Trump Shot

[topblkmale]

Congrats liberals. You almost got ‘em!

[BootmanLA]

1 hour ago, topblkmale said:

Congrats liberals. You almost got ‘em!

Rhetoric like this is irresponsible. We don't know who the shooter was, or what his motivations were. We can speculate but to do so publicly is, well, pretty damned disgusting.

[BlueSaphir]

America would have been great if the Shooter aimed right! LOL

[BootmanLA]

According to the FBI, the shooter was one Thomas Matthew Crooks, age 20, of Bethel, Pennsylvania. He is also, according voter registration records, a Republican.

[BlueSaphir]

41 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

According to the FBI, the shooter was one Thomas Matthew Crooks, age 20, of Bethel, Pennsylvania. He is also, according voter registration records, a Republican.

Wow! 

[tallslenderguy]

Trump is the king of rhetoric, it's pretty much all that comes out of his mouth... and it's obviously effective with his followers. This is an interesting study/analysis of Trumps calculated techniques.  Here's an excerpt from the study: "Donald Trump did a “very good” job: A rhetorical analysis of candidate Trump’s campaign speeches" done by Carolin Mohan (link below)

"Almost twenty years before Trump’s announcement, political discourse in the United States made a serious shift. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took office in November 1994 halfway through the first term of President Bill Clinton. During his tenure as Speaker, Gingrich circulated a memo via his political action committee, GOPAC, to freshman Republican representatives. The memo was titled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” and it encouraged the young lawmakers to use words with negative connotations when referring to their opponents, the Democrats. 

The letter states that “sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast” and that the reader should “remember that creating a difference helps you.” Contrasting words are listed in separated blocks and include word suggestions such as “reform,” “we/us/our,”“building,” “destroy,” “pathetic,” and “greed” (“Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”).). This kind of speak-first, substantiate-later rhetorical approach exploited a loophole in audience reception. Then-Washington editor of The Nation David Corn contends in his 2005 article “Gingrich-izing Public Broadcasting” that the point of the memo was to “turn name-calling into a strategic political tool” (Corn).

Today, Gingrich’s strategy can be found at the roots of many politicians’ communication playbooks, most notably that of President Donald Trump. 

What sets the analysis of these speeches apart from the current deluge of Trump analyses is that I started from scratch. Personal biases aside, and Trump’s eccentricities ignored, I looked only at the words with which the speeches were sculpted by Trump and no doubt a battalion of communications specialists. This is not to say that Trump’s eccentric approach to his speeches is unimportant: quite the opposite.

... candidate Trump’s promise for immediate, opposite, and broad-stroke change was hot and unstoppable.

Trump invokes these promises in each of his speeches, including those studied in this analysis. The speeches are surprisingly devoid of sophisticated policy detail, but this is not uncommon. In order to make their policy plans more accessible to audiences that may not understand the intricacies of government functions, presidents have “dumbed-down” their public language over time, according to Caroline Jones in the Brown Political Review. Additionally, perhaps to give his speeches a semblance of coherence, Trump punctuates his strings of simple and often empty language (e.g., references to unsubstantiated numbers, numerous spontaneous subject shifts, shallow dives into these subjects) with powerful statements on virtually every hot topic being discussed within the public sphere. He uses networks of these powerful statements to associate with them different meanings that lean more in his favor, and consequently uses them to invoke this same meaning when he repeats phrases associated with the issues. Examples include several phrases and words that are often picked up by Trump’s rally audiences and chanted, such as “lock her up,” “build the wall,” and “U.S.A.” These chants symbolize different things to different members of the audience; however, under the same name, the audience believes they are of the same mind and beliefs and that these beliefs are factual and valid. In reality, these phrases are merely words that often bear no weight in lawmaking and make empty promises to people that yearn for quick and tangible change."

[think before following links] [think before following links] [think before following links] [think before following links] https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/632/

Edited July 14 by tallslenderguy

[submarriedhole]

On 7/14/2024 at 4:11 AM, BootmanLA said:

According to the FBI, the shooter was one Thomas Matthew Crooks, age 20, of Bethel, Pennsylvania. He is also, according voter registration records, a Republican.

I'm neither Republican or a Democrat, but at various times, I've been registered for both parties. 

Here in NH, a lot of Democrats registered as Republican for the primary, in order to vote for Haley. This was being pushed in many battleground or swing states, including PA.

This kid is known to have donated to a progressive group. Although Pennsylvania has a closed primary, there is nothing to prevent someone from registering with either party at least 30 days before and be eligible to vote. A Newsweek article from December cites over 35k voters switching their registration from Democrat to Republican.

It's not unrealistic to think that this kid registered Republican in order to vote against Trump.

[topblkmale]

 

Shooter was 12 years old in 2016.

 

[Rillion]

6 hours ago, submarriedhole said:

I'm neither Republican or a Democrat, but at various times, I've been registered for both parties. 

Here in NH, a lot of Democrats registered as Republican for the primary, in order to vote for Haley. This was being pushed in many battleground or swing states, including PA.

This kid is known to have donated to a progressive group. Although Pennsylvania has a closed primary, there is nothing to prevent someone from registering with either party at least 30 days before and be eligible to vote. A Newsweek article from December cites over 35k voters switching their registration from Democrat to Republican.

It's not unrealistic to think that this kid registered Republican in order to vote against Trump.

Shooter did not donate to progressive causes, a different person with the same name who is 50 years old made that donation. Neighbors said Trump signs have been displayed at his family's house previously. 

[Rillion]

Also high school classmates say he identified as a conservative and always took the conservative side in debates in history classes. 

[Knotme]

Netflix has a really good docuseries, “The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi”.  Watch the first two episodes and note the similarity of the way Trump has whipped up his base, to a point where the US faces the prospect of 10 - 11 million immigrant souls (once Jews, gays and gypsies) living in fear of being rounded up by ICE (the SS & Gestapo) and held in detention centres (concentration camps).  Is that the US you want?

i’m not saying Trump is inspired by Hitler or consciously adopting his playbook; just drawing the parallels of how two authoritarian leaders operate to seize and hold onto power.

See for yourselves.

10 - 11 million consumers, driving economic growth, 5 million plus gainfully employed in an economic environment where there is already low unemployment.  Take them away, inflation will rise again.

That said, there is only one real issue for Americans entitled to vote.  That is the potential reversal of real action on Climate Change.  If the US reverses course set by Biden, we are all doomed.  The world is already at 1.5C warming.  Voters should forget the personalities and vote on the issue/s.  Thinking foremost of the children and those not yet born, who will inherit a mess

 

[topblkmale]

5 hours ago, Knotme said:

Netflix has a really good docuseries, “The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi”.  Watch the first two episodes and note the similarity of the way Trump has whipped up his base, to a point where the US faces the prospect of 10 - 11 million immigrant souls (once Jews, gays and gypsies) living in fear of being rounded up by ICE (the SS & Gestapo) and held in detention centres (concentration camps).  Is that the US you want?

i’m not saying Trump is inspired by Hitler or consciously adopting his playbook; just drawing the parallels of how two authoritarian leaders operate to seize and hold onto power.

See for yourselves.

10 - 11 million consumers, driving economic growth, 5 million plus gainfully employed in an economic environment where there is already low unemployment.  Take them away, inflation will rise again.

That said, there is only one real issue for Americans entitled to vote.  That is the potential reversal of real action on Climate Change.  If the US reverses course set by Biden, we are all doomed.  The world is already at 1.5C warming.  Voters should forget the personalities and vote on the issue/s.  Thinking foremost of the children and those not yet born, who will inherit a mess

 

 

Are you referring to legal immigrants or illegal immigrants?

 

[NWUSHorny]

10 hours ago, Rillion said:

Also high school classmates say he identified as a conservative and always took the conservative side in debates in history classes. 

I've seen that, but don't quite know how relevant that is. The definition of philosophical conservatism has changed drastically over the past 8 years, and while I think his age group probably the most likely to only know MAGA "conservatism" definition, there are a lot of people that lump both the traditional definition and the MAGA together, making it impossible to know which they are talking about. 

A better indicator of whether he had been seduced by the MAGA "conservative" cult at any point in his short life, will be to confirm whether he ever actually flew the MAGA flags or posted their signs. One thing the philosophically MAGA are big on is announcing their philosophical preference to the world.

[PozBearWI]

2 hours ago, topblkmale said:

 

Are you referring to legal immigrants or illegal immigrants?

 

Does it really matter?  R's have a beef with immigrants even though because we are US citizens, we are immigrants or at least have immigrant genetics within us.  I believe the R's just seek to reduce the US population.  

[PozBearWI]

7 minutes ago, NWUSHorny said:

I've seen that, but don't quite know how relevant that is. The definition of philosophical conservatism has changed drastically over the past 8 years, and while I think his age group probably the most likely to only know MAGA "conservatism" definition, there are a lot of people that lump both the traditional definition and the MAGA together, making it impossible to know which they are talking about. 

A better indicator of whether he had been seduced by the MAGA "conservative" cult at any point in his short life, will be to confirm whether he ever actually flew the MAGA flags or posted their signs. One thing the philosophically MAGA are big on is announcing their philosophical preference to the world.

Those metrics aren't relevant anymore.  When we are behaving in an either/or world, the kid was not a Democrat by any stretch.  How he manifest as R might inform why he took the shot, but he was some flavor of R.  I know a number of MAGA individuals who don't fly flags.  But it does seem to be the more visible political indicator locally.  T signs or none; and frankly, not a whole lot of T signs....  I suspect there is a huge hidden pool of old GOP folks around me who see Trump for who he is and won't vote for him.  They might be holding their noses (so to speak and hearkening back to Hillary times), but will vote D president while otherwise voting R.  I've seen that trend before in local elections - one delight of being a poll worker and sorting the paper ballots at the end of the night.  We see where the marks are and get a pretty good view of some odd bedfellows (as it were).