Quote:
Originally Posted by Anteater
Mitch McConnell is a stooge and needs to go back to the crypt they excavated him from.
In regards to the Trump administration, I'm glad he's cracking down on sanctuary cities and implementing policies in that field that actually work to enforce our immigration laws. His ongoing feud with the media has also proven fruitful in some unexpected ways as well, shining a light on the hypocrisies of both government and the massive media enterprises themselves. Maybe if things go particularly well in this arena we could see the death of CNN AND Fox News within the next eight years. 
Other than those things, I'm not any happier about this administration than I was about Obama. Especially with how they continue to bungle health care. But at the end of the day, I feel like we don't have a complete picture at the actual state of Trump's administration anyway because you have such an overwhelming degree of polarization (culturally) that forces the viewer/reader/listener to peel back more layers than usual if they want a complete picture of what's happening at any given time.
What a lot of Trump's independent base wanted when they memed him into office was someone who would trigger enough people to potentially shift the status quo and create enough disgust for both the conservative + liberal superelite that a serious candidate could get elected in 2020. But that strategy might end up backfiring if this is what we'll end up with: |
We approach the impact of illegal immigration differently, which is fine. I'll admit my bias when criticizing his actions on sanctuary cities, but it's mostly borne out of the Donald's demonstrable bias against people from Latin America (not to mention many of his voters - good lord, deplorable doesn't come close).
I fundamentally disagree with his media feud being a good thing. He's questioning the existence of journalistic integrity when facts/narratives don't align with his own. It's not only stupid, it's actively dangerous. CNN, for all its flaws, publishes retractions. Brietbart and its ideological kin, do not. Journalistic institutions are like every other institution, full of problems, but there for a reason. The resourcing, the internal and external accountability, the prestige gained, and lost, through thorough or shoddy reporting - these are all lacking in the new world of alt-right "journalism". For instance the "3 million illegals voted" story from this past November. I did a complete breakdown on an AV Club comment thread which I won't repeat here, but the gist was far-right publications were all quoting unsourced, or single source material, as fact - a cursory examination of where they got the info from showed just how much bull**** was being shoveled, but you won't get a "sorry, we overstated the problem" or "our source wasn't reliable" - it's right on to the next Pizzagate/Benghazi/'Russia is our best friend, who told you otherwise?' story.
(I can track down the details of my dissembling the 3 million illegal votes claim if you're interested)
So I'm less positive that we're seeing or approaching a glorious rebirth of truth and media ethics.
We have a bully in the White House and it looks like 30-40 million people, roughly half of Trump's voters, love it. The Paris Agreement and it's completely voluntary standards and contributions that were meant to foster knowledge sharing and a competitive spirit among developed countries? **** THAT, 'MURICA. I have yet to see one cogent argument, not built on a lie (like Trump's claims of forced payments, China being allowed to build 100s of coal plants but we're not - no forced payments, and we can build whatever the hell we want... seriously so tired of him selling his lies to millions and millions of people).
I'd rather have technocrats in office than whatever Trump, Bannon, Kuschner, Miller, etc. are. Yeah, bit frustrated today. But thanks for engaging constructively. I just don't know what you're basing your 'forest fire clearing away the detritus' argument on.