Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

Let me know when we get to the part where he's pushing people out of helicopters.

It's basic salesmanship and advertising. You repeat the product (or shop name) or a bunch of adjectives about the product (or shop name) a dozen times in the span of a minute and it basically hypnotizes interest into people. The simpler the mind the more impact it makes. Smart when selling cars or HEADON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD, not so much when used as a tool for debate. You just end up looking like you have a speech impediment or a serious mental defect.

Also how magnets memes work.

Edited, Jan 25th 2017 1:03pm by lolgaxe

Because it wasn't about the numbers. It was about pointing out the medias need to focus on relative numbers and crowd size in the first place, going so far as to put side by side pictures. He's talking about the choices the media makes when covering an event and how the members in that media's own political views slant that coverage.

If Clinton had won the election, do you think for a moment that the NYT would have put side by side photos showing Clinton's inauguration crowd compared to Obama's? No. They wouldn't, right?

That's the point. You're just not getting it because you're not the target audience. All the folks outside the liberal bubble, who have been increasingly annoyed with the level of media bias? They get it.

Kind of incredible Mugabe's still alive, really. He's the last of the vintage dictators still going. Well, the last I can think of.

I have a really bad headache.

...that Clinton would have told everyone that her inauguration will have "an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting, turnout", thus inviting comparisons?

Probably not. But I guess it's the media who is the problem for reporting on what the president-elect turned president said and how true it was

You don't get your news from anywhere and all that but Trump was predicting record breaking crowds before the inauguration; which is when you traditionally predict stuff.

When the head of an event says "This event might well break records" then it's pretty understand to, you know, see if it broke records. Crying for days about it and spinning reasons why the big ole media is picking on you is a lot less normal. Sort of pathological and sad, really.

It's telling that you can only see this as "Who is winning, Republicans or Democrats" while the rest of the world is watching a US leader who will literally lie about any tiny thing, no matter how obvious and humiliating the lie is, because his feelings were hurt and he needs to cry. And to think you once ranted for days about Obama bowing the wrong way

Same for the popular vote count. We have a president who would rather tell the world that the US is so laughably incompetent at democracy that nearly 6% of our votes are fraudulent than admit that he lost. And for what? No one honestly believes him anyway so we get the double benefit of looking like idiots and Trump looking like a clown. He's literally the same as when we laugh at some third world dictator for saying he got 100% of the vote only now it's the world openly laughing at us.

Edited, Jan 25th 2017 5:02pm by Jophiel

Rating Joph up is such a pointless exercise, but I keep on doing it.

Edited, Jan 25th 2017 3:44pm by stupidmonkey

Clinton would blame a video, then say what difference does it make?


SpoilerThis post does not reflect any opinions I may or may not have on the subject.

Except that's not what the NYT did. They used a shot when the crowd was at well below its fullest point. So they weren't "seeing" anything. They were showing their audience what they wanted the audience to see.

Here's a site that questions the photo. It's got some interesting bits of information, but the key points are to compare the photo used by the NYT (and repeated massively on social media), to the CNN gigapixel pictures (which were taken while Trump was actually giving his address. You can clearly see full crowds all the way to the white building seen in the foreground of the NYT photo. But in the NYT photo, that area in front of the building is almost completely empty, as is about 2 sections in front of that section.

It's clear that the NYT photo was taken at a time when the crowd was still filing into the event. And frankly, regardless of when it was taken in terms of scheduling of the event itself, it is not in any way a valid indicator of the total crowd size. Yet, that's pretty much the extent of the "proof" being used here.


Does this mean that Trumps inauguration was "the biggest"? I have no clue. But that's the point. The media, as it always does, went well out of its way to present the narrative they wanted their audience to believe and not the actual truth. The didn't see and report on what happened, they used a photo that they had to know at the time was not a remotely fair apples to apples comparison, but presented it as though it was. Which is incredibly bad journalism. Doesn't matter whether I think Trump is correct about the size of the crowd. I *know* that the NYT photo is not correct.



I'm sure that's the narrative the same media that presented and repeated the BS photo is telling you to think. One might start considering discarding their advice at some point. Just a thought.



No. I really don't. I didn't watch the inauguration, and frankly didn't care that much. I did find the whole crowd size thing strange, and so, like I usually do, I dug around and looked at more than just one "side" for information. And it didn't take long to find many many photos that directly contradicted that being used to push the "tiny crowd" claim. Does that mean his crowds were "bigger"? I have no clue, and frankly don't care about that either. My observation is entirely about the media continuing to do the same thing they did during the election. Remember when that caused a ton of people to assume something other than what was real?

Same deal here. I don't think you get just how strong the whole "mainstream media is lying to us all the time" narrative is right now. Trump is just playing to that. He's literally trolling the media and they're falling for it. Now maybe that's beneath a president to do. Heck, I'm sure of it. But I don't know if I'd be laughing if I was on the "side" of the media on this one.



No. The folks inside the liberal bubble are assuming that. Everyone outside that bubble is mostly comparing the NYT photo with other photos taken at the event and marveling at how blatantly biased their reporting is.



You're missing the point on that one as well. Look. I'm no fan at all of the methodology Trump is using, but I do understand it. The funny thing is he's actually taken a page out of the liberal handbook and is quite effective at it. He knows he doesn't have to prove anything here. He just has to put the issue and idea in front of the public's view. The more the media attacks him for it, the more people who might otherwise not have thought about something like how many people vote illegally in our elections are thinking that very question.

Edited, Jan 25th 2017 6:06pm by gbaji

So the NYT doesn't ever mention the crowd size? Really? They don't compare it to the previous record breaking crowd size? You don't say? That's fascinating...

Again, if Kim Jong-Un declared that 1.5 million people attended an event to honor him when obviously only a fraction of that showed up, we'd all be laughing at how sad and pathetic he is.

So... what do you suppose the world is doing to us right now?

Holy hell, you are the absolute BEST kind of tool

Edited, Jan 25th 2017 8:20pm by Jophiel

It's amusing that the photos trying to show how full the crowd was are from a completely different angle; not only from the Capitol outward but also at a much lower angle so the crowds hide the background.

PBS has a time lapse film of the day and it's painfully obvious that large sections of the Mall never filled up. It's not a matter of one mistimed photo, the people just were not there.

I 'member when conservatives were telling us just how they'd never ever ever ever support Trump because they had principles. I like that right afterwards they doubled down and tried to add that it was the biggest ever because of home viewers and streaming, but it turned out that even there they were still like twenty million short.

Edited, Jan 26th 2017 9:36am by lolgaxe

I like the "Well, Trump voters gotta work!" excuse. No, I'm being sincere. I mean, it DOES make sense when you think about it...

Bush crashes the economy into the ground: 1.8mil people come to see Obama in 2009
Obama works to fix economy: Only 1mil people can get off work to come to see Obama in 2013 -- nearly 50% better!
Obama works more to fix economy: A mere 250,000 people can get off work now to see Trump

Thanks, Obama!

If Trump does his job right, his next inauguration shouldn't exceed 10,000 people.