Right now, the fucking moron isn’t even President yet, but the top 5 threads in P&E include 3 discussing his BS including that Canada should be the 51st state, that we should buy/seize Greenland and/or the Panama Canal, and that we should rename the Gulf of Mexico. Every morning the paper has sizable articles on such inanities.
Sure, there MIGHT be real consequences. But there also might be (I think likely) nothing (other than a continued erosion of international trust and respect for the US.)
How do you think the media (however you define it) ought to respond to his every comment? How much do you prefer that it be discussed on these boards? How do you personally intend to process the upcoming deluge of BS?
Personally, I feel it unfortunate that this reprehensible creature is able to get such outsized reactions just by spewing BS. I’m making a concerted effort to pay as little attention to his utterances as I can. My intention is to reserve my attention to specific actions that are taken. And, even then, I expect to limit my attention as much as I can.
I really wish the paper would just say, “Trump says a bunch of more unfounded stuff that he is unlikely to be able to carry through with.” Followed by a discussion of why such statements are irresponsible and have little likelihood of leading to anything. But I guess that would be thought to cross over to editorializing or run the risk of possibly educating someone.
Maybe they should just have a standing headline that runs every day:
LATEST PRESIDENTIAL GIBBERISH:
And each day they insert a verbatim transcript of the various speeches, Xits, etc. that have spewed forth since yesterday.
Video-based media should have an artificial voice reading the words while the corresponding text scrolls behind like the credits at the end of a movie.
The point being to deliver all the contents with none of the emotion of the original actor’s delivery. No editorializing beyond the self-evident word “gibberish”.
Stuff the President says is by definition newsworthy, so you can’t expect the media to ignore it. I wish they would stop “sanewashing” him; instead of reporting “Trump said the US needs to annex Greenland for national security purposes”, just quote the six or seven rambling, incoherent, lie-filled sentences he actually used to express that idea, in order to show people just how dumb he actually is.
Yeah - I get that he has the big megaphone. But it seems so misguided that he just blathers some nonsense with zero details or proposals, and then a whole industry goes into action trying to figure out how it COULD make some sort of sense, how it COULD be accomplished, and then seeking out commentary as to the pros and cons…
Let the fucker (or his minions) make a little effort to actually do something more than an off-the-cuff comment, before treating it as anything other than passing words (albeit from a powerful person.)
Except he’s not even the President; he is still President-Elect until 20 January. Instead, he is having unprecedented and outsized influence over a government he is not actually in control of. This should be a cautionary tale for those still insisting that ‘the courts’, ‘the adults in the room’, et cetera are going to moderate his worst impulses. For sure, he’s going to start tripping over his dick on his first day because despite having previously held the role he actually has no fucking idea what the powers of the office are or literally how anything works.
I completely agree with this. Unfortunately, the media is already fawning and trying to highlight anything that is vaguely ‘presidential’ just like last time when they kept pronouncing over and over that this is his ‘presidential moment’ whenever he managed to make a statement without rambling off on meaningless tangents or just speaking in gibberish. And expect it to get worse as their corporate overlords give them editorial direction to celebrate Trump so they don’t lose ‘access’ to White House briefings and other propaganda outlets.
My feelings exactly. They should ignore it. It is important news that the leader of our country proposed annexing the territory of an ally of ours, as it demonstrates his unfitness. But it shouldn’t be both-siderized into a policy that is worthy of debate. It should be presented as an objectively stupid idea that anyone with even a passing understanding of foreign relations would reject as absurd.
As far as these boards, I think we should discuss anything and everything to our hearts content in whichever way we wish. Its all about entertainment. And if raging with like minded people about Trumps latest insanity provides amusement and comradery, why not?
They just let him wag the dog all over the place, control the narrative and then just report the crazy.
It be nice if they’d ignore the b.s. and tell you what he DID NOT address.
Run down the list of issues he promised those who voted for him he was going to solve “easily” and state that he failed to give any details, progress, or plans on them.
“Trump spoke for 2 hours today. There were no mentions of consumer prices, middle class tax rates, lowered healthcare costs, housing shortages, etc. etc.”
But it might be that Trump has been privately talking with Putin (idea stolen from here), and that the deal is for us to trade a greater Russia for a greater U.S.A. In that case, while the Trump plan is highly unlikely to proceed as he envisions, it is hardly nonsense. If the conquest of Greenland, Panama, and Canada are how Trump plans for MAGA to politically survive a who-lost-Ukraine (and the Baltics?) debacle, Trump’s supposed blathering will prove to be a key marker in the story of humanity.
Nonsense. The Russians can neither prevent nor cause US success (or failure) at taking over any foreign territory.
Might trump want to grab X to distract from his giving away Ukraine? Sure. Does Russia have a helpful or veto role to play in X’s fate? Not even a smidgen.
Best approach would be to totally ignore him. “Today, in press conference, Nancy Pelosi said…Gavin Newsome said…Ron DeSantis said…Ben Sasse said…” act as if Trump isn’t even president.
Right now they are still in the jubilation phase where they have a figure who will say outrageous and nonsensical things that will drive the 24 news cycle and produce enough material for dozens of pundits and ‘analysts’ to sit at a large curved desk and argue about what “covfefe” means. The retribution comes later after Trump starts banning reporters from the White House and threatening to have them arrested if they say mean things about his staff, his daughter, or Cabinet selections. (Going after Don Jr or Eric is fair game, though.)
They’re all also hoping that Melania will wear more clothing with ambiguous phrases they can argue about, and that Barron will finally say something so they can shower praise upon him to show that they aren’t ‘biased’.
Yeah, it almost seems like irresponsible kids having fun starting a trash fire, not realizing their house and the whole neighborhood is at risk of going up in flames.
I’m talking about the media, and specifically talking heads at CNN, MSNBC, et cetera, who can’t help themselves but give Trump’s specious bullshit free press under the guise of it being ‘newsworthy’ while they virtually ignore everything else going on which is actually news. But hey, maybe we’ll have another wingnut assassinate a CEO and we can pivot back to that for a day as a light distraction before Trump threatens to nuke Grand Fenwick.
I was speaking to @Dinsdale just above my post and making the wry observation that his “kids and trash fire” metaphor applies to the current MSM just as you say. And equally to the many nihilist voters who voted for trump as a giant FU to “the system”. They have gleefully started a trash fire that they have no idea what it will burn. Nor do they have any hope of controlling it later.
Fun times.
Like you I have an increasingly bleak assessment of the course of human affairs over the remainder of my life and the next couple centuries to follow. Gonna be a shitshow IMO.