What Did President Trump Do Now?

**Frownland** · 07-11-2017, 09:22 AM

You forgot TPP.

While I agree with the concept for sanctuary cities (the actual concept, not the hyperbolized version that many present it as), they're unconstitutional because immigration is a federal issue. Arizona got **** for taking things into their own hands, the same logic ought to apply to sanctuary cities. Unless it makes it all the way to the Supreme Court and a new precedent of states (and by extension, cities) having freedom to make their own immigration laws.

**Janszoon** · 07-11-2017, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

Can you just time out the troublemakers so the rest of us can continue to have discussions? I get your concern, but it's kind of a hard thread to lock or topic to say can't be discussed on the forum.

I prefer not to ban people to be honest, and the people in question seemed to act just fine when the thread was locked, but I'll take your ban suggestion under consideration.

riseagainstrocks · 07-11-2017, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anteater

Mitch McConnell is a stooge and needs to go back to the crypt they excavated him from.

In regards to the Trump administration, I'm glad he's cracking down on sanctuary cities and implementing policies in that field that actually work to enforce our immigration laws. His ongoing feud with the media has also proven fruitful in some unexpected ways as well, shining a light on the hypocrisies of both government and the massive media enterprises themselves. Maybe if things go particularly well in this arena we could see the death of CNN AND Fox News within the next eight years.

Other than those things, I'm not any happier about this administration than I was about Obama. Especially with how they continue to bungle health care. But at the end of the day, I feel like we don't have a complete picture at the actual state of Trump's administration anyway because you have such an overwhelming degree of polarization (culturally) that forces the viewer/reader/listener to peel back more layers than usual if they want a complete picture of what's happening at any given time.

What a lot of Trump's independent base wanted when they memed him into office was someone who would trigger enough people to potentially shift the status quo and create enough disgust for both the conservative + liberal superelite that a serious candidate could get elected in 2020. But that strategy might end up backfiring if this is what we'll end up with:

We approach the impact of illegal immigration differently, which is fine. I'll admit my bias when criticizing his actions on sanctuary cities, but it's mostly borne out of the Donald's demonstrable bias against people from Latin America (not to mention many of his voters - good lord, deplorable doesn't come close).

I fundamentally disagree with his media feud being a good thing. He's questioning the existence of journalistic integrity when facts/narratives don't align with his own. It's not only stupid, it's actively dangerous. CNN, for all its flaws, publishes retractions. Brietbart and its ideological kin, do not. Journalistic institutions are like every other institution, full of problems, but there for a reason. The resourcing, the internal and external accountability, the prestige gained, and lost, through thorough or shoddy reporting - these are all lacking in the new world of alt-right "journalism". For instance the "3 million illegals voted" story from this past November. I did a complete breakdown on an AV Club comment thread which I won't repeat here, but the gist was far-right publications were all quoting unsourced, or single source material, as fact - a cursory examination of where they got the info from showed just how much bull**** was being shoveled, but you won't get a "sorry, we overstated the problem" or "our source wasn't reliable" - it's right on to the next Pizzagate/Benghazi/'Russia is our best friend, who told you otherwise?' story.

(I can track down the details of my dissembling the 3 million illegal votes claim if you're interested)

So I'm less positive that we're seeing or approaching a glorious rebirth of truth and media ethics.

We have a bully in the White House and it looks like 30-40 million people, roughly half of Trump's voters, love it. The Paris Agreement and it's completely voluntary standards and contributions that were meant to foster knowledge sharing and a competitive spirit among developed countries? **** THAT, 'MURICA. I have yet to see one cogent argument, not built on a lie (like Trump's claims of forced payments, China being allowed to build 100s of coal plants but we're not - no forced payments, and we can build whatever the hell we want... seriously so tired of him selling his lies to millions and millions of people).

I'd rather have technocrats in office than whatever Trump, Bannon, Kuschner, Miller, etc. are. Yeah, bit frustrated today. But thanks for engaging constructively. I just don't know what you're basing your 'forest fire clearing away the detritus' argument on.

OccultHawk · 07-11-2017, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

I prefer not to ban people to be honest, and the people in question seemed to act just fine when the thread was locked, but I'll take your ban suggestion under consideration.

Don't ban me, bro!

Anteater · 07-11-2017, 11:59 AM

My argument in regards to the "forest fire" idiom you mentioned is partly based on this little snippet from a Slate interview with Trump's biographer Michael Kranish.

Why Donald Trump is like this.

Quote:

..He personalizes America and sees it very much as he sees himself, as a country that is not sufficiently respected around the world, that carries certain resentments, which is partly what defines his affinity for the working class, at least in this very theoretical, abstract way. It’s really those personal affinities that shape his overall message far more than any consistent political ideology.

The part that I bolded there is the key. Trump is not a traditional politician who is driven by some consistent political ideology based around party lines. Simply by running, winning and doing what he's currently doing he's disrupting the status quo enough to inevitabliy bring about the kind of reform that people hoped for from, say, a candidate like Bernie Sanders, who was also supposed to be a "real" Democratic leader as opposed to what Obama represented. So, in a weird way, Trump is the first Independent to actually win the POTUS even if he didn't win under some third party banner. He won't make "America great again", but it will wake enough people up to where 2020 could bring about something amazing.

Quote:

The psychological thing about Trump that I’ve always found the most interesting is that it’s clear that at some level what he craves is media and elite approval. At another level, it seems like he’s made his political career in such a way to almost guarantee that the media will dislike him, in terms of his ideology, such as it is, and attitude to truth. It’s an interesting paradox or irony or whatever the word is.

Kranish: It is, but it’s important always to realize that he doesn’t have an ideology, that he takes great pride in his flexibility, that he would just as happily have run as a liberal Democrat as a conservative Republican. He certainly has gone through his phases of life in any of those flavors.

In regards to your comments on the media, I'm not disputing that the "alt right media" are seriously lacking in validity. At the same time however, you see EVERY conservative news source being demonized even if they actually have something interesting to point out. There's no room for diversity of thought in a media environment where the vast majority of big players are stacked up against the administration in a hostile manner, from subjects as massive as climate change to stupid garbage like "Trump gets two scoops of ice cream and guests only get one!111". Yeah Fox News aren't helping that situation, but in that case the liberal media should be the "adult" in this scenario and be the bigger man. But they aren't, and that's going to be the impetus to their eventual demise.

What we're seeing is more like a war between differing corporate agendas rather than a fight for the preservation of truth. There won't be a "glorious rebirth" of truth or media ethics, but you'll definitely see some key players in the mainstream media start to tank as ratings continue to fall because they are seen as obstructionist to Trump trying to make America a "safer" place or whatnot. But just remember: the media created Trump and put him where he is right now. And what's worse is, they can't put the genie back in the bottle. The more you look at it, the more inevitable our current situation seems to be.

**Frownland** · 07-11-2017, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by riseagainstrocks

I fundamentally disagree with his media feud being a good thing. He's questioning the existence of journalistic integrity when facts/narratives don't align with his own. It's not only stupid, it's actively dangerous. CNN, for all its flaws, publishes retractions. Brietbart and its ideological kin, do not. Journalistic institutions are like every other institution, full of problems, but there for a reason. The resourcing, the internal and external accountability, the prestige gained, and lost, through thorough or shoddy reporting - these are all lacking in the new world of alt-right "journalism".

Definitely. If there's anything that's dictatorial about Trump, it's branding everything negative about him as fake.

And though the alt-right specifically rose recently, there's just as much yellow journalism on the left RE: Buzzfeed, Gawker (they play both sides), etc.

Quote:

So I'm less positive that we're seeing or approaching a glorious rebirth of truth and media ethics.

I don't see a return to form coming for a while, at least not for the MSM. The truth doesn't sell nearly as much as pandering directly to your market. It's a lot easier to make a title that ignores the nuance of a situation by proclaiming it to be an imminent threat to all that exists and will ever exist, and it's a lot easier to get scared people to read hyped up headlines. It's all so ****ed.

It's a shame that the honest and unbiased sources of the alternative media are drowned out by fearmongerers and idiots.

Chula Vista · 07-11-2017, 12:12 PM

**Frownland** · 07-11-2017, 12:16 PM

So was it Pizzagate that amped up the use of the term "fake news" recently or was there things that lead up to that?

Anteater · 07-11-2017, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

So was it Pizzagate that amped up the use of the term "fake news" recently or was there things that lead up to that?

He's referring to Donald Trump Jr. and the "Kremlin lawyer" who baited him with "compromising information about Hillary Clinton and her ties to Russia".

Where things get funny is that it turns out this lawyer worked for Fusion GPS....who happen to be the firm that the DNC colluded with to build the fake Trump dossier.

That explosion .gif is appropriate though: watching an argument self-destruct before it even starts is lulzy.

Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr linked to investigation group behind salacious Steele Dossier | The Independent

**Frownland** · 07-11-2017, 12:26 PM

Uh, cool but I asked was it Pizzagate that amped up the use of the term "fake news" recently or were there things that lead up to that?

07-11-2017, 09:22 AM	#5701 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	You forgot TPP. While I agree with the concept for sanctuary cities (the actual concept, not the hyperbolized version that many present it as), they're unconstitutional because immigration is a federal issue. Arizona got **** for taking things into their own hands, the same logic ought to apply to sanctuary cities. Unless it makes it all the way to the Supreme Court and a new precedent of states (and by extension, cities) having freedom to make their own immigration laws. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

07-11-2017, 12:12 PM	#5707 (permalink)
Chula Vista Toasted Poster Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: SoCal by way of Boston Posts: 11,332	__________________ “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

07-11-2017, 12:16 PM	#5708 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	So was it Pizzagate that amped up the use of the term "fake news" recently or was there things that lead up to that? __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

07-11-2017, 12:26 PM	#5710 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	Uh, cool but I asked was it Pizzagate that amped up the use of the term "fake news" recently or were there things that lead up to that? __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x