You know who else flip flops? Rick Lowry. Back in 2016, he was writing things like:
“For someone who wants to project strength, he has an astonishing weakness for flattery, falling for Vladimir Putin after a few coquettish bats of the eyelashes from the Russian thug. All in all, Trump knows approximately as much about national security as he does about the nuclear triad — which is to say, almost nothing.”
Most politicians are (Groucho) Marxists (“these are my principles. If you don’t like them, well, I have others”). Lowry, instead, has no voters to sway, so his awfulness seems genuine.
I’m glad there isn’t a paragon of ethics and vision running for Democrats - that hypothetical candidate would surely lose to Trump as they’d be constitutionally incapable of cynically pandering to battleground state voters, which as you point out the system makes a prerequisite if you want to be elected
I spent four years suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I was petrified when Trump won. I went to bed for three days after his election. There was a constant drumbeat from the media I consumed that Trump was a clinical sociopath, a malignant narcissist, and that he was going to blow up the world.
What happened instead?
The bottom 50 percent of American families saw their net worth increase by 40 percent; the poverty rate among black and hispanic Americans reached record lows;"essential workers" saw a wage increase by 16%; income inequality decreased for two straight years, more than it had in a decade; we got the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less; we got 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers; we got a law that allows new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child; we withdrew from the TPP trade agreement and ended NAFTA, both of which harmed blue collar workers; and we got the Abraham Accords, which was a fucking foreign policy miracle. There was no chaos at the Southern border or the threat of World War III in the Middle East.
Yet you expect me to be more afraid of Trump than of Biden 2.0?
Yes, Biden did cap the cost of insulin for diabetics so that working class people with diabetes can afford their medication; but these same working class people can no longer afford food or gas! The inflation rate under Trump was about 2%, while under Biden it has been 6%. That's not okay.
Thanks to inflation, the average worker has suffered a paycut of 4.4% ; the monthly mortgage payment on an average priced home has more than doubled, and gasoline prices are up 46%.
Along with this economic crippling, Biden has emboldened our most dangerous foreign adversaries with his mindless appeasement of Iran.
And you want me to be afraid of Trump throwing a temper tantrum when he loses or refusing to ban TikTok?
Temper tantrum? Sorry, the retconning of January 6th won’t wash. If it weren’t for an utterly corrupt Supreme Court, attributable to Trump himself, a trial would have enabled the public to grasp the full extent of his culpability. And I’ll be happy to wager that a far more desperate and far, far more addled Trump intends to foment greater mayhem this election.
Just a few points, President = the economy is a bad correlation, although that's the measuring stick most Americans use, it's just not accurate. Yes, the economic conditions from pretty much 2014-2019 were pretty decent, and that when Trump took Office in 2017 he inherited an economy running at peak expansion, unemployment already below 4% and falling, and when wages were finally starting to catch up to growth. There was very little, however, that Trump actually did to create those conditions. The tax cut passed in 2017 didn't take effect until the following year, and there are no measurable changes to GDP, wages, or job growth before/after TCJA - although it did fatten corporate and shareholder profits and blow the deficit up, just in time for the COVID emergency spending that happened less than 2 years later (although, TBF, that could not have been predicted, but it was bad that we were in an unnecessary larger deficit hole than we needed to be in to absorb that spending). The fuzzy credit given to Trump's "regulations" cuts also doesn't seem to have much relation to any specific economic conditions, these things take years btw to work through the economy to measure impact. Point being, yeah you can say the first 3 years of Trump's term had decent economic status, but it was actually the same economy he declared a "disaster" a month before he took Office and made no discernible changes to any economic trajectory or measurement after. All he did was have the good fortune to be in the White House at a time when the growing economy was finally felt more widespread in the middle and working classes - but it's not a reason to give him another term, there's no magic Trump Fairy Dust the first time, and won't be the next time.
Trump did not "end" NAFTA, he got a few provisions modified to the existing NAFTA policy, with a big assist from Pelosi's Democratic House majority that made those provisions much more worker friendly than the ones he wanted. Trump tried to rename it to the ridiculous sounding "United States Marine Core Agreement" USMCA, which makes no sense to name a trade agreement after, but no one uses it, the legislation he signed still refers to "NAFTA" everywhere within, and again, he did not get rid of any part of NAFTA as a whole, it was just a modification to some sections of it. TPP was concerning in many ways, but the notion of its purpose to counter China was not, perhaps Trump should have negotiated some changes to it instead, but he was really mostly interested in eliminating an Obama policy more than he was about the policy itself. That's not an endorsement of how to govern, of just getting rid of whatever your "enemy" predecessor did for spite.
The Abraham Accords - how are those working out now? The "policy achievement" formalized trade and economic relations between Israel and nations it was not, and has not, been in an active hostilities with for years. It excluded the entities and nations that Israel *is* in active hostilities with (Iran, Palestinians, Lebanon), so in terms of any big reset or "peace", it's unclear what it did accomplish - maybe to keep Saudi Arabia out of any regional conflicts against Israel - maybe? But it ignored the major conflict players in the region, and on top of Trump's reckless shredding of the JCPOA (another "Obama did it so i'm going to burn it up" policy) might have set the stage for Iran on its course to back the Hamas Oct 7 attack.
Others have addressed the COVID spending and inflation - being an output of both Trump and Biden Administration spending, many would argue the pain of 6% inflation was less than a deep recession/depression that could have occurred without it, but since we didn't have the recession/depression and just the inflation of course that's what's upset most people now, but inflation is and has been falling, if Trump wins in 2024 he'll once again reap the benefit of coming into Office as economic forces head into positive territories and take all the credit for while doing nothing to have earned, which is frustrating for those of us who recognize these facts and one more reason to deny him that cheap "win".
And yeah, the "temper tantrum" was an institutionally destabilizing situation where Trump and aligned colleagues in the GOP tried to overturn an election result, through "legal" means, procedural abuses, and then finally, violence, which is absolutely disqualifying from him ever being considered for this position again, regardless of how you want to frame or credit Trump's first term otherwise, but I would hope you would consider at least the economic case that Trump really didn't have anything to do with what most consider is his "top qualification" for re-election...
And yes, it's true the predicted and implied disasters of a first Trump term didn't exactly come to pass... but that was largely the interference tactics of both his appointed staff that thwarted some of his dumbest and most reckless decisions, a state GOP apparatus that still has some principled members that put country above party when it counted, a legal system that can apply rule of law, the fact that Trump was kept in check for the second half of his term by a Democratic majority in the House at least, and the simple nature of Trump himself: easily distracted and managerially incompetent. Well we know at least one of those things will remain true in a second term, but what about the rest of those variables?
Great summary of the economy. My problem with your summary is that electing Trump does not come with a magical time machine that will take us all back to pre-COVID pandemic times. What is Trump proposing to change the current state of affairs?
> The bottom 50 percent of American families saw their net worth increase by 40 percent;
This was the CARES Act which dumped money onto people.
It was probably the right policy choice, but it was also the cause of inflation, and most of Trump's huge deficit in his term. I don't think it's fair to assign that deficit to him, since covid was coming anyway no matter who was President, and it was the bipartisan consensus of what needed to be done. So he doesn't get the blame but that also means he doesn't get the credit for the padding of bank accounts generated by massive deficit spending.
> the poverty rate among black and hispanic Americans reached record lows;
Fair, this was an achievement pre-covid
>"essential workers" saw a wage increase by 16%;
Again, covid.
> income inequality decreased for two straight years,
"Income inequality" is basically a measure of how much rich people are making so this overall sounds bad.
> we got the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less; we got 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers; we got a law that allows new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child;
Good achievements, if a little specific.
> we withdrew from the TPP trade agreement and ended NAFTA, both of which harmed blue collar workers;
TPP was doomed anyway due to populism -- Clinton was bragging about opposing it after having been its biggest booster -- but that's not a good thing. This is probably a whole essay but anyone concerned about China expanding its presence in the Southern Pacific should realize this is how they're stopped. (And Trump is definitely concerned about Chyna)
> and we got the Abraham Accords, which was a fucking foreign policy miracle.
Any progress here is welcome, so good.
> There was no chaos at the Southern border
lol no way.
The border has been a fucking mess for 20 years, as waves and waves of people have thrown themselves at it. It's been a nightmare for Obama, for Trump, for Biden, and will continue to be a nightmare for the next President. We need massive spending to enforce the border.
> or the threat of World War III in the Middle East.
Depends how we define the vague term "threat"
> The inflation rate under Trump was about 2%, while under Biden it has been 6%. That's not okay.
CARES Act and covid. CARES put a bunch of money into household's pocketbooks and they saved it instead of spending it (and that's good, we didn't want them stimulating the economy). Supply chains broke down because spending went way down and because Chyna was trying to zero-covid after the rest of the world moved on. People delayed purchasing of durable goods and wanted to make up for it once the masking was over. We were lucky inflation held off so long, but it was inevitable and it took place all over the world.
You didn't list Operation Warp Speed. That should be on the list of accomplishments. It did exactly what it was supposed to do and was a bargain.
You're simply wrong. Take a look at the link below. The percent that people spend on "necessities" has gone DOWN over time, not up. But you're not interested in facts.
I think the Left is misreading the situation here. It isn't Trump versus Kamala.
It is Trump versus the Left (or the DNC, or the Borg, Hive Mind, Collective or whatever you want to call it). The lawfare it uses against its opponents (Trump, RFK, Jill Stein and Cornel West) are beyond the pale and are highly alarming.
The fact that RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard are endorsing Trump should be a wake-up call.
I think this is an interesting question. There is some truth to the idea of an indigo blob, a center left/progressive establishment oriented community that you can describe as having some kind of collective cognition. But it is a mistake to attribute agency to it. When individual prosecutors in different states file indictments against Trump, it’s just wrong to attribute these actions to “the left“. Major democratic national politicians played literally no role in that decision. Many prominent Democrats criticize it, if only on strategic grounds. “The left” is not in any sense a unitary actor.
In recent years, it’s become clear that “the right“ is not a unitary actor in any sense. Trump voters, before attributing some action by a Democrat, which you don’t like to “ the left,” do the thought experiment whether some individual Republican is simply acting on behalf of @The Right.” They’re not, of course.
I disagree vehemently. Biden has clearly not been in charge for the past year at least. Something is running the Executive Branch. Kamala is just another an empty vessel like Biden. You are voting for the Borg.
And yes, I do get to attribute individual judges, prosecutors, politicians, the media, the regulatory state etc. as one big entity. I get that the Left hates that. But whatever.
There is absolutely no corresponding entity on the Right. If there was, Jeb! would have lost to Hillary in 2016.
You can call a bunch of individual actors "one big entity". You're fully entitled to be wrong about that. But if you have even two brain cells to rub together, you can't actually believe that, so maybe stop saying inflammatory things just to pick fights with others.
Well, the rest of the world outside of democrat partisans considers the Left to be a single entity, so you might as well develop a strategy to defeat it.
The gaslighting angle one works on the people already in the Collective.
Oh and by the way you bitch about inflammatory language. Do you people have any sense of self-awareness?
I will bring up your concerns at the next "The Left" meeting on Thursday. Right after we go over our secret plans to rig the election and indoctrinate the youth with critical wokeness theory.
LOL @ "lawfare". There is no "Hive Mind". Asserting that there is demonstrates that you don't understand how people work or how collective decision-making happens.
Also, I love that you cite "two loons are endorsing him!" as a compelling case.
I don't necessarily think that she's a nutjob, but I do think she's an opportunist. I'm not sure how one goes from supporting Bernie Sanders and universal healthcare to subbing for Tucker Carlson and practically begging to be Trump's VP without it being a calculation on career advancement.
But what would that have to do with her shift in policy views? She got burned by the DNC in 2020, which I'm sure caused some bitterness. But if people who agree with my policy views suddenly didn't like me, I would still hold my policy views. I have no idea, but she appears to have no closely held principles, and therefore gets no respect from me.
I'm not sure, but she said in an interview that supported Bernie Sanders primarily on her views on foreign policy - which now align closer to Trump than the DNC not because she changed but because the parties did.
Healthcare, she supported a version of universal healthcare that appears to be a hybrid of single-payer and private insurance. I don't think she changed her mind on that.
Still, not a reason for the above commenter to call her a "loon".
The same logic process you use to say Tulsi Gabbard endorsing Trump is super insightful and Adam Kinzinger endorsing Harris is just a lame opportunism is the same one used to say that Kinzinger endorsing Harris is super insightful and Gabbard is just a Russian troll.
If Trump keeled over from a heart attack tomorrow, would Kinzinger support whoever the GOP nominated? Probably. Because his viewpoint is all about Trump.
If Kamala Harris does something stupid and faceplants would Gabbard support whoever the Left installs? No, because it isn't about the candidate, it is about what the Party has become.
Note from a Kamala-skeptical centrist here: you sound just as full of motivated reasoning and closed-mindedness as the worst of my leftie friends, and that’s saying a lot.
Hey Brent, I have an unrelated question. A while ago you were getting all hot and bothered about the DNC being held in Chicago, implying that the attendees would get attacked by Chicago gangs which you would find entertaining and ironic given the Democrats inclination toward criminal justice reform.
How did that all work out for you? Did enough liberaltards and wokes and members of the singular entity known as "The Left" get robbed and beaten to your satisfaction?
So many people on the right just make stuff up, spread fantasies, they are proven wrong by subsequent events, and there is never any reflection or consequence. See D'Souza and 2016: Obama's America.
“The fact that RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard are endorsing Trump should be a wake-up call.”
A wake- up call to what, exactly? Gabbard is a Putin shill and RFK Jr. is . . .beyond description. As a centrist, I’m genuinely astonished and pleased that that the Dems are genuinely going hard for the broad center of the electorate.
Lowry references Kerry's infamous comment that he voted for the bill before he voted against it and how Bush ran with this one sentence all the way to victory. Kerry's campaign said it was a "verbal hiccup." Lowry also says the Harris campaign is keeping her under wraps to avoid a verbal hiccup. Fair enough.
What's astounding is just how no such standards apply to Trump. He has the brilliance of a magician. How does he do it? He has persistent hiccups that he can't get rid of that last the length of a campaign!
When I first read the title of Lowry’s op-ed I thought it was an Onion piece. Beyond idiotic. Trump has his amoral cult followers who lack any moral or ethical compass.
When I actually read the Lowry piece, instead of snippets from others, I see it's a descriptive piece that shows how Obama convinced voters he had better character than Romney, and Trump convinced voters he had better character than Clinton. (No mention of the 2020 race but he'd likely say the same thing there.) This doesn't make it platonically true: I doubt Lowry actually believes Obama had better character than Romney in 2012. But it's what the voters felt.
And something like that can happen again in 2024.
Democrats can't imagine Trump as having better character than -- well, than anyone, really. And I know why they think that because the man is a toad. Yet it could absolutely happen, as our host here has said.
> [T]he Democratic Party has put a referendum to the American public: “Donald Trump is a racist, fascist, misogynistic strongman and alleged serial sexual assaulter who doesn’t care about democratic norms and who will seek, whenever possible, to demolish them if it benefits him. Do you really want someone like this to be president?” ...
> The American people have answered the same way, over and over: “Sure, maybe.”
If Harris loses, there will be a zillion essays about how she was obviously a horrible candidate and lost a character contest to, of all people, Donald Trump, and everyone will nod along.
It's really quite something to see these comments immediately devolve into the exact same “LOL FACEPLANT!!! 🤪” attitude Jeff is criticizing without even a hint of self-awareness.
This is entirely correct. *Of course* Trump can make voters believe he has better character than the Democratic nominee - he did just that in 2016. It's laughably false, as it was then, but that won't matter if people believe it.
When I read the title, I had a similar reaction as you and laughed out loud. Then I read the article, and valid points were made about what happened to Kerry and Hillary and how it could happen to Kamala. (Do we call her Kamala, or Harris? I'm calling Clinton "Hillary" because there's a Bill. And I'm not calling Kerry "John" becasue there's a million of them.)
Equivocating the two Presidential candidates is a lost cause. Those with critical thinking skills and good reading comprehension will notice the flaws and omissions in your assertions.
The issue with a lot of Democratic commentators I’ve seen is that they assume “because Trump’s character is very very bad, Kamala Harris is immune to any attacks on her character”. They think whataboutism is a complete argument. It’s not!
Nothing you say about Trump is wrong, exactly. But despite that, whether Dems think this should be true or not, some people are genuinely on the fence for this election. Those people can potentially be swayed by negative attacks on Harris. I think most voters assume all politicians have crappy character, and are thus not single issue voters on character (plus a lot of voters are irrational anyway).
The other thing Dems don’t seem to realize is that, while “Harris is good and Trump is bad” can be a very strong argument, “Sure Harris isn’t perfect but Trump is worse” is comparatively weak.
That’s why arguments about e.g. Walz stretching the truth about his personal history can still land, even if Trump has told worse lies.
I expect that once elected Harris’s administration will do many of the bad things she has done for the last four years that she is temporarily denying for like two months before the election. Basically, I think she is a liar.
Let’s just take immigration as an example. We got a lot of immigration for four years, now we get a few law changes that were denied for four years right before the election. Who doesn’t believe she’s going to turn the spigot back on the second she’s elected? The woman won’t even own being the “border czar”.
You know who else flip flops? Rick Lowry. Back in 2016, he was writing things like:
“For someone who wants to project strength, he has an astonishing weakness for flattery, falling for Vladimir Putin after a few coquettish bats of the eyelashes from the Russian thug. All in all, Trump knows approximately as much about national security as he does about the nuclear triad — which is to say, almost nothing.”
https://progresspond.com/2024/08/26/why-rich-lowry-is-no-longer-an-anti-trumper/
Most politicians are (Groucho) Marxists (“these are my principles. If you don’t like them, well, I have others”). Lowry, instead, has no voters to sway, so his awfulness seems genuine.
"he repeatedly flaunted ethical norms."
Flout, not flaunt.
Thanks -- fixed!
flatulated
I’m glad there isn’t a paragon of ethics and vision running for Democrats - that hypothetical candidate would surely lose to Trump as they’d be constitutionally incapable of cynically pandering to battleground state voters, which as you point out the system makes a prerequisite if you want to be elected
I spent four years suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I was petrified when Trump won. I went to bed for three days after his election. There was a constant drumbeat from the media I consumed that Trump was a clinical sociopath, a malignant narcissist, and that he was going to blow up the world.
What happened instead?
The bottom 50 percent of American families saw their net worth increase by 40 percent; the poverty rate among black and hispanic Americans reached record lows;"essential workers" saw a wage increase by 16%; income inequality decreased for two straight years, more than it had in a decade; we got the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less; we got 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers; we got a law that allows new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child; we withdrew from the TPP trade agreement and ended NAFTA, both of which harmed blue collar workers; and we got the Abraham Accords, which was a fucking foreign policy miracle. There was no chaos at the Southern border or the threat of World War III in the Middle East.
Yet you expect me to be more afraid of Trump than of Biden 2.0?
Yes, Biden did cap the cost of insulin for diabetics so that working class people with diabetes can afford their medication; but these same working class people can no longer afford food or gas! The inflation rate under Trump was about 2%, while under Biden it has been 6%. That's not okay.
Thanks to inflation, the average worker has suffered a paycut of 4.4% ; the monthly mortgage payment on an average priced home has more than doubled, and gasoline prices are up 46%.
Along with this economic crippling, Biden has emboldened our most dangerous foreign adversaries with his mindless appeasement of Iran.
And you want me to be afraid of Trump throwing a temper tantrum when he loses or refusing to ban TikTok?
Sorry. No.
Fool me once...
Temper tantrum? Sorry, the retconning of January 6th won’t wash. If it weren’t for an utterly corrupt Supreme Court, attributable to Trump himself, a trial would have enabled the public to grasp the full extent of his culpability. And I’ll be happy to wager that a far more desperate and far, far more addled Trump intends to foment greater mayhem this election.
Just a few points, President = the economy is a bad correlation, although that's the measuring stick most Americans use, it's just not accurate. Yes, the economic conditions from pretty much 2014-2019 were pretty decent, and that when Trump took Office in 2017 he inherited an economy running at peak expansion, unemployment already below 4% and falling, and when wages were finally starting to catch up to growth. There was very little, however, that Trump actually did to create those conditions. The tax cut passed in 2017 didn't take effect until the following year, and there are no measurable changes to GDP, wages, or job growth before/after TCJA - although it did fatten corporate and shareholder profits and blow the deficit up, just in time for the COVID emergency spending that happened less than 2 years later (although, TBF, that could not have been predicted, but it was bad that we were in an unnecessary larger deficit hole than we needed to be in to absorb that spending). The fuzzy credit given to Trump's "regulations" cuts also doesn't seem to have much relation to any specific economic conditions, these things take years btw to work through the economy to measure impact. Point being, yeah you can say the first 3 years of Trump's term had decent economic status, but it was actually the same economy he declared a "disaster" a month before he took Office and made no discernible changes to any economic trajectory or measurement after. All he did was have the good fortune to be in the White House at a time when the growing economy was finally felt more widespread in the middle and working classes - but it's not a reason to give him another term, there's no magic Trump Fairy Dust the first time, and won't be the next time.
Trump did not "end" NAFTA, he got a few provisions modified to the existing NAFTA policy, with a big assist from Pelosi's Democratic House majority that made those provisions much more worker friendly than the ones he wanted. Trump tried to rename it to the ridiculous sounding "United States Marine Core Agreement" USMCA, which makes no sense to name a trade agreement after, but no one uses it, the legislation he signed still refers to "NAFTA" everywhere within, and again, he did not get rid of any part of NAFTA as a whole, it was just a modification to some sections of it. TPP was concerning in many ways, but the notion of its purpose to counter China was not, perhaps Trump should have negotiated some changes to it instead, but he was really mostly interested in eliminating an Obama policy more than he was about the policy itself. That's not an endorsement of how to govern, of just getting rid of whatever your "enemy" predecessor did for spite.
The Abraham Accords - how are those working out now? The "policy achievement" formalized trade and economic relations between Israel and nations it was not, and has not, been in an active hostilities with for years. It excluded the entities and nations that Israel *is* in active hostilities with (Iran, Palestinians, Lebanon), so in terms of any big reset or "peace", it's unclear what it did accomplish - maybe to keep Saudi Arabia out of any regional conflicts against Israel - maybe? But it ignored the major conflict players in the region, and on top of Trump's reckless shredding of the JCPOA (another "Obama did it so i'm going to burn it up" policy) might have set the stage for Iran on its course to back the Hamas Oct 7 attack.
Others have addressed the COVID spending and inflation - being an output of both Trump and Biden Administration spending, many would argue the pain of 6% inflation was less than a deep recession/depression that could have occurred without it, but since we didn't have the recession/depression and just the inflation of course that's what's upset most people now, but inflation is and has been falling, if Trump wins in 2024 he'll once again reap the benefit of coming into Office as economic forces head into positive territories and take all the credit for while doing nothing to have earned, which is frustrating for those of us who recognize these facts and one more reason to deny him that cheap "win".
And yeah, the "temper tantrum" was an institutionally destabilizing situation where Trump and aligned colleagues in the GOP tried to overturn an election result, through "legal" means, procedural abuses, and then finally, violence, which is absolutely disqualifying from him ever being considered for this position again, regardless of how you want to frame or credit Trump's first term otherwise, but I would hope you would consider at least the economic case that Trump really didn't have anything to do with what most consider is his "top qualification" for re-election...
And yes, it's true the predicted and implied disasters of a first Trump term didn't exactly come to pass... but that was largely the interference tactics of both his appointed staff that thwarted some of his dumbest and most reckless decisions, a state GOP apparatus that still has some principled members that put country above party when it counted, a legal system that can apply rule of law, the fact that Trump was kept in check for the second half of his term by a Democratic majority in the House at least, and the simple nature of Trump himself: easily distracted and managerially incompetent. Well we know at least one of those things will remain true in a second term, but what about the rest of those variables?
Great analysis. 100 agree.
Great summary of the economy. My problem with your summary is that electing Trump does not come with a magical time machine that will take us all back to pre-COVID pandemic times. What is Trump proposing to change the current state of affairs?
> The bottom 50 percent of American families saw their net worth increase by 40 percent;
This was the CARES Act which dumped money onto people.
It was probably the right policy choice, but it was also the cause of inflation, and most of Trump's huge deficit in his term. I don't think it's fair to assign that deficit to him, since covid was coming anyway no matter who was President, and it was the bipartisan consensus of what needed to be done. So he doesn't get the blame but that also means he doesn't get the credit for the padding of bank accounts generated by massive deficit spending.
> the poverty rate among black and hispanic Americans reached record lows;
Fair, this was an achievement pre-covid
>"essential workers" saw a wage increase by 16%;
Again, covid.
> income inequality decreased for two straight years,
"Income inequality" is basically a measure of how much rich people are making so this overall sounds bad.
> we got the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less; we got 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers; we got a law that allows new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child;
Good achievements, if a little specific.
> we withdrew from the TPP trade agreement and ended NAFTA, both of which harmed blue collar workers;
TPP was doomed anyway due to populism -- Clinton was bragging about opposing it after having been its biggest booster -- but that's not a good thing. This is probably a whole essay but anyone concerned about China expanding its presence in the Southern Pacific should realize this is how they're stopped. (And Trump is definitely concerned about Chyna)
> and we got the Abraham Accords, which was a fucking foreign policy miracle.
Any progress here is welcome, so good.
> There was no chaos at the Southern border
lol no way.
The border has been a fucking mess for 20 years, as waves and waves of people have thrown themselves at it. It's been a nightmare for Obama, for Trump, for Biden, and will continue to be a nightmare for the next President. We need massive spending to enforce the border.
> or the threat of World War III in the Middle East.
Depends how we define the vague term "threat"
> The inflation rate under Trump was about 2%, while under Biden it has been 6%. That's not okay.
CARES Act and covid. CARES put a bunch of money into household's pocketbooks and they saved it instead of spending it (and that's good, we didn't want them stimulating the economy). Supply chains broke down because spending went way down and because Chyna was trying to zero-covid after the rest of the world moved on. People delayed purchasing of durable goods and wanted to make up for it once the masking was over. We were lucky inflation held off so long, but it was inevitable and it took place all over the world.
You didn't list Operation Warp Speed. That should be on the list of accomplishments. It did exactly what it was supposed to do and was a bargain.
Another redpilled normie. Welcome to the fold.
You're simply wrong. Take a look at the link below. The percent that people spend on "necessities" has gone DOWN over time, not up. But you're not interested in facts.
https://www.cepr.net/in-the-good-old-days-one-fourth-of-income-went-to-food/
Man, the ad hominem attacks are reaching a fever pitch here in the comments section. First Richard Hanania, now Rich Lowry. Bad form.
Attack the ideas, not the person.
Well, that's advice Jeff should probably take himself.
Point to one place in this article or anywhere else where I attack Rich personally.
I think the Left is misreading the situation here. It isn't Trump versus Kamala.
It is Trump versus the Left (or the DNC, or the Borg, Hive Mind, Collective or whatever you want to call it). The lawfare it uses against its opponents (Trump, RFK, Jill Stein and Cornel West) are beyond the pale and are highly alarming.
The fact that RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard are endorsing Trump should be a wake-up call.
I think this is an interesting question. There is some truth to the idea of an indigo blob, a center left/progressive establishment oriented community that you can describe as having some kind of collective cognition. But it is a mistake to attribute agency to it. When individual prosecutors in different states file indictments against Trump, it’s just wrong to attribute these actions to “the left“. Major democratic national politicians played literally no role in that decision. Many prominent Democrats criticize it, if only on strategic grounds. “The left” is not in any sense a unitary actor.
In recent years, it’s become clear that “the right“ is not a unitary actor in any sense. Trump voters, before attributing some action by a Democrat, which you don’t like to “ the left,” do the thought experiment whether some individual Republican is simply acting on behalf of @The Right.” They’re not, of course.
"But it is a mistake to attribute agency to it."
I disagree vehemently. Biden has clearly not been in charge for the past year at least. Something is running the Executive Branch. Kamala is just another an empty vessel like Biden. You are voting for the Borg.
And yes, I do get to attribute individual judges, prosecutors, politicians, the media, the regulatory state etc. as one big entity. I get that the Left hates that. But whatever.
There is absolutely no corresponding entity on the Right. If there was, Jeb! would have lost to Hillary in 2016.
You can call a bunch of individual actors "one big entity". You're fully entitled to be wrong about that. But if you have even two brain cells to rub together, you can't actually believe that, so maybe stop saying inflammatory things just to pick fights with others.
Well, the rest of the world outside of democrat partisans considers the Left to be a single entity, so you might as well develop a strategy to defeat it.
The gaslighting angle one works on the people already in the Collective.
Oh and by the way you bitch about inflammatory language. Do you people have any sense of self-awareness?
I will bring up your concerns at the next "The Left" meeting on Thursday. Right after we go over our secret plans to rig the election and indoctrinate the youth with critical wokeness theory.
Tell Saint Barack I said hi
Actually, outside of the Extremely Online festering MAGA fever swamps, nobody really thinks that.
You would be shocked how many of us don't like Trump and didn't vote for him.
It isn't about Trump. It is about the Left
Aaaahhhhh the left!
Touch grass. Then when you go back inside go to any left-of-centre media environment and watch the left tear itself apart.
Gaslighting.
LOL @ "lawfare". There is no "Hive Mind". Asserting that there is demonstrates that you don't understand how people work or how collective decision-making happens.
Also, I love that you cite "two loons are endorsing him!" as a compelling case.
Agree with you that there's no "hivemind", but lawfare being conducted against Trump (among others) is definitely a thing.
I get that RFK is a nutjob, but why do you say that about Tulsi Gabbard? Genuinely asking.
I don't necessarily think that she's a nutjob, but I do think she's an opportunist. I'm not sure how one goes from supporting Bernie Sanders and universal healthcare to subbing for Tucker Carlson and practically begging to be Trump's VP without it being a calculation on career advancement.
Having DHS sicced on her might might have played a part.
But what would that have to do with her shift in policy views? She got burned by the DNC in 2020, which I'm sure caused some bitterness. But if people who agree with my policy views suddenly didn't like me, I would still hold my policy views. I have no idea, but she appears to have no closely held principles, and therefore gets no respect from me.
I feel like Bobbi Fleckman explaining to Ian Faith why Polymer Records rejected the concept for the Smell The Glove.
I'm not sure, but she said in an interview that supported Bernie Sanders primarily on her views on foreign policy - which now align closer to Trump than the DNC not because she changed but because the parties did.
Healthcare, she supported a version of universal healthcare that appears to be a hybrid of single-payer and private insurance. I don't think she changed her mind on that.
Still, not a reason for the above commenter to call her a "loon".
I understand perfectly well. I just don't buy the gaslighting from the left.
The same logic process you use to say Tulsi Gabbard endorsing Trump is super insightful and Adam Kinzinger endorsing Harris is just a lame opportunism is the same one used to say that Kinzinger endorsing Harris is super insightful and Gabbard is just a Russian troll.
If Trump keeled over from a heart attack tomorrow, would Kinzinger support whoever the GOP nominated? Probably. Because his viewpoint is all about Trump.
If Kamala Harris does something stupid and faceplants would Gabbard support whoever the Left installs? No, because it isn't about the candidate, it is about what the Party has become.
Note from a Kamala-skeptical centrist here: you sound just as full of motivated reasoning and closed-mindedness as the worst of my leftie friends, and that’s saying a lot.
It is because you are blind to the fact that your tribe is an ideology. The Cold War took a break from 1990 though 2015 and it is back.
Case in point.
The left changed their focus from class to identity. That is what is tripping you up.
What is tripping me up is that you’re making assumptions about who my tribe is and what I am blind to.
Hey Brent, I have an unrelated question. A while ago you were getting all hot and bothered about the DNC being held in Chicago, implying that the attendees would get attacked by Chicago gangs which you would find entertaining and ironic given the Democrats inclination toward criminal justice reform.
How did that all work out for you? Did enough liberaltards and wokes and members of the singular entity known as "The Left" get robbed and beaten to your satisfaction?
So many people on the right just make stuff up, spread fantasies, they are proven wrong by subsequent events, and there is never any reflection or consequence. See D'Souza and 2016: Obama's America.
Is that the one where he visits Obama's birthplace in Kenya?
Turned out to be wrong on that.
Wonder what else you might be wrong about.
Not about the left.
“The fact that RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard are endorsing Trump should be a wake-up call.”
A wake- up call to what, exactly? Gabbard is a Putin shill and RFK Jr. is . . .beyond description. As a centrist, I’m genuinely astonished and pleased that that the Dems are genuinely going hard for the broad center of the electorate.
Lowry references Kerry's infamous comment that he voted for the bill before he voted against it and how Bush ran with this one sentence all the way to victory. Kerry's campaign said it was a "verbal hiccup." Lowry also says the Harris campaign is keeping her under wraps to avoid a verbal hiccup. Fair enough.
What's astounding is just how no such standards apply to Trump. He has the brilliance of a magician. How does he do it? He has persistent hiccups that he can't get rid of that last the length of a campaign!
When I first read the title of Lowry’s op-ed I thought it was an Onion piece. Beyond idiotic. Trump has his amoral cult followers who lack any moral or ethical compass.
When I actually read the Lowry piece, instead of snippets from others, I see it's a descriptive piece that shows how Obama convinced voters he had better character than Romney, and Trump convinced voters he had better character than Clinton. (No mention of the 2020 race but he'd likely say the same thing there.) This doesn't make it platonically true: I doubt Lowry actually believes Obama had better character than Romney in 2012. But it's what the voters felt.
And something like that can happen again in 2024.
Democrats can't imagine Trump as having better character than -- well, than anyone, really. And I know why they think that because the man is a toad. Yet it could absolutely happen, as our host here has said.
Quoting [Singal](https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/democrats-should-acknowledge-reality):
> [T]he Democratic Party has put a referendum to the American public: “Donald Trump is a racist, fascist, misogynistic strongman and alleged serial sexual assaulter who doesn’t care about democratic norms and who will seek, whenever possible, to demolish them if it benefits him. Do you really want someone like this to be president?” ...
> The American people have answered the same way, over and over: “Sure, maybe.”
If Harris loses, there will be a zillion essays about how she was obviously a horrible candidate and lost a character contest to, of all people, Donald Trump, and everyone will nod along.
It's really quite something to see these comments immediately devolve into the exact same “LOL FACEPLANT!!! 🤪” attitude Jeff is criticizing without even a hint of self-awareness.
This is entirely correct. *Of course* Trump can make voters believe he has better character than the Democratic nominee - he did just that in 2016. It's laughably false, as it was then, but that won't matter if people believe it.
When I read the title, I had a similar reaction as you and laughed out loud. Then I read the article, and valid points were made about what happened to Kerry and Hillary and how it could happen to Kamala. (Do we call her Kamala, or Harris? I'm calling Clinton "Hillary" because there's a Bill. And I'm not calling Kerry "John" becasue there's a million of them.)
Equivocating the two Presidential candidates is a lost cause. Those with critical thinking skills and good reading comprehension will notice the flaws and omissions in your assertions.
#USA
The issue with a lot of Democratic commentators I’ve seen is that they assume “because Trump’s character is very very bad, Kamala Harris is immune to any attacks on her character”. They think whataboutism is a complete argument. It’s not!
Nothing you say about Trump is wrong, exactly. But despite that, whether Dems think this should be true or not, some people are genuinely on the fence for this election. Those people can potentially be swayed by negative attacks on Harris. I think most voters assume all politicians have crappy character, and are thus not single issue voters on character (plus a lot of voters are irrational anyway).
The other thing Dems don’t seem to realize is that, while “Harris is good and Trump is bad” can be a very strong argument, “Sure Harris isn’t perfect but Trump is worse” is comparatively weak.
That’s why arguments about e.g. Walz stretching the truth about his personal history can still land, even if Trump has told worse lies.
I expect that once elected Harris’s administration will do many of the bad things she has done for the last four years that she is temporarily denying for like two months before the election. Basically, I think she is a liar.
Let’s just take immigration as an example. We got a lot of immigration for four years, now we get a few law changes that were denied for four years right before the election. Who doesn’t believe she’s going to turn the spigot back on the second she’s elected? The woman won’t even own being the “border czar”.
Multiply this by every issue.
There's a quote for every occasion and here's the quote for this one:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Hobgoblins are bad, right? I rest my case.