Donald Trump and US politics

Trump is hosting a rally in my town Saturday.

The last one that happened in my town was awesome, I think I'll go again.

There was waaaaaaaaaaaay too many people though, never seen that many people. The fire marshall wouldn't let anyone in. I left before Trump stopped speaking and the amount of ppl outside was wild.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

No one wants to have no borders and no controls. Misleading.

You really think no one? Do you challenge me to find mainstream media outlets openly advocating no borders and no controls?

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

Alarming is the attitude:

"you will not question this"

"president is correct 100%"

The only type of "alarming" the first is, is alarmingly stupid. If Miller started saying 2+2=4, you'd have at least one popular argument on the Internet that it doesn't, within a day. A huge portion of the media operates under the ethos: hate Trump first, ask questions later. Of course you'd question it. Obviously.

The second seems misattributed; he was saying Spicer is correct 100% of the time. Which is, in my estimation, even stupider.

In conclusion, Miller is so overzealous that he is a bit of a moron at times, especially in the category of talking to the press. Mainstream media is full of such idiots, zealots of every stripe and color, of both political parties. Miller isn't even close to the worst; try watching some Olbermann sometime, that guy's crazy enough to actually cause some mild concern.

Does Miller concern me? About as much as Maddow does, which isn't much at all.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

No one wants to have no borders and no controls. Misleading.

You really think no one? Do you challenge me to find mainstream media outlets openly advocating no borders and no controls?

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

Alarming is the attitude:

"you will not question this"

"president is correct 100%"

The only type of "alarming" the first is, is alarmingly stupid. If Miller started saying 2+2=4, you'd have at least one popular argument on the Internet that it doesn't, within a day. A huge portion of the media operates under the ethos: hate Trump first, ask questions later. Of course you'd question it. Obviously.

The second seems misattributed; he was saying Spicer is correct 100% of the time. Which is, in my estimation, even stupider.

In conclusion, Miller is so overzealous that he is a bit of a moron at times, especially in the category of talking to the press. Mainstream media is full of such idiots, zealots of every stripe and color, of both political parties. Miller isn't even close to the worst; try watching some Olbermann sometime, that guy's crazy enough to actually cause some mild concern.

Does Miller concern me? About as much as Maddow does, which isn't much at all.

From my point of view this represents the whole self conception of the Trump administration. They don´t want checks and balances ( you might say "but they exist" - well, for now ), they want to give unquestioned orders. And that´s not democracy, that´s something else. The existence of ultra right wing Stephen Bannon in this administration does not really make it better.

All this seems unreal, but it´s happening. There are many weird people in the world. But this is the f.....g U.S. president and his administration.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

From my point of view this represents the whole self conception of the Trump administration. They don´t want checks and balances ( you might say "but they exist" - well, for now ), they want to give unquestioned orders. And that´s not democracy, that´s something else. The existence of ultra right wing Stephen Bannon in this administration does not really make it better.

All this seems unreal, but it´s happening.

Your delusion is that this is news, that it is what you think it is, that it's anything but molehill-made-mountain.

The lawyerly argument that "the executive order is beyond jusicial review" is not a new one. It's anything but controversial; it's standard. It's something lawyers for the federal government do every single fucking time EOs go to court. Here's Obama's lawyers doing it when one of his EOs got stopped (page 30). Basically, arguing your case means coming up with the best reason you can for why the court shouldn't be able to review; obviously, these mostly fail, but not always.

Your hysteria that this argument is tantamount to erosion of checks and balances is similar to holding a grudge against Hillary Rodham for the unforgivable sin of, as a defense attorney, successfully negotiating a plea bargain for her child rapist client. Both are arguments in ignorance of how our legal system actually works.

Oh, and you can go in the wayback machine and see me defending Ms. Clinton on the issue of her defense work (my one criticism: she should have been able to get her client fully acquitted, given the circumstances). I'm not the one blinded by partisanship here.

Oh, and Bannon? He was a senior editor at the right-wing equivalent of the Huffington Post. That's all Breitbart is. (History lesson: back when Ariana Huffington was still a Republican, the late Andrew Breitbart helped her create the Huffington Post. Andrew Breitbart was a former HuffPo journo.) Seriously, go check Breitbart out. Yeah, it is right-wing, but saying it's "extreme right" is about as silly as leveling "extreme left" against HuffPo.

People that think Bannon is ultra right wing have never actually met someone who is ultra right wing


the regressive lefts political spectrum is basically "if you don't agree with me you have far right political views"


I remember a guy at a party said my views were far right when if you actually break me down piece by piece I'm objectively what would have been considered a centrist 15 years ago, but that's just how it is these days. Anything that is to the right of the far left is considered "fascism"

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Manocean wrote:

People that think Bannon is ultra right wing have never actually met someone who is ultra right wing


the regressive lefts political spectrum is basically "if you don't agree with me you have far right political views"


I remember a guy at a party said my views were far right when if you actually break me down piece by piece I'm objectively what would have been considered a centrist 15 years ago, but that's just how it is these days. Anything that is to the right of the far left is considered "fascism"

Maybe some people don´t (want to) notice how far right they actually think. Bannon thinks we are at war with an entire religion. That is far right. That was never "conservative" or "national conservative". Not 15 years ago, not 50 years ago.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

Maybe some people don´t (want to) notice how far right they actually think.

Who defines what far right is? Does the far left decide it? The fact that people who were not far right are suddenly far right when they oppose a globalist position is very telling. These are labels, much like racist terms and used for the very same reasons.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

Bannon thinks we are at war with an entire religion.

If you have a direct quote (full transcript, audio etc so we know the publisher isn't paraphrasing) where Steve Bannon says we are war with Islam, I'd be happy to look at the context. What I have seen is Bannon saying:

"Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islam, Islamic fascism."

Which is a criticism of Islamic Terrorism. The context is here:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world#.ukNJzg9rg3

The video isn't great, but you can see and hear his actual words in context here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FWXScQaZ2uI


Calling out ISIS or jihadist Islam is not the same as calling out Islam.

As Senator Marco Rubio put it when talking about Hillary's reluctance to call out Islamic Terrorism:

“I don’t understand it. That would be like saying we weren’t at war with Nazis, because we were afraid to offend some Germans who may have been members of the Nazi Party but weren’t violent themselves. We are at war with radical Islam, with an interpretation of Islam by a significant number of people around the world, who they believe now justifies them in killing those who don’t agree with their ideology.”

One of the other pieces of audio I've seen the media trying to take out of context is here:

https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/breitbart-news-daily-frank-gaffney-june-29-2016

There was a third audio clip I've seen mentioned as proof of Bannon's position, but I'm not able to find it at the moment.

Islam itself is not the enemy, but there are active elements and supportive elements within the community that need to be brought to justice. Ideally, this would happen with help from within, as peaceful Muslims turn in those who would wage war and commit acts of terrorism.
Sadly, there has been silence, reticence and outright refusal to cooperate from some communities which only makes the perspective look worse.


Things like this don't help the narrative:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/11/fourth-muslim-group-rejects-federal-grant-to-fight-extremism.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYUjGfgARfs&feature=youtu.be

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DalaiLama wrote:

Who defines what far right is? Does the far left decide it?

The ones that have the most control over media, so yeah the left decides. Nowadays, parties that speak against mass immigration or open borders, are called "far right" or "ultra nationalists", especially in leftist EU members. Its ridiculous and an ideological rhetoric (shaming tactic) that has nothing to do with reality. The ideology that controls mass media shapes reality, and that is currently the left.

I'm a far right xenophobe, according to the new leftist metrics, because I want order and stability, instead of social chaos, welfare state and cultural regression.

I am baffled how republicans/conservatives still talk like victims of the leftist media when they won and they have the power. Is it unconscious preparation for failure? I'm genuinely curious..

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ladish wrote:

I am baffled how republicans/conservatives still talk like victims of the leftist media when they won and they have the power. Is it unconscious preparation for failure? I'm genuinely curious..

Trump didn't win with the "mainstream media," but despite it. It's not like he won CNN over.

That said, I do think it's very important to note that US media-consumption tastes have changed significantly in the past two years. "Legacy" media like CNN and MSNBC (and FOX) are less relevant, while new outlets have far more influence than they used to. Years ago, the legacy media would never have claimed Breitbart was some neo-nazi haven; at the time, the site wasn't big enough to warrant a smear. It is big enough now, and like many other "alternative media" outlets it was critical in supporting Trump's victory.

We should be acknowledging that the previously fringe media is getting more mainstream over time, and some of the formerly mainstream media is moving to the fringes. It is indeed a little silly to keep on pretending that popularity rankings from two years ago are the best way to sort media outlets into like groups.