Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 185: Doubly Negative

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think saying Trump is a "symptom" is really underselling it

He's certainly been causing a lot of unique problems
---

Even throwing out the "rambling idiot on Twitter" aspect because only Obama would have been president in an era where that's possible, the vast majority of Trump specific problems involve ignoring precedent. Often in a naked attempt to try to dismantle anything that is even mildly attributable to his predecessor in ways no modern era president has, but sometimes in shit dating back to WW2.
---

I'm not saying trump isn't worse than what came before him but he absolutely is a symptom of what has been going on in the country for a long time. He is awful and doing awful things but presidents have been doing awful things for...as long as there have been presidents. Trump may be doing more awful things than usual, but most of it is just a lot more transparent than what people before him would have done.

It's all nice and easy to just act like he is some unique force, that Russia is to blame, that America wasn't this bad before trump but that just isn't true. He is awful and does awful things, yes. But he isnt that far removed from whats happened before him. It's just shocking and eye opening to see it done so brazenly.

I'm not trying to discredit Russia's involvement, these are serious things that absolutely warrant investigation and consequences and absolutely are a threat to the country. But Russia wasn't the cause of this. At best they helped push it along but more realistically they just hopped on for the ride to get a good deal out of it.

And while the media and basically everyone is caught up in the Russia news cycle and trumps Twitter feed, things that are just as important/arguably more important are getting swept under the rug. Like the thousands of people getting killed in Yemen by us-sanctioned troops, something that started while Obama was still in office
---

pxlated posted...

Like the thousands of people getting killed in Yemen by us-sanctioned troops,

Source?
---

Corrik posted...

pxlated posted...

Like the thousands of people getting killed in Yemen by us-sanctioned troops,

Source?

Literally just Google Yemen war and pick any of the multiple links

The Saudis have been attacking Yemen for 3 years
---

Nobody said Russia was the "cause"

But just hand-waving them as "It's not that big a deal because this other stuff" isn't any better

Like, it's nice to say "Trump is a symptom, not the problem" but for a lot of things, Trump IS a problem, and so just dismissing him as a symptom of something bigger is not good

"Other presidents did bad things" is a poor argument
---

pxl didn't say the Russia stuff wasn't a big deal
---

HashtagSEP posted...

Nobody said Russia was the "cause"

But just hand-waving them as "It's not that big a deal because this other stuff" isn't any better

Like, it's nice to say "Trump is a symptom, not the problem" but for a lot of things, Trump IS a problem, and so just dismissing him as a symptom of something bigger is not good

Except i didn't actually do any of those things.

I repeatedly made it clear that I'm not dismissing those issues.

Also trump being a symptom of a bigger problem doesn't mean he isnt also a problem.
---

I agree with pxlated 100% here. Trump is a unique problem, but he's also a continuation of hundreds of problems that existed before him. Fixing just the former won't help all that much.
---

The media is caught up on Russia and Trump because that is a problem that needs addressed and can (should) be addressed right now. The media should be focusing on it. Yeah, there's other stuff happening, and bigger problems with the government in general, but the media suddenly switching to "btw look at Yemen" is not only not going to help what's happening in Yemen, but is also a pretty damn good "See? It's not me, it's government!" distraction for Trump.
---

I'm not saying we need to ignore the hundreds of other problems, but it's not something so readily fixed.

Yeah, the the whole hand is infected. But instead of jumping straight to sawing the whole thing off which may never even happy, we should at least cut off the rotting finger first.
---

And while people here might not be saying Russia caused trump, there's definitely a feeling among a lot of people (in general, not specific to this topic necessarily) that proving Russia's ties to trump or otherwise ousting him is the biggest priority in solving our problems. And honestly I just dont think thats true. It definitely needs to be done, but its not going to solve the deep seated issues the country has.

To use a cliche, I think too many people cant see the forest through the trees.
---

pxlated posted...

And honestly I just dont think thats true. It definitely needs to be done, but its not going to solve the deep seated issues the country has.

No, but we can't begin to even attempt to solve the deep seated issues if Trump's there, either.
---

Like, yeah, there's a forest of issues, there.

But not only is Trump planting thousands of trees a second, he's also basically standing guard to make sure nobody can even see the forest to begin with, and the Republicans are allowing him to do it.

We can throw footballs into the forest, but we can't do anything about it until we get rid of what's in front of it.
---

HashtagSEP posted...

The media is caught up on Russia and Trump because that is a problem that needs addressed and can (should) be addressed right now. The media should be focusing on it. Yeah, there's other stuff happening, and bigger problems with the government in general, but the media suddenly switching to "btw look at Yemen" is not only not going to help what's happening in Yemen, but is also a pretty damn good "See? It's not me, it's government!" distraction for Trump.

I absolutely disagree with this entirely. If the Yemen stuff got serious news coverage it might actually put pressure for it to be addressed. And I dont think it gives trump an out in the slightest. It's not like people arent going to be mad at trump for not dealing with it in a better way. Nor is it going to stop the coverage of the Russia stuff. News outlets can cover multiple stories effectively. They used to do it just fine. The investigation will continue regardless of the media covering it. And it's not like having the majority of the media's attention on it will help Mueller and his team at all. In fact, i would say its less likely that coverage of Russia does anything to help than coverage of Yemen would.
---

If anything, it can be argued that constant coverage of Russia is harmful overall. Not that i entirely agree with it but comparisons to McCarthyism arent unfounded
---

You don't think, for one second, that if the Yemen stuff got serious coverage, it wouldn't turn into "This started under Obama and the Democrats won't let us stop it!"?
---

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered.

Ignoring it definitely won't make it go away. And the same people that would believe that the democrats are the reason trump isn't doing anything are the same people that will never be convinced trump is involved with russia, or that trump needs to go. It's no different in that regard.

Raising awareness is only ever a good thing. As corrik just proved, plenty of people are completely in the dark about what's going on.
---

That said, I do agree that getting rid of Trump won't solve much, either. It's a very necessary step in the right direction, and one that very likely needs to happen first for any progress to be made whatsoever, but the bigger issue is the partisanship. Both sides are full of morons.

Yemen gets coverage
Trump: "Obama started this, and the democrats won't let us stop it!"
Conservatives: "Fuck you, liberals!"
Republicans suddenly propose something to "fix it" that fucks up a bunch of other shit.
Liberals: "Fuck you, conservatives!"
Democrats refuse to play ball.

Repeat.
---

HashtagSEP posted...

That said, I do agree that getting rid of Trump won't solve much, either. It's a very necessary step in the right direction, and one that very likely needs to happen first for any progress to be made whatsoever, but the bigger issue is the partisanship. Both sides are full of morons.

Yemen gets coverage
Trump: "Obama started this, and the democrats won't let us stop it!"
Conservatives: "Fuck you, liberals!"
Republicans suddenly propose something to "fix it" that fucks up a bunch of other shit.
Liberals: "Fuck you, conservatives!"
Democrats refuse to play ball.

Repeat.

I mean, that's definitely true. But its not like the exact same thing doesn't happen with the Russia stuff. At least if Yemen was getting more media attention, it would reach more reasonable people that are unaware of it.
---

pxlated posted...

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered.

Ignoring it definitely won't make it go away. And the same people that would believe that the democrats are the reason trump isn't doing anything are the same people that will never be convinced trump is involved with russia, or that trump needs to go. It's no different in that regard.

Raising awareness is only ever a good thing. As corrik just proved, plenty of people are completely in the dark about what's going on.

To be perfectly fair, Corrik is lumped in with the people you speak of in the paragraph above it. Corrik doesn't know about it because he doesn't want to know about it and will likely deny it's a problem.

I'm not saying raising awareness is a bad thing. I'm just saying the Russia/Trump stuff isn't bad, either. and I think saying Trump is just a symptom of bigger problems is kind of far off base. Yeah, there are bigger problems, but Trump isn't a symptom of them. Trump is a symptom of a different kind of horrible.
---

pxlated posted...

HashtagSEP posted...

That said, I do agree that getting rid of Trump won't solve much, either. It's a very necessary step in the right direction, and one that very likely needs to happen first for any progress to be made whatsoever, but the bigger issue is the partisanship. Both sides are full of morons.

Yemen gets coverage
Trump: "Obama started this, and the democrats won't let us stop it!"
Conservatives: "Fuck you, liberals!"
Republicans suddenly propose something to "fix it" that fucks up a bunch of other shit.
Liberals: "Fuck you, conservatives!"
Democrats refuse to play ball.

Repeat.

I mean, that's definitely true. But its not like the exact same thing doesn't happen with the Russia stuff. At least if Yemen was getting more media attention, it would reach more reasonable people that are unaware of it.

I'd actually argue that based on how some conservatives reacted to Trump practically saying "I'm Putin's bitch" on national television, that if proof came out, it would move the meter a bit. The issue isn't that people don't believe proof, it's that they believe there is no proof yet. And to be fair, there isn't.

And yeah, getting the word on other terrible things out to more reasonable people is good, but they can't really do anything about it until the current situation changes.
---

I guess the ultimate point I was trying to make is that, the Russia stuff is going to be resolved how it's going to be resolved regardless of how much media coverage it gets. It should be covered, yes, but when that's the only thing anyone talks about, not only do other things get ignored and swept under the rug, but it can breed hysteria and paranoia, and give people the wrong idea about what problems we are truly facing.

My worry is that people get so swept up in anti Russia sentiment that when its dealt with, the masses think "Oh okay, well that's over and done with, we're good now" and grow complacent.
---

I think it would be helpful if we could stick to an issue long enough to get resolution. So many scandals fall by the wayside simply because the collective attention turns to the newest thing at the exclusion of everything else.

There should be more than 1 important issue at a time.

.

But by that same token there are simply too many things happening in the world to give adequate attention to literally everything.
Especially since i feel like the average American has less room in their attention span for multiple issues as compared to those of us who care about what's happening in politics.

In short, its not a problem i see an easy solution to.
---

Conversation reminds me of this:

https://arousinggrammardotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/novaknowhere2.jpg?w=590&h=937
---

I guess my point is mainly... Yeah, I completely agree that there's horrible stuff going on past Trump. But reasonable people that want to know about it are going to know about it, whereas unreasonable people that don't are just going to use it as ammo and to deflect. So then you have the reasonable side going "Yeah, it's awful, isn't it?" while the unreasonable side is going "Look at this terrible thing Obama did! Look at that instead, not at Trump!" and it's not really helping anything.

My concern is just that pushing stuff like that harder in the media doesn't do much except "Look at this thing we can't do anything about" and would be used as nothing but a distraction by the right.

Though that's coming from the opinion that 90% of the people that don't know about it are ignorant on purpose and/or just don't care in the first place. I could be wrong, of course.
---

HashtagSEP posted...

pxlated posted...

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered.

Ignoring it definitely won't make it go away. And the same people that would believe that the democrats are the reason trump isn't doing anything are the same people that will never be convinced trump is involved with russia, or that trump needs to go. It's no different in that regard.

Raising awareness is only ever a good thing. As corrik just proved, plenty of people are completely in the dark about what's going on.

To be perfectly fair, Corrik is lumped in with the people you speak of in the paragraph above it. Corrik doesn't know about it because he doesn't want to know about it and will likely deny it's a problem.

I'm not saying raising awareness is a bad thing. I'm just saying the Russia/Trump stuff isn't bad, either. and I think saying Trump is just a symptom of bigger problems is kind of far off base. Yeah, there are bigger problems, but Trump isn't a symptom of them. Trump is a symptom of a different kind of horrible.

Trump isn't the result of just one thing though. He isn't just a Republican problem. The democrats are part of how we got here too, and not just because of dealing with a Republican problem poorly. They are directly complicit in getting us here too.
---

Jakyl25 posted...

pyresword posted...

Russia is engaging in a highly involved and sophisticated campaign to divide our society and create chaos/discontent

And most importantly, successful

If we are meddling in their elections then we stink at it by comparison

Wait for it, Putin will soon be releasing emails documenting how Bill and Hillary Clinton got him elected in 2000. But you see, now that he doesn't need them anymore, he's not going to repay the favor!
---

The Mana Sword posted...

wait when did we get 4 more angry democrats

I think he increased the number a few days ago. Within the last week. No clue why.

Re: Trump/Russia

In my opinion, Trump is essentially the logical progression of a process started at least as far back as the Southern Strategy, with occasional acceleration provided by things like the Republican Revolution of 1994 and the conservative reaction to Obama. So, in that sense, yes, there are underlying conditions here that led to this present that have been around long before Trump. To list a handful of them: nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and populism. Obviously these will still be around even after Trump leaves office and they are things that need to be addressed.

However, I do rather strongly disagree with the idea that that means the Russian meddling in the election (and political discourse at large) are not also a big deal and a major problem that need to be addressed and reckoned with. Obviously they placed a large focus on exacerbating the existing divides within American culture and that state only existed because those divides were there previously, but I'd argue that Trump's election is itself another acceleration on that progression I noted earlier. Already we've seen the separation of families and allegations of abuse within those camps, the emboldening of white supremacists and nationalists as with Charlottesville, and the erosion of American credibility on the world stage (which for better or worse also makes it much, much harder for future administrations to undo the damage.)

Yeah, ultimately it's going to come down to Mueller's findings and then Congress, but I don't believe we can really effectively begin to even try to address the underlying issues with Trump in office and the GOP in full control of the government. And since Congress (nominally) responds to the pressure of the general electorate, it is important that the public is kept informed and engaged on this issue. I mean, in a sense, Guliani gave away the game weeks (months?) back when he said in an interview that the jury would be the American people.

I feel like I had more to say here but lost my train of thought somewhere along the way.

pxlated posted...

Trump isn't the result of just one thing though. He isn't just a Republican problem. The democrats are part of how we got here too, and not just because of dealing with a Republican problem poorly. They are directly complicit in getting us here too.

Can you elaborate? The Democrats certainly have their faults but what is their role in Trump specifically?
---

The one core aspect of Trump that helps propel him is absolutely true: his claim that the media is bad. It absolutely is.

Now once you start to build on that, by calling it fake, or positioning yourself as the superior alternative, it falls apart; but the underlying idea that any media company operating in a for-profit economic system is inherently broken as a neutral public voice is a reality.

The grim realities surrounding the Saudis and Yemen, or Israel and Palestine, being less exposed than other items of more interest to the average American (and thus more lucrative to the news networks) is the obvious evidence of that.

Trump was savvy enough to seize on that, and craft a persona around being the antidote. An amazingly flimsy persona IMO but an effective one nonetheless, because too many people dont grasp what a false dichotomy is.
---

Jakyl25 posted...

The one core aspect of Trump that helps propel him is absolutely true: his claim that the media is bad. It absolutely is.

well, he doesn't claim "the media" is bad - he specifically goes after CNN, among others.

he regularly praises fox even though they're a bottom of the barrel news outlet, whether you look at the MSM or the media in general.
---

Again, I've never said that the Russia stuff wasn't important or a big deal or a threat, or that trump isn't worse than those before him. I've repeatedly said otherwise.

And, among other things that take more effort to go into than I have right now despite probably being more important issues(general corruption via corporate interests, the Democratic party moving right to court republicans[around thebill Clinton era], pushing the republicans farther right, etc etc), the most obvious and easy to point at thing is the pied piper strategy employed in the last election
---

Mr Lasastryke posted...

well, he doesn't claim "the media" is bad - he specifically goes after CNN, among others.

he regularly praises fox even though they're a bottom of the barrel news outlet, whether you look at the MSM or the media in general.

Thats part of my point about it all falling apart once you build on the basic message. Playing favorites based on their coverage of yourself is obviously not going to hold up under scrutiny (except for the fact that his supporters feel similarly aggrieved that the other networks act like its a bad thing to hate immigrants.)
---

pxlated posted...

the pied piper strategy employed in the last election

The what?
---

Mr Lasastryke posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

The one core aspect of Trump that helps propel him is absolutely true: his claim that the media is bad. It absolutely is.

well, he doesn't claim "the media" is bad - he specifically goes after CNN, among others.

he regularly praises fox even though they're a bottom of the barrel news outlet, whether you look at the MSM or the media in general.

I mean, yeah, he does. CNN probably gets the most of it, but the NYT and Washington Post aren't that far behind. And he does occasionally go at MSNBC, NBC, and CBS too. It's only Fox, and more recently, Sinclair that he excepts from that.

And he often refers to them as "the media" so even if it also happens to be the case that in actuality he has an exception or two, he absolutely does claim "the media" is bad.
---

And again, I'm not saying the Russia stuff and general anti-trunp news shouldn't be covered and discussed. I just think that putting the sole focus on it probably has negative repercussions in the long term.
---

redrocket posted...

pxlated posted...

the pied piper strategy employed in the last election

The what?

The idea that they wanted Trump to win the Republican primary thinking he'd be an easier opponent.

Which isn't entirely false, but do we know if they actually committed resources to that end beyond just stating it? I don't recall any concrete instance of it, whereas I can note cases where say, McCaskill bought ads in a Republican primary to try and "pick" her opponent in a Senate race. And succeeded.
---

Committed resources might be a rare find, but Im absolutely certain that left-leaning people in the media were told to cover Trump more than the others, because coverage = free advertising.
---

pxlated posted...

Corrik posted...

pxlated posted...

Like the thousands of people getting killed in Yemen by us-sanctioned troops,

Source?

Literally just Google Yemen war and pick any of the multiple links

The Saudis have been attacking Yemen for 3 years

Saudis and Yemen conflict is well known. I asked for where US sanctioned troops have killed thousands of people.
---

xp1337 posted...

And he often refers to them as "the media" so even if it also happens to be the case that in actuality he has an exception or two, he absolutely does claim "the media" is bad.

i feel like you can't say the media is bad when you praise a gigantic media outlet like fox, though. that's like simultaneously saying "earth sucks" and "africa is an amazing continent." trump claiming that his stance is "the media is bad" is just him being contradictory and having all possible stances at once, as usual.

and really, is it ONLY fox and sinclair he's ever praised? i feel like there should be more, though i can't remember any others right now.
---

redrocket posted...

pxlated posted...

the pied piper strategy employed in the last election

The what?

Again, Google is your friend. But I'm feeling generous

https://www.firstpost.com/world/shoehorning-the-pied-piper-how-hillary-clinton-played-donald-trump-republicans-3048876.html
---

Jakyl25 posted...

Committed resources might be a rare find, but Im absolutely certain that left-leaning people in the media were told to cover Trump more than the others, because coverage = free advertising.

Right, but that's a media problem, IMO. Not a Democrats one. Particularly when there really are instances where they have actually committed resources in other races!

The media is definitely complicit in all this and another thing that needs to be addressed.
---

fyi make sure you have adblocker if you click that link
---

Corrik posted...

pxlated posted...

Corrik posted...

pxlated posted...

Like the thousands of people getting killed in Yemen by us-sanctioned troops,

Source?

Literally just Google Yemen war and pick any of the multiple links

The Saudis have been attacking Yemen for 3 years

Saudis and Yemen conflict is well known. I asked for where US sanctioned troops have killed thousands of people.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23071&LangID=E

The Saudis are our "allies"
---

banananor posted...

fyi make sure you have adblocker if you click that link

I'm sure there's better articles. There was a politico one but it didnt get to the point quickly enough
---

Mr Lasastryke posted...

xp1337 posted...

And he often refers to them as "the media" so even if it also happens to be the case that in actuality he has an exception or two, he absolutely does claim "the media" is bad.

i feel like you can't say the media is bad when you praise a gigantic media outlet like fox, though. that's like simultaneously saying "earth sucks" and "africa is an amazing continent." trump claiming that his stance is "the media is bad" is just him being contradictory and having all possible stances at once, as usual.

and really, is it ONLY fox and sinclair he's ever praised? i feel like there should be more, though i can't remember any others right now.

I agree it doesn't make sense logically, just like how it's ridiculous that Fox claims it's not the mainstream media while simultaneously bragging how it's crushing the others in ratings. But he totally attacks the media as though it's a monolith. That a bunch of cognitive dissonance is required to hold that is its own thing.

And those are the only two I can recall praise for off the top of my head.
---

pxlated posted...

Corrik posted...

pxlated posted...

Corrik posted...

pxlated posted...

Like the thousands of people getting killed in Yemen by us-sanctioned troops,

Source?

Literally just Google Yemen war and pick any of the multiple links

The Saudis have been attacking Yemen for 3 years

Saudis and Yemen conflict is well known. I asked for where US sanctioned troops have killed thousands of people.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23071&LangID=E

The Saudis are our "allies"

https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-support-saudi-military-operations-yemen

Officials are very careful to not voice support for them, but we are still providing intelligence and selling them millions of dollars worth of military equipmen
---