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Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 10:45 pm

Three different Chinese places around the country called the Red Hen have received abuse.

Quality control at Trumps twitter troll farm is dropping daily. He should ask for a refund.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 10:47 pm

Also, not to disabuse people's notions about the corrosiveness of American politics, but that Judd Apatow tweet is a Hallmark card compared to many things I've read and seen over the past decade.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 10:51 pm

Jobs saved!

Harley-Davidson to Shift Production Overseas to Offset EU Tariffs

https://www.wsj.com/articles/harley-dav ... 1529927301

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 10:56 pm

Spenno, I appreciate your point that people tend to reach an inability to see anything but bad faith in one side and good faith in the other, in this internet-driven public fever pitch age of discourse, and that it is not healthy. All of that “feels” true to me, for what that is worth. I’m just skeptical about your concern exactly because you primarily seem drawn to see bias in and comment on the absolute worst actions of one side, and either fail to comment on or find excuses for the other’s.

And I say again, as I have before: I don’t pretend to believe that’s who you are. I don’t know you. I do assert that it is the nature of your recent posting in N&D’s more current event-centered threads.

Examples:

When a restaurant refuses to serve a person who is engaged in something it considers deeply, deeply unethical, it is equatable to a society-level breakdown of discourse norms. One restaurant quietly refused one meal to one political official based on what they feel are horrifically immoral acts. They didn’t broadcast their actions. They didn’t try to intimidate or publicly shame her. They asked her to leave. You see this as, and I quote, “a horrifying display of how appallingly people can treat each other.” Regardless of the underlying societal thread you see playing out, that is an absolutely hyperbolic description of a restaurant asking a person not to eat there. One restaurant, mind you, elected by and speaking for no one, making a bad choice and coming down on the wrong side of denial of service. In no way were they trying to influence public opinion or achieve personal gain. They didn’t, say, call the cops on a child for selling water. They didn’t try to equate child asylum seekers with gang members. They didn’t spit or threaten. They quietly asked the spokeswoman for an administration they feel is baselessly harming children to leave.

On the other hand…

When a president uses his communications channels to single out a private business for a slanderous attack that results in death threats, hey relax he’s just a guy doing a job and has some opinions to share. We’ve spent the last few years watching the entire Republican Party remade by Trump’s stated positions, influence, and lack of candor. We’ve seen actual, real life evidence that his norm-breaking cascades down to other candidates and to the quarter of our population that is his base. The Republican Party completely rewrote its opinion of the dictator of North Korea based literally on what he told it to believe. John McCain went from a 90% approval among Arizona Republicans to below 50% approval exactly because he attempted what he felt was a principled opposition to Donald Trump. But you can find reasons why Trump’s inciting that same base to the point of actual death threats towards others while in the office as president doesn’t fit under the same umbrella of ‘horrifying display of how appallingly people can treat each other’ that the Red Hen’s silent, stupid protest does.

Speaking of…

Conservatives sending actual death threats, targeting a business out of a sense of bitter anger, is apparently not worth commenting on at all….

…because you haven’t. You are now several posts deep in this need to express how hand-wringingly alarmed you are by a total breakdown in civil discourse, and not one of those posts is about death threats. But…

…liberal celebrities saying ‘Nazi’ on the internet has you in a tizzy. You weren’t motivated to comment when an elected, sitting US official implied that this is a second chance for racists to win the Civil War. That doesn’t give you worry. You weren’t bothered by any of the various racially charged or flat out false claims spread by supposedly legitimate conservative media, when it gets documented in this thread. Not by the president proposing an end to due process. None of that compels you to speak out about civility in discourse. You were finally motivated to sound the alarm when Judd Apatow…a man who holds the venerable title of “society’s lingering wet fart”…said a dumb thing while being liberal.

I can’t help but look back at how you recently implied that liberal immigration stances are cynical vote grabs….and then said nothing about the Trump administration purposefully deleting immigration data that didn’t justify their already-chosen aggressive anti-immigrant positions. It all begins to look to me like a greater tendency to see good faith in one side’s actions than in the others…which is exactly the seed from which the danger you are trying to warn others about grows.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 11:01 pm

BurtReynolds wrote:Nazis had an ideology. Trump is a man baby with some power.


Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism...

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 11:04 pm

McP: I don’t think it’s remotely fair to infer anything from my silence about one issue or another; it’s the nature of a messageboard for people to drop in and out of conversations as time or circumstances permit.

(Case in point, I’m standing on a train platform right now and only barely skimmed your post, so haven’t had a chance to read it in detail.)

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 11:06 pm

Birds in Hell wrote:(Case in point, I’m standing on a train platform right now and only barely skimmed your post, so haven’t had a chance to read it in detail.)


Wait until you get to the part where he compliments someone's eyeshadow.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 11:45 pm

Birds in Hell wrote:McP: I don’t think it’s remotely fair to infer anything from my silence about one issue or another; it’s the nature of a messageboard for people to drop in and out of conversations as time or circumstances permit.

(Case in point, I’m standing on a train platform right now and only barely skimmed your post, so haven’t had a chance to read it in detail.)

I do specify that I’m talking about observable trends in behaviors, rather than trying to draw conclusions about who you are as a person, and am doing so specifically because it relates to my issue with your message.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 11:47 pm

Birds in Hell wrote:
dimejinky99 wrote:
McParadigm wrote:
McParadigm wrote:Oh, man. Millions of conservatives are going to be vociferously angry about the slippery slope into total incivility that a sitting president attacking a small business owner and slandering their establishment represents. Right?

Right??!?




Hey Spenno?

Trump's post is bad, but not because I find it objectionable that a President is publicly grumpy about a restaurant acting in a really appalling way towards one of his staff*, but because it's rude of him to suggest the business is dirty. Sarah Sanders' response, from what I saw on Twitter, was, in contrast, quite measured and gracious in the circumstances.

(* Is she part of his staff? I don't really understand the position that she occupies, we don't have anything equivalent.)

The criticism that they shouldn't use their "official Twitter accounts" to discuss this are quite strange to me, as though elected officials aren't able to hold personal views, or at least shouldn't air them publicly. I've seen plenty of British and Australian politicians share their views on all kinds of things from their "official" accounts, it would seem strange to me for them not to do so. They're only people doing a job, after all (which was my initial point about how unwise it is to act as though these things are inseparable).



Hon into work tomorrow and use your works twitter account to say something attacking another business or saying something against Aborigines or gay people and see how that goes for you.

The point being youd be fired if you did that using the companies name. The part you seem to be missing is that’s the White House now. Infested by extremely dangerous racists and homophobes


I don’t know if you’re either oblivious to that or making excuses for it but why?

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Mon June 25, 2018 11:57 pm

I mean, if the President of the United States and his Press Secretary hadn't called out the owner on Twitter I'm sure she and many other owners and employees at restaurants with the same name would be getting fewer death threats today. That seems like a pretty good reason not to do it.

But again, Trump knows what he's doing here; he told Sanders to lead with this at their press conference today. You've got to give the people what they want.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 12:18 am

Is this "society’s lingering wet fart" already taken as the caption to someone's avatar? If not, I don't want it... I need it.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 12:30 am

Huckabee Sanders

more like

Cuck-a-pee (Colonel) Sanders

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 12:36 am

Dime is the voice of reason in this thread. There's a post I never thought I'd make.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 2:52 am

Meanwhile ...

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 3:24 pm

Heh. People won't date White House employees.

https://www.gq.com/story/trump-staff-cant-get-laid/amp

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 5:13 pm

bart wrote:Dime is the voice of reason in this thread. There's a post I never thought I'd make.


I have my moments. Not many of them.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 8:51 pm

Image

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 10:17 pm

I think I see Troi's nipples.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 10:29 pm

Birds in Hell wrote:I open up Twitter and what the hell is this:



This is the kind of stuff I am seriously worried by; an inability to treat people in good faith and complete refusal to grant legitimacy to opposing political views.

If nothing else, Trump continues to highlight how unhinged and irrational the supposedly reasonable people can be when things don't pan out as they expect - and that there is no "side" to history, that we can't perceive such a thing, and it certainly doesn't necessarily move in a liberal, progressive direction.


You’re right about this. It’s exavtly what Trump wants. Kinda surprised a person of Jewish heritage would say something so absurd about Nazism.

Re: The 45th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

Tue June 26, 2018 11:03 pm

One of Trump's greatest assets is that many of his critics willingly make themselves look like complete lunatics (Russians! Vote rigging! Concentration camps! Fascism! Drumpf! 45!) to the extent that he seems, bizarrely, more thoughtful and reasonable.
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