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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2018 10:24:38 GMT -5
Is my position really all that crazy? My dear Robo, I'm going to flip this around on you, since you were tut-tutting about how paranoid it was to see a literal message in, er, a literal message: Is ours?
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Post by robeiae on Jun 23, 2018 16:53:07 GMT -5
Yes.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2018 17:26:40 GMT -5
And I think you're crazy for thinking it was all entirely just a big whooopsie.
That's how we agree to disagree.
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Post by Amadan on Jun 24, 2018 8:59:33 GMT -5
My disagreement here is with the idea that Melania chose to wear the jacket as some sort of purposeful slight to the plight of immigrant children and as a special call-out to xenophobes everywhere. As I said, the jacket was a foolish choice on her part, because of what is on the back of it, because she's First Lady and should realize she might always be under scrutiny. Is my position really all that crazy?
Crazy, no. Is the position that Melania was either trolling the media or giving a shout-out to Trump's anti-immigrant base that crazy? Yeah, I think she's probably just an oblivious muppet herself, but I think it's unlikely that jacket was just some random choice that no one on the Trump team gave a second thought about until it hit the media.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2018 9:12:52 GMT -5
derail/
I have an idea for a line of Barbie-esque Trump family dolls -- it is so easy to envision the Melania and Ivanka ones and their wardrobes and accessories.
This coat absolutely will be part of the line.
/end derail
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2018 9:25:01 GMT -5
To note: if I had to do it over again, I'd add the option "The jacket was a deliberate choice, intended to send the message [explain in thread]." I put in "other," but perhaps that didn't adequately cover it. (Until Trump tweeted, a message about the Fake Media never occurred to me, actually, because it seems too strange to trivialize the trip by mixing it with Trump's media war.)
I do think it was intended as red meat for the core base. But my main intent with the poll was whether wearing the jacket was deliberate (on someone's part in the WH if not Melania herself) vs just a whoopsie.
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Post by Don on Jun 25, 2018 10:39:29 GMT -5
@cassandraw nailed it, IMO.
"I just cannot fathom that not only she, but her entire staff and everyone in the White House, were that clueless."
Srsly. Between the cheap-ass coat, the inappropriate weather, and an entire political staff vetting everything that comes out of the White House, I see this as obviously intentional. Melania may not be the sharpest tack in the box, but she should have at least one sharp tack on her staff. There is no friggin' way this was anything but a deliberate message. Whether it concerned Trump's War On NewsTM , as he claimed, or the children, is up for grabs, however. If it was the former they should have chosen a different venue to avoid confusion.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2018 10:48:28 GMT -5
There's also the option, as I noted in another thread, that the jacket was a deliberate choice on someone's part -- but done less as a deliberate "I don't care about the kids/the press/whatever" message than to cause an uproar, as a distraction from the kids in cages and due process violations at the border.
A coat like that on a trip like that OF COURSE is going to raise a WTF, especially given the outrage about the migrant situation. But when people start going "FFS, that coat! WTF", they go "oh you bad bad shallow fake libturds, shame -- here's nice FLOTUS going on a humanitarian trip and aallll you can talk about is her clothing."
But come on -- it was deliberate. If I had it do to over again, I'd have an option for "It was deliberate, done because X".
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Post by Don on Jun 25, 2018 11:07:39 GMT -5
There's also the option, as I noted in another thread, that the jacket was a deliberate choice on someone's part -- but done less as a deliberate "I don't care about the kids/the press/whatever" message than to cause an uproar, as a distraction from the kids in cages and due process violations at the border. A coat like that on a trip like that OF COURSE is going to raise a WTF, especially given the outrage about the migrant situation. But when people start going "FFS, that coat! WTF", they go "oh you bad bad shallow fake libturds, shame -- here's nice FLOTUS going on a humanitarian trip and aallll you can talk about is her clothing." But come on -- it was deliberate. If I had it do to over again, I'd have an option for "It was deliberate, done because X". Well, given Trump's focus on "The Art of the Deal" and showmanship, I have to admit that's a real possibility. It's just that with so much obvious stupidity coming out of the regime, it seems they're barely able to play checkers, so thinking of them as chessmasters is tough for me. OTOH, if they really are playing chess at that level, the apparent inability to play checkers may be intentional. That's a scary thought. What if the Trump really is an authoritarian mastermind playing the clown? Lots of people laughed at the weird little paperhanger in the 20s. ETA: And I'm old enough to remember when we weren't going to have Dick Nixon around to kick anymore... Well before his comeback.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2018 14:14:34 GMT -5
I don't think Trump is very clever at all, and I don't think he's playing 87-dimensional chess. What I do think is that he has a natural talent for outraging people, honed by years in reality TV, and that he's got a couple of advisers, official and unofficial -- Miller, for example -- who also have that ability and a tad more cleverness.
If your main intention is to trigger the libs (which of course now are deemed to include everyone who isn't a Trump supporter), and you don't give a damn what you toss overboard to do it (e.g., small children), it's not hard. It's not hard at all. I could, sitting here, come up with thousands of ways to infuriate decent people, if that were my goal and I didn't care about anything else.
It's even easier if your supporters also luuuuurve to see libs cry (even if what is making the libs cry also hurts them), cheer you no matter what, don't give a hoot about intellectual consistency, believe everything you say no matter what, disbelieve all evidence to the contrary, and if something somehow does get through and bother them, are happy to blame it all on someone else -- like, hey, the libs!
Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would stay with him. He's right. But it's worse than that -- they'd find a way to blame it on Schumer. That gives a guy like Trump every incentive to go right ahead and fire.
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Post by Don on Jun 26, 2018 4:52:17 GMT -5
I don't think Trump is very clever at all, and I don't think he's playing 87-dimensional chess. What I do think is that he has a natural talent for outraging people, honed by years in reality TV, and that he's got a couple of advisers, official and unofficial -- Miller, for example -- who also have that ability and a tad more cleverness. If your main intention is to trigger the libs (which of course now are deemed to include everyone who isn't a Trump supporter), and you don't give a damn what you toss overboard to do it (e.g., small children), it's not hard. It's not hard at all. I could, sitting here, come up with thousands of ways to infuriate decent people, if that were my goal and I didn't care about anything else. It's even easier if your supporters also luuuuurve to see libs cry (even if what is making the libs cry also hurts them), cheer you no matter what, don't give a hoot about intellectual consistency, believe everything you say no matter what, disbelieve all evidence to the contrary, and if something somehow does get through and bother them, are happy to blame it all on someone else -- like, hey, the libs! Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would stay with him. He's right. But it's worse than that -- they'd find a way to blame it on Schumer. That gives a guy like Trump every incentive to go right ahead and fire. IOW, we need to be more concerned about Trump's brownshirts than Melania's jacket.
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Post by Amadan on Jun 26, 2018 9:47:56 GMT -5
You know, statements of the form "Why are you talking about (this issue) when (that issue) is much more important" are really annoying no matter what the issues are or who it's coming from. If you wanted to make it a productive discussion, maybe defend (or refute) the theory that Melania's jacket was a deliberate distraction from Trump's much worse issues? But otherwise, might as well just say, every time we discuss Trump's latest gaffe or idiot Tweet, that we shouldn't be concerned about that when OMG HE MIGHT START A NUCLEAR WAR.
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Post by Don on Jun 26, 2018 11:05:44 GMT -5
Catch up, Amadan. I already dealt with that theory, which led down this particular side path. Cass and I were discussing Trump's level of intelligence and the dedication of his supporters. Threads morph all the time.
I think the clothing reference was too good to pass up. After all, there are obvious similarities between some of Trump's more ardent supporters and those from decades before. And even Godwin has recently pointed out that violating Godwin's Law is not always a faux pas.
Besides, I never said a word about NUCLEAR WAR!!!!
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Post by robeiae on Jun 26, 2018 11:34:24 GMT -5
I don't think Trump is very clever at all, and I don't think he's playing 87-dimensional chess. What I do think is that he has a natural talent for outraging people, honed by years in reality TV, and that he's got a couple of advisers, official and unofficial -- Miller, for example -- who also have that ability and a tad more cleverness. If your main intention is to trigger the libs (which of course now are deemed to include everyone who isn't a Trump supporter), and you don't give a damn what you toss overboard to do it (e.g., small children), it's not hard. It's not hard at all. I could, sitting here, come up with thousands of ways to infuriate decent people, if that were my goal and I didn't care about anything else. It's even easier if your supporters also luuuuurve to see libs cry (even if what is making the libs cry also hurts them), cheer you no matter what, don't give a hoot about intellectual consistency, believe everything you say no matter what, disbelieve all evidence to the contrary, and if something somehow does get through and bother them, are happy to blame it all on someone else -- like, hey, the libs! Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would stay with him. He's right. But it's worse than that -- they'd find a way to blame it on Schumer. That gives a guy like Trump every incentive to go right ahead and fire. See, I agree with this. One caveat: Trump's lack of a certain kind of cleverness (he is clever in certain disreputable ways) often makes him a counter-puncher, when it comes to outrage. And that's what happened here, in my view: there was no plan behind the jacket, at all. Just a foolish choice by Melania. But once it was out there, Trump immediately came up with the "it was a shot a the media" line to keep the outrage going. He's done similar things many times. See "covfefe," for instance. We'd be better off recognizing when we're being played, imo.
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Post by Don on Jun 27, 2018 8:45:08 GMT -5
A foolish choice by Melania and her public relations staff, not to mention the countless other members of the staff who were so clueless as to not pick up on the optics this would provide? Srsly? ? There's no way the WH is totally full of stupid cluelessness. There must be at least one person working there with an IQ above 80. If only Nixon were still in office we'd get to hear the discussion about this jacket one day.
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