Your definition of both parsimony, and being good at playing the media, are apparently very different from mine. When someone repeatedly seems inept yet demands nobody admit his mistakes, my usual guess is that they are inept but too arrogant to admit their mistakes.
You yourself say this same sort of autocorrect mishap happens to probably millions of people each day. I bet at least a few hundred are arrogant enough to do the Better Off Ted thing where they pretend “Casual Frisbday” and “carpoop” were exactly what they meant. Think it’s more or less than the number deliberately sending typos as part of a scheme? Because I’d guess way more. Why then is it suddenly parsimonious to presume this case was the less common one, a deliberate ploy to manipulate people?
The only reason I can think of is because we’ve already assumed some kind of hyper-competence, where ploys are far more likely than typos. Trump after all did become president. He did it by yelling hate at the right people, repeating things audiences applauded, and refusing to explain his policies. Ever since he’s been struggling to do what he wants in the faces of judges, intelligence agencies, media, leakers, and foreigners who either don’t want to work with him or don’t quite see how. And his support has dropped for it, but of course his party is getting its best chance at pushing its agenda so stands behind him.
Does this really look like masterful manipulation of the media to you? Beyond the fact that Trump is very good at getting press, I don’t see it. I think it is far more likely that American politics has become uninformed and partisan enough that a fool can rise to the top, and stay there because his party would rather power than competence, than that his stupid declarations on twitter and risible press secretary are some calculated scheme to mislead people.
I mean, do we also suppose the tweets used to contradict his own spokesmen or that ended up as evidence against his ban were also intentional ploys, or is it only the ones where he looks like his whole PR was asleep? Your mileage may vary, but I think this is a deeply unsupported conclusion. Really, it seems to be based entirely on the notion that it’s helping him; but as I said his popularity is dropping, and nobody seems to actually be getting distracted from anything key, which only leaves:
This isn’t the same thing as throwing attention off his scandals as was initially said, but it is a reason like I’ve been asking, and I appreciate you giving it. However, while it is a definite fact those people exist, I’m not so convinced it is definite that this is such an overriding concern.
First off, let me just note how bizarrely asymmetric this concern seems to be. The Republicans have spent years hanging Obama in effigy and denouncing everything from his health care to nationality to choice of mustard in deeply petty ways. Trump’s political start was very much part of this seemingly insane pettiness. Did it alienate people, and did people get tired of the shit talk? Very much so. And yet here we are, still talking about how they’re masters of playing the media. Plainly there’s much more to the story.
Second, I think the amount of people who are genuinely alienated by liberal discourse rather than principles is smaller than you get by asking them. I have written about the Clinton deplorables comment, one of many things that may have tipped this last very close election, a few times. It stands out to me that this was her trying to reach out, to say I know you have real grievances, you’re not all racists, and it was considered a tremendous misstep because it meant some were racists. Many people can point to specific and even legitimate grievances against liberal discourse, and we should work on them, but so long as we’re worrying about racism and privilege and non-white problems a lot aren’t going to be impressed either way.
Now I know that’s not everyone, there are some people who are exactly what you say, and there are things we should avoid doing for their sake. But most of them, I think, are things we should avoid either way. In particular I agree we should be careful not to attack them; for instance, making fun of rubes from flyover country is both alienating potential friends and needlessly prejudicial. On the other hand, making fun of a stupid celebrity tweet? I’m not so convinced that’s a problem to anyone who isn’t already devoted to them.
And the reason this matters is because, third, there are more ways to alienate people than just seeming needlessly cruel. Maybe this is just me, but cruel is something I tend to hear more about the right. For the left I hear about being too combative and divisive, constantly turning on one another for not doing things just the right way. I hear about being too humorless, unable to relax or take a joke because they’re too on edge about social this or that. And I hear about being too calculated and political, filtering all your actions based on their potential optics in a way that verges on dissembling.
Then the president types covfefe and leaves it up for hours, and people share a laugh ha ha, what’s that supposed to mean, sounds like a wizard or something, and we’re instantly met with no, that’s exactly his master plan, he’s distracting you from Russia, you fools need to worry about optics. And yeah, those criticisms hit home; it doesn’t make me think fondly of my fellow progressives, it makes me feel like talking to them about anything is just one endless and wearing argument. Think it’s worth it because it makes us more inviting? Again, mileage obviously varies.
