There is nothing subtle about Trump’s behavior. He lies, he repeats the lie, and his listeners either cower in fear, stammer in disbelief, or try to see how they can turn the lie to their own benefit. Every continental wiseguy, from Žižek to Baudrillard, insisted that when they pulled the full totalitarian wool over our eyes next time, we wouldn’t even know it was happening. Not a bit of it. Trump’s lies, and his urge to tell them, are pure Big Brother crude, however oafish their articulation. They are not postmodern traps and temptations; they are primitive schoolyard taunts and threats.

The blind, blatant disregard for truth is offered without even the sugar-façade of sweetness of temper or equableness or entertainment—offered not with a sheen of condescending consensus but in an ancient tone of rage, vanity, and vengeance. Trump is pure raging authoritarian id.

And so, rereading Orwell, one is reminded of what Orwell got right about this kind of brute authoritarianism—and that was essentially that it rests on lies told so often, and so repeatedly, that fighting the lie becomes not simply more dangerous but more exhausting than repeating it. Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.

Bhai, to get rich you have to be a liar, Dog, Parasite, Namakaram and Crabdaag.  Look at Uncle Tom!!!!!!!!!!

When Trump repeats the ridiculous story about the three million illegal voters—a story that no one who knows, that not a single White House “staffer,” not a single Republican congressman actually believes to be true—he does not really care if anyone believes it, even if, at some crazy level, he does, sort of. People aren’t meant to believe it; they’re meant to be intimidated by it. The lie is not a claim about specific facts; the lunacy is a deliberate challenge to the whole larger idea of sanity. Once a lie that big is in circulation, trying to reel the conversation back into the territory of rational argument becomes impossible.

And so CNN’s Jake Tapper, to his credit, may announce boldly that the story is false from beginning to end—but then he is led by his own caution and sense of professionalism to ask Trump whether, if he sees it as true, there ought to be an investigation into it. Tapper, like everyone else, knows perfectly well that a minimally honest investigation would turn up no proof of this absurdity at all. But that, of course, is the trap, the game. Watch: there will be a “commission” consisting of experts borrowed from Breitbart; it will hold no hearings, or hold absurdly closed ones; or hold ones with testimony from frequent callers to “The Alex Jones Show”—and this clownish commission will then baldly conclude that there is, indeed, widespread evidence of voter fraud. And Trump will reassert the lie and point to his commission’s findings as his evidence.

Uncle Tom told the GNI Snakeoil Gang he will be the Guardian of Transparency, Waste, Fairness, Democracy, Rule of Law.

HAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHE  BLOODY DOG!!!!!!!!

His base loves craziness, incompetence, and contempt for reason because sanity, competence, and the patient accumulation of evidence are things that allow educated people to pretend that they are superior. Resentment comes before reason. Conservative intellectuals, as a reading of the Times each day reveals, turn out to share these resentments far more deeply than they value the rational practices. Having experienced this condescension, or so they imagine, on the larger stage of universities and publishing houses, they may mistrust the demagogue, but they actively hate those who demonstrate against him. The demagogue they regard only with disdain; his critics are an ancient object of hatred and contempt. If forced to choose, they will always choose the demagogue before the demonstrators. If there’s one thing we really do know from social science, it’s that people are far more determined to see their ancient enemies made miserable than themselves made happier.

On the positive side, well, there were the women’s marches last weekend, which filled any sane heart with hope. What had seemed doubtful a short week before—that there could be unified, peaceful, indeed joyous mass action against the madness—was fully realized, and for what one hopes will be only the first of many times. It left our minds inspired with simple slogans that did not oversimplify: Community is the only cure for catastrophe. Action is the only antidote to anger. If these sound a bit like Winston’s private mutterings in “1984”—when he writes secretly, for instance, that sanity is not statistical—at least they are, for the moment, still fully public truths. Pray that they remain so.

The PPP bots have been doing that for years on GNI. As a matter of fact, fake news, post truth, and alternative facts were first pioneered by the PPP on GNI.

RiffRaff posted:

There is nothing subtle about Trump’s behavior. He lies, he repeats the lie, and his listeners either cower in fear, stammer in disbelief, or try to see how they can turn the lie to their own benefit. Every continental wiseguy, from Žižek to Baudrillard, insisted that when they pulled the full totalitarian wool over our eyes next time, we wouldn’t even know it was happening. Not a bit of it. Trump’s lies, and his urge to tell them, are pure Big Brother crude, however oafish their articulation. They are not postmodern traps and temptations; they are primitive schoolyard taunts and threats.

Suh when yuh leaving America for another Paradise?

Seriously, Trump is going pull down everything the Presidents from Clinton and onwards established. They were concerned more with International issues than American issues.

To achieve such a task, fear is the prime motivator. CNN is under attack. Are you familiar with the episode of Henry V and Thomas Beckett?  

Lies worked very effectively for the pnc/afc. This is how the got into office,  and to date, not one PPP crook delivered to the public. 

Oh rass man, how Guyana got in the mixup with Trump?  Some people doan know the difference between US and Guyanese politics.

You jackasses like to call the pot black meanwhile you need to clean up your own house first. 

seignet posted:

RiffRaff posted:

There is nothing subtle about Trump’s behavior. He lies, he repeats the lie, and his listeners either cower in fear, stammer in disbelief, or try to see how they can turn the lie to their own benefit. Every continental wiseguy, from Žižek to Baudrillard, insisted that when they pulled the full totalitarian wool over our eyes next time, we wouldn’t even know it was happening. Not a bit of it. Trump’s lies, and his urge to tell them, are pure Big Brother crude, however oafish their articulation. They are not postmodern traps and temptations; they are primitive schoolyard taunts and threats.

Suh when yuh leaving America for another Paradise?

Seriously, Trump is going pull down everything the Presidents from Clinton and onwards established. They were concerned more with International issues than American issues.

To achieve such a task, fear is the prime motivator. CNN is under attack. Are you familiar with the episode of Henry V and Thomas Beckett?  

Where did I state that I am leaving America...you must be one of stupid Trump supporters who easily gets intimated by intelligence

RiffRaff posted:

Where did I state that I am leaving America...you must be one of stupid Trump supporters who easily gets intimated by intelligence

Riff, if you are muslim you should be concerned. It is quite possible that Trump may bring back the detention camps. Already he has made statements to the effect of blocking immigration from muslim nations and encouraging migration from Christian(aka white) nations.

I aint worry bout Trump...he is only temporary...

Trump is showing off for his base. News channels usually refrain from calling politicians a liar. Now I see CNN and MSNBC started calling Trump  a liar. One commentator gave his reason for calling him a liar that he is telling too much of it and no one wants to call it a lie.