And, apparently, now National Enquirer headline basically are statements from the president…
ETA: so the story full-on includes David Pecker using his paper to blackmail people in order to protect Trump, and having Trump himself write columns about himself during his campaign under Pecker’s byline…I didn’t expect this to be so apropos…
Apparently, a sense of duty to Donald Trump trumps even clicks for the grossest, most calculatingly click-hungry publication ever. Although Pecker makes the economic argument that his readership has always pretty much been == typical Trump voter (loves to tear people down, loves a good conspiracy, loves to see women objectified…)
I would disagree with the really, really, reaching part.
If the context were simply that CNN and Trump often disagreed with each other, but did so in the normal president-media way, and Trump thought he had just scored some sort of victory it would be one thing. Given Trump’s extreme rhetoric about the media and his tendency to promote violence (either directly or implicitly) then I think it is entirely reasonable to view the GIF as at best glorifying physical assault on the media or The Don thinking out loud about what he wants to do to them, which can and has led to violence.
What’s always important to remember when talking about whether speech incites violence is that its not reasonable, logical people we are worried about. A reasonable, logical person would not take the CNN wrestling GIF and say “I think Donald wants me to attack CNN.” An unhinged/unstable person might and that is the issue. Donald routinely says things which can set off violence in those types and when pushed on it he doesn’t backdown, apologize, or even do a great job of convincing people that isn’t what he meant.
This isn’t a free speech debate and it never has been. If no one is being arrested for what they say, then free speech is alive and well. CNN is not charged with protecting or enforcing free speech and no member of cult45 is being arrested for exercising their right to free speech. This entire debate moots itself with it’s very existence.
Perhaps it’s an overlap of who is on reddit or where ever. The users at the Trump subreddit area also full of fascists, racists, etc, even if they aren’t all that. I don’t think he is actually on Stormfront or something similar. But the internet is a cesspool, and I’d hate to be called out for guilt by association. I mean with that logic, if it came from Reddit, then EVERYONE one reddit is sharing space with racists, fascists, etc. You could easily share a meme - where the meme it self is fine - but the source is horrible if you dove into it. It isn’t just the internet, but any media. One can’t enjoy Ender’s Game because Orson Scott Card is an asshole?
I am just cautioning doing the same “lump everyone in to the same pile” shit the right is really, really good at.
Have we really fallen so far that “not retweeting memes from rascists, fascists and anti-Semites in a regular basis” is now an unreasonably high bar to set for the President of the United States?
I don’t understand the logic of “we can’t call The_Donald a racist and fascist place when it’s full of racists and fascists” but “the internet is a cesspool.”
From my angle, other than this one meme where someone went back and tracked the maker and then found other horrible things he said, I don’t know of any other case. I vaguely remember one other time when an interesting quote ended up being from someone else (Hitler?) But I don’t recall it happening enough to be on a “regular basis”. Perhaps I just lack the information.
I can see why comes across as threatening here. If I walk up to your car and say, “Nice car, it would be a shame if someone slashed the tires,” that would be a threat even though taken at face value the words are between an expression of sympathy and a bland observation. CNN has chosen at this time not to publish the guy’s name but that is based on present circumstances. If circumstances change, their decision might change. But putting that obvious fact in writing makes it sound threatening.
But I think what’s going on here has almost nothing to do with the guy in question. The point is to scare others. If the guy is terrified of having his name published then he’s not about to do something similar in the first place. He already knew that CNN had his name and it was only by their good graces he wasn’t being outed. Unless he’s really, really stupid (or he doesn’t mind having CNN post his name) he’s going to cut it out, threat or no.
They weren’t telling him, they were telling the rest of us.
They were saying, “Are you posting racist shit on reddit? Do you know easy it is for us to find you? Do you know we can legally print your name in a story? You think you are anonymous but you aren’t.”
And we can take that as chilling free speech, or we can take it as reminding people that they might be held accountable for their speech.
But anyone who is coming to this guy’s defense is being really, really selfish. This guy does not want you to come to his defense. He wants to fade out of the public eye and retreat back into obscurity where he doesn’t have to worry about his employer or his family finding out he posts antisemitic memes on reddit. Keeping this guy in the spotlight is participating what CNN is doing, not countering it.
If I were him, I’d be more worried about a fellow racist redditor doxxing me to use me as a martyr than about CNN.
If the president spends 2 minutes declaring war on North Korea then millions of people will spend years dealing with it.
The president has more power than other people.
No, the point of pursuing him was to show that Trump trawls white supremacist boards for memes. This is still all about Trump.
Yeah, that seems like a pretty straightforward position to me.
Plus I find it rather ironic that a Twitter user who apparently thinks it is very important for the public to know which CNN presenters are Jewish now has a sudden respect for personal privacy.
CNN does turn its cannons on Trump, I understand (I can’t watch the network and glance at the website only briefly from time to time), but it does seem a bit that, in the case of this edited kayfabe video, CNN is directing its ire at the little guy (misguided, anti-semitic, etc. though he may be, he’s still insignificant), rather than the real perp, DJT.
CNN’s approach doesn’t help even as propaganda, as we see by the resulting us v. them shitstorm.
Something along the lines of “When DJT highlights a sad, nasty little meme, it doesn’t bring the meme-maker glory, it just brings the Presidency and the country down to that sad, nasty level” might have been more effective and wouldn’t have required any threat of doxxing.
