May all anti Americans / anti Trump, Satanists painfully burn in hell for eternity
The Deification of Donald Trump Poses Some Interesting Questions.
Jan. 17,2024.
A woman raises a large crucifix while a man with a "Make America Great Again" hat holds up a Trump 2020 flag as a crowd prays.
Credit. David Goldman / Associated Press.
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Thomas be. Edsall.
By Thomas be. Edsall.
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, the. See. , on politics, demographics and inequality.
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On Oct. 15,2020, in a rare display of humility, Donald Trump told a campaign rally in Greenville, and. See. , that he was not as famous as Jesus Christ.
"Somebody said to me the other day, 'You're the most famous person in the world, by far. ' I said, 'No, I'm not. ' They said, 'Yes, you are. I said no. ' They said, 'Who's more famous?' I said, 'Jesus Christ. '.
This exhibition of modesty was out of character.
Trump, his family and his supporters have been more than willing to claim that Trump is ordained by God for a special mission, to restore America as a Christian nation.
In recent weeks, for example, the former president posted a video called "God Made Trump" on Truth Social that was produced by a conservative media group technically independent of the Trump campaign. He has also screened it at campaign rallies.
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The video begins as a narrator with a voice reminiscent of Paul Harvey's declares: "On June 14,1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: 'I need a caretaker. ' So God gave us Trump. ".
Why was Trump chosen? The video continues:
God had to have someone willing to go into the den of vipers. Call out the fake news for their tongues as sharp as a serpent's. The poison of vipers is on their lips. So God made Trump.
The video claims to quote God directly:
God said, "I will need someone who will be strong and courageous. Who will not be afraid or terrified of wolves when they attack. A man who cares for the flock. A shepherd to mankind who won't ever leave or forsake them. I need the most diligent worker to follow the path and remain strong in faith. And know the belief in God and country. ".
The "God Made Trump" video was created by the Dilley Meme Team, described by Ken Bensinger of The Times as.
An organized collective of video producers who call themselves "Trump's Online War Machine. " The group's leader, Brenden Dilley, characterizes himself as Christian and a man of faith but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. He says that Mr. Trump has "God-tier genetics" and, in response to the outcry over the "God Made Trump" video, Dilley posted a meme depicting Mr. Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea.
The video, along with Eric Trump's claim that his father "literally saved Christianity" and the image Donald Trump reposted on Truth Social of Jesus sitting next to him in court, raises a question: Does Trump believe that he is God's messenger, or are his direct and indirect claims to have a special relationship with God a cynical ploy to win evangelical votes?
I posed this and other questions to Barry Hankins, a professor of history at Baylor and the editor of The Journal of Church and State. Hankins replied by email: "Over the years since, there has been a growing chorus of voices saying Trump is the defender of Christians and Christianity. Trump says this himself all the time, 'When they come after me, they're really coming after you. '.
There are photos, Hankins continued, "of evangelicals laying hands on him in the Oval Office, which is something that Christians do when they ordain pastors or commission missionaries, or Jan. 6 insurrectionists carrying large crosses and praying as they attack the Capitol. People at his rallies carrying signs that say, 'Thank you, Lord Jesus, for President Trump. ' And on and on. ".
I asked Hankins whether Trump's evangelical supporters "see him as a Jesus-like figure. ".
Hankins replied, "I think 'Jesus-like' is well put. When the indictments came down during Lent last spring, there were references to the powers of government going after Trump like the Roman Empire went after Jesus. ".
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Trump's evolution into a Jesus-like figure for some but not all white evangelicals began soon after he began his first presidential campaign. As David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, explained by email:
Some of Trump's Christian followers do appear to have grown to see him as a kind of religious figure. He is a savior. I think it began with the sense that he was uniquely committed to saving them from their foes (liberals, Democrats, elites, seculars, illegal immigrants, etc.) and saving America from all that threatens it.
In this sense, Gushee continued, "a savior does not have to be a good person but just needs to fulfill his divinely appointed role. Trump is seen by many as actually having done so while president. ".
This view of Trump is especially strong "in the Pentecostal wing of the conservative Christian world," Gushee wrote, where.
He is sometimes also viewed as an anointed leader sent by God. "Anointed" here means set apart and especially equipped by God for a holy task. Sometimes the most unlikely people got anointed by God in the Bible. So Trump's unlikeliness for this role is actually evidence in favor.
The multiple criminal charges against Trump serve to strengthen the belief of many evangelicals about his ties to God, according to Gushee:
The prosecutions underway against Trump have been easily interpretable as signs of persecution, which can then connect to the suffering Jesus theme in Christianity. Trump has been able to leverage that with lines like, "They're not persecuting me. They're persecuting you. " The idea that he is unjustly suffering and, in so doing, vicariously absorbing the suffering that his followers would be enduring is a powerful way for Trump to be identified with Jesus.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, gave voice to this phenomenon when she protested the filing of criminal charges against Trump. On her way to a pro-Trump rally in Manhattan on April 3, 2023, she told Brian Glenn of the Right Side Broadcasting Network:
Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical, corrupt governments, and it's beginning today in New York City, and I just can't believe it's happening, but I'll always support him. He's done nothing wrong.
The more interesting case, Gushee wrote.
Is Trump himself. I accept as given that he entered politics as the amoral, worldly, narcissistic New York businessman that he appeared to be. Like all G. O. P. Politicians, he knew he would have to win over the conservative Christian voting bloc so central to the party.
If people wanted to make him out to be savior, anointed one and agent of God, he would not object. It enhanced their attention and loyalty and his power over and in this group. Lacking any inner spiritual or moral compass that would seek to deflect overinflated or even idolatrous claims about himself, he instead reposted their artwork and videos and so on. Anyone truly serious about the Christian faith would deflect claims to being a savior or anointed one, but he did not have such brakes operating. I do not suppose that he actually believed himself to be any of these things, but others did, and it helped him, and it fed his ego, so why stand in the way?
Certain denominations among evangelicals are more willing to believe Trump is God's messenger than others. John Fea, a professor at Messiah University in Pennsylvania, wrote by email that.
There are evangelicals of the charismatic and Pentecostal variety — the so-called New Apostolic Reformation or Independent Network Charismatics — who believe that Donald Trump is an agent of God to rescue the United States from the atheistic, even demonic, secularists and progressives who want to destroy the country by advancing abortion, gay marriage, wokeness, transgenderism, etc.
"This whole movement," Fea wrote.
Is rooted in prophecy. The prophets speak directly to God and receive direct messages from him about politics. They think that politics is a form of spiritual warfare and believe that God is using Donald Trump to help wage this war. (God can even use sinners to accomplish his will — there are a lot of biblical examples of this, they say.).
But even this group of Christians does not see Trump as the messiah, Fea wrote: "They will be quick to tell you that only Jesus is the Messiah. They do not believe Trump has special powers, but he is certainly an agent or vessel for God to work through to make America Christian again. ".
As far as Trump goes, Fea continued, "he probably thinks these charismatics and Pentecostals are crazy. But if they are going to tell him he is God's anointed one, he will gladly accept the title and use it if it wins him votes. He will happily accept their prayers because it is politically expedient. ".
Robert P. Jones, the founder and chief executive of P. Are. Are. I. (formerly the Public Religion Research Institute), contends that Trump's religious claims are an outright fraud:
Trump has given us adequate evidence that he has little religious sensibility or theological acuity. He has scant knowledge of the Bible, he has said that he has never sought forgiveness for his sins, and he has no substantive connection to a church or denomination. He's not only one of the least religious but also likely one of the most theologically ignorant presidents the country has ever had.
Trump, Jones added in an email, "almost certainly lacks the kind of religious sensibility or theological framework necessary to personally grasp what it would even mean to be a Jesus-like, messianic figure. ".
Despite that, Jones wrote, "many of his most loyal Christian followers, white evangelical Protestants, have indeed come to see him as a kind of metaphorical savior figure. ".
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According to Jones, in order to rationalize this quasi-deification of Trump — despite "his crassness and vulgarity, divorces, mocking of disabled people, his overt racism and a determination by a court that he sexually abused advice columnist E. Jean Carroll" — white evangelicals refer not to Jesus but the Persian King Cyrus from the book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible. ".
In that story, Jones recounted in his email.
Cyrus is the model of an ungodly king who nonetheless frees a group of Jews who are held captive in Babylon. It took white evangelicals themselves a while to settle on an explanation for their support, but this characterization of Trump was solidified in a 2018 film that came out just before the 2018 midterms entitled "The Trump Prophecy," which portrayed Trump as the only leader who could save America from certain cultural collapse.
According to Jones, "White evangelicals' stalwart, enduring support for Trump tells us much more about who they see themselves to be than who they think Trump is. As I argued in my most recent book, 'The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, Jones continued in his email, "the primary force animating white evangelical Protestant politics — one that has been with us since before the founding of the Republic — is the vision of America as a nation primarily of, by and for white Christians. ".
Jones cited a 2023 P. Are. Are. I. Survey that showed "a majority (56 percent) of white evangelical Protestants, compared to only one-third of all Americans, believed that 'God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world. '.
Jones argued that Trump's declaration on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021 — "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore" — was a direct appeal "to this sense of divine entitlement of those who believed this mythology strongly enough to engage in a violent insurrection. ".
While Trump has overwhelming backing from white evangelical Christians, many of whom invest him with exceptional ties to God, there are also strong secular factors underpinning this support from evangelicals.
Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University and an expert on the role of religion in politics, published an article in 2019, "Are White Evangelicals Populists? The View From the 2016 American National Election Study. " The essay describes the basis for the strong affinity of white evangelicals for Trump's conservative populism.
"White evangelicals," Guth found, "are invariably the most populist: more likely to favor strong leadership (even when that means breaking the rules), to distrust government, to see the country on the wrong track and to think that the majority should always rule (and minorities adapt). ".
Guth also found that.
Another salient trait of populist politics is the willingness to ignore democratic civility. We constructed a "rough politics" score from three A. And. E. S. Items: whether protesters deserve what they get if they are hurt in demonstrating, whether the country would be better off if it got rid of rotten apples and whether people are "too sensitive" about political discourse. Here the usual pattern recurs: Evangelical affiliation, evangelical identity and biblical literalism predicts agreement with those assertions, while religious minorities, secular folks and progressives tend to demur.
Guth ranked religious groups on their level of support for conservative populism and found that.
Evangelicals end up far above any other religious group, with about two-thirds falling into the populist category. White Catholics, mainline Protestants and Latter-day Saints have significant numbers in that group but far fewer than evangelicals and nowhere near a majority. The religiously unaffiliated and minority ethnoreligious groups have few populists — often very few — with Jews, agnostics / atheists, Black Protestants and members of world religions the most antipopulist.
Guth wrote that his "findings help us understand what many have struggled to comprehend: How can white evangelical Protestants continue to provide strong support for President Donald Trump, whose personal values and behavior trample on the biblical and ethical standards professed by that community?
The most common explanation, according to Guth.
Is that white evangelicals have a transactional relationship with the president: As long as he nominates conservative jurists and makes appropriate gestures on abortion and sexual politics, they will support him.
"The evidence here," he wrote, "suggests a more problematic answer":
White evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility toward immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism and nativism, as well as his political style, with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership. Indeed, Trump's candidacy may have "authorized" for the first time the widespread expression of such attitudes.
Guth took his analysis a step farther, suggesting that pro-Trump, conservative populism has become entrenched in the white evangelical community:
The pervasive populism of white evangelical laity not only helps explain their support for President Trump but suggests powerful barriers to influence by cosmopolitan internationalist evangelical elites, who want to turn the community in a different direction. As hostile responses to efforts of antipopulist evangelicals like Michael Gerson, Russell Moore, David Platt and many others indicate, there is currently a very limited market for such alternative perspectives among the rank and file. Indeed, the vocal populism of many of the conservative evangelicals filling President Trump's religious advisory council is probably more representative of the community as a whole.
Guth went on:
Nor does cosmopolitan or cooperative internationalism find much purchase among local evangelical clergy. Analysis of the 2017 Cooperative Clergy Survey shows that ministers from several evangelical denominations, especially the large Southern Baptist Convention and Assemblies of God, exhibit exactly the same populist traits seen here in white evangelical laity, but in more pronounced form: strong Islamophobia, Christian nationalism, extreme moral traditionalism, opposition to trade pacts, militaristic attitudes, resistance to political compromise and climate change denial, among others.
In other words, conservative populism, with all its antidemocratic implications, has taken root in America. What we don't know is for how long — or how much damage it will do.
Repubs are nothing more than THUGS!
From Trump to Roger Stone and their right-wing insurrectionist foot-soldiers, Repubs once again show their TRUE COLORS..."the color of THUGS and VIOLENCE"!!!
[b]Trump team argues assassination of rivals is covered by presidential immunity[/b]
[URL]https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4398223-trump-team-argues-assassination-of-rivals-is-covered-by-presidential-immunity/[/URL]
Trump in a hart beat wouldn't hesitate to use a Navy SEAL Team Six to assassinate his political enemies/opposition.
[b]Likewise:[/b]
Roger Stone, caught/busted on tape discussing the assassination with an NYP Cop, of two (2) Democratic members of congress, Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler, weeks before the 2020 election.
[b]Exclusive: Roger Stone Spoke With Cop Pal About Assassinating Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler[/b]
[URL]https://www.mediaite.com/politics/exclusive-roger-stone-spoke-with-cop-pal-about-assassinating-eric-swalwell-and-jerry-nadler/[/URL]
Unfortunately, true. But not new.
[QUOTE=Spidy;2887096]Well in the spirit (somewhat) of Bill Maher - NEW RULE for Repubs!
Now that we have affirmative conformation and know with a good degree of certainty, that MAGA Republicans have officially turned the GOP/RNC party into nothing more than [b]thugs, gangsters[/b] and [b]goons,[/b] and whos base is nothing more than gun-toting insurrectionists, hired assassins and killers, [u]they need to change their national party affiliated name, so something more befitting.[/u]
What about a change from RNC to [b]RNWA[/b]? aka.[b]Republican National-iggaz Wit Attitudes[/b] (...kkkk!)
(...kkkk!)[/QUOTE]Repubs have been legislating and promoting the end of American democracy and the destruction of the Americsn economy for at least 100 years.
If Reagan thought he could have gotten away with ordering Navy S. E. A. L. Teams to kill his political rivals he would have done it in a heartbeat. He asked Iran to continue holding American hostages until after the 1980 election with the exchange apparently being he would some day gift them with American-killing ARMS!
No difference in the Repub mentality between then and now.
Why, any unbiased observer over the decades might accurately conclude their Party and key figures are, well, dare I say it; Deplorable.
Have a little pity for these ISG cucks they 2 are addicted to the copium LMAO
Go to the 3:23 mark.
Matt Taibbi: But hey, before we move on, should we address this thing that happened with Abby Phillip and Vivek Ramaswamy? I know Jimmy Dore already did a bit on it, but this is one of the weirdest things that I've seen on TV. I was just wondered if you agreed or not.
Walter Kirn: Abby Phillip being the CNN moderator at a Ramaswamy town hall, it happened in December, and the setup here is that yeah, I do think it's worth addressing because it was one of the most overt interventions by a state media representative in American television that I've ever seen. State media representative-.
Matt Taibbi: I've never seen anything like it.
Walter Kirn: . She set Ramaswamy up with a question about January 6th, and comments he made about it having been to some extent, quote, an inside job or having involved undercover agitators or something from-.
Matt Taibbi: About which I take no position. I'm assuming you don't either, but.
Walter Kirn: Right. You mean on the truth of that?
Matt Taibbi: Yeah.
Walter Kirn: Well, I don't take any position on it. I will say that as a news watcher, a reporter, and a friend of other reporters, I know there were various agents-.
Matt Taibbi: Oh, well, we know that. Mm-hmm.
Walter Kirn: But in any case, Ramaswamy, in other words, wasn't talking about pure fantasy: he was emphasizing something and interpreting something in a strong way. But she came in like she was, I don't know, his minder or a disciplinarian sent from headquarters and wouldn't let him speak, started interrupting him, kept saying, "I have to interrupt you. I don't want to have to interrupt you again," talking over him, not letting him answer her own question, her own prejudicial setup.
Matt Taibbi: Can we just play a few minutes of this? I'm sorry. It's just so amazing.
Walter Kirn: Yeah, it's mesmerizing.
Matt Taibbi: I think we can probably stop here, right? It just keeps going on and on like that, but I can't remember an interview like that. Can you? Jimmy Dore's bit was hilarious. It was like somebody was yelling in her earphone, "Don't let him say that. " It did feel like that.
Walter Kirn: That's how it works: of course somebody was yelling in her ear. And they're just stepping forth now and making themselves principles in the play. No longer are they trying to elicit statements from the main actors: they are the actors. And she's very sorry, but she, "Has to interrupt," she kept saying. It was almost as if she'the had a stun gun, she would've administered shocks and said, "Mr. Ramaswamy, I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn up the voltage now. I'm going to have to shock you again. You just made another statement: that gets you another shock," and the audience applauding against her, she's got something going in her ear, Ramaswamy is attempting to speak and it's all a subject that she broached. In other words, "I'the like you to defend yourself. Now, once you've started defending yourself, I'm going to have to interrupt and stop you from doing that. ".
Matt Taibbi: I feel bad for her because it was pretty clear that she didn't know a thing about the subject. I guess it's her job to know that.
Walter Kirn: Man, is that because of your Roman Catholic upbringing?
Matt Taibbi: Maybe it is, yeah.
Walter Kirn: I don't feel bad for anyone on TV. Anybody who's making those TV bucks and getting that good health insurance and wearing those red dresses, and getting out there with the heaters of the world.
Matt Taibbi: Having lunch at Whole Foods in the basement.
Walter Kirn:
Exactly, getting high-fived at Erewhon in LA. What we're going to see more and more is this discourse policing as an overt act by journalists. They want to control the thermostat, okay? They see themselves as guardians of the information thermostat, and if anybody tries to adjust it without permission, they grab it again and say hands off that thermostat.
Walter Kirn: That was weird too. It is her job to always make the favorable interpretation for the federal government?
Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Why should she care?
Walter Kirn: he had a point.
Matt Taibbi: I don't care.
Walter Kirn:
Yeah, that's the thing: why do they care so badly? And that's a mystery to me still, Matt. Is their monopoly on airport broadcasting that valuable? I think it's probably something like that. Dude, we've got Don Lemon now peeling off for X from CNN, and his whole schtick is that he's now going to speak the truth. The manacles are off: it's Don Lemon unchained.
Matt Taibbi: Wow. What's that going to be like?
Walter Kirn: We have no idea because any CNN host is so oppressed by the fact they're on CNN, you know? I've got to say, Chris Cuomo unchained is a lot more interesting than the CNN Chris Cuomo.
Matt Taibbi: It's true. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Walter Kirn: They're leaving the brainwashing program one by one. We're going to have Abby Phillip the way she really is someday.
Matt Taibbi: Right, and that's going to be awesome. I can't wait.
Walter Kirn: I can't wait.
Matt Taibbi: Yeah. But this policing mid-question is a new thing. I haven't seen that before. But we've been talking all year about this anti-disinformation stuff, and going in afterwards, and surgically removing something somebody said, or deamplifying it or whatever. But at the point of a live interview, intervening to make sure that somebody doesn't squeeze something out that might be heard by.
Walter Kirn: Dude, it was a town hall. It was an event to which people had come to hear Vivek Ramaswamy's views. That's why they were there. That's why it was on TV. And she's like, "I'm going to have to put my hand over your mouth. " Even if he was saying manifestly crazy things, the point was to let him speak.
Matt Taibbi: This kind of thing makes people want to hang journalists from yardarms. I'm sorry, it's the truth: I saw this developing during the 2015,2016 campaign, we got ritualistically Jared at the beginning, but then as things got more heated and the stories about Trump got more pointed, it got a little scary there for a little bit. People started to really despise the people in the press section, and you could feel it was mutual. There's no question about that. To this day, when you go out and try to interview people in the lines of Trump events, they are very hands-off. Unless they know who you are, they're not going to talk. And that is a new phenomenon. That was not like that even 8 years ago, or 10 or 12 years ago.
Walter Kirn: Matt, I just came up with a new debate format: you'll have Donald Trump at one lectern, and then the other lectern will be Abby Phillip, and Joe Biden will moderate.
Matt Taibbi: That's right.
Walter Kirn: Exactly: why not just have the candidates debate someone in the press, while the other candidate feeds leading questions? Because-.
Matt Taibbi: You could just interchange them because they're all the same anyway. It could be Jen Psaki for one question, and then, I don't know, I won't put Chris Hayes into this, but you know who I'm talking about. There's this endlessly. Chuck Todd, Karine Jean-Pierre.
Walter Kirn: Right, okay, so-.
Matt Taibbi: You can just cycle them endlessly.
Walter Kirn: Trump should debate Rachel Maddow with Kamala Harris asking the questions. That would probably be more revealing.
Matt Taibbi: It would be way more interesting.
Walter Kirn: Right, exactly. But that's what was happening here: we were seeing Abby Phillip acting as a surrogate for some kind of hive-mind at CNN that was debating Vivek Ramaswamy at what was supposedly a solo town hall at which she was just supposed to ask questions. But journalists now answer the questions too. So in other words, the whole thing has come full-circle. Is it not the natural evolution of narcissistic journalism that, "I not only write the story, I am the story. I not only ask the questions, I answer them. "?
End of link.
Yeah, Trump debating Rachel Mad Cow with Kamala asking the questions would be the Democratic douche version of fairness. ".
[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/17/copium-nate-silver-mocks-eric-swalwell-for-claiming-donald-trump-got-smoked-in-iowa/[/URL]
Yes they all hide their earpieces with their (fake ass wigs) long hair LMAO
Go to the 3:23 mark.
Matt Taibbi: But hey, before we move on, should we address this thing that happened with Abby Phillip and Vivek Ramaswamy? I know Jimmy Dore already did a bit on it, but this is one of the weirdest things that I've seen on TV. I was just wondered if you agreed or not.
Walter Kirn: Abby Phillip being the CNN moderator at a Ramaswamy town hall, it happened in December, and the setup here is that yeah, I do think it's worth addressing because it was one of the most overt interventions by a state media representative in American television that I've ever seen. State media representative-.
Matt Taibbi: I've never seen anything like it.
Walter Kirn: . She set Ramaswamy up with a question about January 6th, and comments he made about it having been to some extent, quote, an inside job or having involved undercover agitators or something from-.
Matt Taibbi: About which I take no position. I'm assuming you don't either, but.
Walter Kirn: Right. You mean on the truth of that?
Matt Taibbi: Yeah.
Walter Kirn: Well, I don't take any position on it. I will say that as a news watcher, a reporter, and a friend of other reporters, I know there were various agents-.
Matt Taibbi: Oh, well, we know that. Mm-hmm.
Walter Kirn: But in any case, Ramaswamy, in other words, wasn't talking about pure fantasy: he was emphasizing something and interpreting something in a strong way. But she came in like she was, I don't know, his minder or a disciplinarian sent from headquarters and wouldn't let him speak, started interrupting him, kept saying, "I have to interrupt you. I don't want to have to interrupt you again," talking over him, not letting him answer her own question, her own prejudicial setup.
Matt Taibbi: Can we just play a few minutes of this? I'm sorry. It's just so amazing.
Walter Kirn: Yeah, it's mesmerizing.
Matt Taibbi: I think we can probably stop here, right? It just keeps going on and on like that, but I can't remember an interview like that. Can you? Jimmy Dore's bit was hilarious. It was like somebody was yelling in her earphone, "Don't let him say that. " It did feel like that.
Walter Kirn: That's how it works: of course somebody was yelling in her ear. And they're just stepping forth now and making themselves principles in the play. No longer are they trying to elicit statements from the main actors: they are the actors. And she's very sorry, but she, "Has to interrupt," she kept saying. It was almost as if she'the had a stun gun, she would've administered shocks and said, "Mr. Ramaswamy, I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn up the voltage now. I'm going to have to shock you again. You just made another statement: that gets you another shock," and the audience applauding against her, she's got something going in her ear, Ramaswamy is attempting to speak and it's all a subject that she broached. In other words, "I'the like you to defend yourself. Now, once you've started defending yourself, I'm going to have to interrupt and stop you from doing that. ".
Matt Taibbi: I feel bad for her because it was pretty clear that she didn't know a thing about the subject. I guess it's her job to know that.
Walter Kirn: Man, is that because of your Roman Catholic upbringing?
Matt Taibbi: Maybe it is, yeah.
Walter Kirn: I don't feel bad for anyone on TV. Anybody who's making those TV bucks and getting that good health insurance and wearing those red dresses, and getting out there with the heaters of the world.
Matt Taibbi: Having lunch at Whole Foods in the basement.
Walter Kirn:
Exactly, getting high-fived at Erewhon in LA. What we're going to see more and more is this discourse policing as an overt act by journalists. They want to control the thermostat, okay? They see themselves as guardians of the information thermostat, and if anybody tries to adjust it without permission, they grab it again and say hands off that thermostat.
Walter Kirn: That was weird too. It is her job to always make the favorable interpretation for the federal government?
Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Why should she care?
Walter Kirn: he had a point.
Matt Taibbi: I don't care.
Walter Kirn:
Yeah, that's the thing: why do they care so badly? And that's a mystery to me still, Matt. Is their monopoly on airport broadcasting that valuable? I think it's probably something like that. Dude, we've got Don Lemon now peeling off for X from CNN, and his whole schtick is that he's now going to speak the truth. The manacles are off: it's Don Lemon unchained.
Matt Taibbi: Wow. What's that going to be like?
Walter Kirn: We have no idea because any CNN host is so oppressed by the fact they're on CNN, you know? I've got to say, Chris Cuomo unchained is a lot more interesting than the CNN Chris Cuomo.
Matt Taibbi: It's true. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Walter Kirn: They're leaving the brainwashing program one by one. We're going to have Abby Phillip the way she really is someday.
Matt Taibbi: Right, and that's going to be awesome. I can't wait.
Walter Kirn: I can't wait.
Matt Taibbi: Yeah. But this policing mid-question is a new thing. I haven't seen that before. But we've been talking all year about this anti-disinformation stuff, and going in afterwards, and surgically removing something somebody said, or deamplifying it or whatever. But at the point of a live interview, intervening to make sure that somebody doesn't squeeze something out that might be heard by.
Walter Kirn: Dude, it was a town hall. It was an event to which people had come to hear Vivek Ramaswamy's views. That's why they were there. That's why it was on TV. And she's like, "I'm going to have to put my hand over your mouth. " Even if he was saying manifestly crazy things, the point was to let him speak.
Matt Taibbi: This kind of thing makes people want to hang journalists from yardarms. I'm sorry, it's the truth: I saw this developing during the 2015,2016 campaign, we got ritualistically Jared at the beginning, but then as things got more heated and the stories about Trump got more pointed, it got a little scary there for a little bit. People started to really despise the people in the press section, and you could feel it was mutual. There's no question about that. To this day, when you go out and try to interview people in the lines of Trump events, they are very hands-off. Unless they know who you are, they're not going to talk. And that is a new phenomenon. That was not like that even 8 years ago, or 10 or 12 years ago.
Walter Kirn: Matt, I just came up with a new debate format: you'll have Donald Trump at one lectern, and then the other lectern will be Abby Phillip, and Joe Biden will moderate.
Matt Taibbi: That's right.
Walter Kirn: Exactly: why not just have the candidates debate someone in the press, while the other candidate feeds leading questions? Because-.
Matt Taibbi: You could just interchange them because they're all the same anyway. It could be Jen Psaki for one question, and then, I don't know, I won't put Chris Hayes into this, but you know who I'm talking about. There's this endlessly. Chuck Todd, Karine Jean-Pierre.
Walter Kirn: Right, okay, so-.
Matt Taibbi: You can just cycle them endlessly.
Walter Kirn: Trump should debate Rachel Maddow with Kamala Harris asking the questions. That would probably be more revealing.
Matt Taibbi: It would be way more interesting.
Walter Kirn: Right, exactly. But that's what was happening here: we were seeing Abby Phillip acting as a surrogate for some kind of hive-mind at CNN that was debating Vivek Ramaswamy at what was supposedly a solo town hall at which she was just supposed to ask questions. But journalists now answer the questions too. So in other words, the whole thing has come full-circle. Is it not the natural evolution of narcissistic journalism that, "I not only write the story, I am the story. I not only ask the questions, I answer them. "?
End of link.
Yeah, Trump debating Rachel Mad Cow with Kamala asking the questions would be the Democratic douche version of fairness. ".
I like Vivek I think he would make an awesome choice for VP.
Even a great president in 2028!!
How Biden's IRA changed the World, for a better FUTURE!
FT says Biden's IRA has changed the WORLD.
How Biden's Inflation Reduction Act changed the world | FT Film
[URL]www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfaubxeS5HU[/URL]
• What is the Inflation Reduction Act?
• Georgia Embraces Clean Energy Dollars
• General Electric brings Jobs back to America
• How Inflation Reduction Act changed the world
• What the Inflation Reduction Act means for Europe
• Trade tensions and international relations
• China remains the factory of the world
• What the Inflation Reduction Act means for the global south
• A Second Trump administration could change everything
The GREAT Biden economy just continues to roll along, benefiting AMERICANS at every turn, despite the harmful impediments of Repubs.
Touche' but I'm guessing you Evil anti Americans hate it including Tiny
[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/01/this-should-be-republicans-red-line-in-any-immigration-deal/[/URL]
If the oligarchs try to fuck the American people again in Nov, there will be blood
[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/style/survival-skills-sere-class-wilderness.html[/URL]
MSM are really spinning it for Trump and Repubs this time. More than in 2016 and 2020
Typically pro Repub Mainstream Media must be smacking their lips and drooling over the prospect of another round of Trump / Repub Crap Results, Economic Collapse, Massive Job Destruction and "A Once in 100 Years Disaster Has Struck"! Headlines.
Obviously, this Historic Biden / Dem Economic Recovery, Expansion, Jobs Creation, Record Low Unemployment, Rising Wages, NO America at War ANYWHERE, Strengthening The Western Alliance and Democracy Around the World, Lower Crime Rates, Lower Homicide Rates, Historic Climate Change Legislation, Historic Future-assuring Chips Act, Historically High Rate of Health Insurance Coverage re ACA, Drive to Keep Sex For Pleasure Legal in America, etc thingy is simply too boring for them to spend much time mentioning it much less reporting it in detail and crediting the POTUS and Party responsible for it.
LOL. All three network evening MSM News programs went even further to protect and prevent Repub Trump from coming off as the America-hating wannabe Authoritarian Dictator he is than that host in the "see 3:23" video clip did for Ramaswammy, trying to prevent him from committing to video for all time what a total blithering conspiracy theory Loon he is:
[B]Donald Trump said the law doesnt apply to him if hes president. Network news evening broadcasts didnt mention it.
Jan. 18, 2024[/B]
[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/donald-trump-said-law-doesnt-apply-him-if-hes-president-network-news-evening[/URL]
[QUOTE]Donald Trump on January 18 gave political reporters plenty to talk about: threats of bedlam if the Supreme Court doesnt overrule state decisions and place his name on state ballots and a claim that total immunity gave him free rein to subvert the results of the 2020 election. All three major broadcast outlets evening news shows failed to cover these incendiary remarks.
....
Failing to report on Trumps threats and incendiary remarks effectively sanitizing Trump for a mass audience is exactly the sort of coverage decision that spurred Media Matters to name legacy media our Misinformer of the Year for 2023. If these major news outlets continue this trend, were in store for a repeat of 2016.[/QUOTE]LOL. And to think the whiny Winger snowflakes of the world actually mistake these constant efforts by typically pro Repub MSM to protect their beloved America-hating Repub pols and prevent their most damaging characteristics and results from being revealed to the American Electorate as some sort of mean ol' censorship or violation of their 1st Amendment rights. Lolol.
