https://youtu.be/10uX2EhSflA?si=K-wytip7KlVm3KtH

Here's another example of Wokeness !

https://youtu.be/bKhR9i5CGkA?si=goyJ4LBcSnlffifv

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Dear mhaze,

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Thanks for that.

I see from your posts that you continue to think that I have some hidden agenda, parti-pris, prejudice, ideology to defend, or axe-to-grind.

Please be assured that if ever that should transpire from my posts it is unconscious, undesired, contrary to my principles, and against my will. It could, of course, be an unintended error of expression or lack of precision on my part or, perhaps, a false presumption or error of interpretation of the reader.

Once again, I affirm what I wrote to you on another thread (“Donald Trump Day One”) :

« As for me, my compass on life’s journey is to head for the facts and limit my beliefs to a strict minimum as they tend to cloud my vision and take me in the wrong direction.

I aspire to pragmatism, free thinking and a keen sense of justice and humanity. I maintain that cap as best I can but occasionally get disoriented – usually due to my complaisance, laziness, ignorance or incompetence. »

Perhaps I should add that while I continue to take a keen interest in individual and team sports (having practised both for many years), I have always had a distinct aversion to gregarious behaviour ever since I stepped out of the cradle and have never had any social or political affiliations or allegiances of any kind, and never will.

I place too great a value on my freedom of thought and opinion.

My judgments about Trump and Maga may be wrong, mhaze, but they are my own. Perhaps I am not well informed, lack information, and am victim of misinformation and disinformation. I come to OLO to bounce my thoughts and opinions off the minds of others to test, enrich, refine, confirm or abandon them.

I see it as a give-and-take operation. I profit from you, and you profit from me – no strings attached. We can take it or leave it as we like.

BTW, I don’t count on “hope”, as you suggest. Either I achieve it, or I deal with it.

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Here's the thing in a nutshell, Banjo.

Its all too easy to label Trump as a populist, authoritarian etc. Everyone does it; everyone knows its true. so just repeating it requires no thought, let alone evidence.

So when suddenly someone asks for the basis of the assertions, there is a rush for the exists. Sure a case can be made that he's authoritarian/populist but only if the generally accepted meaning of those terms is twisted to suit the purpose. And that twisted meaning can then be applied to other, more favoured (?), leaders. If Trump's a populist then so was Harris, so is Macron, so is Starmer. If Trump's authoritarian, then so was Biden, so is Macron, so is Scholz.

If definitions of terms can be so distorted that they apply to all leaders, then they are useless.

They just become things people say without thought or evidence.

Dear Banjo,

This may be of interest:

http://news.berkeley.edu/2025/01/21/theres-a-term-for-trumps-political-style-authoritarian-populism/

Thanks Foxy, the article basically makes my point - although not as well as I did...grin.

That's what I was talking about - when you have to distort the meaning of the terms to suit a disdain for Trump, the new meaning applies to most all democratic leaders.

And is thereby useless.