US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1287

I’m going to continue to use the term to describe articles based on falsehoods, or articles whose primary objective is to mislead or obfuscate,

On April 07 2019 07:12 m4ini wrote:


Just quoting this here for the inevitable walkback once FOX articles get cited. Pretty much any political FOX news article.

I'm absolutely convinced you'd call them fake news too, since they're designed to mislead, whatabout or obfuscate - i'd just like to make sure.

On April 07 2019 11:14 Danglars wrote:

Just to make sure, what do you call the original poster's tweet alleging Trump had called asylum seekers "animals?" Like you, I'm confident you'll use a condemning term for it, but I've gotten so much "Never mind about that bit, the real news is Trump is still a racist!" that I'd like to hear you on the record.

In America, it fooled several politicians and several members of the media.

On April 07 2019 11:25 NewSunshine wrote:
I mean, he would go on to repeatedly refer to asylum seekers as an "invasion", so I'm not really sure what you want us to think. That poor Donald Trump is being mischaracterized? What a hard go of it he's getting.

On April 07 2019 11:28 Wombat_NI wrote:

Ok so the media fucked up there, by the looks of my googling around that was a poor job on their part on this, and one politicians shouldn’t have fallen for.

Trump said wind turbines cause cancer and kill birds what, this week?

Again, the media didn’t do a good job there, they were suckered in by ‘well it is Trump so he probably did say that’ without doing their job properly, and it’s perfectly right to criticise them, no arguments there.

On April 07 2019 11:33 NewSunshine wrote:

The criticism is valid. The problem is when Danglars tries to wave it around like it means Trump isn't actually racist as shit. Like he hasn't also done a ton of other shit to merit the description.

The media isn't perfect. It has its own problems. But so do you, if you give Fox News a pass, while painting the rest of them the enemy of the people.

On April 07 2019 11:48 Plansix wrote:
Its sort of amazing this discussion continues to be about the news media when that out of context(but still terrible) clip is being circulated by non news media people on twitter. There is no news agencies involved with Danglers fake news. Just me posting something like a dumb ass, for the second time. Trump is still racist, just to be clear.

On April 07 2019 12:17 Plansix wrote:
Ron Paul is just a feckless coward that talks like he is a libertarian. But he has ceded so much power to the executive branch without batting an eye it’s hard to take him seriously any more.

On April 07 2019 11:59 Wombat_NI wrote:

You should rename yourself to Plannine for Ed Wood Kudos

Are you trying to be sensible in current year? This is the year where CNN, the WSJ, NYT, the BBC are all Marxist shills trying to destroy Western civilisation and Trump

Far as I could tell you recognised your mistake and fessed up to it, pretty early.

I disagree on Trump being a racist. He’s probably something worse than that, which is an egoistical lunatic with no principles whatsoever and no real sense of how to be a decent human being, so he just blows whatever way the wind blows, which kind of fits him as he’s a windbag himself.

If Mexicans (for some reason) became a big supporting part of his base, he’d start talking about how great they are, black folks the same etc etc

It’s an experiment in having a guy who is basically pure ego and zero anything else running a major country, and I can’t say I’m a fan.

I mean I’m pretty darn left wing myself, I can still at some level respect someone like Ron Paul who is further from me politically than Trump is theoretically because, basically I believe that he believes in his platform, as wrong as I think it might be, if nothing else Ron Paul is a libertarian, and consistently has acted on that basis throughout his political career.

What is Trump?

Are you trying to be sensible in current year? This is the year where CNN, the WSJ, NYT, the BBC are all Marxist shills trying to destroy Western civilisation and Trump

On April 07 2019 12:36 Wombat_NI wrote:
Sarcasm, apologies if I didn’t make it clear.

My sole point re invoking Ron Paul was at least one vaguely knows what he stands for, be you in vehement disagreement or on his page, or in between.

As a counterpoint to Trump who I don’t think actually has deep convictions on basically anything and bends whatever way that suits him, was the first example I could think of, perhaps there are better.

So while I don’t necessarily agree that he’s a horrible racist who wants to do x y and z, but a pure opportunist who will be racist if he thinks it suits him, or ‘egalitarian’ when it does.

He’s a wrecking ball who doesn’t care who gets sacrificed between actualising his egotism or not, can be minorities, can be the media, can be basically anyone.

On April 07 2019 12:36 Wombat_NI wrote:
Sarcasm, apologies if I didn’t make it clear.

My sole point re invoking Ron Paul was at least one vaguely knows what he stands for, be you in vehement disagreement or on his page, or in between.

As a counterpoint to Trump who I don’t think actually has deep convictions on basically anything and bends whatever way that suits him, was the first example I could think of, perhaps there are better.

So while I don’t necessarily agree that he’s a horrible racist who wants to do x y and z, but a pure opportunist who will be racist if he thinks it suits him, or ‘egalitarian’ when it does.

He’s a wrecking ball who doesn’t care who gets sacrificed between actualising his egotism or not, can be minorities, can be the media, can be basically anyone.

On April 07 2019 12:52 NewSunshine wrote:

To be fair, racism is defined, in part, by its systemic nature, which involves people taking advantage of it when it suits them. So yeah, you can argue that that's what Trump really is, but it doesn't really make him not a racist. He's doing what just about every other racist has done with it.

On April 07 2019 13:02 GreenHorizons wrote:



No problem, probably easier to tell for people who have read more of your posts. On Ron Paul I agree, I didn't follow him closely or anything but to the best of my limited knowledge he was consistent while in office. Pretty sure he sold out somewhat after leaving but I'm not sure if it would actually conflict with his views/positions since he is a private citizen now.

Rand, (which I think P6 was referencing) is another story. He talks a big game but he's more like Trump than his dad when it comes to principle. There's a lot of overlap between his obnoxious self-interest and the appearance of adhering to Ron's political legacy so they can be easily conflated imo.

I mostly agree on Trump too but would add that beyond his egotism there's the underlying racial dynamics of the US (as I understand them) that doesn't make him especially more racist than your typical wealthy white guy, however, the default is pretty racist already.

That's just to say having discriminated in housing, ran one's mouth about the guilt of Black kids, exploit undocumented workers, etc... are things many wealthy white guys have done, but just because it's popular and largely accepted, doesn't mean it's not all racist.

I've said (probably before you were here [posting frequently anyway]) that I don't think racism is his animus though, more like a lens.

On April 07 2019 11:28 Wombat_NI wrote:

Ok so the media fucked up there, by the looks of my googling around that was a poor job on their part on this, and one politicians shouldn’t have fallen for.

Trump said wind turbines cause cancer and kill birds what, this week?

Again, the media didn’t do a good job there, they were suckered in by ‘well it is Trump so he probably did say that’ without doing their job properly, and it’s perfectly right to criticise them, no arguments there.