The Former Trump Presidency Thread

[Moliere]

Do we need to start posting more videos of "man on the street" interviews where people are made to look stupid because they don't know who's doing what and what policies are being implemented? Trump supporters don't have a monopoly on political ignorance.

[Max Peck]

How is this possible? Support for Trump at 50% in counties he won

That's actually a drop from the previous poll. So...baby steps?

If approval ratings were votes, that means he'd lose about half of those counties today. That's about where I'd expect him to be.

Elections aren't random probabilities, though. It's highly unlikely that the 50% of the votes that weren't for Trump would be for one single opponent. With 50% of the popular vote, I'd expect Trump to win all those counties.

[Fitzy]

How is this possible? Support for Trump at 50% in counties he won

That's actually a drop from the previous poll. So...baby steps?

If approval ratings were votes, that means he'd lose about half of those counties today. That's about where I'd expect him to be.

Elections aren't random probabilities, though. It's highly unlikely that the 50% of the votes that weren't for Trump would be for one single opponent. With 50% of the popular vote, I'd expect Trump to win all those counties.

Except the headline is misleading. He's getting 56% approval in counties that Romney won AND he did 20 points better. He's at 44% in counties he flipped from Obama.

The more he tweets, the more counties will slip through his fingers.

[Pyperkub]

How is this possible? Support for Trump at 50% in counties he won

That's actually a drop from the previous poll. So...baby steps?

If approval ratings were votes, that means he'd lose about half of those counties today. That's about where I'd expect him to be.

Unlikely. They'd still approve of a Democrat (especially Hilary )even less. Might even approve of Putin over both.

[Max Peck]

How is this possible? Support for Trump at 50% in counties he won

That's actually a drop from the previous poll. So...baby steps?

If approval ratings were votes, that means he'd lose about half of those counties today. That's about where I'd expect him to be.

Elections aren't random probabilities, though. It's highly unlikely that the 50% of the votes that weren't for Trump would be for one single opponent. With 50% of the popular vote, I'd expect Trump to win all those counties.

Except the headline is misleading. He's getting 56% approval in counties that Romney won AND he did 20 points better. He's at 44% in counties he flipped from Obama.

The more he tweets, the more counties will slip through his fingers.

I still wouldn't be complacent about how an election would go. Some of those against Trump will vote Democrat, but some will vote Green, some will vote <whatever> and some will stay home because they're still convinced that Bernie was robbed in 2016. I would never underestimate the gusto with which progressives will happily form up into a circular firing squad.

And that's before factoring in voter suppression and whatever other shennanigans that Bannon and Putin have in store for your future elections.

[gilraen]

I still wouldn't be complacent about how an election would go. Some of those against Trump will vote Democrat, but some will vote Green, some will vote <whatever> and some will stay home because they're still convinced that Bernie was robbed in 2016. I would never underestimate the gusto with which progressives will happily form up into a circular firing squad.

Some of those who voted 3rd-party are young/millenials who haven't known anything other than the Obama presidency in their adult life. So basically they had no friggin' clue how bad things could really get when they voted their "conscience" or whatever. Not to be complacent for sure, but my hope is that some of those idiots learned their lesson.

Now voter suppression is a whole different animal.

[Max Peck]

Speaking of voter suppression...

Vice chair of Trump’s voter fraud commission wants to change federal law to add new requirements for voting, email shows

The day after Donald Trump was elected president, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now the vice-chair of Trump's commission on voter fraud, told Trump's transition team of a proposal to change federal law to allow stricter requirements on voter registration.

Kobach's team was "putting together information on legislation drafts for submission to Congress early in the administration," Kobach wrote to transition team member Gene Hamilton in an email. "I have some already started regarding amendments to the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act] to make clear that proof of citizenship requirements are permitted (based on my ongoing litigation with the ACLU over this)."

The email was released on Friday as part of that ACLU lawsuit and was first published by the Huffington Post.

Amending the NVRA in such a manner "will lead to a dramatic reduction in access to voting," said Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at NYU's Brennan Center, in an interview. "Every time legal obstacles to restricting the vote have been lifted in recent years, we've seen substantial spikes in efforts to restrict the vote."

Passed in 1993, the NVRA contains a number of provisions intended to increase voter participation. Among other provisions, it requires states to allow voter registration at motor vehicle offices and by mail.

As secretary of state in Kansas, Kris Kobach introduced the SAFE Act, which requires first-time voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Kobach told the Daily Signal last year that every time an illegal immigrant votes, "it effectively cancels out a vote of a U.S. citizen," and said there is "huge potential" for those votes to alter the outcome of an election.

"Even if it’s just a handful of votes, it's still a huge injustice," he said.

Extensive investigations by state elections officials have found that non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare. "Based on state prosecution records, votes by noncitizens account for between 0.0003 percent and 0.001 percent of all votes cast," according to an analysis by the Brennan Center, a non-partisan think tank that works to expand voting access.

Conversely, a national survey sponsored by the Brennan Center in 2006 found that millions of Americans do not have access to documentary proof of their citizenship. In Kansas, thousands of voter registrations have been refused or put "on hold" because of failure to provide proper documentation under Kobach's SAFE Act.

[Zarathud]

Do you have access to your long form birth certificate and photo ID?

[Moliere]

The Lies of Donald Trump’s Critics, and How They Shape His Many Personas

Broadly speaking, most of the falsehoods levelled against Trump fall into one or more of four categories, each of them drawing from and feeding into four public personas inhabited by the President.

They are:

• Donald Trump: International Embarrassment
  Trump the Tyrant
  Donald Trump: Bully baby
  Trump the Buffoon

Some of these claims are downright fake, entirely fabricated by unreliable or dubious web sites and presented as satire, or otherwise blatantly false. But the rest — some of which have gained significant traction and credibility from otherwise serious people and organizations — provide a fascinating insight into the tactics and preoccupations of the broad anti-Trump movement known as “the Resistance,” whether they were created by critics of the President or merely shared by them.

Generally speaking, we discovered that they are characterized and driven by four types of errors of thought:

• Alarmism
  A lack of historical context or awareness
  Cherry-picking of evidence (especially visual evidence)
  A failure to adhere to Occam’s Razor — the common-sense understanding that the simplest explanation for an event or behavior is the most likely

Infused throughout almost all these claims, behind their successful dissemination, is confirmation bias: the fuel that drives the spread of all propaganda and false or misleading claims among otherwise sensible and skeptical people. Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for, find, remember and share information that confirms the beliefs we already have, and the tendency to dismiss, ignore and forget information that contradicts those beliefs. It is one of the keys to why clever people, on all sides of every disagreement, sometimes believe stupid things that aren’t true.

[Zarathud]

Wow. Stretching pretty hard.

[Carpet_pissr]

It's a lie that Trump is an international embarrassment? Wow, someone needs to read some foreign press, and get their head out of their ass.

Not even going to deal with the other points that first one is so blatantly false.

Is this a response to the Dimon comments?

[pr0ner]

Well, some people on liberal Twitter are starting to try to piece together that the whole goal of the people behind the scenes of Trump is to rewrite the Constitution, which is why Trump flouts the emoluments clause so freely. A couple responses I saw said that this EXACT problem is what keeps them up at night.

With all the memes and talking points and catch phrases that fly around Twitter about Trump, however, this doesn't surprise me.

So take it for what it's worth.

[Holman]

You don't even have to rewrite the Constitution if you can use voter suppression and dirty tricks to maintain one-party rule for another few years. We're just a couple of deaths, retirements, and appointments away from the Supreme Court being irrelevant.

[Carpet_pissr]

Well, some people on liberal Twitter are starting to try to piece together that the whole goal of the people behind the scenes of Trump is to rewrite the Constitution, which is why Trump flouts the emoluments clause so freely. A couple responses I saw said that this EXACT problem is what keeps them up at night.

Re-write? As in, skip amending and repeal and replace? Eh, I'm not there, hopefully never will be.

I think the Bannons of the administration are likely behind a lot of the deconstruction though. NATO bs, climate accord pullout, Iran deal pullout (so close), NAFTA threats, etc. also putting people at heads of departments who are completely opposed to those departments.

The Repubs have often been for smaller central government, but this seems to be quite different than just shrinking size

[Zarathud]

Breaking government

[Chaz]

[Holman]

The goal is oligarchic rule by a privileged elite that knows best. This has been the logical destination for right-wingers ever since Goldwater and then Reagan declared government itself the enemy.

Back then they thought the natural ruling class would include business elites and influential Republican idea men more generally. They didn't know how vulnerable this scheme is to exploitation by a single conscienceless gang like Trump and his family and the loyalists who bought in early.

Trump saw oligarchy work in Russia and recognized how easy it would be to get there via the Republican script already in place.

[ImLawBoy]

Guys, you should probably read the article before getting all upset about it. I'm guessing Moliere cherry picked that section knowing that people would likely not read the article and get bent out of shape about it, which in a way further advances the article's point about confirmation bias.

The article is from Snopes, and it looks into the false claims that put Trump in a negative light that Snopes has debunked. It's very clear in the intro to the article that this is what they are doing, and they have found four general categories that serve as the background for those claims. The article never says that those four general categories are untrue. In fact, it eventually says,"There have been many occasions when Trump himself, undistorted and unfiltered, contributed mightily to the four personas we have outlined."

If you don't care about your own confirmation bias, and you just want to continue to believe everything negative about Trump regardless of its reliability, then I strongly urge you to avoid the article. It might pop your bubble, depending on how strong your confirmation bias is. If you're more interesting in the truth, however, and the reality behind some of the negative claims against Trump, then the article is worth a read.

[Kurth]

The Lies of Donald Trump’s Critics, and How They Shape His Many Personas

Broadly speaking, most of the falsehoods levelled against Trump fall into one or more of four categories, each of them drawing from and feeding into four public personas inhabited by the President.

They are:

• Donald Trump: International Embarrassment
  Trump the Tyrant
  Donald Trump: Bully baby
  Trump the Buffoon

Some of these claims are downright fake, entirely fabricated by unreliable or dubious web sites and presented as satire, or otherwise blatantly false. But the rest — some of which have gained significant traction and credibility from otherwise serious people and organizations — provide a fascinating insight into the tactics and preoccupations of the broad anti-Trump movement known as “the Resistance,” whether they were created by critics of the President or merely shared by them.

Generally speaking, we discovered that they are characterized and driven by four types of errors of thought:

• Alarmism
  A lack of historical context or awareness
  Cherry-picking of evidence (especially visual evidence)
  A failure to adhere to Occam’s Razor — the common-sense understanding that the simplest explanation for an event or behavior is the most likely

Infused throughout almost all these claims, behind their successful dissemination, is confirmation bias: the fuel that drives the spread of all propaganda and false or misleading claims among otherwise sensible and skeptical people. Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for, find, remember and share information that confirms the beliefs we already have, and the tendency to dismiss, ignore and forget information that contradicts those beliefs. It is one of the keys to why clever people, on all sides of every disagreement, sometimes believe stupid things that aren’t true.

Holy shit, Snopes. What a load of garbage. That piece was so unlike everything I've ever read on Snopes, I had to check to see if the url was spoofed. It wasn't neutral. It wasn't well-sourced. And more than anything, I hadn't heard of 99% of the crappy false allegations and claims about Trump that were featured in the article.

So, to summarize, there are a bunch of false claims made about Trump that get very little media play and minimal circulation. Yep, total indictment of the mass hysteria of Trump critics!

I'm not saying there's no hysteria or anti-Trump group think/confirmation bias out there . . . There's tons, and it's annoying. But this Snopes article is absolutely worthless on the subject. Very poor showing.

[Kurth]

Guys, you should probably read the article before getting all upset about it. I'm guessing Moliere cherry picked that section knowing that people would likely not read the article and get bent out of shape about it, which in a way further advances the article's point about confirmation bias.

The article is from Snopes, and it looks into the false claims that put Trump in a negative light that Snopes has debunked. It's very clear in the intro to the article that this is what they are doing, and they have found four general categories that serve as the background for those claims. The article never says that those four general categories are untrue. In fact, it eventually says,"There have been many occasions when Trump himself, undistorted and unfiltered, contributed mightily to the four personas we have outlined."

If you don't care about your own confirmation bias, and you just want to continue to believe everything negative about Trump regardless of its reliability, then I strongly urge you to avoid the article. It might pop your bubble, depending on how strong your confirmation bias is. If you're more interesting in the truth, however, and the reality behind some of the negative claims against Trump, then the article is worth a read.

I wish that were true, but the article was really poorly done and far from neutral. Not much of a bubble-popper unfortunately.

[ImLawBoy]

Guys, you should probably read the article before getting all upset about it. I'm guessing Moliere cherry picked that section knowing that people would likely not read the article and get bent out of shape about it, which in a way further advances the article's point about confirmation bias.

The article is from Snopes, and it looks into the false claims that put Trump in a negative light that Snopes has debunked. It's very clear in the intro to the article that this is what they are doing, and they have found four general categories that serve as the background for those claims. The article never says that those four general categories are untrue. In fact, it eventually says,"There have been many occasions when Trump himself, undistorted and unfiltered, contributed mightily to the four personas we have outlined."

If you don't care about your own confirmation bias, and you just want to continue to believe everything negative about Trump regardless of its reliability, then I strongly urge you to avoid the article. It might pop your bubble, depending on how strong your confirmation bias is. If you're more interesting in the truth, however, and the reality behind some of the negative claims against Trump, then the article is worth a read.

I wish that were true, but the article was really poorly done and far from neutral. Not much of a bubble-popper unfortunately.

I don't agree with your assessment. Looking at it from Snope's perspective, they pick up on all these little rumors/stories, not necessarily the big things (consider it really started as a site to debunk urban myths). The stated purpose of this article is to look at those things that they found to be false (not those that they found to be true), and to try to determine the source of the errors/lies. The point of the article was not to say that that Trump is in any way good, and it never does so. It's not imbalanced, because the purpose of the article is to look at the source of false claims. It would be ridiculous and counter-productive to the purpose of the article to also look at true claims.

I'm a bit surprised that you're objecting to this article, as you often seem quite interested in countering the overreaching arguments against Trump to focus on those issues that truly matter.

[Zarathud]

Equating known satirists like Steven Colbert to news is pretty flimsy. Internet memes too.

No acknowledgment of Trump's role in pushing Obama conspiracies, or pushing the "fake news." It's at best the "false equivalency" that Trump relies on to maintain credibility.

[ImLawBoy]

Equating known satirists like Steven Colbert to news is pretty flimsy. Internet memes too.

No acknowledgment of Trump's role in pushing Obama conspiracies, or pushing the "fake news." It's at best the "false equivalency" that Trump relies on to maintain credibility.

They're not equating Colbert to news. They're debunking these things that are out there in the popular culture and the internet. That's what Snopes does.

And the purpose of the article is not to look at Obama conspiracies. It's to look at a specific thing (i.e., the drivers behind the false Trump claims), and it does that.

But like I said, people can feel free to ignore it if it doesn't say what they want it to say.

[Zarathud]

But they're really not debunking false facts. They're conflating jokes and satire with the more serious allegations out there, and ascribing motivations in the process.

Some of it would work on a more limited basis, but this article overreaches in so many ways it deserves it's own snopes coverage.

[ImLawBoy]

No, they're not debunking in this article - I should have been more clear. They've already debunked the falsehoods. They repeat some of the analysis here, but that's just to support the thrust of the article, which is wondering where these falsehoods are coming from.

Honestly, it feels like people are upset with this article for not attacking Trump, even though it's not really even a defense of him. Have we gotten to the point where we completely dismiss any information that isn't directly critical of Trump?

[noxiousdog]

No, they're not debunking in this article - I should have been more clear. They've already debunked the falsehoods. They repeat some of the analysis here, but that's just to support the thrust of the article, which is wondering where these falsehoods are coming from.

Honestly, it feels like people are upset with this article for not attacking Trump, even though it's not really even a defense of him. Have we gotten to the point where we completely dismiss any information that isn't directly critical of Trump?

I agree with you.

[Carpet_pissr]

I for one, don't want Snopes, ever, to attack or defend. Their role is to simply research allegations and put them on a scale from outright lies to completely true.

And also, I was responding to Moliere's quoted part that stated that some were saying that Trump and team want to re-write the Constitution, which I doubt.

We're not Venezuela. Yet.

[Pyperkub]

I for one, don't want Snopes, ever, to attack or defend. Their role is to simply research allegations and put them on a scale from outright lies to completely true.

And also, I was responding to Moliere's quoted part that stated that some were saying that Trump and team want to re-write the Constitution, which I doubt.

We're not Venezuela. Yet.

I'm pretty sure the goal is Russia, not Venezuela.

[Grifman]

No, they're not debunking in this article - I should have been more clear. They've already debunked the falsehoods. They repeat some of the analysis here, but that's just to support the thrust of the article, which is wondering where these falsehoods are coming from.

Honestly, it feels like people are upset with this article for not attacking Trump, even though it's not really even a defense of him. Have we gotten to the point where we completely dismiss any information that isn't directly critical of Trump?

I read it a couple of days ago, and agree with you. The response to it here gives me the same feeling you do. Yes, Trump is awful, but our analysis needs to be intelligent and thoughtful, otherwise we became the same thing we deride upon the right.

[Grifman]

No, they're not debunking in this article - I should have been more clear. They've already debunked the falsehoods. They repeat some of the analysis here, but that's just to support the thrust of the article, which is wondering where these falsehoods are coming from.

Honestly, it feels like people are upset with this article for not attacking Trump, even though it's not really even a defense of him. Have we gotten to the point where we completely dismiss any information that isn't directly critical of Trump?

I read it a couple of days ago, and agree with you. The response to it here gives me the same feeling you do. Yes, Trump is awful, but our analysis needs to be intelligent and thoughtful, otherwise we became the same thing we deride upon the right.

[Freyland]

I guess it's not a bad idea to read it twice, to make sure you agree with your first assessment.

[Grifman]

I guess it's not a bad idea to read it twice, to make sure you agree with your first assessment.

Heh, my browser was acting up, besides, it pads my post count

[El Guapo]

[Kraken]

Guys, you should probably read the article before getting all upset about it.

You're new to the internet, aren't you?

Have we gotten to the point where we completely dismiss any information that isn't directly critical of Trump?

You're new to the R&P forum, aren't you?

[Kurth]

Guys, you should probably read the article before getting all upset about it. I'm guessing Moliere cherry picked that section knowing that people would likely not read the article and get bent out of shape about it, which in a way further advances the article's point about confirmation bias.

The article is from Snopes, and it looks into the false claims that put Trump in a negative light that Snopes has debunked. It's very clear in the intro to the article that this is what they are doing, and they have found four general categories that serve as the background for those claims. The article never says that those four general categories are untrue. In fact, it eventually says,"There have been many occasions when Trump himself, undistorted and unfiltered, contributed mightily to the four personas we have outlined."

If you don't care about your own confirmation bias, and you just want to continue to believe everything negative about Trump regardless of its reliability, then I strongly urge you to avoid the article. It might pop your bubble, depending on how strong your confirmation bias is. If you're more interesting in the truth, however, and the reality behind some of the negative claims against Trump, then the article is worth a read.

I wish that were true, but the article was really poorly done and far from neutral. Not much of a bubble-popper unfortunately.

I don't agree with your assessment. Looking at it from Snope's perspective, they pick up on all these little rumors/stories, not necessarily the big things (consider it really started as a site to debunk urban myths). The stated purpose of this article is to look at those things that they found to be false (not those that they found to be true), and to try to determine the source of the errors/lies. The point of the article was not to say that that Trump is in any way good, and it never does so. It's not imbalanced, because the purpose of the article is to look at the source of false claims. It would be ridiculous and counter-productive to the purpose of the article to also look at true claims.

I'm a bit surprised that you're objecting to this article, as you often seem quite interested in countering the overreaching arguments against Trump to focus on those issues that truly matter.

Well, I think I'm becoming more and more like the grouchy old guys sitting in the balcony from The Muppets. I'm not happy with anything anymore!

The thing is, though, I really do want to counter overreaching arguments against Trump and to tamp down some of the sky is falling stuff I see as hysteria. But that Snopes article really didn't do that. Instead, in the guise of an "in depth analysis of the false allegations and misleading claims made against the 45th President since his inauguration," it came across -- at least to me -- as highlighting a bunch of small scale, barely reported fake stories/allegations about Trump and trying to spin them into the basis for something much bigger:

Trump gave the finger to the Italian PM (as posted as a Twitter meme).
The Indian PM evaded a Trump handshake by hugging him (as ever so briefly mentioned by Newsweek in the midst of a much larger piece).
The Pope frowned next to Trump but was all smiles next to Obama (another Twitter meme).
Trump outlaws protests against him (as reported by "hyperpartisan" web site Learn Progress).
Trump photoshops his hands to make them look bigger (another Twitter meme).
Trump attributes a Nigerian proverb to the Irish during a Friends of Ireland lunch (fodder for Colbert and many others).

With the exception of the Friends of Ireland proverb thing -- and it's not clear to me that Trump wasn't actually mistakenly suggesting the proverb was Irish -- I'm not aware that any of these false allegations "have gained significant traction and credibility from otherwise serious people and organizations" as purported by this Snopes article. And isn't that the prima facie justification for doing the article in the first place? I think it's bullshit, and it's certainly not substantive enough to spin it up into some quasi-serious analysis of "the four types of errors of thought" that the author puts out as some kind of pattern.

Again, to be clear, I do think that the four errors of thought set out (or, at least three of them -- I'm not sure the author really understands Occam's Razor) are rampant today, both in support of and in critique of Trump. There's far too much alarmism, lack of historical context and cherry-picking of evidence, but these stupid Snopes examples don't really justify the article or its analysis.

And when did Snopes ever start doing a "Political News" section anyway? I like Snopes debunking garbage. They're good at that, and I'm glad they debunked all these dumb false allegations about Trump. But they should leave the "in depth analysis" of the deeper meaning behind the proliferation of garbage to others.

[ImLawBoy]

The thing is, though, I really do want to counter overreaching arguments against Trump and to tamp down some of the sky is falling stuff I see as hysteria. But that Snopes article really didn't do that. Instead, in the guise of an "in depth analysis of the false allegations and misleading claims made against the 45th President since his inauguration," it came across -- at least to me -- as highlighting a bunch of small scale, barely reported fake stories/allegations about Trump and trying to spin them into the basis for something much bigger:

Trump gave the finger to the Italian PM (as posted as a Twitter meme).
The Indian PM evaded a Trump handshake by hugging him (as ever so briefly mentioned by Newsweek in the midst of a much larger piece).
The Pope frowned next to Trump but was all smiles next to Obama (another Twitter meme).
Trump outlaws protests against him (as reported by "hyperpartisan" web site Learn Progress).
Trump photoshops his hands to make them look bigger (another Twitter meme).
Trump attributes a Nigerian proverb to the Irish during a Friends of Ireland lunch (fodder for Colbert and many others).

With the exception of the Friends of Ireland proverb thing -- and it's not clear to me that Trump wasn't actually mistakenly suggesting the proverb was Irish -- I'm not aware that any of these false allegations "have gained significant traction and credibility from otherwise serious people and organizations" as purported by this Snopes article. And isn't that the prima facie justification for doing the article in the first place? I think it's bullshit, and it's certainly not substantive enough to spin it up into some quasi-serious analysis of "the four types of errors of thought" that the author puts out as some kind of pattern.

I don't know that the article intended to pick up the myriad Fake News stories being run by CNN or anything like that. The big ticket items that are being reported in the mainstream are, by and large, true. You could quibble about how the media reacted to Trump pulling out of the Paris Accords and whether that was really fair, but that's not the same kind of demonstrably false thing that the article appeared to be going for. Likewise you could argue that it doesn't address the ridiculousness of Louise Mensch and all of her accusations, but she's mostly about hallucinogenic takes on how the US justice system works, and not so much the lying about Trump (although maybe she lies about Trump, too - I can't be bothered to find out when she's such a nut job). But these are the types of things that are getting picked up by otherwise rational people. We've had discussions about many of them on these very forums (wait, that probably doesn't equate to "rational people', does it? ). I seem to recall people here believing that Trump really did photoshop his hands in the picture in question, despite the obvious fact that we were comparing different pictures. Plus, even if they were only mentioned in passing (like the Modi story in Newsweek) or as part of a comedic rant (as with the Colbert thing - and I thought we put to rest long ago the idea that political comedians shouldn't be held to task for inaccuracies in their rants), they are getting mainstream coverage - which then leads to people repeating them unquestioningly.

I don't know that we're ever going to see eye-to-eye on this, but I think that the article was successful in meeting its limited goals (at least, as I understand those goals). I can understand you wanting to have higher goals than it did, but it hit what it aimed for. The fact that people here responded viscerally to what they perceived the article to be saying rather than what it actually said furthers its point about confirmation bias.

[Kurth]

I don't know that we're ever going to see eye-to-eye on this, but I think that the article was successful in meeting its limited goals (at least, as I understand those goals). I can understand you wanting to have higher goals than it did, but it hit what it aimed for. The fact that people here responded viscerally to what they perceived the article to be saying rather than what it actually said furthers its point about confirmation bias.

Fair enough. And, in truth, maybe I'm implying goals and an agenda that aren't necessarily there.

[Grifman]

The goal is oligarchic rule by a privileged elite that knows best. This has been the logical destination for right-wingers ever since Goldwater and then Reagan declared government itself the enemy.

If you are going to make this accusation, then there's very little difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to this. A lot of the "oligarchs" were Clinton supporters - Wall Street, Silicon Valley, legal profession, billionaires - these were all big Democratic donors. Neither party is necessarily of or for the people in many ways.

[Zarathud]

But the article DOESN'T limit itself. Sure, these examples are mostly trivial nonsense but it is used to draw broader strokes about criticism of Trump.

I object to THAT overarching bullshit. Very strongly.

I have said time and time again that I will give Trump only the respect he gives others. Trump was all over the Obama birther lies. Trump exists in the "fake news" memes. Trump owes his very political existence to playing these tricks on others. You must take what you dish out. So I have no problem with mocking him as #fakepresident.

I'm not going to join in with the silly photos, except to laugh occasionally. As we have always done in R&P.

If you think comedians and satirists aren't allowed to exaggerate, you're wrong. Nero may not have literally fiddled while Rome burned, but it concisely illustrates what was going wrong at the time. Small handed vulgarian may similarly stand the test of time.

[Holman]

The goal is oligarchic rule by a privileged elite that knows best. This has been the logical destination for right-wingers ever since Goldwater and then Reagan declared government itself the enemy.

If you are going to make this accusation, then there's very little difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to this. A lot of the "oligarchs" were Clinton supporters - Wall Street, Silicon Valley, legal profession, billionaires - these were all big Democratic donors. Neither party is necessarily of or for the people in many ways.

Sure, sure. There are elites on both sides, and they have all the money and make most of the policy.

But only one party is fully dedicated to voter suppression and the promise of racial/religious supremacy to maintain power. That's the key difference, and it's the one that matters most in the American context.