(01-23-2017, 01:47 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(01-23-2017, 12:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:Well, I wouldn't underestimate his ability to get things done behind the scenes. Plus, he seems to be able to easily bait/ upset biased professionals with careless tweets and disrupt/mess up an entire news day at CNN. You guys should be familiar with the tactics that he's using against a biased group of people who are supposed to be fair and objective. I don't know who has the higher opinion of them self, Donald Trump or the liberal press.(01-22-2017, 05:24 PM)TnT Wrote: Did you catch Kelly Ann's commentary on Sean Spicer's trainwreck?
She called what he said, "Alternate Facts"
We are truly in a world of trouble with this bunch. I'm torn between hoping for two years of disaster followed by voting the whole gang out of office in the House, and hoping that too much damage is not done. The latter could result in having to watch this lunatic and his bootlickers for a whole four years.
There are any number of words used to describe Trump by those who dislike him. I distrust two of them, 'fascist' and 'demagogue'. They don't seem telling to me, though I'm not inclined at this point to argue against them.
I keep coming back to 'narcissist'. He has a high opinion of himself and reacts poorly to those who disturb that self image. Thus, he'll try to do things that he hasn't the skills to achieve while attacking and demeaning those who tarnish his exaggerated self image.
After the smear campaigns directed at Obama and Hillary, the press isn't going to coddle his self image. The old tradition of coddling the president, of hiding his flaws, is long gone. If he shows a flaw or a lie, they'll be on it. Meanwhile, I can see Congress splitting three ways. There are Republicans who will be trying to ride Tea Party coat tails, and there will be the Establishment corporate types, and... Isn't there another group? There might be a potential to make two of the three happy with him, but I'm not sure he has the people skills to pull it off.
I'm still dubious, but enough other people here are predicting doom and gloom that I don't feel the need to join them yet.
1. Mobsters do practically everything behind the scenes. One does not telegraph an underworld hit. Tyrants are gangsters.
2. The educated professionals are catching on to the patterns of behavior of President Trump before he can consolidate despotic or totalitarian power. When an analysis of the elected leader of a society that has long thought itself a republican democracy begins to look like prose out of Hannah Arendt, then beware!
Is there anything fair about Donald Trump other than his complexion? When such an Orwellian term as "alternative facts" becomes stock language, we are not dealing in objective reality.
So what is an "alternative fact"?
a. The Chicago Cubs won the 1984 World Series.
b. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1808.
c. Dmitri Shostakovich composed fifteen completed piano sonatas.
d. The Holocaust is a hoax.
e. The legal speed limit on rural freeways in Michigan is 45 mph.
f. Bakersfield is the capital of California.
g. Plantation slavery was voluntary.
h. People can choose or refuse to obey the law of gravity.
i. Sulfuric acid is a delightful beverage and excellent lotion.
j. Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
k. Barrow, Alaska has a tropical climate.
l. The Democratic People's Republic is a democracy and a republic, and it well serves the people of South Korea.
m. 2 + 2 = 5
n. The proper pronunciation of nuclear is "nuke-you-lure".
Surely you can come up with more. Some of these are harmless mistakes (Shostakovich composed fifteen symphonies and fifteen string quartets, and -- not piano sonatas; the wrong birth-year for Lincoln is likely a typo). Some are hurtful. You cannot make any one of these right without making a fundamental change in the statement.
3. Opinion of oneself means practically nothing.
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. -- Proverbs 12:15. King James Version.
A more secular explanation. Take your pick.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.