Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

Le Pen [Trump] v Macron [Obama]



The euro jumped sharply against other global currencies on Sunday as polls closed in the first round of France’s presidential election, with centrist former economy minister Emmanuel Macron in the lead according to initial projections.

A poll released by Ipsos as voting finished put Mr. Macron at 23.7%, heading into the second round on May 7 against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen’s 21.7%.
 
Lol, your delusional!
Yeah fake news :rolleyes:
CNN has been slandering Trump way before he was elected and only got worse after the election. They're not even attempting to look unbiased at this point and they print an individual journalists opinion as if it was fact. Clinton News Network got its nickname for a reason and it isn't because they contain even a shred of integrity or honesty. They're part of the reason there are so many who no longer get their news from major networks because they realize it isn't investigative journalism anymore. Earlier in this thread I highlighted all the falsities, outright lies or "spins" these major news networks have told in an article that has been keeping track of their errors. Pathetic
 


Yes - at the beginning, it will look like the start of a beautiful friendship. Putin won't be himself if he doesn't try and dupe Trump into concessions on Ukraine and Syria. In exchange, he might hand over Edward Snowden to the US. He will have no qualms about it because he views Snowden as a traitor who is now biting the hand that feeds him by openly criticising internet censorship in Russia.

But ultimately the Kremlin has other designs for Trump. The pillar that supports the political regime in Russia is the besieged fortress mentality; it is natural for a people who have seen nothing but misery and genocide for most of the previous century.

To maintain this worldview, it's vital to have a powerful enemy that attacks Russian interests across the globe, an omnipotent alien force which ordinary Russians can blame for their misfortunes and bleak, unhappy life.

Apart from coming across as cynical and ruthless, the enemy should be suitably cartoonish and capable of feeding Russian propaganda with ridiculous gaffes and bizarre escapades. George W Bush suited this description ideally. Barack Obama, on the other hand, was problematic - too clever, too cautious and surrounded by people who actually understand what modern Russia is. Obama was hard to hate.

Now Trump is even better than Bush. Rude and ruthless, but also clueless on so many issues, self-contradicting, mind-bogglingly disingenuous - he is an epitome of an American oligarch. To someone who grew up in the USSR, Trump is a twin brother of "Mister Twister, ex-minister", a character from a Soviet children's poem by Samuil Marshak, who satirised American capitalism in the 1930s. Millions of Russians still remember it by heart. Trump is a walking caricature of America, a gift to the Russian propaganda machine which the Kremlin couldn't even dream of.

The ideological proximity of Trump and Putin shouldn't fool anyone. Yes, they are both members of the global populist movement that has almost completely erased the 20th-century left-right division. They also have very similar constituencies.
 


Yes - at the beginning, it will look like the start of a beautiful friendship. Putin won't be himself if he doesn't try and dupe Trump into concessions on Ukraine and Syria. In exchange, he might hand over Edward Snowden to the US. He will have no qualms about it because he views Snowden as a traitor who is now biting the hand that feeds him by openly criticising internet censorship in Russia.

But ultimately the Kremlin has other designs for Trump. The pillar that supports the political regime in Russia is the besieged fortress mentality; it is natural for a people who have seen nothing but misery and genocide for most of the previous century.

To maintain this worldview, it's vital to have a powerful enemy that attacks Russian interests across the globe, an omnipotent alien force which ordinary Russians can blame for their misfortunes and bleak, unhappy life.

Apart from coming across as cynical and ruthless, the enemy should be suitably cartoonish and capable of feeding Russian propaganda with ridiculous gaffes and bizarre escapades. George W Bush suited this description ideally. Barack Obama, on the other hand, was problematic - too clever, too cautious and surrounded by people who actually understand what modern Russia is. Obama was hard to hate.

Now Trump is even better than Bush. Rude and ruthless, but also clueless on so many issues, self-contradicting, mind-bogglingly disingenuous - he is an epitome of an American oligarch. To someone who grew up in the USSR, Trump is a twin brother of "Mister Twister, ex-minister", a character from a Soviet children's poem by Samuil Marshak, who satirised American capitalism in the 1930s. Millions of Russians still remember it by heart. Trump is a walking caricature of America, a gift to the Russian propaganda machine which the Kremlin couldn't even dream of.

The ideological proximity of Trump and Putin shouldn't fool anyone. Yes, they are both members of the global populist movement that has almost completely erased the 20th-century left-right division. They also have very similar constituencies.


 


Timing and skill breathe new life into Margaret Atwood’s novel

THE most nightmarish dystopian worlds are both familiar and incongruous, existing on the peripheries of possibility. A prime example is “The Handmaid’s Tale”, written in 1985 and now a ten-part television series which will be released on Hulu from April 26th.

In it an American society is ruled by a theocratic dictatorship. Women are stripped of their jobs—bank accounts and property are handed over to their husbands or male next-of-kin—and forbidden from reading. They are recategorised under the new regime: women who can bear children become “handmaids”, made to conceive the babies of high-ranking military personnel whose wives are barren. Infertile women, dissidents and lesbians are sent to die farming toxic land.

With women’s reproductive rights at the centre of its narrative, the series has been praised for its timeliness. Ms Moss has said that the cast and crew “never wanted to show to be this relevant”. But as the Trump administration continues to cut funding and roll back family-planning services, it is easy to hear echoes of its rhetoric on the screen.

Yet “The Handmaid’s Tale” is searing because so many women have no more control over their own bodies today than they did in 1985. What rights they have earned are subject to the whims and political persuasions of men in power. If Ms Atwood’s tale feels nightmarish it is precisely because it is enduringly, and maddeningly, familiar.
 
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