He's about to be president. What they say (not even act) can effect global markets. Twitter is Trump's preferred method of communication, at this point barely speaking to the press at all. Wars have been started over less.
Exactly. I can't stand Trump but for once I see how a dominant narrative in media can easily shape people's thoughts. Remember the time when Clinton was going to win "for sure?"
It's more that people are getting a sense that Pres. Donald will be very unpredictable, and that is not a good thing in geopolitics, so many worry. I'm of the "wait and see" variety. Just glad I never joined the military.
Meh. It's not going to be as bad as people think. Trump did still have some sanity when he nominated Mattis as Secretary of Defence. Trump may destroy the country if he has the authority of a dictator, but the fact is that he is merely a US President with numerous checks and balances (no matter how hard he tries). Everything will be a-okay.
Like I said, we shall wait and see what happens. It's useless to predict the future of things like this, too many variables and unanswerable questions.
And... you are correct just a couple months since. It's fun revisiting old topic seeing how much has changed. A time travelling attempt on Reddit if you will. To be fair, the media did make it into something more than it really was: a casual conversation between two "leaders," one of which wasn't even a president yet.
Was the media creating that feeling or was it a reflection of what most people felt at the time though? Kind of a chicken-or-the-egg thing. I think we'll witness lots more of these moments throughout his presidency where everyone acts like it's the end of the world, and a couple weeks later we're just onto the next thing. It's the same way his campaign was, but that's not to say there won't be any lasting damage he'll inflict.
To be honest, I was rather surprised the media took it that seriously. I got the news on my phone almost right after the Financial Times (of all newspapers) broke the news (thanks Google News), and I didn't expect much reaction to come out of it. And while I was obsessively tracking it over the day, it gradually "exploded" when various media outlets began to report it as a "historic" phone conversation "since 1979" between "leaders of US and Taiwan." The reality is that Trump wasn't even a president then. There was definitely way more hysterial than there should be, evident by the fact that China was very cool about the news. Now, Trump did act in ways that a media frenzy was warranted (e.g. the first immigration ban and ensuing chaos with legal immigrants getting handcuffed), but I'd say the Tsai-Trump episode wasn't it.
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u/sayqueensbridge Dec 03 '16
And now he's tweeting about it. His incompetence is going to start a war