Um…he's Swedish, no? And he wants people to believe that he was totally unaware of a horrific mass-murder that took place in a country that borders his own, just a few years back, and which received blanket coverage throughout the world?

It's just like the teenagers moving to Snapchat when their parents started getting on Facebook. Except their parents are Nazis. And one of them's the President.

At this point, I’d really just want to distance myself from all of this

YES. That debut album is a sadly underappreciated gem from start to finish.

My folks are Philly natives but live in Maryland now (nowhere near Baltimore). I'm guessing that the talk at the breakfast table this morning is something along the lines of "They don't give a shit about the thugs shooting each other but they have all the time in the world to worry about a stupid statue…"

RACIST

"As if a million slack-jawed, potato-faced dreamboats went 'derp' and were silenced…"

The sheer absurdity of the phrase "liberal terrorists" was…something of a clue.

[blushes]

"Thanks just all to pieces!"

THIS is a CLOSE-UP???

Oy. The Hubby is an MSNBC junkie and he's definitely going to want to watch Hayes and Maddow this evening. I feel like the proverbial bystander to a horrible car crash: don't want to look, can't look away.

From what I can tell (mostly based on friends of friends on FB), they don't even bother with apologia. They just jump directly to "Oh YEAH? Well, Killary Benghazi Emails Slick Willie. QED."

I'm in the same position. I know they voted for Trump, I have no idea whether their opinion of him has evolved since then, and I'm terrified to find out.

No need to loose you're shit. Take a deep breathe.

Just want to say that this has been a great thread, with a hell of a lot more substance than you're likely to find on many explicitly political sites. It's a diabolically thorny issue and it's nice to see it hammered out without breaking down into a flamewar.

I'm inclined to agree with you there. We're pretty much on the same page.

Yes, they were freaking out. I'm just talking about the amplifying effects of social media and a 24/7 news cycle. I do think it has an affect on people's perceptions of what's going on.

I'm inclined to say yes. Think about what a year like 1968 would have been like with our present-day media environment. People would be freaking the fuck out nonstop.

And a %15-%20 discrepancy hardly equates tyranny.