Trump's Twitter patter

[scifibum]

I'm following Trump's personal twitter account as well as @POTUS.  Between the two, over 30 million followers but there's probably almost total overlap, so let's call it 22 million or so.


He's using this channel to do some interesting things:


1) Attack mainstream news outlets and call them "fake news."  He's equating CNN's coverage of the existence of an unsubstantiated dossier with completely fabricated stories meant to troll the masses and gin up outrage.  By doing this, he gives his supporters - and maybe himself - permission to equate quoting CNN with forwarding and repeating the complete fabrications that actually earn the "fake news" moniker.  He encourages his followers to continue to prefer "alternative facts". 


2) Promote his TV appearances. 


3) Hamfisted diplomacy.  He got Mexico's president to back out of a meeting by trying to keep alive his always-and-forever-ridiculous promise to make Mexico pay for his wall. 


4) Try to steer consumers to products and media companies he likes.  (He likes the ones that stroke his ego, of course.)


5) Attack entertainers for having opinions that don't flatter him.


6) Threaten to "send in the feds".  Granted, nobody seems to be able to make sense of this, but we're left with two options: he doesn't understand how anything works, or he wanted to do something extreme like declare martial law in Chicago.


7) Provide information about the executive orders, meetings, and other things he's working on.


Only one of these things is arguably a good thing (in case you are wondering, it's the last one, and it's not necessarily a good thing if it stands in for reporting and analysis). 


For the rest, he seems to have an incredibly thin skin, poor impulse control, and the inclination to use his bully pulpit to try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. 

Is there any reason this shouldn't disturb everyone? 

[Pete at Home]

It's intended to disturb.

Even when he seems to have a cunning underlying strategy (as I believe he has in Chicago and with Mexico), he frames it in bombastic and belligerent terms.  We saw this before with Reagan.  Don't get me wrong, in my book that is not a compliment.  Reagan gambled and on the surface, he won, because his winnings were apparent and his losses could be accounted to others.

Rahm Emmanuel seems to understand Trump's political game in Chicago, and on another thread, I posted a video of his response.  Basically in Chicago, Trump's enacting one of Obama's legacies, but to make it palatable to the Tea Party and to Red America, he's framing it as aggression against Blue America.  If Trump pulls off this bluff, Red America has finally accepted ramifications of the 14th Amendment that it's resisted for over a century, and Trump gets credit for what no one will remember was Obama's plan to save Chicago from violence.  BUT IF TRUMP's BLUFF FAILS, then Chicago becomes the epicenter of a race war.

With Mexico, Trump's wall won't do much on the immigration front, and if he could coerce Mexico to pay directly for the wall, that would NOT accomplish his goal.  As I've argued on several threads, Trump's goal can only be achieved by disrupting the money flow from stateside illegal workers to Mexico.  And he accomplishes that under the guise of making Mexico pay for the wall.  If Trump succeeds, illegal immigration continues in the same numbers, but fewer single male immigrants come up here alone to send money home, and more whole latino families.  That means the US continues to benefit from cheap labor, but the crime wave associated with latinos plummets, because that's caused primarily from young males being outside the family social net.  Furthermore, the latino families spend their money in the USA, resulting in more jobs for everyone.  BUT IF TRUMP's PLAY BACKFIRES, Mexico collapses because of the drop of money inflow, the narcos take over to an even greater degree, and we end up with waves of mexican refugees from a civil war washing up dead and alive on our southern beaches.

[TheDeamon]

Basically in Chicago, Trump's enacting one of Obama's legacies, but to make it palatable to the Tea Party and to Red America, he's framing it as aggression against Blue America.  If Trump pulls off this bluff, Red America has finally accepted ramifications of the 14th Amendment that it's resisted for over a century

Uh, what? Last I checked, the National Guard call-up and enforced desegregation in Little Rock, AR happened on order of President Truman, who was a Republican, and incidentally had a VP by the name of Richard Nixon.

If you're going to cite Republican opposition to the CRA in the 1960's you need to do some better research. The Republicans objected to it on grounds that you would see echoed today by many others who also are not racist(although many may accuse them of being so): They made what would now be considered "The Libertarian Argument" today in regards to what the CRA was doing. They didn't feel the Federal Government had, or should obtain, the authority needed to enforce many of the provisions contained within.

It also ignores that if you check your history books, many of the "Red States" of today were states that were helping push and support many of those same Civil rights reforms that happened in the mid-1960's and earlier. They haven't been fighting against Civil Rights for the past century. They've been fighting against what the Civil Rights Act did, starting in the 1960's with the quotas.

and Trump gets credit for what no one will remember was Obama's plan to save Chicago from violence.  BUT IF TRUMP's BLUFF FAILS, then Chicago becomes the epicenter of a race war.

I doubt a race war is going to break out. Well. I guess I need to walk around that a little bit: I doubt a race war is going to break out so long as "outside agitating agents" don't insert themselves into the mix trying to "create the optics" of one happening. We have more than a few generally left-leaning groups that are not shy of employing such tactics, and those allegations have been made in regards to more than a few of the "riots" that have struck in other communities--That the people who initiated most of the violent acts/heated language, and in particular the ones doing most of the looting and burning, were not locals.

Basically they found a time/place they could get to(by whatever means) where they could cause some mayhem and stand a good chance of getting away with it, so they took full advantage of it.

This is also partially our new reality in the age of Google Maps/Google Street view, and other such things, such as aerial camera drones and what not too. Even that "Street tough" can whip out Google Maps/Street View and use that to "get the lay of the land" for where they're heading long before they ever go there. If they have some well heeled backers, they could even send someone through with a Drone-Cam in advance and potentially "scout things out" in advance when they know they're dealing with a "heated situation" that is likely to play out over several days giving them time to plan.

We're no longer dealing with the days of "simple" street riots like happened even as late as the 1990's, where most of the rioters actually were local to where they rioted.

Further hampering things is I'm sure the media is going to absolutely jump on any chance they get to try to report anything they can as racially charged/motivated so they can gin up that same "race war" narrative in the interest of pumping up their ratings.

Not going to argue on Mexico, as you probably have it about right.

[Pete at Home]

Basically in Chicago, Trump's enacting one of Obama's legacies, but to make it palatable to the Tea Party and to Red America, he's framing it as aggression against Blue America.  If Trump pulls off this bluff, Red America has finally accepted ramifications of the 14th Amendment that it's resisted for over a century

Uh, what? Last I checked, the National Guard call-up and enforced desegregation in Little Rock, AR happened on order of President Truman, who was a Republican, and incidentally had a VP by the name of Richard Nixon.

Absolutely correct.  I didn't think that Republicans were called "Red America" back then.  I wasn't referring to names of political parties but to geographical areas.  More clear? 

If you're going to cite Republican opposition to the CRA in the 1960's

I'm not.

I'm talking about resistance to the 14th amendment from Southern states and from Rural America generally.  For most of the time since the civil war, that area was Democratic by party allegiance, although in recent decades it's swapped to Republican.

[TheDeamon]

Basically in Chicago, Trump's enacting one of Obama's legacies, but to make it palatable to the Tea Party and to Red America, he's framing it as aggression against Blue America.  If Trump pulls off this bluff, Red America has finally accepted ramifications of the 14th Amendment that it's resisted for over a century

Uh, what? Last I checked, the National Guard call-up and enforced desegregation in Little Rock, AR happened on order of President Truman, who was a Republican, and incidentally had a VP by the name of Richard Nixon.

Absolutely correct.  I didn't think that Republicans were called "Red America" back then.  I wasn't referring to names of political parties but to geographical areas.  More clear? 

Then just call it the "Deep South" or "The SouthEast" or "The Southern States" or "Old Dixie" because there is a LOT of the US that identifies as "Red America" (Because Red=Republican these days) that doesn't identify with that geography, or history.

[Pete at Home]

Basically in Chicago, Trump's enacting one of Obama's legacies, but to make it palatable to the Tea Party and to Red America, he's framing it as aggression against Blue America.  If Trump pulls off this bluff, Red America has finally accepted ramifications of the 14th Amendment that it's resisted for over a century

Uh, what? Last I checked, the National Guard call-up and enforced desegregation in Little Rock, AR happened on order of President Truman, who was a Republican, and incidentally had a VP by the name of Richard Nixon.

Absolutely correct.  I didn't think that Republicans were called "Red America" back then.  I wasn't referring to names of political parties but to geographical areas.  More clear? 

Then just call it the "Deep South" or "The SouthEast" or "The Southern States" or "Old Dixie" because there is a LOT of the US that identifies as "Red America" (Because Red=Republican these days) that doesn't identify with that geography, or history.

I don't mean just the South.  I mean the areas now identified as Red America, including but not limited to the South.  Civil Rights/Slavery was not the only hot button issue that invoked federal control.

[TheDrake]

Uh, what? Last I checked, the National Guard call-up and enforced desegregation in Little Rock, AR happened on order of President Truman, who was a Republican, and incidentally had a VP by the name of Richard Nixon.

I don't think anyone noticed that you turned Truman into a Republican. You were thinking of Eisenhower.

[TheDeamon]

I don't think anyone noticed that you turned Truman into a Republican. You were thinking of Eisenhower.

LOL, that was one heck of a typo. Had the time frame and VP right. But yeah, it was Eisenhower.