Shakes
1mo ago
Well I guess Trump isn’t threatening anyone but merely highlighting the death penalty for treason as a thing that might happen in the future.
Shakes
1mo ago
“The mods should ban you for conduct that breaks the rules. … What? I’m not calling for you to be banned! I’m just stating the hypothetical that if you were to break the rules, then the mods should ban you. You wouldn’t disagree with that right?”
I think we all understand that this hypothetical would be disingenuous.
I think we all understand that hypotheticals often carry literal meaning. Out of the infinite hypotheticals you could be speaking, you chose this one. You’re singling something out. There’s a specific implication. The hypothetical voice is saying something.
In this case, Democratic senators are saying they want the military to violate Trump’s unlawful orders. They’re singling out Trump. They’re singling out the military. They’re singling out Trump’s orders to the military. We all understand what they’re implying. They want the military to disobey Trump.
Now, I’m sure they believe he is committing unlawful acts, in which case disobedience would be righteous. But it’s a pretty thin figleaf to suppose that, well, they’re just speaking hypothetically, they’re not saying anything really. Then why speak at all? Why that emphasis? Why now? If we pretend the hypothetical voice doesn’t convey literal meaning, we have to pretend they’re saying nothing at all.
That is, as long as someone says the magic word, “hypothetically,” they’re absolved for all responsibility. If Tanks roll up to the White House tomorrow, why, these Democrats didn’t call for that at all, unless Trump were breaking the law, in which case the thing they said had nothing to do with it.
“If Trump were breaking the law then…” If my grandmother had wheels she would be a bicycle!
Shakes
1mo ago
I think this is basically right. In addition Trump isn’t just A/B testing the base but the Republican leadership in Washington. I would guess it’s about 50/50 or 40/60 in his favor, with a little over half of Republicans still hoping we can go back to the days of “decency” and tax cuts.
Shakes
1mo ago
Somehow the United States needs to keep importing “the best and brightest” forever, or we’ll lose. What happened to the best and brightest we already imported? Guess they weren’t the bestest and brightestest.
Shakes
1mo ago
Trump’s loyalty to himself is widely known
I don’t know how there are people who aren’t loyal to themselves.
Shakes
1mo ago
This is like when Russia had Trump’s pee tapes. Or when Stormy Daniels had Trump’s blackmail. Or when the courts would finally prove Trump raped that woman in a shopping plaza thirty years ago and she forgot about it until just now.
There is no pedophile network running Washington DC, Donald Trump is neither a child rapist nor a sex trafficker, Trump’s connections to such are extremely thin and the emails being discussed don’t even show what people claim they do.
No one will remember this in a few years because the evidence is so embarrassing it expires and becomes unappetizing like refrigerated fast food. Cold French fries. Hopefully sooner.
Shakes
1mo ago
In this metaphor Democrats are Putin: the shutdown / war would not have happened but for… Maybe Zelensky should have negotiated with Russia and they wouldn’t have had to invade. Maybe Trump should have conceded what Chuck Schumer wanted, and then they wouldn’t have had to filibuster.
Shakes
1mo ago
Trump took his father’s modest low-rent real-estate empire and turned it into one of the most iconic brands on earth. He built a tower at the center of the world and put his name on it. He succeeded at real estate and then transitioned into media, to the point that the name “Donald Trump” was synonymous with the 80s. (American Psycho, Back to the Future, the Wikipedia Page “Donald Trump in Music”, “You’re Fired!”).
After all that Trump ran for President, of the United States, president, with no political experience, and achieved the most shocking underdog victory maybe ever in American history. He then made in 2024 the greatest comeback in American political history since Nixon. And is probably the most consequential President since Nixon, if not since FDR.
“Replacement Level CEO”? Look at the objective facts of this man. Fred Trump owning some apartment buildings in Queens did not put Donald Trump on a guaranteed collision course with Michael Jackson and Mohammed Ali.
I sometimes feel as though the perception of TDS and “the MAGA cult” has created this third strain middle wave Trump revisionism that has to somehow desacralize him into being just some guy. Well, let’s not exaggerate, we have to be reasonable and acknowledge Trump’s flaws, he’s just a man after all… In some sense the TDS people have a more accurate view of Trump’s importance. “Replacement Level”? Trump is a Great Man of History. Acknowledging that doesn’t preclude us from discussing his failures in the same way we can acknowledge that Napoleon gave too much preference to his family or that Washington was actually mediocre at tactics. But Trump is undeniably a great man. And we’re fascinated by him.
Is that the same as James Bond? Trump is certainly a character that represents a huge domineering vision of the future. Maybe that vision doesn’t speak to you specifically, but it has completely changed the arc of American right-wing politics. Trump inspired hundreds of millions of people with a new vision for success. Maybe that’s not the same as James Bond, maybe the media category is a separate field and Jason Bourne and Liam Neeson are all derivatives and we still haven’t moved on from Sherlock Holmes. The sex(-less) appeal is all in video games now and Mario and Pikachu aren’t ideas of the Renaissance Man.
But in the real world the 2020s are full of colorful men-of-action, the fascination of the Tech CEO, scrying not the CCP but Xi Jinping, “Putin’s War,” the rise of the streamer and “content creators” personalized individuated “influencer” brands. The 90s was more obsessed with the corporate archetype than we are now (The Matrix, Fight Club, Work From Home didn’t exist, what happened to all the boy bands?).
After all James Bond is just a media image, he doesn’t exist, he is one archetype bubbling up through the collective unconscious by whatever arbitrary and random process that happens. He says more about the 50s than the 90s. But there are lots of figures like Trump who speak to the 2020s and they don’t point to a culture lacking in ambition.
Shakes
1mo ago
Donald Trump is bigger and more successful than the idea of James Bond and he navigates the 2020s fine. Elon Musk too for that matter.
Shakes
1mo ago
Gait analysis is one subset of video and image analysis, which is generally pretty good. I wouldn’t convict anyone on it but it’s very good for narrowing suspects.
And in this case it’s extremely suspicious that the suspect lives next door to the guy registered on the metro card / getaway vehicle. And neither was ever staked out.
Shakes
1mo ago
Define “they”. I think there are a lot of smart people on this forum and other places who fell for the Russiagate scam or should otherwise realize they were wrong about the Deep State. This matters insofar as we want smart people to realize what we’re up against.
Shakes
1mo ago
Image and video processing in general is very sophisticated. Much more sophisticated than the public is aware. No comment on whether this specific application is any good or not.
If only Blaze had just used good old reliable “anonymous sources”. Then we could believe unhesitatingly, as with stories that Donald Trump is a Russian intelligence asset, Donald Trump wrestled his presidential limo driver, Donald Trump called soldiers losers and suckers, etc. etc. These are all stories I was treated as some kind of crazy MAGA partisan for having the temerity to doubt.
Then — between this and the revelation of Arctic Frost, perhaps it’s time to have another conversation about The Deep State. As in, the thesis that the security state operated a slow-moving coup against Donald Trump might have been right about everything. That there really was a vast conspiracy to destroy Trump. And MAGA was right about everything.
Shakes
1mo ago
I trust Donald Trump. I imagine there were naysayers who said it was foolish to trust Alexander, or that Napoleon was just a pawn in a far greater scheme.
Shakes
1mo ago
I live in Washington DC and physically know the people running DHS Comms. These are not the people who were running DHS a year ago. It’s entirely rational for me to trust different people differently.
Shakes
1mo ago
Please state directly what you are implying without putting implications in my mouth.
Shakes
1mo ago
The security state officers that lied about Hunter's Laptop are enemies of Trump.
While it's useful to speak of "the government" lying, this is an abstraction. A government is made up of people. And it's unremarkable to trust some people over others. The people running DHS are not the people who lied about Hunter's Laptop. It's totally consistent to trust the one and not the other.
Shakes
1mo ago
It’s highly rational to start trusting the government again when people you don’t trust are replaced by people you do trust.
Shakes
1mo ago
One reason to treat these claims differently is that the people making them physically changed because we had an election in 2024.
Shakes
1mo ago
My question is mostly, is it normal for the Red Tribe to believe the "official story" over their "lying eyes?"
These stories are all the worst sort of fake news. Man detained at airport for having a JD Vance meme on his phone. Fake. Black baby zip tied. Fake. ICE kidnaps 13 year-old. Fake. Over and over again.
It’s rational to doubt the press when they’re lying. It would be irrational to believe the press stories over the trivial refutations.
A lot of IMO naive discussion under this post. Lawfare is a rigged game and discussing bias political outcomes as if they were normal legal procedures is silly.
Trump: “2+2=4”
Judge: “Actually, 2+2=5. Case dismissed!”
Commentariat: “How could Trump screw up this badly? Why doesn’t Trump have competent lawyers? Does Trump hire too many bimbos? Why was his 2+2=4 case so weak?”
Etc etc
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