patrick.net

Interesting theory but this is really a crafted talking point. The Trump voters I have talked to face to face have expressed various shades of desires for a 'deeper conservatism' or to 'shake up the system'. My sample size of three is small, granted, but I've never heard anything that showed the deepest motivation to be anti-elitism and anti-press. I see recently in your posts here though Patrick, a new distaste for "the media". I cannot help see this post as a little bit self projecting.

The Democrats and all those who have reason to oppose are actually the opposition party. All the judges and politicians who will not follow illegal executive orders, are now part of the opposition party. Bannon's comment on the media is correct, but to be really specific it's "any message not in favor of Trump, or that we don't like, is the opposition party."

Bannon has three favorite enemies : muslims, racial minority voters, and the media. If you are going to ensure a fast becoming minority (white Christians) are able to maintain power, what playbook could you use now to ensure control later? That's the playbook Bannon is running from, and by influence, Trump is executing on.

• The 'investigation into voter fraud' will be used to suppress voting rights.
(Control through marginalizing politically ability of others.)

• Muslims will continue to be the fear mongering bogey man, the prod and test, used to see if you can be scared to being a 'good/unified American'.
(Control through hate and fear.)

• The media's access to the administration will dwindle, any messages not liked will be subverted and bad mouthed, and any message liked will be emphasized.
(Control through removing voices of opposition.)

The opposition isn't 'the media'. The opposition is in all the people marching, donating, and standing up. The above isn't sensational butt-hurt. I really hope I'm wrong. Please let it be bungle and incompetence versus that actual agenda driving things.

The Trump administration, and by proxy right here in Bannon's own comment, don't have good ideas that can stand scrutiny, debate, and the opposition of a democracy. The only recourse of of those with weak positions, is to attack the messenger, and to try and make the inner circle of operation as small and inbred as possible.

They don't want experts. They don't want debate. They abhor complexity. They want homogeneous 'yes men'.

Patrick says

because everyone was so sick of the press's smugness

Yeah, either that, or idocracy is here. I lean towards the latter. Trump won, becasue this is what we get after years of Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radi, Glenn Beck and the dumbing down of Americans. And all the TPBs of the world that are angry about having to deal with OBama. That combined with white fear of changing demographics. Sure, there is a tiny bit of lunacy on the left, and the left has lost touch due to moving into the void left by republicans that moved so far to the right.

Patrick, I can't believe you like a hard right alt right nationalist racist propagandist. OR that you buy any of his bullshit. Congratulations.

On the bright side, when they start taking people away in the dark of the night, you won't be on their list, and if you tow the propaganda line, they might even let you keep Patrick.net. Good start so far.

Lunch with the Pope

President Trump invited the Pope for lunch on his mega yacht,
the Pope accepted and during lunch, a puff of wind blew the
Pontiff's hat off, right into the water.

It floated off about 50 feet, then the wind died down and it
just floated in place.

The crew and the secret service were scrambling to launch a boat
to go get it, when Trump waved them off, saying "Never mind, boys,
I'll get it."

The Donald climbed over the side of the yacht, walked on the water
to the hat, picked it up, walked back on the water, climbed into the
yacht, and handed the Pope his hat.

The crew was speechless.
The security team and the Pope's entourage were speechless.

No one knew what to say, not even the Pope.

But that afternoon, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN
reported:

"TRUMP CAN'T SWIM!"

marcus says

Patrick, I can't believe you like a hard right alt right nationalist racist propagandist. OR that you buy any of his bullshit. Congratulations.

Do you frequently invent bogeymen?

Doubt it was "the very thing that", but it was definitely "part of what"...

Patrick says

predictable scorn for everything Trump says was actually the very thing that got Trump elected, because everyone was so sick of the press's smugness.

Patrick says

They just have no clue as to how their perfectly predictable scorn for everything Trump says was actually the very thing that got Trump elected, because everyone was so sick of the press's smugness

What a load of crap. Trump got elected because hillary never should have been the candidate. People that supported trump didn't see any "predictable scorn" in the msm. They were reading breitbart and watching fox news looking to have their point of view validated.

Rew says

Bannon has three favorite enemies : muslims, racial minority voters, and the media

Where have I seen this before? Oh yes, I remember.

"The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands..."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 180-181.

"In political matters feeling often decides more correctly than reason."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 173

"But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 184

"It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance... As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 180-181

Jeeze, bob, are you reading from the DNC playbook? How many times did we hear the phrase "racist, sexist, misogynistic ..." in their play to get Hillary elected or to discredit our now sitting POTUS? Talk about how Trump is "literally Hitler OMG!" has been absolutely saturated among Leftists and their global media empire. It's sad to see you parroting their exact same propaganda like a good little tool. I thought you was smarter than that. But no! Godwin's law activated by you immediately! Your opponent is LITERALLY HITLER!

Quigley says

Jeeze, bob, are you reading from the DNC playbook? How many times did we hear the phrase "racist, sexist, misogynistic ..." in their play to get Hillary elected or to discredit our now sitting POTUS? Talk about how Trump is "literally Hitler OMG!" has been absolutely saturated among Leftists and their global media empire. It's sad to see you parroting their exact same propaganda like a good little tool. I thought you was smarter than that. But no! Godwin's law activated by you immediately! Your opponent is LITERALLY HITLER!

Sorry where in this little diatribe do you address the issue of how many trump voters were reading wapo and watching pbs?

Where did I say trump? The article is about bannon. The post is about bannon. I quoted the sentence about bannon. You didn't notice?

I'm reading from the DCN playbook? How do you get that? I've posted frequently that hillary was the most dishonest, self serving, sleaziest candidate ever nominated. You need to break out of binary thinking. People can believe trump and hillary suck.

Trump is "racist, sexist, misogynistic ..." . There is no doubt about that if you've listened to anything trump has said. Trump and bannon are using many of hitlers propaganda techniques. That is beyond dispute. They are very good at it. Hitler is the best, but far from only, example of these techniques.

Godwins' law activated by me that trump is literally hitler? That's ridiculous hyperbole on your part. I reserve judgement until the facts are in. If trump is just being reality tv donald then fine. If there is something more sinister going on then we will know soon enough. So far it's been mostly meaningless hype, lots of fluff with nothing of any real substance. Most was just rehashes of stuff bush did and obama reversed and trump rereversed. The tpp and immigration stuff makes big headlines but has little substance.

marcus says

Patrick, I can't believe you like a hard right alt right nationalist racist propagandist. OR that you buy any of his bullshit. Congratulations.

How come you don't support H1-b positions for math and science teachers; many schools, especially in low income areas lack this.

continued.

TPP was in the negotiation stage, but would have had a very hard road in congress. I don't think it would have passed. Trump just moved up the death date. Stopping people from 7 countries from entering for 90 days isn't going to do anything other than the chaos already created. Any serious terrorist with a well funded organization will have access to passports from other countries.

Bread and circus so far.

Rew says

don't have good ideas that can stand scrutiny, debate, and the opposition of a democracy

big example being the Yates firing, I take it?

marcus says

Patrick, I can't believe you like a hard right alt right nationalist racist propagandist.

@marcus I can't believe you are just flinging the same old accusations without listening at all.

I voted for Bernie. Trump was clearly the next best choice. I'm a bit worried about him, but it was always a choice between worry and depression (Hillary) after the Democratic party gave up on its own democratic process and stabbed Bernie in the back.

Nationalist? As in, a nation is defined by its borders? OK, then yup, we actually need borders.

Islam? The most violent religion by an order of magnitude easily. And that's inherent in the core of the religion, right from its beginning, not just fringe elements. It's using our protections for religion to spread in a way very analogous to the way the AIDS virus infects white blood cells. Once your system of immunity is what is actually carrying the infection, you're fucked.

That's not racist though. That's about a religion. People of all races have murdered random innocent civilians because Islam told them to.

You might say it's racist to point out that black people commit robbery, rape, and murder at around 20 times the rate that other races do, but that's just a statistical fact which the press never prints, so I feel someone has to say it out loud. Can facts be racist?

What I really am is just someone who got sick of political correctness and the suppression of the speaking of facts in America. Even why I try to be tactful, I find that facts like these are suppressed. Which makes me even more determined to say them.

Rew says

I've never heard anything that showed the deepest motivation to be anti-elitism and anti-press.

I think the press was really the tipping point, the thing that pushed enough people over to Trump's side for him to win.

The core motive was a desire to shake things up and ant-elitism. The press showed itself to be firmly elitist and globalist, pretty much saying "fuck you, middle of the country" and "if you don't like having your jobs outsourced, you're racist".

The 24/7 playbook of racism! misogyny! homophobia! finally pissed off enough people that they revolted.

bob2356 says

Trump is "racist, sexist, misogynistic ..." . There is no doubt about that if you've listened to anything trump has said. Trump and bannon are using many of hitlers propaganda techniques. That is beyond dispute. They are very good at it. Hitler is the best, but far from only, example of these techniques.

Just because The MSM has declared this to be truth in a nonstop stream of propaganda straight from YOUR Hitler playbook doesn't make it factually true!
Find me an example of Trump being racist and we will talk. All I've heard so far are inconvenient facts that Leftists like to label "racist sexist etc" because they make some minority group look bad. Facts are stubborn things, as John Adams famously said. They aren't philosophical treatises or racist diatribes, they are just facts.
Trump repeated a lot of ugly facts about the things and people who are making America less than it could be. Too bad!

rando says

The core motive was a desire to shake things up and ant-elitism. The press showed itself to be firmly elitist and globalist, pretty much saying "fuck you, middle of the country" and "if you don't like having your jobs outsourced, you're racist".

@patrick I missed your answer. What percentage of trump voters do you actually believe were watching anything other than breitbart/fox? How many watched cnn/wapo until they said that's a tipping point I'm voting trump? I know a bunch of trump voters (I live in a really rural area) and they all supported trump from the beginning. He said what they wanted to hear.

So your contention is millions of people watched and read a bunch of stuff they didn't really agree with until they decided enough it enough and then voted trump. Really?

Quigley says

Just because The MSM has declared this to be truth in a nonstop stream of propaganda straight from YOUR Hitler playbook doesn't make it factually true!

Troll on with someone else, you are not worth responding to.

When your ultimate goal is subverting freedom of information, free speech, and the truth, it only makes sense that the media is the opposition. It's shocking that he would be so open about it. But then again, TeamTrump have already proved that their fan base will drink bullshit from a firehose.

Patrick says

The Media Is The Opposition Party

The problem isn't that the media is the opposition party for Trump. The problem is that the media is supposed to be the opposition party of any administration, but it fails to do that. The media should have been opposing Hillary as well. If they held her feet to the fire during the primaries, Trump would not be president.

The media should act as the fourth estate holding all politicians accountable. Instead, they give their team and specific players they like a free pass.

How the “Fourth Estate” Has Been Falling Down on the Job

In a representative democracy, the media has two important jobs: to keep the public informed, and to keep serve as a conduit of information between the citizenry and lawmakers so that the former knows what the latter is up to and the latter understand what the former expect from them. In the U.S. – in fact, throughout the entire Western World – the “Fourth Estate” has been failing miserably in carrying out these tasks.

It’s not just how the U.S. corporate media has enabled Trump’s rise to power. It’s how the Western media has justified horrendous war crimes committed by past Administrations and the expansion of militarized police states in Europe and the Americas in the name of “national security” and the so-called “war on terror.”

With all the democrat appointees being replaced over next few month it'll be a media shit show

American Civil War II. This time more civil and less war.

Resistance, and opposition, unfortunately is now aligned with reality. That's because the Trump administration is "gaslighting".

Dan8267 says

The media should act as the fourth estate holding all politicians accountable. Instead, they give their team and specific players they like a free pass.

That more cozy relationship is dying. The Whitehouse press briefing room is soon going to be staffed by interns and novice reporters. It's not worth being in that room. There is no cordial ritual of any worth left. The media is pining from the loss, but will refocus.

When the Trump administration content is typically more lie than truth, as a consistent rule, reporting on the truth itself will look like negative bias. A true bias would be a news organization that is covering the lies over or "giving equal time" to the false representations being presented. That would just be an extension of the propaganda itself.

Any news outlet clinging to access will never have any pretense of impartiality. Forget being in the room, or listening to anything coming out of the Trump administration raw and "live". We need the media to take what is being said now, fact check it three times over, and then push it back out into the public with that framing around it. That's always been their job, anyway.

It's what the good organizations are actually doing already. You will have a good idea of which organizations those are when the Trump administration denounces them, or the Trumpets whine about them online.

Fact Checking is really just twisting to support a narrative.

Rew says

When the Trump administration content is typically more lie than truth, as a consistent rule, reporting on the truth itself will look like negative bias. A true bias would be a news organization that is covering the lies over or "giving equal time" to the false representations being presented. That would just be an extension of the propaganda itself.

That means that when the Media mentions Yemenis being banned from entry for a few weeks, they should also mention that it was US policy starting under Obama to assist the Saudis in bombing it, and it appears sending Special Forces and apparently bombing ourselves. And Libya, and Syria.

Remember: Banning people from entry for a few months is horrible, a lot worse than just dropping 1000s of bombs on their country.

What we really need is Mandatory Context and Half-Truth Prevention like when CNN selectively edited that Sister of the Guy the Black Cop shot to make it look like she called for peace when she was really telling the crowd to Burn and Loot not here in the "hood", but in the White Neighborhood.

For example, media allegations of "Anti-LGBTQ" need to be presented with factual reasons for such a belief. Things that happened, IE "in December 2005 at a Press Conference, Trump said "I hate the gays". Rather than media simply remarking that he's Anti-Gay or the more weasely "thought to be gay", since when the MSM talks about the Apollo Moon Landings, the MSM never says "reminding the audience that many people think NASA faked"

T L Lipsovich says

Fact Checking is really just twisting to support a narrative.

That's false. Simply stating that a report shows no widespread evidence of voter fraud, or a crowd size was not as large as the past, isn't spinning anything. Challenging someone making statements which are false, isn't spinning anything either. It's not butt-hurt. It's not an "agenda". It's simply seeking to represent what is true and actual.

Rew says

That's false. Simply stating that a report shows no widespread evidence of voter fraud, or a crowd size was not as large as the past, isn't spinning anything. Challenging someone making statements which are false, isn't spinning anything either. It's not butt-hurt. It's not an "agenda". It's simply seeking to represent what is true and actual.

Not at all. Analyzing what politicians say and do is largely a matter of opinion. Polifact for one stretches it in favor of Democrats and yet is very narrow and specific when Trump makes claims. A good example is Bernie ("Mostly True") and Trump ("Mostly False") extrapolating numbers for Black Youth Unemployment using pretty much the same method and coming within a few % points of each other.

T L Lipsovich says

Analyzing what politicians say and do is largely a matter of opinion.

Checking a claim, someone's statement presented as fact, is not an exercise in analysis. There are facts and 'alternative facts' (aka: falsehoods). Agreed?

If you claim everything is relative by perspective, than fact is dead across the planet. That's not a position I hold.
What you call "analysis" I might refer to as opinion-news-u-tainment. Many news outlets are in the grips of that, as it caters to a 'buying audience'.

Rew says

Checking a claim, someone's statement presented as fact, is not an exercise in analysis. There are facts and 'alternative facts' (aka: falsehoods). Agreed?

No, because what politicians do and say are often up for interpretation.

Or do they? As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has consistently reported, the fact checking business often – too often for anyone's good – turns on matters of opinion rather than matters of "fact." One recent example that drives the point home is the Washington Post's recent fact check that gave President Barack Obama "four Pinocchios" for asserting that he had, in fact, called what happened in Benghazi an act of "terrorism."

According to the Post's Glenn Kessler, Obama did in fact refer to it the next day in a Rose Garden address as an "act of terror," but did not call it "terrorism." Is this a distinction without a difference? Hardly, at least as far as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney might be concerned. It will be a long time before anyone forgets how the second presidential debate turned into a tag team match with Obama and CNN's Candy Crowley both explaining to the mystified Republican that Romney was, in fact, wrong when he accused the president of not having called the Benghazi attack a terrorist incident.

So is "act of terror" the same as "terrorism" or not? It all depends on whether you think the two are different or the same.

If Trump builds a Border Wall and institutes a Tariff on some Mexican Products or a Special Payroll Deduction from Guest Workers, did he get Mexico Pay for the Wall or Not? If Mexico never actually just handed cash over specifically for the wall?

T L Lipsovich says

If Trump builds a Border Wall and institutes a Tariff on some Mexican Products

If the tariffs result in higher prices for american consumers (and they will), then we can say not only that american citizens will pay for the wall, but that they also got grubered...

MMR says

How come you don't support H1-b positions for math and science teachers; many schools, especially in low income areas lack this.

Who says I don't ? My school hired 3 of these (in Math and physics) the same year I started. LA was aggressively hiring back then. As far as I know it's still done and not fought by our LA union. Language and cultural issues can make it tough for foreign teachers, but I have no problem with it.

This doesn't impact teacher salaries becasue there aren't enough coming here to teach and becasue teacher salaries are already pretty low (not high anyway). They top out well under 100K and that's after many years. A software engineer can get up into the 6 figures in just a few years if they're good. So the risk to software engineers is way different. IF I were in that business, I would object to dishonest practices designed to bring more foriegn programmers in. THen again, I can see the other side too sometimes. If someone comes here to study engineering from say China, at UCLA, and wants to stay, I totally think they shouldbbe able to get an H1-B vise to work here.

Keeping foriegn talent here has it's advantages. Even relative to the gene pool.

So much of politics is subjective and prone to interpretation ad nauseum. When the media use this pervasive gray area to spin whole lies out of true cloth to advance a not-so-hidden agenda, they become the enemy of truth and the people.

#PressOn trending hard today.

T L Lipsovich says

If Trump builds a Border Wall and institutes a Tariff on some Mexican Products or a Special Payroll Deduction from Guest Workers, did he get Mexico Pay for the Wall or Not? If Mexico never actually just handed cash over specifically for the wall?

I think economists could pretty clearly trace net costs of the above to being very lopsided: the American consumer and tax payer would pay.

But currently, America is paying for the wall already, and not just in proposed spending.

T L Lipsovich says

No, because what politicians do and say are often up for interpretation.

Where there is room for interpretation, you can interpret, but ...

Is it raining? Are you wet?
Did the report show enhanced interrogation to be effective?
Was the crowd estimate the largest ever?

These are not interpretable. These are finite and bound.

I wonder how friendly the globalist oligarchy mouthpiece (the MSM) would have been to Bernie if he won?

I think he would get the Trump Treatment he actually wanted to reign in the 1%, tax the rich, go after bankers. Trump never said any of that he wants lower taxes and look at how they crucify Trump.

Obviously we have never had a real president before 1/20/17 that was not owned by the corporations, and they are going after him to get back the power of the POTUS so they can do whatever they want. They went too far though - look at Libya (failed state now), they funded ISIS in Syria, I have no idea what Yemen is. Its crazy how no one was in charge under Obama, all he did was talk pretty, while droning people for bribes to his and hillarys secret offshore accounts. Thats where we were.

Hillary took money from the Saudis to do regime change. We would be so fucked with her as president. Basically would be president Tony Soprano.

Every day I've checked the news on Google for Donald Trump. And every day it's a non-stop slew of negative articles, full of emotional manipulation, conjecture, and false narratives. Even before Donald Trump's first day in office.

It's beyond obvious the mainstream media is centrally controlled. That being said, the average moron has no memory, or ability to think beyond what they Google that week. They can't see the "big picture". So they believe their non-stop lies or capitulate to them.

I don't see Donald Trump getting elected for another 4 years because of this. That means he has an impossible time frame to get this perfect. Or their agenda will simply continue after he leaves office.

I wonder if they're going to wait it out.. or something else.

dublin hillz says

T L Lipsovich says

If Trump builds a Border Wall and institutes a Tariff on some Mexican Products

If the tariffs result in higher prices for american consumers (and they will), then we can say not only that american citizens will pay for the wall, but that they also got grubered...

A tariff is a "consumption tax". This allows the consumer to choose weather to purchase. Tariffs funded the entire U.S. government until 1913. This was during eras where most commodities were produced locally, or manufactured in the USA. "Importing" was synonymous with "luxury" for consumer products, since it was cheaper to buy locally. Also certain things could not be sourced from the United States or were better deals - even with the high tariffs prior to 1913 (which were typically between 20% and 45%) international trade was still a bargain.

As a 2D example: A shirt from China costs $10.00. It retails for $50.00. With a 20% tariff you're now retailing at $52.00. It's not as a high price on the individual as the media constantly leads people to believe. It can also result in certain products being produced locally. And sometimes, another positive effect can occur: foreign exporters building factories in the USA to avoid a tariff. This is what happened in the 1980's under Ronald Regan.

@ Ironman

But the average moron doesn't care. They just hypnotically watch the media. Whatever it says, they believe.

rando says

@marcus I can't believe you are just flinging the same old accusations without listening at all.

rando says

Great quote by Steve Bannon, sorry I didn't run across it till now:

“I want you to quote this,” Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html

I think he's right. It was never Hillary vs Trump, it was the Media vs Trump.

Okay, well if I misinterpreted it was only that you like him. MAybe you don't even like what he's saying.

But you clearly think he's (Bannon) right. I say that's so wrong and that only someone such as yourself that has a very different ideas about Islam and a very different view about minorities (than I) would possibly think that. I can't see it at all. Not even slightly. And I have been listening to you over the years and I understand your point of view.

Having said that, I'll add that I get it about identity politics and and the fact that democrats need to address the issues that affect everyone, and back off when it comes to issues such as transgender issues.

But as for the media versus Trump ? Give me a break !! HE would not have been elected if

1) THe media hadn't given him so much attention for acting like such a douchebag (a reputation he will never undo with over 50% of the public).

2) IF they had called him out properly for his constant dishonesty.