r/technology • u/marketrent • 1d ago

Site altered title “ALL HAIL CHAIRMAN TRUMP! WITH HIS GLORIOUS 10% PURCHASE OF INTEL, THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF AMERICA ENTERS A BOLD NEW ERA” -- California governor Newsom riles Republicans with Trump-trolling posts

https://www.barrons.com/news/meme-lord-newsom-riles-republicans-with-trump-trolling-posts-05b74794
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u/marketrent 1d ago edited 1d ago

California governor Newsom wrote, "ALL HAIL CHAIRMAN TRUMP! WITH HIS GLORIOUS 10% PURCHASE OF INTEL, THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF AMERICA ENTERS A BOLD NEW ERA OF GOVERNMENT-RUN BUSINESS."

Agence France-Presse text:

All-caps hyperbole, wild accusations and idiosyncratic spelling: not just an average Wednesday on Donald Trump's Truth Social feed, but a new digital media strategy for California Governor Gavin Newsom that is delighting Democrats -- and riling Republicans.

Newsom -- hotly-tipped for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination -- has been parodying Trump with a series of posts written in the Republican leader's distinct style that he hopes will show his party how to beat the social media master at his own game.

In recent weeks the governor has posted all manner of manipulated images depicting him in the kind of over-the-top vignettes popular among Trump's "MAGA" movement -- superimposing his face on Mount Rushmore and appearing to pray with MAGA favorites Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan.

When Trump's one-word weekend post -- saying simply "Bela" -- left the president's supporters scratching their heads, Newsom posted a screenshot alongside his own caption: "DONALD (TINY HANDS), HAS WRITTEN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY THIS MORNING — UNFORTUNATELY (LOW IQ) HE SPELLED IT WRONG — 'BETA.'"

[...] Asked for comment, the White House shared with AFP an image it had initially sent US publication Politico repurposing a scene from the show "Mad Men" to demonstrate that Trump is not just unfazed, but doesn't think about Newsom at all.

Politico had called it the first official White House press statement delivered exclusively in meme form.

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u/Justnobodyfqwl 1d ago

Y'know. I went to school for political science. I thought it was gonna be a boring and stable field. Local government and all that. Maybe a nonprofit. I didn't wanna have to see the White House Press Memes. I wanted to get a boring government job to stop seeing as many memes. 

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 1d ago

I guess that's what happens when people vote to turn reality into Reality TV.

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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 1d ago

45 years of Reagan cuts to public education and 20 years of Dubya's No Child Left Behind resulted in a population so stupid, on average, that they think reality tee vee is actually real.

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u/chuk2015 1d ago

It’s more SNL at this point

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 1d ago

I won't argue there.

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u/JackPembroke 1d ago

Hey my shower head keeps dripping and leaking. I've tried tightening everything I can, but it seems to be getting worse. It's one of those ones on a long flexible arm. I can get it to stop, or at least be quiet, by laying it on the ground. Any pointers on where to look first for fixing it?

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 1d ago edited 1d ago

Is your tap a single handle control or does it have two water taps?

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u/JackPembroke 1d ago

Single, one of those ones you rotate. I've given it a few good yanks to make sure it's closed, no dice.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 1d ago

You probably have either a Delta or Moen faucet then. It needs to have its cartridge replaced.

Does the handle feel really hard to turn? Or does it feel quite loose?

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u/JackPembroke 1d ago

Neither, pretty normal I'd say. And its a Grohe handle and Grohe shower head

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 1d ago

Ah, that's about a continent away from the ones I'm familiar with. Give me a sec and I'll look them up.

Edit: Ah, that looks like a new "we have Moen at home" brand.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 1d ago

Do you have to pull the handle out to get the water to start flowing, or do you only have to turn it?

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u/river_tree_nut 1d ago

Same here. I think everyone with a poli sci degree is pretty shocked by all this. I look forward to when politics is boring again...although I'm not sure it's going to happen in my lifetime.

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u/mmlovin 1d ago

My BA is in poli sci with a focus on legal studies. But I was in college during the 2012 election when Romney’s binders of women thing was a huge fuck up.

If I was in right now?? I’d change fucking majors. I wanted to go to law school..what for? The law means jack shit

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u/cookies_n_juice 1d ago

I have a PhD in political science and am decidedly not shocked. Literature on democracy and polarization is pretty clear lol. Only the political science people who studied only the US (Americanists) were shocked. 

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u/river_tree_nut 1d ago

Yeah shocked was the wrong word. It’s hard to be shocked by something that was years in the making. Rattled would be my personal response.

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u/cookies_n_juice 1d ago

Broad generalization there but that was my experience 

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u/framersmethod2028 1d ago

if you want boring again, we need to make the election system boring again. right now its all emotion and entertainment. its a show.

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u/MaximumManagement 1d ago

Frustrated, but not shocked.

I think the only real shock was 2016 when a minority of the people managed to elect an obviously corrupt game show host over a competent secretary of state and former senator.

Everything else since then is just a steady stream of SMH material.

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u/river_tree_nut 1d ago

I’ll never forget election night 2016 and hearing Chuck Todd say “wait a minute, theres something happening in Michigan”

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u/DevelopedDevelopment 1d ago

People used to joke about how cheesy it is to use social media to promote your message. They were supposed to stick to traditional media, maybe even just make things work because they didn't want to worry about policy and decisions. Now a lot of people's personal lives are touched upon by politics. You can't really get away from it, because outrage became policy. Turns out people don't actually care enough to step in, and nobody can do anything about it.

That and society has fallen enough that people actually have to care. People make decisions with politics in mind. You cannot trust the people in office to make good decisions and every time something happens a meme hits the front pages about it.

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u/Thich_QuangDuc 1d ago

White House has replied with a meme. Official response is a meme

Cool... Cool, cool, cool

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u/AirricK 1d ago

Where can I see this?

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u/VroomCoomer 1d ago

The buried lede in here the fact that the White House's official response to the request for comment was to send them a Mad Men meme.

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u/NotAllOwled 1d ago

It's extra funny because, in the source material, Don Draper is bluffing. Ginsberg totally does get under his skin and live rent-free in his head.

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u/Beautiful-Aerie7576 1d ago

The only reason Trump wouldn’t be thinking about Newsom at all would be because nobody around him is willing to show him what Newsom is doing. Sycophants and lackeys have that effect when the head cheese tends to shoot the messenger.