Ask HN: How do you filter the Pres-elect's gish gallop?

4 points·MontgomeryPy··4 comments

Seriously, as the news zone gets flooded again, how to determine the statements that might seriously be actioned on vs. not? Just follow actions and tune out the words?

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With the exception of things that can be done within the Executive Branch by EO (which isn't much and isn't lasting), the president-elect's rhetoric is communicative and not prescriptive. He's trying to set an agenda but lacks (like all presidents) a lot of power to make it happen beyond the bully pulpit.

Nothing relatively large and permanent happens until Congress makes a law or SCOTUS makes a ruling.

I don't have the energy for the constant statements. He can spew more than I have time or energy, and now he has people who can spew for him.

(Digression: Has anyone else noticed that there's a distinct pattern to how Trump communicates? Anything he doesn't like gets two negative adjectives attached - not one, not three, but almost always two. And his people have started writing the same way - even his lawyers in legal briefs!)

Anyway, I try to ignore it. I need to ignore it much more than I do. Too much hyperventilating outrage, too little substance. I can't be bothered to care anymore.

Note well: I'm going to be forced to care about what he does. But if the first term was anything to go by, that won't match the rhetoric.

Everything Trump says is important so I would listen carefully. We're lucky the new president knows where he is too.

Yes that's what I did term 1. But, looking back, I could have saved a lot of time not following news stories that ultimately went nowhere (e.g. new healthcare & infrastructure plans, etc). The rhetoric was there, but the willingness to put words into action was not -- which is at the heart of my question.

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