Factually, that’s what he did during his time in office as well. I’m not sure what they thought had changed.
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.
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.
The idea that Thompson was particularly accessible to middle America is so strange to me as a Midwesterner.
But also I agree. Gaming metaphors speak to the apolitical in ways sports metaphors used to
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.
Video games > arcades.
Playstations, Xboxes, desktop games are where gamers are playing.
Twovery evident impacts are regarding others as NPCs ( instead of humans) and the application of Min-Max philosophy to economic endeavors.
I think we might be talking about two different types of “arcades” here.
The arcades where you go and play pinball and pac man and street fighter are the ones we’re talking about. That was the 80s. Those of us who remember those days fondly would probably be between 40 and 60. I don’t know about the rest of my middle-aged community members, but I ain’t planning on dying any time soon.
If you’re living in a place where 40-60 year olds are dying on the regular, you’re probably living around methheads.
, but I ain’t planning on dying any time soon.
I mean the arcades were dying, not the people in them.
If you’re living in a place where 40-60 year olds are dying on the regular, you’re probably living around methheads.
… though there’s that too…
There are dozens of us!
I mean, that’s fair, but that’s also why I said it was only semi-related.
The arcade metaphor works here on Lemmy with a mostly Gen X/Millennial audience, but you’re correct that the people who need to be opened up politically are the Fortnite generation and younger.
Red ArcherArcade NeedsFoodQuarters Badly!!!
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.
Trump is the kid who got good at PacMan. Then the arcade brought in MrsPacMan and no matter how high he scores and tries to get attention, the kid who scores well in Mrs PacMan is stealing his thunder because it’s harder. And he’s mad no one is paying attention to his New High Score because it’s irrelevant in the face of the new game. But he can’t get good enough at MrsPacMan, so he’s sulking on PacMan setting new scores and slowly filling the board while his friends try to give him the new Guide for how to score better or get farther in MrsPacMan. Trying to get him to take on the new kid. But he’s just broken from constantly being the loser every time he 2 players. He’s scared of it because it’s a new age where it’s not a solved game, the enemies react to you, and he’s not fast enough anymore to handle that and it scares him - no matter how much his friends try to get him to get good.
I don’t believe for a second Trump is good at a single thing.
He’s okay at fleecing and grifting the rubes, but that’s about it.
That’s pretty easy to do. Most conservatives are gullible as fuuuuuuck.
He’s has a mastery of gish galloping. There’s no way I could ever approach half of what he does.
But that’s about the only thing I can think of that he’s good at. And it’s definitely something he’s good at due to severe character flaws and mental development issues, not exactly a learned skill or intentional thing he applies. But good nonetheless.
It’s Ms. Pac-Man now, they got divorced some time ago sadly.
Ah yeah I realized it later. I got too carried away typing it to check that part
Excuse me, but Trump would never play Pac Man. He can’t handle Kamala Harris alone. He’d be complaining about having to go up against 4 non-white opponents at once.
And he’d certainly never play Ms. Pac Man. Sure, it’s one thing playing an unidentifiable yellow mass that runs around popping pills and doing the same thing over and over while trying to avoid all the non-white people in town, but there’s no chance in hell he’d play as a female.
while he goes to the corner of the arcade, pops a quarter into the dusty, old Pong machine
Correction, he puts a quarter into a pinball machine in the corner, then shortly after gets the tilt warning because he once again tries to cheat instead of having skill.
Tilts are perfectly valid in pinball tournaments, though. As long as the machine’s setup only warns you instead of stopping the game, it’s OK in most leagues. And if it does stop you, then you can continue to the next ball.
Interesting. It looks like the older games did just stop when sensing some movement, while newer ones allow it to some degree or times, so there’s a fudge factor that I guess a professional would know how much to push things. Some might take away the power ups and just let you finish that ball on a “vanilla” setup.
Some old games do, some don’t. The sensor is a plumb bob in a metal ring that completes a circuit. Been that way since the 1950s or so, and is still the same system in today’s digitized games.
God damn, how apt.
It wasn’t like a switch got flipped, no one would keep playing.
They’d make a tiny segment super hard so you’d have to drop a couple bucks to get past it. Go back to easy for a little. Then hit another hard part.
It’s basically the whole reason for boss fights.
Once games started developing storylines, plots, etc. it was like that. It was an intentional strategy developed to keep you playing. But early developers weren’t thinking that far ahead. The idea was to give you a couple of easy levels so you feel you got your 5 minutes worth of entertainment worth, then start punishing you at level 3 or 4 so you’d lose and the next person would play.
And some were made by simple oversight. Space invaders’ increasing difficulty was solely the result of hardware limitations of the time that just happened to result in the exact difficulty spikes they were looking for. As a programmer, I could, for example, set level 1 vs. an opponent that was slow as festering dog shit, but be lazy and just double his speed with every level. As long as the player’s speed stays the same, it would become nearly impossible to win in a couple of levels.
Either way, the results were the same: 25 cents for about 5 minutes worth of entertainment. That was the goal of the day. As you mentioned, they fine tuned it by the mid 80s with games like Mario and the like. but those early games were meant to get you off the cabinet as quickly as possible so soneone else could pop in their quarter.
set level 1 vs. an opponent that was slow as festering dog shit, but be lazy and just double his speed with every level. As long as the player’s speed stays the same, it would become nearly impossible to win in a couple of levels.
Exactly, and long term people would stop playing because they always get stuck about the same time.
It’s like how humans respond to rewards, a steady consistent reward is kind of motivating, it’s why we go to work in the morning
But what works a shit ton better is sporadic rewards that have a tiny tiny chance of paying off.
That’s why people get addicted to slot machines and not working at McDonald’s. If a slot machine paid out 75 cents for every dollar everytime, no one would play.
Have them win $7.50 every tenth time they put a dollar in tho, and people will flush their entire lives away chasing that 1/10 of a time they “win”.
So if you really want to exploit gamers, you can’t steadily increase difficulty. Linearly or exponentially, it doesn’t matter. To hook people they need those “wins” and they’ll keep dropping quarters or spinning loot boxes.
In coin operated video games, that’s when things get easy
A better example with Space Invaders is once they beat a level, they get to the next one and it’s slow again due to the amount of enemies on the screen. Letting the player get that easy time again hooks them. If the next level they were all as fast as the last one from last level, it wouldn’t have been as addictive
Picturesque and poignant.
But he lost on level 2. The only candidate he’s beaten is Hillary, who’s one of the least popular politicians in the US.
He lost the first time. Then he inserted another quarter to continue and (essentially) beat him the 2nd time.
And after the brief intermission cutscene, he played level 3. He doesn’t like level 3. He even tried to call the attendant over so he could play level 2 again. And when the attendant said “Um…you’re on level 3 now, what’s the problem?”, he stopped playing. Because level 3 is fucking hard.
And he won only via the electoral college, while still losing the popular vote against her
Wonderful metaphor. Although it’s hard to suspend disbelief in a story about Trump wanting to / knowing how to play video games. He strikes me as the type that’ll buy an arcade but never set foot in it. And then remove all that is good about it and fill it with ticket games.
Although it’s hard to suspend disbelief in a story about Trump wanting to / knowing how to play video games.
Have you played those old games? Usually, the first level is easy. Easy enough where you actively have to try to lose. I mean, you get 3 lives. That means you have to make not just bad decisions, but the worst possible decisions, over and over and…oh.
Never mind. You’re right.
Hopefully his next move isn’t to start tilting the machine
The first few weeks of Trump’s presidency you could’ve easily seen what a terrible decision it occurred. Yet people will still vote for this dotard.
Let him go. Best place for him
Sounds about right. The guy is just lazy and petty. And yet, due to the outdated, slavery-era EC and the fact that 30-some percent of this country thinks this dumbphuck is the best choice for office, we just might have him in office anyway, no matter how lazy, inept and stupid he is.
Honestly, dude clearly doesn’t want this. He just doesn’t want the shame that would come with stepping down at this point.
He didn’t want it the first time, now he doesn’t want to go to jail
He knows his best shot is cheating and maybe just enough tactically deployed violence. The bigger the gap of his popular vote defeat, the more their cheating has to overcome.
Vote.
What a demented fool U R!
Tbf, this is basically him being presidential. Good on him for showing the people what he’s really about. Nothing.
I mean, that’s literally how he operated when he was in the White House, how would this be a surprise to anybody? He’s where he is because of a vast propaganda network that’s working tirelessly to put him into power because he’s an incredibly useful idiot that can get people riled up. He’s not given up, he’s just getting complacent because he doesn’t believe elections or democracy matters at all.
he’s an incredibly useful idiot
He’s supposed to be a useful idiot, but he’s spending too much time golfing and ranting that he’s not against Biden.
That he’s not against Biden?
Trump has been complaining a lot that Biden dropped out and Kamala is the nominee. He’s been calling it a “coup”.
I love that his rebuttal to the successful DNC last week was to be the weird old guy who calls into talk shows to ramble. CSPAN energy.
concerned family member shows up - “oh my God, is he ok??”
Aide, visibly shaken - “I honestly don’t know, I’ve never seen him like this…”
concerned family member - "is…is he out there right now?*
Aide - yes… I’m so worried, he is out there right now, just… playing golf, all day, every day… he needs to stop and confront his feelings and all he can do is golf sob"
CFM “earlier you said 27 holes… he must be exhausted just trying to cope…this is really bad”
Aide - “IT IS SO BAD PLEASE HELP HIM!!”
CFM - “God be with me, I will get him to come inside and drink a diet coke. Hopefully he will snap out of this madness…”
Aide - “…please…go with God!”
CFM - “God will guide me to him. Wish me luck!”
removes leather shoes, hops in cart, and speeds away through the green grass, nary a thought to use the given path… this is the most important rescue in the world. People say that it was the most important, maybe, probably, the most important, ever.
And who would the concerned family member actually be? It almost had to be Eric or Jr. Surely none of the others give even the smallest shits.
I honestly didn’t know who to write down, maybe Barron? He’s heard of Trump, maybe he would actually want to give a hand to such a wretched soggy being? Or, imagine he might be invited to caddy the clubs behind the cart?
Wanna bet he’s not even good at golf and has aides placed around the hole to toss out a good distance ball when he shanks it
He is known to cheat at golf competitions. He’s not very good.
He’s also known to have people cheat FOR him. There was some pictures a long time ago of a secret service agent (maybe just a security guard) with an obvious pocket full of golf balls he got called on, and then tried to hide from view of photographers.
Pretty sure they were reptile eggs.
My favorite thing I’ve heard about Il Douche is this one:
By all accounts, Trump is a fine golfer. He claims to have a handicap of 2.8.
It’s hilarious that he can claim that with a straight face.
He may actually have that handicap…WITH CHEATING
Donnie will confuse Jack Nicklaus with Jack Nicholson and will then start praising Jack Torrance from The Shining repeatedly like he does with Hannibal Lecter.
What worries me is we’ll have a repeat of 2016 where everyone just assumed Hillary was going to win so they didn’t vote. Hopefully people will go out and vote regardless.
thats not entirely accurate. Yes there was not as much enthusiasm behind Hillary as there was behind Obama, and she had a lot of (mostly invented) baggage, but she lost beacause she didnt campaign in a meaningful way lost a few swing states by a small margin (because yes, most reasonable people assumed she’d be the next president—and so many reasonable people assumed that eventuality that she won the popular vote by a wide margin).
Trump is noise and makes money for media outlets so they give him a massive and constant boost of brand recognition. They could’ve all been even mildly responsible in 2020 and just stop talking about the out of office former president but instead they kept him in the zietgeist which allowed him to run again this year.
I am still finding hope in the fact he did not win reelection the first time against a
walking corpseelder statesman, and has not won elections for most of his endorsed down-ballot candidates in the past X years.Anyway, people who do not want him in office should go and vote against him.
(and people who do want to see him in office again, sorry you shouldn’t vote for a lot of reasons but the biggest one being they’ll know who you are and that’s how they get you and also vaccines are mandatory for the polls so you should stay away and they’ll also forcibly swap your genitals and ITS REALLY TRUE FOLLOW ME ON FACETUBE)
The possibility worries me, but this situation seems closer to Obama’s campaign than Hillary’s. Somewhere inbetween for sure, but people are enthusiastic.
Absolutely. When I saw the headline I thought the same thing. Bad actors will try to sew exactly that thought in liberal circles as long as Dems have the momentum.
We can’t buy into it and need to resolve ourselves to fight like hell until election day, regardless of what “the polls” or “the experts” say. We need to make Kamala win in an indisputable landslide. We need to send a message that will make Trump and his acolytes political pariahs from now on.
Young people need to get enthusiastic to vote; and Hillary didn’t do that for them. Hillary didn’t do that for me-- because she’s best buds with Jamie Dimon and his ilk, and would only be joining a picket line when hell froze over-- but I still got out and made the only realistic vote against Trump because I’m a grownup.
It’s different this time because Democrats are finally being convincing that they’re not aligned with the billionaires, and because we’ve seen what a Trump presidency was actually like now. I think that will get more of the youth vote (with lots of GOTV effort, of course).
I didn’t vote for Hillary because she sucked. I voted 3rd party that election. I’m definitely voting Harris/Waltz this time.
HRC is a spineless, entitled, super Cunt. Zero chance I was voting for that bitch. Should’ve been Bernie.
Go Harris!
I didn’t vote for Hillary because she sucked
Well then, thank God she didn’t win!
I blame the DNC.
I didn’t vote for Trump either.
Yes, I figured as much when you said you voted 3rd party. Unless we get ranked choice or some other form of voting, we are going to get a president from one of the two main parties for the foreseeable future. Until then, a vote for the person who shares 90% of your views instead of 75% will help the guy who shares 5% of your views with you. Not to mention that the 75% candidate had about a decade of being dragged through the mud prior to the election to make her seem worse than she really is.
I (and a lot of others) are not going to “Toe the line” for whoever the DNC shoves down our throats if we don’t feel like it. The DNC learned a good lesson in 2016. I’m not ashamed that I didn’t vote for Hillary just because she was “better than Trump”. I didn’t like either candidate, so I voted third party to help boost their numbers to help get away from a 2 party system. I’m not sorry for that, and whatever shit you give me isn’t going to change my opinion.
“Boosting their numbers” in the single biggest election doesn’t make them a viable party. Third party candidates got an average of 5% of the vote in the 2016 presidential election (unless you include Utah to blow the bell curve to a whopping 7%).
Getting that party’s candidates established in local governments across the nation so they gain a following, experience, and momentum is what does make them viable. It’s not easy, but it’s the only way. Zero people care who didn’t win the presidential election or why - it’s winner take all. No message is received.
I don’t care. I didn’t like either candidate and voted accordingly. 2016 wasn’t my fault. Put up a better candidate and I would have voted for them.
In 1992, Ross Perot got about 20% of the popular vote as a third party candidate. How did that “help get away from a 2 party system”? That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m curious.
What “lesson” do you think the DNC learned in 2016?
What’s your plan to institute ranked voice voting & national popular vote?
I wasn’t old enough to vote in the 1992 election. I was only 15.
I think the DNC learned that pushing a candidate that wasn’t well liked isn’t going to win them an election, just because that’s who they wanted to put in the spotlight. (Anecdotal based on my personal conversations. I haven’t researched it.)
Reducing the 15% National electorate requirement by the FEC for presidential debates would be a start. This allows lesser known parties and candidates a voice on the national stage and gives them more national coverage.
I’m just a random person. I personally don’t have a plan how to institute ranked choice voting, but I would absolutely vote for a ranked choice voting system rather than keeping the current 2 party system.
I still curse the idiots I knew who skipped voting to attend “Hillary Won!” parties
Even if she had won I’d be pissed at them, you don’t celebrate a candidate’s victory if you don’t even bother voting for them.
To be fair they were mostly in states that still went blue. But it’s the principle of the thing…
His advisors keep trying different approaches and new sales pitches. But the problem with Trump isn’t the marketing- they are selling an outdated, inferior and defective product.
Orange man fukt
You love to see it.
