Why People are Protesting Matthew Whitaker's Appointment (Video Self-Post) - Polidicks

I've been lurking hard recently, but with all the discussion around this topic recently, I figured I'd throw my hat in the ring. I'm the news director at my college radio station (WHIP) and we do these weekly video news run-downs. This one was originally a normal episode, became a feature about the resignation of Jeff Sessions, and then ultimately developed into a proper video-essay about the importance of the Russia investigation's independence (and why Matthew Whitaker's appointment threatens it). If you don't normally follow this stuff, this video really packs a lot of important context into one place. Interested to hear your thoughts - I'm Tony, the guy in the video and behind the production, and I've got a bad habit of finishing big fat videos and never sharing them. Also, sorry if this fits better in GD - figured the political topic would suit it well to here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtRUQx_RpIA

Any chance this could change people’s minds about letting the investigation continue, or do you think Republican family members would just flip out on me because TRUMP STRONK CAN DO NO WRONG DRAIN THE SWAMP!

Who's to say. In order to defend Trump you have to be operating under cognitive dissonance on some level, so who's to know how much of that's going on for each person or which realities they choose to ignore in order to keep feeling the way they do. It's not impossible, just very ambiguous. In other words, if they still approve of Trump in 2018 who knows what could possibly change their mind.

It might! I tried to keep this concise (sort of, 10 minutes is a little long) and focused on verifiable facts and guilty pleas instead of "Trump's a fascist". What this video didn't go into - and what I suspect hardcore supporters may cite to disregard this message - are some of the more popular theories that suggest the investigation is biased against the president (which it very well may and can be, so long as no person in a leadership position has a personal conflict of interest), FISA shenanigans, etc. I'm tempted to do a similar video addressing some of those points (broadly speaking, there is no legal basis for shutting down this investigation thus far, otherwise it DEFINITELY would have happened already), but I'm drowning in work the next two weeks.

Thanks for putting it so concisely! I would have liked if you had addressed one of the elephants in the room, though - that Trump and Co's claims that they are innocent of any wrongdoing fly in the fact of their seeming attempts to shut down the investigation, again and again. It'd give your viewers food for thought.

Oh hey, a fellow Philly fucker. Did you go to the protest at Kennedy?

Didn't make it because researching/writing/editing this was NOT a part of the plan for this week - I considered getting this done my participation, this was literally being filmed as the protests occurred.

Entirely fair, doin' the good work. Keep it up.

Honestly I think there's a large enough constituency of republicans that just believe nothing will happen. Same thing with healthcare, "Oh they won't take away protections or medicaid." even though their fucking healthcare bill was defeated by a single fluke vote

You've got a good voice.