Trump Tweets (no more)

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Please continue attacking the neutral and indifferent people and cause your own self-destruction.

If trumpo was a normal president what you say might make sense. But this are not normal times where whatever the president does will have an effect on the average person. Not taking a stand is tantamount to complicity, because "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." and yes, I do mean Donald Trump is evil, you do not need to kill people with your own hands to be worthy of said label.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

If trumpo was a normal president what you say might make sense. But this are not normal times where whatever the president does will have an effect on the average person. Not taking a stand is tantamount to complicity, because "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." and yes, I do mean Donald Trump is evil, you do not need to kill people with your own hands to be worthy of said label.

Now you are even unbinding yourself from the normal "rules" by declaring this situation an "emergency" and therefore justfying all future usage of evil methods, because the "cause justifies the means".

That aside, most accusations like yours are often even more based on either delusions or "grim predictions of the future", i.e. things that didn't even happen, "yet" or ever, than things that actually happened.


But OK, I'll bite for a moment. What concretely did Trump do that warrants the label of "evil"? Please only name concrete things that verifiably happened, not "(conspiracy) theories" or "interpretations of events" or "intuition".

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

What concretely did Trump do that warrants the label of "evil"?

Since trumpo took office he has systematically attacked the institutions upon where the state is built. This is exactly what hugo chavez and vladimir putin did when they were elected and managed to become dictators for all practical purposes. I know this pretty well because I live in a country which in the 20th century was ruled by a political party dictatorship that had fake elections to claim there was democracy at work. Trump has no respect for democratic countries and feels at home when he is in the company of dictators. But hey, if you are the kind of people that thinks "fascists are not evil" then there is nothing more to add.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

As with all crimes, it's a combination of means, motive, and opportunity. In theory if you could reduce any of the three axes, you could reduce the potential/likelihood of crime (though not prevent it, of course).

I don't disagree. I just feel that when this enters in the mind of popular culture it can get bad in the wrong hands. eg. Most rapists are men ----> Most Men are rapists, and of course stuff like minorities and crime. Which leads to people like Trump tweeting about Mexicans being criminals.

I think it's possible to make the problem worse in some cases when we treat victims as potential criminals and as we can see in this thread, blaming them for what happened to them because it's easier to do that than to think of the problem. I mean, every situation is different. What I did might have worked for me, but I can't use it as a blanket solution because I can imagine many cases where the wrong combination of shit would have gotten another person shot if they tried the same thing. I mean, I went to a suburban school that was relatively safe and had some teachers that were looking out for me. I mean you may stand up to a bully and I admit sometimes aggression is the best method, because it seems most people are too afraid to get physical and often this ends but then the next day the mofo brings his crew and.... well, this isn't a shounen anime.

Which brings up the other thing. How many bullies also become school shooters? I dunno about that, but I bet a bunch end up being violent criminals. Is that really the kind of thing we want kids to get tangled with? In adult life, you don't have to deal with sociopaths. You just call the police. But in school, I've seen that shit where they just do nothing about it or maybe they get tossed in the criminal system which does no better. Can't really win it seems.

But one factor that I think binds a lot of these broad topics together is the Internet's ability to hyper-isolate someone in a certain mindset, and greatly augment what would otherwise be isolated/scarce voices/opinions. In the past, your ability to "fall into the wrong crowd" was limited by who surrounded you, and to a certain degree was visible to all around you. But now, people "fall into the wrong crowd" online all the time, and people who are really unstable blend in almost-invisibly with the rest. It gets to the point where you can't tell the difference between people who are just memeing or doing things for the irony/lulz (people who act like the online world "isn't real" and is just something they turn on and off at will for entertainment) and people who really believe what they're saying and are waiting for the opportunity to act. This would particularly impact people are easily-impressionable, like teenagers. Anonymity -- particularly the anonymity of the audience -- detached people from the responsibility of their influence, and as a result greatly-accelerated micro-cultures that glorify or practice hatred, violence, prejudice, and "evil." The disaffected/dispassionate and "entertainers" who formed the more vocal bulk of these community often went on without ever realizing/caring that there were actually easily-influenced/deceived people among them who were taking things 100% literally the whole time (and didn't quite "get" the 4chan mantra of everything being a meme).

That's not to say the Internet is the problem (far from it), but I think nobody had even the slightest clue what the end-result of being able to connect globally with otherwise super-isolated viewpoints would be, and were thus completely unprepared to deal with it. Now as we become more aware of it, and have more visibility into how these downward spirals develop in vulnerable people, we might have a better chance of understanding what's going on and catching it. But hopefully we as a society can find a solution that won't just be the pendulum swinging too far the other way (into an nanny state that tries to regulate thought and eliminate all anonymity in the interest of "preventing crime").

Well, the internet has certainly changed things. It's been good that it's allowed people that would have been left out normally a channel to communicate but of course as you said, falling into the wrong crowd is greatly accelerated and it's easy to form a echo chamber of hatred and destruction. Although the claim is people are just being edgelord or facetious, some people really do end up taking it to heart. We just really need to reiterate that these things are just as real in terms of thoughts as many may go "It's not really real, it's online" as an offset of gaming culture.

Tying this all back to the thread's original topic may go without saying, but you have basically the ultimate case of someone trolling or memeing all the time with very little regard for fact, logical consistency, ideological consistency, or really much of anything other than personal ego, and making statements that seems amazingly disconnected from the personality responsibility of their power and position. And yet, you have a certain portion of people that take it 100% literally 100% of the time, without questioning, as a sort of cult worship. And you have a political party that was willing to ride that wave when it suited them, but may not be able to control the monster they created. Sure a lot of the cultural influence gets blamed on certain forces in the media (who have no qualms milking the chaos for every dollar they can), but the speed at which it develops in a microcosm is only really possible because of the Internet, social media, and places like 4chan/Reddit. It is, in every way, a sign of the times.

Memes are an effective way of propaganda. Why bother thinking about something when you can ridicule people with an image macro and a semi-witty line? It's the lazy person's way of handling serious issues.

A lot of people are bullied as children and end up okay, and plenty of people would be considered outcasts and never commit a crime. But when you take all the similarly-disaffected individuals all over the world and tie them together instantly in an echo chamber of their own like thoughts, that degree of acceleration is unlike anything our society has ever seen, and most adults -- never mind children -- are completely unable to deal with it. So if anything, I think that's the important path for schools to follow -- to keep kids grounded and connected to each other in reality, to help them make sense of what's going on around them and in the world at large (particularly through critical thinking), and to help them unmask the ever-present "games" of manipulators and trolls (even and particularly those in positions of power, including corporations and government) and know how to avoid falling for their seemingly-appealing traps. I'm not sure whether this is an optimistic or pessimistic way of looking at it, but all of what's going on now is the process of teaching us a lesson that I'm convinced we'll learn one way or another.

Yea. That would be much better than current trend of turning them into mini-prisons. Of course, given how we spend so much on jailing people rather than educating them, I'm a little cynical on their priorities.

[GreyZone]

I'll break this down into parts:

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Since trumpo took office he has systematically attacked the institutions upon where the state is built. This is exactly what hugo chavez and vladimir putin did when they were elected and managed to become dictators for all practical purposes.

This is the the only point I can even take seriously. And even so it's a case of "correlation does not equal causation". But your are not giving any concrete evidence of a causal relationship between these "attacks against institutions" and "trying to become a dictator". You are just saying you are seeing a pattern and claim that it's therefore the same as the patterns you claim to have observed.

I counter with the fact that Trump has in many subjects a stance of decentralization of power, like leaving things, that used to be decided by the federal government, up to the individual states instead. A dictator would do the opposite, i.e. centralize power as much as possible.

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

I know this pretty well because I live in a country which in the 20th century was ruled by a political party dictatorship that had fake elections to claim there was democracy at work.

I don't see how living in such a country gives you a deep understanding of its inner workings. On the opposite, I'd assume the public would be cut off from any such information even more than in "peaceful" countries.

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Trump has no respect for democratic countries and feels at home when he is in the company of dictators. But hey, if you are the kind of people that thinks "fascists are not evil" then there is nothing more to add.

I don't take any attempts at "psychoanalysis from the bench" seriously, but it's something I have seen a lot of people do. And yes, that isn't limited to your side either. I roll my eyes every time people do such a thing against left-wing politicians as well. It almost feels like gambling. People "bet" on what they convinced themselves to believe that other people think, however the consequence of this is nothing but a bad mood, no payout and not even any resolution, since you'll probably never get to truly know if your bet was correct or not in your entire life.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

That statement lacks precision, if we use rasmussenreports (which has been pro-GOP from day one) as a source, today the approval rating of trumpo is 31% and the disaproval is at 46% (meaning there would be a 23% that do not know/care). So it is more like a "about half of the USA thinks trump is bad news, less than a third see no evil/hear no evil and less than a quarter have their head firmly planted on the ground".

The problem with that is there are a group of people that are going to vote (R) Candidate X anyways, and thus are sticking with Trump regardless because they view the other party as dangerous. It's also why Evangelicals supported Trump despite him not being pious at all but because they think he will undo progressive policies and do shit like overturn Roe vs Wade (well, they're right too). And then there will always be the race realists and actual Nazis that support him out of necessity too.

It's the same reason why Rand Paul pretends to oppose Trump but happily serves as lap dog once things get real.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

This is the the only point I can even take seriously. And even so it's a case of "correlation does not equal causation". But your are not giving any concrete evidence of a causal relationship between these "attacks against institutions" and "trying to become a dictator". You are just saying you are seeing a pattern and claim that it's therefore the same as the patterns you claim to have observed.

I am calling a spade a spade, as simple as that.

I counter with the fact that Trump has in many subjects a stance of decentralization of power, like leaving things, that used to be decided by the federal government, up to the individual states instead. A dictator would do the opposite, i.e. centralize power as much as possible.

Were you always asleep during history class? Even kings have to delegate some of their political power to the royalty class, there has been no example in history where you have the ruler and below them only the peasants. Oh, if you are going to counter with a "but that was in medieval times" just check the case of nowadays Chechen Republic, part of Russia and nowadays ruled with an iron fist by Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov. If you are going to counter with "Vladimir Putin is not a dictator" you are welcome in my ignore list.

I don't see how living in such a country gives you a deep understanding of its inner workings. On the opposite, I'd assume the public would be cut off from any such information even more than in "peaceful" countries.

It is very simple. When you live under such a regime, you learn to not trust the media. This is quite different from the echo chambers you have atm in the usa, where people will dismiss those media outlets which do not align with their political views as fake news but blindly trust those who do (even if they will not openly admit it). But you can't isolate the truth just because you control the mass media and when you are not in an echo chamber you can discern the truth from the spoon feed lies the regime tries to propagate.

I don't take any attempts at "psychoanalysis from the bench" seriously, but it's something I have seen a lot of people do. And yes, that isn't limited to your side either. I roll my eyes every time people do such a thing against left-wing politicians as well. It almost feels like gambling. People "bet" on what they convinced themselves to believe that other people think, however the consequence of this is nothing but a bad mood, no payout and not even any resolution, since you'll probably never get to truly know if your bet was correct or not in your entire life.

Calling trumpo a fascist is not "psychoanalysis from the bench", simple as that. I do not blame you, you have been spoon fed all your life with the "america is special" motto, thinking by some kind of miracle your country is immune to the maladies that are common all over the world. But the simple truth is that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" and history books will talk about how this time around the usa at large fell asleep to the lullaby of fascism.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

The problem with that is there are a group of people that are going to vote (R) Candidate X anyways

Indeed. but there are some simple truths:

1) Elections are rarely won by an overwhelming majority.
2) Even those supporting trump can stay home coming november.
3) Most elections are usually won by the undecided voter, which this time around more than likely will not vote for trump and will probably vote AGAINST trump.

So yeah, my bet is that coming November the repubs are screwed, unless Putin literally rigs the election for trumpo. Putin has been bolstered after the Helsinki summit and there is no reason to believe that if he can hack the voting machines, he will not since he knows his bitch aka trumpo will not retaliate even if caught.

[The Green One]

Trump isn't evil. He's a clown who is tearing down and attacking the institutions of this country. He's making a joke and a mockery of his office. Do any of you honestly think if this was a regular job he was holding that he wouldn't of been fired quite awhile ago for his behavior? If your answer is no, you have a serious disconnect with reality.

While we just ENABLE HIM.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by The Green One

Trump isn't evil. He's a clown who is tearing down and attacking the institutions of this country. He's making a joke and a mockery of his office. Do any of you honestly think if this was a regular job he was holding that he wouldn't of been fired quite awhile ago for his behavior? If your answer is no, you have a serious disconnect with reality.

Being a moron and evil are not mutually exclusive. Is there some clause somewhere that says that if you do not have an above average IQ you can't be POTUS? Because no doubt dubya was below average. Is being pathetic some kind of "get out of jail" card that exempts trumpo of any wrongdoing, even when done with premeditation, treachery and advantage? If the present manchild potus were 70 years younger we might think he is spoiled rotten, at his actual age I can only call him evil.

[Key Board]

You see, Trump wants to be the second coming of Reagan
That's the exact problem. Reaganomics is largely responsible for a of problem we have today.

at it also has become a partisan issue. This is another problem.

so now we have this scenario

Conservative: Trickle down economics!
Leftist: No, that's literally killing people.
Conservative: It totally does work. Anyone that says otherwise is fake news
Democrat: How about we compromise? We'll only exploit the working class subtlety instead of overtly
Leftist; NO! THAT'S LITERALLY KILLING PEOPLE
Democrat: I don't like your tone. That' s uncivil
Conservative: You see, this is why we can't get along with the radical left
Leftist: ...

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

I

Indeed. but there are some simple truths:

1) Elections are rarely won by an overwhelming majority.
2) Even those supporting trump can stay home coming november.
3) Most elections are usually won by the undecided voter, which this time around more than likely will not vote for trump and will probably vote AGAINST trump.

Unfortunately, I don't share your optimism. There doesn't seem like much inventive for Trumpsters to stay home since they've gotten their foothold, not to mention conseratives probably are older and have more time to vote while working class people have a harder time going to vote, not to mention I don't see Democrats really united behind any leader. I guess if they could stand united against Trump, instead of searching for unicorns that could be a thing.

I dunno. I mean Roy Moore was probably a sex offender but it was still a struggle....

[Blueknight78]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Unfortunately, I don't share your optimism. There doesn't seem like much inventive for Trumpsters to stay home since they've gotten their foothold, not to mention conseratives probably are older and have more time to vote while working class people have a harder time going to vote, not to mention I don't see Democrats really united behind any leader. I guess if they could stand united against Trump, instead of searching for unicorns that could be a thing.

I dunno. I mean Roy Moore was probably a sex offender but it was still a struggle....

i think the problem and what trump uses as his "smoke screen" and shield to do whatver he wants, is the curently issue of right x left, SJW x conservators, USA us currently under a big chaos with peoples fighting each other and all the media (tv and internet with all social medias) are just boiling more fire in the war making hard to most of peoples "get together" and stop all the insanity and chaos and this helps a lot trump do whatever he wants without have to care about any political threat, all he need to do is start his "twitter harassment" them we get a social media war and peoples forget about the big issue when they are busy fighting each other.

AS long we have that "herding/buble mentality" , things only gonna get worst, because everyone want to have a "voice" and boss what others can do or not, is no more a "local laws issue" and peoples doing "justice with they own hands and what they believes is "justice".

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Blueknight78

i think the problem and what trump uses as his "smoke screen" and shield to do whatver he wants, is the curently issue of right x left, SJW x conservators, USA us currently under a big chaos with peoples fighting each other and all the media (tv and internet with all social medias) are just boiling more fire in the war making hard to most of peoples "get together" and stop all the insanity and chaos and this helps a lot trump do whatever he wants without have to care about any political threat, all he need to do is start his "twitter harassment" them we get a social media war and peoples forget about the big issue when they are busy fighting each other.

That's arguably the secret to Trump's success; he is a master media manipulator, and knows exactly how to bring attention back to himself in a way that causes chaos. He knows more than anyone that media is a business driven by outrage/sensationalism/clicks. Hell, he is probably singlehandedly responsible for a massive increase in viewership at CNN and readership at NYT purely by constantly calling them out, thus giving them a sort of moral standing to fight back. ("Bad for America, good for CBS," right?) It's showmanship to the nth degree. The only problem is that this isn't just a show, and real lives hinge of every decision made. The actual decisions made behind this constant smokescreen are what need to be discussed and criticized the most, and they're not because -- as you say -- everyone's distracted.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Blueknight78

i think the problem and what trump uses as his "smoke screen" and shield to do whatver he wants, is the curently issue of right x left, SJW x conservators, USA us currently under a big chaos with peoples fighting each other and all the media (tv and internet with all social medias) are just boiling more fire in the war making hard to most of peoples "get together" and stop all the insanity and chaos and this helps a lot trump do whatever he wants without have to care about any political threat, all he need to do is start his "twitter harassment" them we get a social media war and peoples forget about the big issue when they are busy fighting each other.

AS long we have that "herding/buble mentality" , things only gonna get worst, because everyone want to have a "voice" and boss what others can do or not, is no more a "local laws issue" and peoples doing "justice with they own hands and what they believes is "justice".

Yea, there's a certain kind of tribalism that enables Trump, and will most likely keep him in power as long as the other side can't unite and must keep using purity tests.

But let's be serious here, and both sides are bad but not necessarily equal. SJWs are not the equivalent of ethnonationalist nativists that are supporting interning children because their parents violated laws or are willing to alienate all the rest of the countries of the world or very fine people that run people over during demonstrations.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

But let's be serious here, and both sides are bad but not necessarily equal.

This statement puzzles me. Let me give some context. During the 20th century my country had no democracy but for a seven year period (similar in length to the duration of democracy in the russian federation) before WWII. In the 21st century one of the first things that become clear to see once democracy was restored is that politicians suck, we expected democracy to be some kind of magical potion that would purify our country. But the only thing we saw was the swamp come into full view. It became clear to me that democracy is about electing the lesser abomination.

So it mystifies me to hear such statement coming from someone that has known democracy since birth. From what I read even politicians in high regard nowadays like Lincoln or Kennedy were despised back in the day.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

It became clear to me that democracy is about electing the lesser abomination.

I don't get it. Nothing I said contradicts that.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

I don't get it. Nothing I said contradicts that.

I do not think there is a contradiction. More like, we live in an era where self-evident truths need to be spoken out loud, like "yeah, there is global warming and yeah, the evolution of the species is a scientific fact" and I feel like the bar is getting lowered as we speak (not by you) and that is mystifying.

I mean, just yesterday trumpo wanted to give putin the usa former ambassador and to interrogate in moscow usa officials (not the other way around) and he wanted to make us think that was beneficial for the usa?

[Archon_Wing]

That's what happens when "fake news" paranoia happens.

It becomes such as that shit like racism or global warming becomes controversial to condemn.

[Blueknight78]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

That's arguably the secret to Trump's success; he is a master media manipulator, and knows exactly how to bring attention back to himself in a way that causes chaos. He knows more than anyone that media is a business driven by outrage/sensationalism/clicks. Hell, he is probably singlehandedly responsible for a massive increase in viewership at CNN and readership at NYT purely by constantly calling them out, thus giving them a sort of moral standing to fight back. ("Bad for America, good for CBS," right?) It's showmanship to the nth degree. The only problem is that this isn't just a show, and real lives hinge of every decision made. The actual decisions made behind this constant smokescreen are what need to be discussed and criticized the most, and they're not because -- as you say -- everyone's distracted.

yeah that is the big white elephant inside the closet which no one try to take away due to too much bigotry from each side and all the hate and it's only really help trump do whatever he want.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Yea, there's a certain kind of tribalism that enables Trump, and will most likely keep him in power as long as the other side can't unite and must keep using purity tests.

But let's be serious here, and both sides are bad but not necessarily equal. SJWs are not the equivalent of ethnonationalist nativists that are supporting interning children because their parents violated laws or are willing to alienate all the rest of the countries of the world or very fine people that run people over during demonstrations.

yeah while they are not exactly equals in doing exactly the same thing" they actions are a sort of mirror cuz while they are not trying to to be monster, they are trying to alienate peoples specially youngs, in hate femininity because womans must be "male" and hate masculinity because males must be girlish, they are trying to force peoples accept date any sort of person like a straight have to accept love from gays or from trans because otherwise they are homophobics, sexist and bla bla bla, which white peoples must be blamed for everything happening in world because being "white" is almost equal to being "nazi", we do have a lot of hate and prejudice being throwed to "normal peoples", because we have the "cultural apropriation and peoples can't anymore dress or have they hairs as they want because they are called "thiefs" and stolen others "races" culture", when you look at all the crazy come from the SJW is not really that hard to not compare them with the other "evil side", the only thing left for them to do to become "full equals" is starting to killing peoples (in some really rare and extreme cases this already happened), many important moviments which started as a way to give "equals rights" to oppressed peoples" like feminism and LGBQT community become crap and toxic almost as the others "crap groups they hated because they are using the same "hate agenda" as them as they way to attack everyone as they can.

them as i told this create all tha chaos, because we have "normal peoples getting under that fire without know what to do because, if they do a single "mistake it can almost cost they lifes ( at last social reputation life).

another good exemple which i feel so crazy, currently we had the famous "fat phoby" or fat acceptance or body positivite, this is another SJW cause, which is a group "against trump" which forget which the president which tried to fight against fat was obama trying to make the childrens at school only eat "health food, it was trump which come and take that away saying which all peoples must be "fat' if they want, but now that peoples forget about it and act like trump is they enemy.

I'm totally for equality in gender or race and no discrimination" but currently what we are getting from the "SJW" is exactly that, they are not really being different from the peoples they used to fight the racists and sexist peoples), they are using the "same tools" as trying to "reeducate young childrens to hate anything which is not part of they "minority".

being really honest sometimes i really feel like the SJW moviments are starting to look pretty much like terrorist like taliban and others because when comes to "brainwash" peoples they are trying to do exactly the samething.

and all that crap just help trump keep doing what he wants, because thanks to the internet and media western is become a "hell on earth", instead of making peoples come more "close' is making peoples break more and more apart from each others because we only see the "ugly side" of each others and can't stand to it and ignore anything else from the others.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

That's what happens when "fake news" paranoia happens.

It becomes such as that shit like racism or global warming becomes controversial to condemn.

I am just shocked at the number of Americans who genuinely have zero fact checking skills. I had gone through several lessons in my highschool English class, where we were given news articles and had to poke holes in its arguments and statements.

It really isn't hard. It doesn't take much time either. But it appears this isn't a skill that is taught at all schools.