This is the type of subtle "bothsides"ism that I actually give kudos to. It's not as blatant as saying "they're both equally bad" or "they're both old" or "they're both [anything]". It's pretending to be dispassionate, just a neutral observation, just "oh wow, the times we live in". Oh so subtle. "Presidential candidates", not "a Presidential candidate". "Challenge each other", not "challenges the Democrat".
And not a word about the central focus of the article, that Trump is clearly off his rocker.
It's like textual judo. Deflect from the primary purpose: Trump is a fucking whacko --> we live in a time. Equivocate: Republicans are making shit up --> candidates challenge each other.
Or as I like to put it: He could be in bed with a live boy, a dead girl, a half-eaten puppy, a half-eaten kitten, and then take a massive diarrhoea dump in the middle of the bed on live TV, and his supporters would still support him.
Dump: sharks, battery electrocution, so many dead birds, flushing toilets 15 times, MIT person woman man camera very big a-brain, bing bing bong bing loads diaper loudly
Trumpanzees: Hooray golden god, piss in our mouths!
The media has done "both sides" with everything he says out of this weird fear that the people that are now part of a cult and will easily question reality, might accuse them of being political. I think them (the media) always white washing Trump's actions and word salad has 100% enabled him to make it this far.
also they are waaaayyy more critical than the first go round where they would not call out anything. I mean I sorta get it. His stuff was just so incredibly stupid and outside the bounds of what a presidential candidate would do that they just did not know how to react to it. Then also to he would do something rediculous each day so it was hard for them to have time and cover the previous stuff more in depth. Even online you would see people (like myself) ask what was the worst or stupidest things he had said to date or just a list of all of them and it was hard to find because there were so many existing and many being created in real time.
I don't think it's a "to much material" issue. It's 100% not wanting to be seen as bias/political by people that argue and conduct everything they do in bad faith. It's about chasing profits from an audience they aren't going to get, because they are trying to sell facts to a cult that has been conditioned to discard them outright with no critical thinking involved, just blind deference to Dear Leader. And giving the press a pass is why we got Trump the first time, and certainly looks like will be a factor this time around as well.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, call it a duck instead of "it might be a duck" or "some people believe it may be a duck". The media is suppose to report what they see/hear, not play favorites or white wash things to placate a section of the country that has gone off the rails. Congress also needs to bring back some type of legislation prohibiting the types of Murdock "reporting" that serves only to muddy the water and/or throw shit at the wall for profit.
Media also has a HUGE problem with weasel words. I hear it all the time. "Certain politicians are saying", "some people believe", "it is believed that he was radicalized online" (by fucking who? to believe what??)
Be fucking honest. Republicans are saying crazy shit. Right-wing domestic terrorists are radicalizing people. Media refuses to come out and say this shit and it makes stupid and/or uninformed people think it's both sides doing the heinous stuff.
Sinclair is another group out to muddy the waters and report "both sides" nonsense instead of actual news. Just watch the 2 instances now where they had every channel in harmony read straight propaganda like it was news. Watching them back with all the feeds synced up is wild and disturbing. I know the first time they actually lost broadcasters because they didn't want to read propaganda like a robot to their audience.
Well I sort of agree but at the same time for months they avoided "being mean" to him. He lies repeatedly and it took a long time for most outlets to call him out for it
I could totally see him agreeing to a debate format same as last time, but apparently he agreed to a debate format where your mic is cut off after your time is up? I never thought he would agree to that and Im not surprised he's trying to get out of it.
Yup. Trump refers to Ronny Jackson as Ronny Johnson.
From the article:
Seconds later, he continued, “Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately."
Jackson was elected to Congress in 2021 and is one of Trump's most vociferous defenders on Capitol Hill.
Seconds later, he continued, “Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately."
All of this would be the funniest shit ever if it wasn't so dangerous to world politics.
and despite the ridiculously bad stuff he says this type of stuff still gets me. Here he just outright says he likes people who flatters him because they flatter him. He just openly says how he is the most primitive and rudimentary of humanity.
I want an alternate reality where he got his own weird talk show but not have him be soft on republicans, with his stupid nickname skills and whatnot it would be a blast I bet
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee referred to Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was the White House physician for part of his presidency, as "Ronny Johnson.” The moment came as Trump was questioning Biden's mental acuity, something he often does on the campaign trail and social media.
“He doesn’t even know what the word ‘inflation’ means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did," the former president said of Biden during a speech at a convention of Turning Point Action in Detroit.
I feel like we should make trump compete on "are you smarter than a 5th grader". I mean, the whole accusation-is-projection thing. You know. Like how stupid people always think they're the smartest in the room.... he doesn't know what inflation is... so of course Biden doesn't know, either.
I found a sample test with 133 questions. I got 126 of them for 94.74%.
There were a few history questions that threw me, specifically related to the federalist papers of which I've got scant little memory.
I felt like the rest of it was pretty straightforward. I also think recent divisiveness has made a lot of the questions related to how the federal government is structured a lot easier.
As to your assertion that most natural Americans would fail, I'd flip a coin on that. Maybe? Probably?
Assuming most Americans couldn't pass it, that explains a ton of politician rhetoric. They say things that are functionally impossible, but if the voter Is entirely unaware of how the government is structured and functions, then they'll eat it up and cast their vote, frequently against their own well being.
if the voter Is entirely unaware of how the government is structured and functions
The vast, vast majority of voters have no idea how government works. And this is actually one of the few things that both sides are guilty of: incredibly uninformed voters.
The way our government works is actually pretty complicated and I'm confident in saying that most Americans have only a very basic understanding of it. That's also largely not their fault. Civics education in this country is a joke.
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee referred to Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was the White House physician for part of his presidency, as "Ronny Johnson.” The moment came as Trump was questioning Biden's mental acuity, something he often does on the campaign trail and social media.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment that Trump took includes remembering a list of spoken words; listening to a list of random numbers and repeating them backward; naming as many words that begin with, say, the letter F as possible within a minute; accurately drawing a cube; and describing concrete ways that two objects — like a train and a bicycle — are alike.
During the same speech in Detroit, Trump also referenced a video clip widely circulated online in Republican circles where Biden is seen during the recently concluded Group of Seven summit in Italy watching skydivers land with flags from different nations.
A cropped version of the video shows Biden stepping away from the leaders, turning his back and walking in the other direction.
Trump nonetheless seized on the video clip, falsely describing Biden turning around "to look at trees," drawing laughter and hoots from the crowd.
The Biden campaign issued a statement dismissing the clip as misleadingly cropped and accusing those disseminating it as “tampering with the video to make up lies.”
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