Trump Wars

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
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Bootstrap
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Trump Wars

Post by Bootstrap »

People around me have very strong feelings about Donald Trump, and a wide variety of opinions. Depending on the person speaking, he might be the only man who can save us or the one man that we most need to be protected against, the master negotiator who can get whatever he wants or a demagogue who doesn't do his research before negotiating and uses tactics that alienate the very people whose support he needs, a disrupter who casts down what is bad about America and builds up what is good or a disrupter who casts down what is good about America and builds up what is bad, a hero for the little guy against the rich and powerful or a hero for the rich and powerful at the expense of the little guy.

This thread isn't for settling those questions, it's for another issue. People are at each other's throats about Donald Trump. I've heard of spouses divorcing because of their political disagreements, and political affiliation now divides more than race or religion in America.

What is the place of a peacemaker in an America like this?
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mike
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by mike »

Stay out of such discussions.
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Robert
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by Robert »

As I thought over the last 8 years, I think about the next 4 or 8. This, too, shall pass.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by Bootstrap »

Robert wrote:As I thought over the last 8 years, I think about the next 4 or 8. This, too, shall pass.
I agree. We have to get over the feeling that we are constantly on the edge of the cliff and our life revolves around our political figures, the only ones who can save us.

I recently heard a podcast by Ryan Holiday, the marketing executive who wrote the book Trust me, I'm lying (some foul language in that article, if you read it).

He tells about how he helped his friend Tucker Max market his movie. First, he rented a bunch of billboards, but nobody pays attention to billboards, so he had to build up controversy. Here's how he did it:
I used blogs to control the news.

It’s why I found myself at 2:00 a.m. one morning, at a deserted intersection in Los Angeles, dressed in all black. In my hand I had tape and some obscene stickers made at Kinko’s earlier in the afternoon. What was I doing here? I was there to deface billboards, specifically billboards I had designed and paid for. Not that I’d expected to do anything like this, but there I was, doing it. My girlfriend, coaxed into being my accomplice, was behind the wheel of the getaway car.

After I finished, we circled the block and I took photos of my work from the passenger window as if I had spotted it from the road.
The vandalized billboards and the coverage that my photos received were just a small part of the deliberately provocative campaign I did for the movie I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. My friend Tucker had asked me to create some controversy around the movie, which was based on his bestselling book, and I did—somewhat effortlessly, it turns out. It is one of many campaigns I have done in my career, and by no means an unusual one. But it illustrates a part of the media system that is hidden from your view: how the news is created and driven by marketers, and that no one does anything to stop it.

In under two weeks, and with no budget, thousands of college students protested the movie on their campuses, nationwide, angry citizens vandalized our billboards in multiple neighborhoods, FoxNews.com ran a front-page story about the backlash, Page Six of the New York Post made their first of many mentions of Tucker, and the Chicago Transit Authority banned and stripped the movie’s advertisements from their buses. To cap it all off, two different editorials railing against the film ran in the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune the week it was released. The outrage about Tucker was great enough that a few years later, it was written into the popular television show Portlandia on IFC.

I guess it is safe to admit now that the entire firestorm was, essentially, fake.
And I think it's safe to assume that a huge percent of our political outrage is also fake, manufactured by people who want to manipulate us. And it's not just the outrage of those other guys over there, it's my outrage and yours. Ryan talks about the time he realized he could not keep doing this:
An obscure item I found in the course of my research stopped me cold. It was a mention of a 1913 editorial cartoon published in the long since defunct Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper. The cartoon, it said, showed a businessman throwing coins into the mouth of a giant fang-bared monster of many arms which stood menacingly in front of him. Each of its tentacle-like arms, which were destroying the city around it, was tattooed with the words like: “Cultivating Hate,” “Distorting Facts,” and “Slush to Inflame.” The man is an advertiser and the mouth belongs to the malicious yellow press that needs his money to survive. Underneath is a caption: THE FOOL WHO FEEDS THE MONSTER.
Advertisers aren't the only fools feeding the monster. Here's the image he was describing:

Image
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Bootstrap
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by Bootstrap »

In the ad above, the business advertiser is the guy feeding the monster. I'd be willing to guess that various politicians, lobbyists, and Christians building their followings are also feeding this monster.

When we're exploding in outrage about something we don't actually know directly, this may be what's going on.

And these days you can bypass the press with tweets and blogs ...
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mike
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Re: Trump Wars

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Bootstrap wrote:In the ad above, the business advertiser is the guy feeding the monster. I'd be willing to guess that various politicians, lobbyists, and Christians building their followings are also feeding this monster.

When we're exploding in outrage about something we don't actually know directly, this may be what's going on.

And these days you can bypass the press with tweets and blogs ...
Everything we read in the paper, see on TV, hear on radio, and much of what we read online is paid for by business advertising. Business advertising is the lifeblood of all these media outlets. But here is the thing: business owners must be convinced that these ads will work, and want to see evidence and data before they invest. News outlets are constantly motivated to generate traffic and draw viewers so they can show the data to advertisers and hopefully sell bigger and more expensive ads. So, which party is really feeding the monster? The media who first rake the muck, the viewers who then flock to watch it, or the advertisers who then come along and pay to use the media to promote their business?

I think all three share responsibility. The cartoon isn't quite fair. It leaves out the viewers, without whom the monster would die.
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Valerie
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by Valerie »

Bootstrap wrote:In the ad above, the business advertiser is the guy feeding the monster. I'd be willing to guess that various politicians, lobbyists, and Christians building their followings are also feeding this monster.

When we're exploding in outrage about something we don't actually know directly, this may be what's going on.

And these days you can bypass the press with tweets and blogs ...
What ASTOUNDS me about those who seem to hate Trump- and call him 'evil' and want to restore 'dignity' to the White House are the same people who, when the first President Clinton was running for office- totally ignored all the reports about his marital infidelity- saying his personal life should not enter into the arena of discussion on what type of President he would be. Then low and behold, he brought his infidelity into the White House with an intern- even to the point of an impeachment process did he put this country through so much. So WHY, pray tell, do these same people who then tried to bash President Bush after Clinton, George Soros & moveon.org & Michael More to try to oust the first president- why do so many people practice hypocrisy? Why are they pointing out flows in President's past- and call him evil while turning a blind eye to those they supported in the past who really did bring evil into the white house, who legalized evil, and turn a blind eye to the candidate who was pro-abortion, as if that is not evil?
The hypocrisy of these Trump bashers is incredibly telling. Double standards abound.
I'm sorry I just got so tired of this the whole time President Bush was in office, and now to think of these people never letting up for the next 4 years is too much. Let me die in Ireland. Oh wait! They're even paying protesters in Ireland to protest against President Trump.
But that's not enough- they want him ousted- but then- put a Godly man like Vice President Pence, the first of any presidential team who participated in the Walk for Life in D.C., - oh they cannot even stop and Trump, they have already been stating how many they will have to 'take down' to get what they want.

Dear Lord have mercy.
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KingdomBuilder
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by KingdomBuilder »

Not sure I'm following how your post relates to the thread, Valerie.
From the outside looking in, it just sounds like a charged up,
politicized rant with a lot of assumptions. No disrespect intended, but if that's not what you were aiming for perhaps you could reframe things?

I don't know all these "theys" people talk about; nor do I know Pence, Trump, or most other members of society for that matter... So I'll hold off on pretending to know their character, motives, and heart.
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temporal1
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by temporal1 »

Robert wrote:As I thought over the last 8 years, I think about the next 4 or 8. This, too, shall pass.
this sincere saying goes back as far as i can remember in my family. i've lived long enough to believe it is true. i wonder how old it is? it could be thousands of years. for all of history, ordinary people have been required to endure - for their time on earth. since Eden, no one has lived in perfection, perfection is not guaranteed by scriptures or human law.

relative freedom+comfort of many has twisted perceptions of what life on earth really is/"should be." it's not scriptural. former attitudes of gratefulness for another (hard) day have been replaced with entitled beliefs that "evermore" is due.

[as an aside, boot, i have wondered what "people around you" have to say about Dylann Roof?
(my perception being that you may be geographically closest to those murdered.)]

we are affected by what's going on around us. even with the internet blurring things.
mike wrote:Stay out of such discussions.
yes.
i have been better off since FB locked me out, i stopped listening to any mainstream "news" last year: totally fed up. same with mainstream "entertainment." evidently, many of all ages have done/are doing likewise.

i also agree with your later point that viewers/consumers are responsible: hollywood can be stopped, stop buying, they "fade-to-nothing." money is the entirety of their existence. :(

boot, if you are serious about ending the political part of your life, i will pray for you to be successful. it's no easy matter to turn away from deeply seated habits, it's serious business, and can be excruciatingly painful. i'm sure many would offer of themselves to help you.

it can be done, it's deeply personal, 'can't be done as a community, it requires daily commitment, often moment-to-moment commitment. everyone (i know) has something they personally struggle with, typically silently, never/rarely spoken. peace be with you.
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


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Valerie
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Re: Trump Wars

Post by Valerie »

KingdomBuilder wrote:Not sure I'm following how your post relates to the thread, Valerie.
From the outside looking in, it just sounds like a charged up,
politicized rant with a lot of assumptions. No disrespect intended, but if that's not what you were aiming for perhaps you could reframe things?

I don't know all these "theys" people talk about; nor do I know Pence, Trump, or most other members of society for that matter... So I'll hold off on pretending to know their character, motives, and heart.
Not sure how you can't see how what I'm saying doesn't relate to the thread called "Trump Wars"-
Forgive me if it sounds like a politicized rant, this thread is a political one- and of course you don't know the same 'theys' that I do, you're not reading the same things that I am, none the less, I am reading them- and they are there-
I simply was bringing up the hypocrisy of those who are critical of our POTUS- let's not pretend we are not interested in politics when virtually every poster here is quite informed and interested in what's happening.
I know we are not 'of' this world, but we were put 'in' this world and if you're not surrounded by this hypocrisy, well God bless you, you are very fortunate to not be in constant ear shot of it. I'm somewhat surprised that people who claim to be Kingdom Christians would even enter these threads, unless it is just to re-emphasize how non involved we are, while at the same time, speaking much about it?
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