Factually, that’s what he did during his time in office as well. I’m not sure what they thought had changed.

  • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    26 days ago

    Ever play an arcade video game from the 1980s? I’m talking about the ones in the arcades where you had to pop a quarter into the machine to play.

    Here’s the thing about those games. The first 2 levels or so were usually pretty easy. Weak AI opponents. Easily distinguishable patterns. But then you hit level 3 or 4. And the difficultly skyrockets. With absolutely no warning. You go from “Hey, this game ain’t so bad” to regretting all of your life choices. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to get owned, hard. Only a few people could get past a couple of levels, and only the best of the best were skilled enough to be able to play as long as they wanted until they clocked the game.

    That’s where we’re at now. Trump played those first couple of levels. Clinton was a divisive figure in her own right and treated the 2016 race like she could skate to victory too. Biden had weaknesses that Trump could easily exploit. The real game has begun and Trump has absolutely no idea how to actually play. So Trump wants to start the game over. He doesn’t want to make it to level 3 because he knows he’ll never beat level 3. He’s looking for a reset switch like on the Atari 2600 so he could keep playing the first two levels over and over and over. Because he knows how to beat those.

    But he can’t. So he’s essentially stopped playing the game. He’s telling everybody in the arcade how rigged that machine is, the joystick’s broken, and you need to hit the fire button 10, 12, 15 times for it to fire. And he’s getting jealous that all the cool kids in the mall aren’t listening to him, and are circling around the new girl who popped her quarter in and has gotten to levels Trump hasn’t even seen before, while he goes to the corner of the arcade, pops a quarter into the dusty, old Pong machine, and wonders why nobody fucking cares.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      26 days ago

      Only semi-related:

      Hunter S. Thompson took great pains to speak in sports metaphors, because that’s the language of “middle America.”

      I’ve thought that, for a while now, video games have become the language of “middle America” and whoever can speak to the gamers in their language will capture their minds.

      Steve Bannon also understood this, and that’s why he succeeded in capturing many young men’s minds through Gamergate.

      We need people better than Steve Bannon speaking this language and leaving gamers with positive, healthy understanding of the world around them.

      Anyway, I write this because I think your video game metaphor really works here, and I think that’s the way to speak to a large portion of our populace now.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        26 days ago

        Anyway, I write this because I think your video game metaphor really works here, and I think that’s the way to speak to a large portion of our populace now.

        I don’t know that arcade metaphors really work for most of the population now, though. Even when I was young they were dying.

      • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        26 days ago

        Make the guy who makes tier zoo on YouTube teach all democrats.

        Seriously, the devs took a big risk with the 2016 patch, they just didn’t like what the players did to that gorilla.