a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by am_Unition
am_Unition  ·  274 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Palestine and the power of language

Since I hate myself, I watched Trump's speech from yesterday. Nobody has to read this. There's no surprises. I'm just cataloging, because it was hella relevant. Hellevant. Hell event.

This one's a bit different than a typical rally or campaign event because he's addressing an explicitly Christian evangelical audience. This is like, the base of his base, and he knows exactly who he's pandering to. He knows exactly what their issues are. Truly though, he is a very skilled orator, and I don't really question whether he's as late along in cognitive decline as maybe some other people, maybe just one guy, out there, maybe running for president as well.

One of the biggest, longest cheers was when Trump began talking about support for Israel. He blamed Biden for Oct. 7th. He even had a guy come up on the mic and tell a remarkable tale of fictional Zionism tailored to an American audience. Painted Trump as Israel's savior. Amazing. Then, for a solid five minutes, Trump proceeds to tell the construction details for the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem that he had relocated there (maybe he truly missed building things? idk). No teleprompter. Frequently throughout the entire speech, he's just riffing. It's very, very, very well received.

The narrative about the Iran deal is hilarious. "We canceled the nuclear deal. It was a bad deal. Obama's. Then we imposed sanctions on their oil, which were very successful. But Iran still got a lot of money somehow, and now they're building a nuclear weapon, and Joe Biden has done NOTHING." It doesn't have to be true or remotely make sense. Besides, favorable foreign policy will be awarded to countries with leaders Trump likes, so hopefully you're fantastically wealthy, you're a fascist strongman, and you've already appeased him by kissing the ring.

He praises SCOTUS, and Clarence Thomas (only Clarence Thomas) by name. Gonna privatize schools. Gonna "defeat gender ideology" (he'll probably use the word "exterminate" in a few weeks or so, in case it was unclear what the insinuation might be). Gonna pardon J6ers. If you pick any other issue and find the worst option, that's the policy platform.

Earlier in the, uh, the show, Trump tells them to their faces something like "the communists try to destroy religion, and fascists co-opt the religious for their own power. Fascists like Joe Biden. Don't fall for it." I love this, this is an especially strong "fuck you", straight to me. Right into my mouth. It's a fascist little shitgoblin telling me that he knows exactly what he's doing, that he knows that I know what he's doing, and that we both know I can basically do fuckall about it besides vote. Why not lay out exactly how to do fascism while pulling the fascist trick of saying, actually, no, it's the other side doing that. He can say anything. It doesn't matter to these folks anymore. All of the reports suggesting that Trump has replaced Jesus as the head of the evangelical church? Yes. Yes, he has.

He seems to draw physical power from losing court cases. I'm pretty sure he's convinced he'll avoid prison. I think so too. I think that he'll win the election, but even if he doesn't, and then, even if he unleashes hell on Biden after losing, he'll never get locked up. He might ultimately be pardoned by Biden, if it comes to that, to "preserve the dignity of American presidency". Or something.

Anyway, the Israel stuff is pretty new. And abhorrent, obviously. It dominates the speech, easily the most time spent on a single topic. Trump also repeats his claim that he'll "settle" the Russia-Ukraine war within a day. We all know that "settle" means do everything that he can to give Putin Ukraine, right? Surely we all know that. Perhaps Trump can re-appropriate any ex-Ukraine funds to the massive deportation operation they're gonna try. Keeping kids in cages was child's play. Haha. Wordplay.

It's fuckin' wild to live through this. The logical endpoint of the republican party, who're hellbent on destroying the country if they can't have it after radicalizing themselves into a bunch of hate-worthy, corrupt morons. This will not end well. The sooner the better.

['X0Oo_am_Unitoinz'_e-hubski_bAdtimes_dairy_oO0X'] post 11/??

previous





kleinbl00  ·  274 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Anyway, the Israel stuff is pretty new.

sweet, sweet summer child

The Fundamentalist position on Israel has always boiled down to the Red Heifer which has to be born in "the Holy Land" to signify the Rapture and Tribulation. They've been there since like '77, a cursory reading of charismatic eschatology will say as much (I recommend the Left Behind series as it's basically "Rocky & Bullwinkle's Guide to the End Times"). "Fuck yeah Israel" also annoys the Zoomers who may/may not be sucking down a CCP's worth of Palestinian propaganda but either way are here for the outrage.

In the milieu you're examining? The individual talking points don't even matter. You say so yourself you just refuse to hear yourself saying them. It's all about owning the libs/triggering the snowflakes while the Zoomers are dutifully lining up behind the philosophy of "if it bugs my grandparents it's my jam".

And the thing you're missing is that, with dwindling victories among the populace, both sides are turning inward. The fucking NRB convention? The fuck even is that? Fucking 5,000 attendees is what that is, or roughly eight percent the attendance of the Northwest Flower & Garden Show which you have also never given a shit about but which is organized by the Seattle Orchid Society which my 80-year-old father-in-law is a board member of. Like, my wife has organized conventions for 5,000 people. Herself. In her spare time. They're "let's see if we can get Larry to do the keynote" level operations and here's the former president of the United States out here going "woo hoo red heifer" and selling fucking high tops.

Yet you're eating it fucking up as if it were the burning of the Reichstag.

am_Unition  ·  274 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No no, I just mean that a lengthy incorporation of Israel is new in terms of Trump rally content. Maybe not new, but certainly has recently been infused with some fresh fodder to load the propaganda cannons with. Truly reactionary.

It's still a convention focused entirely on a former President's speech, and it will be circulated on social media more than footage from the flower show, sorry to say. I'm pleased to see that the youtube vid has only a few hits, but there's undoubtedly some clips on Rumble, TRUTH Social, Gettr, Telegram, Signal, etc.

Is the speech pathetic to us? Fuck yeah it is, but MAGA is freebasing this shit, and doin' bad things to brown people is the one thing they aspire to, separate of whether it owns the libs or not. But it does, if anybody asks.

I think I'm moreso throwing it up as if it were the chugging of the Ipecac. About two or three times a year, over the last several years, I'll watch a Trump speech, just to see what he's up to. To have someone ideologically vomit alllllllll over me.