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highplainsdem

(51,960 posts)
Fri May 10, 2024, 01:13 PM May 2024

Mark Jacobs: This is not normal

Twitter thread starting here, full text below.





Mark Jacob
@MarkJacob16

This is not normal.🧵
A candidate for president is explaining how a worm ate part of his brain while a rival who’s an ex-president is “cursing audibly” in court while listening to a porn star describe lousy sex with him while a key supporter who wants to be the ex-president’s …
10:21 AM · May 10, 2024


… running mate is bragging about shooting her dog in the head in a gravel pit and saying the current president ought to execute his own dog. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court justice whose wife plotted to overthrow the government is ruling on cases involving …


… the coup and whether the guy who led the coup had the right of “immunity” to order Seal Team 6 to assassinate his rivals if he felt like it. And while the court is considering that, it’s also deciding whether pregnant women in Idaho must wait in a …


… hospital parking lot until they get sick enough to convince emergency room doctors that they’ll definitely 100% die if they don’t get an abortion. Meanwhile, the ex-president’s party is accusing college presidents of antisemitism but not accusing the …


… ex-president himself even though he dined at his Florida resort with a Holocaust denier who jokingly compared the murder of Jews to cookies being baked in an oven. And the ex-president is selling Bibles while his supporters in Congress wear pins …


… in the shape of a rifle often used in school massacres, and his backers include a lawmaker who felt up her date in a theater while they were surrounded by children, and another lawmaker who showed photos of the president's son’s private parts …


… during a congressional hearing, and another supporter who said the president should deny baby formula to migrant infants at the border, and another supporter who said the deadly assault on the Capitol was a “normal tourist visit.” And this same …


… Bible-selling ex-president is a “law and order” guy even though he’s charged with 88 felonies, joked about a home invader using a hammer to fracture the skull of the House speaker's husband, and wants to pardon thugs who beat up 100+ cops at the Capitol.


Whew. I’m out of breath. For more about how media normalizes these absurdities, check out my free Stop the Presses newsletter.
https://www.stopthepresses.news/

31 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Mark Jacobs: This is not normal (Original Post) highplainsdem May 2024 OP
Yep dweller May 2024 #1
Yes. Which is why I wanted to post it here. highplainsdem May 2024 #3
The Republican media cracks the nutshells and piles up a bunch of nuts. live love laugh May 2024 #24
That says a lot that voters ought to consider. Kick and Rec. bucolic_frolic May 2024 #2
Thanks! highplainsdem May 2024 #4
Jacobs' opening line was a big DUH. But his map that follows gets five stars. Thanks! ancianita May 2024 #5
Boy, this says it all... karin_sj May 2024 #6
INDEED. AmBlue May 2024 #7
K&R Elessar Zappa May 2024 #8
Two timelines diverged when the.. LudwigPastorius May 2024 #9
I was literally going to ask where we took a wrong turn on the timeline... FirstLight May 2024 #29
I heard an interview today with Doris Kearns Goodwin about her new book. Lonestarblue May 2024 #10
Another time, another place. Biophilic May 2024 #12
USA is a sick nation and a sick society with failed media. PufPuf23 May 2024 #11
Yep Cosmocat May 2024 #18
Indeed....not normal. Sogo May 2024 #13
Well put! mahina May 2024 #14
Sigh. Is it the End Times yet? Hekate May 2024 #15
Two roads diverged in a red white and blue wood, and they... hvn_nbr_2 May 2024 #16
I don't see anything in there that is not birdographer May 2024 #17
Well, when you say it like thaaat....... 70sEraVet May 2024 #19
That was a most excellent summation of our current state of affairs. Uncle Joe May 2024 #20
It is possible that is could become normal. republianmushroom May 2024 #21
There are Americans that read that and think "that's absurd!" and there are others that think "WHITE NOISE...ZZZZ". Mr. Ected May 2024 #22
Kick dalton99a May 2024 #23
Nothing beats... czarjak May 2024 #25
Thanks for posting that, highplainsdem. I've bookmarked it. summer_in_TX May 2024 #26
Ripley's Believe It Or Not can never top this. Hermit-The-Prog May 2024 #27
Suspension of disbelief k55f5r May 2024 #28
The worm ate the part of his brain that would've SupportSanity May 2024 #30
Wow. 290 recs in 24 hours. I knew when I ran across this on Twitter that a lot of DUers would want to highplainsdem May 2024 #31

ancianita

(38,090 posts)
5. Jacobs' opening line was a big DUH. But his map that follows gets five stars. Thanks!
Fri May 10, 2024, 02:41 PM
May 2024


The more democracy is chipped away, the more corporate media normalize their own bloody profiteering.

karin_sj

(1,037 posts)
6. Boy, this says it all...
Fri May 10, 2024, 02:47 PM
May 2024

It's beyond the comprehension of a normal, decent person, but here we are. It's just unbelievable that our country has come to this. The founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves.

AmBlue

(3,425 posts)
7. INDEED.
Fri May 10, 2024, 02:50 PM
May 2024

Rather like a sledgehammer to the side of the head when you hear it all in one breath like that.

What in the world has happened to us?

LudwigPastorius

(10,615 posts)
9. Two timelines diverged when the..
Fri May 10, 2024, 03:03 PM
May 2024

Large Hadron Collider began full power experiments, rending space-time.

Somewhere, the normal, sane timeline moves on without us.

FirstLight

(13,861 posts)
29. I was literally going to ask where we took a wrong turn on the timeline...
Sat May 11, 2024, 12:37 PM
May 2024

somewhere we fell off the friggin map! lol

Lonestarblue

(11,531 posts)
10. I heard an interview today with Doris Kearns Goodwin about her new book.
Fri May 10, 2024, 03:07 PM
May 2024

The interviewer played a short clip of Bobby Kennedy speaking in South Africa, and I was once again struck with the richness of language we used to enjoy and the elevation of principles and human decency. We rarely have that these days. I love Biden, but he is more plain spoken, and of course Trump speaks in threats, lies., or utter nonsense.

The Kennedy speech was called the Day of Affirmation speech, and Richard Goodwin helped write it. Here’s an excerpt.

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice. He sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.”

How I miss such eloquence in our political speech.

PufPuf23

(9,233 posts)
11. USA is a sick nation and a sick society with failed media.
Fri May 10, 2024, 03:14 PM
May 2024

Should put our own house in order.

Not very optimistic about what may occur in my own limited life span.

birdographer

(2,496 posts)
17. I don't see anything in there that is not
Fri May 10, 2024, 04:15 PM
May 2024

republican-based. Every single one of these insane things comes from republicans. Every single one. And people support them and want to stay onboard. This should be spread far and wide, though of course the morons would be saying "cool" through the whole thing.

Uncle Joe

(59,966 posts)
20. That was a most excellent summation of our current state of affairs.
Fri May 10, 2024, 04:54 PM
May 2024


Thanks for the thread highplainsdem.

Mr. Ected

(9,684 posts)
22. There are Americans that read that and think "that's absurd!" and there are others that think "WHITE NOISE...ZZZZ".
Fri May 10, 2024, 07:07 PM
May 2024

Someone needs to figure out how to turn off that white noise cognitive dissonance machine. It's killing us.

czarjak

(12,330 posts)
25. Nothing beats...
Fri May 10, 2024, 11:56 PM
May 2024

"I'm a great Christian." from the guy that says he can't think of anything he needs forgiveness for to prove RealBS.

summer_in_TX

(3,121 posts)
26. Thanks for posting that, highplainsdem. I've bookmarked it.
Sat May 11, 2024, 12:27 AM
May 2024

I am a follower of Mark Jacob on Twitter. One of my favorites. Ex-editor at Chicago Tribune & Sun-Times. Co-author of 8 books. He has a free newsletter on politics & media at http://stopthepresses.news that I think you'll really enjoy. As a former editor, he is both an expert on and highly critical of what the NYT and other mainstream newspapers are doing. Plus he has a gift for a concise turn of phrase with a punch.

Here are a few recent Twitter posts of his that I've enjoyed.

MAGA Mike Johnson says he knows “intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting.” Which means he doesn’t know it, has no evidence of it, and is just spouting the Republican propaganda that facts don’t matter but feelings do.
They’re attacking our democracy with vibes.


I’m not asking journalists to campaign for Joe Biden. I’m asking journalists to say clearly that there’s a right-wing plot to create a fascist dictatorship.
Many journalists are afraid to say it even though it’s true. And their refusal to say it makes a dictatorship more likely.


There are working-class Trump supporters out there who think people like Trump and Jared Kushner are sticking up for them — when they’re really sticking them up.


k55f5r

(386 posts)
28. Suspension of disbelief
Sat May 11, 2024, 12:15 PM
May 2024

Wikipedia

American psychological critic Norman N. Holland provided a neuroscientific theory of suspension of disbelief.[15] Neurally, when a person engages with a narrative in a work of fiction, the brain goes wholly into a perceiving mode, engaging less intensely with the faculties for acting or planning to act; "poetic faith" is a willing act that is supported by the value of a narrative that is being engaged with. When the person stops perceiving to think about what has been seen or heard, its "truth-value" is assessed.[12]

highplainsdem

(51,960 posts)
31. Wow. 290 recs in 24 hours. I knew when I ran across this on Twitter that a lot of DUers would want to
Sat May 11, 2024, 01:18 PM
May 2024

see it, but the response still took me by surprise.

Finding something like this thread is why I'm still skimming Twitter posts. There are a lot of very interesting and intelligent people there still.

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