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Trump tweeted out a video of him "beating up" CNN

I am more and more convinced that America is a fictional country used by other governments as a means to distract their populations from domestic problems.
 
cb46ec404128e78727338f4145515929.jpg

That's how it's done. Take note Trump.
 
Many people on the left and right were willing to give Trump a "chance". Obama had no such fortune going in to his Presidency.

Trump also inherited the benefit of the economy Obama rebuilt and is still managing to fuck things up.

Don't go bragging about that low unemployment ya bitch! We see you.

Trump was also white and had privileges, the only reason he considers himself unfairly treated, is because he's a manchild.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
All the MSM TV networks excluding Fox, outlets such as HuffPost, Slate, Mother Jones, etc. Most major newspapers including NYT, WaPo, LA Times, and companies that own numerous news outlets like Vox and Time Warner.

Funny thing about memes and modern day propaganda is that when you see one using "MSM is bad" in an argument for example you immediately know where one takes the ideas that one sells as its own afterwards.
 

Amalthea

Banned
*Wants to distract people from bad policies and failure*

*Does something that makes him look like an unhinged fool*

Master strategist.

EDIT: Disclaimer - I personally don't believe in the distraction angle and just want to show how ridiculous it is.
 

Sunster

Member
There's no distraction, this is how Trump is and always was - a dumb edgy teenager who bullies his way through life.

then it's just convenient for him i guess that his teenage like tweets can take the media's attention completely away from one of the biggest presidential scandals of our time
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
then it's just convenient for him i guess that his teenage like tweets can take the media's attention completely away from one of the biggest presidential scandals of our time

The attention will be back once some new relevant info or some follow up regarding the inquiry will pop up. Nobody forgets that and to think so is pretty short sighted. Especially since it is THE hot topic since months already.
 

Sunster

Member
The attention will be back once some new relevant info or some follow up regarding the inquiry will pop up. Nobody forgets that and to think so is pretty short sighted. Especially since it is THE hot topic since months already.

I just wish it were talked about as much as possible on cable news because I know it pisses him off. And when they instead talk about his tweets he seems to not mind at all.
 

Magwik

Banned
Jon Stewart warned CNN over a decade ago on Crossfire. CNN didn't listen, CNN then expanded their Crossfire partisan panel motif into muli pundit 3v3 and even 4v4 shit shows.

CNN brought this on themselves and now they are complaining? LOL

CNN is partly respoisnbile for Trump being in the Whitehouse
Honestly nobody should be supporting the television side of CNN. Not until they stop with the theatre of politics. It all turning into a game and game show has done irreparable damage.
 

BLAUcopter

Gold Member
The fact that this orange fuck hates on CNN but is perfectly happy with Fox News tells you everything you need to know.
 
That's what makes this so scary and abnormal. That Obama quote is how a normal person would respond to this type of thing--keeping the office of President above such petty nonsense, and using it to not only defend his own freedom of the speech, but everyone else's. Trump can't do that though. He can't stand any negative coverage, and he's not able to just ignore it or turn it off and focus on the work of actually being President. And so he constantly lashes out at the press, for having the gall to ever say anything negative about him, even though they're just reporting the facts and using their freedom of speech/press to do so. He's completely unable to focus on anything knowing people are saying bad things about him, so he rails against the press on Twitter, and then runs off to a golf course or Mar a Lago.

That's not normal behavior. Normal people aren't that thin-skinned. Normal people aren't that insecure, especially when they've been elected to the office of President of the United States and have pretty much nothing to worry about as long as they don't open their big mouths (and in Trump's case, it's clear that even doing that constantly leaves him without much to be particularly concerned about). They just let the press say whatever and focus on their work, and let that work speak for itself, and let make what judgments they will. And, in not only having that type of security, but also in taking the Oath of Office and swearing the defend the Constitution of the United States, defend not only their own free speech, but also the free speech of others and the freedom of the press which are listed in the very first Amendment.

But Trump is completely incapable of that. So he wastes his own time lashing out instead, impairing his own and Congress's ability to actually get work accomplished, and then around and around they go in a cycle Trump is incapable of stopping. That's not normal behavior. It just isn't, and it isn't something we should normalize. Especially since while Trump's attacks on the press are motivated primarily by his fragile ego, such tactics are used b authoritarians and tyrants to destroy the freedom of the press all the time, and if we start normalizing such tactics just because Trump himself is a joke that's just setting the stage for someone much more dangerous to use those same tactics in the future to pretend to be like Trump, but then drop the act and destroy freedom of the press for real, at which point it may be too late.

That's why we can't let down our guard, even against an idiot like Trump--to prevent stuff like this from becoming normalized, no matter what, as freedom of the press is too fundamental a right to let go of just because we let our guard down and treated something as a joke when we shouldn't have. The only way to do this is to never defend this stuff as just being a joke or whatever, but rather defend it with everything we've got, cause otherwise it might be gone before we know it. Not necessarily under Trump, but someone much more malicious using the same tactics to appear as a joke, only to take off the mask and do it for real.

And this is particularly true when even with Trump, it's not like this is an isolated incident, but part of a clear pattern of behavior. From day 1 (of both the election and the Presidency), he's been attacking the press every single chance he got. Not defending it, as you would and should expect from someone who has taken the Oath of Office of the President of the United States of America, which includes defending the Constitution, which includes defending the First Amendment of that Constitution, which includes defending Freedom of the Press even when, especially when they say something you don't like or enjoy, cause that's what you signed up for when you took the job and is what's necessarily to protect the freedoms and rights of the citizens of the country and if someone is unable to do that or doesn't care to do so, one questions why they took that job in the first place and why they should be able to continue to hold office when they're unable or unwilling to do something so basic and fundamental.

But in any case, both in his election campaign rallies and in the office of the President of the United States, he's not only not defended the freedom of the press, but railed out against them for simply reporting facts he doesn't like, and he does this continuously, non-stop. He's admitted to wanting to mess with libel/slander laws for his own benefit and to make it easier for him to sue outlets for simply saying something he doesn't agree with. At his campaign rallies during the election, he himself encouraged those in attendance to use physical violence and beat up any protesters, going so far as to say he'd be willing to pay their medical bills if they got hurt doing so. And, from his latest skirmish with Morning Joe/Mika, we know that if someone less something he doesn't like in the media, he's willing to use his own connections to try and blackmail such individuals and try harassing them and their families and plant false stories about them unless they call and beg for his forgiveness. Otherwise, he'll do whatever is within his power to bully and harass and intimidate them as much as he's able.

But despite all that, despite all of that being true, we're suppose to treat something like this as if it exists in a quantum singularity, where none of that stuff exists, and this is just some "isolated incident" or some shit? Hell no. I refuse to do that. This ain't just Trump goofing off or doing something random, but part of an extremely consistent pattern behavior, and a quite alarming and frightening one at that. Just think about all of that. Think about how much you're overlooking and have to put in the background to just treat this as a joke and some random, isolated thing disconnected from anything else. You have to ignore so much of his rhetoric not only during the election but during his Presidency thus far that it just ain't funny. This is part of a huge, consistent, chain of behavior from the start to today, and every bit of it is alarming and frightening, at least it should be.

And if someone still wants to make the "It's Trump, he's an idiot, so whatever" argument... Then what about when it's not Trump anymore? What about when it's someone more competent? That's the problem with treating this stuff like a joke--it doesn't just normalize it for Trump himself, but also whoever comes next. That in mind, look at that pattern of behavior from Trump again. Look at it, and think deep and hard about it. Imagine someone much more competent and much more malicious taking those same steps. Very easy to imagine someone much more competent while still being every bit as evil to take those same steps, right? "But that's not Trump, it's Trump who's President and he's too much of an idiot to do anything." Doesn't matter. Normalize it now, it will be normalized for whoever comes next. Someone does the same thing, people will just assume that such an individual is just like Trump, nothing more than an idiot. And when they reveal that they're something more, it will be too late.

That's why it's so important to take this stuff seriously. Because what we normalize and accept now doesn't just go for Trump, but also whoever comes next and establishes both precedent and how people will react to and treat this behavior for years to come. And freedom of the press is to core, too crucial a right to just let slip away under the guise of jokes, cause even if you want to say that Trump himself is just kidding around with this or that, whoever comes next might not be joking so much, and at that point it will be too late. Won't be so funny anymore, but the American public would have just accepted and normalized the behavior as jokes, and once they realize someone ain't actually kidding and puts their plans into motion, it will be too late and the deal done. That's why we have to defend it with everything we've got and take absolutely no risks--it's just too precious and too important to treat it with any lower standard than that.

Not that it should take a doomsday scenario like that to make people care about freedom of the press and how the President treats and interacts with the press, of course. Just by the President having taken the Oath of Office and accepted the responsibilities of the Office of the President of the United States of America, they should be expected to uphold the Constitution, including the First Amendment, including Freedom of the Press, and be secure, confident, and thick-skinned enough to see their agenda through regardless of what the press says about them and not be bothered one iota one way or the other, and if this is not the case, and they instead waste valuable time attacking the press for whatever reason instead of letting the press say what they may and just doing their job regardless and getting stuff done, that such behavior should immediately be met with both suspicion, derision, and anything but acceptance of the fact.

The President signed up to be better than that upon taking the Oath of Office, and so we should hold them to that standard, or what's the point of them swearing the Oath and swearing to protect and uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land to begin with? If anything, having both taken that oath and agreed to become the leader of the nation, they should be held to the absolute highest standard and absolutely nothing less, but alas...


Sorry that really turned into a rant there, but I just really had to get that all out of me after reading some of the stuff in this thread, so please forgive the length of this post. Bad habit when I really get heated up, and the only solution for it is just getting it all out somewhere and I'm too lazy to edit and trim afterwords. :p That aside, I also saw this in PoliGAF earlier, which I can't help but agree with.
Epic twitter thread from Tom Nichols, author of ""The Death of Expertise":

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/881546248699904000

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"The Great American Experiment."

I'm totally writing this novel.

Dammit, I just gave away an idea, didn't I?

*Wants to distract people from bad policies and failure*

*Does something that makes him look like an unhinged fool*

Master strategist.

EDIT: Disclaimer - I personally don't believe in the distraction angle and just want to show how ridiculous it is.

This.

Is it a distraction? Yes. But it's also scary as fuck. Trump distracting us from bullshit with bullshit is still bullshit.
 
So the entire rest of the journalistic world besides Fox. That should tell you something.

You might want to ponder how and why it is that you have precious few of such bastions of news that hold to your world view.

I see this all the time from Trump supporters. Literally everybody else is the enemy or in the con, except for Fox and Alex Jones. The whole world is conspiring on climate change except for American republicans. Trump's numbers on crime and voter fraud are true, but any objective metrics are cast aside as juked numbers, or part of the deep state.

Or maybe the rest of the world has woken up and you're still asleep.

Conservatism is obvious nonsense after a bare minimum of critical thinking. Their messaging is especially dumb. They can convince themselves of anything, whatever is convenient at the time. One of my favorites is how the left is supposed to be this radical, revolutionary force for change, but at the same time, the left controls the entire free press, the educational system, etc. Obama is a dictator grabbing up executive power and who at any moment is sending the men in black to take our guns, but he was a weak leader, etc.
 

cameron

Member
nQRlcm9.png

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881847676232503297

I'll leave this here (from March 10, 2017). WaPo Analysis: 19 times Trump called jobs numbers ‘fake’ before they made him look good
We may assume President Trump is quite pleased with the strong jobs report from his first full month in office: He retweeted the Drudge Report's triumphant “GREAT AGAIN” framing of the numbers Friday morning, after touting employment figures released by payroll firm ADP earlier in the week.

Not so long ago, however, Trump's view of the monthly jobs report, which comes courtesy of the nonpartisan federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, was markedly different. As recently as December, he described the report as “totally fiction.”

If there was any argument over whether Trump was flip-flopping on the jobs report at the precise moment it reflected positively on him, White House press secretary Sean Spicer laid it to rest Friday afternoon, telling reporters: “I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly: 'They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.' ”
 

Garlador

Member
Since the start of 2017, there have been 535 attacks, with 3,635 fatalities (at the time of writing) across the globe [perpetrated by ISIS.] - Wire

The U.S. economy added 138,000 jobs last month, less than the 174,000 jobs gained in April and lower than expected. Job gains for March and April were also revised down.
"Disappointing," says Lynn Reaser, an economist at Point Loma Nazarene University in California. "The economy is still growing but the job market has lost some momentum." -CNN
But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration, said a border wall presents bigger challenges than a single casino or hotel, with hundreds of landowners and lawyers already preparing to fight it.

"It's going to take longer and end up being more difficult than the president originally thought," he said. - Chicago Tribune
The recent spate of disappointing data shows an unpleasant truth: Americans may have to recalibrate their expectations for economic growth. - CNBC

Yeah, let's talk about your recent "achievements", Mr. Trump.
 

Shadybiz

Member
Guys for Christ's sake, it's not a distraction, so let's stop saying that. ...He's just fucking stupid. There is no strategy here...he's just fucking stupid. There is no masterplan to undermine the media's credibility...he's JUST...FUCKING...STUPID.

...Just not as stupid as the people who actually voted for him. Talk about "dumb as a rock"...sheesh.
 

tanooki27

Member
I gotta believe his campaign/administration's use of lame forum/facebook humor is targeted. not necessarily to distract, but to drum up support among young internet users. "hey, it's funny!" "I saw a gif like that the other day!" "he's having fun!" "I use gifs too!"
 

RPGCrazied

Member
I gotta believe his campaign/administration's use of lame forum/facebook humor is targeted. not necessarily to distract, but to drum up support among young internet users. "hey, it's funny!" "I saw a gif like that the other day!" "he's having fun!" "I use gifs too!"

Thankfully a good portion of people like that are not old enough to vote. So that is a tiny relief.
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
Thankfully a good portion of people like that are not old enough to vote. So that is a tiny relief.

It could be his strategy is to get underage people to vote for him in 3 years when they're old enough. But that's very doubtful as he clearly has no campaign strategy outside of what he did before.

Plus, goldfish memory people.
 

Measley

Junior Member
Guys for Christ's sake, it's not a distraction, so let's stop saying that. ...He's just fucking stupid. There is no strategy here...he's just fucking stupid. There is no masterplan to undermine the media's credibility...he's JUST...FUCKING...STUPID.

...Just not as stupid as the people who actually voted for him. Talk about "dumb as a rock"...sheesh.

It is interesting how the last two Republican presidents were dumb as rocks, yet the last two Democratic presidents were highly intelligent.
 

sibarraz

Banned
Is very worrisome that the president of the most powerful country in the world is posting gifs and memes like a teenager were he physically bullies a media news outlet, it makes the president look like a joke.

Still, my wrestling fanatism can't still ignore how funny is to see that tweet, is very surreal, and shows that the WWE really has a gif for everything
 

Chuckie

Member
Yes, watching a president embarrass our entire country repeatedly is pretty hilarious.

I'm fucking cringing reading those tweets or hearing what that cunt says... and I am Dutch.

I cannot even imagine what it must be like being an American and reading all that shit every day.
 
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