Because Trump 2.0

[seahawk]

The biggest threat to America is the American media, as it is controlled by the left.

[Stuart Galbraith]

But US media is in decline in market share, has been for decades. Its not the stalwart of the left it used to be, even as it lurches further and further to the left (ive seen this trend in British newspapers myself).

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/how-can-newspapers-survive-by-measuring-their-social-impact/

'Total estimated circulation of US daily newspapers has steadily declined since the late 1980s, from approximately 63 million to 31 million presently. Advertisement revenue of US newspapers has also plunged from $49 billion in 2005 to $17 billion in 2017. The newsroom workforce is down to 39,210, from 74,410 in 2006 (a 47% decrease).'

And that is why foreign subversion of Social media is so dangerous. There are few and fewer alternatives to look at for reinforcement for negation of messaging via social media. We read, so we believe it.

If you want an example, look at what happened with Orson Welles and the War of the Worlds Hoax. There was no alternative media to look at as an alternative to his narrative, so it was believed. That is precisely where we are headed now with social media.

[shep854]

But what are the options if Big Media is corrupted?  What are the options then??  That question is why alternative media is growing; there are other sources to check the info.  Note that Big Media presented the Russian collusion scandal as established fact for years, even though it was groundless and based on falsified sources.

[Ssnake]

Big Media is in decline because too many people can't unsee the man behind the curtain. That's not to say that the swarm of social media reporter filling the gaps created by one-sided reporting are an adequate step to boost overall credibility. But Big Media's decline is largely self-inflicted because of their inability to rid themselves quickly enough of activist journalists.

Also, whatever passes for "news" on American TV I find completely insufferable. Breathless hyping of topics that are short-lived and largely irrelevant in the shallow pursuit of "ratings". The proverbial car chase piece is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with TV reporting in the US.

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Cogently argued young Glenn, Im am thrown down before the fury of your intelligent and well executed argument.

 I don't think you believe half the stuff you type even as you are typing it.   I picture a chef furiously working over the stove just reaching for whatever ingredient is close to get the current flavor desired.    

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The biggest threat to American Democracy is not knowing if the President or Senator is legitimate or having been bought by abroad. You cannot have a legitimate election whilst other nations are manipulating the public via social media or false narrative, or just plain buying the candidate. The US media is dying off, social media is now rapidly becoming the more important forum. Why do you think Trump tweets so much?

Guys that have been bought by a broad will probably marry them.  In terms of elections, the problem is far more the poisoning of the US media internally, due to American influence.  Versus foreign meddling, I'd guess the domestic meddling is an order of magnitude more serious in its distortion of the democratic lensing. 

 

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Look at 2016. The narrative was Trump was a Russian spy, an absurd idea. But it swept the board with Social media. It still lingers.

The purpose to that nonsense was to prevent Trump from improving relations with Russia while trying to impeach him for nonsense.  Alas, we can't fix stupid, but Americans can vote for Trump to prevent stupid from driving for 4 more years.

[Jeff]

4 hours ago, Murph said:

Old wall vs new wall:

 

All Drumpf is doing is replacing wall that already exists!

[Skywalkre]

4 hours ago, DKTanker said:

Trump offered future hope and prosperity, Biden offered doom, gloom, and misery.

An LA focus group apparently agrees with that assessment as 7 of 8 undecideds now support Trump with the eighth undecided remaining undecided.

Eh, both had moments of doom/gloom and hope.  One example is the final question of the evening where Trump went dark while Biden went positive.

We won't know for a few days who 'won' (CNN's own poll is showing Biden clearly winning... but that's coming from CNN) but I think this article summed it up best.  Let's say Trump clearly won... it may be irrelevant as we have nearly 50 million votes already cast (which will likely end up being well over 1/3 of all votes cast).  Biden's had a sizeable lead for most of the time.  Whoever Trump won over last night will likely be too little too late.

ETA - The positive takeaway from that article, something I've seen in a few places lately, is that if Biden wins big it's not because America is going communist as so many on here will try to spin.  It's simply because folks are tired and over Trump.  There's still a lot of skepticism with the American voter base with D policies.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Skywalkre

[Tim the Tank Nut]

which brings us to a point about the sea change of early voting.  Election day turning into election month is a VERY big difference in how things were versus how they are.

The fact that votes are being tabulated and results are being announced has an effect on voting that is still taking place.  Before it is all said and done both sides are going to regret what has happened to the process.

I suppose it will be interesting to see what Tanknet looks like in a year under the glorious utopia of a Harris Presidency.  My guess is that the haves will be smugly proud of what happens to the have nots.  I wonder how hard people can be pushed before really bad things happen?

[MiloMorai]

Vote results are being announced?

If so, is that any worse than having polls in the east announcing results before the polls close further west?

[EchoFiveMike]

Of course it is, as it allows greater time for machinations and fuckery.

Of course, the first thing to do after the coming Purge cleanses the US is to invade the North and continue the Great Crusade.  S/F...Ken M

[Der Zeitgeist]

Just a normal day in the US election shitshow.

[Brian Kennedy]

19 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Just a normal day in the US election shitshow.

Although Trump is actually correct if you want to get really specific. One of the ironic things about this election is that the Obama admin was actually kinda hard on illegal immigrants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/kids-in-cages-debate-trump-obama/2020/10/23/8ff96f3c-1532-11eb-82af-864652063d61_story.html

[Jeff]

It will be interesting to see how they explain not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Quote

 

Trump announces peace deal between Sudan and Israel, says more nations will normalize relations

Sudan is the third Arab state to do so as part of U.S.-brokered deals in the run-up to Election Day

 

 

[Vuk]

Republican utopias unite for another great diplomatic win!

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/abortion-geneva-consensus-declaration-trump-pompeo-azar-us-saudi-arabia-uganda-b1250419.html

[DKTanker]

59 minutes ago, Jeff said:

It will be interesting to see how they explain not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Simple, not currently attending Leftist champagne and caviar cocktail hours.

[Murph]

He is a conservative Pro-American President with actual accomplishments.  To get one you need to be an accomplishmentless empty suit whose only status is being black and hating your country.

[Stuart Galbraith]

16 hours ago, shep854 said:

But what are the options if Big Media is corrupted?  What are the options then??  That question is why alternative media is growing; there are other sources to check the info.  Note that Big Media presented the Russian collusion scandal as established fact for years, even though it was groundless and based on falsified sources.

Not so many. You have television media, whom are often owned by the same people who own the print media. You have your own eyes and experience and radio media and.... thats about it really. The only alternatives to mainstream media I would argue (others are free to disagree obviously) is social media. Which would not be a problem if there were anything like legislation to ensure what people are posting is halfway accurate.

I could post here that Donald Trump is a Russian Spy, a Paedophile, and is secretly a part of Bohemian grove who sacrifice 12 year olds every year in a secret ceremony. No evidence on my part to substantiate it, but I post it on social media, and its followed by people who WANT to believe it. And suddenly you have an analogue of Qanon.

Ive never been a believer in the Russian collusion scandal. i think he has an unhealthy fixation on powerful authoritarian men, but I dont think its because he is in thrall to them. The mainstream media, some of them are very good, and have done a great job of analyising why he likes them. Some of them follow the social media gutter and feed people what they want to hear. Then throw in foreign nations who throw in what people most fear, and its reguritated on Social media so people instantly assume its true. And suddenly you have the horror show of where politics and media currently are in the 21st Century.

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[seahawk]

The current system, can not save America. it will take a purge and society needs to be cleansed from the liberals, before Americas can rise again.

[shep854]

Whatever the source, people need to fact-check among various outlets, not just gulp greedily from their favorite.  Sadly, the modern educational system encourages passive acceptance, rather than properly encouraging critical thinking,

[Stuart Galbraith]

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Edited October 24, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

5 minutes ago, shep854 said:

Whatever the source, people need to fact-check among various outlets, not just gulp greedily from their favorite.  Sadly, the modern educational system encourages passive acceptance, rather than properly encouraging critical thinking,

I completely agree.

We are all guilty of it, I can hold my hand up to that myself. We all need to do better.

[Josh]

There should be a mandatory class at the highscool level called ‘information hygiene’ that teaches the skill set of cross checking facts, spotting false claims, etc.

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, seahawk said:

The current system, can not save America. it will take a purge and society needs to be cleansed from the liberals, before Americas can rise again.

Nope, you need to be able to let the liberals do what they want in their states while the conservatives run their half of the country.  Things like defense and currency/freedom of movement should be open and equal, but other things like abortion and health care should be more governed by the states, not the feds. 

[glenn239]

6 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

 

Ive never been a believer in the Russian collusion scandal. i think he has an unhealthy fixation on powerful authoritarian men, but I dont think its because he is in thrall to them. The mainstream media, some of them are very good, and have done a great job of analyising why he likes them. 

 

It does not matter that you did not believe it because tens of millions of Americans did believe it, and it was not true.

My buddy has often chimed in on the "Trump likes dictators because he wants to be one" trope, which is what you are touching upon in your last sentence quoted.  He can't figure out why Trump would want to get along with Putin.  In fact, Trump wants to get along with dangerous dictators precisely because he understands just how dangerous the situation actually is.  I saw the same effect at the Red Devils Clubhouse in Hamilton back two decades ago where I noticed that in any dispute my one buddy would strongly tend to side with the more unpredictable member over the more reasonable individual.

Explaining that to my buddy causes a blank look and denial, but it's one of the two big reasons why Trump wants to get along with dictators.  (The second being that dictators are able to get things done in their country quickly, whereas if you talk to somebody like, say, Canada, you have to piss around with a billion special interest groups and court challenges for years before anything gets done).

[Stuart Galbraith]

39 minutes ago, Josh said:

There should be a mandatory class at the highscool level called ‘information hygiene’ that teaches the skill set of cross checking facts, spotting false claims, etc.

I think in future years, that could be viewed as important as writing and arithmetic.

16 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

It does not matter that you did not believe it because tens of millions of Americans did believe it, and it was not true.

My buddy has often chimed in on the "Trump likes dictators because he wants to be one" trope, which is what you are touching upon in your last sentence quoted.  He can't figure out why Trump would want to get along with Putin.  In fact, Trump wants to get along with dangerous dictators precisely because he understands just how dangerous the situation actually is.  I saw the same effect at the Red Devils Clubhouse in Hamilton back two decades ago where I noticed that in any dispute my one buddy would strongly tend to side with the more unpredictable member over the more reasonable individual.

Explaining that to my buddy causes a blank look and denial, but it's one of the two big reasons why Trump wants to get along with dictators.  (The second being that dictators are able to get things done in their country quickly, whereas if you talk to somebody like, say, Canada, you have to piss around with a billion special interest groups and court challenges for years before anything gets done).

10's of millions of Americans believe they have been abducted by Aliens, Elvis faked his own death and Nasa didnt land on the moon. Shall we believe those too?

You treat belief as if its an actual physical reality. You would be absolutely amazed at the kind of shit people believe, without anything more substantive than twitter to go on.

I didnt say Trump aspired to be a Dictator, I said he respects them. Why? Because they remind him of Daddy, and if that seems a curiously banal view of Dictatorship, Id say its a perspective that is wholly in keeping with the man.

Edited October 24, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith