I was referring to the MSM. I guess I have vestiges of thinking of “the fourth estate” as a necessary and somewhat responsible - tho, of course, flawed in many respects - element of the American dynamic. There used to be consideration of what the public OUGHT to know, as opposed to simply whatever they will buy.
Yes. A legit 4th estate is a public service good required for the successful functioning of a genuine participatory democracy.
Most eras of world and US history that did not exist. There was a brief flowering that seems to be withering again.
I think they should report exactly what Trump says. The press should also be clear when Trump is rambling and unclear. A lot of people just read quick headlines and listen to soundbites which only serves to make Trump seem somewhat sane.
Everything he says?:
Stranger
I think they need to report on every stupid thing he says, so we have a public record of exactly how insane he is, and how so many of his supporters just ignored it. I don’t want the most powerful person in the world to be rambling in private, while his enablers pick and choose which of his inane ideas to pursue. That’s how “deep state” and “star chamber” type cabals secretly take over countries.
Yes, kind of like that.
The media has been reporting on his nonsense for the last eight years and here we are. I think the prophylaxis of public illumination has not achieved the desired goal of diminishing his support.
Stranger
For each and every item of blather, I think the media needs to ask how it will lower prices. People need to be reminded of the excuse they gave for voting for him - groceries and gas are too expensive. Well, how does renaming bodies of water give us cheaper eggs??
Trump is the gift that keeps on giving. If he is not blathering, he is napping at an event. The failing media keep covering him because he IS the show for four years. Even democrats getting some air do so because they reacted to Trump.
The press, that I saw, only ever published one interview with Gary Johnson in 2016. He seemed to get something in his throat for a second (fly?), causing him to make a funny face and pause talking for a minute.
The interview was edited, largely, just to show this part off and otherwise skipped past all of his policy, credentials, etc.
They gave him, effectively, no air time because they’d decided that what he said didn’t matter.
While I think that was malevolent, in the case of Johnson, you should post anything that any candidate says that’s meaningful and reasonably, it is correct that you shouldn’t give nonsense the benefit of your time except, perhaps, enough to demonstrate it as such.
Past that and you’re just providing free advertising and free propaganda for morons.
On the side of regular mortals, debunking nonsense is valuable and should be engaged in sufficiently to accomplish that and then moved on from.
The media has no gatekeeping ability at this point.
It’s not the 1970s. Trump doesn’t need the media. Back in the day the pols were dependent upon the media to get message out. No longer. Trump just tweets/Xes stuff out and someone will pick it up and run with it. The media that picks up Trump stuff will gain eyeballs and clicks. There’s a million choices, no one gatekeeps. Well Twitter tried by banning Trump for lying, then the richest man in the world bought Twitter and turned it into a Trump friendly place. So that didn’t work either.
I believe that you’ll find plenty of people who have CNN and Fox running in the background, fairly non-stop.
And I’d expect that a fair amount of forum posts and twitter posts track back to these sorts of news sources.
Trump had Kellyanne Conway feeding Lib-angering information in real time to CNN, throughout his first term. If you think that wasn’t to his own advantage, you’ve got something coming to you. And if you think CNN was doing it for the better of the world, rather than to get eyeball engagement and advertising revenue, than you’ve got yet another.
So my third recommendation would be that people stop paying attention to idiot chow news.
Great turn of phrase. Thank you.
I can see the ad tagline now:
Faux idiot chow; now 100% fact-free and fortified with extra outrage!
I think we need to ignore what Trump says and what the MSM publishes. It doesn’t matter what he promised, since he’s a pathological liar, and he has always been one. He’s the guy in the corner at the party that nobody wants to talks to because he couldn’t tell the truth to save his life.
Actions speak louder than words. Once Trump becomes president his actions will impact everyone. Criticize his actions, and not what thinks or says. What he happens to think or say doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things.
I don’t think we should “criticize” what he says. That’s usually pretty pointless, since it won’t affect him, and the flaws in his ideas are usually pretty self-apparent. But I do think we should report whatever he says. I think it’s important both for us in the moment, and for the history to be written later, if we have a reasonably accurate and complete record of exactly how unhinged he is/will be.
I agree, we need an accurate record of what he says and does so that we document this period in our history. What I was getting at is we shouldn’t stress about what he says and instead focus on what he actually does. He’s someone you can’t trust or believe, so let’s see what he actually does once he gets into power. My guess is that he won’t do a fraction what he’s threatened to do. He doesn’t have the balls, and now that he’s been reelected, and can sideline any federal cases against him, he doesn’t have to follow through with anything or worry about the future. He doesn’t care what people in the future think about him any more than he cares about what people think about him now.
It is important to report the significant things he says (or at least the statements that have a significant impact), but not to report every stupid, inchoate babbling that dribbles out of his mouth. Unfortunately, much of the media doesn’t seem to be able to make that distinction, such as when they spent an entire news cycle dissecting the meaning of “covfefe”. By the time it came around to the Covid response they were actively promoting his bullshit even as he was saying that it was up to the states to coordinate their individual responses. Their coverage contributed to—or at least reinforced—aversion to masking and physical distancing as well as vaccine skepticism instead of just ignoring his unfounded nonsense that was being actively contradicted by every NIH/NIAID and most state public health authorities as well as epidemiologists who have been warning of pandemics for decades and recommending preventative and control actions for dealing with outbreaks.
Trump is an expert in exactly two areas; creating hype around his personal celebrity, and spouting an unending line of bullshit that comes so fast and furious that by the time you’ve debunked one point he’s emitted three or four other lies, most of them so obviously baseless than it isn’t really a matter of finding counterfactuals as it is convincing believers to be open to logic and evidence. But the television media (and even a lot of the progressive alt-media) is in love with Trump and responds to all of his obvious nonsense because it gets them clicks, not because they are being effective in convincing Trump advocates and the perpetually gullible that nearly everything he says is lies and nonsense. You might as well be straining the ocean with a slotted spoon.
Stranger
I made sure to complain regularly about Trump, when he defunded the police just before the 2020 election. That was a genuine action that he took and it should have ricocheted through the right.
It didn’t.
Actions are deeply muted. The words win.
I thought you libs have always wanted Canada to be part of the US (or vice versa, who knows). So I don’t see why you have such a big problem with Trumps OBVIOUS tongue in cheek statements. By the way, given the utter clusterfuck that Canada has become in recent years thanks to the insane prime minister they’ve had, I would think all sensible Canadians (however many of them are left) would be incredibly anxious to escape from that place - just like millions of people have been escaping from other left wing cesspits like California and New York and fleeing to the states (red states) that still have their sanity left intact.
Secondly, what in heavens name is so ‘inane’ about the notion of the US buying pieces of land from other people elsewhere? Have we not done that ever before in our history?? I continue to be amazed and baffled by all this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation like this, where people (of a certain type) are so hellbent on obsessively hating and trashing one individual for absolutely no reason. Just how much of the barrel is left to scrape for anything nasty, no matter how ‘inane’, to be said about this guy remains to be seen.
Moderating:
You need to dial back the snark toward posters on this board.
This thread is to discuss how to respond to assertions made by Trump that he makes without evidence, much as you have done here.
Attacking posters who are discussing this because you disagree with them is not allowed. Bring your cites and evidence to show what you say is true about Trump/Canada/Canada’s Prime Minister/millions of people escaping from other left wing cesspits, etc., and you can continue to have the discussions. In the absence of sharing cites and evidence to support your arguments, you are trolling, which we don’t tolerate.
Dial it back. A lot. Discussions anywhere on this forum except the Pit require respect and courtesy to others.
Yeah, absolutely no reason.