That motherfucker doesn’t need encouragement.
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you also forgot government transparency and accountability, net neutrality, any hopes of getting the VA system fixed, decent relationships with our southern and northern neighbors, consumer protections…
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AKA “second term”
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It does, but many of them are also total idiots. Which is a winning combination for accidentally breaking government while simultaneously failing to achieve the things you want to get done.
These were apparently people who knew him before he went full white-supremacist. Maybe when he moved over to “crazy” he also got stupid as well (but being that kind of crazy is also indistinguishable from “stupid” to a large degree, so…).
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If I say “X is really smart”, what I probably mean is “I’m really smart, which is how I can tell, and I don’t think you’re smart enough to be a better judge”. I mean, broadly speaking, you can’t directly evaluate someone’s intellect unless they’re dumber than you.
I think Bannon is one of those Tom Clancy type pricks who thinks they’ve got it all figured out, and is therefore impervious to what anyone else thinks, except, if you spend your life rejecting everyone else’s ideas out of hand then you likely aren’t all that smart.
I wholeheartedly agree with the abovelinked article – successfully imposing your evil batshit views on the world doesn’t mean you were smart, it means the world should have been more intellectually critical.
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I’ve spent enough paying lawyers to know that if the courts throw out the first EO, it is not helpful for Stephen Miller to go on TV and say all you are going to do is clean up some technicalities, but you are still going to have "the same, basic policy outcome”.
So, how long until the vote on Justice “Fascism Forever” Gorsuch?
That’s ok, he has another kind of fiat in mind.
Not that it makes Bannon any less of a git, but:
de·con·struct (dē′kən-strŭkt′)
tr.v. de·con·struct·ed, de·con·struct·ing, de·con·structs
- To break down into components; dismantle
Like many words, it has multiple meanings. The critical term was adapted from the literal one, as Bannon appears to be using it. But if he supposes that it makes him come off as a significant cultural theorist, it does not seem to be working.
Trump: Here’s my new Executive Order that is totally not about banning Muslims from the country
Court: You seriously thought we did not watch TV for like 2 whole years where you promised to ban Muslims from the country?
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The only thing wrong with your script is that you suggest that Trump knows he’s supposed to pretend this isn’t a Muslim ban.
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I thought it odd that you didn’t provide a source for your definition. So I googled it.
I found it at thefreedictionary.com which does not appear to be at all authoritative, their first reference of that usage being the name of a demolition company.
Meanwhile, the Oxford English Dictionary does not list that definition. You should also note that my original citation of the merriam-webster definition explicitly precluded Bannon’s usage:
Did You Know?
Deconstruction doesn’t actually mean “demolition;” instead it means “breaking down” or analyzing something (especially the words in a work of fiction or nonfiction) to discover its true significance, which is supposedly almost never exactly what the author intended.
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Yeah, there’s that possibility. Also the whole “stupid person’s idea of smart” can play into things.
Why did you think that was odd? In what way?
They aggregate other dictionary listings, thefreedictionary is not authoritative in that they do not provide their own lexical research. Here you go:
deconstruct. (n.d.) American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. (2011). Retrieved March 17 2017 from Deconstruct - definition of deconstruct by The Free Dictionary
You must be looking at a different version of that page than I see. I see three definitions: AHDofEL, Collins, and Random House, none of which mention any demolition company. Could it be an ad that loaded on your page? I block many ad servers.
So? What’s your point? I am simply pointing out to you that not all dictionaries list the same definitions - otherwise we would have only one dictionary. I am not interested in a pissing contest over our favorite reference materials. Personally, I do avoid Merriam Webster and the OED online because I think they aren’t very thorough. For example, MW’s preclusion of Bannon’s usage is incorrect, since there is a history of such usage, although it is admittedly not as common as the critical denotation. I have read some Derrida, but he did not invent the word.
Your own words were that Bannon apparently meant to dismantle, not to demolish. Those are not quite synonyms, as demolition indicates that a thing was destroyed rather than methodically taken apart.
As I was saying before, insisting upon one dictionary definition as being authoritative seems like a quick “gotcha” which does not convince me at least. Meanwhile Bannon says quite a bit which can be critically deflated without getting stuck on one word as a supposed smoking gun of his intellectual bankruptcy.
I wish I could give you more than 1 like for this. I have felt that there is so much unsaid and wrongly said about PC language and I feel like you have put a nail though the heart of it.
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From that page:
References in periodicals archive
Part of the DE Group, Deconstruct will carry out soft strip, demolition, piling and structural alterations on behalf of client Ignus UK Property Fund, who was advised by Paragon Building Consultancy Ltd.
So? What’s your point?
While dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive there is a threshold for a definition to become widely accepted. As the etymology for the word is recent, originating in 1973 with usage being literary analysis, and that merriam-webster and the OED do not list Bannon’s usage it seems more than a stretch that the American Heritage doesn’t just list his usage, but also puts it as the most common usage.
At the very best, his usage is an uneducated one. Which is not quite a synonym for idiot, but close enough for the case of someone with his job.
What about the culinary usage of the word. Maybe Bannon wants to separate government into its individual components to get us to think more about how those components complement each other (as we eat them).
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