"Nationalistic" is not a synonym for "national interest". And the point was not just that its nationalistic content, but rather that broadcasters are being pressured to air it.
I'm not sure who you expect to push for airing essentially patriotic ads and content, besides the government. It is not necessarily nefarious. We need to have some modicum of civic mindedness and that needs to come from somewhere. The government itself is at least usually not partisan when it comes to generic campaigns like this.
For starters, nobody needs to push "patriotic ads". When the country does good things worth being proud of, patriotism arises naturally.
But either way, the grave error here is conflating civic mindedness as having anything to do with the current administration. These clowns would find a way to divide us over a children's spelling bee.
I don't think it "arises naturally" -- Our country is still something to be proud of, despite its flaws, and patriotism is a dirty word these days. The current administration is mainly seen as unusually divisive because of a relentless smear campaign against Trump conducted over a period of about 10 years. He's no saint, but if you look at it objectively then this breathless hysteria is unwarranted and downright harmful.
Smear campaign? It's the man's own actions - incompetence backed up with divisive bullying. If you don't see that, then you're still in the reality distortion field.
As for patriotism, I see quite a lot of it at the weekly protest I drive by and sometimes attend. As I said, it arises naturally.
He has an obnoxious personality but that's the extent of it. It's not I who is "in the reality distortion field."
Protesting makes sense sometimes but I'm not going to sit here and say that they are all patriotic. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that we have different ideas of what is a patriotic, much less worthwhile, protest.
No, that is not the "extent of it". Trump's obnoxious personality serves as a distraction from the abject incompetence, and it is apparently still working on you. The general pattern I've seen is that he picks a position, no matter how outlandish or impractical, that gets the most vocal support. He then claims to be doing something about it with some token actions. When anybody points out the glaring flaws, he and his cult of believers go to work attacking the critics.
For a recent example, see his atrocious failure on tariffs. A supposed mandate to do something about bringing American industry back, plus a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. But then the main plan merely consisted of tariffs that could have worked twenty years ago, applied in a simplistic blanket manner that harms domestic industry? And still even then the whole push ends up being a giant failjob for not doing the basic work to get them passed into law! But of course the enemy-scapegoat will always end up being someone else, because making excuses is Trump's only skill.
Some of these dynamics have terribly destructive results, especially with regards to our individual liberties. For example, the terrorist attacks on American cities - hence the protesting. And protesting about the violation of our natural rights as laid out in our country's founding documents seems pretty damn patriotic to me.
> relentless smear campaign against Trump conducted over a period of about 10 years. He's no saint, but if you look at it objectively then this breathless hysteria is unwarranted and downright harmful.
it is almost like Trump has been a public figure his entire life and in politics (after being best buds (as well as a donor) with the Clintons and the likes his entire life) only small percentage of his life. so we know who he is and we have always known who he is well before this "10 year smear campaign" - too funny to always read about this "oh Trump good, everyone's out to get him"
Trump was very popular till he decided to run against Hillary. He was known as kind of a character, but was generally well-liked and invited on many TV shows (in addition to his own TV show, and starring in movies). The smear campaign escalated with Russiagate lies (yes, lies, and commissioned by Hillary). Trump has his flaws but he has put up with more shit than any other president I remember. Seeing how bad they had it out for him naturally makes me take his side, even though he is not my ideal candidate lol...
Trump was popular with a certain segment of people. Like the kind of person who doesn't understand how to constructively manage a business and thinks that being "the boss" revolves around firing people, presumably because they're generally on the receiving end of it. If you weren't in that segment, occasionally seeing him was more like "oh wow, that guy is still around?"
There is no conspiracy here. Running for president gave him widespread attention, where he became relevant to many more people - relevant in a negative way. And while the actual facts have become heavily politicized, that Trump's policies are so beneficial to Russia and China is itself quite damning, regardless if he himself is aware of it or whether it's merely being susceptible to foreign agents in his orbit.
For reference where I'm coming from - I was telling my aghast blue tribe friends in 2016 that Trump had a good shot at winning and was talking about a lot of longstanding problems other politicians would not. The problem is that it was, and continues to be, just empty talk.
