Trump MAGAThread V: March Comes In Like A Lion

[AiliailiA]

Happy Pathetic Nationalism Day!

Let us dance unenthusiastically around the America Pole.

Previously known as the "North Pole" and thought to be above the arctic circle somewhere ... but according to recent work by the USGS in which old data was unfaked, actually located in Iowa.

At the moment it seems to be "these protests are invalid because these protests a decade before against something completely different were bigger" or something.

Also, missing the point that the majority of people involved in the Iraq war protests were millennials.

The start and end dates of generations are quite arbitrary, and generations aren't really a demographic, but considering birth in 1977 to be the beginning of the Millenial generation ... that would make the majority of Iraq war protestors 26 or younger.

Seems plausible actually.

[AiliailiA]

With Trump cozying up with the Trump of the Philippines, who else thinks that the next 4/20 is going to be a LOT bloodier?

If I was Duterte I would decline the invitation. There is a non-negligable chance Trump hates his guts and plans to kill him in a freak golfing accident.

[Ifreann]

Let us dance unenthusiastically around the America Pole.

Previously known as the "North Pole" and thought to be above the arctic circle somewhere ... but according to recent work by the USGS in which old data was unfaked, actually located in Iowa.

The truth comes out at last. We had all suspected that Iowa was the centre of the universe, and now we know for certain.

[Gallia-]

Let us dance unenthusiastically around the America Pole.

Previously known as the "North Pole" and thought to be above the arctic circle somewhere ... but according to recent work by the USGS in which old data was unfaked, actually located in Iowa.

Also, missing the point that the majority of people involved in the Iraq war protests were millennials.

The start and end dates of generations are quite arbitrary, and generations aren't really a demographic, but considering birth in 1977 to be the beginning of the Millenial generation ... that would make the majority of Iraq war protestors 26 or younger.

Seems plausible actually.

The "generally accepted" (read: one that gets talked about most often in news articles) is 1982-1996 or 2000 or 2002 or 2004. Basically anyone between 18-35, which is the prime political activist age band. The oldest Millennials in 2003 would have been about old enough to drink. Most would still be school children, or too young to even form independent political opinions.

Most Iraq War protestors were Millennials' parents, who are either Baby Boomers or Generation Xers.

e: Dead link RIP.

[Ism]

I don't really have a point beyond poking fun at the notion that Millennials care about politics.

They have no trust in institutions or other people, because they're mired by individualism taken to an absurd extreme. This does not bode well for the future of American democracy, or indeed the future of America, because both of those institutions rely on trust in people besides yourself. For Congress to do its job, it needs real feedback from the people who vote for it, which generally comes from voters. If the people who vote for it don't care about politics, which is the case for most Millennials, then the machine will eventually stop. Either because voters have either stopped making informed decisions or because they've become so apathetic that only the most fringe political viewpoints are allowed to persist to election day.

We're probably headed towards the latter, though.

How much that resembles previous Americas is something that I don't think anyone can make a statement on. Comprehensive polling data and the sociology related only came into being in the 1960s and '70s, which is basically living memory. All we can really know is that, since the Carter administration, we've been on somewhat a downward trend in trust in civil institutions like the Supreme Court and Congress, and an increase in trust in autocratic institutions like the military and police.

Protest and voter turnout correlates strongly with political engagement and discourse. Protests against the Iraq War were a minority position and still larger than protests against Trump. If Millennials actually believe that Trump is bad, why aren't they showing it? Why aren't they engaging in acts of civil disobedience on the scale of previous generations? Either they don't believe Trump is bad, or they don't care enough about a healthy, functioning democracy that they're willing to shirk even the smallest of their civic duties.

I suspect the latter, though.

The key to the argument I guess is whether or not you consider majority participation and consensus, rather than fringe partisanship, to be an enabler of a healthy democracy. If you don't agree with that, it sorta falls flat on its face as to why shrinking rates of voter turnout and fewer/smaller acts of civil disobedience is a bad thing. Or if you think that voter turnout is proportionate to reality rather than perceptions of reality, which I sort of agree with but I don't think it's true.

There is no "vibrancy" in "online protest". No one cares about those.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ss/340316/

Millennials are risking becoming another Silent Generation, at best.

We are probably seeing the peak of voter turnout either this election, or the next. 2016 was similar to 1960 (both were ~60%), and we'll see a precipitous drop in voter turnout over the coming decades, like what happened between 1968-2000, as Millennials begin to push out senior citizens as the latter die off, and continue to not vote. Millennials will probably continue to be unhappy with how the system works and equally be unable to work within the confines of the system to make it change. Which is to say, they will complain about the people being elected and still refuse to vote.

That's quite subpar compared to the Boomers and Greatest generations. Although equally relevant, to the extent that senior citizens decide Congressional elections, the people in charge of government may be in for a rude shock in a few years time. An even more partisan Congress is a bit difficult to imagine.

The question I guess for the Internet Age is whether or not you can adapt a bureaucracy to deal with the tidal wave of meaningless information (read: online protests) and still gather useful data. Previous administrations had to rely on news articles and/or cold calls at dinnertime, while ultra-modern administrations will probably just look at Gallup online surveys, but gathering information is a bit irrelevant if the people in charge of making decisions are incompetents or incapable of reaching consensus.

e: I'm also kind of salty that if Millennials had simply had a turnout comparable to our parents, the Democrats would control Congress and Clinton would be the leader of the Free World (again).

The fact of the matter is, the youth vote is always has low turnout, it's been low for generations past, present and probably future. And considering the fact that barely half the country votes as is, I really don't think it's fair complain solely about one demographic which historically does not turn out to vote. As for mistrust, well yeah, when you grow up in the era of divided government and mistrust of government, that's bound to happen. Like all generation them, Millenials will as whole become better informed over time and thus vote more often. However, like other extant generations, they will almost certainly have relatively lowe voter turnout, as has been the trend for almost all demographics. So, maybe, stop painting with that broad brush of yours.

[Martune]

Page 504

[Zakuvia]

With Trump cozying up with the Trump of the Philippines, who else thinks that the next 4/20 is going to be a LOT bloodier?

If I was Duterte I would decline the invitation. There is a non-negligable chance Trump hates his guts and plans to kill him in a freak golfing accident.

Why would Trump hate Duterte? They're practically clones. Hell, if Trump has anything against Duterte, it's probably jealousy. If Trump had the same kind of authority Duterte had, imagine how many kilos of crack cocaine would magically find itself next to the bullet-riddled corpses of Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann?

[AiliailiA]

Previously known as the "North Pole" and thought to be above the arctic circle somewhere ... but according to recent work by the USGS in which old data was unfaked, actually located in Iowa.

The truth comes out at last. We had all suspected that Iowa was the centre of the universe, and now we know for certain.

What we don't know, is where the Other American Pole is. Not Antarctica obviously, nor the Kerguellen Islands (they're French, dozens of fake scientists there are teaching penguins to speak French). But finding the Other American Pole to be right near the American Pole (say, in Oklahoma) causes all sorts of problems which would require extensive unfaking of basic physics. Like magnetism. Angular momentum. Gravity.

I think it will be found to be Guam. The Other American Pole, Guam, and just a year or two later Guam will become the 51st state.

[Gauthier]

If I was Duterte I would decline the invitation. There is a non-negligable chance Trump hates his guts and plans to kill him in a freak golfing accident.

Why would Trump hate Duterte? They're practically clones. Hell, if Trump has anything against Duterte, it's probably jealousy. If Trump had the same kind of authority Duterte had, imagine how many kilos of crack cocaine would magically find itself next to the bullet-riddled corpses of Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann?

No kidding.

[AiliailiA]

If I was Duterte I would decline the invitation. There is a non-negligable chance Trump hates his guts and plans to kill him in a freak golfing accident.

Why would Trump hate Duterte? They're practically clones. Hell, if Trump has anything against Duterte, it's probably jealousy.

Trump might be jealous of "strong leaders" who are idiots but whose democratic system is so weak it lets them get away with murder. Yes.

[AiliailiA]

Page 504

Naming a thread, who knew it could be so complicated?

[Zakuvia]

Page 504

Naming a thread, who knew it could be so complicated?

Too on the nose to call it MAGAThread VI: April Showers ?

Or, since it's now a month later, ...: May America Great Again.

[Ifreann]

The truth comes out at last. We had all suspected that Iowa was the centre of the universe, and now we know for certain.

What we don't know, is where the Other American Pole is. Not Antarctica obviously, nor the Kerguellen Islands (they're French, dozens of fake scientists there are teaching penguins to speak French). But finding the Other American Pole to be right near the American Pole (say, in Oklahoma) causes all sorts of problems which would require extensive unfaking of basic physics. Like magnetism. Angular momentum. Gravity.

I think it will be found to be Guam. The Other American Pole, Guam, and just a year or two later Guam will become the 51st state.

"The Other Pole State" isn't a bad nickname for a state. Go Other Polecats!

[Seangoli]

So... Trump wonders why the Civil War had to happen, and in the process makes no god damn sense whatsoever, including wondering what Andrew Jackson would have done about it. A bit out of left field, even for him, and he doesn't seem to understand the political climate that led to the Civil War in the slightest.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -civil-war

Can we just accept that he's senile at this point? Not to mention that glorifying Andrew Jackson is... bizarre and distasteful.

[Ifreann]

So... Trump wonders why the Civil War had to happen, and in the process makes no god damn sense whatsoever, including wondering what Andrew Jackson would have done about it. A bit out of left field, even for him, and he doesn't seem to understand the political climate that led to the Civil War in the slightest.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -civil-war

Can we just accept that he's senile at this point? Not to mention that glorifying Andrew Jackson is... bizarre and distasteful.

Somewhere, Eric and Don Jr. are looking at retirement home pamphlets.

[Gauthier]

So... Trump wonders why the Civil War had to happen, and in the process makes no god damn sense whatsoever, including wondering what Andrew Jackson would have done about it. A bit out of left field, even for him, and he doesn't seem to understand the political climate that led to the Civil War in the slightest.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -civil-war

Can we just accept that he's senile at this point? Not to mention that glorifying Andrew Jackson is... bizarre and distasteful.

Somewhere, Eric and Don Jr. are looking at retirement home pamphlets.

TRUMP Retirement Home.

[Senkaku]

page 504 ayyy it's lit

So... Trump wonders why the Civil War had to happen, and in the process makes no god damn sense whatsoever, including wondering what Andrew Jackson would have done about it. A bit out of left field, even for him, and he doesn't seem to understand the political climate that led to the Civil War in the slightest.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -civil-war

Can we just accept that he's senile at this point? Not to mention that glorifying Andrew Jackson is... bizarre and distasteful.

He's just trying to share what he learned in history class today with Daddy Pence.

[Ifreann]

Somewhere, Eric and Don Jr. are looking at retirement home pamphlets.

TRUMP Retirement Home.

They have the biggest walls.

[Camicon]

Naming a thread, who knew it could be so complicated?

Too on the nose to call it MAGAThread VI: April Showers ?

Or, since it's now a month later, ...: May America Great Again.

MAGAThread VI: Tomahawk Showers Bring North Korean Flowers

[Sunseek]

Doesn't this thread need to be locked..

[Ism]

TRUMP Retirement Home.

They have the biggest walls.

And they made the whippersnappers pay for it.

[Maichuko]

Well until it's locked I'll post this.

Trump doesn't know why the civil war happened, and seems to think his favorite president ever Andrew Jackson was alive and angry during about the civil war.

[Fires of Utumno]

The Trump retirement home is YUGE!!!!