President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Was watching football at the watering hole last Sunday and got into a conversation with an ex-Marine who was stationed in Somalia. We sort of tiptoed around politics, because the Texas shooting was ongoing. Asked me if I was a Democrat. Asked me what I thought of Trump's extreme vetting. He actually seemed curious about the other side. It's clear he was a Fox News guy, but he wasn't indignant about it. Ended up being a pretty solid conversation.

 

Credit FNC for creating "narrative-driven content" that doesn't rely on news events for spikes in viewership. It also says something that the network's straightest news programs, Shepherd Smith and Bret Baier - are also its least watched through the day.
If I watched FNC all the time, I'd probably think the US was coming apart (during Dem administrations only) as well.

 

He might not be an exclusively Fox News guy then. There is a type that I'm thinking about here. They are so embedded within the bubble that other news, some of it really important, doesn't even reach them. A lot of them are older, I think. There's a liberal bubble, too, of course. It's a little different, though. I don't know that it's attributable to a single, dominant news source as much as it is liberals living and hanging out together in big cities.

That said, our country could use a lot more people like your guy. Engaged enough to have a worldview, but still apparently willing and able to apply critical thinking to his media consumption.

 

How many Rs are going to decide to retire in the coming months?

 

What I Learned From Three Weeks Watching Fox News Nonstop

I have not read this one yet. https://www.salon.com/2014/01/28/my_personal_fox_news_nightmare_inside_a_month_of_self_induced_torture/

Will be interesting as they are pre and post trump.

 

How about a war on war instead?

 

In 2005 or so, MommaQuant tagged along with me to a conference in San Francisco. A couple of her older architect friends lived there then (they live in Chicago now!) and had us over for dinner with some of their locals friends. There were eight of us, as I recall, and within 10 minutes I knew that I was the only one there who'd voted for Bush or who would have even considered doing so. As the wine and conversation flowed, I could feel what MommaQuant was thinking: "Don't you do it. Don't you say a fucking word." I didn't. But had I said anything, the reaction would have been the same as you describe.

 

Is it possibly a good thing that Sinclair Broadcasting is trying to challenge them? It feels weird to root for a news org that's trying to flood the market with a right-wing slant, but would it be a positive to break the Fox monopoly?

 

My brother and his wife are of this ilk, definitely. Chicago city dwellers. He's one of those urban liberals who, a few beers in on a typical Friday or Saturday night, will dash off the, "If you voted for Donald Trump, unfriend me immediately. You are clearly a racist Nazi" Facebook posts. Or he'll start machine-gun texting me frustrated that some mutual friend is espousing Fox News orthodoxy on Facebook.

"Little Bro Whitman, he's a conservative who gets his news from conservative sources. What do you expect?"

"STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR HIM!!!"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Not in the slightest.

Sinclair is converting local TV news organizations into smaller, crazier Fox voices. There's nothing positive about what Sinclair is doing.

 

Good example of an outright lie.



The kayleigh one.