RiverDog wrote:Glad you jumped in, ASF. I enjoy reading your takes.
Yea, you can go all the way back to Truman if you want to lay blame for the North Korea situation. It's been an open wound that's been festering for over 60 years. I'm not worried that Trump is going to push the button. All indications are that we are going to let South Korea and Japan make the call on any offensive action, and they are both extremely reluctant because of the devastating consequences their countries would suffer even if the conflict were non nuclear. The only way Trump acts unilaterally is if our territory is attacked directly. As far as China goes, they have a lot more to lose than we do if they were to break ties with us and side completely with North Korea. They're bluffing big time by threatening to join forces with North Korea if we were to attack.
I, too, believe that the events in Charlottesville were not the result of who was in office. The neo Nazis and KKK took the very public removal attempts of what they regard as "their" symbol as a slap in the face. That was what lit the fuse, not the election of Donald Trump.
One thing that Charlottesville did was that it brought out just how much of a racist Trump is. If anyone had any doubts, they should be erased by now. I'd be curious if savvyman and monkey have changed their opinions in light of recent events.
I don't think Trump is a racist. I think he is a cantankerous prick that likes to court controversy and fight with the media to make himself relevant. I mean if the Democrats and left wingers didn't have stuff like this to talk about, Trump may actually have to get stuff done. Right now, he's playing the left and the entire media for idiots by getting them to focus on stupid stuff like his comments on a stupid protest than on actual important policy decisions involving economics. This is Trump playing using garbage to play the left wing, Anti-Trumpers like a fiddle. Shift their wrath and ire and most importantly their attention to idle foolishness that won't have any long-term impact on anything, while he diverts attention away from real economic policy failures.
If Trump spends four years in office sparring with the left wing media and Democrats over comments about a protest he wasn't at and didn't have anything to do with or tweets on his twitter, he wins every time because he doesn't have to actually do anything that involves real policy. Every time Trump has a real policy failure, he starts some Twitter fight or says something controversial and everyone forgets the policies he's actually supposed to be enacting. We get a deluge of commentary on social issues he has next to no control over and nothing to do with because Americans are more interested in their president talking nice than being effective. Right now, Trump is nothing more than a social media target of discussion that the media clamps on to like a dying creature grasping to life (ratings).
If Trump wins a second four year term flimflamming the American people on both sides of the political spectrum through the use of social media while avoiding having to actually enact effective policy, he wins all day, 365 days a year. Look even in this forum, there are people here that act like the man is the worst thing ever based solely on his words, not his actions. Not one of notices things like when he paid for some singer's hotel stay when her brother died or all the people he's helped make money or anything he's done that has been helpful to this nation, it's all about his words. He's winding the world up with Twitter in a way no one else in history has ever done. He's fighting with the media distracting from any real issues. He's having a blast and winning all day triggering the left and right with his torrential Twitter and word attacks. He hasn't done anything really, yet I've never seen such consternation, derision, and generally pathetic overreactions based on a war of words that haven't had any real effect on America or the world other than to wind people up. Even his climate stance has had no effect on things and won't. The beauty of the climate change people is that they never actually have to prove their apocalyptic view in thelr lifetime. It's just what will eventually happen at some undetermined point in the future that we must spend billions of dollars preparing for. Those billions somehow winding up in the pockets of Democrat and climate change supporting publically traded companies getting government subsidies for what they're doing. If it all fails to help in the end. they'll just shrug and say, "We tried." While they enjoy the millionaire/billionaire lifestyle from the money they generated by winding up the climate change doomsday scenario followers...like a religious cult taking money from their followers. But of course it's based on science, so it must all true and perfectly real. The theory part never possibly meaning that it could be very, very wrong. It's the beauty of mass media.
I watch all of this and realize it's not going to change. Humans like being wound up. I guess it gives purpose to their otherwise boring lives. Trump is providing bored people a focus for their sense of self-worth just by defying the man. Being anti-Trump is now a great way to look like a cool kid. And being pro-Trump is likely that way for the non-traditional conservatives. It's the most effective use of social media I've ever seen by a single man. I can't believe it's a 70 year old man that used social media to win a presidency. You would think it would have been a younger person to so effectively use social media. He has to be the greatest Twitterer in the history of Twitter.
You know what the most amusing reality is: we're still one of the best run nations on the planet. There are countries with far less incendiary figures as president that can't keep the same person in office very long. France goes through Presidents like they're Kleenex during flu season. This has been a truly illuminating period for the power of social media. We'll be asking ourselves down the road how a social media supervillain used Twitter to win the presidency.