Donald Trump's 2016 General Election Campaign

“I didn’t know” is by definition an admission of ignorance, without having to get into details. He admitted ignorance, considered it a virtue that absolved him of direct responsibility, and then goes and lectures Trump on the same subject.

It is clear that Obama considers academic ignorance to be a bigger sin than operational ignorance. “Hey, I know constitutional law, I know that global warming is caused by humans, and I know that Iran is a Persian, not Arab country. I have no idea that the VA is falsifying wait times in a widespread manner, I’m ignorant of the progress of my health care website, I am unaware that conservative groups are being targeted by the IRS, and I’m completely unaware that my administration is stonewalling FOIA requests and that this is going on in nearly every department. And I certainly know nothing about spying on foreign leaders. But hey, I got an A in economics and Trump got a D! Neener neener!”

Well, if we’re going to put things in quotes that no one ever said, I’ll just quote you not saying “Pay me no mind, folks, I’m really just here to advertise for the Republican party!”

So a petition with the names of UK citizens goes in the dustbin, but a bunch of ‘likes’ (or dislikes) for a Youtube video, most of which are probably not from UK citizens, does not. What a joke.

So a President must never say “I don’t know” about anything? And no other President has said “I don’t know” about anything ever?

Or are you saying that Obama says “I don’t know” more often than others? If so, cite. Otherwise, I don’t believe you at all and will assume that this is just more adaher fantasy stuff.

90 Likes + 181 Dislikes over almost 5 months isn’t exactly going viral, either.

Wait…we can now make arguments by just fabricating quotes?

“I’m too arrogant and willfully ignorant to be President.” - Donald J. Trump.

P.M. Carpenter, a blogger I’ve cited a few times here (much to someone or other’s annoyance, but fuck it) has a nice rundown of the way to destroy The Donald. He first cites Charles Blow’s latest column, which makes trenchant observations about Drumpf, but then pivots to handwringing about how difficult it is to take on someone so shameless, who practices “asymmetrical warfare”.

Carpenter scoffs at this last notion, rightly in my view. He quotes from a New Yorker piece in 2011, recapping the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, at which President Obama got in some good burns against Drumpf:

Carpenter concludes:

Now, that’s not to say that Hillary should necessarily do the job herself. But she will have a running mate, and any number of other surrogates who can needle Drumpf on her behalf. And he will respond by blowing his top, and look so very thin-skinned, and weak, and unmanly, and just pitiful, in the way that makes you just cringe and look away. That will, I think, be more repellant to many voters (the most important ones, who are actually on the fence) than his aggressive and hostile demagoguery, or even his racism and sexism, which people normally think of as his most salient negative attributes.

“Republicans are uniformly racist.” - Reince Priebus

“I’m pro-life in order to punish women. I hate women.” - Ted Cruz

Whee, this is fun!

But somehow I don’t think anyone finds my “quotes” compelling.

Well, when you put it that way . . . the former is a much healthier attitude than the latter, isn’t it? Far better not to just assume you have to take shit because that’s how life is. Because that’s how life isn’t – the shit can be changed.

Fighting drug use leads to nothing good, we’ve already seen that.

Plus, you know, Freedom. I thought conservatives wanted people to make decisions about their own lives and have the government leave us alone. Now, SA is advocating more funding for people who* want *treatment for their addictions, I think that’s an idea everyone can get behind.

Are there enough of you left now to do it? ISTM that the New New Left could use a bit of help from old New Lefties. Only, you have to refocus, none of that New Left social-cultural Marcuse shit, it’s all about Old Old Left economics now, redistribution of the wealth, reviving organized labor, breaking the disproportionate political power of the 0.01% and the 1% and the 10%, not sexy stuff but a lot more important now than it was in the '60s.

I think a bit of Godwinization is entirely appropriate here. Hitler was not a “failed artist”, rather, his whole public career was a form of performance art.

But, OTOH, Donald Trump ain’t no artist. He lacks the imagination.

I said both (petitions and likes/dislikes) are useless. One is more useless than the other. :wink:

100,000 signatures on a petition can force a parliamentary debate in the UK. Yes, online petitions:

Why are the Beach Boys being lumped in with Pat Boone and Ozzie and Harriet?

I see. Setting aside whatever the hell ‘less useless’ means, perhaps you could now explain by what logic you come to the conclusion that a couple hundred Youtube comments are ‘less useless’ than more than 500,000 petition signatures.

Or not. I think I’ve actually got all the information I need to determine whether your opinions are worth paying any attention to.

I meant for this case, online petition is useless, attention-whoring, annoying, dumb etc.

Otherwise, online petitions can be very useful in a democracy for highlighting issues for discussion and action.

So you like Trump but don’t like attention whoring? That’s odd.

Attention whoring is part of politics (?), Trump is a politician.

Outside of politics, it’s not desirable.