Media credibility in the age of Trump


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Just now, Scott said:

I didn't post the pictures of the sources, but I said that I trusted Pew, which is the same source you used. Here are a bunch of sources:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/09/how-the-world-views-the-u-s-and-its-president-in-9-charts/

I was just waiting to see what sources you came up with. 😏

Okay then.  Dig up the details for Asia.

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Guest Scott
7 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Sigh.  "I have never been treated so well in any country than in Indonesia" - you must not have passed by the Philippines. 

I just haven't gotten there yet, but we plan to.   It is high on our list.  Some of the things high on our list for the Philippines, are climbing Mount Pulog, trekking to the mummy caves around the Kobayan Valley, spelunking at Sumaguing, canyoning in Cebu, and rafting in various places in Luzon.

Quote

And guess what, your experience as a dollar-carrying tourist is vastly different than how people regard your country.

I know that, but did you read the trip report?   We spend most of our time hiking and doing other things that cost very little to no money, though we did a few touristy things as well. 

 

Quote

Indonesia do not hold the US in high regard

They used to.   Indonesia had a pretty high regard for the US, especially considering that it is an Islamic country.  

Also, in many places, even when dirt bagging it (travelling with very little money), a lot of people are positive towards Americans themselves even if not towards our leaders or foreign policies.  

Quote

  They held Obama in higher regard than the previous administrations because Obama grew up in Indonesia.

We didn't here anything about Obama, but we did hear a lot of positive things about the US concerning the aid rendered after the tsunami.   

In most areas I have been to, people have been welcoming even if they knew that I was an American.   One thing I learned while travelling so many places is that people are people and for the most part people like Americans, despite what we might think.

It's  generalization for sure, but Indonesia was the friendliest country I have been to and Russia was the least.  

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20 minutes ago, Scott said:

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.  Maybe you could explain it some more.  

I would have said the same thing I did about the US and the Saudis regardless if Trump were elected or not. 

To put it briefly, Saudi Arabia needs our protection (we spend billions on protecting Saudi), but they haven't been giving enough in return.  They don't share US values and haven't done much to curtail terrorism.   They are still terrible with human rights, even if there have been some improvements.  

Someone in the US needs to step forward and do something about this.   I don't care who it is or what party they belong to.   I was hoping that it would be Trump.  I still hope that it is Trump since he is the current president.   I thought that there was a chance that he might actually do this (and he has my support if he would), but I've kind of lost hope that he would do this. I knew that Obama didn't have the guts to do it, but I was really hoping that Trump would.   My hope has mostly faded on that hope though since as unixknight points out Trump looks at everything from a business and competition standpoint.  

This is MSM propaganda.

The Saudi issue is much bigger than "Saudis need our protection" and "Do something about human rights".   That's why I told you Marco Rubio's interview is a ginormous clue trying to pin Tillerson on a foreign policy position according to Saudi women driving. 

And Trump is the only one who is actually doing what is needed to cautiously leverage Saudi for that geopolitical arena instead of shaping foreign policy according to the desires of the globalists.  This locust nest is in the same henhouse as the issue with Syria and the rest of the Levant vis-a-vis the globalist control of the EU and the UN.  This is too big for me to write on a 3H thread and frankly, I don't think you know enough about the background for me to even be understood without having to write a thesis.  So, suffice it to say that the new millennial Saudi Prince is a very important power in that arena and the fact that the globalists are screeching against him even as he is more progressive towards human rights shows there is more to it than the MSM-presented narrative.  There's a ton of material all over alternative sites you can dig up on this if you are so inclined to dig.

Edited by anatess2
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3 minutes ago, Scott said:

I just haven't gotten there yet, but we plan to.   It is high on our list.  Some of the things high on our list for the Philippines, are climbing Mount Pulog, trekking to the mummy caves around the Kobayan Valley, spelunking at Sumaguing, canyoning in Cebu, and rafting in various places in Luzon.

I know that, but did you read the trip report?   We spend most of our time hiking and doing other things that cost very little to no money, though we did a few touristy things as well. 

 

They used to.   Indonesia had a pretty high regard for the US, especially considering that it is an Islamic country.  

Also, in many places, even when dirt bagging it (travelling with very little money), a lot of people are positive towards Americans themselves even if not towards our leaders or foreign policies.  

We didn't here anything about Obama, but we did hear a lot of positive things about the US concerning the aid rendered after the tsunami.   

In most areas I have been to, people have been welcoming even if they knew that I was an American.   One thing I learned while travelling so many places is that people are people and for the most part people like Americans, despite what we might think.

It's  generalization for sure, but Indonesia was the friendliest country I have been to and Russia was the least.  

See here... we are talking about 2 different perspectives - one coming from an American tourist getting his perspective from people treating people nicely, the other coming from Asian politicians who have to make foreign policy decisions according to a foreign country's favorability with its people.

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Guest Scott
23 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Okay then.  Dig up the details for Asia.

Sure.  Thanks for posting the 2018 data.   From the same source you pointed out (and I mentioned, here are graphs for various Asian countries for the years 2004-2017.  I wish that they had the 2018 data, but luckily you provided that.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be recent data for countries like Malaysia, Thailand, or China.  I'd really like to see those ones.

Here is Japan:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/109/

Philippines:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/173/

(PS, I admit that I was wrong about favor-ability improving since Trump.  From a different conversation you and I had in the past, I thought favor-ability when up in the Philippines, but I guess I was wrong).    

South Korea:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/116/

Indonesia:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/101/

Vietnam:


https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/239/

India:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/100/



 

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You know, the Pew article cited earlier shows a broader trend about how the world views the US:

—They love us when we elect Democrats.

—They hate us when we elect Republicans.

Trump is just the latest manifestation of this trend.

Trump’s critics can’t have it both ways.  They can’t kvetch about purported international meddling in American elections while also suggesting that our primary responsibility is to elect a president the international community finds acceptable.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Guest Scott
18 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

See here... we are talking about 2 different perspectives - one coming from an American tourist getting his perspective from people treating people nicely, the other coming from Asian politicians who have to make foreign policy decisions according to a foreign country's favorability with its people.

I agree; we are talking about 2 different perspectives.

My comment about Indonesia as being the friendlies country I have been to (out of 56) had to do with the I was treated there as an American.  I didn't hear one negative thing about the US the entire time I was there and only heard positive things.   We talked about the US a lot with people because people would ask us about it.  Everyone wanted to hear all about "Amereeka" and life within it.   This was true about people who we met cutting wood out on trails or doing farm chores and they weren't asking us for money and they had nothing to sell.  If they had a camera, people wanted to take pictures with us.   They would come out to meet us and were fascinated that we were travelling with our young children.  

So yes, a different perspective.  

Edited by Scott
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7 minutes ago, Scott said:

Sure.  Thanks for posting the 2018 data.   From the same source you pointed out (and I mentioned, here are graphs for various Asian countries for the years 2004-2017.  I wish that they had the 2018 data, but luckily you provided that.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be recent data for countries like Malaysia, Thailand, or China.  I'd really like to see those ones.

Here is Japan:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/109/

Philippines:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/173/

(PS, I admit that I was wrong about favor-ability improving since Trump.  From a different conversation you and I had in the past, I thought favor-ability when up in the Philippines, but I guess I was wrong).    

South Korea:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/116/

Indonesia:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/101/

Vietnam:


https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/239/

India:

https://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/100/



 

Perfect.

So... all these are taken during March of the year.  So, the favorability in 2017 would be 2 months of Trump in office in which he hasn't quite established his foreign policy yet, his image is still based on his zero political experience and his bombastic rhetoric.  Favorability in 2018 is one year after that in which he has already established the Pacific Alliance and started trade negotiations and even dropped a MOAB in Syria.

So Japan went from 48 upon Trump's election to 67 in one year.  Philippines went from 78 to 83.  South Korea went from 75 to 80... do you see what's happening here?

 

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Guest Scott
11 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

You know, the Pew article cited earlier shows a broader trend about how the world views the US:

—They love us when we elect Democrats.

—They hate us when we elect Republicans.

Trump is just the latest manifestation of this trend.

Trump’s critics can’t have it both ways.  They can’t kvetch about purported international meddling in American elections while also suggesting that our primary responsibility is to elect a president the international community finds acceptable.

It's more complicated than that.  It has only been like that since the Iraq War.

Bush I was fairly popular throughout most of the world.  Clinton was fairly popular as well.  Bush II was actually popular before the Iraq War.  After the Iraq War, favorability towards the US went way down among most of our allies.    Much of the world felt lied to concerning the reasons for the invasion and further the war did not go well.  It caused a lot of instability and refugees poured into a lot of countries that were our allies.  Favorability increased under Obama, but has once again dropped under Trump for various reasons, this time not related to the Iraq War.

Had the Iraq War not happened, or at least had it gone well, we wouldn't be seeing the same trends.  

 

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Guest Scott
12 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So Japan went from 48 upon Trump's election to 67 in one year.  Philippines went from 78 to 83.  South Korea went from 75 to 80... do you see what's happening here?

 

Yes, I see what is happening here.   Favorability at first went down when Trump was elected, but is starting to climb back up, but still not quite to the same level as it was before Trump was elected.  Would you agree?  

Here are the figures using only data at the end of the Obama presidency:

1959079138_EndofPresidency.JPG.6ffcd70b840d4c8e6c981805b15a204d.JPG

So even though favorability has improved over 2017 in places like Japan or South Korea, it is still lower than when Obama left office.   At least as of 2018.  Maybe 2019 or 2020 will be different, but that's how it stands now.  

Edited by Scott
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6 minutes ago, Scott said:

I agree; we are talking about 2 different perspectives.

My comment about Indonesia as being the friendlies country I have been to (out of 56) had to do with the I was treated there as an American.  I didn't hear one negative thing about the US the entire time I was there and only heard positive things.   We talked about the US a lot with people because people would ask us about it.  Everyone wanted to hear all about "Amereeka" and life within it.   This was true about people who we met cutting wood out on trails or doing farm chores and they weren't asking us for money and they had nothing to sell.  If they had a camera, people wanted to take pictures with us.   They would come out to meet us and were fascinated that we were travelling with our young children.  

So yes, a different perspective.  

I'll give you the other perspective.  By the way, this is also true for South Philippines - very close to Indonesia.

First:  Your travel advisory - same as what you get in the Philippines.  https://www.theweek.co.uk/travel/93670/is-it-safe-to-travel-to-indonesia-in-2018

And the history of those civil unrests:  (This is from the American perspective.  When you read it, look at it from the Indonesian perspective of an independent nation being meddled with by a foreign power) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/the-indonesia-documents-and-the-us-agenda/543534/

Now, the Philippines has the same history with Marcos.  And the anti-US protests were also legend in the same manner as Indonesia so much so that we got US bases closed down.  But, as the Philippines has a long history with the USA - especially during WWII - the events of the US war with communism that led to the dictatorship of Marcos and eventually the close down of US military bases in the Philippines did not cause anti-American sentiment to get as bad in the Philippines as has happened in Indonesia.  So, Indonesia showing that Pew number with the low US favorability rating under 50% is quite accurate regardless of your individual experience in Indonesia as an ordinary American.

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17 minutes ago, Scott said:

Yes, I see what is happening here.   Favorability at first went down when Trump was elected, but is starting to climb back up, but still not quite to the same level as it was before Trump was elected.  Would you agree?  

Here are the figures using only data at the end of the Obama presidency:

1959079138_EndofPresidency.JPG.6ffcd70b840d4c8e6c981805b15a204d.JPG

So even though favorability has improved over 2017 in places like Japan or South Korea, it is still lower than when Obama left office.   At least as of 2018.  Maybe 2019 or 2020 will be different, but that's how it stands now.  

This is how you look at those numbers:  Bush's war on terror put America at low favorability worldwide.  Obama got a Nobel Peace Price just because he got elected into office.  Obama was touted worldwide as this Kumbaya guy complete with full on press narrative.  Trump, on the other hand, is touted worldwide as Orange Man Bad.  

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53 minutes ago, Scott said:

It's more complicated than that.  It has only been like that since the Iraq War.

Bush I was fairly popular throughout most of the world.  Clinton was fairly popular as well.  Bush II was actually popular before the Iraq War.  After the Iraq War, favorability towards the US went way down among most of our allies.    Much of the world felt lied to concerning the reasons for the invasion and further the war did not go well.  It caused a lot of instability and refugees poured into a lot of countries that were our allies.  Favorability increased under Obama, but has once again dropped under Trump for various reasons, this time not related to the Iraq War.

Had the Iraq War not happened, or at least had it gone well, we wouldn't be seeing the same trends.  

 

Scott, correct me if I’m wrong, but some of those Pew stats went back to 2001.  And speaking anecdotally (and yes, I realize that’s problematic), western Europe was complaining about Reagan’s boat-rocking and cold warrioring right up until the Berlin Wall actually fell.  

Blaming Bush-II and the Iraq War smacks of revisionist history to me.  It seems more likely there have been fundamental cultural and philosophical differences separating us from “Old Europe” since 1776 on a variety of topics including limited government, self-sufficiency, religion, public morality, quid-pro-quo governance, anti-elitism, and the like.  Democrats over the last fifty years have sought to erase those differences; whereas Republicans have been more wont to celebrate them.  And Europe hates us for it.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

You know, the Pew article cited earlier shows a broader trend about how the world views the US:

—They love us when we elect Democrats.

—They hate us when we elect Republicans.

Trump is just the latest manifestation of this trend.

Trump’s critics can’t have it both ways.  They can’t kvetch about purported international meddling in American elections while also suggesting that our primary responsibility is to elect a president the international community finds acceptable.

Honestly this doesn't surprise me.  Republicans tend to prioritize U.S. interests over those of other nations more than Democrats do, (at least, that's the perception, and this is all about perception.) and of course everything we do gets exaggerated.  

 

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Guest Scott
20 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I'll give you the other perspective.  By the way, this is also true for South Philippines - very close to Indonesia.

First:  Your travel advisory - same as what you get in the Philippines.  https://www.theweek.co.uk/travel/93670/is-it-safe-to-travel-to-indonesia-in-2018

And the history of those civil unrests:  (This is from the American perspective.  When you read it, look at it from the Indonesian perspective of an independent nation being meddled with by a foreign power) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/the-indonesia-documents-and-the-us-agenda/543534/

Yes, I know quite a bit of the history there.   You are right about some of the past decades.

As far as the warnings go, I'd still be OK with travelling to Indonesia right now (but not places like North Korea or Iraq-no way).  I don;'t go out and blatantly do stuff to attract attention to myself or intentionally seek danger like some out there.   

Everyone worried about civil unrest, but when you look at the murder rates there, they are really low.   Plus, most of the scariest experiences I've had while travelling have to do with riding in cars and buses-that truly is scary.       

Most people around the world are still good.  They weren't close calls by any means, but I do have at least a little experience with terrorism.   I was at the Taj Mahal when the Taliban threatened an attack on the building in 2001.   I was also near Poon Hill when a bomb was set off from the Moaist, though the bomb was too small to do much of anything.

Still, things happen here too.    Statistically, I'd probably be safer in Indonesia than the US when it comes to people intentionally trying to harm you, but that's not true of everywhere.  That doesn't mean that I ignore the dangers and possibilities though. 
 

20 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So, Indonesia showing that Pew number with the low US favorability rating under 50% is quite accurate regardless of your individual experience in Indonesia as an ordinary American.

During the Obama years it was 54 to 63% favorability.  It was even higher in the 1990's.   That's really good coming from the most populous Islamic majority nation in the world.  It has dropped since then, but on the plus side it's a lot better now than it was during the post Iraq invasion Bush years.

I suspect that at least some of the drop isn't due to Trumps policies, but with his negative comments towards Muslims.   Indonesia is of course the most populous Islamic country in the world, so this isn't that surprising.    

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Guest Scott
5 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Honestly this doesn't surprise me.  Republicans tend to prioritize U.S. interests over those of other nations more than Democrats do

 

I disagree.   Trump may do that, but pre-Trump Republicans have been guilty of wanting to meddle more with world affairs and other countries than the Democrats have, at least since WWII.  

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Guest Godless
30 minutes ago, Scott said:

As far as the warnings go, I'd still be OK with travelling to Indonesia right now (but not places like North Korea or Iraq-no way).  I don;'t go out and blatantly do stuff to attract attention to myself or intentionally seek danger like some out there.   

Common sense when traveling: Don't draw attention to yourself.

My BIL towards the end of his 6 month stay in Jakarta:

 

FB_IMG_1553887037352.jpg

My niece and nephew think their dad is a celebrity now. 😂

Edited by Godless
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29 minutes ago, Scott said:

I disagree.   Trump may do that, but pre-Trump Republicans have been guilty of wanting to meddle more with world affairs and other countries than the Democrats have, at least since WWII.  

Of course they did... in the name of prioritizing U.S. interests.  When you look at the military actions performed by the U.S. they're nearly always to secure and promote U.S. interests.  We don't go to war over every invasion or civil war that happens in the world, just the ones that affect U.S. interests in some way, whether they're diplomatic, economic or strategic.

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Guest Scott
1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Scott, correct me if I’m wrong, but some of those Pew stats went back to 2001.  And speaking anecdotally (and yes, I realize that’s problematic), western Europe was complaining about Reagan’s boat-rocking and cold warrioring right up until the Berlin Wall actually fell  

 

They were complaining about some of it and rightly so.    Operation Cyclone (started under the Carter Administration, but really vamped up during the Reagan Administration) and the Reagan Doctrine really came back to bite many of the nations, including Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the US.

Operation Cyclone and the Reagan Doctrine both involves arming and supporting dictatorships (such as Saddam Hussein) and terrorists groups (such as the predecessors to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as well as in Latin America).  Operation Cyclone and the Reagan Doctrine were both open about it too and called the Islamic extremists "freedom fighters".   This was true no matter what kinds of atrocities they were committing.   It was known that that they were arming Islamic extremists.   

It goes back farther than that though.    The UK and the CIA were both responsible for the 1953 Iranian coup d'état which is the root of many of today's problems in the Middle East (and Britain was doing a lot of things before that too.  

Much of the world (with some justification) blames the UK and US for starting some of the problems in the world and then pulling out and leaving things a mess.  

Quote

Blaming Bush-II and the Iraq War smacks of revisionist history to me.

Not blaming the Iraq War would be revisionists history.  After 9/11, support for the US (and Bush II) among most of the world skyrocketed.  After the Iraq War it plummeted.   Things may have turned out different had the Iraq War gone well, but it didn't.  This really effected much of the world.   Further, much of the world felt that they were lied to (by the US) about the war and were conned into joining it.  

Quote

It seems more likely there have been fundamental cultural and philosophical differences separating us from “Old Europe” since 1776 on a variety of topics including limited government, self-sufficiency, religion, public morality, quid-pro-quo governance, anti-elitism, and the like.  Democrats over the last fifty years have sought to erase those differences; whereas Republicans have been more wont to celebrate them.  And Europe hates us for it.

This is part of it, but foreign policy, especially since the Iraq War is a much bigger factor in the plunge of the favorability.   The Democrats and Republicans didn't all of the sudden take the position above right when the Iraq War happened.   You can see in the data what was causing most of the discontent.  

With Trump though, I believe that it has more to do with his rhetoric and threats.   My own prediction though is that with time, Trump's favorability will slowly rise outside the US.

=======================================================================================================

Also, of note, it isn't just the US where certain trends have happened since the Iraq War, regardless of what caused them.

Let's forget about the CNN or Fox News Polls since bias can be claimed.   We all know that polls can be wrong as well.   The Gallup Poll, however seems to have a solid foundation for providing accurate non-biased polls.    I would consider them to be as trustworthy as you can expect from any similar poll.

I'm not saying that the Iraq War is the cause of all the discontent in the US, but let's explore a few interesting facts using the Gallup Poll.   The US itself has become more divided since the Iraq War, regardless of what the causes were.  

Since the Gallup Poll was instituted in the 1930's, pre-Iraq War, all US presidents except for Nixon were able to obtain an approval rating of at least 70 sometime during their presidency.  This includes FD Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II.   That's 66+ years of US presidents, with only 5.5 year gap where a  where a US president was unable to obtain a 70% approval rating.  Since March 2003 though, an interesting trend has occurred.  The presidential approval rating hasn't even reached 70 once.  Not under Bush II, not under Obama, and not under Trump.   I doubt it will happen during the next presidency either.

Congressional Approval ratings are even more telling.   In, 2001 Congressional approval ratings reached an all time high of 84%.   30-60% was the norm for many decades before 2001.

For the last several years though, Congressional approval ratings have been anywhere from the single digits to the 20's.  Those are historic lows as far as the time period of data tracking goes.

So why did this trend start at the time of the Iraq War and what does the Iraq War have to do with any of it?

The Iraq War changed history more than people realize.  

Here's my take:

If the Iraq War hadn't happened, I don't think there was a chance in Hades that Obama would have been elected over McCain as president.   McCain might not be popular among Republicans now, but he was back then.

The Iraq War indirectly caused the Democrats to have enough elected officials in congress to push there agendas successfully.  Due the Iraq War and economic crash, Democrats were being elected in droves.  People weren't necessarily turning Democrat, but they were voting against Bush and Republicans.   The Democrats used this to their advantage to create a leftward shift in the United States.   Obviously the Republicans didn't like this and began pushback when the majorities faded.   They set out to repeal all of the policies that they could.   The democrats are pushing back as hard as they can because they know that there is little change of getting some of the policies pushed through again if they are repealed.  

Politics have always been messy, but the country is a lot more polarized now than it has been in a long time.   The above is a lot of the reason.   It isn't the only reason though.  Social media and the media in general have a lot to do with it too.

I still think that the Iraq War (indirectly) changed the US in a lot more than people realize.  

It changed a lot of countries indirectly as well.   We can discuss those too if you would like.  It really affected Europe as well and continues to have a lot of negative consequences.  

 

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Guest Scott
19 minutes ago, unixknight said:

We don't go to war over every invasion or civil war that happens in the world, just the ones that affect U.S. interests in some way, whether they're diplomatic, economic or strategic.

I see what you are saying and agree with you.  

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6 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Who wants to starve poor children and dance on their corpses?

And speaking of child killers... MS13 are child killers.

Whoosh...

Normally you are a lot brighter and catch on to things a LOT faster.

It was taking things just as much out of context as the comment above it to show the fallacy.  It's how some interpret some of the moves that  Trump has done in regards to programs to feed and give medical care to children.

However, just like the one above it was exaggerated to a point that was stating basically anyone who didn't agree with Trump was as it stated, I was trying to demonstrate how obviously biased and slanted it was. 

Not that those who support Trump actually ARE doing this...

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1 hour ago, Scott said:

They were complaining about some of it and rightly so.    Operation Cyclone (started under the Carter Administration, but really vamped up during the Reagan Administration) and the Reagan Doctrine really came back to bite many of the nations, including Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the US.

Operation Cyclone and the Reagan Doctrine both involves arming and supporting dictatorships (such as Saddam Hussein) and terrorists groups (such as the predecessors to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as well as in Latin America).  Operation Cyclone and the Reagan Doctrine were both open about it too and called the Islamic extremists "freedom fighters".   This was true no matter what kinds of atrocities they were committing.   It was known that that they were arming Islamic extremists.   

It goes back farther than that though.    The UK and the CIA were both responsible for the 1953 Iranian coup d'état which is the root of many of today's problems in the Middle East (and Britain was doing a lot of things before that too.  

Much of the world (with some justification) blames the UK and US for starting some of the problems in the world and then pulling out and leaving things a mess.  

Not blaming the Iraq War would be revisionists history.  After 9/11, support for the US (and Bush II) among most of the world skyrocketed.  After the Iraq War it plummeted.   Things may have turned out different had the Iraq War gone well, but it didn't.  This really effected much of the world.   Further, much of the world felt that they were lied to (by the US) about the war and were conned into joining it.  

This is part of it, but foreign policy, especially since the Iraq War is a much bigger factor in the plunge of the favorability.   The Democrats and Republicans didn't all of the sudden take the position above right when the Iraq War happened.   You can see in the data what was causing most of the discontent.  

With Trump though, I believe that it has more to do with his rhetoric and threats.   My own prediction though is that with time, Trump's favorability will slowly rise outside the US.

=======================================================================================================

Also, of note, it isn't just the US where certain trends have happened since the Iraq War, regardless of what caused them.

Let's forget about the CNN or Fox News Polls since bias can be claimed.   We all know that polls can be wrong as well.   The Gallup Poll, however seems to have a solid foundation for providing accurate non-biased polls.    I would consider them to be as trustworthy as you can expect from any similar poll.

I'm not saying that the Iraq War is the cause of all the discontent in the US, but let's explore a few interesting facts using the Gallup Poll.   The US itself has become more divided since the Iraq War, regardless of what the causes were.  

Since the Gallup Poll was instituted in the 1930's, pre-Iraq War, all US presidents except for Nixon were able to obtain an approval rating of at least 70 sometime during their presidency.  This includes FD Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II.   That's 66+ years of US presidents, with only 5.5 year gap where a  where a US president was unable to obtain a 70% approval rating.  Since March 2003 though, an interesting trend has occurred.  The presidential approval rating hasn't even reached 70 once.  Not under Bush II, not under Obama, and not under Trump.   I doubt it will happen during the next presidency either.

Congressional Approval ratings are even more telling.   In, 2001 Congressional approval ratings reached an all time high of 84%.   30-60% was the norm for many decades before 2001.

For the last several years though, Congressional approval ratings have been anywhere from the single digits to the 20's.  Those are historic lows as far as the time period of data tracking goes.

So why did this trend start at the time of the Iraq War and what does the Iraq War have to do with any of it?

The Iraq War changed history more than people realize.  

Here's my take:

If the Iraq War hadn't happened, I don't think there was a chance in Hades that Obama would have been elected over McCain as president.   McCain might not be popular among Republicans now, but he was back then.

The Iraq War indirectly caused the Democrats to have enough elected officials in congress to push there agendas successfully.  Due the Iraq War and economic crash, Democrats were being elected in droves.  People weren't necessarily turning Democrat, but they were voting against Bush and Republicans.   The Democrats used this to their advantage to create a leftward shift in the United States.   Obviously the Republicans didn't like this and began pushback when the majorities faded.   They set out to repeal all of the policies that they could.   The democrats are pushing back as hard as they can because they know that there is little change of getting some of the policies pushed through again if they are repealed.  

Politics have always been messy, but the country is a lot more polarized now than it has been in a long time.   The above is a lot of the reason.   It isn't the only reason though.  Social media and the media in general have a lot to do with it too.

I still think that the Iraq War (indirectly) changed the US in a lot more than people realize.  

It changed a lot of countries indirectly as well.   We can discuss those too if you would like.  It really affected Europe as well and continues to have a lot of negative consequences.  

 

Scott, I apologize that time doesn’t permit me to fully engage with your excellent post.  I will simply note the following as a general response:

—Yes, even before Operation Iraqi Freedom Europe was disposed to dislike Republican presidents.  I think that was my point.  The Pew data suggests that even before 9/11 the percentage of Brits/Frenchmen/Germans who approved of the American president was 30/20/50%, and all of those countries spiked to 80-90% with the election of the next Democrat.  Western Europe will *never* love a Republican president under the existing American party system.  I maintain that suggesting Trump—or even Iraq—was the turning point, requires a certain degree of revisionism; or at least willful tunnel-vision.  Moreover, if we suggest that the world resents is not only for invading Iraq, but for leaving it a mess thereafter—the problem with that is that Obama’s approval numbers remained quite bouyant, even as ISIS rose up to fill the vacuum Obama left behind.  

—I think your points about the Iraq war as a turning point within American politics are interesting, and may be more on-point. Even so, I think Iraq was in a lot of ways symptomatic of some deeper divisions within the US that had been festering for a while.  I don’t know that the anti-war campaign would have gotten the legs that it ultimately got, if not for discontent over the results of Bush v. Gore; and of course that itself was the result of other pre-existing factors and trends.  I mean, amongst the left and even center-left, Saddam Hussein’s image went from Proto-Hitler and the most hated man in America, to a victim of Bushie cowboy diplomacy and corporatist oil-lust, in ten years.  That takes some doing by the media, and they didn’t do it because of their innate love for middle-eastern warlords.  A major cadre of opinion influencers in American politics and media hated Bush more than they hated Hussein, before the war even started—and there were reasons for that.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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3 hours ago, anatess2 said:

This is MSM propaganda.

The Saudi issue is much bigger than "Saudis need our protection" and "Do something about human rights".   That's why I told you Marco Rubio's interview is a ginormous clue trying to pin Tillerson on a foreign policy position according to Saudi women driving. 

And Trump is the only one who is actually doing what is needed to cautiously leverage Saudi for that geopolitical arena instead of shaping foreign policy according to the desires of the globalists.  This locust nest is in the same henhouse as the issue with Syria and the rest of the Levant vis-a-vis the globalist control of the EU and the UN.  This is too big for me to write on a 3H thread and frankly, I don't think you know enough about the background for me to even be understood without having to write a thesis.  So, suffice it to say that the new millennial Saudi Prince is a very important power in that arena and the fact that the globalists are screeching against him even as he is more progressive towards human rights shows there is more to it than the MSM-presented narrative.  There's a ton of material all over alternative sites you can dig up on this if you are so inclined to dig.

Saudi Arabia is probably the US's oldest ally in the region.  There is currently a Cold War going on in the region and proxy wars are being fought there.  We can either back Saudi Arabia or Iran...or we can back neither and see them both develop nuclear weapons and turn it into a sheet of glass while putting a ton of radiation in the atmosphere that could cause a nice nuclear winter for the rest of the world. 

There's a BIG reason we are in the Middle East and though some of it has to do with oil (actually a LOT of it) there's also a lot that has to deal with larger implications.  Even without a development of nuclear weapons (and it's not for lack of trying, if we weren't there to back Saudi you better believe they'd be working on it full steam as well just to counter Iran), it's pretty important right now.  A conflict there could spiral out of control to inflict the rest of the world into another world war...with the US on one side and either Russia or China on the other.

The only spot I'd say that is more precarious may (that's a may) in regards to the type of threat it poses to the world currently could be the Pakistan/India situation.  There, the threat of nuclear war is far closer as both are believed to have fully available nuclear arsenals at this point, and they aren't exactly getting peachy with each other.

52 minutes ago, Scott said:

I see what you are saying and agree with you.  

Just using your quote to bounce off of it in commentary to the rest of the thread that's occurred,

I think it is too early to know what Mueller came up with.  People are jumping to conclusions without actually seeing it.  I think we'll have a better idea when we see it.

On the idea regarding Trump...My personal feeling is that Europe, their favorability has gone down overall due to Trump's portrayal in the media.  They are dealing with their own nationalism that is rising in their own nations, as well as other pressing difficulties as we see in France among some of the more liberal nations.  Those who still control the majority see these as troublesome, and perhaps just as much as Trump is troubling the US in their own minds (as portrayed by the media).  They fear such things coming to their own nations I think.

It's a lot less clear the further Eastward you go.  Western Europe seems to have a low opinion of Trump, but the more East you get, some don't care and some have other worries.  In Western and Southern Europe you have governments that would probably be considered very liberal, even by US standards.  As @Just_A_Guy points out, they tend to find the US government and ensuing policies more favorably when Democrats are in charge then when Republicans are.  I think this has a LOT to do with viewpoint.  They are very liberal (even compared to Democrats in the US) and thus as you get congressmen and politicians that are closer to their views, they'll have more favorable outlooks on those politicians...while those who are further from their views will be viewed less favorably.

Japan and South Korea are always in love with the US (putting as second below their own), but anecdotal experience seems to indicate that even in Asia not everyone is absolutely pleased with Trump.  I think it varies greatly between nation to nation.

 

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Here ya go:  Fresh off the press.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about the journalist Dafna Linzer, head of NBC/MSNBC politics.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1111678823072854016.html

Now, why this is a big deal when this is just a “stupid scoop”... well, because of this tidbit from the 2016 campaign season that Linzer tried to dismiss as just a friendly gathering, not strategizing at all.

https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/4203#

BUSTED!

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In 1969 I accidently stumbled into the events that unfolded into a global news item.  Having seen the events unfold with my own eyes and then observe the coverage - since then I have never believed it possible for someone with a bias to honestly report the news.  I have also come to believe that no one, especially in any news organization, is without a bias. 

 

The Traveler

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