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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10796 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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I am not convinced that Trump is serious about this. I get the impression he's trolling.

It's like buying Greenland. We haven't heard much about that recently, and even though buying Greenland isn't possible, he certainly could be a lot more obnoxious about still wanting to buy it than he has been. He's just mastered the art of saying outrageous things to get a media reaction that 1) earns publicity and 2) distracts them from attacking the things he actually wants to do. Notice that all the things Trump has actually tried to do this term have been things that he's clearly wanted to do for a while.

And Trump has already done things that are a lot more obvious trolling, like the DOGE name.

If taking over Gaza is still on the radar in two weeks, I'll be surprised.

I am not convinced that Trump is serious about this. I get the impression he's trolling.

I feel like there's this consistent sanewashing two-step going on with Trump's behavior. Whenever Trump picks a pointless fight, he's demonstrating toughness and making people understand they have to take him seriously. Whenever Trump says something indefensibly insane, he's trolling... which signals that people shouldn't take him seriously.

He's not trolling because it's insane, he's trolling because in addition to being insane, it's a one shot off-the-cuff thing that he hasn't spoken about before, and in the case of past trolling, hasn't spoken much about afterwards.

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