#trump's mishandling of the pandemic

[tomorrowusa]

« If the first Trump term was akin to the random destruction of a toddler, a second would be more like the deliberate demolition of a saboteur. With the benefit of four years of governing experience and four more years of planning, Trump and his team have concluded that the problem with their first game of Jenga was that they simply did not remove enough of democracy’s blocks.

[ … ]

As Trump degrades government, following the Orbánist playbook with at least some success, much of the public would justifiably lose their already-battered faith in the American system of government. And whether it could long survive such a disaster is anyone’s guess. »

— Zach Beauchamp at Vox.

People who claim that a second Trump term would be no worse than the first one have forgotten how disastrous it truly was. Trump's completely botched response to COVID-19 not only drove up the US death total by hundreds of thousands but set in motion economic difficulties which lasted for several years.

And the collection of sane pro-democracy individuals who kept Trump's more dangerous impulses in check during his administration will not be there to keep the country from going off the rails.

The long term damage Trump could do to American democracy could be even worse than the second term itself.

It's always easier to prevent dictators than to oust them once you get them. So save yourself a lot of work in the future!

You don't have to be in a swing state to help get out the vote in such a state.

Volunteer | Kamala Harris for President

[azazelsazaleas]

Even if Trump loses, the fact that it’s so close is fucking bleak

[boreal-sea]

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

EDIT:

Ok fine, I spent 3 hours compiling sources for all of these, you can find that below the cut.

I'll give at least one link per subject area. There are of course many more sources to be read on these subject areas and no post could possibly give someone a full education on these subjects.

Biden and trans rights: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

Trump and trans rights: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trump-on-lgbtq-rights-rolling-back-protections-and-criminalizing-gender-nonconformity

The two sources above show how Biden has done a lot of work to promote trans rights, and how Trump did a lot of work to hurt trans rights.

Biden on abortion access: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/what-is-in-biden-abortion-executive-order/index.html

Trump on abortion access: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-republican-presidential-election-2024-585faf025a1416d13d2fbc23da8d8637

Biden openly supports access to abortion and has taken steps to protect those rights at a federal level even after Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump, on the other hand, was the man who appointed the judges who helped overturn Roe v Wade and he openly brags about how proud he is of that decision. He also states that he believes individual states should have the final say in whether or not abortion is legal, and that he trusts them to "do the right thing", meaning he supports stronger abortion bans.

Biden on environmental reform: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-restores-protections-for-three-national-monuments-and-renews-american-leadership-to-steward-lands-waters-and-cultural-resources/

Trump on environmental reform: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

Biden has made major steps forward for environmental reform. He has restored protections that Trump rolled back. He has enacted many executive orders and more to promote environmental protections, including rejoining the Paris Accords, which Trump withdrew the USA from. Trump is also well known for spreading conspiracy theories and lies about global climate change, calling it a "Chinese hoax".

Biden on healthcare and prescription reform: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/06/09/biden-administration-announces-savings-43-prescription-drugs-part-cost-saving-measures-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act.html

Trump on healthcare reform: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html

I'm rolling healthcare and prescriptions and vaccines and public health all into one category here since they are related. Biden has lowered drug costs, expanded access to medicaid, and ACA enrollment has risen during his presidency. He has also made it so medical debt no longer applies to a person's credit score. He signed many executive orders during his first few weeks in office in order to get a handle on Trump's grievous mishandling of the COVID pandemic. Trump also wants to end the ACA. Trump is well known for refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic, encouraging the use of hydroxylchloroquine to "treat" COVID, and being openly anti-vaxx.

Biden on student loan forgiveness: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-77-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-160000-borrowers

Trump on student loan forgiveness: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/06/20/trump-knocks-bidens-vile-student-loan-forgiveness-plans-suggests-reversal/

Trump wants to reverse the student loan forgiveness plans Biden has enacted. Biden has already forgiven billions of dollars in loans and continues to work towards forgiving more.

Infrastructure funding:

I'm putting these links next together because they are all about infrastructure.

In general, Trump's "achievements" for infrastructure were to destroy environmental protections to speed up projects. Many of his plans were ineffective due to the fact that he did not clearly outline where the money was going to come from, and he was unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the projects. He was unable (and unwilling) to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill during his 4 years in office. He did sign a few disaster relief bills. He did not enthusiastically promote renewable energy infrastructure. He created "Infrastructure Weeks" that the federal government then failed to fund. Trump did not do nothing for infrastructure, but his no-tax stance and his dislike for renewable energy means the contributions he made to American infrastructure were not as much as he claimed they were, nor as much as they could have been. Basically, he made a lot of promises, and delivered on very few of them. He is not "against" infrastructure, but he's certainly against funding it.

Biden was able to pass that bipartisan bill after taking office. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that Trump tried to prevent from passing during Biden's term contains concrete funding sources and step by step plans to rebuild America's infrastructure. If you want to read the plan, you can find it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/guidebook/. Biden has done far more for American infrastructure than Trump did, most notably by actually getting the bipartisan bill through congress.

Biden on Racial Equity: https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/26/960725707/biden-aims-to-advance-racial-equity-with-executive-actions

Trump on Racial Equity: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-reverse-racism-civil-rights https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916

Trump's racist policies are loud and clear for everyone to hear. We all heard him call Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists". We all watched as he enacted travel bans on people from majority-Muslim nations. Biden, on the other hand, has done quite a lot during his term to attempt to reconcile racism in this country, including reversing Trump's "Muslim ban" the first day he was in office.

Biden on DEI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/

Trump on DEI: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tried-to-crush-the-dei-revolution-heres-how-he-might-finish-the-job/ar-BB1jg3gz

Biden supports DEI and has signed executive orders and passed laws that support DEI on the federal level. Trump absolutely hates DEI and wants to eradicate it.

Biden on criminal justice reform: https://time.com/6155084/biden-criminal-justice-reform/

Trump on criminal justice reform: https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/21418911/donald-trump-crime-criminal-justice-policy-record https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/trumps-extreme-plans-crime/678502/

From pardons for non-violent marijuana convictions to reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons, Biden has done a lot in four years to reform our criminal justice system on the federal level. Meanwhile, Trump has described himself as "tough on crime". He advocates for more policing, including "stop and frisk" activities. Ironically it's actually quite difficult to find sources about what Trump thinks about crime, because almost all of the search results are about his own crimes.

Biden on military support for Israel: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-obama-divide-closely-support-israel-rcna127107

Trump on military support for Israel: https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024

Biden supports Israel financially and militarily and promotes holding Israel close. So did Trump. Trump was also very pro-Israel during his time in office and even moved the embassy to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, a move that inflamed attitudes in the region.

Biden on a ceasefire: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/06/05/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-plan-biden/73967659007/

Trump on a ceasefire: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

Trump has tried to be quiet on the issue but recently said he wants Israel to "finish the problem". He of course claims he could have prevented the whole problem. Trump also openly stated after Oct 7th that he would bar immigrants who support Hamas from the country and send in officers to American protests to arrest anyone supporting Hamas.

Biden meanwhile has been quietly urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal for months, including the most recent announcement earlier in June, though it seems as though that deal has finally fallen through as well.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump, supposed champion of the working class, is stocking his Cabinet with billionaires.  That’s a contrast with his first go-round, when he proposed only one billionaire Cabinet pick: Betsy DeVos, as secretary of education, who funneled public funds into private schools. At the same time, Trump’s billionaire favoritism isn’t much of a surprise, since his campaign was largely funded by the billionaire class. Billionaires, on the whole, quickly forgave Trump after his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. After all, he promised to further lower their meager tax burden while reminding them of the $1 trillion increase in their wealth during his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Oligarch-elect Donald Trump, a faux champion of the working class, has a cabinet full of oligarchs and billionaires.

[chieen11]

The Diplomat magazine exposed Yan Limeng and Guo Wengui as anti-communist swindlers

Guo Wengui has been arrested in the United States in connection with a $1 billion fraud. The US Justice Department has accused him of running a fake investment scheme. Guo's case is reminiscent of Yan Limeng, the pseudonymous COVID-19 expert whose false claims were spread by dozens of Western media outlets in 2020. Ms. Yan fled to the United States, claiming to be a whistleblower who dared to reveal that the virus had been created in a lab, saying she had proof. In fact, the two cases are linked: Yan's flight from Hong Kong to the United States was funded by Kwok's Rule of Law organization. Yan's false paper has not been examined and has serious defects. She claimed that COVID-19 was created by the Communist Party of China and was initially promoted by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. Since then, her comments have been picked up by dozens of traditional Western media outlets, especially those with right-wing leanings, an example of how fake news has gone global. Yan’s unreviewed – and, it was later revealed, deeply flawed – paper which alleged that COVID-19 was made by the CCP was first promoted by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. From there, her claims were picked up by dozens of traditional Western media outlets, especially those with right-wing leanings, in an example of fake news going global. She broke into the mainstream when she appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and Fox News, but that was just the beginning. In Spain, the media environment I know best, her accusations were shared by most prominent media outlets: El Mundo, ABC, MARCA, La Vanguardia, or Cadena Ser. Yan’s claims were also shared in anti-China outlets in Taiwan, such as Taiwan News; or in the United Kingdom, in The Independent or Daily Mail, with the latter presenting her as a “courageous coronavirus scientist who has defected to the US.” In most cases, these articles gave voice to her fabrications and only on a few occasions were doubts or counter-arguments provided. Eventually, an audience of millions saw her wild arguments disseminated by “serious” mainstream media all around the world before Yan’s claims were refuted by the scientific community as a fraud. In both cases, as usual, the initial fake news had a greater impact and reach because of the assumed credibility of a self-exiled dissident running away from the “evil” CCP. Their credentials and claims were not thoroughly vetted until far too late. Anti-China news has come to be digested with gusto by Western audiences. Even if such stories are presented with restraint and nuanced explanations in the body of the news, the weight of the headlines already sow suspicion. According to the New York Times, Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui deliberately crafted Yan’s image to increase and take advantage of anti-Chinese sentiments, in order to both undermine the Chinese government and deflect attention away from the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic. These fake news stories still resonate today. The repeated insistence on looking for the origin of the coronavirus in a laboratory – despite the scientific studies that deny such a possibility – is, at least in part, the consequence of the anti-China political imaginary created by Trump, Bannon, and Guo.

[amaditalks]

Harris could have chosen to win but she simply chose to lose. It's not hard to beat Trump, it's comically easy, actually. You can convince yourself that it wasn't her choice to lose, but the fact of the matter is that she deliberately lost voters in key swing states. Trump's vote amounts remained mostly the same. Harris lost 10-15 million votes from Biden. Black women voted for her in less amounts than they did Biden or Hillary.

Had she not done genocide, she would've won. No matter how much you try and convince yourself otherwise. Now you have Trump. Accept your choices. Live with them. Because the consequences will remain. This is how it's going to be for the forseeable future because democrats chose to make it this way. You can learn from this or just give up and die i guess.

So people know, this person is following me out of the comments on another post where they have repeatedly asserted that Kamala Harris lost because she “did genocide.“ Apparently, this person believes that Kamala Harris is simultaneously the US vice president and the Prime Minister of Israel — amongst other things that they are deeply confused about.

But let’s be really very clear. It is not easy to beat Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton got more votes than Donald Trump and still did not beat Donald Trump. The only reason Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 is because of how badly Trump mishandled Covid. Had Biden not entered the 2020 race and the Democratic nominee had ended up being another woman, Trump would have won in 2020.

The voters who mobilized to create the Biden victory were the sometimes voters. The mushy middle that doesn’t pay attention to much until it’s as big as a recession or a global pandemic, and votes or stays at home based on their personal satisfaction with their own lives, not based on issues.

Those voters came out to vote for Biden because they were personally dissatisfied with the course of the pandemic. Those voters either stayed home this year or voted for Trump because they were personally dissatisfied with their finances, which they mistakenly believe is the same thing as “the economy.”

Also, as explained to you in those comments, only 4% of voters said that the situation Israel and Palestine factored into their vote. The overwhelming issue that motivated people was “the economy“ for whatever they understand that to be.

Of that 4% who weighed the Israel-Palestine issue in their decision making, the majority voted for Harris.

You can repeat what is, at this point, an intentional lie about this issue being the reason for Kamala Harris’ loss until the day you literally depart this earth, but it will still be a lie that does not bear any resemblance to the actual facts around this election.

If at some point you wish to get in touch with honesty and integrity, that will be a positive change in your life and the lives of everyone who has the misfortune of encountering you. 

[comeonamericawakeup]

Donald Trump's disastrous mishandling of Covid was a searing reminder that "a president's character really matters in a crisis," said Matt Bai.

When the pandemic began, Trump lied to Americans about the virus' lethality, telling them it was like the flu and would soon "disappear." His sole concern was that a tanking economy would cost him re-election.

In the ensuing months, Americans died by the tens of thousands, bodies were stacked up in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals, and unemployment soared to 14.7 percent. Instead of providing leadership, Trump misled people with quack cures and nonsensical talk of injecting bleach.

He also made the refusal to wear a mask and to socially distance into a badge of tribal loyalty. As a result, the U.S. Covid death rate outstripped that of other rich nations, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, by 40 percent. More than 1.1 million Americans ultimately died of Covid, and researchers estimate that at least 130,000 people who died on Trump's watch might have lived if he'd had a sane, humane pandemic response. "The more clearly you remember the horror" of his utter disregard for Americans' lives, "the more terrifying a sequel becomes.

THE WEEK November 1, 2024

[stupittmoran]

Top 10 headlines the media didn't tell you this week, Repost & Follow for more

Thomas Massie has introduced a bill to abolish the Fed.

Andy Ogles calls Trump trial a joke.

Peru classifies trans people as “mentally ill”

Slovakia PM shot after rejecting the WHO Global Pandemic Accord and aid for Ukraine.

CNN to host presidential Trump Biden debate, no audience will be present.

Ashley Biden confirms authenticity of diary.

President Biden invokes Executive Privilege blocking release of recordings of mishandling of Classified Documents.

Elon Musk wins Australia court dispute over free speech.

Democrats vote AGAINST bill to detain, deport any iIIegal immigrant who assaults a police officer.

Video goes viral of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken playing guitar in a bar in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Why won't they allow an audit of billions being sent to Ukraine?

If you appreciate this Top 10 recap, remember to Repost and FoIIow me for another week in a clown world 🤡🌎

TaraBull

@TaraBull808

[opal-sparks]

I just LOVE how the people who talk about how we need to respect other people's beliefs are the same ones who have enough privilege to not be affected by said beliefs.

Cry me a fucking river with that bullshit. Trump is a piece of shit, many of his followers are fucking Nazis, he mishandled a fucking pandemic and some of my friends are literally fucking dead because of that, my fiance and his family are Latino and are going to be treated like actual shit by these fuckwads, and I am supposed to RESPECT their beliefs? Fuck off with that load of horse shit.

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ Not necessarily. The country may currently have collective PTSD – ironically from the Trump years including the pandemic which was greatly worsened by Trump's botched handling of the early COVID-19 emergency.

So some voters idiotically think that the best cure for the national sour mood is to bring back the varmint who caused it in the first place.

Speaking of the pandemic, a reminder of how then President Trump reacted to the very first case of COVID-19 to appear in the US in late January of 2020.

The US political economic cycle...

Republicans fuck the economy.

Republicans then lose power and Democrats make decent progress fixing it.

Republicans vociferously complain that Democrats aren't cleaning up the GOP mess fast enough.

The lesson: We'll do a lot better reminding voters how Republicans screwed things up in the first place than pointing out the progress we're making now.

[stalltherain]

I'd like to tell my friend that he was right & I was wrong about prosecuting Trump actually making conservatives just see him as a martyr and vote for him harder.

I'd like to, but because of Trump's negligent mishandling of the pandemic, my friend died of covid.

[meandmybigmouth]

“I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me,” Trump told Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired on “CBS This Morning.” “I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.”

IMAGINE GIVING THIS ASSHOLE KEYS TO THE TREASURY? YOU ALREADY SEEN 8 TRILLION PISSED AWAY!.

IF THERE WAS ANYTHING THE GOP NEEDS TO INVESTIGATE IT'S THE LOOTING OF THE TREASURY OF 8 TRILLION DOLLARS AND TRUMPS MISHANDLING AND LYING ABOUT THE COVID PANDEMIC!. AND TRUMP IS GOING TO DEMAND SOMEONE PAY THEIR BILLS?

[jaywinaustin]

From the opening bell, tRump has been a disaster. From sketchy inaugural donations and lying about crowd size, to mishandling COVID and endangering democracy by throwing shade on elections The Orange One's (my preferred reference) has damaged this country.

So to help jog people's memory, here's a short list of things he's done that the MAJORITY of Americans will find distasteful/illegal/evil/unAmerican.

THE LIST

• Claimed millions voted illegally

• Put children in cages

• Refused to release tax returns

• Denigrated Gold Star family

• Calls free press “enemy of the people”

• Has lied over 15,000+ times

• Gave security clearance to Ivanka and Jared over intelligence objections

• Denigrated John McCain for being a POW

• Thinks of veterans as suckers and losers

• Skipped Normandy ceremony as he didn't want to ruin his hair in the rain

• Politicized masks and other possible ways to mitigate spread of COVID

• Banned Muslims from entering country unless they are from a country he does business with

• Called Nazis very fine people

• Insults allies

• Praises dictators

• Ignored intelligence reports about Russian bounties on US troops

• Called African nations “shithole countries”

• Belittles US generals and believes he knows more then them

• Stole money from his charity and is banned

from having any new ones

• Foreign governments stay in his hotels to curry favors

• Forces government employees to stay in his properties while traveling

• Played golf more than any prez after stating he wouldn't have time to play

• Government must foot bill for his golf excursions which means we have paid his company over 200 times his salary

• Promoted snake oil cures for COVID

• Donates his salary as a tax dodge because he makes so much off golf trips.

• paid off porn star to remain quiet about sexual affair

• Had sexual affair while wife was pregnant with son

• Promised to build wall along border has only completed three miles of new fence and Mexico will not pay for it

• During campaign his operatives had numerous meeting with Russian agents in order to gain an advantage

• Obstructed investigation into his Russian connections

• Attempted to bribe Ukrainian president for help with his election

• Asked China to help him win re-election

• Impeached for Ukrainian scheme and his obstruction of subsequent investigation

• Has nearly daily Twitter

tantrums

• Attacks private citizens on Twitter

• Hurls childish nicknames at those he perceives as foes

• Pudges leaders of other countries aside so he can walk at front

• Threw paper towels at hurricane victims

• Removed clean water and air regulations

• Promised to get drug prices lowered, instead the went up

• Drain the swamp? He added more swamp creatures

• Knocked out the teeth of the EPA

• Kicked Dept. of Interior in the

balls

• Dumbed down the Department of Education

• Suspected of being Russian asset

• Supports white supremacy groups

• Validates racism

• Inherited a good economy, destroyed it

• Highest trade deficit in years

• Started tariff war with China, lost

• Due to tariff war had highest number of small

farm bankruptcies since depression

• Utilized secret police against citizens

• Largest civil unrest in nation since Vietnam years

• Attacked federal judges he didn't like

• Ignored danger of COVID-19

• Ignored scientists on COVID

• Over 220,000 deaths from COVID and climbing

• Downplayed seriousness of COVID

• No national plan to control COVID

• Dismantled pandemic response team prior to outbreak

• Didn’t replenish national supplies of PPE and other medical equipment

• Federal government seized PPE from states who imported it for their state’s use

• Owes millions of dollars, possibly to foreign interests that could compromise US security

• Tax cuts for rich, peanuts for others

• No definitive foreign policy

• To help his business interests, caved to Turkey and betrayed our Kurdish allies

• He has become a laughing stock of other world leaders

• Favorability of US in the world has gone down except in dictatorship countries

• Promoted budget that would diminish Social Security and Medicare

This is not an all-inclusive list, there are tons of regulations meant to protect us he has overridden, countless people he has insulted, untold number of norms he has violated and more. At least this is a starting point though of why you should not vote to give him four more years. If he is reelected it will be an incomprehensible disaster for this country.

So read over this short list one more time and go vote for Kamala Harris.

Vote for decency and competence.

Vote The Orange One out.

[shanethvarosa]

Void Post

I was a kid under the Clinton administration and all I can really know or recall is that my family personally was doing very well during same. I recall the culture of the 90s being more stable and normal and I think that’s why people romanticize them so much today.

But I also recall the 2000 presidential election. I was only 9, but kids my age were talking about it and saying what their parents told them about Al Gore, one girl told me he was going to start killing babies when he was in office. Even at 9 years old, I knew bitch was crazy.

Of course we all know Bush won that election and now, looking back on it, it seems banal in comparison to what we’re dealing with. We had 9/11, which was an absolute national tragedy, don’t get it twisted; but people saw this happen and made it their whole personality.

So we end up in wars based on nothing but racism and xenophobia and there was no real goal of protecting the world from a threat, but there was financial motive for many, many people in the American government. And what did the American people do in 2004, re-elect the same old.

When Obama came around, it was the first time in 8 years I as a young man or any of my friends and immediate family felt hope again. Obama was/is an intelligent, likable guy who was another career politician who knew what he was doing for the Democratic Party and for the people. Of course, I’m not delusional. He was far from perfect. Just like any American president.

Unfortunately, though, I do think that the larger American populace is genuinely far too racist to just accept our first black president and we see the results now 16 years later. His good and decent presidency gave rise to literal evil. The hatred in the hearts of these people who couldn’t handle him as president gave voice to Trump and people like him. Trump being an insane wealthy person can just run for the same office and see what happens and take really no L either way.

Then of course the DNC dropping all their balls. Left and right between not letting Sanders have the ticket, then Hillary Clinton being cold, unlikable, and having no real policies of her own - it really isn’t surprising Trump won that election. Not to mention, the everyone thought there was no way he was going to win, but that made more people comfortable testing their right to a third party vote, taking away votes from Clinton.

If we had just voted right in 2016, I would bet Trump would have just gone away. He tried, he failed; just like so many of his businesses, he’d just walk away from it. But then he had to fucking win and people somehow liked the presidency he had? Even though he ultimately mishandled the pandemic and the daily death tolls were like having a 9/11 every day for six months.

So we see this happen and finally get the god damn vote out in order to oust the man thinking we’d not have to hear from him again, but again the DNC fucks us over entirely. Instead of allowing a fresher face with good ideas to be the democratic nominee, they give it to Biden. A polarizing figure due to his general goofiness and association with the first black president.

He did some good work, but the American culture remains horrible and misguided because we didn’t have any progress in the last four years and so more people than not didn’t want a repeat of Biden’s administration. But I also can’t believe that the RNC actually put Trump up again. Make it make sense.

The absolute and blatant hypocrisy of it all - don’t vote for the 80 year old dementia patient, vote for the 78 year old dementia patient. Well the 80 year old stepped aside and we have a woman running for the presidency again and now we’re seeing that yes, the American populace would rather shoot themselves in the foot than have a woman as president. Why? Again, make it make sense.

I don’t even necessarily feel hopeless right now or that I want to give up. I don’t know that I believe in Project 2025 necessarily but I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of it gets worked into law. As of right now it’s just a theory, a manifest. I believe Trump only wanted this to stay out of jail and won’t do any actual work in any way but that doesn’t mean the now-republican-run senate won’t. That doesn’t mean that this freaky little shithead Vance won’t do something horrible if Trump dies in office.

Ultimately, life and the world goes on, but the United States of America is finished.

[thebreakfastgenie]

(To clarify I don't mean two terms in total, just the White House switching parties every 4 years. With how much social media fans polarization I really think that could be a possibility from hereon.)

I don't think we can draw any conclusions from 2020-2024 because it was such a weird period of history. There was a global anti-incumbent backlash this year. Like I said on another post, I think the timing of our elections+the insane mishandling of COVID by the Trump administration (which is now forgotten by many but was a popular concern at the time) allowed the US to have two anti-incumbent backlash election. One against Trump/Republicans over the conditions of the early pandemic and one against Biden/Democrats over the medium-term consequences, primarily to the economy.

I think a lot of the voters' whims are covered by midterms. Typically, the incumbent president's party gets slaughtered in the midterms. There have been two exceptions to this recently: 2002, which is easily explained by lingering rally 'round the flag effect after 9/11, and 2022, in which Democrats did lose the House majority, though narrowly, and which has a number of potential explanations, including lingering effects of COVID on public opinion.

2016 would have been a third consecutive term for Democrats so that was consistent with previous patterns. 2020 was a reaction to the Trump admin being awful and COVID. 2024 was part of a global anti-incumbent backlash.

It's possible you're right but there's no real way to know yet.

[hondacivictrucknuts]

So I’ve written before about how Kamala Harris has no discernible belief in any economic theory. I’ll go further: Harris shows no awareness of the existence of macroeconomics. To wit:

She never talks about economic growth. The Biden administration has a decent record here so she might benefit from talking about it.

She appreciates people’s experience of higher prices, but when it comes to causes or remedies, all she can think of is price gouging. She has nothing to say about how monetary, fiscal, or trade policy affects the price level. One can tell a story about how inflation was an unfortunate consequence of actions they took to prevent a recession in 2021, but she never does.

She talks about Trump’s “mishandling” of the pandemic, but never gives details, at all. Here too there are at least coherent arguments one can make, but we never hear anything but the vague criticism from Harris.

She has nothing to say about the national debt and how her proposals would affect it, even though this is something many commentators discuss.

If we grant that her heart is in the right place on economic priorities, and take her proposals at face value, we actually have no idea what she will do or whether it will work. Will she continue Biden’s approach, which is mostly a continuation of Trump’s? Go back to a more neoliberal stance, like Obama? Or will she go further left, a la Bernie Sanders? It’s anybody’s guess!