• kofe@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Words can have multiple meanings. Harris didn’t go to McDonald’s and work a shift as a politician to get the photo op. Her showing up for her “shift” at the White House isn’t any more staged, imo. If you want to say that the entire White House is staged, shit like that, then by that metric everyone’s job is staged. Which, hey, if you find value in “staging” your home or work area, that’s great. I think we should differentiate how Trump & Mussolini here clearly made their decision to do these jobs for just long enough for cameras and potential voters, though. There’s really no other substance to take away from the pictures.

      • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Jesus christ, can you people stop meatriding Harris for a millisecond? How do you make this about her?

        Do you understand the meaning of the word staged? I was talking about the fact that any appearance of any (important) politician ever is controlled by a team of people specialized in communication. They want to obviously portray the politician in the best light possible, every impression counts. It’s not a fascism thing, every politician constructs and curates their image to accomplish their goals and pass the messages they want to the people. Unless you think that these two rich politicians and the billions they get as campaign funding from other rich people are spent on pizza parties and that the videos and pictures they take are authentic lmfao

        • kofe@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I’m in a charged enough environment that seeing your aggressive language is too much for me to read beyond three sentences. It doesn’t seem you read my full comment based on those three, anyway. You don’t need to reply or repeat yourself but if you don’t mind clarifying, would you mind considering running it by ChatGPT or something to make sure it’s civil first? I don’t think my comment warranted this attitude. Thank you.

          • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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            1 month ago

            You are right, I’m sorry for my aggressiveness. My point was that any big politician stages any public appearance and video they make, because they all have a very big team of communication experts who curate the best possible image for them. There is no authenticity ever and that’s why so much money is spent on the campaigns. Staging a campaign is not a fascism issue, but a big politics issue

            • kofe@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              I see where you’re coming from. It could branch out to any person or organization, though, wouldn’t you think? Like I brought up in my original comment, I “stage” my home for myself, firstly, because it makes me feel comfortable. I also do a lot of video calls for work, school, and with friends. So I wonder where the delineation is. When and why does it become inauthentic?

              • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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                1 month ago

                You don’t spend millions on data analysts who gather voter data from social media, government data advertisers and other sources, you don’t have photographers, videographers for every public appearance of yours, you don’t have psychologists and communication specialists who decide what you’ll say, do and express with your face. In general, you don’t plan ahead every move you make when people will see you and you don’t control your entire environment, the people you will interact with and what you will see and do every time.

                You seem to have a really simplistic/naive view of how politics work at this level with the analogy of an ordinary person you gave. You need to realize that these people have absolutely nothing to do with you or me. These people will never tell you who they are funded by, who are lobbying them, who they owe to, who influences them, who threatens them and why they take most decisions, they will lie, they will hide their wealth, they will hide their ties. The only reason they are able to compete for presidency is the fact that the rich people support them, because their media take their side(channels, newspapers, websites) and their money fund their campaigns. So they will always, necessarily serve their interests, that’s the deal, otherwise they will drop them and go to the next willing politician. This means that the big politicians can never tell the truth.

                So with all that said, the fakeness of their campaign reflects the irreconcilable situation they are in, having to serve the 0.1% and having the people as a means to this end.

                • kofe@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Again with insults? I don’t think I’ll be continuing to reply. Have a good one.

    • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’s staged in that every element is fake.

      When they take photos of Obama playing basketball, Trump golfing, etc. the subjects are still actually doing those things and actually do them off-camera as pastimes. The comms people are taking real interests and skills of their clients and casting them in the best possible light. The circumstances are staged, but the pastimes are not.

      Mussolini never harvested any wheat and Trump never worked at McDonald’s. The comms people are completely fabricating their client’s interests and skills.

      It’s not even Dirty Jobs levels of slumming it where they actually do the job but get paid thousands of times more and go to a fancy hotel at the end of the day. They’re just models.

      • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Everything they say, everything they do, every interaction with another person, every camera shot taken, everything is staged and planned ahead by teams. Their character is staged, their expressions are staged, so what’s different? The fact that they may do something like that, though differently, once in a while? The goal is still the same, to connect with voters and to create a more likeable and relatable image of them. Regardless if other candidates have not explicitly dressed up as workers of a field they’ve never worked for. They film themselves going to factories listening to people, talking to people in the streets and all of that is 100% controlled, so I don’t see the difference. It’s not like anyone claims Trump works in McDonald’s for years, they don’t fabricate anything more than any other campaigner does.

        The distinction you make doesn’t have a tangible meaning to it, all of them are showing something staged based on data science, psychology and communication and nothing else.