Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

Angry young jihadi men are just medieval cosplay versions of elliot rodger. They are total losers. The only thing wrong with Trump's statement is that he is also a loser and for similar reasons.

fwiw, the most persuasive research I have seen on the backgrounds of people who join ISIS suggests the majority are from aspirational middle class families and have above average educational achievements but hit some kind of roadblock. In the west the classic stereotype would be people who have fallen into petty crime, drugs, etc, and converted in prison but the archetypal recruit in, idk, Tunisia or Kazakhstan, is probably going to be closer to something like an engineering graduate to gets out of university and realises the job market is terrible or police / military officers who get to a certain rank but can't progress any higher. They are then fairly susceptible to people who will maliciously play on that resentment and bitterness to convince them that they can help overthrow the corrupt secular, western-tainted systems by taking part in a global religious revolution. There is obviously an appeal to self-esteem, wounded pride, etc as well.

The "losers" narrative is a fairly ineffective but not incorrect way to undercut the idea that there is some heroism involved in killing children but obviously doesn't address the numerous roadblocks (everything from corruption to racism to static social mobility) that contributes to the initial resentment. It is less dangerous than the clash of civilisations narrative or the unintended glamourising that a lot of the right has relied on in the past though.

so trump used to be more articulate? https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/

That's our Trump, not PC, talking straight.

I echo the above, that him speaking of ISIS the way he speaks of Marco Rubio or Arnold Schwarzenegger neuters whatever force such blunt talk had to begin with. He might as well call them girlie men.

From a linguist http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=32844

XP There's still time!

ty caek xp

This is...a bad take:

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/527805/

What Progressives Miss About Arms Sales

Celebrating their success in retaining blue-collar jobs is one way Republicans are winning the votes of working-class Americans.

ANDREW EXUM
2:34 PM ET POLITICS

I love how MacArthur thinks this is some kind of a big secret.

A revealing Q&A with Rep. Tom MacArthur: he says some Republicans privately want to leave the health-care law as is https://t.co/WtR5vxXr4f

— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 23, 2017

Do tell

The "losers" narrative is a fairly ineffective but not incorrect way to undercut the idea that there is some heroism involved in killing children but obviously doesn't address the numerous roadblocks (everything from corruption to racism to static social mobility) that contributes to the initial resentment.

I know ShariVari. I'm not going to start adopting Trumpian attitudes wrt terrorism. I don't feel a lot of sympathy, though, for anyone who responds to their own bad lot in life by hurting others. I'm also sort of uncomfortable naming racism and economic injustice as "causes" of terrorism, because that seems to imply that victims of injustice, or people who had opportunities taken from them, will just "naturally" turn to some kind of antisocial outlet. And this is just not how it works.

This guy did what he did because he made a decision to buy into a certain ideology.

I'm not going to start adopting Trumpian attitudes wrt terrorism

Adopt Trumpian children instead

and then abandon them in bars

Like, elliot roger's bad luck in love didn't cause him to shoot those people. Trump's emptionally distant father didn't cause him to become a malignant narcissist who makes sexist remarks in order to feel powerful. These are contributing factors but in a civil society there needs to be a concept of moral agency. That's why I don't think it's enough to see jihadist ideology as just a social problem. It is that -- it's arisen in this way at this specific time because the conditions were right for it. But it's also a political ideology that people believe in. It has its own substantive reality; it's not reducible to its causes.

dude acting like people whose entire families have been killed by drones should play by your rules is nagl

As far as I know the people behind these attacks are not people whose families have been killed by drones. Probably more importantly ISIS does not understand itself to be retaliating against the West because of the Iraq War. They see themselves as being engaged in a war of ideas against the West.

dude acting like people whose entire families have been killed by drones should play by your rules is nagl

What you call "your rules" are the principles underlying a civil society with respect for human life. One you either feel like living in and preserving, or you don't. Now you can quite easily and plausibly argue that drone warfare is a fucked-up thing, but to extrapolate that to "well, if someone's family was killed by the US military then all bets are off" is, I would argue, much more nagl.

"Arabs clean yr doorstep" never agl iirc

Like this is not excusing drone attacks at all. It's not even saying that the violence purveyed by the West doesn't contribute to an environment where people become drawn to ISIS or similar. But I also don't think it's a good idea to just say this attack is simply "blowback." Why target an Ariana Grande concert in that case?

Xp sleeve again

I would buy t-shirt or print of

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 23, 2017

i'm a little worried about josh marshall

is there an option for his deleted porn query tweets

Hooray oh wait

Leaked transcript: Trump praised Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem”

He's murdering people.https://t.co/KvuaSjDMM6 pic.twitter.com/1pyBJs4s2H

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 23, 2017

He left it up!

Xp mayor j.

Yeah ned thats chilling

Are ISIS suicide bombers really that different from the Eric Hoffer's True Believer of early 20th century authoritarian mass movements? More than half of the pull quotes here apply equally to Edwardian anarchists, Bolsheviks, Nazis or ISIS suicide bombers.

young guys throwing epic temper tantrums?

I'm not sure I understand how Trump's Duterte comments are breaking news. Duterte has been unambiguously promoting the murder of his people for months, and Trump has been unambiguously championing Duterte's actions for months. Horrifying, of course, but nothing new.

when will werner herzog make a trump documentary?

Doc about Sean Spicer would be better

spinsly man

There are a heap of people replying to that Jaffy tweet saying basically "theyre drug dealers, whats the problem?" Urrrrghh.

(I mean ok I'm not gonna take anything a fucking pepe frog says seriously but still)

masculinity is the most undiagnosed mental illness: the story of 2017

^^^

fuck yeah

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/23/resistance-shows-real-flipping-state-seat-democrat-won-nh.html

GOP held another seat in a pretty similar NH district tho

But Dems flip a very red NY assembly seat in Long Island

FUCK DONNY T

just three bros back from Fire Island after a night of poppers and boys

@DKElections @NHDems Just how Republican is Wolfeboro? This local photo gives you an idea. pic.twitter.com/dzRFzv1lt5

— Dean Barker (@deanbarker) May 24, 2017

LOL

"young guys throwing epic temper tantrums?"

expert type of guy on pbs said this bomber was 2nd gen brit and that he often sees young people rebelling against their parent's non-hardcore version of islam/assimilation to the west and they think everything is shitty where they live and thus they are ripe for internet fire-stoking/neighborhood hotheads. i'm paraphrasing...

Christie looks like he's melting

Melting hearts!

Or maybe just rendering in the heat, it's hard to tell.

xp Scott, that's the narrative that seems to recur.

Just going to commend HRC for quoting Sarah Kendzior in her keynote at the Children’s Health Fund Annual Benefit:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAjiWk1WAAACduE.jpg

masculinity is the most undiagnosed mental illness: the story of 2017

― maura, Wednesday, 24 May 2017 01:40 (two hours ago) Permalink

otfm

may I direct you to the thread maleness? it throws a different, but worthwhile side-light on this observation.

important update: trump lost the handshake game to the president of tajikistan

http://i.imgur.com/rMHZ7VQ.gif

http://boingboing.net/2017/05/23/trump-lost-the-alpha-male-ha.html