Foreigners is also watching US politics

From smp.no today:

chronicle:

"About lies and reality"

In a thought-provoking chronicle in Aftenposten the other day, parliamentary representative Marianne Martinsen discusses the concept of gaslighting, and discusses what this term really means, and what actuality this has really gained today, and what this can ultimately lead to.
What Trump is trying to do is slow manipulation of people’s perception of reality. Slowly but surely the course is turning more and more from reality to fiction, says the author of the article. PHOTO: DOUG MILLS

That Trump is lying so he runs off is, strictly speaking, no news. He does this to get the public on his side, and it works scary often.
EIMAR HAGEN

OPINIONS
PUBLISHED:MAY 21, 2020 2:10 P.M.LAST UPDATED:MAY 21, 2020 2:10 P.M.

  • Written by Eimar Hagen, Fosnavåg

This tempts me to make some additional comments.

The word gaslighting comes from a play that later became the movie “Gaslight”. In this 1944 film, Ingrid Bergman had one of the lead roles, and here she plays a trusting and sensitive wife who struggles to preserve her identity in a violent marriage. Her husband manipulates and confuses her over time by dimming down that day’s gas lamps in their house, then denying that the light has changed. Through this, she slowly loses control of reality.

The title of this film later gave rise to the psychological word, or the term gaslighting. This term is often still used as a label for a psychological manipulation technique. The purpose here may be to make other people lose their grip on their own judgment, or the knowledge of what is right or wrong, falsehood or truth. Gaslighting is also related to one of the narcissists’ frequently used instruments. And the term narcissist is often linked to people / leaders who are extremely self-absorbed, selfish and often have zero tolerance for being contradicted by others.

The year 2016 in many ways marks a fairly extreme change and transformation of the public vocabulary. It was just this year that Donald Trump came to power in the United States, and through his endless series of tweets trying to manipulate, and in part, manage to market his perception of reality. Here the concept of gaslighting in modern form emerges on the political scene.

When it comes to Trump, he, as US President, has a sphere of influence that is quite enormous. And this is not just limited to the United States. The entire world notices how an American president speaks, acts, and treats other people, and in the case of Trump, it can often be difficult to know what is true or not when he speaks. At the same time, it can be difficult to know whether Trump is generally acting on impulse or whether what he is marketing is deliberate strategy. In any case, the result of this is that truth and falsehood, reality and fiction merges, and the result can be as in the movie Gaslighting; one no longer knows what to believe or what is real.

To illustrate what is relevant in this regard, there is a reason to show a small tab of Trump’s handling and statements in this regard with the ongoing corona crisis:

22/1: «Completely under control.

26/2: “The danger to the American people is low”.

28/2: “This is their new bluff”. (This addressed to Democrats in the United States.)

15/3: “Has tremendous control.”

Then all of a sudden two days later (17/3) came the following message from Trump: “I have felt this is a pandemic”.

To cover his own catastrophic handling of the corona crisis, Trump claimed (1/5) that this crisis began in a laboratory in China. This, Trump claimed, even though two days earlier, Secretary of National Intelligence Richard Grenell had made the following statement:

"The intelligence community joins the broad scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus is not man-made or genetically modified. "So a statement contradicted what Trump claimed. For the sake of clarity: The intelligence community, which Grenell states on behalf of the above, consists of 17 intelligence organizations.

Perhaps the United States and the world would have faced enormous challenges in the fight against the coronavirus, regardless of who has been in charge. But it does little help here that the US and the world have a president who at one moment announces that the corona epidemic is a bluff to scare people from attending elections, and then at the next moment to say that he felt it was an epidemic long before this was a fact.

That Trump is lying through his teeth is, strictly speaking, no news. He does this to get the public on his side, and it works scary often. But the last thing one needs to lead a world in crisis is leaders like Trump who create confusion and suspicion among people, both domestically and globally. In such situations, there is one thing that matters, and there is trust.

What Trump is trying to do is slow manipulation of people’s perception of reality. Slowly but surely the course is turning more and more from reality to fiction.

Viktor E. Frankl, the well-known Austrian psychiatrist who sat in the notorious concentration camp of Auschwitz during the last war, comes among others. with this statement and warning in his book. “Fighting Life”:

“The emptiness of man is a widespread phenomenon in our century. This is understandable. It is due to several losses suffered by man after it became a truly human being. At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts upon which animal behavior is based and secured.

Such a security is forever locked out of man, just like from paradise. In its later development, man has suffered another loss, in that the traditions that supported his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. Few or no instincts tell man what to do, and no traditions say what to do. Soon it will no longer know what it will do. More and more, people will be led by what others want them to do, and so they will increasingly become a victim of unification. ”

Blue. the independent American organization Freedom House confirms a development that is now moving towards more and more authoritarian regimes around the world, and where Frankl’s warning of an ongoing alignment is also confirmed.

In light of all this, there is really reason to take Trump and his backers seriously too.

(Google translation)

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That assumes it’s intentional. Another possibility is he’s getting old. My grandma was an insightful and articulate woman until she got on in age. Then she started saying some batshit crazy things and believed stuff her younger self would have smacked herself silly just for thinking.

Biden (and Sanders) are about that age, too. No matter who we vote in we’ll have some diminished old coot drooling on his shirt and calling people by the wrong names.

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Reminds me of my grandpa who was convinced that Neil Armstrong was a criminal who went to the moon to escape capture.

There you have it:

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Somebody had to nail it. I was patient, just got my first chuckle of the day.

Without a doubt, Trump lies & manipulates when he sees fit to do so. The same for W. Bush, Bill Clinton, John McCain, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton & most other dirty rotten scoundrels. It doesn’t bother me any more. I’m used to it. C’est la vie. But what does get under my skin is the faux righteous indentation from the far left, far right & mostly from the completely biased media. Hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites, almost all of them. I can write an encyclopedia of examples but will only highlight a blatant one that is hardly in the news today.

Christine Blasey Ford couldn’t remember the date or week that she was supposedly assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh. At first she couldn’t even remember the month or year. She doesn’t remember the place either. Of the 4 people she placed there only she says it happened. The other 3, including her best friend at the time, said it never happened. She told no one, not her parents, other best friends, the police or a councilor. For years & years it was as if it never happened. But when she made it public 30 years later the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, editorial boards across the nation, the late night talk show hosts, SNL, television & movie celebrities, opinion piece writes, tv talking heads & even lefties on this forum said Kavanaugh was unfit to be 1 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices for the US because of it. For months it was front page news & Kavanaugh was guilty from day one in the court of public opinion because the media smear campaign against him.

Tara Read made similar allegations about Joe Biden. She told her parents, some friends & a councilor in a fairly quick matter of time compared to Blasey Ford. She remembers the date, the hour & place with tons of details & corroborating evidence. Hardly anyone who stood by Christine Blasey Ford will even acknowledge that Tara Read exists. No CNN, MSNBC, late night talk show, SNL, or celebrity outrage & Joe Biden had a long history of inappropriately touching & massaging women.

Both Blasey Ford & Read are lifelong Democrats. Read has no political motivation to ruin Biden while Blasey Ford had all the political reasons in the world to ruin Kavanaugh. The same people on this forum who had faux outrage against Bret Kavanaugh will gladly be in the voting both voting for Joe Biden come November. I don’t care about the liars & their lies. It’s the hypocrisy of the media & from my fellow average Americans that I find disturbing.

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I don’t disagree.

Sexual improprieties are a prerequisite for the office of the presidency. Once it was published that Trump had sex with a porn star 4 months after his wife had a baby I knew he was in and was a lock with the fundamentalists. Looks like Biden might have done a little more than sniffing so he has some small bona fides going into November likely not enough to to top Trump. Sixty years ago John Kennedy was having sex with Marilyn Monroe but they don’t call his generation “the greatest generation” for nothing.

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Brandon Stark - President - 2020

I call bullshit on Reade. Look closely at her many problems with defrauding people throughout her life.

Trump is just a pathetic narsicist whose brain is stuck in petulant child and pitiful victim mode. He can’t not tell a lie, and just bullies anyone who doesn’t praise his every word or act.

You don’t say? Surprise, surprise, wonders never cease. Let’s see who else calls her bullshit & what side of the aisle they set on?

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There are several conservative Republicans in California and Colorado who call bullshit on her, too. She used to drop Biden’s name as her friend and say she was an executive in his office long after she worked for him. She used those lies to get what she wanted, but never, ever said a disparaging word about the man.

I voted for Trump in '16. He’s been nothing but a disappointment and embarrassment ever since.

And, if you’re going to disregard Democrats solely on the basis that they are on the left, then you need to disregard Reade, too.

Neil Armstrong was a criminal who went to the moon to escape capture.

Going to post this to /r/conspiracy and see how far it goes.

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It’s not just liberals. I can’t stand to be around anyone who claims the religious moral high ground while being a Trump supporter. I can’t believe anyone can claim to be an evangelical christian but support a president that tells a person he barely knows that he can grab women by their pussies because he is rich & famous. If a person wants to vote for Trump fine, but don’t paint him into something that he isn’t. If a person wants to vote Democrat then go for it, but don’t throw stones & pretend your house isn’t made of glass as well. Far right & far left American politics is ridiculous, nothing but hypocrites.

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Preach it brother

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The New York Times: As Tara Reade’s Expert Witness Credentials Are Questioned, So Are Verdicts.

Most people aren’t able to be completely objective. They have a natural tendency to filter everything through political goggles.

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Gaslight, it’s a good movie, just watched it a few days ago on Amazon Prime.

Eleven warning signs, Trump gets a perfect score.

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Trump reacts to Michigan’s AG calling him a petulant child, by acting like a petulant child.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-bashes-michigan-ag-after-she-calls-him-a-petulant-child-for-refusing-to-wear-mask/ar-BB14soeK?li=BBnb7Kz

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I for one do not understand the fixation people have with Trump or had with Obama. The president doesn’t write or pass laws and regulations. The senate and the house of representatives do. Until you get those self serving morons out the president is just a useful tool to be used. Both parties are really good at making sure the laws and regulations benefit those they represent and it is not us. That people keep electing the same senators and congressmen over and over all the while complaining about the president not doing this or that is just plain ignorant and an indication that most people do not know how they are governed.

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The New York Times: Tara Reade Is Dropped as Client by a Leading #MeToo Lawyer.