Oh good, then can we also revive the ancient Egyptian practice of hiring professional mourners to follow him around?
2 Likes
I think it is better to put it in the perspective of those who have been “paid” with their lives - very much a current practice in unsavory places. Saddam manufactured fake loyalty by striking the fear of death into his government to the point where members were on their knees “voluntarily” to sing his praises. At least through the end of the '90s, successive military regimes in Burma staged massive rallies that were discovered to be attended only by government employees and people compelled to do so by written order (and thus implied threat of imprisonment or worse should they choose not to attend), complete with a vocalized demand over the audience-facing loudspeaker to applaud at certain points. The practice continues in North Korea. It’s seen in cults like Scientology as well. So instead of saying it’s a long-retired practice, let’s say it’s a timeless hallmark of authoritarian rule.
8 Likes
You can do a lot with 50 bucks.
5 Space Putties is the first thing that comes to mind.
8 Likes
The image of Ulysses S. Grant also does wonders.
1 Like
The difference is that the security and economic well-being of our country doesn’t depend on Apple presentations and sitcom laugh tracks.
5 Likes
What command and control do they use to signal to the claque when to clap, laugh, boo, etc, and is it hackable?
5 Likes
Was it Myanmar where sarcastic, prolonged clapping became a form of protest since other forms were banned?
I’m just saying, there’s a way to make it stop…
7 Likes
There’s a simple way to combat this sort of tactic: Join in with the applause and laughter, but don’t stop. Don’t ever stop laughing and clapping.
7 Likes
Hopefully Trump won’t decide to emulate Putin’s penchant for shirtlesness…[quote=“Scurra, post:17, topic:93506”]
Where do you get the impression that Putin doesn’t have the same narcissistic man-child’s personal insecurity?
[/quote]
To me it appears that to Putin, the adulation of the masses is a pathway to power, but for Trump, power and wealth are a way to secure that center of attention and adulation that he craves.
9 Likes
Bigly…
3 Likes
Speak for yourself;
###I DON’T DESERVE THIS BULLSHIT.
I wasn’t amused when he first decided to run, I was alarmed.
I didn’t vote for him, and I didn’t enable his fuckery.
#I, and most other US citizens, deserve BETTER; even the ones who were foolish enough to be duped by an obvious conman.
19 Likes
I remember seeing a documentary concerning the propaganda employed by the Nazis and was struck by the similarity between Trump’s audience and the Nazi Fanatics whose job it was to stand outside of Hitler’s residence screaming “Sieg Heil!” for hours on end.
How long before his entourage do nothing but literally scream his praises wherever he is?
10 Likes
I’d like to think the Secret Service was actually protecting us from her.
6 Likes
Your true love lives!
2 Likes
The wealthy voting for Trump are like Madoff’s early investors; they make money at the expense of the later suckers.
3 Likes
How long before Trump’s Brown Shirts start burning the homes of non-supporters and beating up any suspected “liberals”?
5 Likes
Those people, some of them are just ordinary people, great, ordinary people, but those people, you know if you met them you’d know, amazing, they are, and I always say this, have always, people who know me know I always have said this, are not, and I’m the best at saying this, associated with me.
2 Likes
Well, they’re not doing a very good job 
7 Likes
… or they are, and we just haven’t seen the worst of it. 
5 Likes
Huh. I used to receive packages of suspicious white powder all the time, and I never got a security team (granted, I’d ordered them, but still).
6 Likes
