Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 450: Year of Luigi

(+) Yeah! (+)

Also, good policies tend to become the new normal over time. Bad policies cascade.

See: nobody talks about Carter's successes, but Reagan's failures made him hated by newer generations.

Reagan is still beloved because school curriculums are bad and he was put on a pedestal for too long.

Like, we hate Reagan,but that still isn't the norm.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Other than that, basically everything he did will be undone. To qualify as effective your policy needs to stay in effect, right?

I do think so. But I don't think the wars will restart, or the ceasefire will end. At least not intentionally, but Trump could definitely make some bad mistakes that lead to more war. Looking at the history, Trump did actually finish Libya (although IIRC he just moved all the troops around to other places in the ME). I think he's just way too weak to resist the enormous pressure to escalate, similar to Obama.

The only exception to that is Ukraine, which Trump could turn on to help Putin. But as I've pointed out before, people overestimate how much of an American proxy the Ukraine war is. It's heavily a European proxy also, moreso even. So any pullback from the US will result in replacement support from the EU, and not much will really change in the short term. The EU is just content to let the US fund most of it for now, because why not? Israel is similar, although the US does have a much bigger investment in it.

Also with Ukraine and Israel, they did explicitly ask for allied help. Those are Putin and Bibi's wars. That's far better than US-led interventionary wars. So yeah Biden is bad on Israel especially, but it's not nearly on the same level of Afghanistan, Libya, etc.

Leafeon13N posted...

Reagan is still beloved because school curriculums are bad

Do most history classes even cover the 1980's at all? I'm pretty there are more voters who lived through that era than were taught about it in school.

The most recent era of history I had covered in any real detail in grade school was late 60s/early 70s by a teacher in the gifted middle school program who made that her thing. AP Government kind of did but really in a much more broad sense (and that the teacher really liked anecdotes and West Wing). Otherwise history practically ended in 1945.

So I wouldn't be surprised if they're not at the 80s yet.

Although I should add that sometimes February would break the flow of time to discuss the Civil Rights Movement specifically.

Huh, didn't see anyone mention this at all. That's much broader than a Tiktok-specific ban.
https://bsky.app/profile/wario64.bsky.social/post/3lg3253fnn42d
https://lifehacker.com/tech/apps-bytedance-operates-in-united-states

Marvel Snap has been banned in the crossfire

God bless all of you who are going to pay attention to this Trump dumpster fire starting 1/20.

Personally, I'm looking out for my mental health, concentrating on my family, and zoning out from the daily news cycle. I can't absorb the amount of stupid bullshit without going absolutely insane.

I was doing my best to zone it out and then everything literally caught on fire.

In fairness this time the public asked for it, so if his new voters dont like what they have then tough. His approval ratings in his first term were consistently poor despite a booming pre-pandemic economy too, and his new coalition seems less cultish on the whole.

Xeybozn posted...

Do most history classes even cover the 1980's at all? I'm pretty there are more voters who lived through that era than were taught about it in school.

Its not even necessarily school so much as just the iconography. Even then to me it seems Reagans ability to communicate is what historians like most about him. Tbf I also think Trump is an insult to Reagan but you guys all seem to be a bunch of liberal circlejerks beyond the odd contrarian.

Aww he's trying to be bolder

How can an individual be a circlejerk?

midnight's edge must have used the term "liberal circlejerk" in a recent video

MMXcalibur posted...

Personally, I'm looking out for my mental health, concentrating on my family, and zoning out from the daily news cycle. I can't absorb the amount of stupid bulls*** without going absolutely insane.

it's a really tough balance, I gotta stay on top of it for my safety but there's a very direct mental health tradeoff, yea

just hangin out watching my survival odds dwindle, but still gotta work and stuff like nothing's wrong

I wish it was easier to immigrate places, I think my best shot was starting that process 2-3 years ago but it's probably too late now

AriaOfBolo posted...

it's a really tough balance

The problem is we (by virtue of being in this topic at least) are orders of magnitude off the balance right now. We might be 70-80% online and believe that a good balance is 50%, or maybe 30%. But in reality a good balance is like 1% or maybe 0.5%, i.e. 100x less plugged in as you currently are. That is still enough to get all the information that you need, but avoid distraction and manipulation.

I would argue that by nature of almost all voters being horrifically uninformed or misinformed, calling 1% "enough plugged in to get all the information you need" is slightly generous

Surprisingly, doomscrolling tiktok more will not actually make those people more informed. They need fact checked journalism, not 24/7 social media.

The conflation of engagement with information is entirely imaginary, created by social media companies like Facebook to boost ad sales. That's it. There has never been a correlation between being online and being informed, in fact the opposite correlation has a lot of strong evidence going for it now.

foolm0r0n posted...

Surprisingly, doomscrolling tiktok more will not actually make those people more informed. They need fact checked journalism, not 24/7 social media.

The conflation of engagement with information is entirely imaginary, created by social media companies like Facebook to boost ad sales. That's it. There has never been a correlation between being online and being informed, in fact the opposite correlation has a lot of strong evidence going for it now.

Bang on.

Kind of a banger set actually, like classic comedy club Chappelle. The lack of trans fixation obviously help. The Carter story was awesome too, never heard of that before. It's sad to see Chappelle is still naive enough to make a plea to Trump like that though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57pGarTBJrU

I've been saying for years. Less internet is the solution for most people. Social media addiction and jealousy is the number one cause of modern world issues

Ironic to post here but correct. Internet is a cesspool.

so has the right even attempted to reconcile their anti-immigration rhetoric with the fact that the president is married to an immigrant, the vice president is married to the daughter of immigrants, and the shadow president is an immigrant?

The Right never reconciles anything.

You really don't understand anti-immigration and whiteness in general if you think that needs reconciliation

i can say as an incredibly pasty white dude that I have never understood the right's version of whiteness even once

Everything is always reconciled by default by rules not applying to the rich. And that's not the right but politics in general.

Dunno about anyone else but I'm irked that the failure message for TikTok is saying "don't worry President Trump will fix it ". Like, way to validate the S.C.'s concern in general.

And for the record I have never wanted to download it. It already was Vine with sinister undertones.

FFDragon posted...

i can say as an incredibly pasty white dude that I have never understood the right's version of whiteness even once

It's general whiteness, and it's that individual virtue legitimizes systemic oppression. i.e. "my best friend is black"

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Tbf I also think Trump is an insult to Reagan

Yeah Trump hasn't killed nearly as many gay people yet

Plenty of time left on the clock tho

Isquen posted...

Dunno about anyone else but I'm irked that the failure message for TikTok is saying "don't worry President Trump will fix it ". Like, way to validate the S.C.'s concern in general.

And for the record I have never wanted to download it. It already was Vine with sinister undertones.

200%, I don't want it banned but I absolutely won't be using it if it comes back. They don't even need to shut down yet, but I guess they really wanted to gas up the dude that started the process of banning them?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1c43afa0.jpg

tremendous own goal from anyone in government who opposed trump, lol. our leaders are incompetent

ivysnow posted...

tremendous own goal from anyone in government who opposed trump, lol.

wasn't it unanimous in the senate?

i'm not saying that the tiktok ban was partisan, but rather it was a bad decision by all involved and bit the dems in the ass in the end

Lawmakers are old and don't understand technology or social media; nor are they particularly capable or competent when it comes to regulating such things.

More at 11

https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1881053899102236827?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

This just about covers it. Trump is insanely anti-China and managed to turn it into a win. Crazy.

Like I said, Trump being forced to be pro Russia and pro China is not actually a good thing for him and Republicans long term. It's pure exploitation at his and America's expense. And he is proving to be the absolute juiciest cash cow to any and every exploiter across the world who blows smoke up his ass. It's just a matter of American exploiters or foreign exploiters get the most out of him. Godspeed Zuck and Musk.

Fortunately for the US people, decades of keynesianism have taught us how to live with several thousand leeches sucking us dry at any given time.

I'm still a little confused why the unban went into effect before Trump is inaugurated.

the speed at which this country willingly bellyflops into an era of trumpaganda is astonishing

kevwaffles posted...

I'm still a little confused why the unban went into effect before Trump is inaugurated.

kevwaffles posted...

I'm still a little confused why the unban went into effect before Trump is inaugurated.

Being assured by the next president that a deal is in place

It's not very confusing tbh

Technically, AFAIK, all Trump can (legally) do is give them a 90 day extension by basically lying (the law's mechanism for the extension is pretty clear about what it requires but Trump can probably lie and just say it met it.)

After that all he should be able to do is promise not to enforce it... but jury out on whether the App Stores take the risk and defy the law - which would have a statute of limitations past Trump's term.

That, or, get Congress to repeal it.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Lawmakers are old and don't understand technology or social media; nor are they particularly capable or competent when it comes to regulating such things.

More at 11

you're assuming this wasn't the end goal for the republicans
you're also assuming the dems were big fans of the free flow of information

I think at least the former is incorrect

Social media isnt the free flow of information though

I think assuming this was some grand plot by the GOP or Trump is giving them too much credit. If a "plot" was successfully executed by anyone I'd say it was by TikTok/ByteDance/China.

Taking in the timeline and facts at the moment I don't really see a different conclusion.

Trump initially starts the effort to ban TikTok back during his first term but it gets held up in courts and he loses the election so the whole effort kinda vanishes for a bit. Things are business as usual until 2022-2023 when Congress finally decides to go after TikTok themselves and finally get the momentum to pass the ban with Biden's support.

Nearly simultaneously, major TikTok investors meet with Trump (and maybe donate to his campaign, I don't feel like going back through the stories to see everything they do but I know a major shareholder or something starts hanging in his orbit at this time) and "all of a sudden" Trump reverses course and starts being pro-TikTok and that's more or less where we're at now.

Trump is famously easy to manipulate so I feel the simplest explanation is that TikTok execs (and I think the CEO donated to and/or is attending the inauguration?) just flattered him because all you need to do to make him like and favor you is butter him up and feed his ego and so he flipped to pro-TikTok. They've continued to do so with the over the top "President Trump is working to restore TikTok" and "President Trump saved TikTok!" app messages of the last day.

But AFAIK, Speaker Johnson's most recent position is "No, we're not repealing the ban" so I don't think the GOP had been pulling some plot to walk the Dems into an own-goal - if they had they'd pull the rug here and repeal. If anything, I think there are Dem efforts to work longer extensions and such in the works right now and that is arguably a kind of own goal because they've already took all the damage for this and granting TikTok more leases on life at this point would be bailing out Trump who now has this as his problem. (Maybe it's a good thing to do independent of the political calculus here but I'm just looking at it as a "who benefits politically" lens right here)

As it stands now, Trump still has no power to actually do anything about this ban really. He can probably get them the 90 day extension even though it should be extremely legally suspect but I mean - even if someone can challenge him on that, I don't expect it and by the time it'd be resolved you've probably already exhausted those 90 days in the legal fight... at which point... we're back where we started with the ban looming imminently like yesterday.

"But Trump can just not enforce it!" The Biden admin was explicitly not enforcing it today and officially stated they were leaving enforcement to the Trump administration since it's the literal last day of their admin and TikTok still went through the show of pulling the plug and praising Trump as a savior! Now, Trump can continue to not enforce it but again that relies on the Big Tech App Stores like Google/Apple being absolutely certain that they can just ignore and violate the law and not face consequences - and they'd be facing liability years after Trump is gone because it's a 5 year statute of limitations. Are they going to want to take that risk even if ByteDance/TkTok are?

I feel like TikTok building Trump up now is just them putting him in a trickier spot in 3 months when he's basically forced by his need for validation to keep helping them lest his "big win" here and now turn into a loss.

I suppose he could cow the Congressional GOP into repealing the ban and escape that way... but again, that works out as a win to TikTok who, if anyone is pulling the strings here, I think it's them.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Ironic to post here but correct. Internet is a cesspool.

I mean, I think GameFAQs doesn't have the same problem as most social media, though?

A big part of the problem is social media algorithms. GameFAQs doesn't have complicated algorithms that feed people down routes of extremism. People can become extremists by watching youtube or using twitter, and especially by using Facebook (the statistics on that I've seen on the correlation between facebook use and extremism are nutty), but I've never heard of someone radicalized by GameFAQs.

If anything I think this topic tends to pull people towards the center more than anything else.

metroidcomposite posted...

but I've never heard of someone radicalized by GameFAQs

JRPGs, Pokemon, Phoenix Wright

LightningStrikes posted...

Social media isnt the free flow of information though

freer than if it doesn't exist or is on a short leash

I only hope the people that were celebrating yesterday because TikTok was banned now dislike Trump just as fervently now that hes credited with its return.

Another good report
https://bsky.app/profile/propublica.org/post/3lfsxxcscak23