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Post Election Thread: Democracy Dies In Darkness And You Can Help

T___A

By T___A
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Collimatrix
Collimatrix

This is just too funny not to share:

EnsignExpendable
EnsignExpendable
Toxn
Toxn

Forwarding "We will fight until the last American" as the new NATO motto.

Donward Newbie

Donward

Posted
Posted

I've never liked Steve Bannon, rightly sussing out the guy as an opportunist who jumped on the Trump band wagon after all the hard work had been done so he could revel in the limelight.

 

So now that he has gotten shitcanned by Trump's generals and is back trolling at Breitbart, I saw today that the autists there are now hawking "Bannon Fidget Spinners".

 

http://nypost.com/2017/08/22/breitbart-hawks-steve-bannon-fidget-spinners/

 

“Leftists need comfort at times like these. Gift them this pacifying item that will give them something to do in between pulling down monuments. Or keep one for yourself!”

 

The orange devices feature a photo of the fleshy-faced nationalist on one side and the Brietbart logo on the other.

 

fidget_spinner_1.png?w=300&h=278

 

Fucking LOL.

 

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Lostwingman Newbie

Lostwingman

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Posted
9 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

So Trump says he will shut down the government if Congress doesn't fund the wall?  I thought the Mexicans were going to pay for it.  Huh.

I thought the idea was always that Congress would technically pay for it while offsetting the cost with something like putting a fee on money transfers to Mexico from the US.

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Collimatrix Advanced Member

Collimatrix

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

So Trump says he will shut down the government if Congress doesn't fund the wall?  I thought the Mexicans were going to pay for it.  Huh.

 

28 minutes ago, Lostwingman said:

I thought the idea was always that Congress would technically pay for it while offsetting the cost with something like putting a fee on money transfers to Mexico from the US.

 

 

Yep.  The proposed "make Mexico pay for it" bit of the plan was either to garnish remittances or get some equivalent amount of money from Mexico by re-negotiating NAFTA, or something of the sort.  In the short term the funds could come from the US government, but the idea that a giant check needs to come from Mexico for the amount of "uno pared" before construction could commence without the entire enterprise being an embarrassment for Trump is pure Fake News.  No reason to take it seriously.

For one thing, if Trump garnishes remittances or re-negotiates NAFTA in such a way that it (arguably) pays for the wall, he doesn't need to do it right away or even before the wall is finished.  He doesn't even need to do it in a way that makes the Mexican government lose face, if the negotiations are handled delicately enough.  For example, Mexico could credibly claim that they got some sort of discount on the cost of the wall if you account for inflation and projected changes in the price of certain trade goods, etc.  The accounting on funding a wall in this manner could get extremely fuzzy, and it would be possible  to write some agreement that allows for both sides to spin to their constituents that they were clever and screwed the other guy, if that's what needs to happen politically.

 

For another thing, his supporters aren't going to abandon him just because he couldn't coerce Mexico into paying for the wall right away.  They'll be so damn overjoyed to have the wall at all that they'll happily overlook small details like that.

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Collimatrix Advanced Member

Collimatrix

Posted
Posted

Here's the uncut video of the Phoenix speech:
 

 

 

First mention of the wall is at 51:48.  A bit thereafter is the offhanded remark about shutting down the government if necessary.  It's clearly rhetorical hyperbole and not a specific threat to shut down the government (government shutdowns being theatrical to begin with).  But don't miss the crowd going wild at the mere mention of the wall.

This widely reposted WaPo article contends that the crowd thinned.  Um... maybe?  Admittedly, it's a fairly small camera angle I'm seeing above.  Maybe the more fanatical attendees sit closer to the front or something.

But I'm pretty sure they're just making it up.

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Sturgeon Advanced Member

Sturgeon

Posted
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16 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

How am I supposed to know what is "rhetorical hyperbole" and what he really means?

 

Pretend he's a painfully normal guy, instead of a politician? That's how he talks most of the time. I dunno, I don't feel like I have a huge problem with it. He's a blowhard, and we knew that before he ever announced he would run.

 

I mean, it's not like politicians say what they mean anyway.

 

 

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Collimatrix Advanced Member

Collimatrix

Posted
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4 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

How am I supposed to know what is "rhetorical hyperbole" and what he really means?  Furthermore, do his supporters know the difference?

 

Because of:

 

1)  Where it slots into the speech.  He says "believe me, if we have to <do outrageous, absurd thing>, we're <doing important thing>"  It's a stock rhetorical construction.

2)  The fact that he can't actually shut down the government.  The previous government "shutdown," which again, wasn't, was the result of Congress failing to pass a budget that would continue to supply discretionary funds for certain programs.  The Fiscal Year 2017 budget will expire in September of this year, so conceivably Trump could hold it hostage during negotiations.  If the negotiations dragged on for several weeks, some agencies would lack the discretionary funds to operate normally.  But, realtalk, that's a long, long damn way from "shutting down the government."

3)  The irrelevancy of what his supporters think.  They're clearly off in their own little world of cult worship, and quite frankly, it looks fun.  Reaching them is going to be hard, and the WaPo certainly isn't going to do it with their outrageously and obviously slanted coverage.  "OMFG Trump threatens to destroy the government!" is exactly the sort of hysterical, Southern belle fainting bench crap that they've been doing all along.

 

You know how the Romans referred to Attila the Hun as flagellum dei, the "scourge of God?"  They saw Attila as this sort of divine retribution for their sins, or something.

 

I see Trump as being very similar.  Not in the sense that he is a personal champion of The Peacock Angel, or whatever deity you approve of.  But in the sense that he punishes his opponents for making certain mistakes.  One of those mistakes is writing news in such a way that wide swathes of the population voted for Trump out of spite.  I see that the press is still making that mistake, and they will keep suffering for it until they stop.

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