US Politics - A Society in Meltdown

He’s barely in the door.

Moreover, Ailes built a financial empire waving images of the Clintons and the Obamas in front of scared conservatives. It’s no surprise that a range of media companies are now raking in fortunes waving images of Donald Trump in front of terrified Democrats.

It’s not that Trump isn’t or shouldn’t be frightening. But it’s conspicuous that our media landscape is now a perfect Ailes-ian dystopia, cleaved into camps of captive audiences geeked up on terror and disgust. The more scared and hate-filled we are, the more advertising dollars come pouring in, on both sides.

Trump in many ways was a perfect Ailes product, merging as he did the properties of entertainment and news in a sociopathic programming package that, as CBS chief Les Moonves pointed out, was terrible for the country, but great for the bottom line.

And when Ailes died this morning, he left behind an America perfectly in his image, frightened out of its mind and pouring its money hand over fist into television companies, who are gleefully selling the unraveling of our political system as an entertainment product.

The extent to which we hate and fear each other now – that’s not any one person’s fault. But no one person was more at fault than Roger Ailes. He never had a soul to sell, so he sold ours. It may take 50 years or a century for us to recover. Even dictators rarely have that kind of impact. Enjoy the next life, you monster.

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Ooooft. I said earlier that his death was one I did not wish for but shall not mourn, but that’s really tempted me to take a flight to the US just so I can shit on his grave.

Reading the Guardian overview of the investigations, there are essentially 5 seperate investigations into Russia election interference with a couple predominately focused on Comey/ Flynn. Do you think anything will come of these? Do any of them lead to impeachment?

If it is found there was no collusion with Russia and nothing untoward regarding the Comey firing, I wonder will this mass liberal media hysteria die down a little and will the TFK snowflakes/pantywetters be satisified, or will there just be a daily barrage of ‘I can’t believe he’s done this now, outrage, something something’ .

Will the outrage of losing in November be constantly cried about until the 4 years are up or an inevitable impeachment?

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thanks for exposing trumps shite with thoughtful analysis and excellent links, the shrieker in chief had made everything white noise on this thread over the past few months, keep up the good work

Sad to see @anon7035031 being thrown under a bus by a fellow countyman.

sad to see you so owned by a TFK commentator with a brain, now convinced that you have to make more noise not less in order to keep feeling righteous and important

For impeachment to happen before the 2018 midterms, it would take a sizable number of Republicans in the house and Senate to turn on Trump (Senate needs 2/3 majority, the factor that saved Clinton). At this moment that looks unlikely, given many of them were elected on the wave of popular support Trump enjoyed in 2016. While Trump’s eccentric behavior and the bumbling of his administration is embarrassing to Republicans, there is nothing as yet imo that would warrant impeachment. That could change next week with Comey’s testimony or something else emerging, but the reality is if there were evidence of coordination between Trump associates and Russia or whoever was involved in hacking of the DNC, it would have been leaked by now, as everything that could embarrass Trump has been leaked.

The biggest problem the Republicans have is the distraction factor an delay in passing their agenda. The opportunity to get health care, tax reform and a budget passed this year is now in jeopardy, so if Trump continues to be a problem for them, expect to hear murmurs of President Pence. In my opinion, Trump is far more likely to resign or pressured to resign than be impeached.

The party that has more problems though are the Democrats, who are rudderless and in disarray. Clinton wants to take charge and may be thinking of running again in 2020, which would be a disaster for them. Unless they come up with a credible platform for 2018, hard to see them make many gains.

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Trump now apparently favouring Joe Lieberman for the FBI job, Lieberman who works for the law firm that represents Trump.

Well that should clear up any appearance of impropriety.

Special prosecutor Mueller works (or worked, since 2014) for a law firm that represents Paul Manafort, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Perhaps it’s just the incestuous nature of these things among high rollers that there will be these crossovers but the optics don’t look great. Democrats appear to be happy enough with his appointment though.

Lieberman has always struck me as a bit of a cunt and as somebody who is in the wrong party. He was a really poor pick by Al Gore as running mate in 2000.

Nah it won’t and in the meantime the stuff that actually matters will be ignored, for better or worse. Can a poster I actually respect on this topic like @anon7035031 tag me when something noteworthy happens.

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A truly terrible pick.Lieberman=DINO

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-oreilly-hatred-killed-fox-news-roger-ailes_us_591ebaf8e4b03b485cb083f2?lmv&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Billo saying Ailes was killed by his own creation.Sad.So sad.

I see the Turks are now beating the shit of peaceful protesters on American soil with impunity.

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Glass what?

Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin appears to be completely unaware of what the Glass-Steagall act actually was.

And Trump won’t be reinstating it.

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Vanity Fair now :joy: :joy:

The perfect opportunity to re-instate a modern version of Glass-Steagall was in 2009 after the financial crisis. Instead of doing it, Obama and Warren (who was the chair of the congressional oversight committee who dealt with the banks in the aftermath of the crisis), bailed out the big banks, did nothing to separate investment and commercial banking, allowed the big banks pay themselves large bonuses with bailout funds, and allowed the big banks gobble up smaller banks that weren’t beneficiaries of the bailout.

Elizabeth Warren has zero credibility on the question, she had the opportunity to break up the banks in 2009 and did the opposite.

The narrative that Republicans are all about the rich compared to Democrats is a load of bollocks that only uninformed idiots would swallow. Contributions to Democratic politicians from big banks and large corporations (who want to maintain the status quo) have grown massively over the past few decades, with the result that both parties are 100% in their pockets.

Vanity Fair, classic

What the fuck is vanity fair?

A posh food shop in Dublin 4 ??