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Jimmy Carter has died

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611–620 of 879 posts

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Biden actually pulled off a soft landing and got inflation under control. Just couldn’t land that messaging by the time it mattered.

We are in post policy politics. It no-longer matters what you do, how intelligent or well executed your plans were, just what the messaging says. It is far easier to pick things that you can control messaging on and make them the issues, even when they aren't, than to actually take on the hard things that truly impact people's daily lives. That is what killed Carter's second term and that playbook has just gotten str…

Being in a post policy politics era means voters are too dumb to vote on policy and will vote on messaging.

No voter likes to know that they're dumb - but the fact that Donald Trump is soon the ROTUS implies they are.

Maybe more should be invested in education.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#612
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem is that people will blame the government entirely on inflation, but then give themselves the credit for wage increases. It doesn't help that wage increases disproportionately go towards those those to switch jobs.

it is extremely difficult to make this into an election issue - impossible to explain to “joe voter”

The fundamental issue is that Joe voter is dumb - but you can't tell him that, or he won't vote for you (as Hillary Clinton found out).

The million-dollar question is: How to you make Joe voter be less dumb?

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will probably work out fine in the elections, because Trump's followers trust him to do right by them even while he's lying. Time will tell whether they're correct.

Trump followers alone is nowhere near enough to win an election in the USA. It was somewhat easy to win this election. you had post-Covid economy coupled with half-senile 80+ year old grandpa who was replaced by a candidate not a soul voted for. however, when you are up for re-election (and midterms as 1/2-way gauge of how the country thinks you are doing) the buck stops with you. there is no “booo, it is not my faul…

While I agree on your point regarding midterm reckoning, I'm afraid people DID vote for Trump, he even won the popular vote - which is mind numbing: Americans actually WANTED to install a proven criminal and rapist as president.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#614

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"It feels like the left moved left" In what way? If anything, Democrats have moved to the right on topics like border control and immigration, and haven't really moved strongly to either side on social issues like abortion or drugs, on education, gun control, campaign finance, trade, healthcare, or foreign policy.

Since I've been asked a thousand times by leftists, I'll try to answer. I feel like at least the right recognizes they're going further right. > Democrats have moved to the right on topics like border control and immigration Yes, because it's become such an apparent clusterfk they had no choice but to. It's not much different than a child covered in Nutella, with Nutella all over the table and floor telling their par…

The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people. Many of the things people like to bring up when complaining about "a shift to the left" are fringe ideas even on the left, and are amplified by right-wingers who are trying to paint the left as out of touch with reality.

Having said that, age-appropriate sex ed in elementary school (e.g. talking about bodily autonomy and consent) is actually a good idea, since children at that age are often victims of sexual abuse and don't understand exactly what is happening to them.

And if you genuinely get bent out of shape about tampons in mens bathrooms, I'm really happy for you. Your life must be genuinely amazing that something so meaningless even warrants being mentioned as a point of contention. Personally, as somebody who sometimes purchases tampons for his wife, it seems at best marginally useful, and at worst completely irrelevant to me.

The economy topic is hardly a left-wing issue. People on the right cheered for Luigi just as much as people on the left, because they're suffering just as much, or more. What is happening here is not the left moving to the left, it's poor people being disenfranchised and reacting to it. This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "communists/socialists", since those two words have been stripped of all meaning in the US.

"It wasn't a policy shift, it's attempting to save face"

You're just using different words, but you're saying the same thing I did: it's a shift to the right. It's also dumb and counterproductive, because immigration is not the source of people's problems, and curtailing immigration in the way it is currently being done will only make things worse, but that is besides the point.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#615

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The controversial Greater Israel army patch seen in Gaza includes Sinai and the western banks of the Red Sea as well as a bunch of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Of course the end point of expansion is likely not predetermined.

Controversial, as in almost certainly made up anti-Israel propaganda? Ryan McBeth presents his thoughtful analysis and debunking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8HWJ2v0R6k

Why is the current finance minister of Israel engaging in "almost certainly made up anti-Israel propaganda"?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-seeks-to-calm-waters-wi...

The article talks about his a speech he made in Paris in March of 2023 in which he calls Palestinians a made-up people. The podium he is speaking from features a map of Israel that includes Jordanian and Syrian territory. Israel is literally invading and annexing Syrian territory (which the media is playing down as 'buffer zones'

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDR did Japanese internment, tried court packing, and was arguably the first of the modern style of power-hungry president. He constantly threatened members of Congress that didn’t roll over and go along with his agenda. To that end he was very influential but not entirely in a good way. He hardly ended the depression, economic conditions were poor until WW2 (eg look at the 1937 downturn, well into his tenure).

Exactly. FDR is the reason that the President today has an unbalanced amount of power compared to Congress. That being said, back then, I would argue that the situation would have been very different had a lesser person than FDR been elected president, given the kind of political climate it was around the world.

> FDR is the reason

Well, and also every administration and Congress after him for not changing it back.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar thermal water heaters are a retro technology at this point. It's simpler and easier to install PV panels driving a heat pump water heater.

Yes, at this point. At the time, they were not.

Seriously everyone critiquing 40 year old projects like they just had PVs laying around in the 70s.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#618
post #509

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Not by itself, not anymore, because of ACA. For most people, the most cost effective insurance is catastrophic major medical + self-pay for anything else. What passes for insurance now really isn’t “insurance” in the sense that completely expected, and even likely, events are covered. It’s more like paying for discount healthcare but has the major medical built in.

Catastrophic health insurance makes no sense as an insurance product since the probability of catastrophic health event costing hundreds of thousands of dollars is so high as one ages. Heart disease and cancer is a given, and that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat, and premature babies are in the millions. US health insurance is a combination healthcare purchasing agent/second opinion/fraud detection/in…

Insurance companies sold such plans for decades; the price goes up as you get older (==riskier from the pov of the insurer). Just like life insurance.

At some point the consumer makes a decision that the cost of insurance doesn’t justify the benefit.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#619

My favorite Carter story was when he was out on a fishing boat and there was a swamp rabbit that aggressively approached his boat. Carter used his paddle to shoo it away. He told his advisers about it, but they didn't believe him. But a White House photographer was taking pictures of the trip at the time and captured the rabbit in the picture. Of course, the press blew it out of proportion and used it to mock/attack…

https://xkcd.com/204/
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