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I greatly enjoy that Biden is this way.
When he was campaigning, he was in an interview about Turkey, and he said more or less if Erdoğan gets out of line we might have to get rid of him. Then he realized what he said wasn't a "say out loud" type of statement, and tried to walk it back by saying well, I don't mean with a coup or anything, just, you know, we'll have to see what we can do. Which only made it 10 times worse. The US press didn't really notice but it was a shit storm in the central-Asian press for like 6 months.
But the thing is, every US president has thoughts and plans like that. I'm not saying it or the neoliberal empire are good things. I'm just saying that Biden has those thoughts and then sometimes actually says them out loud which I actually prefer over the "I'm so self-aware that every statement is preanalyzed and often kind of indirect" Washington standard.
Which is something that MAGAs say they like about Trump, but they're always trying to cover for his most outrageous nonsense by saying "no, that's not what he meant." And in actuality, what he really does is say what he thinks will get the most applause at the time; and sometimes he overshoots.
Whereas with this, it's like...reasonable stuff that has been caught slipping out of Biden's mouth, just reasonable stuff that most politicians won't say.
Though I have to say, I really wish some reasonable stuff about a cease-fire and stopping arms shipments would've slipped out a few months ago.
Yeah. With Trump it's a little different. I actually get it kind of. He's authentic to himself in a way most politicians are not. He's just a big fat mean asshole who likes shouting and cheeseburgers and raw-dogging porn stars. He doesn't like paying taxes and he doesn't like smart people who try to get one over on him. For the most part, what you see is what you get.
I think a lot of rural America has an absolute hatred for Washington, because Washington for the most part hasn't given a fuck what happened to them for the last 50 years. And I think they see Trump, and say well, he's an asshole, but he's not one of those weird plastic people who've been stealing from my pension fund and making sure my health insurance doesn't work, and he seems to hate them too and not afraid to get violent with them. Hey, that sounds pretty fuckin' good from where I'm standing. He's got my vote.
I'm not saying their assessment of the impact of Trump on their pension fund is accurate. But their read of him as a person, I think, is actually the root cause of why they like him and I think that part is true.
Yes. 😢
Yeah. They want a strong man to hurt all of the people that the alt-right media has told them are the cause of their problems. Only...
...is the exact opposite of true (he's plastic, but angry plastic instead of bland plastic). Which brings me to...
I don't think he is, though. I don't even think he knows what that would look like. I don't think he likes giving speeches, he just likes applause. I don't think he wants to be president (and I don't think he did in 2016 or 2020 either), he's just terrified of what'll happen if he's not in the limelight anymore. I don't think he likes Coca-Cola or Big Macs, I think he just does whatever will make the person/people in front of him say how great he is. I don't think he has a self outside of what other people tell him it is.
Incidentally, that's why he has a quarter million indictments.
Oh, I wasn't saying he was honest. He presents himself as smart and rich, which is flaming bullshit. I think some of his followers believe him about that, but that's not why they like him; there are plenty of genuinely smart and rich people they despise.
The awful neoliberal suit-wearing jerks are one kind of asshole who's hurting their financial futures and the communities their kids have to live in, and they know that. But absolutely you're right; Trump is something much, much worse and much more dark, and they're making a terrifying mistake by supporting him just because he is (genuinely, and with real authenticity) not one of those people.
You may get this then:
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
After all these years, I've never read anything that explains Trump supports so perfectly.
This was a good read, thanks for sharing
Rural Americans by and large don't have pensions anymore if in fact they ever did, and they've been thoroughly brainwashed to believe that their insurance worked better back when you could be kicked off your plan for costing too much and be blacklisted from getting any in the first place if you had a pre-existing condition. No, the thing that they liked about Trump was that he said he hated all the people they hated too, and he gave them license to speak their hate aloud after decades of being told that they were bad people if they hated somebody because of some indelible feature of their origin or identity.
I seem to remember back in the early 2000s there was some media coverage of some local scoundrel running for some office and people were really taken with it. I think it was essentially a Trump prototype. That media coverage probably entered the subconscious of millions of voters.
Also, let's not forget about Rob Ford. People's love for an obvious con man is truly a vulnerability of all societies.
Lol, was about to comment something similar. He should have been publicly calling for a cease fire the second Israel made it clear they will murder civilians
I mean, even Trudeau put his foot in it with his "I think we need an immediate cease--uh, cease-cessation of--a...we need to see the firing cease..."
If Biden had done something like that, this would've been over before Christmas.
I'm an idiot when I talk to people all day everyday. The gaffs in speech aren't what I care about. I care that Biden kept publicly supporting Israel for so long.
To your last point, compare and contrast with Obama, whose speech patterns were chock-full of long pauses where you could just tell he was doing higher-order political math on the next phrase. To an extent that's because that's what Obama had to do or else the Hannities and Carlsons of the world would find some minute quibble they could build out into an elaborate conspiracy with which to fan the right-wing outrage machines for another week... but for all the other problems I have with the man I do appreciate the no-fucks-given mindset Biden's brought to the job. The right wing media hate machine has become fully decoupled from reality at this point; there's no reason to soft-shoe around things that might set them off anymore.
That's a super apt description of Obama speeches. Higher-order political math, lol
Now I wanna see a gif of Obama using the math overlay from this.
Look like a brilliant edit waiting to be done by someone less lazy than I am !
I get down voted here for saying that sometimes Joe Biden's mouth gets out in front of his brain. But it's so, so true.
What i find funny about that is..isn't that the case for all "normal" people? Happens quite often to me and a few of my friends and acquaintances. I like Biden because he actually could be just a normal, run of the mill grandpa. He's had his fair share of loss, he knows stuff and has a lot of general life expectancy...
I mean, look at what they're doing in Pakistan right now. They didn't like Khan so they've put him in prison, and when his party still won the election despite this, they tried to steal the election (and the state department still hasn't said anything about this).
They're generally more interested in chasing down the next story, vs. spending more time on a current one.
Edit: I've apparently offended people with short attention spans.