Donald Trump tweeted out a video that claims that while Google promoted a live stream of Obama’s state-of-the-union addresses, they didn’t do it for him. It’s nonsense, of course. Check out the archive.org copy. Now the producers of the video could maybe get away with ignorance, because archive.org stores pages using GMT. So instead of starting at 9:15 pm on 30 January 2018, archive.org has it stored starting at 3:15 am 31 January 2018.
But is this reasonable? For one thing, they must have understood the time change to get the Obama screenshots. But just as important, anyone making such a claim would be very careful. But its clear they didn’t care. Certainly, Trump has made no retraction, and Google corrected the record within a minute of his tweet. What else is new? It makes total sense that Trump sees lies everywhere, since that is all he produces. I’ve been talking about conservative projection for many years.
More interesting is that Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit) produced an article, HOLY CRAP! President Trump DESTROYS Biased Google in One 24 Second Clip.
HOLY CRAP! President Trump DESTROYS Biased Google in One 24 Second Clip @RealDonaldTrump https://t.co/EWjx2MuXgV via @gatewaypundit
— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) August 29, 2018
That too has been up for well past 24 hours. The page has not been taken down. (I don’t agree with it, but this is how conservatives normally respond to their idiocy.) And the page has not been amended.
I’m so tired of this. This isn’t a matter of opinion. The president just spreads lies and never retracts them. And there is a billion dollar industry dedicated to supporting his lies.
Meanwhile, the Trump Cult continues to think anything out of his mouth is gospel. Have you seen this? California Man Parroting Trump’s “Enemy of the People” Line Threatened to Shoot, Kill Boston Globe Staff, FBI Says.
This is why it is so poisonous for a president to make such claims. It’s even worse with people in the Trump Cult because there is nothing to convince them to change their opinions. Trump has already told them that the press is out to get him. So they won’t believe it. I suspect that even the man who made the threats considers the press coverage a lie.
The fact is that Trump’s “the press is the enemy of the people” is identical to what authoritarian leaders always say. It’s the only way they can justify getting rid of a free press and installing a propaganda outlet in its place.
Of course, thanks to the miracle of capitalism, we already have that throughout the right. As if Fox News alone weren’t enough to destroy a free country.
Mindless Retweets
I do, however, take a certain amount of sollace that Jim Hoft’s tween generated 33 comments — all of them contradicting his nonsense. But maybe I shouldn’t be, because 67 people retweeted.
Of course, this is nothing compared to the effect that Trump had. Almost 38,000 people retweeted. After all these years of Donald Trump being very open with the fact that he is stupid, heartless, and craven, you would think people wouldn’t trust him. But no.
Can’t Stop the Con
It reminds me of how high level managers so often fall for charlitans who workers can see are nothing but useless braggarts.
Whenever I hear someone talking about how great they are, I become suspicious. But even without that, how could regular working people not see that Trump has nothing but derision for them?
I really don’t know. But I don’t think it will change. This country is doomed.
Not surprising, considering how Trump “normalized” racism
>This country is doomed.
A few years ago, I would have disagreed w/ you. Now…
I was afraid I wasn’t alone…
Nope. When from a third to two-fifths of the “citizens” are some combination of ignorant, credulous, rage-drunk, and subliterate, the ability of a representative democracy as full of veto points as ours to continue to function is pretty much close to impossible.
The GOP has created a citizenry for some version of autocracy, whether it’s fascist or feudalist or whatever. And the news organizations that should be screaming about that, sounding the alarm like a firebell in the night, have simply given up actual reporting in favor of marketing and access.
So, no, you’re not alone. The U.S. will, some time in our near future, become an Imperial Rome; the banners and inscriptions will still read “The Senate and People”, all the quaestors and tribunes and vestals will continue their offices, but they will be meaningless. Only the Princeps’ will will matter.
I’m glad I no longer have all that long to live.
Yeah, I feel that way too — but I feel sorry for the young people.
I’m still trying to get a handle on one thing that might be hopeful. When a Democrat takes over the White House, things will go back to being relatively normal. Of course, the Republicans will be screaming “Socialism!” but what else is new? However, after the Democrat, we will get a Republican that is even worse than Trump. This can’t be stable. Something’s got to give. I fear you are right: there will be a full-out authoritarian transformation of our government. But things could coast for a while — being no worse than they currently are. Not very hopeful, I know.
There’s still time. Fascism is on the rise worldwide, an inevitable consequence of leftist parties embracing the corporate class. (Don’t ever trust the bosses, it rarely ends well.) But we haven’t reached WW3 yet! And as long as we haven’t, there’s still hope.
Driving through Wisconsin last year, I got to hear via radio the classic song “Union Maid” for the first time, while passing a bunch of dead deer that the transportation department no longer has adequate funding to clean up. It lifted my spirits, knowing Wisconsin liberals haven’t given up. On this Labor Day, I hope it lifts yours: https://youtu.be/Rs5_gB582IM
I think you are right. It isn’t that fascism is on the rise because of globalization. It is on the rise because “leftists” moved way to the right and collapsed the Overton window. Certainly, there are a large number of bigots who would love Trump regardless. But there are others who would be left-wing populists who have had nowhere to go. (The fact that we talk about “left-wing populists” is an outrage. Right-wing populists are not populists.)
As Dr. Noam and many others have observed, “globalization” has been around since forever. It’s just trade, really. And one can make rules for trade which protect the vulnerable, or one can make rules which reward exploitation.
The sway to rewarding wealthy interests by “liberals” (in both hemispheres) is a reminder that capitalism, by its nature, can never stop wanting More. If liberalism kept it from destroying itself for awhile, it’ll go along. For awhile. Until some creative thinkers find a way to make those restrictions seem old-fashioned, necessary in a bygone era when capitalism was a baaaad boy, the lessons were learned, it’ll never do that again. Sure.
Then suddenly you turn around and they’re putting all their energies into stopping somebody like Senator Warren, who is merely proposing (once again) sensible restrictions to keep capitalism from eating itself. (What a wild-eyed, crazy socialist!) And supporting outright fascism if it promises more profits.
The ancient political journalist William Grieder once compared capitalism to an exotic, thrilling zoo animal that draws huge crowds, but keeps escaping its cage and mauling people. (Think the velociraptors in “Jurassic Park.”) Every time the zookeepers modify the cage, every time the animal figures out how to get loose.
At what point does it just have to be put down?
This is a point that Dean Baker has been talking about for a long time. We have the messed up situation we have because of our policies. The country has enacted policies to transfer wealth from the bottom to the top. But the way it is designed, most people don’t see it. And thus, they will vote for conservatives and neoliberals who are all in on these policies. This is why rich people will not save us. They are more deluded than the people generally.
This is something I’ve gotten pushback on often, that rich people are more deluded. Certainly they are better-educated, as a rule. I don’t think that’s worth a great deal in terms of political awareness. The biggest electoral bloc in America isn’t Democrat or Republican, it’s the people who don’t vote. Because they believe (with some justification) that “it’s all bullshit.”
I used to tell everyone I could in my apartment building to vote, I’d point out that the polling place was right across the street, a 15-second walk. I never convinced anybody to vote. And I understand why. Who got elected to this or that wasn’t going to make any damn difference in our landlord fixing our appliances. (He wouldn’t.)
That is wiser than office people thinking that if they just say all the right things and behave the right way, they can never, ever be thrown out like working slime.
Oh, good grief, the Ivy-League office person who recently told me how “my job is a candy store!” Grow the fuck up.
In my more cynical moments, I think that we are the idiots and the people who tune out politics are the smart ones. But I know that isn’t the case. When Republicans have power, more people die. It’s as simple as that.
I always look at it statistically: if I vote, that means hundreds or thousands more vote because I am symbolic of a group of people. Now in a nation that is gleefully ignorant of math, that argument isn’t very helpful. But it does help me to get up every day.
Right. I vote in primaries now, I never used to before 2008 or so. I try to participate in neighborhood political gatherings, although they’re not my crowd; I never tried before 2016.
If I’m trying harder, even if I’m failing … then what about the people who were already trying harder? They’re probably trying much more, and we’ve been seeing that — newcomers running for office, people fighting evil companies in court.
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, as a famous novelist once said. Or Yogi Berra. I forget which…