Covid-19 Gallows Humor

insomniac7809 · Apr 24, 2020, 6:29 PM

Fuck's sake, NYT.

"On a crowded subway train, a urine-scented man made the claim--unlikely, in the view of some experts--that Sandra Bullock implanted a chip in his scrotum that lets the government read his thoughts."

surreality · Apr 24, 2020, 7:02 PM

@insomniac7809 I saw mention of this one when I braced for the morning news check. I just called my husband in to listen to it with me because I suspected -- and was not wrong -- that I would simply be raggedly screaming and gibbering incoherently at the screen and thoroughly unable to explain why for several minutes.

It's more, uh... fun when we're both doing that, anyway.

Are we at the point of doing reaction videos to these press conferences yet? Because while I wouldn't be doing it, I sense a major opening here.

Auspice · Apr 24, 2020, 7:07 PM

I'm honestly not sure if I'm more flabbergasted at Trump or the Vegas mayor's stunt this week.

Because, I mean, I've kind of come to expect this kind of shit from Trump. I less expect it from other politicians.

Alamias · Apr 24, 2020, 7:13 PM

@surreality Oh, there have been.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/24/birx-reaction-trump-disinfectant-vpx.cnn

insomniac7809 · Apr 25, 2020, 2:03 AM

Kestrel · Apr 25, 2020, 3:22 AM

@Alamias said in Covid-19 Gallows Humor:

@surreality Oh, there have been.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/24/birx-reaction-trump-disinfectant-vpx.cnn

At this point I think it's fair to say the president is just gaslighting the public.

I don't know what else to call this whole tactic of 'I didn't say what I literally just said, I wasn't talking to the person I was clearly talking to, and I was being sarcastic, when I clearly wasn't.'

I mean, what.

It wasn't even very good gaslighting. He can surely come up with better lies than that.

GreenFlashlight · Apr 25, 2020, 3:33 AM

@Kestrel said in Covid-19 Gallows Humor:

It wasn't even very good gaslighting. He can surely come up with better lies than that.

The lies aren't for us. They're not really even for his base. They're for himself, so they don't need to be good.

insomniac7809 · Apr 25, 2020, 3:50 AM

@Kestrel said in Covid-19 Gallows Humor:

It wasn't even very good gaslighting. He can surely come up with better lies than that.

To lift from the Avatar section of 2nd Edition Unknown Armies:

Taboos: Whatever doubt the Demagogue might feel, no matter what reservations might plague him privately, the Demagogue never admits he was wrong, especially not in public. There can be weaseling (“It now appears that I was given incorrect information—but the basic premises of my ideas are still as logical and rock-solid as ever . . .”) and waffling (“Oh, you misinterpreted what I said. Here’s what I meant . . .”) but any show of ideological softness is a break with the archetype.

This doesn’t mean the Demagogue can’t change his position or contradict himself. Far from it—all it means is that each change and contradiction has to be presented as the logical consequence of what went before. If you said the Information Superhighway was bad last Thursday and now you’re saying it’s good, that’s not a problem. You have many options. One is to explain that what you said last Thursday was deliberately misinterpreted by your enemies (the CIA, a crypto-fascist political conspiracy, the bleeding-heart liberal press, whoever).
The other is to simply bull your way through: “My position on the Information Superhighway has not changed, and I will not stand for these smears and accusations!”

Released in 2002, BTW. Just... putting that out there.