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“I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

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Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#121

Post by rjf72 »

cachehit wrote: post #92
HenryBemis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great article, thank you. As for BoJo, he is smart as a fox. Trump is the same. They make 1-2 stupid things, so people call them stupid. On the back side they scheme and plan. Haters see the stupid actions and hate. They play a game of chess, sacrificing a pawn (some 'credibility' by saying something stupid), and while people are getting tired of their artificial stupidity, they march on doing their thing left alone.…

I am not sure about Boris, but I am 100% certain that the narrative about Trump playing 4D chess is bullshit. I believe that George Bush may have had a persona to some degree ( https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ ) because it pays off to speak like a man of the people. But everyone who's worked with Donald Trump and spoken out afterwards tell the same story about how utterly stupid he is. In Denmark, we on…

Do you think the individuals that choose to go to the media and speak negatively of him are an unbiased sample of all of the individuals he has meaningfully engaged with through the years? This is the problem with basing your perception of reality on the media. Dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is news. If all you have to rely for your characterization of "other" people is the media then you'd suddenly think there was a massive epidemic of men running around biting dogs! Won't anybody think of the puppies!? We need to urgently pass anti-dog biting laws!

As one example of this that we can quantify, a major issue in the US is "responsible gun control" to combat an epidemic of homicide and violence driven largely by high powered "assault rifles." In quotes there since an assault rifle entails selective fire, generally between full and semi automatic - those weapons are already illegal. Anyhow, let's test this against the data. In the US in 2016 there were 11,004 firearm homicides. [1] How many of these were caused by rifles? The answer is 374, about 3%. Nearly all of our gun crime is driven by cheap little pistols. But "assault rifles" make much better media and sound scary, so it results in a grossly misinformed public who think there's some massive epidemic of "assault rifle" driven homicide.

[1] - https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#122

Post by Arbalest »

benj111 wrote: post #105
Arbalest wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do mean Generation X, 1960s to early 80s

Fair enough, its just Gen Xers are starting to retire, which doesn't jive with "number of good working years". And surely your mid 30s is when you start climbing the greasy pole enough to wield significant power?

Maybe a better way of stating it is, no longer busy with children, where millenials are busy with that as a distraction.

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#123

Post by bubblewrap »

daniel75378 wrote: post #82

Isn’t this normally called a one-trick pony? Alternatively it is very much like what actors do; act. I am struggling to see a sense of professionalism, concern or leadership, unfortunately. Nice hair, though.

I don't think he is giving the sheep speech at EVERY occasion. Presumably he has more than one trick up his sleeve.

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#124

Post by bubblewrap »

Politician giving speeches at some random gathering of industry types - isn't that SUPPOSED to be entertainment? It's not as if those speeches matter in any way?

I think comedians do a similar thing, practicing their act until it seems spontaneous but every punchline hits. Why should politicians do their job part of "public speaking" in a different way?

So what does "for real" mean? If a comedian manages to look spontaneous, yet every word and move has been practiced hundreds of times, is he for real?

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#125

Post by DanBC »

> “Now, I accept,” he went on in an uncertain tone, “that as a result some small children were eaten by a shark. But how much more pleasure did the MAJORITY get from those beaches as a result of the boldness of the Mayor in Jaws?”

A small reminder that this is a direct cause of Grenfell, where 72 people died in a burning building.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#126

Post by repolfx »

monodeldiablo wrote: post #60
smsm42 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being British I don't really have a skin in the game, but thinking about how well things have been going lately over there with the "serious" people, I wonder maybe it's time to question the value of their seriousness. If you're very serious total failure, then the seriousness helps no one.

There haven't been many "serious" people at the helm since the Brexit vote. Clowns are running the show, and BoJo plays a very convincing clown. Ultimately, though, that's a sideshow. He has no principles, forethought, or plan. So I struggle to understand how he'd improve the UK's position.

Theresa May wasn't "serious"? The woman who, on being asked about the naughtiest thing she'd ever done, said "running through a field of wheat"?

Since the Brexit vote the only people at the helm have been serious establishment types who saw the entire process as a damage limitation exercise, and who couldn't stop telling the country that what they had been offered and requested wasn't actually possible, the sky would fall and so on. Many such serious people made very serious predictions, most notoriously, the Treasury predicting that the vote would trigger an uncertainty-based recession that'd wipe out half a million jobs. Obviously the reality was very different.

Boris isn't an idiot. He is popular because he did a good job in London and comes across as a man who believes in Britain and wants to get things done. Whether he will or not is an entirely different matter; his party is still against him. But he's widely liked for understandable reasons.

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#127

Post by rjf72 »

mikeymz wrote: post #100
coldtea wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure about Boris, but I am 100% certain that the narrative about Trump playing 4D chess is bullshit. Compared to the narrative that a person who could run several multi-billion dollar businesses, negotiate deals all around the world, get back from bankruptcy (even if it was with cunning and winning banking favors) and play the media to become President is stupid?

You are missing the subtext of that narrative - Trump did none of those things. People around him and behind him are responsible. I'm not saying that is true (probably is) but it explains how a dullard with his dad's cash can achieve what he has.

The problem with this hypothesis is that it seems to imply that his money resulted in some sort of advantage other candidates did not have. In reality he was outspent by nearly half a billion dollars in the general election and he was also outspent by every major competitor in the primaries as well.

If it wasn't an economic matter and instead he just hired better people - that would still be quite an amazing skill. To be able to have hired better people for his campaign than professional politicians who have been studying and living politics for decades?

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#128

Post by repolfx »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #45
whatshisface wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you were a calculating actor like this guy, and you wanted to insult him. Would you design the insult around his private persona, which only you and a select few were privy to, or around his public persona, so that the public will agree with the insult? If the truth doesn't matter to you, you will join in on the illusion of him being disorganized, because that's what the public already believes.

The plebs don't seem to be aware that he's disorganized and unprepared or lacking in knowledge - that's beyond the things they care about it seems. Apparently, people 'like him' and his sheer popularity I think is most of the driving force behind his success. Anyone who's paying attention (small minority in reality) seems to regard him as a complete idiot, however. The Financial Times, his former editor at the Telegr…

The Financial Times, his former editor at the Telegraph, obviously the Guardian

I would note that all three of these are extremely anti-Brexit. Lots of people believe (rightly or wrongly) that Leave wouldn't have won without the support of Johnson and blame him personally for Brexit, which they see as an abomination. They aren't going to be even handed in their judgement of him: really, I'd say anything they write about him is going to be a smear.

Re: “I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you”

#129

Post by riffraff »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #106
riffraff wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this point of view is arguable. First, politicians may be considered as representative of either _only the people who voted for them_, or as _representative of everyone_. Secondly, many politicians do not really change their point of view, the change in people's opinion is expressed by voting different people.

Must this be a binary choice? Both effects are at play here. Politicians will often adjust their publicity stated views to match their electorate to be more electable. As the electorates opinions change over time, the publicly stated views of the politicians also evolve. Occasionally politicians who want to bring about a certain kind of change they believe in passionately are able to shift the views of their electora…

yes, I agree completely.
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