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Joined 8 months ago
Cake day: January 29th, 2026
  • WesternInfidels@feddit.onlinetopolitics @lemmy.world•The reality of Trump’s comments on Iran nuking Los Angeles and San Diego | CNN PoliticsEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    I don’t know what to make of this.

    It reads like someone who hates the president very much was ordered to write a piece softening this latest outrage. In the process, he points out that the president is exactly this malicious all the time, that it’s completely in character for him to say a thing like this and apparently to mean it, and that his fans cheered the idea of thousands or millions of Americans being killed by a foreign power. A light edit of the headline and the article could change the point its making completely.

    Maybe the article doesn’t matter. Sure, I know we all read the article before reacting, of course we do. But how many people read the whole article these days? Maybe the headline and the outlet together (“CNN is saying…”) are the real payload.

  • WesternInfidels@feddit.onlinetopolitics @lemmy.world•GOP has a “Nazi” problem, Karl Rove saysEnglish
    21·
    9 days ago

    Rove’s whole shtick is turning everything one says and does into a performance of some kind, to misdirect one’s adversaries. I can’t tell you I know what his angle is, what his goal is, but I do feel that listening to him at all is a mistake. The only thing you know for sure is that he is trying to trick you right now.

    So, sure, the GOP is where all the neo-Nazis are, today. But why is Rove bringing this up? Why bring it up now, as opposed to at any other moment in the last 10 years? That’s where the trick will be.

  • WesternInfidels@feddit.onlinetopolitics @lemmy.world•Trump now says the Kennedy Center could be deadly. Months ago, it was ‘great.’English
    5·
    12 days ago

    The Power of Positive Thinking, rule #2:

    Think a positive thought to drown out a negative thought.

    For our president’s narcissistic purposes, a “negative thought” is anything that suggests he’s to blame for his own actions. And a “positive thought” is any thought that makes him feel proud, blameless, or aggrieved. Anything that justifies his actions.

    Negative thought: “The status of the Kennedy Center has plummeted since my name was attached to it.”

    Positive thought: “It’s the condition of the Kennedy Center that’s the root of the problem. It’s not my fault. It’s someone else’s fault.”

    I think this twisted interpretation of rule #2 has some explanatory power for at least 50% of the obviously-counter-factual babble that comes out of this man’s mouth. Maybe more. I think if you listen to him with this in mind, you’ll recognize the pattern very often.