.@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!Look, no reasonable person is going to argue anything other than that everyone here is protected by the First Amendment, including Trump. He's president, but he's also a citizen, and can say whatever he wants. But there is the strong odor here of the most powerful government official of all influencing the broadcast-media marketplace - playing favorites. There's also the point I've seen made a few places today that this ups the danger level to CNN's international correspondents. It's the same principle we saw at work in the dustup - carried out on Twitter - over the basketball players:
Does Trump's tweet not send a message to the Chinese government / Communist party along the lines of, "We want our people back in situations like this, if they genuflect before me while still in your custody. If they don't, you can have 'em"?It applies here as well: "Those fake news peddlers don't pay me proper obeisance. You can harass then all you want."
But most of all, once again, it's just petty.
And this is the factor that the likes of Deroy Murdoch leave out of their lists of what has undeniably and laudably been steered, policy-wise in a conservative direction since mid-January. All those accomplishments are great, but, as I've said before, a pattern has been established, one of one or two great policy-level moves followed by one or two childish and reckless tweets that ruin the whole effect.
No, Mr. Murdoch, I don't thank Donald Trump for those things. I guess I thank him for listening to someone's advice and appointing people with actual consistent vision to implement those things, but your position comes dangerously close to outright Hannity-ism.
Beyond our debt, beyond being imperiled by threats such as North Korea and Iran, beyond the slant of federal courts, beyond the regulatory stranglehold now being loosened, this country's greatest problem is societal fragmenting. Polarization. And Trump not only fails to unify us, but by having assumed the face of what the Republican Party is all about, he allows conflation of his personal bombast with conservatism in the public mind. By the very nature of his repellent personality, he's in no position to sway anybody to the conservative worldview.
This seems to be fine with those who get enthused about him as a person. Yes, policies are, and will continue to be, steered in a more favorable direction, but great numbers of citizens (think the poll numbers for millennials who think well of socialism) will remain unconvinced that this is a good thing.
He's a clown show surrounded by some great statesmen. To be satisfied with the mixed bag resulting therefrom is to sign on to a paltry view of what an American revival should be.
Young people have always been enamored of socialism and their financially successful elders have always been aghast. So big scary deal.
ReplyDeleteAnd this Republican is a way bigger dick than Nixon.
ReplyDeleteWant socialism? Join the US military
ReplyDeleteI don't think there are any previous poll numbers that show as large a percentage of young folks digging socialism.
ReplyDeleteThe military has some unique qualities to it. People that join willingly give up their personal autonomy and discretion to be part of a finely honed fighting force.
Don't need a poll to tell us youth have always leaned socialist
ReplyDeleteThey took away your alleged socialist bennies like work and unemployment comp, even employer portion of OASI from the great mass of 1099ers Da Man has turned to in this interim period before AI really gets rockin and rollin
ReplyDeleteAnd if they want to hear mean spirits, just tune in on the AM dial which the marketing mavens mainly know, playing mostly to the paranoid
ReplyDeleteNot exactly sure what you're overall point is. Is it still that young people perennially tend to favor collectivism, or has it morphed into something else?
ReplyDeleteNot sure exactly what your point is always unsure about what my point is but to me it's a way of evasion of the reality of thread work which is that they are always morphing.
ReplyDeleteNo, if you have an actual point, you should be able to readily articulate it.
ReplyDeleteOK, Ill readily articulate it. My point is that Millenials have every reason to favor socialism, especially in these times. Even more reasons than dudes like your formerly beloved David Horowitz though they had. Get it?
ReplyDeleteYou come at me like I have no point and worse yet, am trying to evade your prying pen of truth. Bull hooey!
ReplyDeleteYour ilk is largely comprised of dicks of all sorts, mean spirited jerks that are not attractive to youth or their politics. That is, you chase them away.
ReplyDeleteYou can always tell when a leftist has run out of intellectual gas. He or she resorts to ad hominem attacks.
ReplyDeleteCalling me a leftist is an ad hominem attack. You often begin with ad hominem attacks. This is not an attack, it's the truth as I see it. I am not resorting to them either. I told you my point and you dropped the subject.
ReplyDeleteConservatives running their mouths about social security which has withstood numerous constitutional tests being collectivism and even switching descriptors from liberal to leftist, are a large part of the problem. You guys and gals are simply often seen as, well, dicks by the younger generation just as a large swath of boomers saw leaders like Dick Nixon, Spiro Agnew and John Mitchell as dicks to throw the middle finger out at. They tried to fight back with their jaded power. Guess what? They lost.
ReplyDeleteAnd the DJ Trump show with all his "great statesmen" is not faring well with our youth. I frankly resent his membership in the boomer generation. But, then again, he was never really in the arena. And all who follow him are anything but great statesmen. And all who follow those who follow him are not either. Middle finger!
ReplyDeleteI really don't know why you keep bringing up how undesirable DJT is. It comes off like an echo chamber, since it is exactly LITD's position.
ReplyDeleteRe: liberal to leftist: the term "liberal" should never have been applied to the left side of the spectrum. A classical liberal in the days of J S Mill and Ludwig Von Mises was someone who championed economic freedom.
By definition, given that you occupy a position on the left side of the spectrum, that makes you a leftist. I'm a rightist and I have no problem with that label at all.
The scene today is far beyond what was going on with Nixon, Agnew and Mitchell. There's been an exponential increase in the last few years of outright mob activity on campuses. Conservative speakers being shouted down or even prevented from taking the stage. The Yale lecturer who wrote an email about Halloween costumes and wound up being forced to resign (and her husband, an advisor, being surrounded by a mob yelling, "Who the fuck hired you?") The de-Westernizing of literature curricula. The 2015 melee at the U of Missouri. The proliferation of "queer studies" programs.This just scratches the surface.
And I doubt if any emerging generation previous to this one - pick a year: 1917, 1927, 1947, 1967, 1977 - had a 50 percent rate for favoring socialism over a market economy.
Your entire being doesn't want to be here, now. You eat pessimism for breakfast.
ReplyDeleteIt has been well known for a long time that socialistic tendencies tend to decrease with age and greater understanding of all the assholes out there running things. That is, nice guys finish last and basically buttholes rule, especially here now in 2017 AD. Somebody said once that the last shall be first though I predict bloggie has his views on that as well that fit into his zeitgeist he has to fit in with everyone else's. Buckle down on law and order! Fill the jails! It's been tried before.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have a problem with the leftist rightist dichotomy, but if it makes matters simpler for you, ok, go for it, and of course you do. Hope it works in ridding the world of all its riff raff.
ReplyDelete