Does it really? Polls don’t seem to reflect that. People chose their side well before the election, and I don’t see anyone crossing it, and we have had 50+ embarrassing situations since then.
Right now the entire country is playing (into) Trump’s game, especially the people that are laughing at him.
I’m sure Russia could offer some advice to them about that.
Whether or not non-Republicans laugh at Trump’s idiocy will have no effect on the chance of Trump being impeached, because that process is 100% under the control of the GOP.
The only factor affecting Trump’s impeachment risk is “do the majority of the GOP legislature choose to replace Trump with Pence?”. And if they make that call, they won’t be doing it for the good of the world/country; they’ll be doing it because that’s the move they see as most personally advantageous. This calculation is largely immune to broad public opinion, as the GOP controls the electoral process; voter suppression and the gerrymander have largely immunised them from democratic restraint.
Impeachment is a purely political process. The law has no bearing, Trump’s crimes have no bearing, opinion outside the GOP has no bearing. The only relevant factor is the power machinations within the party.
If they do impeach Trump, it is likely to make things worse rather than better. You’ll just be replacing a clumsy fascist with a polished one. Trump is not your main problem; the GOP is.
I’m not worried about Americans being distracted by trivia. I’m worried about Americans being distracted by a deluded faith that there is a way out of this problem via conventional political means.
What reason is there to think so? I mean, you just claimed everyone chose their side long ago – and that’s not even considering that his popular approval has been slipping somewhat, or how other parts of the government are reacting to him – rather than anyone gaining any advantage. Then what is this constant faulting of people who don’t oppose Trump the way you prefer actually based on?
I don’t have the answers, our country is f’ed, but I can guarantee continued laughing at him is not part of the solution.
I asked very plainly: based on what? What is underwriting your guarantee? If you’re going to fault my reactions, you could at least give me some reason behind it.
Because for my part, I can’t believe that it’s June and we still can’t so much as laugh at a presidential typo without being told we’re betraying the cause. Whose game does constantly blaming one another for not opposing him just the right way play into, do you suppose?
“Column inches” is a metaphor for media coverage. Next time, I’ll put it in quotes. Call it “air time” if you prefer.
If I can’t laugh at the opposition, it’s not my revolution.
nobody, but nobody wants to vote covfefe
You can say that, but I suspect that if Trump showed up limping with two toes gone from one of his feet, we’d soon see a million of his followers either shooting their toes off too or trying to limp exactly like their hero.
I didn’t say ignore That Man, but I don’t think actively collaborating in his performance art idiocies helps any cause save his, or Eris’.
That didn’t help your point!
i know there’s some truth to that.
i also know i cannot predict what effect laughing at 45’s idiocy will have. i know it feels good. and i know social shaming can help regulate behavior ( for good and ill ). so win win.
fact based deconstructions of his policies are necessary, and i know i’ll continue that regardless. i also can see nothing wrong with laughing at the man when he smashes an egg into his own face.
he’s not borris johnson. jokes at his own expense are not part of 45s schtick. he seems to take himself incredibly seriously, and deflating that ego seems only just.
personality-wise, he might seem less of a fat cat mafiso charitcature if he could laugh at himself. but, he can’t. so the whole thing seems great everyway i look at it.
It’s getting late. I’ll settle for ‘some’ truth. Some more truth: I’ll keep laughing at him, because it is often the appropriate first reaction to the absurd.
I’ve been trying to figure out who his voice sounds like. A constipated Larry Fine?
The Last Liberal and The Last Conservative (collectively The Last People) one day will be hanging in a neglected cell. The Conservative will go to his death crowing about the tears of liberals, and the Liberal will finish his life laughing at the idiot Conservative.
The “covfefe” thing is not a serious or principled criticism, and so it undermines any claim that the Democrats or the left are serious or principled critics.
It’s vacuous, juvenile, mean-spirited stuff – it’s singling out the unpopular kid on the playground because he’s unpopular. The same sort of autocorrect mishap happens to probably millions of people every day. Making a big deal about this undermines the seriousness of real complaints and criticisms about real issues. “Well you know the Democrats, they made a huge deal the time Trump’s autocorrect mangled a word. Why should we trust them about these corruption charges?”
This is the sort of sneering, priggish nonsense that alienates people from the left in the first place. If politics involves convincing people who currently disagree with you to change their minds, then this is counterproductive.
He’s upholding an obvious mistake to public ridicule and you’re not yet considering the possibility that it’s an intentional ploy? Intentional ploy is the most parsimonious explanation for why the White House would make that decision, and we already know Trump is very good at playing the media.
Did you ever wonder if Bush really misspoke when he said that the Democrats had “misunderestimated” him? Every time liberals made fun of Bush’s speech, his base identified with him more strongly, became more determined to support his policies regardless of their content, and as a result the country as a whole became more polarized and right wing ideas and policies became normalized.
There’s a comedian/spoken word guy Mike Birbiglia. His Netflix special is basically a mediation on how jokes split everyone into two groups: people in on the joke, and people who are the butt of the joke. The jokes on twitter split the world in such a way that all the people we need to convince to vote liberal or left or progressive to win elections are the butt of the joke, and this alienates them and makes them less willing to consider our ideas.
The evidence is not hidden. All over the internet are people willing to tell you exactly what they think of Trump, and exactly what they think of the liberal twittersphere. All you have to do is go out and try talking to people whose opinions are different than yours. You will quickly find that it is simply a brute fact that there exist people who are alienated by ironic liberal/left/progressive discourse, but who would otherwise be persuadable that a lot of the values and ideas behind liberalism/leftism/progressivism are good ones.
Yeah, and the former dilutes the latter. People get sick of the shit talk and say “well if they complain about covfefe then they’re just a bunch of biased hacks who can’t be trusted”. I’m not making this up, you can go talk to them.
The actual circular firing squad is the one where you prevent the growth of liberal/left/progressive movements by preemptively alienating everyone who doesn’t already agree with you…
So, how many inches of “air time” are we talking here?
Depends on your screen resolution. DPI?
“Unpopular”? Maybe you haven’t been paying attention. That kid won more electoral votes than anyone in history. It was the greatest, most fantastic electoral vote ever, and that kid won 125% of the Electoral College. He is more popular than any human being has ever been. Calling him “unpopular” is FAKE NEWS!!
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.
So, here’s the deal – your post may have been removed, but yesterday you openly declared you are just outrage trolling. I’m not answering to that kind of dishonesty. So you are getting one more reply from me, saying to leave me alone, and that will have to be enough satisfy whatever emptiness you’re hoping to fill.
