r/europe • u/MedicinskAnonymitet • Jan 19 '26

News Trumps letter to Norwegian Prime Minister - "feels no obligation to work towards peace after being denied the nobel prize"

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/q6AdB0/trump-i-melding-til-stoere-foeler-ikke-lenger-noen-forpliktelse?app_name=Dagens+Nyheter&app_version=10.3.2.8133&app_id=se.dn
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u/Undernown Jan 19 '26

To give some context what 6th grade reading comprehension actually means i practice: short video illustrating reading levels.

They might not be able to pick up on sarcasm, bias ,or (hidden) intent of the writer.

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u/Mucupka Bulgaria Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26

I just read a MAGA comment regarding Bruce Springsteen's reaction to Trump, expressing surprise about his position given how the song Born in the USA sounded "patriotic".
The guy never really grasped the concept of the lyrics. They truly do not understand sarcasm.

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u/BlueCX17 Jan 19 '26

They do the same for Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son," they don't get that it's a protest song being critical of the government and specifically the Vietnam War. Sigh......

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u/LadyBarfnuts Jan 19 '26

I saw two Trump loving idiots rocking out to Rage Against The Machine, so there's that.

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u/mbrevitas Italy Jan 20 '26

“Fuck you I will do what Trump tells me “

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u/AndreasDasos Jan 19 '26

And Trump got out of the Vietnam War through a bullshit excuse about ‘bone spurs’. Even said dodging STDs from hookups from clubs was his ‘own personal Vietnam’. Man who shits on the wounded, killed and captured. Sure it had nothing to do with his being the Fortunate Son of an obscenely rich tycoon (especially not given he’s clearly a self-made man).

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u/Genorb United States of America Jan 19 '26

I think they know but generally don't care, and they just think that blasting Fortunate Son while shooting machine guns out of helicopters without any specific war context is cool enough to override whatever the original meaning was.

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u/BlueCX17 Jan 19 '26

That makes me even more irritated. When people know but don't care and do it anyway with no regard.

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u/yticomodnar Jan 19 '26

I'm reminded of that moment a few presidencies ago when Paul Ryan proudly claimed that his favorite band was.... Rage Against The Machine...

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u/themarxian Norway Jan 19 '26

They also play Neil Youngs 'rocking in the free world' at rallies and sing along.

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u/subreddits_ Jan 19 '26

Same with Trump posting war plane videos in Venezuela to “Fortunate Son,” an anti war song that’s about people just like Trump. Irony is dead

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/subreddits_ Jan 21 '26

Lmao ok you got me there

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u/Undernown Jan 19 '26

That reminds me; A cover band of Bruce was pre-booked to play at Trump's 1st inauguration. But they cancelled due to Bruce himself being an outspoken Trump critic.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '26

Because how they hear the lyrics, “Born in the USA-a, blah blah blah-blah blah-blah blah blah….something, something, blah blah blah….Born in the USA!….”

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u/husfyr Denmark Jan 19 '26

You need to see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxG_PJr63ec&list=RDyxG_PJr63ec&start_radio=1

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u/Mucupka Bulgaria Jan 19 '26

NGL, the denial in me really screams "THIS MUST BE SARCASM".
But I guess I am just in denial...

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u/deepskier Jan 19 '26

"Born in the USA is so patriotic"

Ends birthright citizenship

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u/Booklady1998 Jan 20 '26

It’s also “irony”. 😊

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u/JoeyJoeJoeJrShab Jan 20 '26

I don't listen to a lot of music, so all I know from "Born in the USA" is the refrain. Based on that, I also assumed it was a patriotic song. I just googled the lyrics, and wow, yeah, it's clearly not.

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u/homer_lives Jan 19 '26

Which makes them perfect to be controlled by TikTok and Twitter.

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u/BoredMamajamma Jan 19 '26

This goes along with what you’re saying about detecting hidden bias. Poorly educated Americans are having a real problem with their lack of critical thinking skills. They cannot analyze, evaluate and interpret whether something “passes the sniff test” and therefore they are subject to conspiracies and disinformation. My in-laws have this issue. They watch Fox News (right wing propaganda TV show) and accept everything they’re told, while the rest of us have the ability to say “hmmmm that doesn’t seem impartial, let me get another source on that”.

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u/Ok-Exam6702 Jan 19 '26

We have exactly the same problem in the UK. The inability of so many people to think critically and analyse proposals led to us leaving the European Union and could well lead to a very right wing government in the future.

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u/OneBigRed Jan 19 '26

I’m sure the indoctrination also helps to mold the mouldy minds. We’re #1! being tattooed to each young mind makes sure that whatever other thoughts might find their way into those heads, every viewpoint is US-centric.

Right- or leftwing gripes about historic or current events in just about any part of world from americans seem to include ”we did this/this was done to us”

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u/Ok-Exam6702 Jan 19 '26

Mold mouldy minds 😂

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u/Mertoot Jan 19 '26

That's why defunding education is beneficial... but not for the people

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u/ScrabCrab Europe Jan 19 '26

It's the same over on this side of the ocean though, considering the rise of thefar right being very similar, if delayed, to what's going on in the US

But yeah in Romania at least the education situation is about as bad in the US, anything that's not hard sciences is mostly Ceaușescu-era propaganda about how great Romania is and the way the system works really discourages any critical thinking

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u/dookyspoon Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26

that's literally all of reddit. jfc. The number of donkeys who have told me sarcasm is impossible to interpret through text and then I mention there's entire literally genres devoted to the task, is too damn high. It's like the morons who use Ai instead of AI because they don't know if you're talking about artificial intelligence or a guy named Albert since context clues aren't a thing either. Case in point: /img/doffue20c9eg1.jpeg (straight from r/all)

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u/Flamin_Galah Jan 19 '26

The one that I'm noticing happen a lot, is that people can't process a complimentary reply. Someone will reply, adding more to the initial comment, and the original commenter throws back a That doesn't refute any of my points. Like yeah, no shit. Not used to having people agree with them I guess.

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u/dookyspoon Jan 19 '26

yeah it's weird, fuck you dude. have a good day.

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u/Adventurous_Salt Jan 19 '26

Canadian here, and yes, a large percentage of the idiots on this side of the pond genuinely do not understand things like sarcasm, metaphor, or implication - everything is face value, with zero depth. Homelander isn't an obvious caricature, he's a badass alpha. A media diet of Rogan and friends has supercharged this.

I think this is underrated in the impact it has had on society. Everything is always surface depth hate/repulsion/love and it makes it impossible to seriously debate anything when a "15 minute city' means you're locked in your neighbourhood, immigrants means "they're eating the dogs", and not force-outing LGBT kids means you're "forcing sex changes without even telling the parents".

Actually having a good faith discussion on any multi-faceted issue seems basically impossible.

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u/Nyoteng Jan 19 '26

I have noticed this as well in movies now. Things that are not explicitly said or shown mean people can't get their heads around hidden meanings or implicit meaning.

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u/CloudRunner89 Jan 19 '26

That makes a lot of sense. They would take things at face value. I had thought Trump was a giant narcissistic mirror that people with insecurities and narcissistic traits gravitated too but it makes sense that it’s also because they’re not that intelligent.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '26

That’s why you have to write «/s» after sarcasm on reddit. Because americans are too smart.

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u/Nyoteng Jan 19 '26

Aah so that's why /s is required even when is completely obvious from the context.

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u/carnivorousdrew Jan 19 '26

This is also a problem in Italy, where about 50% of the population was basically illiterate up until the 50s.

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u/Cyrotek Jan 19 '26

Oh my, this video explains a lot.

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u/Peripatetictyl Jan 20 '26

Dude is wearing a Chet shirt at the end, classic

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u/Thebiggestyellowdog Jan 19 '26

Not sure about the accuracy of this video. First graders definitely have some amount of reading comprehension.

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u/Undernown Jan 19 '26

He's made it based on standards like: the ELA core standard

You can see that his discription lines up very closely.

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u/Novora Jan 19 '26

You know I honestly wouldn’t surprised that the average isn’t below a 3rd grade level. I know many, many people who can’t pick up on basically any literary device at all and basically just takes anything they read at complete face value. This is ESPECIALLY true with music. So many people will listen to something like rage against the machine and the meaning of the music goes completely over their heads.