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Seemed perfectly normal/reasonable to me.
This is Our President
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SUMMARY
The forum discussion centers around Donald Trump's presidency, highlighting his controversial remarks and actions during a Women's History Month event at the White House on March 26, 2025. Participants express disappointment in Trump's behavior, comparing him unfavorably to past presidents like George W. Bush and Richard Nixon. The conversation critiques Trump's lack of empathy and his perceived incompetence, particularly in foreign relations and health policy. The discussion also touches on the broader implications of his presidency on American trust and political integrity.
PREREQUISITES- Understanding of U.S. political history, particularly the presidencies of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.
- Familiarity with the concept of political satire and its role in public discourse.
- Knowledge of Women's History Month and its significance in American culture.
- Awareness of the impact of presidential rhetoric on international relations.
- Research the historical context of Richard Nixon's presidency and his political strategies.
- Explore the implications of presidential rhetoric on U.S. foreign policy, particularly in relation to China.
- Investigate the significance of Women's History Month and its impact on contemporary political discussions.
- Analyze the role of political satire in shaping public perception of political figures.
This discussion is beneficial for political analysts, historians, and anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of contemporary U.S. politics, particularly in relation to leadership, public trust, and the role of humor in political critique.
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If someone asks me "Can you imagine X" my answer will always be 'yes' because I can literally imagine* anything that you put to me.
*Even for things like visualizations of higher dimensional mathematical structures, concepts too large to be expressed in the universe, I can imagine them.
*Even for things like visualizations of higher dimensional mathematical structures, concepts too large to be expressed in the universe, I can imagine them.
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Yes, but you are limiting yourself to only the very literal meaning of the word imagine. Within that limited context, you are correct, but you need to widen your linguistic horizons and try to understand figurative usage of words.
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Which "figurative usage" did the questioners mean?
Literal imaginative capability?
Can you picture this ever happening? (plausibility)
Would you personally be willing? (attitude)
Do you think people in general might do it? (prediction)
Which of the "figurative usages" did every respondent have in mind when they answered?
How do you unpack the noise from the signal?
If there was nothing lost in translation and that phrase doesn't mean more in German than it does in English, then it was a dumb question.
Literal imaginative capability?
Can you picture this ever happening? (plausibility)
Would you personally be willing? (attitude)
Do you think people in general might do it? (prediction)
Which of the "figurative usages" did every respondent have in mind when they answered?
How do you unpack the noise from the signal?
If there was nothing lost in translation and that phrase doesn't mean more in German than it does in English, then it was a dumb question.
I agree with @EricDMMiller that it comes across differently in English, especially given that its a poll question, which tends to make me think very literally about what I am considering. While I agree with @phinds that one can
this is a translation, whoever came up with the original German question was not thinking in English, so they were not trying to be figurative, they were being standard, at least per @fresh_42 .
A more conceptual (as opposed to word-for-word) English translation, imo, would be -
Do you think it possible that Germany might ever actually boycott American imports?
If that is not the same question to me that the original German question is to @fresh_42 then I am missing a nuance, and that is certainly possible.
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that
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The point about using "imagine" is its property to separate the question from the action. If you ask, "Will you boycott US products?" then you contaminate your results by the question itself. More people tend to answer with a yes because the question suggests that they are expected to do so than they would if you ask, "Can you imagine boycotting US products?". This is a basic principle for setting up polls: separate the outcome from the questionnaire's expectations. You have basically four possibilities:
Here is a paper about these dependencies:
- Will you boycott US products?
This creates a bias towards 'yes' in your results.
- Can you imagine boycotting US products?
This leaves respondents to make their own choices and, therefore, avoids contamination of the result by the questionnaire. It tries to set up a thinking process from scratch.
- Are you thinking about boycotting US products?
Creates a bias towards 'no' in your results.
- Have you boycotted US products recently?
This is a different topic, asking for what has already been done, not what is intended to be done.
Here is a paper about these dependencies:
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I don't want to derail the thread too much. We know that it is important to ask the right question. That's why "imagine" is so stupid.
It is vague to the point of meaningless.
I ask again, which of the multiple options did each of the people answering the poll have in mind when they answered?
If they reasonably could have landed at any of them, then the information gathered is useless, because they are not equivalent.
If they all had in mind the same thing when they answered, as @phinds suggests, then that question is what should have been asked in the first place.
It is vague to the point of meaningless.
I ask again, which of the multiple options did each of the people answering the poll have in mind when they answered?
If they reasonably could have landed at any of them, then the information gathered is useless, because they are not equivalent.
If they all had in mind the same thing when they answered, as @phinds suggests, then that question is what should have been asked in the first place.
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See the previous answer from me. You cannot restrict the vast variety of meanings of to imagine to a single meaning and, by the way, completely ignore the context. That is not how language works.
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No, it is not. It asks how many people consider a boycott. Since their answers would likely have been at most around 5% under Obama (my estimate), this is a considerable change. There are possibly people who boycott US products by default. We have a comparably large part of Muslims in our society, plus the notoriously most left-wing.
I cannot do more than explain the various possibilities of wordings and their consequences, and give you a paper to read, like I did in post #67. You may have a different opinion, but that alone doesn't make wrong what I have said.
Again: the wording provides a set-up without prejudices caused by the question itself. "Can you imagine" is the standard that we use. Asking directly would contaminate the outcome.
I cannot do more than explain the various possibilities of wordings and their consequences, and give you a paper to read, like I did in post #67. You may have a different opinion, but that alone doesn't make wrong what I have said.
Again: the wording provides a set-up without prejudices caused by the question itself. "Can you imagine" is the standard that we use. Asking directly would contaminate the outcome.
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I don't think "can you imagine" is clear enough in English, as it leaves too much ambiguity for the answer to have a clear meaning. It should be possible to find some more specific but fairly neutral form such as "Do you think you might consider ..." although I can't tell whether it's exactly what was intended.
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In this case, it is really lost in translation. However, I haven't found a better English verb.
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The survey was conducted by a professional polling agency. I strongly suspect they know exactly which question is the least suggestive.
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I'm not sure whether this belongs here, into the thread about worrying incidents, or political cartoons:
This is beyond ridiculous. USA, you have some serious issues!
New academic standards set to pass after lack of vote from Oklahoma Legislature
Proposed social studies standards have attracted significant controversy
New academic standards set to pass after lack of vote from Oklahoma Legislature • Oklahoma Voice
Resolutions that would reject proposed academic standards for social studies and science have run out of time to pass the full Legislature.
oklahomavoice.com
This is beyond ridiculous. USA, you have some serious issues!
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Trump posts AI-generated photo of himself dressed as the pope
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/03/trump-pope-ai-image.html
I'm trying hard to believe that he did that because it's funny.
[Edit: It is of course also in incredibly poor taste and seriously offensive to many, but I wouldn't expect any better]
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/03/trump-pope-ai-image.html
I'm trying hard to believe that he did that because it's funny.
[Edit: It is of course also in incredibly poor taste and seriously offensive to many, but I wouldn't expect any better]
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It isn't. I saw an interview in which he said he liked to be pope. This insult to a human being IS as dumb as it appears.
Just saw, top message on hourly news: Vance criticized that our courts have ruled that our right-wing party may be called right-extreme. Can any of you US-Americans please explain to me why a vice president of the USA dares to criticize German court rulings? And you wonder why the USA is considered as being imperialistic, that aims to impose its crude world view on others? Such things make me angry, and partly anti-American. It is simply not tolerable! Who is he that he can teach us (our courts!) who we call a Nazi? And why does he only bother about Nazis?
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I can imagine other educational jurisdictions will copy cat such a 'great' idea of biased recent history.
Pretty sad to politicize education, under the guise of students can, given the facts, make up their own mind.
But I don't see any rebuttable statements to counter the subjective material.
What was the matter with the old course that this was needed at the expense of a 10's of millions of dollars?
I thought the repubs were for less govt in peoples lives, but I think I stand corrected.
Joke is, wherever Vance goes, bad things happen.
Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, met with the Roman Catholic pontiff a day before his death
Francis died of a stroke that ultimately led to irreversible heart failure, according to a death certificate issued by the Vatican.
IMO this is coming from a direct comparison of Trump to Hitler by Larry David. Larry David was responding to Bill Maher who accepted a dinner invitation from Trump and wrote about it in a way that many folks thought was out-of-context given how much the public (and presumably Maher himself) knows about Trump in total. For example, saying Trump can be charming may be an ok observation if you just met him, but does it really matter at this point if Trump can be charming?
So Larry David wrote a satire piece to compare Maher's observations to a hypothetical set of observations about Hitler.
So what Vance is doing here is attempting to paint a picture that all right-of-center thinkers anywhere in the Western world are being called Nazi's - he's doing his best to say its just the latest left-wing freak out, we (the right) are all being called Nazi's.
IMO, Trumps dangerous policies can stand just fine on their own, and there is no need for ad hominem attacks; they just divert us all from the here-and-now dangers. Anyway, I think this is why Vance made those statements - its a counter-offensive against the "Trump is today's Hitler" thing that Larry David brought front-and-center. Below is a "gift" link from the NYT article, I hope its not behind the paywall.
Opinion | Larry David: My Dinner With Adolf
When a private meeting goes unexpectedly.
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This is not out of thin air! The parallels are obvious: ethnic cleansing, ignoring court rulings, checking on people's opinions by GESTAPO methods, blackmailing and threatening war to other countries, ruling by terror and fear, and ignoring the constitution. Sure, any comparison with an actual mass murder is fortunately doomed to fail, but the methods are very similar and comparable. Too similar, if you ask me.
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In an interview on "Meet the Press," Trump was asked regarding the deportation of illegal immigrants; Don't you need to follow the Constitution as the President? Trump answered, "I don't know".
www.independent.co.uk
Really, Mr President, what don't you understand about your oath of office?
When you take an oath (or sign a contract), don't you want to understand the expectations and responsibilities contained within it?
Trump says he doesn’t ‘know’ if he must uphold the Constitution
Trump says his administration will follow the Supreme Court even as he and staff reinterpret its rulings
www.independent.co.uk
When you take an oath (or sign a contract), don't you want to understand the expectations and responsibilities contained within it?
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Everything. I broke his oath the moment he spoke it. By the way, same as before in his first term.
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Every single day, I read about another child who lost his mother, father, or both. Today, a 2-year-old!
"I didn't know" or "I obeyed orders" weren't an excuse at the Nuremberg trials, and it is even less nowadays with the internet. I cannot understand how you US-Americans can stand this. It is unbelievably painful to read it even here.
"I didn't know" or "I obeyed orders" weren't an excuse at the Nuremberg trials, and it is even less nowadays with the internet. I cannot understand how you US-Americans can stand this. It is unbelievably painful to read it even here.
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Borg
Site Admin
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It's been painful for a very long time. This country has been in a very vicious cycle for the last ten years. I still can't believe the ignorance and cruelty of a large portion of the people here.
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And in that vein, my disbelief continues. 
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There's one good thing about all this. The rest of us will never again have to listen to the unbearable self-righteousness of the United States on moral issues. That's over forever. We can always point to the current human rights violations. I find it downright outrageous how Sanders talks about ethnic cleansing in Gaza while simply ignoring his own. Israel being advised by fascists? How dare you!
Explanation: I grew up with a very positive, probably too idealistic image of the USA. It hurts seeing it being shattered.
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From Paul Krugman's Friday email: (NOTE: both links are behind paywalls) bolding is mine
The $Trump and $Melania meme coins have been used for what amounts to brazen bribery. So has USD1, the stablecoin recently introduced by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto firm. It’s hard to overstate how big a deal this is. Thanks to crypto, the President of the United States is now effectively for sale, and the buyers appear to include not just wealthy foreigners but foreign governments.
We’re talking billions of dollars in direct payments to the president and his relatives. If we were still a serious country, Trump’s crypto corruption would lead to his immediate impeachment and removal from office.
Crypto has also been used to scam naïve Trump loyalists. An investigative report by the Washington Post found that while a handful of large investors made a lot of money from $Trump, tens of thousands of small investors, lured in by the Trump name, bought the coin near its peak and have seen most of their money vanish.
The $Trump and $Melania meme coins have been used for what amounts to brazen bribery. So has USD1, the stablecoin recently introduced by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto firm. It’s hard to overstate how big a deal this is. Thanks to crypto, the President of the United States is now effectively for sale, and the buyers appear to include not just wealthy foreigners but foreign governments.
We’re talking billions of dollars in direct payments to the president and his relatives. If we were still a serious country, Trump’s crypto corruption would lead to his immediate impeachment and removal from office.
Crypto has also been used to scam naïve Trump loyalists. An investigative report by the Washington Post found that while a handful of large investors made a lot of money from $Trump, tens of thousands of small investors, lured in by the Trump name, bought the coin near its peak and have seen most of their money vanish.
I think you'd be surprised how many people aren't even aware of what's going on. I still am, even though I constantly hear about how people aren't paying attention. Most of those who are aware are just as outraged and frustrated as you are.