How ignorant can you get?
Donald Trump thinks an IQ test measures (the lack of) ignorance.
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 24 Comments
How ignorant can you get?
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Nothing suprises me about Donald Trump any more. He’s a loathsome and despicable man. Find myself more interested in the folks who voted for him, and the now thankfully smaller subset who continue to support him.
This piece from the estimable 538 blog is fascinating:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-rabid-online-following/
Great link, thanks, though there’s a vague feeling of “so, Trump’s online supporters are violently racist, misogynist, religious maniacs who love guns – who could possibly have foreseen that?”
My loathing of DT has now started mutating into some kind of 2nd-hand meta-hatred – I’m no longer surprised by anything he does and says, I’m now more angry at the party-members who still kow-tow to him, and the supporters who refuse to acknowledge the total sh*t-tornado he’s plunging the country into…
Yeah but I have just come back from a 4 day network meeting in the USA and things aint what they seem. Yes the majority of opinions voiced about him are anti, what about those that don’t voice an opinion? The silent majority?
There are plenty over there who feel for example his travel ban is keeping them safe. The sad thing is only another terrorist atrocity will convince them otherwise.
I have a big problem with his xenophobic ramblings and his ill-considered travel ban but if the banning of electronic items in the hold is based on a credible terrorist threat it should be introduced on all flights and not just those from a select bunch of airports. Since I am flying with Qatari to Nepal in September it is a little disquieting that they are one that has been selected.
Oh and the shrillness of those opposing him is weakening our case. A more reasoned argument might persuade some of his supporters he is a clown.
Technically, a silent minority.
Arguably a silent majority if they are for him but don’t want to be shouted down by those against him. As long as they are silent we will never know.
I meant that he lost the popular vote.
You’re right of course – I missed your point.
No worries. You’re right that the great unknowable is how many Trump supporters there are out there who don’t appear on the media/pollster radar.
I saw today that one poll has his approval rating at 37%. That would be a serious problem for most first year Presidents, but his ability to point out that his supporters failed to be properly accounted for in pre-polling during the election gives him some sort of insulation.
The ban seems to be focused on the belief that security at certain airports is inadequate. The last update I got was that you could fly into some of these locations with electronic gear in hand luggage but not on the return leg back to the UK or US.
To the extent that the bans damage business of airlines like Emirates I’m sure Trump will be happy. But this doesn’t seem to be policy driven by a Fox news package – for once it does seem to be intelligence driven. Which does make it almost unique in terms of current US policy.
I’d be shitting myself if it was me about to fly to anywhere from anywhere.
I fear my next door neighbour Beardy McJihad, who’s a bit slow on the tech front, is planning to down a 747 using his mobile phone:
He’s currently polling at c. 80% with Republicans.
Equally I know a lot of smart Republicans who are repulsed by him.
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world
I enjoyed this piece in The Washington Post:
Lessons From President Obvious
Allow me to correct their spelling: Lessons From President Odious.
My guess is that many of his hard-line supporters choose to get their news only from the Breitbart / Fox News segment of the media, so they literally don’t know, because they don’t care, what other sections of the populace are saying about DT.
Not sure about that. CNN is biggest news channel but certainly not his biggest fan. My big concern is that when the media start channelling something/someone else he will be allowed to be even more outrageous.
My point was they wouldn’t watch CNN if it counters their worldview – anything that is negative is fake news and so on.
Yesterday’s Time Magazine interview is another one for the connoisseurs.
http://time.com/4710456/donald-trump-time-interview-truth-falsehood/
I know only a massive editor would say this, but I wish he could at least string a sentence together.
And he just repeated himself ad infinitum in that interview too. I heard the author Lionel Shriver talking about him a while ago and she said what shocked her most was the incredibly basic nature of his vocabulary. I bet we could sum up the majority of the words he uses in about 100 words: “sad, unfair, horrible, nasty, beautiful, wall, fake news, mess, wiretapp (sic), bad, etc”. He must have dug deep into whatever mental recesses he has to find a few more ones for that interview. No wonder the effort left him having to say the same thing over and over again (very incoherently).
I’ve seen him on camera from 20 years ago, though, and he speaks perfectly normally. I honestly think he might be suffering from some degenerative condition – dementia, or similar. He didn’t used to talk (or act) the way he does now.
I actually think it might be as basic and literal as He Genuinely Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About.
If you asked him about real estate and skyscraper construction, he might well give a cogent answer, but when met by anyone inquiring about governmental matters of which he knows next to nothing (and worse, doesn’t even care about), he’s reduced to his now-standard word-salad approach, babbling nonsense with a few scattered keywords until he thinks he’s gotten away with it…
That did my head in. My kids are more articulate than that and they insert “like” every third or fourth word.
I reckon there’s a 50% chance Donald would spell IQ wrong.
“IQ? It hasn’t been any good since Stephen Fry left – I predicted that, just like Brexit.”
Anybody read The Caine Mutiny? (Or seen the film, but the book is much more measured and suggestive.) I’m increasingly reminded of the delusional Captain Queeg.