What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Valmy]

This kind of soundbite gotcha-ism has been a stain on politics for decades.

[Oexmelin]

This kind of soundbite gotcha-ism has been a stain on politics for decades.

It also works (worked?) because no one ever wanted to admit to a poor choice of words. It's a dynamic that is present on Languish, so it shouldn't come as a surprise for it to be widespread in the larger world.

[Sheilbh]

Ugh, good God, this sentence is like a cyanide for the soul. 

Sorry - I've never been much of a pearl-clutcher about this stuff

I think communication is a good in itself, one necessary for proper social functioning, and an absolutely essential part of any communication is the good faith attempt to understand what is being communicated and acknowledge the communication as intended.  That requires some reasonable tolerance for less than immaculate choice of words for the context, because communication is not a programming language but instead requires constant balancing between conciseness and completeness, and it's impossible to get this balance exactly right exactly 100% of the time. 

Interesting, I normally think of it in the opposite way. I always think of communication as sort of in the eye of the beholder, it's about being understood.

I agree with the last point in day-to-day life. But if you're in politics or some other communication based profession and you're on the media then, this is your job and if you fuck up you're fair game. It's no different than me being a lazy sod on Languish, but I sympathise with everyone else and really try to understand what we're all trying to say. But if I'm reading a newspaper article or, say, a contract that is unclear then I get annoyed and that's on them - it's their job to be clear.

If we treat communication as just a game to be won or lost, we're going to be in a very dark place.

We've been there since the radio - or in the UK at the very least since the 50s.

[Valmy]

This kind of soundbite gotcha-ism has been a stain on politics for decades.

It also works (worked?) because no one ever wanted to admit to a poor choice of words. It's a dynamic that is present on Languish, so it shouldn't come as a surprise for it to be widespread in the larger world.

True. But explaining that would be taken as a sign of weakness for this government.

[The Brain]

Maybe it's intellectual dishonest (I'm not sure I care about that), but I think it's fair game to jump all over it and imply whatever you can get away with if someone's mis-speaking, miscommunicate, flubbing their lines.

Ugh, good God, this sentence is like a cyanide for the soul. 

I think communication is a good in itself, one necessary for proper social functioning, and an absolutely essential part of any communication is the good faith attempt to understand what is being communicated and acknowledge the communication as intended.  That requires some reasonable tolerance for less than immaculate choice of words for the context, because communication is not a programming language but instead requires constant balancing between conciseness and completeness, and it's impossible to get this balance exactly right exactly 100% of the time. 

If we treat communication as just a game to be won or lost, we're going to be in a very dark place.

And unfortunately not Darkplace.

[DGuller]

Interesting, I normally think of it in the opposite way. I always think of communication as sort of in the eye of the beholder, it's about being understood.

I agree with the last point in day-to-day life. But if you're in politics or some other communication based profession and you're on the media then, this is your job and if you fuck up you're fair game. It's no different than me being a lazy sod on Languish, but I sympathise with everyone else and really try to understand what we're all trying to say. But if I'm reading a newspaper article or, say, a contract that is unclear then I get annoyed and that's on them - it's their job to be clear.

I'm not saying that that the speaker is relieved from the duty of doing the best job they can communicating, but both the speaker and the listener are partners in communication.  When one of them does their part in bad faith, they no longer make it a conversation.  The fact that someone is in a political role doesn't change this, politicians need to communicate as well.

[DGuller]

This kind of soundbite gotcha-ism has been a stain on politics for decades.

It also works (worked?) because no one ever wanted to admit to a poor choice of words. It's a dynamic that is present on Languish, so it shouldn't come as a surprise for it to be widespread in the larger world.

I don't think there is any need to admit to a poor choice of words when it still required bad faith to result in miscommunication.  I would say that would in fact legitimize and further encourage bad faith listening.

[Oexmelin]

The fact that someone is in a political role doesn't change this, politicians need to communicate as well.

I would argue it's not the role that plays the more crucial role: it's the context. A political rally is not an interview, and an interview is not a polite discussion, or a contradictory debate. I suspect that Sheiblh and you refer to two different contexts, and preferred outcomes.

I think Sheilbh is right that politics has a certain amount of bad faith "baked in". It has to, if only to tease out some of the meaningful differences between speaker A and speaker B. Similarly, a loyal opposition often has to amp up the rhetoric to create pressures, in order to produce results. However, not every political action needs to be in the form of official announcements and PR stunts.

I think part of the problem is that "intermediary" modes of political communication have all but died down. They offered respite from the necessary, but necessarily skewed, grand pronouncements. They also offered important venues for the normalization of political opponents, or simply of respectful dissent. Everything now is treated as high stake political messaging, requiring inordinate amount of polishing and protection. It's a vicious circle that is quite hard to quit. Politics (or managers, corporations, etc), have an army of PR consultant in their employ, so that their communication is polished into meaninglessness. To simply say "it's their job" runs the risk of normalizing the current imbalance between PR people, and journalists, for instance. The political answer has been to find the chink in the armor, the thing that would allow to go beyond ironclad platitudes.

[Admiral Yi]

A stock in trade of Fox and Syt's sisters is misconstruing, decontextualizing, editing, to turn an innocuous statement by a Democrat into a raging outrage provoking meme.  We ridicule those all the time here.  So now I'm learning that's all "fair game" and it all just boils down to which side you're on.  Symmetry.  We're outraged by their lies and make our own, just like them.

[crazy canuck]

A stock in trade of Fox and Syt's sisters is misconstruing, decontextualizing, editing, to turn an innocuous statement by a Democrat into a raging outrage provoking meme.  We ridicule those all the time here.  So now I'm learning that's all "fair game" and it all just boils down to which side you're on.  Symmetry.  We're outraged by their lies and make our own, just like them.

Equivalencies gone mad

[The Brain]

"Wah! He was mean to me, so I'm gonna be mean to him!!"

The kindergarten way of human interaction may be attractive to many adults, but I remain unconvinced that it is a good way to build a good society.

[Sheilbh]

A stock in trade of Fox and Syt's sisters is misconstruing, decontextualizing, editing, to turn an innocuous statement by a Democrat into a raging outrage provoking meme.  We ridicule those all the time here.  So now I'm learning that's all "fair game" and it all just boils down to which side you're on.  Symmetry.  We're outraged by their lies and make our own, just like them.

Maybe - personally I don't think it's to do with sides. I mean I think the Hunter Biden stuff is fair game - I don't think there's any truth to it, but from a presentational perspective it reeks and if you're Biden's oponent you should take advantage of that. I don't think that indicates some unique, Republic-ending dishonesty on the part of Trump. His sins are different.

Similarly I've never particularly cared about the Vote Leave campaign or thought it was unfair or uniquely evil or dishonest.

Frankly I think one of the big issues I have with the Remainers and the left in the US is they've spent a long time moaning about how unfair things are, and nowhere near enough time identifying how to beat it.

And, again, context matters - I have no issue with smearing Biden about Hunter all you want on the campaign trail. If that's what you decide to spend your Comittee's time doing in the Senate, say, then you're a disgrace. I think the big issue with Fox and the GOP is there's no distinction anymore and I think the GOP will discover that what's good for a conservative media company is not the same as what's good for a political party, hopefully (I think you still need to be able to do both - the smears and the instant rebuttals and the message on campaign; and then the rather different job of governing).

Edit: It's one of the things I always find annoying about American liberals, this weird obsession that we're only one fact check away from a better democracy

[Valmy]

Frankly I think one of the big issues I have with the Remainers and the left in the US is they've spent a long time moaning about how unfair things are, and nowhere near enough time identifying how to beat it.

We do? Generally that is what the Right claims. All they do is complain the media and the whole political establishment is lined up against them, despite tons of evidence of the contrary. I mean hell that is mostly what Trump does, moaning about how unfair things are and how persecuted he is.

[Admiral Yi]

Maybe - personally I don't think it's to do with sides. I mean I think the Hunter Biden stuff is fair game - I don't think there's any truth to it, but from a presentational perspective it reeks and if you're Biden's oponent you should take advantage of that. I don't think that indicates some unique, Republic-ending dishonesty on the part of Trump. His sins are different.

Similarly I've never particularly cared about the Vote Leave campaign or thought it was unfair or uniquely evil or dishonest.

Frankly I think one of the big issues I have with the Remainers and the left in the US is they've spent a long time moaning about how unfair things are, and nowhere near enough time identifying how to beat it.

And, again, context matters - I have no issue with smearing Biden about Hunter all you want on the campaign trail. If that's what you decide to spend your Comittee's time doing in the Senate, say, then you're a disgrace. I think the big issue with Fox and the GOP is there's no distinction anymore and I think the GOP will discover that what's good for a conservative media company is not the same as what's good for a political party, hopefully (I think you still need to be able to do both - the smears and the instant rebuttals and the message on campaign; and then the rather different job of governing).

Edit: It's one of the things I always find annoying about American liberals, this weird obsession that we're only one fact check away from a better democracy

Hunter Biden is off topic.  We were talking about lying about the meaning of words.

[Admiral Yi]

Hassett's usage, however, is just wrong under any definition and a bit weird.  "Human capital" or "human capital stock" refers to the store of human capabilities and knowledge but not to the actual human beings themselves that embody that human capital.  The econman term for that would be "labor force" or even just "Labor".

Labor force?  Why do you want to force labor?  The unjust corvee system was one of the reasons for fall of the greedy and corrupt ancien regime.  You're a monster.