I can't believe someone who can't spell "Al Qaeda" is able to so masterfully hold the media by their collective noses. Remember when he got accused of sexual assaulting another woman? It's amazing that it's already been forgotten, and that some of you might not know if I'm talking about the Epstein horseshit or the woman in a dressing room a few years ago.
I agree with your point, but it is truly amazing that we have a president for whom just openly saying racist shit is a better PR option than letting the attention remain on his other failings. Can you imagine if during the Lewinsky scandal Clinton just started dropping N-bombs on TV because that played better with his base? It would have been completely surreal.
You'll get no argument out of me. I'm not naive enough to think this is the first president who said a lot of stupid shit though. But it seems a lot of people are. However, we didn't have social media in LBJ's time, Nixon's time, etc. Now we not only have a president who says stupid shit, but says it openly online.
LBJ liked to show people his cock. The more inappropriate the time, the better. Not that there is even an appropriate time for a sitting president to show some rando his piece, but for example at formal dinners was most definitely not a good time or place. Apparently he just had a massive log and whipped it out for the lulz or whatever they called it back then. The town where he grew up isn’t too far from me and the dude is fucking revered around here. Everything is named after him — the asshole who quite literally couldn’t (or rather, wouldn’t) keep his dick in his pants. If he was around today they’d have #MeToo’d the fuck outta him. Doesn’t everything trump tweet have to be saved for historical purposes? I think I remember reading somewhere that his tweets will eventually go into a presidential library of some kind.
*Puts on hip waders and shit goggles* After Trump's latest dumpster fire of a Twitter thread, I did come away with something slightly more than just an eye roll and skipping the article. Yes, I will 100% agree that what he said was idiotic; every congresswoman he mentioned was born in America, so "go back to your shithole country" is exquisitely stupid. It brings up a good point, though (kind of): why are the vocal critics of the state of America - and I'm looking at the extreme left here, mostly - constantly comparing the USA to a utopian ideal, and not doing the same for everywhere else in the world? As an example, healthcare. Or military oversight/operations. Or the state of local police departments and their dubious history of race relations. Every single one of these examples for sure needs work. It may need tweaking or (as with immigration) complete judicial overhaul. What I don't see the benefit of, and what crazies like Antifa seem to advocate, is tearing the whole thing down and letting it burn. Has anyone ever been to Egypt? Or Yemen? Or most of Russia? Or [insert second- or third-world country]. NO place is perfect, and America is waaaaay better than most. That the narrative is so polarized just blows my mind. When Trump says, in essence, "go back to your shithole," he isn't wrong by pointing out that life is really actually pretty great almost anywhere in North America as compared to the developing world, or in areas of conflict. So yeah. As horrible as he stated it, I can understand the audience he's playing to and what specifically they're picking up on.
Because we're arrogant and want to be the very best that's ever been. It takes work to be the greatest country in the history of the planet, and if you ain't puttin' in the work, you ain't a true American. I don't consider it a win to be better than Russia, I consider that a default baseline. Antifa has become a catch-all boogeyman. If you think they are anything more than "Anonymous, but for punching right-wingers in the face," you've overthought what they are. As for those actually have a philosophy of tearing down the entire system and letting it burn, they are an extremely small minority, with zero political representation or power. The vast majority of Democrats in this country are either moderate conservatives like Joe Biden who basically want to maintain the status quo, or moderate liberals like Warren who want to address some structural issues that have cropped up in the system such as healthcare, corporate/political corruption and attendant wealth disparity, and a stronger social safety net. The most radical elected Democrats are basically on par with FDR. If you want to talk about those ideologically dedicated to "tearing the whole thing down" I suggest you really take a look at how the modern Republican Party, and the Trump Administration in particular operates. Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis is a great book that goes into these kinds of questions, and really juxtaposes the Trump Administration's crusade against functioning government with the relative competence of the Obama and Bush administrations. No one is advocating that the United States become more like Somalia, or Russia, or North Korea, or Yemen. Trump's statements reveal racism on several levels. The first and most obvious is that he clearly assumes that non-whites must have come from somewhere else, and are therefore "other." Three of the four women he was addressing are natural born citizens of the United States, one from literally his own hometown, and the fourth has been here since she was ten years old and has been a citizen since she was seventeen. The second level is that he believes non-whites don't have the right to criticize the United States and advocate for its improvement, because it is not "theirs," and that no matter how American they are, they will never belong. He ran his entire campaign based on the idea that the United States was a massive failure that only he could fix, he continues to govern as if the majority of the country are anti-American traitors, and yet feels justified in claiming that criticism coming from non-white Americans is somehow the attack of a foreign entity. His first inaugural address used more loaded language (like "American carnage") than anything I've seen from those he criticized. You're right that there is definitely an audience for what he is tweeting, but the appeal is definitely the divisive and racial aspects of what he's saying, not that he's making a fundamentally sound point about criticism in a free society.
Two reasons that I can think of. The first being that we can only control what happens in our country. Complaining about what North Korea, for example, is doing to its own people doesn't make a lot of sense since most people don't think there isn't anything we can do about it. Even if we could, people would be more likely to worry about our own country before worrying about somewhere else. The second reason is because progress is inherently difficult. Progress is an adult who is trying to walk while screaming conservatives are wrapped around their ankles. To be clear, sometimes this is necessary for no other reason to prevent societal upheaval. Other times, it's discriminating against people of color. It's not perfect, but it's what we have. Striving towards a utopian ideal should be the goal of everybody. It just gets messy when the libertarian and socialist ideas of utopia crash into each other. It sounds to me that the idea of criticizing America's shortcomings is an attack on it. All I have to say is that if I were in a pigsty with someone and I pointed out how much shit we were in, being told that I could just leave the pig sty instead of shoveling the shit out and hosing myself off seems idiotic.
So this quicktool and associated detailed map are pretty terrifying. Regions of the Southeast will experience nearly a third of the year with days above 105 heat index by 2070, assuming no action is taken to curb climate change.
That has to be the best thing I've read online this week. Here's what rankles my feathers: How many times do we hear people say, "Well, in Europe they have _______." That's great. But we have cities and states with more people than some European countries. So while ____ may work well in Denmark, it may not be possible in here based on numbers alone. ( I'm certain there's more factors involved, but I don't feel like typing that much. ) The problem with "America, love it or leave it" is it overlooks the very basic principle that people have the inherent right to criticize the country ( although I believe it's directed more at the government than anything ). The Founding Fathers made sure to jot it down when they were hanging out.
There are some things to which this apply, but the size argument also works in favor of the United States. There is no country on Earth that has as much god damn money as we do. The GDP of Los Angeles County alone outstrips Sweden. Our GDP per capita is also very close to the top and really only rivaled by sketchy tax havens and the occasional small petro-state. When it comes to healthcare, we also have the advantage of being able to pick and choose from any of a large number of systems that have been implemented. We don't have to tie ourselves to any particular solution; we can treat all of Europe (and the rest of the world) as a bunch of experiments that have been run for our convenience and evaluate the data to see what would fit us best.
Has anyone been following this "Storm Area 51" meme going around the internet? Is it just 4channers being dumb? Or does it feel like it is being pushed to keep people from paying attention to real news? I'm leaning towards it being pushed. But I haven't found any sources to back up my gut feeling.
Anything on the internet is capable of being boosted by folks who have a vested interest in it, but I don't see a ton political here. I suppose it's possible that it comes out later that it was a dry run or a test of some kind of social influencing capability, but until someone credible reports that I'm sticking with my original assessment that it's just a meme with a uniquely broad base of appeal. You can slap that thing into any existing meme culture and it fits. I think it just hit viral magic for a bit.
Doesn’t smell anything like a political thing, but as you said it is possible. What’s funny is, there’s a few hundred people understand it’s a meme, but you know damn well there’s about a hundred or so legit crazies who think it’s all serious and that everyone finally came around to their way of thinking. Those people are actually gonna show up, and it’ll be the height of hilarity when they do.
I don’t know what’s more sad: that you’re right, or that there’s at least a hundred people who have been that interested in “clappin’ those alien cheeks.”