Trump and bleach

[Cheshirechappie]

Thing is, folks, that a large section of the US media (and large chunks of everybody else's media, too) are virulently anti-Trump. They're not so much acting as journalists any more, more as political activists. This has been going on for some time, but is getting steadily worse. US media has always been partisan, one way or the other, but parts of it are now becoming outright biased. The US public are (mostly) well aware of this, and media ratings are on a steady decline. The media are panicking about ratings declines, and rather than pausing to reflect on the worsening standards of their journalism, are doubling down on the activism, thus driving ratings down even more.

Trump knows this full well, and trolls the press (or, at least, the 'activist' rather that 'partisan' parts of it) mercilessly. Because some parts of the media are so up themselves, they fall for it every time. A lot of the US public don't, and either ignore it all or laugh at it.

The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it?

Trump may or may not turn out to be better or worse than other US presidents. We'll need a few years to pass before we can really assess the history. However, he has been making anti-China noises, and trying to move US trade away from Chinese dependency pretty much since he first took office. That doesn't look quite so daft now, does it!

 

[Chris152]

So, sticking with the disinfectant example, would you have the press report the words he spoke but not offer an opinion on it? Is that what you think of as unbiased coverage? And if their opinion of his words is very negative, is that bias? The truth is that his words seem to be very problematic from a health perspective, and truth still has to have a place in media coverage I'd have thought.
Put enough examples of such criticisms together and you have what looks like sustained bias or what you're calling 'activism', but what might from a different perspective be called the truth?

 

[RogerS]

....
The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it?
....

Fall for what, exactly ? Did you not see the look of horror on the face of his Cheif Scientific Adviser when he came out with that rubbish? No media involved there other than to have a camera pointing at the orange tub of lard.

 

[cookiemonster]

....
The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it?
....

So the POTUS is now risking the lives of anyone naive enough to take his comments at face value for the sake of trolling what he mendaciously refers to as the 'fake news' media? Please let no-one pretend any of his predecessors would have sunk so low.

 

[AES]

@CheshireChappie: You wrote, QUOTE: The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it? UNQUOTE:

Well yes, according to you I did "fall for it"!

'Cos you know what? There was NOTHING to fall for (IMO).

He really IS that thick, and no amount of trying to explain so many many instances of his stupidity away as fake news, or sarcasm, or taking his comments out of context cannot change the fact that he is demonstrably utterly and completely stupid by any measure that anyone with more than half a single brain cell can immediately realise.

He wasn't trolling the media. He just really IS that thick - he's what's called here "bauernslau". It doesn't really translate into English all that well unfortunately. The nearest I can come is by saying this means not only stupid but worse, "nasty sly".

I really AM surprised that YOU'VE been taken in CheshireChappie. (That is my own take anyway).

 

[Chippyjoe]

Joe Biden must be loving all this Trump rubbish, he doesn't have to go out campaigning Trump is doing it for him. The gift that just keeps on giving.

 

[D_W]

He's a gaffe machine, too. We'll see if he's better when he gets in office at not talking too much. Trump could have this situation tailor made for him if he ran this like a real business leader does (only admit publicly to positive things and find an underling to take on the rest).

I guess that's the way a "real" politician does it, too. Biden's incompetence may be a positive alternative to Trumps complete absence of any discretion.

The next election is a grave problem aside from the fact that the President in the united states doesn't really wield much power aside from military (neither biden nor trump is a real threat of using either of those for much) and the ability to veto bills. The rest is just hot air.

I haven't got a clue why we want to elect any president who will be 78 or 82, respectively, if they survive their terms.

 

[D_W]

....
The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it?
....

So the POTUS is now risking the lives of anyone naive enough to take his comments at face value for the sake of trolling what he mendaciously refers to as the 'fake news' media? Please let no-one pretend any of his predecessors would have sunk so low.

This is a bit overly dramatic. I'm sure you can find news stories of a dozen or hundred people saying they're considering this (I'd bet someone will use it as intentional suicide too), but we'll somehow ignore 60,000 deaths and complain about someone who would shoot up bleach (who among us would even know how to get it in our system? I don't. That's phlebotomy and drug users).

He's grandpa, saying things and not thinking. I wouldn't want him to be my grandpa - well, I haven't seen his will...maybe I would!!

you'll see sensationalism in our media trying to find the dumbest of the dumb to write a story about "killed 25 people who injected bleach" and you may even get a relative to stand behind joe biden at a rally, but most in this country don't go for that kind of stupidity - even if a lot of the people who don't care just can't resist clicking on the story to read about it, anyway (which just prolongs the problem of bottom feeding news).

I see joe biden as no more competent than trump, but your media may massage him to be sort of a good guy with a little bit of a proximity problem as far as rubbing the shoulders of ladies, but I also have an extreme indifference to the outcome of the election and probably won't vote (a no vote is just as important as any other vote when it's made intentionally).

 

[D_W]

....
The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it?
....

Fall for what, exactly ? Did you not see the look of horror on the face of his Cheif Scientific Adviser when he came out with that rubbish? No media involved there other than to have a camera pointing at the orange tub of lard.

His advisors either have excellent manners or otherworldly restraint to not say out loud "OH MY GOD!".

Either that or their positions are "a little political" and their restraint is due to that.

 

[D_W]

I do not disagree. We have the same flawed system over here, actually. I can't remember if it was Wilson or Heath, but I believe one of them became PM after winning fewer votes than the other. It is quite possible because of the constituency system.
It doesn't make it right, of course.

There's a long history in the states of the representative republic part. It's odd, it's always debated, and you may have the same system (i'm not familiar with yours) as much of our law comes from.....England, of course.

The value of individualism in the united states at the outset is what led to overweighting lower-density regional areas vs. large metro areas. I'm sure there's a problem either way - depending on demographics (e.g., the rural culture in the united states and the urban cultures are not remotely similar - one would roll the other if they could get a small majority).

 

[D_W]

I just don't understand how he's there.

360 million Americans can't be that thick!

The voting age population of the U.S. in 2016 was about 250 million, but only about 56 percent turned out for the presidential election. Unfortunately, it is the Electoral College and the "winner takes all" laws in most U.S. states that won the election for the Orange One.

It might be easier to explain the rules of cricket to a caveman than try to understand the rules of the Electoral College.

It's not particularly difficult to explain. We have a senate where everyone gets an equal vote, and an allocation of representatives where the weighting is population based. Each senator or rep count is allocated an electoral vote and then states determine how their electoral votes are determined. All but two have chosen winner takes all.

The federalist papers have quite a bit of commentary about why the voting system isn't just simple majority. Because the simple majority is for one party in the united states, the argument is one sided for each side about whether or not the system is well liked, but it could be changed legislatively (efforts have failed).

We don't understand cricket in the united states and wonder why you guys are using giant fraternity paddles and throwing funny.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I don't understand the rules of cricket either (having been forced to play it at school, I loathe it with a passion only matched by my loathing of football), but I can't see the fascination with American football, basketball or baseball either. Wouldn't do to all be the same.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

@CheshireChappie: You wrote, QUOTE: The disinfectant comments were a classic Trump troll of the media. Did you fall for it? UNQUOTE:

Well yes, according to you I did "fall for it"!

'Cos you know what? There was NOTHING to fall for (IMO).

He really IS that thick, and no amount of trying to explain so many many instances of his stupidity away as fake news, or sarcasm, or taking his comments out of context cannot change the fact that he is demonstrably utterly and completely stupid by any measure that anyone with more than half a single brain cell can immediately realise.

He wasn't trolling the media. He just really IS that thick - he's what's called here "bauernslau". It doesn't really translate into English all that well unfortunately. The nearest I can come is by saying this means not only stupid but worse, "nasty sly".

I really AM surprised that YOU'VE been taken in CheshireChappie. (That is my own take anyway).

Trump isn't The Messiah, but he isn't a moron either. He didn't beat one of the US's best known and most established politicians to the Presidency by being "utterly and completely stupid".

As for "nasty sly" - well, that's US politics at the moment, sadly.

Doesn't do to believe everything you read in the papers. Or watch on TV. Especially these days.

 

[D_W]

Most thinking voters here in the states prefer the President and congress to not be of the same party. Any time that's happened, then they both start acting like things that they aren't. For example, the conservative party starts spending money like wealthy children when nobody is there to make them run their "fiscal responsibility" gimmick.

Which they never adhere to, anyway.

And when it's in the other direction, liberals start picking winners in business in private with nobody to call them out.

It's correct above that US politics are "nasty sly". That would be an extreme understatement.

The sentiment here that's unusual though is still that it's not being grasped that most of the country doesn't figure the government will do something useful and we don't expect honesty or accuracy out of them. We are pleased when it happens accidentally, but the trust in the government that exists in Europe (and then the level of disbelief that seems to occur over there when someone lets the public down), it's not occurring here.

If you polled the general public here about western europe having a majority who believe their government is there to do good for them (beyond federal infrastructure and defense), I think most would say "why would they trust their government?"

There's also a massive false sentiment around the world that you will slip through the cracks and there's no safety net. IF you become truly indigent in the united states and work through the benefits process, you end up with SSDI and free health care, but the catch is that you cannot have personal wealth and do it, at least not for medicaid (pre-retirement health care). Many here who think this is a free market and they're being independent fail to mention in the next breath that they're taking $1300 a month from social security and the equivalent of another thousand or more from medicare in extremely heavily subsidized medical benefits.

If you're indigent for good cause (even if that cause is mental) and you've run through your assets, you'll get:
* disability income
* food assistance
* no-cost health care without many restrictions - certainly no cost restrictions - you get the same kind of same-day service that anyone else here does
* subsidized housing
* quite often some kind of coordinating advocate to help you navigate it

There are definitely debt traps that you can fall into, but the worst of them is probably taking a college loan as the rest can be discharged pretty easily if you're actually indigent.

There are about 12 or 13 million people on these pre-retirement type benefits. Since the US is more spread out, if you want to be on these types of benefits and also get free transportation, you may need to live near a city to get that (but retirees and disabled get free transit where I live - the cost of living is not particularly high if you can tolerate living in a midwest city - which is my preference, anyway). Not uncommon for the benefits to be good enough for disableds to own a house and pay a mortgage and have a car - but you have to adhere to not working or generating income.

 

[D_W]

I forgot about the "obamaphone", which is just a derisive term, but phone and internet are more or less considered a right here and subsidized for the indigent.

 

[Lons]

This describes my take on him very well indeed.

 

[D_W]

The hair style may be an improvement.

 

[AES]

Sorry Cheshirechappie, when you write, QUOTE: Trump isn't The Messiah, but he isn't a moron either. UNQUOTE:

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point.

IMO he EXACTLY IS a moron - albeit a calculating one (and in the nastiest possible way). You may say that means he needs at least some intelligence to "calculate" but I say NO, he "only" needs "native cunning" (which brings me back to perhaps a better translation of our local "Bauernslau")

And BTW, my view is NOT "just" based on believing everything I read in the papers or see on the TV, very far from it! Yes, of course I've read stuff/seen stuff about him, just the same as you must have, but to all that newspaper and TV coverage I add the live "briefings" (presumably uncut/uncensored TV) he gives, of which I've seen quite a few - too many). I've then used my own "personal common-sense filter" on all those inputs (which has worked more or less quite well for me for quite a time now).

That's why I cannot agree with your view of Trump at all. IMO you're quite wrong.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I think Trump ranks as very average in the grey matter department - neither very smart nor stupid. What he has always exhibited are major character flaws - bullying, egotistical, arrogant, inability to admit weakness or error etc.

However, in the last few weeks Trumps' performance when reading the script is without any real fluency, and when he goes off script is confused and inarticulate.

My recollection is that during the election campaign in 2016 he was capable of stringing together sentences, even though his flaws were very evident.

I am starting to wonder whether some form of early dementia is responsible for his current presentation and evident frustration. Sadly his closest advisors seem to be unable to do much - if they step out of line they are usually fired and/or ridiculed.

 

[Vann]

...Trump isn't The Messiah, but he isn't a moron either. He didn't beat one of the US's best known and most established politicians to the Presidency by being "utterly and completely stupid"...

I don't think Trump did win the election - I think Clinton lost it, by being so boring; more of the same; more of people being screwed over by big business. People just wanted something different. And he does have a certain 'X' factor.

So it doesn't matter if he is "utterly and completely stupid" or not. He was the only viable alternative.

It's a shame the opposition didn't put the other old git up against him - he also has a bit of 'X' factor. Biden is like more of Clinton.

It's mostly fun watching from a distance. Lets just hope he doesn't start another world war...

I wish TV would re-run "The Apprentice" (I never watched it last time around). Or maybe we could have a new show "The Apresident".

Cheers, Vann.