I hope by now people know me well enough to know I am far from a Trump supporter.

But we would be missing out on a huge opportunity here if we didn't highlight that 99% of what politicians say is different looking, but equally foul bullshit.

I'm not joking. If you actually look into the 'facts' and 'statistics' that are used to push and promote the different policies, they are all based in falsehood or manipulation of meaning, a few off the very top of my head:
- Austerity - based on a study that was discredited not long after it was used to strip assets and cut funding for those who need it most
- Immigration caps - Theresa May talks big about reducing immigration now, saying what a problem it has become but she was *home secretary*, responsible for handling immigration policy
- Benefit caps - for years they have painted benefits cheats as the great drain on the British welfare system with TV shows and press releases, but the majority of the benefits bills go towards subsidising low pay (working tax credits, people in full time work that doesn't pay enough to live on) and paying rent to private landlords (rents which are unregulated, landlords who are already privately rich).
- Greater autonomy for local government - sounds great, we get a better say about things that affect us locally, except when we say that we don't want fracking in Lancashire, they over rule us and say we WILL have fracking in Lancashire. Greater autonomy only meant "we're not giving you any more money."

I'm barely getting started. You can go on and on - tax policy when it comes to big multi nationals who don't pay their fair share, but we let them haggle and pay a tokenistic amount - but the reason we don't have enough money is because of the burden of benefits cheats and immigrants??? We paid for the damage done by the financial crash, but the same people are still in charge and now they're taking billions in bonuses too - why don't we get any of it back!??

I can turn on the news at any time and within 30 seconds find something that is skirting with the truth or outright pulling the wool over our eyes.

The entire political system is fucked up in America and in the UK, it's not just Donald Trump. Donald Trump is like a huge fist sized bubble in a strip of freshly laid wallpaper. We don't just need to fix the big obvious bubble; we need to change the way we put wallpaper up because when you look at the rest of the wall, there are thousands of smaller bubbles that amount to the exact same problem of a fucked up wall.

Donald Trump is the dead canary in the coal mine. He's the clear and obvious indicator that something is horribly, horribly wrong. Getting rid of the canary's corpse does not solve the fucking problem.

The blowback from the alt-right, these vicious people spouting nationalism and racism and sexism. AND the constantly bickering and clamouring SJW lefties who want to dominate free thought and free speech. Both these sets of people have been pitted against each other intentionally so that they don't turn on the people at the top. It is the oldest trick in the book - don't blame the guys in charge, blame each other, it gives us longer to get away with it. Divide and conquer. Spread hate, spread war, spread fear, spread anger and people gravitate to the extremes... they are easier to control at the extremes.

...rant over i guess

TLDR
If you found this boring, if you didn't want to look into it, you're part of the problem. You're contributing to the environment in which Trump can flourish.

There is no scrutiny, there is no being held to account. There is only the court of Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay brothers.

Sorry, I don't agree. Hillary wouldn't be my first choice, but of all the candidates on both sides (and independents), she'd be in my top 2 or 3. The rest are either idiots, incompetent or both (see Johnson and Aleppo). That's not that I like Hillary, but she's the least worst.

Trump, OTOH, is easily in the bottom row. The only worse candidates would be Cruz or Santorum.

Thing is, I can get past the racism, the xenophobia, the sexism and the idiotic economics. They're all terrible, but mostly they'll just fuck up the USA.

But his stance on the environment is completely unacceptable and has global consequences. He simply cannot be allowed to be president.

Saying Hillary and Trump are both bad is true, but it's also a false equivalence. Getting the flu or cancer both suck, but I'll take the flu over cancer any day.

But things will never change until you fix your broken political system. You're barely a democracy these days.

^ @ChaosEngine: I think she makes perfect sense -- she just has some hang ups in regards to her own gender. (She's also really dumb.)

"Leave Hillary Alone, Bullies"

Sarcasm. Reference to an old meme regarding Britney Spears?

"Aww, c'mon guys, give her a break. Anyone can be out of commission.... for weeks on end... whilst in the heat of battle for the highest office in the land. No press conferences for nearly a year? No scheduled campaign events for days upon days? No statements, no answers, no accountability, no problem. Layin' low to run out the clock before November, but you're SEXIST for noticing it."

Sarcasm and calling out Hillary and the media for using misogyny and sexism as a crutch rather than ignoring the sexism like a good woman should in this man's world. Like Palin, who mans up and doesn't let her emotions show. (I don't believe in this viewpoint, but I believe Palin does.)

"And you're MISOGYNIST for questioning a female's fitness. Good thing media didn't hound the crap out of '08 candidate John McCain for his decades-old military medical records or I'd guess them to be hypocrites."

More sarcasm in regards to feminism, while calling out the hypocrisy of the media going after McCain's medical records, but excusing Hillary.

"Leave Hillary alone! All that email-evidenced yoga, and wedding planning, and cookie-baking-grandma-duty wears you out. Believe you me."

Sarcasm and misogyny in the form comparing Hillary's email scandal to typical female activities such as practicing yoga, wedding planning and baking cookies. Not exactly sure why she's focused on making fun of typical female activities. Palin clearly has some emotional issues she needs to work out. Maybe she wishes she was a man? lol. Anyway!

"Heck, even those of us claiming to be fit as a (seasoned?) fiddle, hit bumps in the wellness road. Even I. Especially I. (Remember Piper's middle name is "Grace"; mine isn't.)"

Is she referring to Trump as the "seasoned" fiddle? No clue.

Also not sure who Piper is... Piper Laurie from Twin Peaks? Piper Wright from Fallout 4? Pied Piper? Likening the Pied Piper to Jesus Christ, who by "grace" she is saved? Help me out here.

"Rock-running recently, I tripped over my own two feet and crashed & burned face-first. I recovered with the doc's SuperGlue, and now any man who asks "what happened?" I'll refer to as just a mean ol' SEXIST bully."

I think she's appealing to men by referring to stitches as "SuperGlue", sorta like duct tape fixing everything. She should have said the doc's duct tape. That would have been funny, actually. But for real, I think Palin may have an inner desire to be a man and not a "weak" woman.

"Glad for Hillary's protective media's precedence. The next woman running for POTUS has no need to answer to much of anything, for we've got weddings to plan, and Down Dogs to do, and cookies in the oven! So just leave us alone, boys."

Almost full circle to earlier in the message where she lists a bunch of typical female activities: wedding planning, yoga ("Down Dogs" = downward facing dog, a pose in yoga), and baking cookies.

I guess she's claiming Hillary is just a whiny girl so she might as well just do a bunch of dumb girl stuff. Meanwhile, Palin is doing "man" stuff like jumping on rocks, then she goes to the hospital, gets her head superglued together and back out on her feet doing more man stuff.

I'm gonna go bake some cookies now. That sounds like the best idea Palin's ever inspired me to do. Bake some motherfuckin' cookies.

Also, everyone should practice yoga and if you're going to get married, doesn't everyone help with the planning on some level? Why is Palin so dumb?

That or just your mom using social media.

Edit:
Heck, even those of us who pride ourselves on our health, still experience occasional infirmity. I count myself among those people - in fact, I believe that I suffer these dips more often than many. There is an ironic aptness, I have often felt, in the fact that I named my daughter 'Grace' - a virtue I find myself lacking all too frequently.

Just recently, when rock-running, I tripped over my own two feet and fell face first to the ground. I received excellent medical care and recovered, but if I were of a progressive mindset, I would no doubt find the very idea of someone inquiring as to my recovery both condescending and sexist. I would also be glad that Hillary can evade that kind of questioning, thanks to the biased support she receives from the pro-establishment media which shields her from legitimate inquiries. The fact that she is running for the highest office in our nation does not seem to persuade the media that these questions are legitimate and necessary to pose.

If you ask me, the real sexism on display now is the odd reluctance of the media to ask hard-hitting questions, and its willingness to accept the ridiculous excuses offered by Hillary Clinton's campaign for the lack of proper e-mail management. Rather than demand the real contents of those e-mails, the media is content to accept a disarming and stereotypical list of everyday 'women's activities' such as yoga or wedding planning, for fear that if they point out the obvious ridiculousness here, they will be lambasted as sexist.

#SAD

Isn't it so much more fun to actually exchange information and points of view, rather than getting snotty? I love it.

Maybe we are talking a bit at cross purposes. (Like, that has never happened before on teh intertubes, right?)

I try not to "re-edit" or "re-imagine" videos. I'm sure I do it -- I often do things that I later complain that other people do. This comment goes back more to your first response to me, however it applies to this comment, too. The idea that the video would be better if it this'd, or that'd, or it fails to do this other thing that it wasn't even trying to do. The concept of being conscious of "the bigger picture" is what I am addressing here.

However, isn't it just YOUR vision of what the bigger picture is that you say is missing? Because for me, I see a bigger picture being addressed quite nicely -- the vision that the video maker set out to address.

I wonder if the nebulous nature of your instinctive dislike to this video is indeed EXACTLY what the video maker was setting out to illuminate? Or rather, decided to be not obsequious to? Like women have been taught to be obsequious for eons?

I notice that you are sure that your difficult-to-describe instinctive reactions are "correct." What if it is actually your own internalized and unexamined sexism? I know you say thunderfoot bugs you, too. I also know that all my impassioned information about how women across cultures and time are expected to "tone it down" wasn't addressed in your response to me.

That is the elephant in the room here, as far as I am concerned. Sure, "condescension" is gender neutral. The whole video, though, is about sexism and the unconscious ways that it leaks out. I don't see you addressing that in your response -- except maybe, MAYBE, it is this nebulous and difficult thing you are struggling to understand and maybe, MAYBE, it needs to be examined and understood.

So maybe look at your feelings through that prism?

I say this as someone who has their own internalized sexism (towards men and women both) that I am constantly trying to identify and own and uproot. Racism, too. I so want to be the person who, like Stephen Colbert of old, who doesn't see race. And yet I do and I am mortified by it and I try to push through that lizard brain instinct and the training of my youth.

Something to think about maybe?

Or not. Maybe it just is as simple as you don't like the humor in the video, and I do. There are differences in taste, after all.

I suspect, though, that it is much more complex than that -- as you said, "maybe I'm going into it with the notion that I'm going to be offended anyway."

Thanks for this thoughtful response.

I agree 100% with the idea of catching more flies with honey idea. Treating people with respect. All of that stuff is patently true to me.

However. Of course there is a "however."

I don't agree with the "clearly condescending" assessment. I did not find the delivery condescending in the least. I found it sarcastic and pissed off and appropriate to the topic.

This video is not meant to add to the debate or woo people to her side. It is flat out laying out the facts with a take no prisoners attitude.

That you think this is condescending and I guess poisonous is interesting to me.

Is this indeed sexism at work? Did you read Crushbug's comment? Do you understand that women are "policed" as to their tone of voice all the time? In fact, your mother's (true) advice that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar is actually the internalized oppression that we women struggle with all the time. Be sweet, be kind, be oblique. Manipulate your (male) partner into doing what you want by leading him to think it is his idea.

Just writing this out is making my stomach hurt. It is so poisonous, the suppression of free human expression that women are subjected to in so many cultures. (Think of young Japanese girls who cover their mouths coyly when they laugh.)

Having said all this, please don't think that I believe that men are the evil oppressors. Men have a different pressure put on them that distorts their psyches -- "be a man" is just as deadly as "be sweet".

I was just saying to a friend the other day -- I was wondering how it screws up little boys' heads when daddy leaves the house for a week long business trip, and tells his 4 year old son "You're the man of the house now. Take care of your mother." Good lord. He's a child! He needs her to take care of him!

Anyway. There is much that I agree with in your long and thoughtful response. I just don't think that these ideas are appropriately applied to this comedy video. As you sort of implied with your addendum.

"Poisonous tone and attitude." POISONOUS TONE AND ATTITUDE???!!!???

So, would you like to expand on that phrase, @vil? And perhaps read crushbug's comment above?

Because here is what I hear -- not that you are saying this, but it is what I hear:

Angry women are off-putting. Women with sarcastic voices are off-putting. Women who dare to be anything but sweet and compliant are off-putting.

Men are not "policed" this way. They are allowed a wide range of attitudes in the way they present information. Of course, they CAN be "poisonous" -- but I guarantee you no man's delivery this mild would be labelled "poisonous."

There is a "thing" called "vocal fry" that some women (and gay men) have that pitches their voices high (to be simplistic in its description.) There has been reams written about it. I assumed that most of the comments here were related to vocal fry.

Your comment here is not about vocal fry. Or if it is, wow. What words to use to describe it. Ouch.

So can you use different words to explain what you mean? If I am not understanding you?

As for "word counts not mattering" -- that is categorically not true.

I have been talking about this for forty years and have thought about it deeply, in a logical manner, trying to find the vocabulary to discuss it. I think I have succeeded, and it applies to black people, especially black men, as well as women, both black and white. Here it comes.

Words have values. Words with similar values are interchangeable with gender usage. Words that don't have similar values are sexist and racist. (Even if women do it to themselves, they are indeed engaging in internalized sexism.) If you can take a sentence with the word "girl" being used, and change the gender to male, would you ever -- in that specific situation -- use the word "boy"? If you would, go for it.

And here is where the "word count" matters. Because there are more women than there are men, and yet the word count proves that in the same situation, the word girl is used a lot more. Even if you take out the gymnasts, who are indeed less than 19.

I never say "never use the word girl." Because sometimes, in the same situation, you would indeed use the word "boy."

Let me give you an example.

Old Boys Network. Very powerful men, on the same social and power level, call themselves "boys." Leads to Boys Night Out -- same social and power level.

So can you say Girls Night Out without it being an infantilzation? Absolutely.

Can black people call themselves the n-word? Sure. Same social and power levels. A white person calling a black person the n-word? Nope, nope, nope, nope. Different social and power levels.

This will only make sense to older people, since it doesn't happen as much as it used to. Calling a black man "boy." A grown man. With a job and a family and dignity. Can a white person employing a black man call him "boy"? No. No they cannot.

When is a man over the age of 20 or so called a boy? Very very rarely. Young man, sure. But rarely "boy."

Yet when it comes to women, they are called girls until they die. And they do it to themselves, to make themselves smaller and less threatening.

So. Poisonous. Tell me what you meant, please? Keeping in mind the idea that "threatening" women need to stay in their place?

Yes, delivery is important, but please recognise that on a video about sexism, criticising a woman's tone and voice is sailing directly into the Irony Seas.

I am not directing this next bit at you in particular, Eric, but for anyone who wants to know why I wrote the above paragraph. Please do a Google search with the following:

criticising woman's tone -hillary -clinton

and read any of the articles. If you want to relate it to recent political stories, drop the 2 Hillary exclusion terms.

This is VERY important.

I know you were making a joke -- and I loved your last line.

I just wanted to say that "boys don't cry" is an example of the horrible sexism that men are subjected to from childhood onward. I honestly believe that so much "toxic masculinity" is rooted in this oppression of the range of human emotions that is forced on men all their lives.

Don't want to poop on your joke, so I came over here to say this.

What men are subjected to is soul-crushing, I swear.

It's a known thing among women in business meetings. She says something, convo continues, man in room repeats it, gets the credit.

Happens so much, it makes the list of top most annoying things about being a woman in a business meeting.

Interesting point about generational norms. It would be very very cool if this kind of nonsense comes to an end. [Edit -- now that I re-read your comment, I see you were making a different point. Which actually reinforces the "woman in the business meeting" meme. A younger man doesn't have status, all women don't have status. Yep. Sexism.]

I wondered about the helicopter reporter -- I got the feeling that he thought he was being congratulated on tracking the guy down and working so well with the pilot. I could be wrong, it was very subtle the miscue. He was justifiably proud of their work in the chopper -- somehow I got the feeling he was expecting THAT compliment, not something that had had happened ten minutes in the past.

Very well pointed out.

I don't know if it's sexism; do you think the same thing would have happened if his co-anchor was a younger guy?

Shame on the helicopter reporter for not redirecting credit. That said, I don't know how many of us are evolved enough to redirect the credit to where it is due.

Well I haven't seen Ghostbusters yet, but remember when everyone was pissed off because the new Star Wars had a woman and a black storm trooper as the lead characters?

Do you also remember when the film succeeded on its own merits and no one gave a shit any more because the film was actually good?

Releasing a film where the four principle characters are 3 intelligent white scientists and a streetwise sassy black woman is hardly a fucking exercise in equality anyway. And we're talking about a remake of a comedy that was popular and successful in the 80s - it's not like they're taking big risks and giving the women a chance to shine on their own, is it? How about an all-woman written and directed original film, or can't they spare the money? Because they seem to find enough cash for Seth Rogen or one of the other comedy clones to vomit out another catastrophe every year. Or maybe the people with the money are all men and prefer jokes about farts and masturbation.

That's the worst thing that seems to get ignored - this is Hollywood's lazy way of brushing a few crumbs from the table and saying 'See? Women have just as much power and prominence in the movies! By the way, do you know any girl who's turned 18? We need the new love interest for a 50 year old in the latest action flick. We need someone who looks just good enough that we can photoshop a huge pair of tits on her. We're going to take it in turns to take her to dinner and try to bed her before filming starts.' Hello people? There is enough sexism to deal with in Hollywood without worrying what IMDB rating Ghostbusters got and why.. Treat the disease, not the symptoms.

Well, first off, the part about sterilising and killing was pretty obviously tongue in cheek, although I take your point that some Trump supporters might make the same point seriously.

That said, I have an expectation that the people on this site are smart enough to read what I said as comic hyperbole. As for it being in poor taste, that's up to the listener. I certainly found it in much better taste than Jim Jeffries bit on Bill Cosby, but as you quoted Reginald D Hunter "take it from the rest of us who did laugh--it was fuckin' funny."

All comedy aside, I was being 100% serious when I said that if you really believe in something so much that no evidence will change your mind, then you shouldn't be voting let alone running for office.

As for getting the same response at the DNC.... you're almost certainly right. It would be about different issues (probably vaccines, GMOs and the like), but they would be just as wrong as the Republicans.

That anger is real and not at all misguided. Woolly thinking has held the human race back for millennia and caused untold suffering and horror: racism/slavery, sexism, homophobia, the "war on drugs", climate change, alternative medicine.... do I need to go on?

I'm not saying you can't have a firmly held belief, and I'm not even saying that everything you believe must be fully supported by evidence, but everyone (myself included) should be willing to at least question their own dogma.

"Would you reconsider in the face of new evidence?" should be the simplest question to answer for anyone.

If anyone wants to talk about which races, religions and nations have the monopoly on slavery, sexism, homophobia racial and religious discrimination, it's not Europeans these days, and certainly hasn't been for a long time.

If it's not acceptable for white people do behave this way, why do people tolerate it in other cultures?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvvQJ_zsL1U


Seems to me like Rapper Akala's anecdotes are a bit one sided.

Okay, but video games are still responsible for mass shootings and sexism.