Skinny Puppy wrote:

The_Piper wrote:5 seconds into the video, shut it off because it's that bird brain again. Trump, yes, but the bird brain who makes trolling YT videos full of lies and distortions. And basic birdbrainerry.
But on the actual topic, how virtuous and adult of our president to issue fake news awards. What a fine example to set for our young people. Dog shit.

Speaking of our young people... they're being fed a steady diet of lies, half-truths, out-and-out distortions etc. by the fake news media which try to pass it off as legitimate news. Many, many news outlets are now nothing more than Libtard propaganda machines who will scrap the bottom of the barrel in order to further their agenda.

You mentioned dog shit... that reminded me of CNN.

Skinny Puppy wrote:

The Highly-Anticipated 2017 Fake News Awards


2017 was a year of unrelenting bias, unfair news coverage, and even downright fake news. Studies have shown that over 90% of the media’s coverage of President Trump is negative.

https://www.gop.com/the-highly-anticipated-2017-fake-news-awards/

Animavore wrote:I don't get why a large section of Trump supporters never have a single bad thing to say about him. I support The Green Party in Ireland, but mostly on paper because they just don't have any teeth in reality and keep trying to palliate the corporations instead of fighting them. This makes me quite critical of them. And as much as I liked Obama, he didn't get enough done (not entirely his fault given the outright hostility of the opposition) and has a bad record on drone strikes.

Not so Trump supporters. I've witnessed a couple of rather intelligent people on forums reduce themselves to bad arguments, Trump arguments, in defence of their idol. All of a sudden "whataboutism", name-calling, and crying "fake news" (a form of ad hom) are acceptable arguments. I've even seen friends on Facebook support the DAPA protesters and post environmentalist memes before the election, to suddenly drop it when Trump comes in and has the protesters removed, and later turned to denialism and applaud Trump getting the Keystone pipeline moving.

The only word I can think of which describes this slavish, uncritical devotion to an ideal is "fanaticism". I don't see how they are different to the sports fan who blames the Ref, the pitch, the facilities... anything but the team or management. Or the religious apologist who would rather bend over backwards, squaring the circle, than acknowledge a contradiction.

Then there's the extreme intolerance towards criticism. Everyone else is lying and conspiring. A bunch of haters who are jealous. "Slay those who say Islam is not the religion of peace."

How can Trump possibly be that pure that there's not a single bad thing you can say about him? Nothing about him bothers them; not a single thing? I don't even raise my own mother on such a glorious pedestal. I'd sooner listen to a Trump supporter who can weigh up pros and cons, than an aggressive, petulant supporter on the atrack, claiming victimhood, like a mini-Trump who thinks an attack on Trump is an attack on them personally, as if Trump would reciprocate this level of support for them like a good friend might (hint: he doesn't give a shit about you).

There isn't a single person I have this level of single-minded admiration for. Soundgarden have bad songs. The God Delusion is pretty weak and Dawkins should stick to evolution. Sagan had some batty views on UFOs in private. The Dark Knight needs some trimming. Nietzsche was simply wrong about the impact of society moving from religion. Orwell didn't consider that the watchers would also become the watched. Wagner was a bit of an anti-semite. G.R.R. Martin rambles off point. My best friends all have some or other points of contention. But somehow an obnoxious New Yorker born into wealth but with a common man's sense of taste and massive blindspots on a range of issues he claims to have expertise in is just perfect!?!

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Again, how is this disgrace still president?

The_Piper wrote:
A used car salesman with no poker face, and a 3rd grade vocabulary.

Animavore wrote:I don't get why a large section of Trump supporters never have a single bad thing to say about him. I support The Green Party in Ireland, but mostly on paper because they just don't have any teeth in reality and keep trying to palliate the corporations instead of fighting them. This makes me quite critical of them. And as much as I liked Obama, he didn't get enough done (not entirely his fault given the outright hostility of the opposition) and has a bad record on drone strikes.

Not so Trump supporters. I've witnessed a couple of rather intelligent people on forums reduce themselves to bad arguments, Trump arguments, in defence of their idol. All of a sudden "whataboutism", name-calling, and crying "fake news" (a form of ad hom) are acceptable arguments. I've even seen friends on Facebook support the DAPA protesters and post environmentalist memes before the election, to suddenly drop it when Trump comes in and has the protesters removed, and later turned to denialism and applaud Trump getting the Keystone pipeline moving.

The only word I can think of which describes this slavish, uncritical devotion to an ideal is "fanaticism". I don't see how they are different to the sports fan who blames the Ref, the pitch, the facilities... anything but the team or management. Or the religious apologist who would rather bend over backwards, squaring the circle, than acknowledge a contradiction.

Then there's the extreme intolerance towards criticism. Everyone else is lying and conspiring. A bunch of haters who are jealous. "Slay those who say Islam is not the religion of peace."

How can Trump possibly be that pure that there's not a single bad thing you can say about him? Nothing about him bothers them; not a single thing? I don't even raise my own mother on such a glorious pedestal. I'd sooner listen to a Trump supporter who can weigh up pros and cons, than an aggressive, petulant supporter on the atrack, claiming victimhood, like a mini-Trump who thinks an attack on Trump is an attack on them personally, as if Trump would reciprocate this level of support for them like a good friend might (hint: he doesn't give a shit about you).

There isn't a single person I have this level of single-minded admiration for. Soundgarden have bad songs. The God Delusion is pretty weak and Dawkins should stick to evolution. Sagan had some batty views on UFOs in private. The Dark Knight needs some trimming. Nietzsche was simply wrong about the impact of society moving from religion. Orwell didn't consider that the watchers would also become the watched. Wagner was a bit of an anti-semite. G.R.R. Martin rambles off point. My best friends all have some or other points of contention. But somehow an obnoxious New Yorker born into wealth but with a common man's sense of taste and massive blindspots on a range of issues he claims to have expertise in is just perfect!?!

A year into Donald Trump’s presidency, we’ve thoroughly established what a liar he is.

We’ve talked less about how much truth he unwittingly tells.

I don’t mean the specific text of his discrete claims, which brim with inaccuracies and bubble with full-blown hallucinations. The man dwells in a loopy land of his own invention.

I’m referring to the timing and tone of his statements and tweets: when he pipes up; how he lashes out; what he deems worthy of his bragging, scheming and ire. He’s no paragon of deceit, which requires more plotting, patience and discipline than he could ever muster. He’s a geyser of revelations, and in terms of the transparency with which he shows us the most eccentric and ugliest parts of himself, he’s the most honest president in my lifetime.

It’s inadvertent but indisputable. He doesn’t hide his pettiness, bury his petulance or successfully distract us from his vulgarity and bigotry. He’s too needy an exhibitionist to wear a mask, too sloppy a manager to prevent leaks, and his universe is too chaotic for its mess not to spill ceaselessly into public view.

Secrets? Those are for administrations with less drama, lower ratings and fewer reporters on speed dial. We knew the madness of Trump’s court more quickly and reliably than we did the mischief of others, because his bickering enablers can’t keep anything to themselves. Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” is both a chronicle of that and proof of it.

It has new tidbits about Ivanka, Jared, Melania. It has nothing surprising about Trump. We already knew how much junk he ate. We already knew how misinformed and hypersensitive he was. We already knew that aides had questions about his smarts and qualms about his stability. All of this was out there not just from the beginning of his presidency but from the start of his campaign, and some of it was out there long before that.

In fact the hell of his election wasn’t that he tricked American voters. It was that they’d fully seen the florid whole of him and supported him nonetheless.

continued...

Seabass wrote:Donald Trump’s Radical Honesty

In fact the hell of his election wasn’t that he tricked American voters. It was that they’d fully seen the florid whole of him and supported him nonetheless.
continued...

Calilasseia wrote:The 'honest' racists are thick as shit, and the ones with more functioning neurons are mendacious, sometimes to a criminal extent. The pathology has been on display for some time, so many here will be tempted to declare that I'm not bringing an original insight to the table here.

Max Boot wrote:The Republican embrace of anti-intellectualism was, to a large extent, a put-on. At least until now.

...

In recent years, however, the Republicans’ relationship to the realm of ideas has become more and more attenuated as talk-radio hosts and television personalities have taken over the role of defining the conservative movement that once belonged to thinkers like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and George F. Will. The Tea Party represented a populist revolt against what its activists saw as out-of-touch Republican elites in Washington.

There are still some thoughtful Republican leaders ... But the primary vibe from the G.O.P. has become one of indiscriminate, unthinking, all-consuming anger.

The trend has now culminated in the nomination of Donald J. Trump, a presidential candidate who truly is the know-nothing his Republican predecessors only pretended to be.

...

Mr. Trump even appears proud of his lack of learning. He told The Washington Post that he reached decisions “with very little knowledge,” but on the strength of his “common sense” and his “business ability.” Reading long documents is a waste of time because of his rapid ability to get to the gist of an issue, he said: “I’m a very efficient guy.” What little Mr. Trump does know seems to come from television: Asked where he got military advice, he replied, “I watch the shows.”

Agi Hammerthief wrote:and that is why making the next election about him will get him re-elected.
just like Bush Jr.

“I spent my entire adult life looking out for the well-being, the training, the equipping of the troops for whom I was responsible,” she continued. “Sadly, this is something that the current occupant of the Oval Office does not seem to care to do — and I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger.”
“And I have a message for cadet bone spurs: If you cared about our military, you'd stop baiting Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops, and millions of innocent civilians, in danger."