Gavin Newsom addresses the nation

[05C40]

. . .. Also, stop watching cable news. Read. I don’t know a single person - literally - who watches Joe Scarborough.

I agree. I think that about +99% of the times I have seen Joe Scarborough has been clips posted on this board or one of its predecessors. If I'm looking for analysis, I want to be looking at words. If I'm looking for news on forest fires, flooding, hurricanes hitting the coast or industrial explosions, I want VIDEO! I really, really like reading on electronic devices. While I can do it, I don't enjoy interpolating the meaning of words I don't know from context. I really, really like clicking on a word and either having the definition pop-up or a link to somewhere I can get a definition pop-up. This is the major reason I love reading books on electronic readers, such as Kindle. Learning new words (re-learning old words I have forgotten?) is actually one of the drivers for me reading books now. This stuff about the magic of holding a physical book in one's hands and turning real pages holds absolutely no allure for me. Clicking on words I don't know (and they are legion) is the key feature that keeps me coming back to electronic books.

 

[wmheel1287]

I agree. I think that about +99% of the times I have seen Joe Scarborough has been clips posted on this board or one of its predecessors. If I'm looking for analysis, I want to be looking at words. If I'm looking for news on forest fires, flooding, hurricanes hitting the coast or industrial explosions, I want VIDEO! I really, really like reading on electronic devices. While I can do it, I don't enjoy interpolating the meaning of words I don't know from context. I really, really like clicking on a word and either having the definition pop-up or a link to somewhere I can get a definition pop-up. This is the major reason I love reading books on electronic readers, such as Kindle. Learning new words (re-learning old words I have forgotten?) is actually one of the drivers for me reading books now. This stuff about the magic of holding a physical book in one's hands and turning real pages holds absolutely no allure for me. Clicking on words I don't know (and they are legion) is the key feature that keeps me coming back to electronic books.

Completely off topic but you bring up an interesting point. I find this to be one of many generational things. Shockingly, older readers seem to embrace e-devices for pleasure reading moreso than younger users. The younger folks need a break from a lifetime of screens I suppose.

"A Nielsen BookData study (2021–22) highlights that readers aged 13–24 strongly prefer print books, constituting 80% of purchases.

If you go into a brick and mortar bookstore these days, the crowd is a decidedly younger one.

 

[mynameisbond]

Pretty sad that the only thing you can do is copy and mimic Trump. Get your own style or be content being a Beatles cover band.

People not impressed. Try governing California for a change - it’s not like it doesn’t have any pressing issues.

It's not "copy and mimic", it's satire. It's beyond me why that needs clarification to some. Trump is a caricature of a leader and an embarrassment for our country to the rest of the world, but his followers can't seem to grasp it.

 

[CFordUNC]

 

[05C40]

. . .. If you go into a brick and mortar bookstore these days, the crowd is a decidedly younger one.

I love going to brick and mortar bookstores. Just wandering around I see books I have never heard of but immediately want to read. Then I buy the digital copies. Yeah, I feel like the scum of the Earth every time I do that. But you are right about the average age in bookstores being well below my age. If I see someone even approaching my age in a bookstore, then they are usually wearing a tag with their name on it. Lately I have found myself studiously avoiding looking at all the young women in bookstores. I figure the absolutely last thing any of these young women want in their lives is some old fart like me ogling them.

 

[Molotov Mocktail]

Touch grass, man. You are quite literally going out of your way for the sole purpose to get triggered. That makes zero sense for any normally functioning human being.

Ummm, I used to listen to conservative radio a bit while I was driving to get a sense of what the crazies were currently raging about. Right around the debate last year I was reading a maga message board. The day before the debate there were a lot of social media links to “stories” about immigrants in a small OH town eating peoples pets. It was a circle jerk of maga social media all saying the same thing. I bet a friend that trump would somehow bring up immigrants eating pets. For some reason I didn’t expect it to be as absurdly ridiculous as it was, but how could something like that be anything but absurd.

This small experience gave me insight into just how fast maga gets on board with conspiracies. It only took a couple days to be used by trump.

Personally I can’t wade around in that fever swamp anymore. It’s truly awful. Yet being aware of what your enemy is doing and how they do it is useful. I don’t think that made me not a “normally functioning human being.”

BTW, Ram watches Maher and Joe among others. MFer is just trolling y’all and he’s fucking good at it.

 

[superrific]

I think the answer is a heck of a lot more simple as to what Newsom is doing. He’s antagonizing Trump/MAGA for the purpose of getting under their thin skin to cause even more absurd and erratic behavior.

I think it's even simpler. Newsom is free-riding on Trump. I see it like this. In today's world, attention is the prized commodity and it's hard to get. MAGA bullshit was an unintentionally brilliant way of attracting that attention: make ludicrous over-the-top claims so that everyone pays attention. Sure, mostly to laugh, but it's still attention.

The weakness in that approach is that it requires speakers who are willing to humiliate themselves with public stupidity. That's why liberals have generally not adopted this style. Our base doesn't value it, and liberals tend not to cherish blowhards.

Newsom is getting the best of both worlds. He's putting out all this outrageous stuff to gather attention (note how many of his memes have been posted on this thread alone) but doesn't have to demean himself because he's just mocking Trump.

 

[4thgenheel]

Pretty sad that the only thing you can do is copy and mimic Trump. Get your own style or be content being a Beatles cover band.

People not impressed. Try governing California for a change - it’s not like it doesn’t have any pressing issues.

you cannot really be this stupid. please tell me that this is a bit, lmao.

 

[CFordUNC]

Ummm, I used to listen to conservative radio a bit while I was driving to get a sense of what the crazies were currently raging about. Right around the debate last year I was reading a maga message board. The day before the debate there were a lot of social media links to “stories” about immigrants in a small OH town eating peoples pets. It was a circle jerk of maga social media all saying the same thing. I bet a friend that trump would somehow bring up immigrants eating pets. For some reason I didn’t expect it to be as absurdly ridiculous as it was, but how could something like that be anything but absurd.

This small experience gave me insight into just how fast maga gets on board with conspiracies. It only took a couple days to be used by trump.

Personally I can’t wade around in that fever swamp anymore. It’s truly awful. Yet being aware of what your enemy is doing and how they do it is useful. I don’t think that made me not a “normally functioning human being.”

BTW, Ram watches Maher and Joe among others. MFer is just trolling y’all and he’s fucking good at it.

I hear you, and both understand and respect your perspective. Still, I think that there is very little useful to be gained by consuming that kind of stuff. I understand the idea of wanting to know what the “enemy” is saying, but I still am highly skeptical that the negatives of swimming around in that kind of nastiness and muck and subjecting one’s mental health and well-being to it, outweigh the positives of knowing what the “enemy” is saying.

And ramrouser isn’t trolling anyone here, because he isn’t intelligent, creative, or clever enough to successfully troll anyone here. This is a man so profoundly stupid that he believed that Adolf Hitler was a left-winger, and that American Eagle sold $300 million worth of blue jeans in a single day, among many other stupid things he believes. Getting responses from us does not constitute successful trolling. It may mean that we – and I include myself more than anyone else – are idiots for not ignoring him, but speaking for myself, I have a personality flaw that causes me to find some twisted enjoyment in telling stupid people that they are stupid.

 

[hedge]

Pretty sad that the only thing you can do is copy and mimic Trump. Get your own style or be content being a Beatles cover band.

Man, you are even dumber than I thought you were...

 

[heelinhell]

The problem?..... the liberal media has been highlighting the "rank absurdity" of Trump for nearly a decade and it's accomplished literally nothing.

On the right/ center-right, Newsom is viewed as a mega liberal, entitled, uppity California boy, while Trump has convinced half the country that he is "one of them". How he pulled off that illusion is anyone's guess, but Newsom's opinion likely carries little to no weight with anyone except those who already know Trump is absurd.

I don't think Trump has convinced half the country he is "one of them. " He has convinced around 35% of the country he is " one of them " and all he had to do to convince them was to hate on black and brown people and demonize other minority groups.

There is no "anyone's guess" as to why his base supports him.

Now half the voter's actually voted for Trump this time around ,but that doesn't constitute half the country. The MAGA bigot voters plus the dupes that thought Trump would lower the price of groceries plus the top 10% who realized that they would continue to amass even more wealth reached 49.8% of the vote.

 

[Healing]

you cannot really be this stupid. please tell me that this is a bit, lmao.

Yeah, it’s gotten so absurd I’m starting to think a deranged lunatic is spoofing the identity of a middle-aged civil lawyer from Buckhead. The level of doddering has gotten so comical as to jump the shark, or indicate Ram, if he really is who he says, might be in early-stage pathological cognitive decline.

 

[Kingpin]

I don't think Trump has convinced half the country he is "one of them. " He has convinced around 35% of the country he is " one of them " and all he had to do to convince them was to hate on black and brown people and demonize other minority groups.

There is no "anyone's guess" as to why his base supports him.

Now half the voter's actually voted for Trump this time around ,but that doesn't constitute half the country. The MAGA bigot voters plus the dupes that thought Trump would lower the price of groceries plus the top 10% who realized that they would continue to amass even more wealth reached 49.8% of the vote.

You are right. 36% of eligible voters didn’t vote. Trump got 50% of the 64% who did vote so 32% of Americans. Dems need to find a way to activate a portion of the 36% sitting on the sidelines. Huge potential there.

 

[superrific]

Yeah, it’s gotten so absurd I’m starting to think a deranged lunatic is spoofing the identity of a middle-aged civil lawyer from Buckhead. The level of doddering has gotten so comical as to jump the shark, or indicate Ram, if he really is who he says, might be in early-stage pathological cognitive decline.

I've long thought he was a paralegal in the office posing as an attorney on this board.

 

[BlueSteel]

We know what he’s doing…and it’s not funny.

If it's not funny, then why are we all laughing?
I guess it must be hard to see the humor in something...when you're the punchline.

 

[Centerpiece]

You are right. 36% of eligible voters didn’t vote. Trump got 50% of the 64% who did vote so 32% of Americans. Dems need to find a way to activate a portion of the 36% sitting on the sidelines. Huge potential there.

^^This^^

 

[Icky Mettle]

I hope people don’t mind my little diversion here. I just want to shift the focus away from giving one particular poster a hard time. So let’s change the subject a little and discuss how Spaceballs totally ripped off the Star Wars movies.

 

[Ramrouser]

Touch grass, man. You are quite literally going out of your way for the sole purpose to get triggered. That makes zero sense for any normally functioning human being.

Not really. I actually enjoy the show, its hosts and guests (possible exception of Mika). I watched it way before Trump came on the scene.

 

[Molotov Mocktail]

I hear you, and both understand and respect your perspective. Still, I think that there is very little useful to be gained by consuming that kind of stuff. I understand the idea of wanting to know what the “enemy” is saying, but I still am highly skeptical that the negatives of swimming around in that kind of nastiness and muck and subjecting one’s mental health and well-being to it, outweigh the positives of knowing what the “enemy” is saying.

And ramrouser isn’t trolling anyone here, because he isn’t intelligent, creative, or clever enough to successfully troll anyone here. This is a man so profoundly stupid that he believed that Adolf Hitler was a left-winger, and that American Eagle sold $300 million worth of blue jeans in a single day, among many other stupid things he believes. Getting responses from us does not constitute successful trolling. It may mean that we – and I include myself more than anyone else – are idiots for not ignoring him, but speaking for myself, I have a personality flaw that causes me to find some twisted enjoyment in telling stupid people that they are stupid.

I started listening to conservative radio to get an understanding of what had changed my dad and his brothers. It became clear a few years ago that I do not share the same reality with them. It was sad to see such a dramatic shift in their personalities and hear their vile thoughts on everyone they had been programmed to believe are their enemies.

I only listened until the first commercial or until I thought “this is absolute horse shit” so 5 minutes at a time max. It wasn’t healthy. I don’t know how people spend hours of their day every day in that fever swamp. It was enlightening though.

I think of it as McDonald’s for the mind now. It’s poisoning the people consuming it, but it’s also deliberately crafted to create an addiction (those fries are SO good). It’s always selling something whether it’s the commercials or the personalities.

Something I found fascinating was the dislike of trump leading up to the primaries. Once it was clear he was running away with it everyone was back onboard the trump train. Seemingly in an instant the arguments against trump they themselves had just been using were lies and comepletely wrong because it’s what the left was saying about trump.

The right wing media machine is amazing at what it does. I think we all understand that that machine is going to become horrifically more efficient at what it’s doing with the rise of AI.

 

[BlueSteel]

I watch Morning Joe to get an early read on what the Dems’ message and/or attack for the day will be. It’s highly coordinated with the AP/NYT/Washington Post/NPR leading the way.

Not really. I actually enjoy the show, its hosts and guests (possible exception of Mika). I watched it way before Trump came on the scene.

Interesting. So have you ever stopped to wonder why Joe (who used to be a staunch Republican) made the switch?