Jump to content

US Politics: Show Trials & Tribulations


DMC

Recommended Posts

10 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Realism.  The leading contenders are old.  Old people can and do drop dead for any reason.  Which is why this time around the selection of Vice Presidential candidates will be far more interesting than in past cycles.

Sure, as we've discussed before, this is a perfectly reasonable point to make.  But when you adopt a certain certitude about Trump's dementia, or that Biden, Sanders, or even Warren would only serve out one term max, well, that's when I'm gonna make fun of you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Triskele said:

There's a great summary here on end times evangelicals in Trump's orbit in case anyone is not despairing enough at the moment.   These people believe the ends times are coming, want to hasten it, believe Trump was sent by God, tell Trump as much, and they're actually in the halls of power.  

People have been claiming “the end times are coming” for thousands of years.  Fredrick V Elector of Paletinate and the King of Bohemia was called “Last Emperor” before the “Day of Judgment” by Calvinist radicals at the beginning of the 30 years war.  
 

Fundamentalists always think it is “the End Times”.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Fundamentalists always think it is “the End Times”.

One of my favorite (contemporary) depictions of this is Parks and Rec's "Reasonabilists" cult in the fourth season episode "End of the World."  Can't find a good youtube clip for it quickly, but here:

Quote

When dawn arrives and the world doesn't end, Herb decides that he calculated the end of the world date incorrectly. He tells Leslie that the new end of the world date is May 19th. Leslie tells him that there's a Spring Spectacular Free Ice Cream Giveaway on that day, so the park is unavailable. Herb then corrects himself, saying he misspoke, and that the actual date is May 20th.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Triskele said:

A great (terrible) little tidbit in that piece is that GWB told Jacuqes Chiraq, President of France, that Gog and Magog stuff was happening, and Chiraq had to go ask people WTF that was about.  

That one made me smile. Especially given Chirac's personality. I have no doubt that he must have sworn profusely when given the explanation (a fair number of "putain" would be my guess), and perhaps had a stiff drink or two before asking his advisers how the fuck he was supposed to deal with that level of craziness.

"Officially" Chirac supposedly said this to his foreign policy team:

Quote

You'll see, they'll wage a Pandora's war, win it quickly, but only then will the hard part begin. The Sunni and the Shia will be at each others' throats. After the invasion, a civil war will cause more civilian deaths than the lightning-quick war. Al Qaeda will find new room to develop in Iraq. In a year they'll have to send reinforcements. And in three years, when 3000 GI will be dead, they'll have the choice between pulling out and sending even more troops.

Not sure Chirac was that prescient but it's possible, he at least had good intel and the ability to listen.

The other tidbit I liked was this one:

Quote

That’s because they believe biblical prophecies that say that in the last days, a world leader who preaches peace will emerge and move toward a one-world government. In fact, the prophecy goes, that leader will be the Antichrist

Not for the first time it occurs to me that I might like someone labeled by evangelicals as "the Antichrist."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Indeed!  Where is this Antichrist so that I may rejoice in His coming?  

When Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize before, ya know, really doing anything, I'm sure the apocalyptos were clamoring.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

When Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize before, ya know, really doing anything, I'm sure the apocalyptos were clamoring.

Oh yes.

Quote

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/02/americans-obama-anti-christ-conspiracy-theories

About one in four Americans suspect that President Barack Obama might be the antichrist, more than a third believe that global warming is a hoax and more than half suspect that a secretive global elite is trying to set up a New World Order, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

(2013)

 

I tried studying some of those insane conspiracy theories at some point but just couldn't, the level of insanity was just impossible to understand. I did get to see some nice youtube videos claiming to prove Obama was a lizard-man though, so there's that.

But there's a silver lining:

Quote

At least some of the insane theories suggested by the poll were dismissed by large majorities. For example, only 7% of Americans in the survey believed the moon landing was faked, 14% believed in Bigfoot and 4% accepted that "shape-shifting alien reptilian people control our world by taking on human form". In other good news, Paul McCartney will be relieved that a mere 5% of respondents believed that he died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a double so the Beatles could continue their careers, and just 11% embraced the concept that the US government knowingly allowed the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 to take place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Darzin said:

Meh. I don't think Trump gives a shit about the end times, much less would do anything to bring them about.

It depends in whether or not Trump thinks “end times” speculation would give him profit or power.  If he believes it would he’d jump on it in a skinny minute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It depends in whether or not Trump thinks “end times” speculation would give him profit or power.  If he believes it would he’d jump on it in a skinny minute.

If Trump did as you suggest, I imagine he would still run the Apocalypse into bankruptcy. If Trump was in charge of paying the wages of sin, he would stiff the recipients, pay them 10 cents on the dollar and keep the rest for himself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 

Bennett blamed the media for not holding Sanders to the same standard as Warren.

“They let him get away with murder,” he said. “They let him bluster past hard questions.”

Sanders campaign officials did not respond to requests for comment.

 

'They let him get away with murder': Dems tormented over how to stop Bernie
The party establishment is caught in a catch-22.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/27/democrats-bernie-sanders-rise-105825

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

People have been claiming “the end times are coming” for thousands of years.  Fredrick V Elector of Paletinate and the King of Bohemia was called “Last Emperor” before the “Day of Judgment” by Calvinist radicals at the beginning of the 30 years war.  
 

Fundamentalists always think it is “the End Times”.

But there's the issue, Scot. Such stuff was preached at the beginning of one of the bloodiest wars in Europe's history. People like these will happily wade through rivers of other people's blood because of their demented beliefs.

And speaking of Trump's dementia and the 25th, wasn't Reagan showing signs of Alzheimer's in the last few years in office. Did anyone invoke the 25th?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

wasn't Reagan showing signs of Alzheimer's in the last few years in office. Did anyone invoke the 25th?

This is controversial and Reagan's defenders - including his doctors - vociferously deny this.  Still, by most outside accounts, yes, he started showing signs the last few years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why go into evangelical stuff, to use a different example Scalia believed in the Devil (not literal or metaphorical, but an actual device). Now this may be true of many Catholics as well, but there are also many who dont believe in a literal devil. I imagine this belief is independent of the context of the times (such as 'end times') but is a constant throughout history.

You have to wonder how it played into his interpretation of the Constitution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

'They let him get away with murder': Dems tormented over how to stop Bernie
The party establishment is caught in a catch-22.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/27/democrats-bernie-sanders-rise-105825

Yeah, the main concern there appears to be that he would lose in swing states since he would need infrequent voters to turn out in greater numbers. Maybe if they could share some of this data that makes them so sure about this.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

But there's the issue, Scot. Such stuff was preached at the beginning of one of the bloodiest wars in Europe's history. People like these will happily wade through rivers of other people's blood because of their demented beliefs.

And speaking of Trump's dementia and the 25th, wasn't Reagan showing signs of Alzheimer's in the last few years in office. Did anyone invoke the 25th?

Yes.  That gives me pause as well.  

As for the 25th "showing signs" isn't the same as full on chewing the carpet and clearly having a break with reality.  I would say the latter is where the 25th is supposed to be invoked.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, DMC said:

This is controversial and Reagan's defenders - including his doctors - vociferously deny this.  Still, by most outside accounts, yes, he started showing signs the last few years.

I think the Snopes article on this is one to read.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-disease/

In any event, I believe it's just wrong to say Reagan had diagnosable "Alzheimer's" before he left office. He MAY have been starting into what's called "Mild Cognitive Impairment" or MCI, which can be (but isn't always) a precursor to Alzheimer's, but the degree of impairment described even by those who want to think he was impaired doesn't rise to the level of a full blown Alzheimer's diagnosis.

https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia/related_conditions/mild-cognitive-impairment

https://memory.ucsf.edu/dementia/mild-cognitive-impairment

And I remain very skeptical about Trump having major neurocognitive disorders. The supposed changes in his style of speech from when he was younger seem to me to be better explained as an extreme narcissist being under extra stress.

There was research done on George W. Bush's speech errors showing that he made many more during his Presidency than while he was governor of Texas, and that this was attributable to the sorts of speech errors most people make in a situation where they are under stress and where they know every word they say is being scrutinized. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...