brainpanhandler » 19 Dec 2019 19:46 wrote:How fucking awesome is it that this thread has sat idle since December 15th?
The following is getting enshrined in the Original RI Quotes thread:
stickdog99 » Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:59 pm wrote: The Democrats are down by four points with just a minute left on the clock, but they have the ball first and goal on the one foot line. And out comes their Charlie Brown and Lucy field goal unit.
I listened to a lot of it on the radio. I kept fantasizing about someone, anyone, going off script, at all, even a little bit. I mean you've got some live national air time. And if I have to hear "no one is above the law" one more fucking time I am going to break something.
The radio silence was odd, no? As if Charlie actually kicked that field goal, and the crowd here had nothing to bemoan for a few days. Obviously, though, long term, the impeachment won't accomplish a thing. If anything, given the ferocious because-fuck-you-that's-why attitude of his reactionary base, it'll make his re-election more likely. Too bad the Democrats can't attack him on Epstein because half of that rifle's double barrel is aimed right back at themselves.
That would be an interesting floor debate.
I'm assuming few if any here ever read such a right wing online rag as PJMedia, but a conservative FB friend posted an excerpt from a piece two years old now which has an interesting angle. Wondering what the RI take on it would be.
Trump knows that the press isn’t trusted very much, and that the less it’s trusted, the less it can hurt him. So he’s prodding reporters to do things that will make them less trusted, and they’re constantly taking the bait. They’re taking the bait because they think he’s dumb, and impulsive, and lacking self-control — but he’s the one causing them to act in ways that are dumb and impulsive, and demonstrate lack of self-control. As Richard Fernandez writes on Facebook, they think he’s dumb because they think he has lousy taste, but there are a lot of scarily competent guys out there in the world who like white and gold furniture. And, I should note, Trump has more media experience than probably 99% of the people covering him. (As Obama operative Ben Rhodes gloated with regard to selling a dishonest story on the Iran deal, the average reporter the Obama White House dealt with “is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns.” In Rhodes’ words, “they literally know nothing.”)
The counter-move for the press isn’t to double down on anti-Trump messaging. The counter-move is to bolster its own trustworthiness by acting more neutral and sober, and by being more trustworthy. If the news media actually focused on reporting facts accurately and straightforwardly, on leaving opinion to the pundits, and on giving Trump a clearly fair shake, then Trump’s tactics wouldn’t work, and any actual dirt they found on him would do actual damage. He’s betting on the press being insufficiently mature and self-controlled to manage that. So far, his bet is paying off.
That’s too bad. If we had a better press, we’d be much better off as a nation. But we don’t.
To me, that all rings true, mostly. The evil douchebag buffoon seems to know what he's doing in a certain regard. The opposition's tactics haven't worked yet, clearly, and still aren't working, so far. They keep backfiring. Is this why?
