President Trump: Part II

[Giz]

Mussolini is a closer parallel than Hitler but the death of John Hurt has reminded me of an even closer one. I'm going to spend the next four years (or however long he lasts) waiting for him to appoint his horse to the Senate.

I think the closest Italian parallel is surely berlusconi. (Corrupt, business interests, buffoon etc).

 

[alfaniner]

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

It does seem to be that those areas with more immigration are less against immigration, it's almost as if the invoking fear of immigration is lessened when you live with the actual reality....

You mean when people interact with them foreigners and realise they're just the same as them? Aye, funny that.

 

[Darat]

Quite right, he looks like he is wearing someone else's suit.
Button your jacket you chump, get to a tailor and let him fit your suit. Just becsuse it was expensive doesn't mean it fits off the peg.
If it has bern tailored then either his tailor is incompetent or hates him.

Emperor's new clothes - his tailor can throw anything on him as long as s/he says "You look fantastic!!!"

(Extra exclamation marks obligatory)

 

[3point14]

Mind you, there seems to be a lot of holding everyone other than Trump to high standards whilst he's allowed to plumb ever deeper lows. Reinforces that fascinating but worrying article someone posted of how the brain gives up filtering lies if enough of them are thrown out...

There seems to be a bucketload of that on the rapidly appearing "I voted for Trump but it was Clinton's fault" demographic that seems to be appearing.

Trump's underhand and hateful tactics are actually successful but no-one else is allowed to use them.

 

[LSSBB]

OK, the past is the past. But in the future, best option given the circumstances should be your criteria rather than some idealistic goal. Please.

Yes, and that wouldn't have changed my vote.

 

[newyorkguy]

Yet again, I'm not certain if I'm worried more about Trump, or the populism that got him elected. I saw this as "populism vote" stage II (Obama got it the first time on the Hope and change line)...

It seems to be true that a significant portion of people who voted for Obama in 2008/2012 voted for Trump this time around. I've heard it said that in 2008 we were facing a severe economic crisis and people had become exhausted by the war in Iraq/Afghanistan and just wanted it over. Obama seemed a better choice than McCain to protect the average American in a time of serious recession and to get us out of the ground war in the Middle East.

This time around the economy is performing decently, American kids aren't coming home in body bags, so people decided to indulge themselves. Trump won by winning the 'middle,' he lost the East and West Coasts (except in the Southeast). I've heard too many people say, getting Trump elected was a way to give "the rest of the country the finger," not to think that viewpoint is pretty pervasive. But to me it's self-indulgent and irresponsible. Things are going pretty well so people are willing to indulge themselves.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Tero]

It was more about jobs in the rust belt and also some central red states. Hillary did not even address the issue. Bernie sort of did, with free college to retrain.

 

[acbytesla]

Various people have raised that concern with me recently, and my reply has been much the same as yours, but expressed differently. The US constitution is not degraded by the effect of economic crisis as much as was that of the Weimar Republic post 1930. But also, Trump doesn't have a mass fascist organisation on the ground comparable with the SA. So he may have the will, but he may not - I fervently hope not - have the opportunity to perform a Hitler-style "coup in office".

My point really wasn't that this is 30s Germany but that Trump is effectively using much of the same methods. That so many people are willing to conclude that it is the press is lying instead of Trump unnerved me. It is cognitive bias of the worst kind. Trump is tearing down the institutions that provide those check and balances.

For example,. Trump has been at war with the Intelligence agencies, including the firing of long time foreign service agents that have worked apolitically for both parties. The muzzling of information from different departments. A reorganization of the military. The willingness to use bold face lies to bolster their narrative, ie; 3 million people voted illegally. Interesting that the source that Trump cited is totally unwilling to disclose his data. Trump and his cabal are deliberately trying to create cognitive bias and it's been working with a sizable portion of society. Hitler never came close to support from a majority of Germans until it was too late.

Still, it is early. The question remains what happens when the fight really begins.

 

[newyorkguy]

It was more about jobs in the rust belt and also some central red states. Hillary did not even address the issue. Bernie sort of did, with free college to retrain.

Only that's not true. Clinton did campaign for more retraining; she had a three-point program and she talked about it endlessly. I watched on TV as she talked about it at a number of rallies and campaign stops. This is from her campaign website:

Hillary’s workforce and skills agenda will help people get good jobs with good wages throughout their careers...For workers and job-seekers, this means providing more robust, coherent, and accessible training programs and resources that are up to date for 21st-century technology and that lead to good jobs and lifelong skills and credentials. Link

I didn't hear Trump mention retraining. I heard Trump talk about bringing the jobs back. Though during the debates, when asked how he would do that he waffled and said, "By not letting them leave in the first place."

But I've heard and read the comment about, "Giving the rest of the country the finger," so many times I accept that was part of the appeal of Trump. As for the jobs, pundits have said: Hillary Clinton was battling a kind of malaise on the part of many voters. They wanted to try something different. Many Trump voters -- we've seen the comments here -- insist Trump is "not establishment" and is a great businessman. Reality is, as a billionaire Trump is a solid member of the establishment and his track record is, he's been a terrible businessman.

I have been reading how a small group of billionaires have greatly increased their influence over American politics largely through the use of Super Pacs. A lot of Americans seem to believe that. Only then they turn around and elect a billionaire president. It seems ridiculous.

 

[Minoosh]

There is one thing in our favor:Trump is too damn dumb to be an effective Big Brother.

It will be easier now that we have wired ourselves for surveillance.

 

[Marcus]

I agree with Clinton. She was on an upswing before Comey's letter. It would have been damaging at any stage but the timing was devastating. To many, it seemed to confirm or at least reinforce all the accusations against her. They won't even have taken in the details it would just scream 'Crooked Hillary'. Choosing to go public with that whilst keeping Stum on possible links between Trump and Russia was crass political meddling.

Much, more impact than the deplorable comment imho - and I still don't get the logic there: it basically seems to be saying Trump can continuously spout hateful things against entire nationalities or religions but because Hillary 'slipped up' and actually criticised a segment of the people supporting those hateful things, then that's the terrible mistake that cost her the election.

Mind you, there seems to be a lot of holding everyone other than Trump to high standards whilst he's allowed to plumb ever deeper lows. Reinforces that fascinating but worrying article someone posted of how the brain gives up filtering lies if enough of them are thrown out...

The Comey letter certainly didn't help. I don't know if it hurt her more or less than the deplorable comment, there is no way to tell. It may have hurt worse than Trump's slurs against various minority groups because it was aimed so broadly, 25% of the population if you were paying attention, but if you weren't you may have thought it was half.

 

[Minoosh]

I think any reasonable person would suspect a) the photos show Obama did have a larger crowd and B) evidence (there have already been a number of investigations) mostly points at very few illegal votes, certainly nowhere near "millions."

I stumbled on some video clip where Ivanka was asked if she thinks there were millions of illegal votes. Her response had literally nothing to do with the question.

I think I know what Trump's after. He wants everything to be up for grabs. If he says 2+2=5 or the sun comes up in the west...that's not "wrong."

Yup:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

Then:

The media should not decide what's true and what's not.

I can't tell what this means. It's possible to take it ironically.

...Conway mentioned the crowd size and illegal voters, and admonished Woodruff that, "The media should stop taking sides."

I actually give Conway a tiny bit of leeway here. My default "objective" sources is CNN, and I have detected bias in its news reporting. It's written in solidarity, IMO, with the honest journalists Trump has called liars.

But I think Trump is going to make it implicit that if the media won't do it his way, down the road there will be some consequences. That'll be a bad precedent to set.

Implicit? He'll make it explicit, and I'm not totally sure who would win. The media landscape is changing too quickly to tell. Libel/privacy case law already has shifted somewhat.

 

[bruto]

Jeez, the mayor of Berlin appears to not know his city's history. The Berlin Wall was to imprison their own citizens. Trumps wall is supposed to keep illegal immigrants out (and controlling immigration/borders has long been considered an uncontroversial part of a nation state's powers).

So one says, and so reality says in perspective, and so our interpretation of the lies promulgated by the wall builder says, but do not forget that the official reason for the wall was to keep East Germany from being invaded by fascists from the west.


It is also appropriate, I think, to note that the mayor of Berlin condemned the wall as destroying the prospects of millions, and given that he is not a communist it might suggest that he does indeed understand that its effect was to keep the East Germans from freedom despite its stated intent. It is, after all, possible to lie about why one does what one does. Although the communists were very good at lying, I don't think they invented it, and it seems pretty certain that it did not die out when they did.

It is remotely possible that the mayor of Berlin does know his history.

 

[Minoosh]

Mussolini is a closer parallel than Hitler but the death of John Hurt has reminded me of an even closer one. I'm going to spend the next four years (or however long he lasts) waiting for him to appoint his horse to the Senate.

John Hurt played Winston Smith in a grim little gem called "1984."

Richard Burton was O'Brien.

 

[newyorkguy]

It's an alternative opinion and the media should just report it and let the public decide. The media should not decide what's true and what's not.

I can't tell what this means. It's possible to take it ironically...

Well you took it out of context (which I added back in). I think what Trump wants is to maneuver the media around to the point where they "report" alternative facts as though they have the same validity as actual facts. I think we already see this. At first when Trump denied the reality of the crowd size photos and insisted his crowd was as big or bigger, some media outlets reported that statement was a lie and an obvious one. Now I think they're walking that back a bit. Instead of reporting the statement is a flat-out lie (which it is) they're reporting, "The President maintains, however..." They're ceding some validity to Trump's claim. In other words, "They're not taking sides." They're reporting it as on one side you have people with photos showing the crowd sizes. On the other side you have Trump insisting something else.

One former journalist said it might be because the media knows they're in for a real fight and they will have to pick their battles carefully. The reality is, I think what Trumps wants is to be able to lie without the media pointing out, "The president is lying." He's probably halfway there.

 

[Pixel42]

John Hurt played Winston Smith in a grim little gem called "1984."

Indeed, but it was his portrayal of Caligula in I, Claudius that I was thinking of.

 

[Giz]

So one says, and so reality says in perspective, and so our interpretation of the lies promulgated by the wall builder says, but do not forget that the official reason for the wall was to keep East Germany from being invaded by fascists from the west.


It is also appropriate, I think, to note that the mayor of Berlin condemned the wall as destroying the prospects of millions, and given that he is not a communist it might suggest that he does indeed understand that its effect was to keep the East Germans from freedom despite its stated intent. It is, after all, possible to lie about why one does what one does. Although the communists were very good at lying, I don't think they invented it, and it seems pretty certain that it did not die out when they did.

It is remotely possible that the mayor of Berlin does know his history.

But the Berlin Wall destroyed the prospects of millions of their own citizens. Trump's wall is supposed to protect our citizens prospects (at the cost of foreigners not being able to illegally supplant them).


Edit to add: it may well not work that way but the goal is not immoral.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Well you took it out of context (which I added back in). I think what Trump wants is to maneuver the media around to the point where they "report" alternative facts as though they have the same validity as actual facts. I think we already see this. At first when Trump denied the reality of the crowd size photos and insisted his crowd was as big or bigger, some media outlets reported that statement was a lie and an obvious one. Now I think they're walking that back a bit. Instead of reporting the statement is a flat-out lie (which it is) they're reporting, "The President maintains, however..." They're ceding some validity to Trump's claim. In other words, "They're not taking sides." They're reporting it as on one side you have people with photos showing the crowd sizes. On the other side you have Trump insisting something else.

One former journalist said it might be because the media knows they're in for a real fight and they will have to pick their battles carefully. The reality is, I think what Trumps wants is to be able to lie without the media pointing out, "The president is lying." He's probably halfway there.

This is the problem with the press that has been bugging me for ages. Its the myth of balance. To appear neutral they simply report both sides of the argument. Its not journalism of any form that I recognise.

 

[LSSBB]

How about this: The purpose of the Berlin wall was to prevent the free flow of goods, services, people and ideas that some on one side found threatening, for whatever reason they had in their heads, and thus was built out of fear.