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from the why-do-we-let-him-get-away-wiht-this-behavior dept.
Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman write in The New York Times that, with his enormous online platform of six million followers, Donald Trump has used Twitter to badger and humiliate those who have dared cross him during the presidential race, latching on to their vulnerabilities, mocking their physical characteristics, personality quirks and, sometimes, their professional setbacks. Trump has made statements that have later been exposed as false or deceptive — only after they have ricocheted across the Internet.
For example, Cheri Jacobus, a Republican political strategist, did not think she had done anything out of the ordinary: On a cable television show, she criticized Donald J. Trump for skipping a debate in Iowa in late January and described him as a "bad debater." Trump took to Twitter, repeatedly branding Jacobus as a disappointed job seeker who had begged to work for his campaign and had been rejected. "We said no and she went hostile," Trump wrote. "A real dummy!" Trump's campaign manager told the same story on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." For days, Trump's followers replied to his posts with demeaning, often sexually charged insults aimed at Jacobus, including several with altered, vulgar photographs of her face.
It is not just that Trump has a skill for zeroing in on an individual's soft spot and hammering at it. It is that he sets a tone of aggression against the person, and his supporters echo and amplify it. Jacobus sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump and his top aide, citing electronic messages that showed the Trump campaign had courted her and not the other way around. "I have been trashed and ruined on Twitter," Jacobus says adding that Trump's lawyers had responded to her letter, but that they had not yet reached a resolution.
This week, Trump sent out a menacing message on Twitter about the Ricketts family, a wealthy clan of Republican political donors, after it was reported that Marlene Ricketts donated $3 million to a group opposed to Trump's candidacy. "They better be careful," Trump wrote of the family, "they have a lot to hide!" "It's a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Marlene Ricketts's son, Tom, later told reporters.
"At what point does it cross the line into something that's defamatory and might be actionable?" says Parry Aftab, a lawyer who leads the Internet safety group WiredSafety. "At what point does it cross the line into encouraging violence against groups and individuals?"
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday February 29 2016, @05:32AM
You want to let it burn yet protect it with a big wall. You make the common mistake of thinking that the most recent popular trends are the problem when its the deep corruption that is the problem. The UN never had power, and regardless so often power is used by the corrupt for their own aims instead of for the purpose that power was handed out for. The regions that are breaking up are doing so due to corruption, that doesn't mean the world isn't in need of a centralized power like the UN that can step in and stop human rights abuses. This includes corruption that inhibits the people from affecting the course of their own countries.
The "real" war I mentioned is one that will be official and not military actions. I'm not partisan, I have no love for any of the politicians of the last many decades, so your reaction misses the fact that Trump would be a lightning rod for war.
I'm not surprised you just want to defend the idea of walls. While they can be effective in their stated goals, there are often side effects that make them bad ideas. You'll get an increase in smuggling routes, black markets for visas and papers, increased social unrest due to divisive policies such as blocking an entire region from all citizens.
I think the wall is a bad idea, but I can see that it would make it much more difficult for any foreigner to just walk right over. Yes, walls can be effective. I disagree with it being a good idea because there are many ways around it (ocean, skies, and underground), it would be extremely expensive, and I believe there are better methods to solve the various problems that occur due to immigrants.
One of the major aspects of a "progressive" attitude that many people (including many progressives/liberals) do not understand is that we need to solve the underlying problems. Throwing people in jail doesn't solve the problem with crime, fixing the socioeconomic problems does solve crime issues since the community has better alternatives than risking jail/death. Building a giant wall is basically a larger scale version. Part of the problem with Mexico has come from the foreign policies of the US, with the war on drugs (lawl) being almost directly responsible for the creation of the cartels.
There is a time and place for using punishment as a method to solve a problem, however it seems to be the primary course of action for conservatives. Causing division between the plebs of the world is the primary method of maintaining control by the powers that be. Cause chaos, push agendas sold through fear, make money and gain power by playing both sides.
With statements like: "Mad Merkel's plan to remake Europe into the Caliphate" it is clear you are more of a believer than a thinker. It is difficult to tell when your own brain is thinking emotionally instead of logically. "Emotional thinking" conjures images of extreme emotional sates, yelling, crying, wailing, etc. However it happens all the time and we don't have any idea that we are using emotional logic, because by the time we notice our emotions we are usually flying over the cliff and logic is not even really possible anymore.
~Tilting at windmills~