 years ago IIRC where Sarah Palin showed ignorance in a question and the media had the exact same reaction?
If someone is running for office and cocks up, the media gloats about it. Happens to left and right, left-wingers in the UK still blame the media for making fun of Kinnock when he famously fell into the water at the seaside or got over excited at a rally. The media supposedly cost Kinnock victory because it made fun of him.
Sean Hannity has become an Assange fan. I realize the guy has no morals, but aren't his viewers a bit concerned about the guy shifting every single one of his views to align better with Trump's?
Hope is the denial of reality
My statement was the Johnson not knowing Aleppo off the top of his head is a non issue.
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And now everyone's moved on to Clinton's "gaffe". Funny how that worked.
Hope is the denial of reality
Jesus, this election is nutty...
I'm not so sure this is hurting her though, I guess independents may frown on her verbal faux pas.
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TRUMP SUPPORTERS: "The problem with this country is that political correctness has gone too far, it's like you can't say anything now without offending someone"
CLINTON: "There are a lot of racists amongst Trump supporters"
TRUMP SUPPORTS: "OMG U CANT SAY THAT"
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
It's interesting that although we have a very wide spread of political views there isn't a single Trump supporter on this site.
*cough*
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
There is a very hefty selection bias in the membership of this forum, RB.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
Trump is an a-hole. I think he'll generally be less bad than Clinton but he's personally rather repugnant. Even though I probably dislike Clinton more I can't look myself in the mirror and push the touch screen for him. (Not that my vote will matter).
Most people here are young and college educated, which are some of the better predictors of being anti-Trump.
Hope is the denial of reality
Are we really young though? Aren't most of us 30+ now?
Which is still young for US voters.
Hope is the denial of reality
Incidentally I don't believe for one second Trump is a fascist and I think the constant Godwinning, if I'm permitted to conjugate that pronoun, achieves nothing.
He is quite clearly a narcisstic demagogue and that is terrible enough.
I actually don't know what to think of him - as far as I can tell he is a cipher and I have no sense of what his values or policy positions are whatsoever. I find this somewhat concerning; certainly he does not shape a political environment that is conducive to dialogue (and it is remarkable that this stands out given the general lack of useful dialogue in politics today). Whether this descends to actual fascism or other deeply concerning trends is to an extent a moot point.
Bloomberg had an interesting piece comparing him to Trudeau the other day - obviously about style rather than substance, but I think there is a kernel of truth there. It's very hard to pick apart substantive policy when politicians become, essentially, reality television stars. It's even harder to separate showmanship and narcissism from more worrisome character traits.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
I agree completely with that. He is 100% a narcissistic showman and I think that while politicians are trending to reality stars, having a genuine reality star as a politician is a disturbing trend. Ultimately he could be as terrible a President as we all fear, a surprisingly good President or perhaps most likely will just in practice be rather shit and incompetent. The idea he's going to be totalitarian is I think for the fairies, but there is plenty of room to be terrible without being an authoritarian dictator.
Part of the reason I'm less concerned about this issue isn't that I'm positive Trump isn't a big fan of authoritarian strongmen and would like to be one (a la an American Putin or Erdogan). Rather, it's that US institutions are quite robust and there are a variety of checks on executive power. It means that sometimes our politics is deadlocked and that change happens at a snail's pace. But it also means that it's very difficult for one person to cause the kind of damage that might be possible in other governments. That isn't to say that a Trump presidency wouldn't matter - I think it would matter, deeply, and be a terrible idea. But it suggests that the maximal damage might indeed be profound to say, our economy and world standing, but would not threaten the Republic.
It's a somewhat odd irony that while the US President is often considered the most powerful man in the world - often justifiably so - but also is hemmed in by a political system that sharply limits executive power (in contrast to parliamentary systems that by their very nature hand the executive a governing majority and can rapidly enact policy changes). It is true that Congressional inaction has helped the rise of the imperial Presidency - and indeed the President has a great deal of power over certain issues - but the inner workings of our system still keep the President from going down the road of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. Even our professionalized bureaucracies are heavily entrenched and hard to subvert (which is not the case in most countries that have fallen prey to these sorts of phenomena).
I do think that a distinction should be drawn, however, between the danger posed by a candidate like Trump and those posed by more run-of-the-mill Democratic and Republican candidates. Trump espouses a version of populism that is poisonous in the extreme - it stifles thoughtful debate on issues, encourages identity voting, and explicitly rejects the testimony of experts as elitist. While elements of this can be found in any political campaign, Trump explicitly embraces this way of looking at things, along with a deeply troubling zero sum view of a variety of issues. He is a uniquely awful candidate; there is no doubt that the caviling in the past about the suitability of other presidential candidates (D or R) was fundamentally hyperbole, while the concerns about Trump are far more concrete. We should not wave our hands and say 'he will be good enough as POTUS', which could have been said about nearly any major party nominee for decades (for POTUS, not VP) - he will not be. But neither should we assume that the very integrity of our democracy is at stake. That may indeed be hyperbole as well, and distracts from the very real and insoluble deficiencies of Trump as a candidate.
"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)
He had his supers (people in charge of day-to-day operations in an apartment building) to refuse to rent apartments to African Americans, and encouraged them to find Jews instead. He's made statements back to the '80s that could be interpreted as racist. He clearly judges people on the basis of their race/ethnicity. This all predates his presidential run.
And wig, I disagree that someone like Trump can't permanently poison the political atmosphere. He's already legitimized racist discourse. People knew it was wrong to discriminate against people, whether blacks or Muslims in the past. Now those people are being told by one of the mainstream parties that it's ok. And those who had a predisposition to be racist now have no problem with saying and doing racist things in public. The kind of policies that would never have been suggested let alone passed in the past are now part of the political discourse. This is how democracies decline. It's how the seeds for civil war are sown. I'm not saying both are guaranteed to happen after a Trump presidency, but we'd go from 0% to something higher. And the longer this kind of a cancer sticks around, the harder it will be to operate without destroying the social fabric of this country.
Hope is the denial of reality
You seem out of touch with the reality of the next generation of liberals. It isn't conservatives who play identity politics. It isn't conservatives who are opposed to free speech. On major policy/social issues ('hate speech' 'fairness doctrine' 'language police' 'campaign finance reform' liberals have overwhelming held positions CONTRARY to thoughtful debate and freedom of speech. They are opposed to political speech on the airwaves. They are opposed to radio political discussion (in profitability terms). They are massively in favor of political correctness and try to create 'safe zones' on university campuses and are quick to pounce on people for not using the approved terminology to describe people. Very rarely do you see Young Republican groups heckle, protest and shout down liberal speakers on campus. The reverse though...
Try failing to stand for the national anthem, or disrespecting American national symbols, or criticising the US military and see how far this vaunted conservative commitment to free speech gets you.Very rarely do you see Young Republican groups heckle, protest and shout down liberal speakers on campus. The reverse though...
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
Unless you're Trump, in which case you get a pass on all of the above.
Hope is the denial of reality
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