Showing posts with label Philip Bump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philip Bump. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

QOTD -- The Racist Empathy Engine

 

"...Trump is not simply hoping that his supporters view him as a victim of an overzealous prosecutorial effort, as he hoped they might during the Russia travails. He is, instead, amplifying the idea that these Black prosecutors are coming after him because he’s White. While most Trump supporters were not likely to face a probe by the FBI’s counterintelligence infrastructure, most are White. And many of them think that Whites are targets of discrimination as often as Black or Hispanic Americans.

"For years, conservative media has been rife with stories about how White Americans are disadvantaged relative to non-Whites, an exemplar of the form of political judo that tries to turn a weakness into a strength. Here’s Trump indicating to his heavily White often upper-middle-class supporters that Black officials might be targeting him just because he is also White. He’s turning fears of 'reverse racism' into an empathy engine..." --  Philip Bump, in the Washington Post, writing on the Malignant Loser's "brute- force strategy" to rally Republicans using the "they're not coming after me, they're coming after you" parlay of victimhood to his advantage, this time injecting a vicious racial aspect into the appeal.  Like the increasingly cornered rat that he is, the Malignant Loser's only concern is somehow saving himself, to hell with our country, its institutions or the rule of law.


Thursday, March 2, 2023

QOTD -- Bolstering Falsehoods

 

"... A few days after the 2020 election, Shah reached out to Fox News’s communications lead, Irena Briganti. Polling from the firm YouGov showed that Fox News was viewed increasingly negatively by its viewers. He had a recommendation:  'Bold, clear and decisive action is needed for us to begin to regain the trust that we’re losing with our core audience.'

"Why was Fox News losing its audience’s trust? [snip]

"... Fox News earns the trust of its audience not by conveying the truth but by bolstering the right’s agreed-upon falsehoods. Within the universe that is conservative media, there was a 'truth' about the election results that quickly became consensus: Donald Trump won; the election was stolen; the Democrats and Biden are crooks. It was this 'truth' from which Fox was deviating — and thus eroding the trust its viewers had given it." --  Philip Bump, Washington Post, summarizing the Fox "News" business model that we know so well and that has been laid bare through the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit's discovery process.  It's a business model that continues with a vengeance today on all the Fox platforms -- bolster the lies about January 6, bolster the lies about white victimization, bolster the lies about the LGBTQ community, bolster the lies about immigration, bolster the lies about the Russian war on Ukraine, bolster the lies about "wokeness," and on and on ad nauseam.


Friday, December 16, 2022

QOTD -- Trump's Playing Card Grift (UPDATED)

 

"... [T]he entire thing is far more Trump Steak than Trump 2016. For all of his obsession with presenting a glamorous lifestyle, his aesthetic has long been more 'Queen of Versailles' than Versailles. And the art in the NFT line largely consists of clumsily Photoshopping Trump’s head onto manly, svelte figures — not necessarily the sort of thing that someone might find worth an initial $99 investment.  [snip]

"When Trump lost the 2020 election, he found a way to generate a ton of money despite losing power. Through incessant email appeals, he managed to scoop up tens of millions of dollars from supporters who believed they were helping him fight to retain his position. Now, it seems, he’s trying a new angle. He probably feels empowered by the success of his coffee-table book of pictures from his presidency. If people are paying $75 for that book (or more than $200 if signed!), why wouldn’t they pay $99 for these? One reason, of course, is that with the book, you at least get the book..." -- Philip Bump, Washington Post, writing about the Malignant Loser's latest grift, his non-fungible tokens (NFTs) depicting a slim, muscular fantasy Trump photoshopped into risible outfits. 

Beyond the Twitterverse, late night comedians had a field day (Colbert, Kimmel, and Fallon). 

That this clueless, narcissistic, malevolent moron was ever president ...

UPDATEBut there's a MAGA sucker born every minute, so ...


Thursday, September 15, 2022

QOTD -- The Dangerous Nonsense Advantage

 

"All of the checks our culture has on misinformation work too slowly to be effective. Mark Twain’s well-worn adage about lies traveling halfway around the world was born in an era where getting halfway around the world took a few days. Now everything is faster, burrows deeper, spreads more widely than Twain could have imagined. But our processes for containing or counteracting false information haven’t changed much. It’s fighting the coronavirus with leeches." -- Philip Bump in the Washington Post, reflecting on how "dangerous nonsense burrows deep, while accountability is still drafting subpoenas," the case of the "Pillow Guy" being a prime example.