Trump's Card

[Sporting]

If Biden were to revoke full security protection for someone and then something happened it would look extremely negative for him. He can't really win.

[Various Artist]

Always reminds me of Sally Thomsett

Aargh, don't spoil The Railway Children for me NS!

[Capybara]

Aargh, don't spoil The Railway Children for me NS!

One for the actors playing roles much younger than they actually were (or whatever it's called) thread there, if it's not there already.

[Various Artist]

Yes, isn't she a year older than Jenny Agutter despite having played the younger sister? I seem to recall reading various things about how she had to be, er, bound flat, and was banned from smoking on set or having her boyfriend visit so as not to ruin the impression of being quite a bit younger or something – though how those latter would've translated to camera is beyond me.

On TV Tropes, the phenomenon of which you speak is known as Dawson Casting, after Dawson's Creek became a particularly notorious user of the practice of casting actors notably older than their characters.

[Capybara]

Yes, isn't she a year older than Jenny Agutter despite having played the younger sister? I seem to recall reading various things about how she had to be, er, bound flat, and was banned from smoking on set or having her boyfriend visit so as not to ruin the impression of being quite a bit younger or something – though how those latter would've translated to camera is beyond me.

On TV Tropes, the phenomenon of which you speak is known as Dawson Casting, after Dawson's Creek became a particularly notorious user of the practice of casting actors notably older than their characters.

Thanks. I've reached the limits of my film knowledge, here.

[ursus arctos]

Only the best people

https://twitter.com/ericliptonnyt/status/1352412501330288642

[Incandenza]

I guess I'll put this here--an article about how Madison Cawthorn has basically lied about training for the Paralympics.

But he has not only styled himself as Naval Academy material with a head for real estate. Multiple outlets reported that before he ran for office, Cawthorn was training for the 2020 Paralympic Games. There is little detail, but according to Micah Bock, Cawthorn’s campaign communications director, he intended to compete in the 400-meter dash at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. It would have been an incredible footnote in a politician’s biography: Paralympians are celebrated and accomplished athletes. But his hopes for the Paralympic Games, now slated for summer 2021, were allegedly dashed by his worsening disability.

Cawthorn frequently said on social media that he was “training” for the Paralympic Games. Technically, such a statement could be true—but only in the sense that I could be training for the Olympic Games. “It’s like a kid saying they want to play in the NBA when they’re on their fourth-grade basketball team,” said Amanda McGrory, a three-time Paralympian who has earned seven medals in track and field. Cawthorn stated on the Christian inspirational podcast The Heal, “I had an opportunity for the Paralympics for track and field.” He did not have that opportunity, nor does it appear he took any meaningful steps that would have led him there.

Paralympians are the best at what they do. Qualifying is a long, complicated process. In addition to being a Paralympian, McGrory is the archivist and collections curator for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She told me: “You have to be involved in a team, usually your college or a local club. And then from there, you establish times at qualifying races, and then from there you get scouted.” Patrick Henry College, which Cawthorn attended for a semester before dropping out, doesn’t have a disabled sports program.

In addition to not being on a team, Cawthorn does not appear to have competed in any qualifying races. Robert Kozarek, a former elite wheelchair marathoner, said he would have met Cawthorn at some point if he had been serious competition. Kozarek himself never qualified for the Paralympic Games. “The community itself is small. There’s probably 50 [elite wheelchair racers] in the entire country, and we see each other four, five, six times a year, at least.”

In addition to being on a team and establishing times at qualifying races, prospective Paralympians need to be internationally classified. “The International Paralympic Committee, the IPC, they have a registry of athletes. You have to be on it to even compete internationally,” McGrory explained. People on the list are evaluated for severity of disability and sorted accordingly, in an attempt to make athletic competitions between people with different disabilities fairer. The list is publicly available, and contains over 4,000 athletes from around the world. Cawthorn isn’t on it.

[Hot Pepsi]

Good God.

"Patrick Henry College" is a right-wing institution for home-schooled fundamentalists and yet he only lasted a semester.

[Bruno]

I wish I could understand why so many people are okay with lying their asses off even when it's likely they'll be exposed.

[Hot Pepsi]

All about that base!!!

[Toby Gymshorts]

I wish I could understand why so many people are okay with lying their asses off even when it's likely they'll be exposed.

Because so many people are willing to believe them to suit their own selfish ends.

[Incandenza]

I wish I could understand why so many people are okay with lying their asses off even when it's likely they'll be exposed.

Because there's no consequences for lying if you're on the right, if you get called on it you either react "oh look, the libs are triggered" or "the cultural Marxists are trying to cancel me."

[ursus arctos]

Quite

This is a doddle compared to the Nazi stuff

[Bruno]

No, I get all that obviously. I just don't relate to the "no consequences" logic and total lack of shame. Of course there are consequences one way or another.

[Snake Plissken]

No, I get all that obviously. I just don't relate to the "no consequences" logic and total lack of shame. Of course there are consequences one way or another.

There aren't. Unless you consider "no consequences" to be "the ability to make a million dollars". All you need to do is set yourself as the heroic outsider giving to The Man. Ask Hopkins, Farage, Jones etc. There is even one fella who has lied constantly in press and in public for thirty years, been fired for it several times (including from actual Government), wasted billions of pounds of money, had affairs and children that he doesn't even acknowledged, been constantly racist and as a consequence, has ended up in the job he's lusted after since birth. Where after his own negligence and laziness has killed nearly 100,000 citizens and driven an entire country off an economic cliff

*checks notes*

is still leading in the opinion polls.

[Bruno]

Yeah I understand all that too. What I've never understood is how they live with themselves. I would think there'd be internal consequences to living a lie, but maybe not.

[Bruno]

"Consequences" also includes good and reasonable people hating you.

[San Bernardhinault]

I guess that once you've become a Republican politician you've already disposed of the concept of shame. Or self-examination at all.

[Bruno]

Presumably. But Trump, for one, strikes me as the least happy person in the world for his lack of shame.

[San Bernardhinault]

Almost none of these habitual liars seems very happy. They mostly seem perpetually angry about things. Some of the anger is performance art rather than sincere, but just acting permanently angry can't be good for your general demeanour. And I think they are actually angry about the fact that their world-view is no longer dominant, and are genuinely always upset and angry about that. They aren't happy.

[Wouter D]

The Simpsons summarized it well.

[Snake Plissken]

Yeah I understand all that too. What I've never understood is how they live with themselves. I would think there'd be internal consequences to living a lie, but maybe not.

You're not a narcissistic sociopath, so of course you don't understand it.

People persuade themselves that something they did wrong was right, or at least justifiable. Everyone does it. They just do it on a grander scale - and in many cases, they are brought up, or educated that they are always right, and because they end up in positions of societal success, then that just proves they were right all along.

Life has never been a meritocracy.

[ursus arctos]

Snake is playing a blinder here

[Bruno]

You're not a narcissistic sociopath, so of course you don't understand it.

People persuade themselves that something they did wrong was right, or at least justifiable. Everyone does it. They just do it on a grander scale - and in many cases, they are brought up, or educated that they are always right, and because they end up in positions of societal success, then that just proves they were right all along.

Life has never been a meritocracy.

I get all that too. I don't actually need this stuff spelled out. When I say I don't understand, I mean I don't relate.

Of course, being bad is often successful. But there have to be costs. I tend to think what goes around generally comes around, not that that protects the victims of bad behavior in time. I was referring in particular to living a lie, especially a big obvious lie. It must be incredibly corrosive.

[Satchmo Distel]

There is also the religious belief that it's OK to lie and cheat in service of your God, which is presumably how McConnell sleeps at night.

There is at least one book on how Trump hates himself (by David Shields) but it's thin psychobabble. Self-hating fascists are a leftist fantasy descended from some neo-Freudian authors of the 50s who wanted to believe that Hitler and Goebbels were hiding some secret self-disgust.