Sometimes your attempts at clarifications come off (even to me) as hiding behind the proper meanings of words in order to save face and not admit being wrong. Whether this is actually the case is obviously only known to you, but such are the opinions of the people accusing you of doing so. I'm sure the ones in this thread who have already done so would be glad to explain further as to their reasoning in claiming this.
You're kind of an idiot. You don't change someone's opinion or mind on something by being hostile and direct when it comes to their own world views and beliefs, as they take it as a personal attack 99% of the time without realizing it. You go at it with tactility and kindness to convince them, and make it seem as if it's their idea if possible. Talk and discuss the positives and negatives about the situation and try to lead them to believe that your side is the better one through actual discussion instead of your monkey brained ostracization and holier-than-thou attitude. And yes, I know I'm being hypocritical by literally doing the opposite when talking to you, but this is what it feels like when you go after people, (Trump supporters in this case), in such a hostile way.
Feels like I'm just being an asshole, right?
What? That is literally what I said. You should circumvent this psychological barrier of telling them in very condescending words that you're right and they're wrong as they will take it as a personal attack. You should get them to doubt their ideas on their own as opposed to trying to force it down their throat with superior-sounding language and tone and moral high-ground argumentation. This entire thread I've been arguing that Trump supporters shouldn't be dismissed by virtue of them supporting the guy alone and should be engaged if viable.
I quite literally agree with you. What I meant is before you engage a person you must probe whether they are capable of the minimal critical thinking required to have your words have an effect on them at all so as to conserve your precious time and not anger them for no real reason (what BDA called cultists and the second type in Raidyr's list). I'm not sure how I've come off that way by you, but if it's something I said wrong I sure would like to know so as to avoid this kind of thing in the future.
You realize right that you're trying to convince Newb with the same "monkey brained ostracization [tactics] and [a] holier-than-thou attitude" that you're saying is abhorrent?
As was previously said, these people are against reality. You can try reason with them, maybe every now and then someone will shift their opinions, but at the end of the day they're just as filled with resentment. Noone can be reasonably expected to have the time, crayons and patience to act kind towards someone so brainless they think ripping children from their mother's arms and putting them in concentration camps is justice.
is it even humanly possible to misinterpret someone's point this badly
Didn't realize that was the intent of your post, my bad. I understood it as "You shouldn't bother talking to trump supporters if they're not initially open to debate."
Bad reading on my part if that's not the intention, it didn't come off as that on the initial readthrough. I can see it now though.
Yeah, that's literally the point, hence the "Feels like I'm just being an asshole, right?" part at the end.
The post is meant to put him in the same light that (I assumed) he'd put a trump supporter in and give perspective on what it feels like being ridiculed without being given a chance.
It would be nice if more people actually looked at it that way instead of immediately making assumptions about anyone’s identity over even the most mundane of circumstances (such as who you are allowed to buy a chicken sandwich from). I’m oversimplifying this to keep it short, but overall what really distanced me from the Democratic Party this election cycle was the focus on identity politics and what they did to Bernie Sanders.
This election was clearly never about policies or what was in the best interest for the country. It was entirely about dividing/categorizing people into groups and attacking them based on any one common viewpoint they may have. It was also about making sure no one could challenge the status quo even if it means attacking your own voter base. (eg: Bernie Bros are all straight white male misogynists because they don’t want Hillary even though it’s her turn!)
I feel like the "image" of the right has been hijacked by the extreme right wing and have scum like Trump, Milo and Tucker as the face of the modern right.
I have no doubt the average conservative is like Grenadiac, decent people who aren't hateful fascists who hate their country and want to strip away democracy. The problem is the GOP leadership have zero values and are backed by large amounts of ignorant (not evil) people who see GOP as part of their identity, this allows them to get away with being monsters. I really hope everything Trump has done and will do, has woken many of them up and makes them realize the modern GOP only care about the super rich and will allow monsters to run as president if it suits them.
Damn, I never realized how well our views actually align.
I didn't really grow up as a country boy myself, but Switzerland has a conservative voting majority, and they are for the most part pretty moderate all things considered.
My family is a lot further on the right than me, but they are still good people at heart.
Thinking about it, the fault really lies on a small number of extremists that are managing to make ordinary people believe in their lies and in their awful rethoric, and who are constantly shifting the perception on what "the right wing" actually is. What used to be the party that represented the values and views you describe has in the public eye been all but transformed into a party of kidnappers and racists by the likes of Trump and the GOP.
After thinking about it some more, it's not only because people stop listening to each others arguments why actual conflict is becoming inevitable -- it's also because the extremists on the right are successfully making the opposition believe that the other side is irredeemable. I myself am guilty of falling into this trap, but so are entire subreddits. Go have a look at r/politics for example -- people on there are on the verge of burning Republicans at the stake, and blaming everyone, including Sanders supporters and people who didn't vote, for Trump becoming president. There's probably no better example of going too far into the other direction than r/politics.
I think that Sgman admitting that his views on transgenderism have softened shows that cordial debate can have positive influence on people's opinions. I don't think that Sgman has ever been rude in the posts I've seen from him in Polidicks. You're right that he often disagrees with critique of Trump, but I do appreciate him soldiering on.
I dislike the term echochamber, because it really is quite memey at this point, but I do think it applies to Polidicks at this point, and it's only going to be more appropriate to describe us if we aren't so hostile. I'm not saying your post here is hostile - not at all - but some people have been, and it's just a shame to see this opportunity for debate squandered.
I don't disagree with everything you say but there's multiple reasons people are getting so hostile.
First is the blatantly awful political climate we're in. People on the left are by default more hostile because for a lot of them their very livelihood is in danger because of the rise of people like Trump. So they're not going to be terribly friendly to people who show support for Trump and his policies.
On top of that people are getting more and more frustrated with people like Sgman, Silence, Chonch, and so on because of the way they argue. Whether they intend it to come across this way or not it feels like they constantly evade the point; shifting goalposts, deflecting, resorting to whataboutism and semantics arguments. It's incredibly infuriating when you're honestly trying to discuss something with someone and they resort to dishonest bullshit like that so when it keeps happening more and more frequently people are going to get more and more hostile towards it happening. The moderators really didn't help matters at all by letting people like Tudd stick around so long and even showing favor to him and antagonizing the people who had issues with him with jokes done in poor taste.
Things don't have to get worse but those issues actually have to be addressed before that can happen. That's exactly why I've tried getting through to Sgman in the past about being more careful with the way he argues things since he seems to have an issue with being misinterpreted but I eventually gave up out of frustration because he just kept refusing to take responsibility for how he comes across to others. (And consequently why I'm pretty openly hostile towards him, as well as the others guilty of the same thing. I'm just getting tired of it all because even if I ignore them they still manage to derail threads where productive discussion could still happen if not for them.)
There's no way to say this that doesn't sound aggressive, sorry. I'd rather be honest than courteous, if you take this as reason not to read the rest of this that's fine, but I've learned over the years that no amount of respect padded into my posts is gonna help me get through to you.
You're painted as a supporter because your condemnations of Trump feel shallow compared to your defense of him. You stand by most of his stances, there's always a caveat that makes your position more thoughtful than his, but at the end of the day it's hard not to feel like you're saying "I don't like Trump" because it sounds like the right thing to say, not because it's actually what you believe. It reflects a lot of the grievances that people here have with conservatism in America. You'll pop into discussions over Trump, shift them towards the most minuscule of details, base your entire position on some pedantic observation, and the only reason I can think of as to why you've shot down this criticism over, and over, and over again, is because over the years, you've seen people leave arguments with you, and assumed success when the real reason was frustration with your tactics. It could be that I'm just saying this because I'm biased, "too far gone" like you say, but I genuinely wish you'd take some of these criticisms into account.
As I've said many times here: I post in defense more because there are already a mountain of people ready to condemn and double check every claim made by Trump and right in general. There's zero need, whatsoever, for me to add another condemnation on top of pages of condemnation that exist for every negative thing Trump does. It would be a total waste of time. I don't need to look into sources, check context, etc. because lots of people are already doing it. This isn't the case on the other side. Someone can post a factually untrue claim or give a super stilted interpretation, get a mountain of "agrees," and never have it be pointed out as untrue. So I try to give a response.
And honestly, I really feel that the climate has changed since the most recent election cycle. There were lots of good conversations before that. FP hasn't always been like this, and I don't really think I've changed much in how I approach the discussions here over the last 4-5 years.
For example, there was a thread a while back where someone accused me of ignoring responses. I didn't know what responses he was talking about because I felt that I had addressed pretty much everything. The accuser proceeds to say that I'm acting in bad faith, already know what I've done wrong, and refuses to tell me what he's talking about. He's showered in agrees. I even tried to give an example of something that he might have been referring to in an attempt to address his concern. What would you like me to do in that case?
Debate has undoubtly gotten more toxic since the 2016 US election era but I would say that's the same internet wide, not just FP.
Like the 2012 US election could get toxic, but for the most part it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now and thats thanks to Trump and his repulsiveness, I thought Romney was shit but I never doubted his honour and the way he engaged politics , the radicals never rose for him because his rheotric wasn't hateful and aggressive.
Trump has empowered certain groups who wish to make certain members here feel unsafe or unwelcomed, SH is more aggressive now because scary shit is happening and US politics is FAR from normal right now.
You have always come across as polite sgman, I don't personally think you support or like Trump, but sometimes people think you do when you don't speak out against him and instead call out the left. It makes sense you feel it's redundant to add even more criticism to a sea of Trump criticisms but considering you are one of the only Republicans in SH, it would be good to hear your full views on Trump and how he engages politics, because otherwise people may keep assuming you don't have any issues with him.
I don't think you should quit SH, I just hope you make yourself more clear because I think you can be a great poster at times.
This is a completely shortsighted approach. This leads into the criticisms people leveled your way earlier. You say you despise Trump but your actions suggest otherwise which is why people lump you in with Trump supporters. By actually criticizing him when relevant, even if you feel like it's a waste of breath, it would go a long way towards backing up your repeated claims that you despise Trump.
Endure it and go out of your way to ensure you're not actually acting the way they are accusing you of. It's not like people started accusing you of those things simply because they disagreed with you. They accuse you of those things because from their point of view it was true. And they become increasingly more likely to accuse you, even if you aren't intending to do those things, the more you dig your feet in over doing those things.
Whether it's fair or not isn't even relevant. Those posts get showered in agrees because people are so fed up with the way you post. If you feel they are being unfair then prove them wrong. Of course at this point it's going to take a lot of work on your part because you consistently ignored criticisms and advice up until this point to begin with so you have a rather bad reputation and people are going to just automatically assume the worst rather than wasting their time fairly judging your posts on an individual level. I can say wholeheartedly that that's exactly the case for me. It's why I've been rather antagonistic towards you and refused to actually waste my time arguing with you so I just try to get you out of the thread quicker so it can get back on track.
I understand feeling like you have nothing to add, I'm not gonna pop in just to go "fuck this Trump guy, am I right?" when its been said 30 times in the first page. And I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to do that to "prove" themselves moderate enough to a bunch of internet dudes. Just know that where you see a discussion in need of balancing, other people just see a guy posting about things important to him.
The climate's changed, yes. There's people here whose methods I simply don't understand, who base every position off of spite for Trump supporters, who preach and condescend and only hurt their own message (won't name names because I already told most of them directly). I see polarization on both sides for sure, but I'm not gonna pretend I don't have my beliefs just for the sake of making this statement sound neutral. I think the Republican platform has overextended in their search for voting blocs to capture, and become too accepting of extreme rhetoric so long as it gives them votes. Plain and simple, they moved further right than most Americans would like to admit. And while your arguing has, indeed, remained the same over the years, so has your support of Republicans, either unaware or uncaring of the shift.
As an aside, I wanted to share this:
https://i.imgur.com/cDfdl44.jpg
I live in a small, predominately red town in Texas and the owner of this shop is fairly conservative. People are stopping in at his store to thank him and encourage him. He's one of the ones flying a flag upside down here.
As for the level of discussion on FP, IDK. There's problems with attitude, but there's also the way the format works. There isn't as much of an expectation in real life convos, or instant messaging, that you stick by statements as strongly as in a forum. Because a spoken line gets forgotten, and a chat message gets scrolled up, but a post is like the statement's being made at the time it's being read, and that permanence makes people not move on as much. Everyone coming into the thread wants to voice their opinion, and that's the beauty of a forum, the fact that they can. But it's also a very public experience, with a great deal of detachment, that IMO flat out entices people to be stubborn, double-down rather than ever admit fault.
It could be worse, imo. Here at least, unpopular opinions don't get shunted to the bottom by negative votes, as happens on reddit. Someone can have the most moronic opinion out there and state it in as obnoxious a way as possible without crossing the line into shitpost or troll territory, but they can still have their say. Granted, there's been a couple cases of abuse over the last couple years, but on the whole, I think it's more beneficial than harmful.
That is one reason I believe ratings should be disabled on PD again. People are naturally more influenced by ratings than they'll care to admit, which applies both to the people reading the post which is rated and the person whose post was rated this way; It feels like a subtle form of manipulation, encouraging a kind of low-key bandwagon/herd mentality.
It also seems to encourage a behavior which bothers me a lot, though of which I am also at times guilty, when instead of replying to a post in an argument and adding one's voice and commentary people will just rate vaguely and move on - leaving the poster bewildered and on the defensive (though this is not as true of concise ratings like agree and disagree). While a great system in the other forums, I do not believe the existence of such a temptation on a self-professed debate forum is beneficial for anyone except people not there for debate.
I'm not sure how much more divisive things can get without outright violence. People are just completely overtaken by tribalism and everyone just wants you to stand up and be counted rather than give your nuanced opinion.
I think the main cause of this extremely polar divide is that people don't need or want facts to believe in anything anymore. If they state an opinion and you ask them to explain it or cite something, sometimes they just kinda go into a spiralling loop of parroting the same thing. It's purely based on feelings and a desire to close ranks and protect themselves. There's no room for discussion or nuance because it invites doubt into one camp, and those people are essentially shunned to protect the rest of the group.
I think we've all seen the depths of this on BOTH sides of the divide. The entire reason that there are "two sides" is because people more or less demand you are with them or against them and then stamp out any internal disagreement. This leads to some pretty wild extremes being brought to the forefront, which further entrenchs both sides as they each recoil in horror at the other. It's almost like a self feeding and amplifying oscillation which is more wild than ever due to the, now widespread, feed of fake news, headline only content, and outrage entertainment pundits.
Honestly I don't know how it can be fixed. Talking to people who have the time and brainspace to listen does work sometimes. Trying to understand the othrer side and how they feel does help a lot - but will it make enough of a difference to the whole mob? Possibly not. How does the amplification end?
This. The only pragmatic thing left to do when all opinions are arrayed against you before you even open your mouth is to either put somewhat extraordinary effort into combating whatever image they have of you in their minds (whether they have legitimate reasons to believe that way or not is irrelevant), or to not post at all due to each failing to do so properly further entrenching and sustaining such opinions of you.
Which of these you choose to do is at your discretion, according to how much time you've got and how much the factual mistake by a poster you're trying to correct bothers you. Half-assing posts serves no one, especially not you and your point.
tl;dr: Pick your battles, and when you have done so, stick it out.
Seeing as this is more of a discussion thread than a political news thread I have moved it to GD.
I find trump to be more interesting from a sociological/memetic standpoint rather than just the standard "durr hurr drumph btfo" and maga standard fare. It doesn't take much to begin to realize that his rise to popularity and power through memetics is quite the interesting study on the effects of memetics on society, even in the political stage. I'm no fan nor a huge proponent, but I find his impact on culture and society as a whole to be fascinating. For my final paper in SOC 100 I did an article on the effects of online memetics and how they can even effect irl groups to push a certain agenda, I even looked at the 2016 election to help support my point. And no, I wasn't just talking about how a image board of less than a million people influenced the election, it was more in the focus of how the media reacted to trump and his usage of twitter to give himself massive momentum. You don't have to support him or hate him to just take one look and be impressed at how simple but effective it was to use memetics to his advantage, and take a look into our history to find other presidents who used similar methods.
That's pretty much the same way how I became interested in Trump. Whatever happens next in the presidency, Trump's campaigning towards the Presidency is undoubtedly one of the biggest upsets in political history. I know how a lot of people on this site still scream about the Russians stealing the Presidency from Clinton (Especially the people who put on wagers and toxxes on a Clinton victory), yet endlessly blabbering about that being the only reason why Trump won, is utterly disgenerous. Obliviously, Trump did something very right to go from being seen as field filler during the primaries to going on to be the Presidential Republican Candidate to 45th President of the United States of America.
First off, it always surprised me to see during the general elections that everybody on Clinton's side underplayed how Trump had come on top in what was the primaries with the biggest candidate field in American history. Trump quipped 16 other candidates to that spot, yet everybody on Clinton's side thought that they had the general election already in the bag. Which isn't surprising considering that the media, on the DNC's orders was playing a pied piper strategy, where they gave all the limelight during the Republican primaries to the three candidates they thought to be the easiest to beat in the general election. Which were, according to the DNC, Trump, Cruz and Carson in that exact order. Which definitely explains why media outlets who were giving Trump a fair shake at the start of the primaries went full Anti-Trump during the general elections. One major example of that is Morning Joe, who went from holding normal interviews with Trump towards Joe looking schizophrenic calling Trump ''LITERALLY HITLER'' and ''AMNESTY DON'' between days. What I think to be one of the biggest factors of why that media strategy completely backfired, is that Trump was a very famous person to the American public in the decennia before the elections. If it was a relative newcomer to the public, it might have worked, but Trump had been known to the American public for four decades until that point, wherein he wasn't the monster the media pretended him to be.
I don't think that everyone who voted for Trump or supports is an irredeemable monster, contrary what the more radical posters on Facepunch believe. I always found it jarring how those posters gave Pvt. Martin a lot of constant shit for voting for Trump after Sanders surrendered at the DNC, despite Martin's sole interest in voting being the job market. When Clinton and her cadre went around that they rather would decrease the amount of jobs in America, and that it would be impossible to bring them back, is it any wonder that voters interested in the job market would vote for Trump instead? What Clinton and her campaign showed, was a blatant disconnection between the political elite and the working class. No wonder that they would rather go for the wildcard option who, as it turned out, increased the amount of jobs in America, instead of the party who said that they wouldn't even bother increasing the job market for them. And so, there are many more flaws in the DNC why they jobbered the election to Trump, but that would be better left off for another post.
Evidently, a lot of people were simply not buying the media's narrative of Trump suddenly being giga-Hitler purely because he ran for the Presidency, which was something that the media had suggested to him in times wherein calling your opponent literally Hitler would have gotten you booted out of the room. Add to that the media had already blown the ''Republican candidate is literally Hitler card'' on Bush Jr. and McCain in the recent years before. Which is fucking ironic to think about, the one Republican the Clinton fanbase on Facepunch seems to like, was also bombarded as being also Hitler during the 2008 elections. Keep in mind that the trust in the media was steadily dropping before the 2016 elections took place, and especially among the Republican voterbase, whose trust in the media was dropping to single-percentage levels. So what happened, was that the media was managing to discredit themselves even further during the 2016 elections, and even moreso when it finally ended and afterwards. At this point, most media outlets aren't even trying to be partial or fact-based anymore. All they care about now is cheap, manufactured outrage, with a correction only written a week later on a backpage. It really feels to me that most of those outlets are more trying to whip people in a misinformed frenzy than being bothered to tell the truth these days. They also did in the past, but it is disgustingly prevalent these days.
What is one very interesting similarity between populist movements around 1870 and current-day populist movements, is how they both managed to use new forms of media to their advantage to get their ideas and policies out in the open. In 1870, things like newspapers and the telegraph were still fairly new inventions, which allowed for the wide-spread publication of new ideas. As technology advanced during the 20th century, the ways of reaching the public advanced too, with the radio and television being used for political means. The grand difference is, these would be regulated and used by the state during these times. Yet with the invention of the internet, and social media, political discourse also took place without being intervened by the state or other media outlets. And that is exactly what Trump used during the way to the Presidency, and still uses during the presidency. It's not something new, you see populist parties in Europe also using it effectively, yet Trump is on a whole different level with it. Maybe it's also due to the qualitative bankruptcy of the traditional media, but whenever he tweeted during the campaign, it was instant news. The same happens often during the presidency itself. The frequency of Trump holding his rallies, is also a very interesting factor to take into account, especially with the qualitative bankruptcy of traditional media. During the campaign, it turned out to be a valuable tool for Trump to gauge his popularity across America, and what the main differences were between state. Evenmoreso, the sheer frequency of these rallies utterly dwarfed Clinton's rallies, who somehow decided that letting others campaign for her was a solid strategy. And given how a candidate's health is always a voting factor, Trump clearly got the advantage on that. But the post-election rallies of Trump are also interesting to watch. Given how shoddy the mainstream media and polling is, it's in Trump's best interest to see for himself how well his new ideas and proposals lie within his voterbase. He seems to gauge the crowd's reaction to how they accept said proposals and ideas. Sometimes, it's done pretty subtly, and at other times, it's with the typical bluntness we'd expect from Trump. It's interesting to see how well Trump uses both newer media (mostly social media) and old political media forms (rallies) to get his message out, and especially towards his voterbase. It does help too that said voterbase has enough people crafty enough to get the news out amongst themselves.
Man, this post got way bigger than I planned at first. I'll probably get back on a few other topics regarding Trump another time, to think I've barely even started yet about the similarities and differences between Trump and populist movements around 1870.
Or very, exceedingly, dangerously wrong. Assuming that what he did was 'right' is part of the problem we find ourselves in right now to begin with.
Also, statements like this
Given how shoddy the mainstream media and polling is
Do not deserve to go into an objective analysis of anything.
It's more that I am impressed how a complete political outsider managed to come out on top against multiple political dynasties with all their wealth, donators, connections and power within a few years. The odds during the general election were never in Trump's favor, but despite all that, he managed to come out on top against someone the media were presenting as the single most qualified person to run for the presidency. When you look at European populists, they usually needed multiple cycles to get into power, yet Trump managed to get to it within a singular electoral cycle.
And as far polling goes, remember Wisconsin going blue during last presidential elections? After all, the polls showed a comfortable 6.5 point lead of Clinton over Trump in those polls.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/wi/wisconsin_trump_vs_clinton-5659.html. Only for the polls to be off a massive 7 points, far outside the supposed margin of error, as Trump won the state by 0.7 point lead. I'm fairly sure that Sanders also had a state he won during the Democratic primaries despite the polls saying that he was running behind by double-digit points too. How come that the polls managed to be so far off in the last few years then? It should get a objective analysis if anything, unless the entire polling process is just junk science, and a tier below betting companies at this point. I'm rather sure that people in this country would get told to get another job if they are so far off with their polling compared to the actual result a few days before the vote itself.
And as for your media statement goes, you probably saw a major case of fake news this week, with newspapers twisting the facts once more, putting photos in a false context yet again. Putting those ''corrections'' only at the end of the article a few days after feels, y'know, very, very disgenerous to me. And like I said prior, said correction isn't going to be front page news either then. Don't even get me started when articles are putting out random assumptions without putting it as an opinion piece. Or those articles with the ''X is happening and that's a good thing''. Those articles tend to be barely middle school quality at best. And it's not only the American media I am talking about here, I'm talking about the European media as well. The media coverage in this country about Pim Fortuyn was flatout disgusting right until he got assassinated by a far-left activist a week before the elections, where afterwards the media pretended that they did nothing wrong despite writing the most blatant lies about him, even a years after his assassination. In hindsight and on a lighthearted note, it's fucking comical reading up on those articles where they hyped up Martin Schultz and the SPD in the German elections for a month as top candidate for Bundeskanzler until they probably realised that nobody really fell for it as the SPD went on to net their worst result in multiple decades. It was honestly the single most pathetically artificial attempt at hyping up a candidate I've ever seen. To think some people here actually hyped that up too here. Another gripe of mine about the media, is that there is next to zero accountability about journalists screwing up. When is the last time you saw somebody at a supposedly reputable newspaper getting sacked for willingly twisting the facts? My opinion is that journalism has taken an absolute nosedive over the past decade, wherein pushing agendas became more important than decent reporting.
Uhhhh... no. I would say he did something "right" in the sense that it was what got him elected. If you're talking about the morality of the issue, I'd say it's still really a moot point as that's not what the point we were making was. Complain about how trumps tweets are literally the most smoothbrained, loudmouthed, racist, bigoted, misogynistic thing in the world. But you cannot deny how effective it was at gaining the attentions of the populace and media in the short span of 1-2 years. It was almost strategic, but stupidly simple in its deployment that was practically what guaranteed his spot as an elected official. Even Hillary caught the Trump memetic flu, and would not shut up about her own opponent to get a chance to steal the spotlight. At that rate she was just giving Trump more views, culturally transmitting his memes into a broader audience. If it weren't for the constant media coverage and the memes that Trump utilized to drag himself to the spotlight, he'd just be another primary competitor that would've been bogged down in how bloated the GOP candidate pool was as of the 2016 election. So the media is partially at fault too for constantly pouring fuel into the fire that was powering his election "machine."
His name, in a sense, is practically a meme, to trump is to be on top, to be ahead of your opponents. We know the name well, even since the late 80's going into the 90's. Trump was practically a media mogul and would even make cameo appearances that most upper echelon businessmen would deny. But Trump has always loved the limelight and as a result is a living breathing meme, capable of utilizing memetics in order to meet the bare requirements as a president. That's something to be impressed by, moral or not. So yes, he did something very right to practically ensure his election, he did something right to concrete his position in the minds of the people and he did it right when he used cultural transmission to make his name known. Do I agree that it was right to
Easy. First you run for president in a system that is absolutely, horrifyingly broken. Then, appeal to people that are either gullible enough to fall for the most transparent con in human history, stupid enough to think someone with no political experience should run the country or are just stupifyingly racist.
From the start, it's disingenuous and hypocritical to complain about how FPers talk about Trump supporters then caricature them as screaming, blabbering madmen. It'd be really a shame to invest so much time into a post that most people (read: those who don't already agree with your conclusion that Trump is a genius) wouldn't bother with because it already insults them.
As to your first point though, I've yet to see a major publication or any government official say that Russian voter interference was the number one reason why Trump won. It's just indisputably a factor. Whats "disgenerous" here (and I assume you mean disingenuous, but either way) is trying to minimize it or paint anyone who acknowledges the fact that it happened in a bad way, because it conflicts with your personal narrative.
Of those 16, only 11 were still running after the first caucus, and of those only 5 were ever really in the race. The others got almost negligible votes in their respective state primary elections. I'm not trying to minimize what Trump did by winning the nomination, and I'm of the mind that winning his parties nomination was harder than winning the general election, but the field wasn't as packed as it seemed.
Yes, the DNC had a pied piper strategy but to say they colluded in sync with the media is fairly conspiratorial. Perhaps Morning Joe (as well as others) changed their opinions over the weeks and months of the general election process because his positions and opinions shifted rapidly? Which they did? If you have any evidence of Morning Joe and the DNC/Clinton campaign coordinating attacks on Trump then I'd love to see it. Otherwise this is just baseless supposition, and borderline slander with that "schizophrenic" quip. As for the "literally Hitler" thing, I'm also going to need a source on this one because I don't recall it.
Speaking as someone who doesn't think every, or even the majority, of Trump supporters are irredeemable monsters, I'd say Pvt Martin caught a lot of shit because his logic was unsound and he went full Trump MAGA thumper. The idea that electing Trump is the only way for someone to become employed in 2016 is ludicrous on it's face and I don't really believe you when you say it's "jarring". Which leads into my next point, which is more disingenuous claims, this time about jobs. Yes, Clinton once said to her exclusively liberal-democratic audience that there were going to be a lot less coal jobs. But that's it. She didn't go from campaign stop to campaign stop talking about how she was going to raise unemployment. To say that she would rather "decrease the amount of jobs in America" with absolutely none of this context cannot be anything but willful disinformation on your part. As for those jobs coming back, they were coming back under Obama, and nothing Trump did his first year in office was really responsible for increasing jobs or wages. Even if you want to talk about the much touted tax plan, only a tiny fraction of the money large businesses saved went to investing in workers.
The greatest irony of this though is that those coal jobs that Trump's administration and the Republicans in Congress have chosen to subsidize? Only 1000 new jobs created in all of 2017. Meanwhile both the rate of consumption and price of coal continues to drop.
Again, I'd really like to see mainstream media calling either Trump, Bush, or McCain "literally Hitler" because I don't remember this, and I get the impression that I watch a lot more mainstream media than you do. Also, yes, peoples opinions on McCain changed (maybe; I've liked him since 2008 myself when I voted for him) in the 9 years between when he was running as a Republican against a Democratic outsider and when he was one of the few voices of even half-hearted resistance against Trump. This may surprise you but an individual doesn't have to think the same thing about a candidate regardless of what they say over vast lengths of time. "Trust in the media" polls say more about people than the media. Americans don't want the truth, they want their beliefs, opinions, and values to be affirmed. Fake news isn't fake because it's objectively untrue; it's fake because criticizes Donald Trump. Also, there is no Clinton fanbase on Facepunch. There is one guy who legitimately likes Clinton and he catches just as much if not more shit than Trump supporters but at least he doesn't whine about it.
I won't touch quote most of this paragraph because I wouldn't disagree that Trump was a more effective campaigner than Clinton was (though the health conspiracies are pretty funny), but what I find interesting is that you find his post-election rallies interesting. You know he tells a lot of lies at those events, right? You seem to be someone who cares an awful lot about the truth, so I'm wondering why you don't talk about his constant dishonesty more.
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