Today we learned that immigration is more important for Americans than even abortion, so much that 3 states didn’t even codify it.
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Trump wins presidency for second time
451–460 of 1001 posts
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#452It’s all about the economy (remember, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’). We keep hearing statistics showing that the economy is doing well, but I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they’re actually better off. I’m not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to politics, you can’t address economic anxiety by just pointing to statistics and saying, ‘Look, the numbers say everything is fine.’
Polling clearly indicates that the percentage of Americans who feel financially secure has been steady for years while the percentage who think the economy is in poor shape is increasing rapidly. It is 99% perception. People who are better off just won't say it when they think everyone else is struggling. The bull market in stocks and rising home values indicates anyone who owns any assets is doing very very well.
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#453Foreign policy under Trump will generally be isolationist. - US out of NATO? Trump will at least threaten that. The larger European countries are currently weak militarily by historical standards. There does not seem to be enough will in Europe to spend at US levels, outside of the countries on the front line, such as Poland and Finland. - Ukraine war: Heavy US support for Ukraine probably stops. Whether Ukraine surr…
I doubt we see the same isolationism w.r.t. China, who remain Trump's main bogeyman (other than immigrants). The policy will probably make less sense, since as you mentioned his tariffs and transactional diplomacy may confound US efforts to build an anti-China alliance in the Pacific.
It would probably be a poor move for China to blockade Taiwan (an act of war). If the US decides to intervene, it would be very painful for China without a pre-emptive strike on US bases in the region. For all the talk of Trump as an anti-war candidate, he didn't seem to say no to many military strikes as POTUS, and this hypothetical would represent the US' best possible entry into a war over Taiwan.
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#454Parties basically switched sides this election. From 2008 to now: - Pro war party: Repubs -> Dems - Dick Cheney party: Repubs -> Dems - Elitist party: Repubs -> Dems - Working class party: Dems -> Repubs - Pro free speech party: Dems -> Repubs - Bigger spending party: Dems -> Repubs - Skeptical of large corps: Dems -> Repubs There are some issues where they haven't switched (eg. abortion)
> Pro war
I was surprised to see Trump not entertain much war during his last term but I don't agree. Both parties equally entertain war and I fear any Republican anti-war this time will be pro-Russia and further destabilize the world.
> Working class party
I think the voters see it that way and it's a real win for Republicans since they're the opposite and get away with it for who knows what reason
> Pro free speech
I've absolutely no idea how you came to this conclusion
> Skeptical of large corps
I'd love for that to be true but I bet they'll be just fine with any large corp that helps them remain in control.
And yes, the entire topic of religion has not only remained the same but perhaps gotten worse.
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#455“It’s the economy, stupid” has never been truer. People will trade their rights for more basic needs being fulfilled and most people simply aren’t happy with the one sided economy that has prevailed since the late 80s. Interest rates were too low for too long beginning circa 2000, and the massive flood of QE led to an explosion in house prices, car prices, and food. This is what the world gets for poor monetary and f…
Exactly. The Harris team made a key mistake by responding with, ‘No, you’re wrong. The economy is doing great—just look at the stats.’ They needed a concrete plan to address people’s concerns directly, but that was missing.
Personally, my issue with the Democrats is how they mishandled the electric vehicle charging network initiative. [0]
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/05/congress-ev-charger...
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#456From a game theoretical perspective this is a good result. It is a clear reiteration of the message to the Democrats: you won't win by claiming to be 0.1% less bad. The Democrats should have fielded a strong personality in their own right. This is not about left or right. It's about mobilizing people by giving them something to care about. "More of the same" and "not like that guy" isn't very enticing. I don't think…
You really don't know what you're talking about.
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#457It’s all about the economy (remember, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’). We keep hearing statistics showing that the economy is doing well, but I have yet to meet anyone who feels like they’re actually better off. I’m not saying that the stats are wrong, but when it comes to politics, you can’t address economic anxiety by just pointing to statistics and saying, ‘Look, the numbers say everything is fine.’
What motivated people according to polls was firstly inflation, then a distant second was either abortion or illegal border crossings. You're pretty much correct. It's been pointed out this quarter that inflation has been abated and wage growth has improved, but notwithstanding that people continue to feel worse off financially, they remain resentful.
The DNC made some blunders. Leaving aside covid spending, they screwed up reverting Trump's border policy and waited too long to fix it. Harris was weak on messaging and came up with the Housing plan too late, didn't champion the CHIPS act enough. Also, the newscycle was constantly showing the US spending large sums both domestically and abroad which had an impact on inflation. And of course there's all the other culture-war/DEI stuff that isn't strictly within the purview of the feds but feeds into resentment.
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#458Lewd charisma wins over kind intelligence.
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#459“It’s the economy, stupid” has never been truer. People will trade their rights for more basic needs being fulfilled and most people simply aren’t happy with the one sided economy that has prevailed since the late 80s. Interest rates were too low for too long beginning circa 2000, and the massive flood of QE led to an explosion in house prices, car prices, and food. This is what the world gets for poor monetary and f…
> the massive flood of QE led to an explosion in house prices, car prices, and food.
That's not really the case though.
We had a similar QE in '08 with pretty much no effect on CPI [1] or Housing [2]. As well as the increase in pricing has occurred _when the money printing stopped_ and not _while the money was printing_ [3].
The current inflation isn't caused by money printing. It's caused by pricing power by conglomerates. We've allowed energy companies to join together and they've agreed with OPEC to cut production to lead to price increases. We've allowed rental companies to join together and raise prices. We've allowed meat companies to join together and raise prices. The lack of anti-trust enforcement along with a trigger (Covid) is what caused inflations, companies realized they had a talking point (supply chain problems) that they could pin price increase on regardless of if it was true.
[1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDCPIM158SFRBCLE
Re: Trump wins presidency for second time
#460LOL democrats really did a number on themselves here!
The majority of the country was telling them "We are having change anxiety after Obama and we are having distrust in institutions after Covid". So what did they do? Cling to the same power structures with a dead man walking, doubled down on gender politics, devolved internally into morality based foreign policy shout match and the cherry on top put an uncharismatic non white woman as the candidate. At every step of the way they very eloquently and academically explained why they have the right solutions while completely ignoring the emotional state of the nation.
All they had to do was bring a calming white man that is not in cognitive decline that would reassure the nation that everything was going to be alright. That the America they know and love is here to stay.
You may don't like that this was reality, that your progressive views are more "right" than that, but it is. So now enjoy being factually, morally, academically correct with trump as the president with control on the congress. What a joke.