ADD politics
by digby
That is a chart of all the spikes in searches for news on google since Trump took office.
The study shows that while Trump’s presidency has been action-packed, the public’s attention span doesn’t seem to last for long.
The visible spikes of increased Googling on a topic indicate that Trump-related news captures the public’s interest, but that attention quickly fizzles out or is captured by the next bombshell report or firing. The House health care bill, North Korea and Afghanistan troops are some of the few that have had slightly more steady interest over time, with Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation having several mini-spikes of interest.
My instincts would normally tell me that this would have a cumulative effect and the public would permanently sour on all this mess. But with Trump, I just don’t know. It may just as easily become a sort of addictive need for stimulation too. He could be changing the way we think about politics — now it’s all reality show drama all the time. And we seem to need it to be more exciting all the time.
Trump has always seen politics as just another version of wrestling or reality TV — scripted drama where everyone pretends to think it’s real.
I wonder if he thinks nuclear war would make a ratings grabbing season finale.
He’s got friends who are egging him on:
Rep. Duncan Hunter said that the United States needs to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea in order to prevent the rogue nation from harming the U.S. first.
“You could assume, right now, that we have a nuclear missile aimed at the United States, and here in San Diego. Why would they not aim here, at Hawaii, Guam, our major naval bases?” Hunter, an Alpine Republican, said during an appearance on a KUSI show on Thursday.
“The question is, do you wait for one of those? Or, two? Do you preemptively strike them? And that’s what the president has to wrestle with. I would preemptively strike them. You could call it declaring war, call it whatever you want,” Hunter continued.
Hunter, a member of a House Armed Services Committee and the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the United States’ nuclear arsenal, did not say if the military should strike North Korea with conventional or nuclear weapons.
BTW:
Defense Secretary James Mattis said a war with North Korea would be “catastrophic” and that Seoul would be thoroughly shelled. He said the United States and its allies would win, but at a tremendous cost.
“It will be a war more serious in terms of human suffering than anything we have seen since 1953,” he said. He was not speaking specifically about a preemptive strike.
Yeah, whatever. As Trump said during the campaign, why do we have nuclear missiles if we aren’t prepared to use them?
Update: Remember this?
MATTHEWS: OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in 45, heard it. They`re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.
TRUMP: Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?
And this?
BLITZER: But — but you’re ready to let Japan and South Korea become nuclear powers?
TRUMP: I am prepared to — if they’re not going to take care of us properly, we cannot afford to be the military and the police for the world. We are, right now, the police for the entire world. We are policing the entire world.
You know, when people look at our military and they say, “Oh, wow, that’s fantastic,” they have many, many times — you know, we spend many times what any other country spends on the military. But it’s not really for us. We’re defending other countries.
So all I’m saying is this: they have to pay.
And you know what? I’m prepared to walk, and if they have to defend themselves against North Korea, where you have a maniac over there, in my opinion, if they don’t — if they don’t take care of us properly, if they don’t respect us enough to take care of us properly, then you know what’s going to have to happen, Wolf?
It’s very simple. They’re going to have to defend themselves.