In defence of Trump

[blastula]

Didn't Bob Dylan say something like, How many lies can a liar tell, before you call him a LIAR?
Trump is a degenerate, independent of any factor of news coverage, political contentions, editorial statements, or stump speeches. No one with common, middle-range judgment of human behavior should miss the signs of his degeneracy. You don't need commentators to tell you that or "color the news." All you need is a raw feed of Trump talking or the text of a Trump tweet. I watched him in early 2012 tell the country that we "wouldn't believe" what his investigators were turning up in Hawaii about Obama's birth certificate, and I knew right then that Trump was a degenerate and a dangerous demogogue. If you don't know in January 2021 that President Trump is a degenerate, then you are brainwashed. He is the enemy of the people -- he proved it yesterday (again).

Exactly, the biggest bias against Trump is reality and himself. Accurately reporting his words is what makes him look bad.

Weinstein holds to a lot of weird conspiracies about the mainstream powers that be and how they are keeping him down man. He believes that mainstream "institutions" literally held a secret meeting after the 2016 election and decided to start using the term "fake news" against Trump so he would lose in 2020. Never mind that nobody uses the term more than Trump, he thinks the term "fake news" was a secret plot against Trump.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Didn't Bob Dylan say something like, How many lies can a liar tell, before you call him a LIAR?
Trump is a degenerate, independent of any factor of news coverage, political contentions, editorial statements, or stump speeches. No one with common, middle-range judgment of human behavior should miss the signs of his degeneracy. You don't need commentators to tell you that or "color the news." All you need is a raw feed of Trump talking or the text of a Trump tweet. I watched him in early 2012 tell the country that we "wouldn't believe" what his investigators were turning up in Hawaii about Obama's birth certificate, and I knew right then that Trump was a degenerate and a dangerous demogogue. If you don't know in January 2021 that President Trump is a degenerate, then you are brainwashed. He is the enemy of the people -- he proved it yesterday (again).

Exactly, the biggest bias against Trump is reality and himself. Accurately reporting his words is what makes him look bad.

Weinstein holds to a lot of weird conspiracies about the mainstream powers that be and how they are keeping him down man. He believes that mainstream "institutions" literally held a secret meeting after the 2016 election and decided to start using the term "fake news" against Trump so he would lose in 2020. Never mind that nobody uses the term more than Trump, he thinks the term "fake news" was a secret plot against Trump.

I don't think that's as crazy as you do. Then perhaps I'm a conspiracy theorist also.

I believe absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the Liberal/leftist public discourse is completely dominant in the media today. So I'm seeing behaviours now within the left I find troubling.

The fact that defence of free speech is so incredibly weak among the left I find horrifying. Today the side most adamant about protecting free speech is the conservatives, ie the side historically associated with being against free speech. That's a pretty sad state for the left. I think the left today is drunk with power and have forgotten that with great power comes great responsibility. So we waste our effort on bullshit symbol issues, rather than focusing on the things important to regular people. Which I think is why Trump won

 

[Deepak]

All Communists, for instance.

What Communist news sources are you seeing? Can you name the Communist commentators on CNN? How much political power do Communists enjoy in Eurasia? How much control of the media do they have?

The reason you don't see any quality news sources from the right is there's no desire for it. Very few people care to produce it, and the group of consumers is only slightly larger. Which is not to say there's any shortage of right wing media.

I'm very confused by this thread, and how in defense of Trump we're now worried about the Red Menace. Most American journalists in the last few decades have seemed to have been pretty amenable to the Alan Greenspan/Ronald Reagan/New Democrat as well as the myth of Republicans being good for the economy, or understanding energy policy, or being good for people's safety. They've been deferential to the status quo, whether that's the police, or health care, or economic policy. https://web.archive.org/web/2017030...-how-washington-post-helped-give-us-iraq-war/

This 'left-biased' media seems to have gone to great lengths during this ordeal to treat Trump more seriously than he deserved.

E) Journalists in 2020 & 2016 unethically became activists misreporting a big blue wave or Hilary’s inevitable win.

Total nonsense, and not supported in the OP.

 

[DrZoidberg]

All Communists, for instance.

What Communist news sources are you seeing? Can you name the Communist commentators on CNN? How much political power do Communists enjoy in Eurasia? How much control of the media do they have?

We have as many communists commentators on CNN as we have red pillers, ie zero. The point is that we have tin foil hat loonies on both sides. But because media is so totally controlled by the left, the right is now reduced to an image of nothing but Red Pillers. But we both know that's a caricature of the right. Quite a lot of them are sensible.

The reason you don't see any quality news sources from the right is there's no desire for it. Very few people care to produce it, and the group of consumers is only slightly larger. Which is not to say there's any shortage of right wing media.

Which is my point entirely. But I don't think that's a good thing.

I'm very confused by this thread, and how in defense of Trump we're now worried about the Red Menace. Most American journalists in the last few decades have seemed to have been pretty amenable to the Alan Greenspan/Ronald Reagan/New Democrat as well as the myth of Republicans being good for the economy, or understanding energy policy, or being good for people's safety. They've been deferential to the status quo, whether that's the police, or health care, or economic policy. https://web.archive.org/web/2017030...-how-washington-post-helped-give-us-iraq-war/

This 'left-biased' media seems to have gone to great lengths during this ordeal to treat Trump more seriously than he deserved.

I'm not worried about the Red Menace. What gave you that idea?

I suspect that Reagan was the death of the right. The idea of lowering taxes and living off credit debt is an idiotic idea. Since this became the populist war cry of the right, the entire society shifted toward the left, until the left dominated completely. And now we're in this situation, where the left is so dominant it's stopped trying to solve people's pressing problems and instead focuses on seeming being woke. Having absolute power isn't good for anyone. Not even for the people in power. It leads to decadence and complacency.

 

[ideologyhunter]

If you don't know in January 2021 that President Trump is a degenerate, then you are brainwashed.

i have to respectfully disagree with this, because it assumes two things:
1. that what trump is doing and saying is degenerate.
2. that one recognizes what trump is doing and saying as degenerate and find that objectionable.

the suggestion that to not consider him degenerate denotes brainwashing is dangerously naive, because the reality is that nearly all people who support trump see what he's doing for what it actually is (ie, are not believing some patent falsehood about the actual reality of his actions) and duly praise it for being the highest works of their moral values.

A US President sends a howling mob (their heads full of LIES he created) in full-tilt crazy mode down the street to the Capitol, and you don't know he's a degenerate?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

[DrZoidberg]

If you don't know in January 2021 that President Trump is a degenerate, then you are brainwashed.

i have to respectfully disagree with this, because it assumes two things:
1. that what trump is doing and saying is degenerate.
2. that one recognizes what trump is doing and saying as degenerate and find that objectionable.

the suggestion that to not consider him degenerate denotes brainwashing is dangerously naive, because the reality is that nearly all people who support trump see what he's doing for what it actually is (ie, are not believing some patent falsehood about the actual reality of his actions) and duly praise it for being the highest works of their moral values.

A US President sends a howling mob (their heads full of LIES he created) in full-tilt crazy mode down the street to the Capitol, and you don't know he's a degenerate?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

That's not what he's saying. I think. What I think he's saying is that you can support Trump and still think he's a degenerate. It's dangerous to think that the behaviour of Trump reflects the morals of his supporters. Anybody who thinks our elected leaders aren't horrendous people are naive idiots IMHO. That's always been the case. Just because a politician has a smooth image and says all the right things, doesn't mean they're not nefarious scheeming scumbags. I think it's a duty of all citizens of a democracy to distrust our elected officials. That's, pretty much, required for a democracy to keep functioning.

Nobody would put in all that work to become the leader of a nation because of their ideals. Lofty ideals are for teenagers and lazy people. Not ambitious people who work hard. What I think a lot of people like about Trump is that there's no hidden agenda. He's too dumb for it. For a lot of people it's comforting that our leaders moral corruption is visible for all to see.

So I think it's perfectly possible for a reasonable person to think Trump was a degenerate, all the time, and still vote for him. I know sensible people who reason that way. I don't. But I'm now speculating about people who would vote for somebody like Trump. I wouldn't.

 

[ideologyhunter]

But that is what he's saying. Read his item #1.

 

[Swammerdami]

If I type "definition:conspiracy" into Google I'll get the precise definition but I'm not going to bother — My 'Net and laptop are both slow.

Every physicist and mathematician knows the Pythagorean Theorem. Most of them didn't even bother proving it themselves; they learned it from a teacher. Is that a "conspiracy"? It appears DrZoidberg thinks so.

If you asked Americans whether they know what the Pythagorean Theorem is, I think you'll find most not only cannot prove it, but don't even know what it is. That's right, 51% of the American public do not believe in the Pythagorean Theorem. I guess, in some people's model, to be a "centrist" we would have to join the majority and agree that that Theorem, whatever it is, may or may not be true.

I think there is a leftist media conspiracy, of the simple reason that journalism is a humanities subject and humanities people are overwhelmingly leftist. Leftists are, overall, better writers, and will therefore get more media attention (even when wrong). When Trump says there's a media conspiracy against him, I agree with that. The fact that he's an utter moron who deserves most of the negative things written against him, doesn't make the conspiracy against him any less real. Both can be true.

Whatever Google produces for "definition:conspiracy", in my dialect there would be an implication of lying, malfeasance or, at a minimum, believing untruths.
[MENTION=65]DrZoidberg[/MENTION]; Did the "leftist media" lie about Trump? Was the "leftist media" suborning its viewers when it reported on Trump and GOP malfeasance? Adolf Hitler is disparaged by leftists: Is that also a "conspiracy"? Were CNN and PBS imitating FoxNews and deliberately lying to their viewers?

No? Then What The F*** are you babbling about? Are you going to start another thread explaining that the Pythagorean Theorem, whether valid or not, is the result of "conspiracy"?

 

[KeepTalking]

I suspect that Reagan was the death of the right. The idea of lowering taxes and living off credit debt is an idiotic idea. Since this became the populist war cry of the right, the entire society shifted toward the left, until the left dominated completely. And now we're in this situation, where the left is so dominant it's stopped trying to solve people's pressing problems and instead focuses on seeming being woke. Having absolute power isn't good for anyone. Not even for the people in power. It leads to decadence and complacency.

Please provide evidence of your theory that the left has dominated completely in American politics since Reagan. In evidence of the exact opposite, I give you the following:
1. George H W Bush
2. George W Bush
3. George W Bush again
4. Donald J Trump
5. Republican control of Congress, or at least the Senate, for the majority of the time in question.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If I type "definition:conspiracy" into Google I'll get the precise definition but I'm not going to bother — My 'Net and laptop are both slow.

Every physicist and mathematician knows the Pythagorean Theorem. Most of them didn't even bother proving it themselves; they learned it from a teacher. Is that a "conspiracy"? It appears DrZoidberg thinks so.

If you asked Americans whether they know what the Pythagorean Theorem is, I think you'll find most not only cannot prove it, but don't even know what it is. That's right, 51% of the American public do not believe in the Pythagorean Theorem. I guess, in some people's model, to be a "centrist" we would have to join the majority and agree that that Theorem, whatever it is, may or may not be true.

I think there is a leftist media conspiracy, of the simple reason that journalism is a humanities subject and humanities people are overwhelmingly leftist. Leftists are, overall, better writers, and will therefore get more media attention (even when wrong). When Trump says there's a media conspiracy against him, I agree with that. The fact that he's an utter moron who deserves most of the negative things written against him, doesn't make the conspiracy against him any less real. Both can be true.

Whatever Google produces for "definition:conspiracy", in my dialect there would be an implication of lying, malfeasance or, at a minimum, believing untruths.
[MENTION=65]DrZoidberg[/MENTION]; Did the "leftist media" lie about Trump? Was the "leftist media" suborning its viewers when it reported on Trump and GOP malfeasance? Adolf Hitler is disparaged by leftists: Is that also a "conspiracy"? Were CNN and PBS imitating FoxNews and deliberately lying to their viewers?

No? Then What The F*** are you babbling about? Are you going to start another thread explaining that the Pythagorean Theorem, whether valid or not, is the result of "conspiracy"?

That's a good point. I will back down here. I used the term conspiracy sloppily. What's a good word for it then? The non-secret power cartel of the left? What's a good expression for that?

 

[DrZoidberg]

I suspect that Reagan was the death of the right. The idea of lowering taxes and living off credit debt is an idiotic idea. Since this became the populist war cry of the right, the entire society shifted toward the left, until the left dominated completely. And now we're in this situation, where the left is so dominant it's stopped trying to solve people's pressing problems and instead focuses on seeming being woke. Having absolute power isn't good for anyone. Not even for the people in power. It leads to decadence and complacency.

Please provide evidence of your theory that the left has dominated completely in American politics since Reagan. In evidence of the exact opposite, I give you the following:
1. George H W Bush
2. George W Bush
3. George W Bush again
4. Donald J Trump
5. Republican control of Congress, or at least the Senate, for the majority of the time in question.

The public discourse is overwhelmingly liberal, ie the stuff the media talks about, isn't relevant for lots of people. They are voting conservative. And voting blindly for bullshit reasons because they have no intellectual voices in their medias clarifying their thoughts.

What conservative public intellectuals do we have now? It's pretty much Jordan Petersen. That's it. Isn't there? For public intellectuals to be motivated to be public intellectuals, they need to get paid for their work. If they aren't, they're not going to put up with that bullshit. While the list of public intellectuals on the left is very very long. It's a lucrative business.

The fact that conservative political candidates are winning elections despite zero intellectual backing is pretty telling. It's not good for the future of mankind. Not for the left or right. I think it's the internet that is to blame. It's a shift in technology. To be a public intellectual before the Internet you needed another set of skills than to be one today. For whatever reason the left intellectuals are better at it. The Conservative intellectuals (they do exist) are failing to break through the barrier to be seen on the media stage. So the Right do nothing than read tabloids and send fake news to eachother. Which is what then will inform their voting. Which explains the list of Conservative candidates you posted.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Fox isn't news IMHO. It's parody. They're not even trying. Quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative. I'm not aware of a single quality conservative news outlet. Today they all seem to be left. That's a problem for democracy.

Why is that a problem for democracy, if, as you correctly say, "quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative."

The problem for democracy isn't the absence of right-leaning "quality fact checked news", it's the presence of right-wing sources that deliberately twist the facts or outright lie to their consumers. And it's those very sources that prevent any right-leaning "quality fact checked news" outlet from ever seeing the light of day.

Leftwing press also twists the truth. Two articles on the same thing can contain the same facts, while presenting them in different ways to make radically arguments. Facts need context to make sense.

I disagree.

Its a shame that Conservatives are more likely to be tin foil hat Red pullers. But the left have our own in that club. All Communists, for instance.

Your statement: "quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative".

As far as "the left have our own in that club", that's just more "good/bad on both sides" nonsense, right out of Trump's playbook. There is no mainstream Communist news source in my country, nor has there ever been one. But there are quite a few mainstream/heavily used far-right sources.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Leftwing press also twists the truth. Two articles on the same thing can contain the same facts, while presenting them in different ways to make radically arguments. Facts need context to make sense.

I disagree.

Its a shame that Conservatives are more likely to be tin foil hat Red pullers. But the left have our own in that club. All Communists, for instance.

Your statement: "quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative".

As far as "the left have our own in that club", that's just more "good/bad on both sides" nonsense, right out of Trump's playbook. There is no mainstream Communist news source in my country, nor has there ever been one. But there are quite a few mainstream/heavily used far-right sources.

I think we just see this differently.

 

[Angry Floof]

Leftwing press also twists the truth. Two articles on the same thing can contain the same facts, while presenting them in different ways to make radically arguments. Facts need context to make sense.

I disagree.

Its a shame that Conservatives are more likely to be tin foil hat Red pullers. But the left have our own in that club. All Communists, for instance.

Your statement: "quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative".

As far as "the left have our own in that club", that's just more "good/bad on both sides" nonsense, right out of Trump's playbook. There is no mainstream Communist news source in my country, nor has there ever been one. But there are quite a few mainstream/heavily used far-right sources.

I think we just see this differently.

Well, that's convenient. I guess facts don't need to be discussed after all.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Leftwing press also twists the truth. Two articles on the same thing can contain the same facts, while presenting them in different ways to make radically arguments. Facts need context to make sense.

I disagree.

Its a shame that Conservatives are more likely to be tin foil hat Red pullers. But the left have our own in that club. All Communists, for instance.

Your statement: "quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative".

As far as "the left have our own in that club", that's just more "good/bad on both sides" nonsense, right out of Trump's playbook. There is no mainstream Communist news source in my country, nor has there ever been one. But there are quite a few mainstream/heavily used far-right sources.

I think we just see this differently.

That is likely because you don't understand just how perverted conservative media is in America.

 

[Elixir]

What's a good word for it then? The non-secret power cartel of the left? What's a good expression for that?

I believe the technical term is "boogeyman".

 

[Worldtraveller]

I suspect that Reagan was the death of the right. The idea of lowering taxes and living off credit debt is an idiotic idea. Since this became the populist war cry of the right, the entire society shifted toward the left, until the left dominated completely. And now we're in this situation, where the left is so dominant it's stopped trying to solve people's pressing problems and instead focuses on seeming being woke. Having absolute power isn't good for anyone. Not even for the people in power. It leads to decadence and complacency.

Please provide evidence of your theory that the left has dominated completely in American politics since Reagan. In evidence of the exact opposite, I give you the following:
1. George H W Bush
2. George W Bush
3. George W Bush again
4. Donald J Trump
5. Republican control of Congress, or at least the Senate, for the majority of the time in question.

The public discourse is overwhelmingly liberal, ie the stuff the media talks about, isn't relevant for lots of people. They are voting conservative. And voting blindly for bullshit reasons because they have no intellectual voices in their medias clarifying their thoughts.

What conservative public intellectuals do we have now? It's pretty much Jordan Petersen. That's it. Isn't there? For public intellectuals to be motivated to be public intellectuals, they need to get paid for their work. If they aren't, they're not going to put up with that bullshit. While the list of public intellectuals on the left is very very long. It's a lucrative business.

The fact that conservative political candidates are winning elections despite zero intellectual backing is pretty telling. It's not good for the future of mankind. Not for the left or right. I think it's the internet that is to blame. It's a shift in technology. To be a public intellectual before the Internet you needed another set of skills than to be one today. For whatever reason the left intellectuals are better at it. The Conservative intellectuals (they do exist) are failing to break through the barrier to be seen on the media stage. So the Right do nothing than read tabloids and send fake news to eachother. Which is what then will inform their voting. Which explains the list of Conservative candidates you posted.

If you think Jordan Petersen (unless there's another that I'm not familiar with) is a fucking intellectual, I think I see your problem.

The US has a few somewhat intellectually consistent conservative writers, but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is George Will, and he pretty much fucked off the GOP ship around the time trump was nominated. Pretty sure at this point, the few who actually had principle's have long since left the 'conservative' movement in the US.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Leftwing press also twists the truth. Two articles on the same thing can contain the same facts, while presenting them in different ways to make radically arguments. Facts need context to make sense.

I disagree.

Its a shame that Conservatives are more likely to be tin foil hat Red pullers. But the left have our own in that club. All Communists, for instance.

Your statement: "quality fact checked news is quality news, no matter if it's leftist or conservative".

As far as "the left have our own in that club", that's just more "good/bad on both sides" nonsense, right out of Trump's playbook. There is no mainstream Communist news source in my country, nor has there ever been one. But there are quite a few mainstream/heavily used far-right sources.

I think we just see this differently.

Yep. You are wrong, and hurtinbuckaroo is right.
I guess that's why you see it differently.

 

[Keith&Co.]

What's a good word for it then? The non-secret power cartel of the left? What's a good expression for that?

I believe the technical term is "boogeyman".

That's jargon, though. For peer reviewed works, use the formal, "chimera."

 

[KeepTalking]

The public discourse is overwhelmingly liberal, ie the stuff the media talks about, isn't relevant for lots of people. They are voting conservative. And voting blindly for bullshit reasons because they have no intellectual voices in their medias clarifying their thoughts.

What conservative public intellectuals do we have now? It's pretty much Jordan Petersen. That's it. Isn't there? For public intellectuals to be motivated to be public intellectuals, they need to get paid for their work. If they aren't, they're not going to put up with that bullshit. While the list of public intellectuals on the left is very very long. It's a lucrative business.

The fact that conservative political candidates are winning elections despite zero intellectual backing is pretty telling. It's not good for the future of mankind. Not for the left or right. I think it's the internet that is to blame. It's a shift in technology. To be a public intellectual before the Internet you needed another set of skills than to be one today. For whatever reason the left intellectuals are better at it. The Conservative intellectuals (they do exist) are failing to break through the barrier to be seen on the media stage. So the Right do nothing than read tabloids and send fake news to eachother. Which is what then will inform their voting. Which explains the list of Conservative candidates you posted.

If you think Jordan Petersen (unless there's another that I'm not familiar with) is a fucking intellectual, I think I see your problem.

The US has a few somewhat intellectually consistent conservative writers, but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is George Will, and he pretty much fucked off the GOP ship around the time trump was nominated. Pretty sure at this point, the few who actually had principle's have long since left the 'conservative' movement in the US.

This is very much along the lines of what I was thinking. The problem may be that DrZ is conflating 'conservative' with 'Republican' (specifically, the current Republican Party). Trumpism has caused a huge fracture in the party, and we are in the early days of it splitting in two. They should emerge from the split with a more sane conservative party, and with Trumpism left behind, but that is only if we emerge from the current turmoil with our country intact.