And this is what one of the things I find useful about twitter because I follow some very interesting people
And so Anne Applebaum the the Washington Post columnist. It was just awesome on Twitter. Everyone should follow her
she just keeps hammering Trump with with her own points and and other stuff that she finds and
She just pointed out that you know did did anyone notice that Trump Trump threatened a war
with North Korea two days ago
It was in the Financial Times and yet no one can talk about it because no one believes him, right?
Like it's like it's like we have a president whose speech has now become so
denuded of truth value right perceived truth value
that he can say
you know where if China doesn't handle North Korea we're going to and
no one even
feels like they have to ask a follow-up question on that topic because
It's just everyone assumes as an empty Bluff
I mean it may just imagine it he'll just step back into the previous presidency if Obama had said
if China doesn't handle North Korea, we will right that would be
top of the fold
This is all we're talking about today, right?
it just comes out of a blizzard of
inanity and craziness that
You know, he's going after Meryl Streep. He's he's lying about Obama wiretapping him now. He's threatening war with North Korea and
You know, nobody knows what to talk about. So it's like the the the consequence of this is we have a president who
Not only can he not be trusted to tell the truth. He can be trusted to lie
whenever he thinks it suits his purpose and now
so the the state of mind that everyone's in including the press in listening to him is just is to take
Potentially the most serious things in the world not seriously and the least serious things in the world like, you know
Meryl Streep or what he thinks of her acting, you know that becomes that dominates a whole new cycle
It's it's very upside-down. It seems to me to be quite as opposed to the lies are
perennial but I feel like we're in a very different space now with with the consequences of
misinformation we certainly are do you think that they're connected to what we're talking about before we said that people would rather be
electrocuted than to be alone with their thoughts that we have gotten to this weird place with our
Society with our civilization where we've made things so easy. We made people so soft. So dependent upon technology
we've slotted out these paths these predetermined patterns of behavior to people for people to follow where they can just sort of plug into a
Philosophy, whether it's a right-wing one or a left-wing one with very little room for
Personal thought at all very very little room for objective reasoning we sort of made it easy. We babied them
I do think that it's imperative if you want to be a good citizen to have a varied media diet
You're not gonna have a clear view of the world. If all you're reading it well
More than york times, right? You know, I think you have nothing against the New York Times or Breitbart
But I think you need to read many things and follow many different sorts of people on Twitter
Not just because you want to troll them
But because you actually want to listen to what they have to say and take it seriously
well
The New York Times really fucked up where they really fucked up is where they said that they're going to after the election there
They're going to rededicate themselves to reporting the truth and read like what? Why did you say that like, I wish I was there
I wish I was the office
Sends the wrong message
Says they're biased. Yeah, they fucked up I mean
as they were biased right the the enemy is is
Was so grotesque in this case that it was impossible to not have been biased
Seemed an abdication of responsibility and I feel it myself like people
Everything I say against Trump from a Trump person. Sounds like mere partisan bias
There I mean I've got zero connection to the Democratic Party or two. I mean, it's like a
There's there's no partisan bias and then everything there's a hundred percent of what I want to say about Trump does not apply
To some other Republican who?
Is just a stands for things that I don't you know policies. I might not like it's completely a completely unique circumstance and
Yeah, so it means yes, it's true that you want to read the New York Times for the longest time
It was it was reading like just the entire thing had become the opinion page on the the Huffington Post or anything
Yeah, I just feel like at this stage of our our society. There's real consequences to the
infantile ization if that's actually a word of
human beings in our culture
we've made it very easy to just go to work and
just get home and watch television and just not pay attention to anything and not read anything and not really think and and
Then be manipulated
I mean, I think it's it's it's incredibly easy manipulate people
especially people that are
aware that they don't have a
Varied media diet people that are aware that they don't have a real sense of the word and it seems daunting
To try to take into consideration. Like what is it? What is involved in foreign policy what is involved in dealing with Russia?
What is involved? How do you negotiate with North Korea? Fuck it's too much. I could you would never have predicted that someone
this scandalous and
inept and dishonest and provably so at every I mean he can't he literally can't get through an hour of the day without
Something that would have been a scandal in some previous age of the earth coming out of his his mouth
It's just it's I think yeah, I think well I think
There's there's no predicting who could be President in the future me. It's it's it's you need. Well. You need wealth and you need
Charisma on some level you need you need to be able to get a tribe behind you
But I don't think you need any of the what people thought you needed even a year ago. Well what he's done
by circumventing the whole system and being independently wealthy is
Really kind of but even that was a sham
I mean that what's amazing is that he is like I don't know how much money he actually put into his campaign
but it's just not near what you would have what you he really only had to pretend to be that wealthy and
It was incredible what happened like live is what he achieved with very little campaign on
this and it's you know, I mean you
it's
Like them or not. You have to give him credit for an unbelievable victory that very few people start coming
It's a popularity contest isn't that part of the problem is I mean we made a popular person
President of a popularity contest. I mean that's what it is
He thought he was running against somebody who wasn't Tyler. So that's let's put in context
yeah, we're and we was coming up there eight years of a Democratic president who was controversial in many ways and
It's always harder for somebody of the same party to run. So there are a lot of dynamics
Large or impersonal dynamics that were working in his favor
yeah, it's just
But when we did we just to get back to the argument about like are we in apocalyptic times or whatever I guess
Yeah, I mean, I don't know anything. I
But my instinct is just as a country. We've we've seen times of much worse division. We had a civil war
Is it's telling that you have to go back there for it for a compelling example, I mean, I think this little in the 60s
Yeah people in the streets. We had the Weather Underground we had you know
We will it was pretty to what we had. We had. Yeah, MLK and RFK assassinated
Yeah, I mean I what I'm worried about now is
I mean III think he's truly unique and I think I think
the the the way we're becoming
unmoored from
Kind of the ordinary truth testing in politics I think is unique
I mean the fact that we have a president who's seen it because there's a whole feedback mechanism there maybe
Trump seems to get some of his information
From Infowars and from places like Infowars. I
Don't think he pays a price for for his his his
Popularity rating is not high. Oh, yeah. Oh
He's paying some price. But the question is is it going to be enough? And what happened with an the next terrorist attack, right?
I mean, so the the real fear is that if we have a rice dog fire kind of moment, right?
You know engineered by him or not. I mean, I'm not so paranoid
I think he's going to do it but I just think it's inevitable something that's going to happen
I mean we've had eight we've had what 80 days 100 days whatever it's been of his presidency were
Basically, nothing has happened and it's been pure chaos
right and the the work of governments not getting done the government's barely even staffed and
this has been a period of where nothing really has happened, but
Imagine a 911 sized event or something really goes off the rails with North Korea or China or Russia
It will be
So I mean the pressure
one the pressure to normalize him as commander in chief will be
Much greater than it is now and already everyone's feeling that pressure
but to that the the the the
ability to clamp down on civil liberties and
Just
Use the power of the presidency in a way that that it will be very difficult for
Our society to recover from I think it's just I mean, I think the it's
It's a scary moment. And I'm I mean, I I that the people who are
drawing analogies between
Him and you know the 30s in
Germany
I'ma say I think those analogies are
misleading in ways but
again, you just don't know how strange things could get if
With a big negative stimulus to the system. Well what I think we know is that we have someone in charge
who is
a
malignantly
Selfish con man, right? I think that is an objective fact
it's not a partisan thing to say he is a I mean that's as obvious about him as his hair and
To have that much power in the hands of somebody. Who is that whose whose ethical?
compass is that
Unreliable or reliably bad in my view and I wouldn't say this offends. Who scares me for other reasons. I mean, he's a
Theocratic. I wouldn't say this of
most Republicans who I might disagree with but there's just something but to put that much power in the hands of somebody who
is so disconnected from facts and a
and reasonable concern for the well-being of the rest of humanity and the future, you know, I mean
It's just it's it's an incredible moment
and I don't think we've ever had a president who you could look at and say that about so
Clearly I mean not even Nixon
I mean Nixon it was you know pathological in other ways, but you know, Nixon Nixon was giving us the Clean Air Act, right?
I mean Nixon had some point of contact with terrestrial reality, which wasn't just about
figuring out how to how to burnish his
his imaginary grandeur
You know
so
yeah, I mean I
I
Think we're one huge news story away from finding out how bad a president he could be and I think I think that's
You know, I think
He could surprise he could surprise even the people who are very pessimistic. Well, he could also rise to the occasion
Yeah
See that well, no, I mean it also like that
You know, I would be the first to give him or the Justin the credit for that
I mean, it's like it's like it's not that high if he starts doing something good like, you know, let's say a massive
infrastructure
Project right that includes building out good things not coal jobs
But you know, if if you know fixing bridge clean infrastructure, right he starts doing that
That that I have no, I mean that's that be fantastic. Right and it's possible he could start doing that for his own
his motives wouldn't even matter ultimately as long as he was doing the right things, but his motives are so
reliably
Self-involved that you me what we need is a system. We need to someone needs to be able to play him
Me this kind of narcissistic
Flocking spiel well enough to get him to do the things that would be good for the world
But I just don't see it is just there's just too much chaos
In the system to for that to be a reliable well liked you they try to keep him away from social media
Yeah, yeah. Well that's working out. I mean that's it's a big thing. Don't they they try to pull him away from it
Yeah, but that's been impossible
No one can do it, yeah, it's
Remember that crazy press conference that he had like just a few weeks into being president
Unbelievable. I had I got text messages from friends of the Republicans and they were like, what the fuck?
Yeah, but you know, they're it's an interesting
It's an interesting sort of Rorschach test because there are millions of Americans who watch that press conference and found it delightful
He thought they thought that he was killed pounding on the on the liberal media
Yeah, when you read a transcript when you read a transcript of what actually comes out of his mouth
It's it is amazing. I mean the the the poverty of the passages in terms of information and
I mean, it's just the fact that we have a president who speaks like this is
About I could never have foreseen that in our lifetime this was going to happen. It just it's unimaginable to me
yeah, I think a lot of people there are just
beautifully designed it were
Did you see Bill Maher's thing about Anthony Weiner he thinks that Anthony Weiner should
We need our own crazy mad
Cuz Anthony Weiner besides his
obvious addictions to sexting with people was a very powerful politician and and a very good speaker and
He had a lot of very good quality who's going after bankers the same as the Eliot Spitzer, right?
Eliot Spitzer did a lot of good things. He was going after the bankers. He was going after corruption and
yeah, well I said but that
That's an example. I mean, oh that's a there's a flag planted that shows us how we have gone from the normal
I mean Eliot Spitzer
Destroyed himself with one instance of hypocrisy, right? Right. Well, I was pretty bad
Trump level bad. I mean, let's just know this like, I don't know
I mean we don't have well the prophecy was really the law in this way. I mean he was he was with a prostitute
Well, that's a stupid law
He was going after here's going after Ross John's and that was
The hypocrisy wasn't that he did something illegal where he paid someone for sex that law seems to me to be so archaic
And so ridiculous you could pay someone to massage you you can't space them on the touch of genitals
It seems ridiculous. But I guess the the other piece you have to put in play there
Is that there?
There are there's some percentage of people working in the sex trade who are not doing it voluntarily
Or co-heirs to one out of every yeah
And that's a horror show and have some part of the problem with that is that it's illegal
I mean, it's it that's the big argument. Is that wall, right? Yes that there is there is that argument and
No, I agree with you that that it
Consenting adults should be able to do what they want to do, but they could put the the crucial variable there is consent, right?
Agreed yes, I just think that someone is going to have to be dynamic
they're gonna have to be
They're gonna have to engage
People in a way that I mean they're they're gonna have to deal with his attacks
It's good or maybe what people will be thirsting for after after four years is as actually bland
Yeah, right, maybe right. Yeah, I would do planned right now. Not a fantastic
bland a plan that actually super religious would be I think that the
- I'm happy for Ted Cruz in that bland. No, but my enthusiasm for impeachment
Suggests that I'm happy with pence right like so like if I could find the impeachment button
I would not hesitate to press it and pence
Given his religious commitments, you know a few short years ago would have been among my worst nightmares
I mean I would be talking about the the rise of the Christian Right and the danger of theocracy and
I mean he's but he's a
Psychologically, he seems like a normal
predictable
solid American
Compared to what we have, you know, it's just
isn't the other question like
Trump's age. He's a 70 year old man
People don't really live that much past 70
especially people that are overweight and
People that don't all too healthy
In his credit, yeah, I mean that's an amazing thing to be able to do
Punishing thing in the world. I can't even imagine what he's having a good time
seriously
It did and in that press conference were talking with that 77, I think it was 77 minute press conference
He looked like he was out of a blast. Yeah, he gets well, he gets really energized
Yeah, I mean that's it's got to be the most punishing beatdown ever if you're not if you're not
Designed for it. I mean I can't imagine
how tiring
Campaign. I mean you you get exhausted for 30 minutes looking at your @mention. Exactly. Yeah. It's uh,
know you're you you have to be wired differently, but you know he clearly is is
He's wired that way and it's worked for him
But you need someone who's willing to submit to the punishment of running and that's that's a rare person or it's not yet
and the problem is that kind of selects or things that
you don't actually want in a president or at least I
Wouldn't think you would want
I mean it selects for a kind of narcissism and a sense that that it really has to be you right?
It's doesn't it doesn't select for
the
In a normal intellectual space you you're constantly
Aware of the ways in which you are not the best guy or gal to be doing the thing right like you want to defer
to experts and and
You know Trump is only I can fix it right and that worked and so you need
There's there's something of that that creeps into
the
Headspace of most politicians it seems and and so scientific humility and
Just a kind of sense of the limits of any one person's expertise
Is not necessarily the right piece of software to have running at when it comes time to to run for president
