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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNational Security Council: Trump is too stupid to be trusted
Per reporting from Politico, the entire White House has become a place of misery and deep suspicion.
Aides are exhausted, demoralized and afraid to speak to each other, and an investigation has been launched regarding White House leaks which have infuriated their boss. Trump is mystified and furious at not being able to rule as a king (those pesky courts and elected representatives keep getting in his way).
The entire atmosphere is dark and a shakeup feels imminent. Christie wants in, which has incensed Kushner who was key in keeping him out to begin with. Other aides are afraid of Kushner and complain they don' t know what his job actually is.
Amid all this juicy gossip is an important note about Trump and his relationship with the National Security Council. He and his staff are paranoid that they are "out to get him" and the NSC doesn't think much of him either. Trump is asking very "simple" questions at briefings that betray his astonishing ignorance.
Translation: The NSC thinks Trump is too stupid to be trusted.
more at link: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-challenges-governing-presidency-234879
pbmus
(12,444 posts)Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)We were missing a K.
I fixed it.
pbmus
(12,444 posts)Kleptocratic kakistrophic klusterfuck ...
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)Facebook and Reddit:
Meet 'Kek', The Alt-Right's Anti-Semitic Hate God
<snip>
As the Alt-Right rose to fame, their penchant for using seemingly bizarre coded symbols to spread racist propaganda has attracted heaps of attention. Even Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sought to capitalise on this. Her campaign highlighted the fact that the Alt-Right's mascot, the green cartoon frog Pepe, is "associated with white supremacy."
Its easy to understand why the Alt-Right turned the ugly, bile-green amphibian into their flagbearer of choice. Long-before the Alt-Right started to misuse him, Pepe was already one of the most popular, totally non-political memes, internet culture injokes, among Millennials and Generation X. Hijacking him and morphing him into their propaganda vehicle allowed the Alt-Right to attract the attention of a whole lot of young internet users who would never have bothered reading a traditional political article or op-ed.
Not so easy to understand, for many commentators, has been the Alt-Right's obsession with a mythical ancient Egyptian deity called Kek; Despite the barn-storming popularity he has enjoyed among Alt-Right fanatics. On Reddit's, The_Donald sub-forum, the possibly largest Alt-Right influenced space on the internet, Kek has been mentioned over 4000 times. Compare that to just 1098 mentions of Jesus, 728 mentions of the Bible, to a mere 277 references to Jefferson and only 389 mentions of George Washington. Clearly the Alt-Right care far more about the little-known Middle Eastern deity Kek than about traditional figureheads of American conservatism, such the Founding Fathers, or in the case of the religious Right, Jesus Christ.
In fact, one of the most popular posts on The_Donald subreddit even depicts Kek as Jesus personified, and Alt-Righters frequently address him in worshipful language.
<snip>
The decentral, and disorganised way in which the Alt-Right works makes it hard to chart the origin of their symbols, let alone to find Alt-Righters engaging in a detailed discussion of why Kek and ancient Egypt were selected for reverence.
But here's what we know. The Egyptian Pharaohs were some of the first and most vicious Jew-haters in the ancient world. American-Jewish columnist Jeff Jacoby once reflected on the similarities between the murderous persecution of Jews by Hitler and by the Egyptian Pharaohs. He wrote "Both were attempts at genocide and in both cases the perpetrators justified their savageries by claiming that they were the real victims, threatened by the people they intended to wipe out." Some historians have called Hitler "a twentieth-century Pharaoh" (see. chapter VI). So it shouldn't be too surprising that Neo-Nazi Alt-Righters find something to like about Ancient Egypt.
Read more at:https://www.byline.com/column/58/article/1372
It's a long, but worthwhile read.
betsuni
(27,352 posts)Weirdos.
irisblue
(34,494 posts)I think it should be ducking dangerous weirdos.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Jeebus going to kick a lot of flabby republican butt when he comes back and catches them all worshiping false frikken idols.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)call themselves Pagans or Vikings or Nordic or Druids or whatever other fanciful blue-eyed very white shit strikes their fancy.
BreweryYardRat
(6,556 posts)Not all European neo-pagans are white supremacists.
You do understand that it's like a Venn diagram, right? The overlapping area does not include the vast majority of either group.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)White supremacists will appropriate anything for their cause.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)When Jesus comes back..
holding our breath, are we?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I'm not saying the players and bullshit of the "alt-right" aren't dangerous; but a lot of this shit is just internet in-jokes and fucking with the squares. They pretty much set out to take that damn frog and "watch we'll convince the media establishment he's a nazi symbol, ha ha"- voila, mission accomplished.
Of course at this point it is beyond meaningless to speculate on what the cartoon frog really symbolizes (a question far less deceptively simple than it appears, no?) but it is certain that the poor guy who originally drew the thing never intended for any of this.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)I understand fully the thought behind dismissing a silly cartoon because it IS a silly cartoon. But the truth is there is a very dedicated core of rather fucked-up individuals for whom Pepe/Kek is a really REAL thing, and so many more for whom he is a very useful symbol.
Richard Spencer - the Nazi motherfucker in my own back yard - had this to say about Pepe/Kek:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/richard-spencer-trump-alt-right-white-nationalist
If Pepe is the alt-right's god, then Spencer is its self-styled prophet. A 38-year-old Duke Ph.D. dropout who sometimes resides in a Bavarian-style mansion at the edge of a ski slope, he has for years been quite literally shouting into the wilderness, proclaiming to anyone who will listen that the alt-right, whose name he coined in 2008, is the only political movement that really gives a damn about white Americans. In Spencer's view, if you aren't a white American, that's finebut you should leave.
Adding insult to injury, the interview was conducted in one of my favorite hotels but I digress.
Spencer has previously published:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/17/richard_spencer_launches_the_alt_right_s_newest_website.html
It may have started out as a way to mess with the squares, and for some it may still be, but do not underestimate the ability and draw this has had to draw in great numbers of the easily manipulated masses. As Spencer said, "this is . how religions arise," and I think we know how so many of those turn out.
Indeed, in this case, the memers don't need you to worship Pepe/Kek, they just need to get in your ear and bring you to their twisted philosophy of hate. At this, they have been quite successful. Perhaps it will run its course, perhaps in the digital age it will roll over into some new incarnation. Fashy anime seems to be picking up steam.
It's all very dismal, but the bottom line is, antisemitism, racism and all kinds of bigotry are undeniably enjoying an enormous resurgence and level of quasi-normalcy not seen for decades. Pepe/Kek is unquestionably part of that.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)No one is going to be turned into an anti-semitic white supremacist because they were otherwise innocently looking to find a church where they could worship "Kek". Let's be real.
The Alt-Right is adopting some of the, for lack of a better term, guerrilla memetics previously used by folks like the Churches of the Subgenius and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I do think a lot of people are long overdue for some updated education in/thinking around/understanding of semantics, symbiology, and the evolving nature of ontology itself in the internet age, specifically not trying to shoehorn some of these new phenomena into their old understandings of what comprises a "real" religion or a "genuine" joke.
It's like trying to drive a horse and buggy around a NASCAR track.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)But I think you may be overlooking a couple of things.
Church attendance has been on the decline for decades now. Many of us thought this was because people were becoming less reliant upon belief and more accepting of an evidence-based existence. But the truth is, scientific studies have shown the human brain is pretty hardwired for religion.
The very concept of "looking for a church" to worship Kek or any other, is quaintly old-fashioned.
Life is online. Friends are online. Community is online. Church is community.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Personally I think the danger with the white supremacist and anti-semitic ideologies is the white supremacist and anti-semitic ideologies themselves, not the memes or the pseudo-religion/joke/meme of kek or whatever.
Richard Spencer is only a visionary and leader in his own mind, mostly. I don't even think a lot of the far right wing trumpkins take him all that seriously.
I think a lot of these things are primarily either in-group jokes or signals, ways to identify simpatico a-holes on twitter.
But as always, I could be wrong.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)woo, part Alex frickin' Jones screaming about the Illuminati and part Peter Popoff. In the end it doesn't matter so much about the who and why, it's the where they are going.
Oh, and Richard Spencer actually has quite the squadron of goons. I know because I recently pissed him off good and proper last week. That was kind of a long two days, but also quite entertaining in its own right.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Im normally opposed to the concept of violence, universally, but that dude sorely tests my zen
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)runs into, tries harder.
Snowflake.
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)I've never heard of it and I'm a young Xer. Maybe it is more of a Millennial thing? Millennials are more into memes. I don't even like the word meme. It sounds annoying... and most memes are annoying so I suppose it is fitting.
TBA
(838 posts)sound a lot like The Strawberry Incident.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)Having done so, this whole "so-called 'presidency'" looks a lot like one big Strawberry Incident.
TrekLuver
(2,573 posts)sunonmars
(8,657 posts)orangecrush
(22,267 posts)Is correct in that assesment.
irisblue
(34,494 posts)Cha
(306,162 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Now they have an infantile, thin skinned psycho prick to deal with daily.
Maru Kitteh
(29,312 posts)change of power they were less than thrilled about. This seems to take it to a whole new level though. I don't recall any time in history where it was leaded that the security apparatus of this country was concerned about he capacity of the commander in chief to perform their duties.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(121,860 posts)He looks like a rotting potato.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Can't be trusted with state secrets.
GoCubsGo
(33,258 posts)If you had paid attention for the last 30 years, you would already know that.