Damage Done by the Right-Wing Media in 2016

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I wonder when White Nationalists began accepting the papacy and pro-Jew Catholics as cool enough to be included in their club?

- Doc

[_canpakes]

Yet 4 other Presidents had higher rates, nice....where would you have preferred his ranking?
Either way, is it fair to measure just by quantity? Shouldn't we weigh such measures by quality as well? Like "I didn't have sex with her" seems like a 1...but "you can keep your doctor" is like a 5.

Hey subbie, this was Trump's fifth worst week for lying. Trump also took 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It's not ranking Presidents against one another. It's tracking how incapable Trump is of being honest.

subs has a bit of a reading comprehension problem. It pops up pretty often.

[_honorentheos]

The article in Reason that I linked to earlier was one of two I had read yesterday on similar subjects which revolve around attempting to autopsy the living victim that is the GOP and the nation:

The first link was a summary of this interview, which is what I had read earlier.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What- ... -of/244369

The second is a link to an interview with Rick Wilson:
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/27/is-th ... ilsons-not

A few key parts from the first link that I think relate to this thread and the meta-discussion of the forum:

Q. You’re critical of how political struggles are framed as economic conflicts. In your view, it’s identity that better explains politics.

A. This theme goes back to Plato, who talked about a third part of the soul that demanded recognition of one’s dignity. That has morphed in modern times into identity politics. We think of ourselves as people with an inner self hidden inside that is denigrated, ignored, not listened to. A great deal of modern politics is about the demand of that inner self to be uncovered, publicly claimed, and recognized by the political system.

A lot of these recognition struggles flow out of the social movements that began to emerge in the 1960s involving African-Americans, women, the LGBT community, Native Americans, and the disabled. These groups found a home on the left, triggering a reaction on the right. They say: What about us? Aren’t we deserving of recognition? Haven’t the elites ignored us, downplayed our struggles? That’s the basis of today’s populism.

Q. Is there anything inherently problematic about minority groups’ demanding recognition?

A. Absolutely not. Every single one of these struggles is justified. The problem is in the way we interpret injustice and how we try to solve it, which tends to fragment society. In the 20th century, for example, the left was based around the working class and economic exploitation rather than the exploitation of specific identity groups. That has a lot of implications for possible solutions to injustice. For example, one of the problems of making poverty a characteristic of a specific group is that it weakens support for the welfare state. Take something like Obamacare, which I think was an important policy. A lot of its opponents interpreted it as a race-specific policy: This was the black president doing something for his black constituents. We need to get back to a narrative that’s focused less on narrow groups and more on larger collectivities, particularly the collectivity called the American people.

From the second link -

Welch: So the fourth category of reasons that I hear people say that they've either made their peace with Trump or kind of like him, who you might otherwise think, "Hey, maybe he goes against your principles," is a non-policy aspect: It's that it's a great way to own the libs—I love the taste of liberal tears in the morning! The fact that he drives the media nuts is just pleasing to some people on such a basic level. Is that, in the final analysis, kind of the main glue that's holding together what remains of the Republican coalition? This kind of animus toward perceived cultural elites sneering down at their perceived inferiors?

Rick Wilson: Absolutely. And it's Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise, and the idea that owning the libs and causing people to engage in moral panics and being the party of the stompy-foot rage is a substitute for conservatism. I think it portrays an incredible sort of inferiority complex that I've seen in the party for a long time. It's the country party versus the city party. And it's the evangelicals and the social conservatives versus the economic conservatives.

This whole moment when [Sarah] Palin became a national figure and became a Fox News star, you saw this merger between politics and entertainment that was a real preview. They didn't care that she wasn't a serious person. They didn't care that her command of the English language was indifferent on the best of days. And they love this idea that you can have this crude buffoon of a president now, who owns the libs and causes these rages, and causes all this anxiety among educated elites. It's an incredible, like, "Hey, I remember my first beer!" moment for a lot of these people. They think it's a substitute for real politics at the end of the day. But it's not a governing philosophy, it's not a governing strategy. It's not something that sells you outside of an increasingly small base....It's juvenile. It's petty. And it doesn't seem serious.

Welch: Is it possible that it was always like this, and Trump was just the belated wake-up call for the likes of you to realize that it wasn't all about beautiful Burkean ideas and intellectual consistency?

Rick Wilson: Yeah, I've had a lot of moments here in the last two years where I realize that I drank the Burkean Kool-Aid a little bit, and believed that other people were serious about it and that we were trying to actually reform government in a way that would make it smaller, smarter, and better, and more adherent to the operating system of the Constitution. But I was quite obviously mistaken in that regard.

Welch: A lot of the people who are #NeverTrump heroes or #Resistance Republicans of some sort—Bill Kristol!—they willingly played to the Republican base for years, for decades, kind of winking and nudging whenever they had a challenging election coming up. [John] McCain would build the dang fence in 2010 when he was running against J.D. Hayworth, and then go back to comprehensive reform when he was safely back in the Senate. Isn't there some blood on the hands of the establishment here?

Rick Wilson: I fully admit that there were a lot of times in the last 15 years that guys like me would build ads that we knew exactly who we were talking to in the party to get them fired up. And we would build messages and communication tools that would encourage them. I write about it, almost a whole chapter, on the fact that we let this monster out of the box. And we trained it and we built it and those folks were out there.

And unfortunately, what we realized way too late was, the first side of this equation, the Democrats and the Republicans, we basically built nuclear weapons. We had this sort of deterrent effect with those weapons for a long time—we always promised we may poke our base, but we would never unleash them fully. Likewise on the other side. And unfortunately, we let Donald Trump get the keys to the missiles.

And so now he's appealing only to the furthest, edgiest core of the base. And there are some people there that I've had to come to the grudging realization that they love the racial politics. They love the ethnic politics. They're delighted by it. They think this is a winning theory of the case for the future. And I regret the role I played in some of that.

There's this philosophy we all embraced: Just win baby, say what you gotta say, get over the finish line, all that stuff. Well, eventually, there's a sort of moral reckoning on it. And in a lot of ways, my book is my moral reckoning for myself, and not just for where the party went wrong.

I think Rick Wilson captured subbie perfectly in the above. Again-

(It's) Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise, and the idea that owning the libs and causing people to engage in moral panics and being the party of the stompy-foot rage is a substitute for conservatism. I think it portrays an incredible sort of inferiority complex that I've seen in the party for a long time. It's the country party versus the city party. And it's the evangelicals and the social conservatives versus the economic conservatives.

This whole moment when [Sarah] Palin became a national figure and became a Fox News star, you saw this merger between politics and entertainment that was a real preview. They didn't care that she wasn't a serious person. They didn't care that her command of the English language was indifferent on the best of days. And they love this idea that you can have this crude buffoon of a president now, who owns the libs and causes these rages, and causes all this anxiety among educated elites. It's an incredible, like, "Hey, I remember my first beer!" moment for a lot of these people. They think it's a substitute for real politics at the end of the day. But it's not a governing philosophy, it's not a governing strategy. It's not something that sells you outside of an increasingly small base....It's juvenile. It's petty. And it doesn't seem serious.

[_Maksutov]

The article in Reason that I linked to earlier was one of two I had read yesterday on similar subjects which revolve around attempting to autopsy the living victim that is the GOP and the nation:

The first link was a summary of this interview, which is what I had read earlier.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What- ... -of/244369

The second is a link to an interview with Rick Wilson:
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/27/is-th ... ilsons-not

A few key parts from the first link that I think relate to this thread and the meta-discussion of the forum:

Q. You’re critical of how political struggles are framed as economic conflicts. In your view, it’s identity that better explains politics.

A. This theme goes back to Plato, who talked about a third part of the soul that demanded recognition of one’s dignity. That has morphed in modern times into identity politics. We think of ourselves as people with an inner self hidden inside that is denigrated, ignored, not listened to. A great deal of modern politics is about the demand of that inner self to be uncovered, publicly claimed, and recognized by the political system.

A lot of these recognition struggles flow out of the social movements that began to emerge in the 1960s involving African-Americans, women, the LGBT community, Native Americans, and the disabled. These groups found a home on the left, triggering a reaction on the right. They say: What about us? Aren’t we deserving of recognition? Haven’t the elites ignored us, downplayed our struggles? That’s the basis of today’s populism.

Q. Is there anything inherently problematic about minority groups’ demanding recognition?

A. Absolutely not. Every single one of these struggles is justified. The problem is in the way we interpret injustice and how we try to solve it, which tends to fragment society. In the 20th century, for example, the left was based around the working class and economic exploitation rather than the exploitation of specific identity groups. That has a lot of implications for possible solutions to injustice. For example, one of the problems of making poverty a characteristic of a specific group is that it weakens support for the welfare state. Take something like Obamacare, which I think was an important policy. A lot of its opponents interpreted it as a race-specific policy: This was the black president doing something for his black constituents. We need to get back to a narrative that’s focused less on narrow groups and more on larger collectivities, particularly the collectivity called the American people.

From the second link -

Welch: So the fourth category of reasons that I hear people say that they've either made their peace with Trump or kind of like him, who you might otherwise think, "Hey, maybe he goes against your principles," is a non-policy aspect: It's that it's a great way to own the libs—I love the taste of liberal tears in the morning! The fact that he drives the media nuts is just pleasing to some people on such a basic level. Is that, in the final analysis, kind of the main glue that's holding together what remains of the Republican coalition? This kind of animus toward perceived cultural elites sneering down at their perceived inferiors?

Rick Wilson: Absolutely. And it's Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise, and the idea that owning the libs and causing people to engage in moral panics and being the party of the stompy-foot rage is a substitute for conservatism. I think it portrays an incredible sort of inferiority complex that I've seen in the party for a long time. It's the country party versus the city party. And it's the evangelicals and the social conservatives versus the economic conservatives.

This whole moment when [Sarah] Palin became a national figure and became a Fox News star, you saw this merger between politics and entertainment that was a real preview. They didn't care that she wasn't a serious person. They didn't care that her command of the English language was indifferent on the best of days. And they love this idea that you can have this crude buffoon of a president now, who owns the libs and causes these rages, and causes all this anxiety among educated elites. It's an incredible, like, "Hey, I remember my first beer!" moment for a lot of these people. They think it's a substitute for real politics at the end of the day. But it's not a governing philosophy, it's not a governing strategy. It's not something that sells you outside of an increasingly small base....It's juvenile. It's petty. And it doesn't seem serious.

Welch: Is it possible that it was always like this, and Trump was just the belated wake-up call for the likes of you to realize that it wasn't all about beautiful Burkean ideas and intellectual consistency?

Rick Wilson: Yeah, I've had a lot of moments here in the last two years where I realize that I drank the Burkean Kool-Aid a little bit, and believed that other people were serious about it and that we were trying to actually reform government in a way that would make it smaller, smarter, and better, and more adherent to the operating system of the Constitution. But I was quite obviously mistaken in that regard.

Welch: A lot of the people who are #NeverTrump heroes or #Resistance Republicans of some sort—Bill Kristol!—they willingly played to the Republican base for years, for decades, kind of winking and nudging whenever they had a challenging election coming up. [John] McCain would build the dang fence in 2010 when he was running against J.D. Hayworth, and then go back to comprehensive reform when he was safely back in the Senate. Isn't there some blood on the hands of the establishment here?

Rick Wilson: I fully admit that there were a lot of times in the last 15 years that guys like me would build ads that we knew exactly who we were talking to in the party to get them fired up. And we would build messages and communication tools that would encourage them. I write about it, almost a whole chapter, on the fact that we let this monster out of the box. And we trained it and we built it and those folks were out there.

And unfortunately, what we realized way too late was, the first side of this equation, the Democrats and the Republicans, we basically built nuclear weapons. We had this sort of deterrent effect with those weapons for a long time—we always promised we may poke our base, but we would never unleash them fully. Likewise on the other side. And unfortunately, we let Donald Trump get the keys to the missiles.

And so now he's appealing only to the furthest, edgiest core of the base. And there are some people there that I've had to come to the grudging realization that they love the racial politics. They love the ethnic politics. They're delighted by it. They think this is a winning theory of the case for the future. And I regret the role I played in some of that.

There's this philosophy we all embraced: Just win baby, say what you gotta say, get over the finish line, all that stuff. Well, eventually, there's a sort of moral reckoning on it. And in a lot of ways, my book is my moral reckoning for myself, and not just for where the party went wrong.

I think Rick Wilson captured subbie perfectly in the above. Again-

(It's) Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise, and the idea that owning the libs and causing people to engage in moral panics and being the party of the stompy-foot rage is a substitute for conservatism. I think it portrays an incredible sort of inferiority complex that I've seen in the party for a long time. It's the country party versus the city party. And it's the evangelicals and the social conservatives versus the economic conservatives.

This whole moment when [Sarah] Palin became a national figure and became a Fox News star, you saw this merger between politics and entertainment that was a real preview. They didn't care that she wasn't a serious person. They didn't care that her command of the English language was indifferent on the best of days. And they love this idea that you can have this crude buffoon of a president now, who owns the libs and causes these rages, and causes all this anxiety among educated elites. It's an incredible, like, "Hey, I remember my first beer!" moment for a lot of these people. They think it's a substitute for real politics at the end of the day. But it's not a governing philosophy, it's not a governing strategy. It's not something that sells you outside of an increasingly small base....It's juvenile. It's petty. And it doesn't seem serious.

Ronald Reagan led the way.

[_subgenius]

Hey subbie, this was Trump's fifth worst week for lying. Trump also took 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It's not ranking Presidents against one another. It's tracking how incapable Trump is of being honest.

my bad, typo and poorly executed joke.
Quantity v Quality still on the table though.

[_honorentheos]

Hey subbie, this was Trump's fifth worst week for lying. Trump also took 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It's not ranking Presidents against one another. It's tracking how incapable Trump is of being honest.

my bad, typo and poorly executed joke.
Quantity v Quality still on the table though.

So is pathology.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Let's play a game. Cool? Cool.

I'm going to post a quote, and you can tell me if the quote comes from a left-wing or right-wing news source.

America, you’ve been homosexualized. You’ve been Jewdy-ized. I’m just telling it how it is. She (Maddow) was spewing out, last night, calls for revolution. She was telling the left, ‘Take a deep breath, we’re at the moment, it’s coming, we’re almost there, we’re going to remove him from the White House.’ We’re about 72 hours — possibly 72 hours — from a coup.
Be prepared that you’re going to turn on the television and see helicopters hovering over the roof of the White House with men clad in black rappelling down ropes, entering into the White House. Be prepared for a shoot out in the White House as Secret Service agents shoot commandos coming in to arrest President Trump.

That is how close we are to a revolution. Be prepared for a mob — a leftist mob — to tear down the gates, the fence at the White House and to go into the White House and to drag him out with his family and decapitate them on the lawn of the White House.

Now, I know this is a tough one, especially given that I know our right-leaning friends don't actually read posts very often, but I'm fairly certain the target demographic of that message is not only heavily armed, but pretty damned susceptible to frenzy. Have you ever driven past a Big Lots on a Day After Christmas sale or a Black Friday? When you tell a goddamn red-blooded American that a wall sconce normally priced at $12.95 is now priced at $6.95 blood will flow in the streets. Oh, yes. It'll flow.

- Doc

[_Ceeboo]

It IS an interesting quandary, the state in which the GOP finds itself. For example, I believe ceeboo and totally get where he's coming from, him as a Conservative, to want to move to a post-racial America.

I sincerely appreciate your willingness (you being someone who is politically left leaning) to be open mined enough to be able to consider/evaluate/understand where I am coming from (someone who leans politically right) - I probably should follow your example and try to do a better job of doing precisely that myself, with those who do not share my personal political views.

For clarity sake, I'm not really suggesting that America move to a post-racial America - Unfortunately, it is my opinion that there were/are and will always be racists dwelling among us.. Rather, I would like to move away from (completely eliminate in a perfect world) identity politics. I personally believe that identity politics is the major driving force behind dividing American citizens and I believe it explains most of the toxic rhetoric that is poured out on a daily basis (from both the right and the left).

for what it's worth, I also believe that Trump didn't win the 2016 election - I believe Hillary lost it and while I do recognize that the email debacle certainly didn't help her - I believe she literally lost it when she made the huge mistake of playing identity politics herself. In my mind, it was/is the number one reason that she is currently not enjoying Netflix movies on the sofa at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I think it's possible for the GOP to get there, but boy have they went the wrong way when they all these guys not only existing within the organization, but being so comfortable that they'd openly dog whistle or just flat out state what they're thinking.

The GOP ought to, purely out of a self-preservation point of view (if it's not a moral one for them), develop comprehensive and institutionalized reform where racism isn't tolerated

I agree with both of your above comments.

[_Ceeboo]

Let's play a game. Cool? Cool.

I'm going to post a quote, and you can tell me if the quote comes from a left-wing or right-wing news source.

America, you’ve been homosexualized. You’ve been Jewdy-ized. I’m just telling it how it is. She (Maddow) was spewing out, last night, calls for revolution. She was telling the left, ‘Take a deep breath, we’re at the moment, it’s coming, we’re almost there, we’re going to remove him from the White House.’ We’re about 72 hours — possibly 72 hours — from a coup.
Be prepared that you’re going to turn on the television and see helicopters hovering over the roof of the White House with men clad in black rappelling down ropes, entering into the White House. Be prepared for a shoot out in the White House as Secret Service agents shoot commandos coming in to arrest President Trump.

That is how close we are to a revolution. Be prepared for a mob — a leftist mob — to tear down the gates, the fence at the White House and to go into the White House and to drag him out with his family and decapitate them on the lawn of the White House.

- Doc

Al Jazeera?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Al Jazeera?

Close! It's Rick Wiles:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Wiles

If you read the wiki article it's very interesting the scope and breadth of his influence and with whom he shares his philosophies. People on the Right like to trot Antifa out as a bogeyman, which they're 100% justified in doing so, however the Right has a serious problem with extremism and extremist rhetoric. These guys aren't damned around, and Mr. Wiles is just one of hundreds of influential Rightists who pose, in my opinion, a direct threat to our democracy.

- Doc