Edit: Just to clarify, my stance here is not “ignore everything Trump.” He has done and will do quite a lot of things that warrant attention and concern. He’s also a serial liar and world class bullshitter. A human testament to the phrase, “actions speak louder than words.” Donald Trump’s political success has always hinged on the fact that people are quick to forget that. He’s already working overtime to distract from the fact that the majority of his campaign promises were just lies and the sooner he can make the people who voted for him forget all the pie in the sky shit they were promised, the better.
The office of a mad US president in spe threatening the EU, neighbours and a former colony with violence is newsworthy.
It’s the sane washing that needs to go. Stop normalizing the bad behavior of malignant narcissism and criminality.
But the denialism in OP needs to stop too and it has to be appropriate to call it STUPID. You can’t ignore the malignancy when it’s in the presidency and hope it will go away. Every single thing Trump says is serious and literal until someone in his administration stops him.
If you just sum it up as being stupid, you ignore the inherent nature of it.
It’s intentionally stupid to make you pay attention to instead of anything truly meaningful. The political equivalent of saying something wrong on the internet just so some angry nerd comes along to correct you. He is stoking outrage for the sake of outrage, so that his bedfellows can capitalize on it, and he can mooch off them.
Your theory of attention management is stupid and bad.
If it were any other US president it would certainly be newsworthy and incredibly alarming. But old Don, as we all know, is completely full of shit and just says things A.) because he’s a fucking idiot and B.) to distract from what he’s actually up to.
One cannot “fuck around and find out” in nuclear diplomacy. Threats are threats and relying on distraction theory here is denial.
Distraction theory may work domestically, but not in diplomacy. Well, unless there’s evidence for something worse planned (compare Russia in the security council 2022-02-22).
What happened the last time he was president and made these threats?
Nothing.
He’s a troll and world leaders know it. News outlets love him for the clicks.
This is the reason he won again. The “press” makes so much more money when they have tabloid fodder and reality tv drama. Remember how boring it was when the adults were running things in the first 2 years before campaign “season” started again? It was so nice.
“Nuking Hurricanes” is way more interesting than “inflation.”
If his past performance + Project 2025 + Musk haven’t combined to convince you that the first win was a surprise to everyone and his handlers are far more ready this time around, you are as deluded as those who voted for him.
Democrats spent four years trying not to piss off R too much by doing anything about Jan 06 (among other things), then 2 months trying to woo R votes
R spent four years getting ready for this, and are ready to tear shit down. Shit will go downhill rapidly after Jan 20.
He’s worthy of our attention. Stupid and assholish or not, he’s literally the most powerful man on the planet (aside from Elon Musk) right now.
Infighting among all those trying to deploy him as their personal attack dog is about the most hopeful thing we have right now.–
I agree. But that’s not what the press is reporting on, is it?
They’ll give him all the attention in the world. For the wrong reasons.
Ah fair point!
What he and guys administration does is newsworthy. What he says is really not, outside of the extremes.
That’s stupid.
This is the bad thinking that must be extirpated at the root.
Shut the fuck up. You fucking moron. What happened the last time he was president? He tried to assassinate foreign leaders and was stopped by Mattis. He summoned his militia to the capitol and mounted an insurrection.
He’s only a troll to you because that makes you feel better.
Stop it. Stop spreading your stupid ignorance.
Oh, he definitely does malign things that hurts both the US as a country and Earth as a whole… but not everything he says is indicative of what he does. If you simply take everything he says at face value, you will get so mired in bullshit that you won’t be able to pull yourself out when something meaningful does happen.
It’ll be ok. Take a breath.
The difference for me personally is if news articles start with “Trump says“ or with "USA does“. I am very much done with the former, just to keep my mental health intact.
Dissociation and denial are understandable in times of despair. Sometimes, denial can fuel further despair though.
I don’t think my disinterest in most of the things that fall out of Trumps mouthhole is a sign of denial. Most of these are outright lies, baseless accusations, exaggerations, narcissism, and pure hatred. I’m not obliged to let this affect my life. I’m also an EU citizen and as such I have a natural distance to US politics. (I know that the orange turd’s actions have grave consequences for EU citizens too, to be clear, and this is something I can’t ignore)
Our societies should in ernest gather the will to increase the distance to US politics. Plenty of countries have bad developments, but they don’t affect us so substantially like US politics do.