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[Sergarr]

Well, depending on how well stuff goes, I may be given a rifle for free within the next 6 months!

[sluissa]

Clickbait is what essentially sinked Hillary Clinton (EMAILS BENGHAZI), I don't see anything wrong with turning that strategy back at the Republicans.

Former Trump adviser Carter Page also met with Russian envoy. Who hasn't met with Russian officials in Trump's campaign?

Oh, and also: Another Trump adviser has significantly changed his story about the GOP's dramatic shift on Ukraine.

EDIT: To clarify myself: I don't think it's a good thing to spread false information around. However, it has proven to be an effective strategy somewhat, and getting the news out fast, even if at a cost of some small percentage of those be false, should be very effective against Trump, while not compromising the core values all too much.

I still think the emails and Benghazi were legitimate concerns about Clinton, she really did screw up on BOTH of those accounts and tried to back away from any sort of blame. But there was significant amounts of click bait flying about. That's exactly what makes it so easy for Clinton supporters to just dismiss the emails and Benghazi as "oh just republican click bait, ignore."

It leads to situations where any given side will just ignore whatever news they don't like and re-tweet/re-blog/re-post/re-facebook/repeat whatever news they do like. This is exactly what gave us Trump and it's exactly what Trump is doing right now with his constant shouts of "Fake news"

I won't deny it has an effect, but I'd argue that the effect isn't necessarily what you think it is. The click bait didn't sink the democrats, Clinton sunk the democrats.  The click bait and inability to see beyond it just made it harder for them to acknowledge they were sinking and that they should do something about it.

[Frumple]

That's about thirty pounds of bullshit in a half pound bag.

Over a decade of the media being shiftless pieces of shit is absolutely the largest problem that campaign had. Folks actually buying the massive exaggeration that either of those were, was singularly the largest issue it encountered. Complete and willing ignorance by the electorate of everything the bloody party was doing and how much shit both the right and the further left was peddling, was what sunk it. The DNC fucked up when they thought running an even remotely clean campaign was going to resonate in the right areas -- and they still won the goddamn popular vote despite it.

What makes the email and benghazi things easy to dismiss is that everything spewed about it was 90+% either complete bullshit or a straight lie about what the fuck happened, and most of the rest was efforts by the shitheel republicans to deflect their own involvement in matters related to the first or particularly the second.

[Sergarr]

In a counter-attack from Trump, it has been revealed that a prominent member of Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi, has been caught on a photo with Russian ambassador, which apparently contradicts her own words about never meeting him. Oh yeah, and there was also McCaskill who claimed that he has never met with Russian ambassador, contradicting his own tweets from the past.

So we all know that Russians have infiltrated Republicans... but what if they've infiltrated Democrats, as well? What if all this is just a play by Russian agents against other Russian agents in order to both discredit American political discourse and to sneak its assets under the guise of "anti-Russian defenders"?

Actually, no, scratch that nonsense.

I just find it's kinda funny that some of the Democrats have managed to walk into a trap of their own making yet again by overreaching with anti-Trump attacks. I feel that this is a fair turnaround to accusation of meeting with Russian ambassador on RNC, where there were also lots of other diplomats. Does not deflect against accusations of closed-doors meetings in Trump tower, though, so there's that. Still, kinda stupid on their part. They're high-ranked people, they should watch better what they say. Fucking Twitter generation, I swear.

[sluissa]

That's about thirty pounds of bullshit in a half pound bag.

Over a decade of the media being shiftless pieces of shit is absolutely the largest problem that campaign had. Folks actually buying the massive exaggeration that either of those were, was singularly the largest issue it encountered. Complete and willing ignorance by the electorate of everything the bloody party was doing and how much shit both the right and the further left was peddling, was what sunk it. The DNC fucked up when they thought running an even remotely clean campaign was going to resonate in the right areas -- and they still won the goddamn popular vote despite it.

What makes the email and benghazi things easy to dismiss is that everything spewed about it was 90+% either complete bullshit or a straight lie about what the fuck happened, and most of the rest was efforts by the shitheel republicans to deflect their own involvement in matters related to the first or particularly the second.

Thanks for making my point for me. You say 90+% of the media attention on it was bullshit, I might argue with the exact ratio, but I'll give you the large majority of it. That still leaves some truth there that still worries me. I did way more research on the whole issue than the avg person would even consider and the way she handled it was pitiful. The way she lied was pitiful. And the way her supporters ignored and shut down people's concerns was pitiful.

Even if we threw away 29.5 pounds of the bullshit, that was still half a pound of bullshit you were telling us to shut up and eat and I, for one, refused.

[Neonivek]

Ok I have to ask Americans because this is something I doubt I could easily research.

How much does American history prescribe to the "Grand Narrative" format?

Or rather... by Grand Narrative I mean something like... It is written as if the USA was always going to be a thing. "This is how America was formed, you see Christopher Collumbus saw Native Americans who gave him Corn, then they became best friends and there was never any tension ever again until the Americans gave them cookies and diseases which wiped most of them out. Which goes to show that America should never try to foster strong relationships between the Native Americans ever again... and they never did".

[Strife26]

Somewhere between 0% and 100% or so, I'd guess.

[Frumple]

Would say leaning pretty hard towards the 0%, though. There's all sorts of things that are fairly screwed about how we like to frame and teach history (particularly in the K-12 range), but something like that ain't really one of them.

Particularly stuff like that last line, which is more worst kind of christian (and/or white supremacist or somethin') homeschool territory than anything common to the majority of it. We minimize the natives pretty goddamn hard even when we sink a fair amount of metaphorical screen time into 'em, but not like that.

[Neonivek]

I am not talking about the content of what I wrote...

But more how it is written.

Grand Narrative approach is best described in terms of the USA as: "Teaching US history as if the US was always going to happen"

Remember: "Founding Fathers"... So it can't be 0%... the fact that you have founding fathers alone...

We minimize the natives pretty goddamn hard even when we sink a fair amount of metaphorical screen time into 'em, but not like that.

Ehhhhhhh... In all fairness given the history I am playing nice. What with your first President having a title based entirely around how much of a dick he was.

And that is the President who is lauded over as if he was a Saint of America.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As per usual Neon, I'm having a hard time making heads or tails of what your actual question is here. What you wrote most resembles the way US history is taught to elementary school kids, in the manner of historical mythology. Actual history up until college is taught through pacing of influential figures and wars. In college it's typically a form of history related to social movements and is critical of the US in one way or another.

[Neonivek]

I really wish I could help... but look at this definition!

A metanarrative (also meta-narrative; French: métarécit) in critical theory and particularly in postmodernism is a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealized) master idea.

LOOK AT IT!!! And this isn't even an obscure idea.

But looking at what you are saying... It seems like a confirmation.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh, critical theory. That clarifies things.

Well, the master idea of the US is typically expressed as "democracy" or "liberty". Like, the progression through history classes heavily features how specific rights were recognized over time, so in that sense it fits. For example, you've got the starting point in voting rights of white male landowners, to white males in general, to the Reconstruction Amendments, to women's suffrage, to the Civil Rights Movement, and typically once the voting age is lowered to 18 the idea that the US has reached universal suffrage is thought of as completed.

Democracy is a bit more difficult for this theme since many Americans consider the actual structure of our democratic system to be perfected as is, but I suspect that'll be more prominent in coming years since the public consciousness is big on things like gerrymandering and non-FPTP voting now.

I suppose there's also some "Empire of Liberty" thought in there as well, centering the concept of converting every nation in the world to democratic governance, but I think that one took severe damage after the Iraq War. Though they tell me it was even stronger before Vietnam.

[TheDarkStar]

Since at least the late 1800s there's been a strong idea of "American Exceptionalism" - basically, the idea that the US is in some way different and superior to everywhere else. This belief has provided the basis for things like US interventions in Central/South America or the practice of toppling governments in the name of democracy - basically, if you assume that the US has the best system for everything, why not show everyone else how effective it is (and of course force is justified because otherwise they wouldn't listen ). At one time this was combined with a sense of racial superiority, but luckily at least that part has mostly disappeared over the last half century or so.

[Reelya]

Trump is upset that the USA never wins a war, and thinks upping the military budget by $54 billion is going to turn that around. Exactly how that works out, I'm not sure. Trump just says you guys gotta fight to win.

How about instead of weapons you spend that money on salt? Salt the Earth of all the other countries, basically a complete genocide of all plant life. Would that be winning? More planes and tanks isn't the answer, you got plenty of those spare already.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Don't be silly. You could build some cobalt nukes for way less than $54 billion.