Trump - Clown Genius

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Dragline
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Dragline »

ffj wrote:I am starting to grow weary of all things related to this election. Every side is overplaying their position so much that I don't know if regular people can stomach this carnival until November. The latest drama of the Breitbart reporter filing assault charges is just really bad theater on all sides. It smells of desperation to me, but I don't think Trump is handling it well. I'm curious if his anti-establishment popularity is going to hold as everybody is just getting tired of this coverage of all things trivial and the overblown responses.
The funny thing about it is that people who are paying attention to the media on the presidential race at this stage have usually made up their minds and are just watching for either confirmations of the correctness of their choice or to see the enemies falter.

The truly undecided voters don't pay any attention to this until after Labor Day, or even later, although its harder to avoid the bombardment in this day and age. Which is why we get to hear the same things over and over and over again. There's really not that much going on out there other than whatever votes are tallied in a given week.

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by theanimal »

How Trump Hacked the Media
For a further sense of how digital outlets are covering the race, we can borrow a technique I’ve used in the past, which is to record the top story as of noon each day from the news aggregator Memeorandum. The site uses an algorithm to determine which stories are leading political coverage on the Internet; the details of the calculation are somewhat opaque, but a lot of it is based on which stories are being linked to by other news organizations and what themes are commonly recurring among different news outlets. Simply put, Memeorandum is a good indicator of what stories journalists are talking about.

Through Sunday, Trump had been the lead story on Memeorandum on 104 days, or 36 percent of the time since he announced his candidacy. However, Trump is competing for coverage against not only other Republican candidates but also Democrats, along with other international and national news stories.2 Of the days when a story about the Republican campaign led Memeorandum, it was a Trump-related story 68 percent of the time

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

@theanimal--Did you see Nick Kristof's piece in the NYTimes over the weekend? [url=kristofhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/opinion/sund ... collection]My Shared Shame: The Media Helped Make Trump[/url]

I liked it (I usually like his work), especially this bit ... "We failed to take Trump seriously because of a third media failing: We were largely oblivious to the pain among working-class Americans and thus didn’t appreciate how much his message resonated. “The media has been out of touch with these Americans,” Curry notes."

Something about the whole piece didn't feel right to me, though. It took a couple of days to figure out what it was. Kristof pointed out errors the news media made wrt Trump, but he didn't see the bigger issue--that the news media itself has been too big a part of the story this election cycle. Kristof's piece (and others like it) still echo that 'it's all about me' attitude so pervasive in the media. (It's all about me-dia?) Now that candidates can reach voters directly, the news media is desperately trying to make itself relevant, and the result (IMO) has been a circus. Trump is just the performer currently occupying the center ring.



Regarding the confrontation between Breitbart's reporter and Lewandowski, someone I know at Breitbart suggested that the younger coverage team following Trump (from Breitbart and other news outlets--they work together more than most people realize) is too eager, and that, if anything, Fields should be charged with a blocking foul.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@FFJ: Yes--you are missing the myriad legal restrictions and barriers to access allowed by individual states. In many states it is still by no means easy to come by a "legal" abortion, so one would presume that it is still quite possible to undergo an "illegal" abortion, possibly even inadvertently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_ ... s_by_state

RE: News coverage. I like the Kristof article, but I think there's another explanatory factor that's a little more insidious but becomes obvious when you follow the money. It seems to me that the media coverage of Trump is partially designed to benefit Clinton, who is the preferred candidate of Big Media including Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, and Cablevision (at least according to their campaign contributions over the years).

Not only does Trump make a fairly effective bogeyman to rally the liberal base around whichever opposing candidate the media presents (which is Clinton; Bernie gets, comparatively, no airtime), the media also gets to ignore or downplay that Sanders is a liberal, non-racist, non-authoritarian outlet for a lot of the very same anti-establishment views and pro-working class sentiments (arguably more so than Trump). In other words, the media's constant Trumpeting successfully embedded the meme that anti-establishment sentiments are associated with Trump; thus marginalizing anti-establishment sentiments on the left and their flag-bearer.

Another way of looking at it: despite all the fear-mongering surrounding him, Big Media itself doesn't actually fear Trump. In fact, they go way back! He's a known entity, one they know how to exploit for their own ends just as well as he knows how to exploit them. Trump is not going to change anything in any meaningful way that affects big media execs. Same thing with Clinton. Politics as usual. Keep all that money in politics. Keep those political ads and contributions flowing.

Then they look at Sanders, who refuses to "feed the beast", who won't take or give them money, who wants to end Citizen's United, who is even more anti-establishment in many ways than Trump--and yeah, I can see why they're so eager to frame the discussion as "Look what Trump the Antichrist is up to now, oh, he's so anti-establishment--only Clinton can save us now!"

ETA: Actually, it's even more insidious than that, because remember, the media never had to present Clinton as an alternative at all. She came into the race with the biggest name recognition in politics. She was the inevitable candidate. So it's not that the media even had to present her as the alternative to Trump, per se. To benefit her, they simply had to overplay Trump and downplay Bernie, which is exactly what they did.

The same strategy was at play in the DNC when they limited the number of debates and scheduled them over holidays. People, especially democrats, "know" Clinton (or think they do). People don't know Bernie. The powers that be sure wanted to keep it that way.

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by black_son_of_gray »

jennypenny wrote: Something about the whole piece didn't feel right to me, though. It took a couple of days to figure out what it was. Kristof pointed out errors the news media made wrt Trump, but he didn't see the bigger issue--that the news media itself has been too big a part of the story this election cycle. Kristof's piece (and others like it) still echo that 'it's all about me' attitude so pervasive in the media. (It's all about me-dia?) Now that candidates can reach voters directly, the news media is desperately trying to make itself relevant, and the result (IMO) has been a circus. Trump is just the performer currently occupying the center ring.
Good point - helps me understand why the debates have been so ridiculous. The moderators often were acting like self-important ring-masters rather that just focusing on the content of what candidates said. This is why I like the PBS-moderated debates... we could argue whether and how much they are biased... but they are considerably less sensational, and that appeals to me.

Dragline
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Dragline »

black_son_of_gray wrote:
jennypenny wrote: Something about the whole piece didn't feel right to me, though. It took a couple of days to figure out what it was. Kristof pointed out errors the news media made wrt Trump, but he didn't see the bigger issue--that the news media itself has been too big a part of the story this election cycle. Kristof's piece (and others like it) still echo that 'it's all about me' attitude so pervasive in the media. (It's all about me-dia?) Now that candidates can reach voters directly, the news media is desperately trying to make itself relevant, and the result (IMO) has been a circus. Trump is just the performer currently occupying the center ring.
Good point - helps me understand why the debates have been so ridiculous. The moderators often were acting like self-important ring-masters rather that just focusing on the content of what candidates said. This is why I like the PBS-moderated debates... we could argue whether and how much they are biased... but they are considerably less sensational, and that appeals to me.
Yes, of course. The "news" business is fundamentally about entertainment, not about useful information or discourse. The watchers/readers are the product and the clients are the advertisers who pay the bills. This is why you learn more about the purpose of a particular newscast by watching the commercials from an anthropological view and thinking about who they are aimed at and what those people want to hear.

I've listened to a number of long-form interviews of writers and journalists recently, and they all say the same thing: There is no such thing as a career in journalism anymore. As media outlets have proliferated and information has become easier to access, there is really no market for serious journalistic work. It's all about entertainment, niches and who is ultimately paying the bills.

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

I guess my point (which I didn't make clearly) is that the news has gone beyond being about entertainment and has become the news itself. At first I thought it was just from the more sensational journalists, but Kristof's article made me think it is more pervasive than that. The underlying assumption in that article is that the media has an important role to play and has done a poor job of it. Kristof never asks whether the real problem is that the media has assumed too large a role and should dial it back. Even he can't seem to see how often the media is talking about the media.

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Ego
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Ego »

According to Dan Ariely, statistics suggest that I am probably a gossiping, God fearing, big car driving Trump supporter who is good at math.

NSFW http://danariely.com/2016/03/31/trump-s ... l-penises/

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

Based on what's showing in the link, I don't think you needed to add 'NSFW' :D

Dragline
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Dragline »

I think he jumped the gun by one day. I wonder how many will take the bait -- it was very cleverly amusing.

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by enigmaT120 »

I don't think so. The people who oppose abortion are using tactics similar to the ones who want more gun control -- incrementally making it more and more difficult for people to do what you don't want them to do.

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jacob »

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/02/what_do ... ideologue/

TL;DR - The thesis is that the dissonance is caused by the fact that Trump is not operating inside the imperial framework that all the other candidates and the media are.

The question is whether he realizes this? That is his alternate framework an outcome of cultural metacognition or ignorance?

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob: I know the below term has been in use since at least the 1990s since I can clearly remember my father (political independent,fiscal conservative, social moderate/liberal) making use of it and expressing his bafflement about people voting so ridiculously in opposition to their own self-interest, as though the voting booth was a wish yourself rich slot machine. Trump's Vegas styling is perfect. It's like he's smiling and barking "Step right up folks. Don't be shy. " and nobody hears the whispered snicker of "There's one born every minute."
Definition: Trailer Park Republican- Impoverished white American whom identifies himself as a "Republican" not because of wealth or fiscal esponsibilty, but because of ignorance and/or racism. (They do not necessarily live in an actual trailer park) Some identify themselves as "Tea Party Patiots."
I finally overcame my avoidance-of-all-news-due-to-horror and made myself go read what George Will had to say. Now I feel a little bit better.

Dragline
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Dragline »

Step Right Up! (from my favorite song-writer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFwRNp7NQ-Y

See also Chapter Seven of "The Grapes of Wrath"

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

I'm working with my reporter friend tonight who's in Wisconsin. He said the word on the ground is terrible for Clinton. The results won't show how bad things feel there. He said her team is spinning it hard, to the point of looking desperate.

He isn't sure how to take the Cruz victory. He's thinks it might only reflect Trump's bad week in the press.

Looks like the conventions will be Must See TV this year.

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

I was watching this peak oil documentary for another reason, but found these comments by Kunstler interesting (especially since it's 10 years old) ... https://youtu.be/Q3uvzcY2Xug?t=38m1s (jumps right to JHK's comments)

Funny how the oil problem took on a different fascade yet is still heading toward the same cliff.

------------

There's an email making the rounds in pretty conservative religious circles this weekend. It's urging people to vote for a "true Christian" and not Trump, who the email says can't possibly be one since he owns bars and casinos and "questionable" establishments (euphemism for strip clubs I think). Only one email mentions Cruz specifically. The rest leave it open to simply choosing the real Christian from among the remaining candidates and--I found this most interesting--supporting leaders who endorse the 'best Christian possible' for President.

It's going to be an interesting fight at the convention, although Trump's been doing his best lately to pave the way for someone else to step in.

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

Did anyone else think the Boston Globe's fake Trump newspaper went WAY over the line?? I'm surprised they didn't photoshop a Hitler mustache onto that front page picture. :roll:

Just when Trump started to slip in the polls, they stoked the fire again with that stupid stunt. Part of the reason Trump supporters are voting for him is to thumb their nose at the media. The media still doesn't get it.

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

jennypenny wrote:There's an email making the rounds in pretty conservative religious circles this weekend. It's urging people to vote for a "true Christian"...
:lol: And yet I'm guessing they emphatically don't mean the socialist Jew railing against poverty and economic injustice, denouncing the usurers and money changers in the temple, offering an open hand to strangers and help to the disenfranchised, warning of the destruction of the planet, getting invitations to speak at the Vatican, and being visited in the midst of a rally of 30,000 people by, of all birds, a sparrow--the only bird to stand by Christ for the duration of His crucifixion (or so I've heard).

Bernie Sanders is Jewish. He also might be the most Christian candidate in the 2016 race.

Just sayin'. ;)

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jennypenny
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by jennypenny »

Haha, no mention of Sanders. I got the email from four different conservative groups who are also predominantly faith-based. It was a reaction to Trump's comments about being a typical christian (paraphrasing). From the wording, I suspect the email was directed at one-percenters, so they wouldn't bother addressing Sanders. Clinton is that group's concern.

Many of my christian friends who are democrats are firm Sanders supporters. I can't figure out where Clinton's support is coming from. I assumed boomer democrats, but that would be my older friends and they all like Sanders. The oldest (silent generation) like Clinton.

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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Jenny: Me neither. I don't actually know anyone in person who openly supports Clinton... but that's possibly because they hear me Bernin' up from a mile away and go to ground. :lol:

She seems to hold support among minorities and older women, but I personally suspect the main common thread among her supporters is reliance on mainstream media for information.

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