That doesn’t make sense. Bolton has been defenestrated by those worse than himself. Trump’s new coterie is populated with extreme far right actors, including white Christian nationalists, Miller and Roberts, and others who have had years to finalize Project 2025 and its implementation. Say hello to theocracy, politicization of institutions, and goodbye to women’s rights, free fact based public education and environmental regulation. And then don’t forget those self serving billionaire genius like Musk and Thiel (Thiel having stated his belief that democracies dont work) who believe they could run the world better than governments elected by the people. A cesspool of theocracy, authoritarianism, technology and of course, big big money. A new improved conservative swamp.
I have my fingers crossed that J.D. Vance's transformation since 2020 and joining the ticket mean that he's volunteering to be the adult. He sounded like it at the debate. Here's hoping.
More likely, he knows that his future success in the Republican Party requires him to back whatever crazy idea Trump comes up with. Opposing Trump's ideas didn't work so well for Mike Pence's ambitions.
What are you talking about? He's clearly more prepared, now, with a better coterie of people. He's also older, and obviously interested in delegating. Musk with do this, RFK will do that, Gabbard will do this other thing...
Out of 40 cabinet secretaries from the first time around, 35 said he was unfit to be president. The people he chooses this time will be more sycophantic.
I’m not interested in more war. I don’t admire Bolton or agree with him on policy. I just agree with his assessment of Trump’s fitness, based primarily Trump’s emotional and personal issues, for the Presidency of the US.
Meh. Harris and Biden barely avoided a nuclear exchange. The chicken little game with Trump would be much more convincing if the Democrats hadn’t just spent 4 years of complete incompetence, literal incompetence, being worse than Trump in every meaningful way.
By every metric, the economy today is better than Trumps. Even considering Covid. Inflation was high but has dropped. And have you seen the latest WSJ piece on debt projections for a Trump adm vs Harris? Read it and weep.
Working class wages relative to inflation went up for the first time in two generations during Trump's first term, partly due to things done under his administration which the current administration has quietly kept.
It's also amusing nobody has elected to argue against the "peaceful" claim.
and the Obama admin sicked the fbi on the 2016 trump campaign and his irs on conservitve non for profits. The bidden admin has sicked the doj on trump for crimes that bidden already commited in a less defensible way. Every administration does shady shit. It seems to me the only thing trump is guilty of that can't be said of all presidents is he was less subtle with his winks and nods.
Try actually caring about things for a change, or challenge yourself to understand how governance works. Also, try to understand that Fauci was there under Trump, and consider what that might say about how effective Trump is at being an executive.
It sure seemed like a disaster to me! It was a shitshow from day 1 when we had to hear that creepy unnatural address about carnage and then the lies over the size of the crowd. Day 2 introduced us to the term “alternative facts”. Why does everyone forget the global pandemic and Trump’s incompetence at managing us through it? It’s like everyone has PTSD about it and has erased that year from their memories. Sure, maybe it wasn’t his fault, but neither was the global inflation it caused afterward that hangs around Biden’s neck. I’m tired of (1) Trump’s bullshit and (2) the American people for not seeing through the constant fog of lies, manipulation, and misinformation. I can’t believe we are pretty much depending on a coin flip to keep us from having to suffer a second term. It’s like everyone, and especially the media, secretly wants the second term to happen just for the entertainment value.
The Trump presidency was pretty good time for me. At the end democrats did Covid and blm to us and I will never forgive them. Last four years have been a shitshow, want it to end.
Ah, but it wasn't as MUCH a shitshow as it could have been. It could have been a kick-line of dancing shits in Santa hats. It could have been shits doing backflips while riding on the backs of ponies. It could have been shits singing karaoke in drag. But it wasn't. It was just a pile of elephant dung on the sidewalk: bigger than the doggie-doo you usually see on your morning run, but still not particularly entertaining.
I neither have nor will vote for Trump, but the Dems would make a far better case if they hadn't been in their own way just as bad. How many times did the courts smack down Biden’s efforts to rule via "a pen and a phone"? (Remember the eviction moratorium and the covid vaccine mandate?)
I don't think that Biden continuing the long trend of expanding executive power is the same as trying to use the Justice Department to enact vengeance and trying to overturn an election. And it's true that neither candidate has a plan for the deficit, but it's also true that Trump's proposals project as being twice as bad for the deficit as Harris'. https://www.crfb.org/papers/fiscal-impact-harris-and-trump-campaign-plans
Correct, they are not equivalent. But I fear Trump’s excesses less because they are so dependent on his own malignant personality that they are unlikely to survive him.
I view the accumulation of power in the Executive to be among the greatest dangers
to our country, but I understand most people have other priorities. It didn't start with Biden, nor with Obama. It's been growing inexorably for over a century with the support of both major parties.
If either major party would promise to do less, particularly to do less legislating from the Oval Office, it would get my support.
Trumps whole schtick centered on his authority as president. He wanted, and wants, more executive pow and hose surrounding him now vs back hen, will gladl help him do it.
So suppose Trump wins re-election. The Democrats and the Media (but I repeat myself) are going to maturely, calmly, and graciously accept the will of the people, right?
"Maturely"? It depends on what that words means. But last time, Democrats who matter immediately and unequivocally accepted that Trump won, and I expect the same to happen this time.
I hope you're right, but I'm not optimistic. I recall large numbers of super-bummed-out lefties taking to the streets when Trump won in 2016, chanting "not my president". I expect that if Trump wins we'll see riots rivaling those of the summer of 2020.
The phrase “not my president” generally refers to a sense that the elected person doesn’t represent one’s political *views*, not that they weren’t legitimately elected. I think some Republicans are practicing projection and think that large numbers of Democrats think the way they do about electoral legitimacy, for which there are not facts in evidence at scale.
2.0, but I do want to push back on this. I recall a (comically inept) campaign, including a SNL skit, to convince electors to switch their vote. It was Obama who pushed Clinton to concede when it was clear she lost, but no statement was forthcoming. While there was unequivocal recognition that he won within the first day or two by “democrats who matter,” within a few days was the first rumblings of the Russia investigations and calls for impeachment before he even took office.
The “not my president” marches did not try and steal an election, trash the Capitol, beat on Capitol Police, or chant anything about hanging anyone. What many of feared came true…appointments of a bible thumping partisan SCOTUS, loss of women’s right to bodily autonomy, the beginning of the destruction of our public school system, an end to environmental protections for clean water, thousands of children locked in cages away from parents, complete failure of leadership when leadership was needed (Covid), etc.
It's also worth wondering what 1776 part three will look like if he loses. I'm sure the cultists and their dear leader will also act mature, calm, and gracious right?
Jeff is completely correct that the past performance is no guarantee of future results. However, that fact doesn't call for freak-out (or for further freakification of existing freak-out). There is absolutely nobody in the country (perhaps on the planet) who hasn't heard the Bad News that Trump wants to destroy democracy at least five times. Doing it a sixth, but louder, won't convert anybody who's not already convinced. It may, in fact, convince a few undecideds that the left is stark raving mad. Which is not altogether false.
It is unbelievable how low we’ve sunk the bar. Have you watched Trump’s behavior lately? Do you recall his antics in the past? Also there’s that Project 2025, which was penned by many of Trumps past advisors, including Steve Miller, and Cabinet members. Vance wrote the introduction to the book that the main author, Roberts, of P2025 wrote about the conservatives’ plan for all of us. Please don’t say Trump knows nothing about it.
Are we actually to believe Obama, Clinton and Biden don’t violate norms? For those counting at home this collection of totalitarians is seeking to censor free speech and change the “norms” of the Supreme Court. Try to jail Trump? Where to begin?
AHarris and Biden have destroyed the sex-based rights of women and girls. We are now forced to disrobe in front of, compete against and be locked in jail cells with males who claim a woman identity. As a liberal feminist and mother, I’ll take Trump over Harris any day.
I was actually surprised an how much damage he was able to do. Legal immigration took a huge hit. Trade became much more restricted. And he was able to pass another on of the Republicans "cut taxes for the rich and run up the deficit." bills. And politicizing NPI in the pandemic was just gratuitous .
I would draw a distinction, though, between bad policy (and I agree, there was plenty) and norm-breaking bordering on illegality. We're not supposed to agree on what constitutes good policy, but we're supposed to agree on the basic rules of the game.
How do you expect them to both oppose key policy differences and also authoritarian stuff? Did you think they wouldn't oppose tax cuts for 4 years just so it didn't look uncouth?
Agreed, the Democrats are not inspiring confidence that they are the party to uphold norms: threatening to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster to pass abortion protection. (Although for the latter I don't believe for a second that they will actually do it, as abortion is the number one fundraising and base-inflaming issue for the Democrats, and legalizing protection would take that away.)
Are Biden/Harris threatening to pack the court? I also think the blurring of “Democratic officials” with “idiots on Twitter” is a logical fallacy of the right (and the left too)
Did I miss something? That article reports she’s suggesting term limits for SC members and laws about extralegal presidential conduct. I don’t see anything about court packing.
Major, puleeze be sensible. Abortion as a fundraising tool for Dems? And be fair…in just the past week I heard Trump repeat how proud he was to have packed the court and ended Roe. He had their nominations handed to him by
I feel like our government resembles the early Internet, back when it only connected a few big universities. All the protocols were built on the presumption of basic good faith by all participants. Why would anyone ever want to flood a server with so many requests it shuts down? Why would someone send email to a million people they don't even know?
Why would the Senate ever flatly refuse to even vote on a Supreme Court nominee? Why would a state give 100% of its Electoral College votes to a candidate that won 50.001% the the state's votes? I despair of creating a rulebook complete enough to prevent every possible dirty trick.
It just stuns me that almost half the country wants to give this brain dead fool another chance to destroy our economy and take away more rights.
Projector 2025 has already been applied in Britian by the conservative Tories over the last 14 years with massive influence from the University of Chicago and their economy is a mess. The gubmint size has been "shrunk" to what it was in the 1930's. How? Outsourcing! Of course corruption and profit taking has followed while services for citizens are more limited. They don't want to "shrink" anything, they want to make money off of it.....
Half of the country views the Democrats as the greater threat to our rights....Ketanji Brown Jackson and John Kerry and Tim Walz whining that the First Amendment unnecessarily hamstrings the government is a prime example. It's the first amendment for a reason, and it's a feature, not a bug.
The deficits may be similar to Ryan Trump’s but UK did not reduce legal immigration as Trump did. Even Brexit was less restriction on trade that his tariff proposals. Toory poicies were unwise, but not self destructive like Trump’s
To piggyback on your analogy, how certain are we that the emergency brakes in that elevator have been recently serviced? Are our safeguards as strong as they were before? Weaker? The same?
My sense is that a lot of it came down to a handful of people refusing to comply, and I gotta say, that doesn't instill a lot of confidence...
You do know that he was vamping because there were medical emergencies in the crowd, and he did not leave because he stayed until everyone could leave, right?
The reactionary partisan outlet ABC News pointed this out.
What scares me most is that Trump had “Adults in the Room” the first time around to rein in his worst instincts. He won’t have those next time.
That doesn’t make sense. Bolton has been defenestrated by those worse than himself. Trump’s new coterie is populated with extreme far right actors, including white Christian nationalists, Miller and Roberts, and others who have had years to finalize Project 2025 and its implementation. Say hello to theocracy, politicization of institutions, and goodbye to women’s rights, free fact based public education and environmental regulation. And then don’t forget those self serving billionaire genius like Musk and Thiel (Thiel having stated his belief that democracies dont work) who believe they could run the world better than governments elected by the people. A cesspool of theocracy, authoritarianism, technology and of course, big big money. A new improved conservative swamp.
I think we are in full agreement, Ann.
Whoops…my response was not meant for you. Sorry!
I have my fingers crossed that J.D. Vance's transformation since 2020 and joining the ticket mean that he's volunteering to be the adult. He sounded like it at the debate. Here's hoping.
More likely, he knows that his future success in the Republican Party requires him to back whatever crazy idea Trump comes up with. Opposing Trump's ideas didn't work so well for Mike Pence's ambitions.
What are you talking about? He's clearly more prepared, now, with a better coterie of people. He's also older, and obviously interested in delegating. Musk with do this, RFK will do that, Gabbard will do this other thing...
Out of 40 cabinet secretaries from the first time around, 35 said he was unfit to be president. The people he chooses this time will be more sycophantic.
First off, that figure is now half. Are you spreading misinformation, or uninformed?
Secondly: Good.
You want John Bolten in charge of things? I don't.
For the first time, I agreed with Bolton. On Trump.
Well, I'm not interested in more war. So at least we understand each other.
I’m not interested in more war. I don’t admire Bolton or agree with him on policy. I just agree with his assessment of Trump’s fitness, based primarily Trump’s emotional and personal issues, for the Presidency of the US.
Meh. Harris and Biden barely avoided a nuclear exchange. The chicken little game with Trump would be much more convincing if the Democrats hadn’t just spent 4 years of complete incompetence, literal incompetence, being worse than Trump in every meaningful way.
Stop trying to pass off your partisan insanity as legitimate commentary. Jesus.
You read the article? Nobody is pretending to be nonpartisan.
Observing the U.S. was manifestly more peaceful and arguably more prosperous during Trump's term than the ensuing five years provokes this?
Who's insane, now?
By every metric, the economy today is better than Trumps. Even considering Covid. Inflation was high but has dropped. And have you seen the latest WSJ piece on debt projections for a Trump adm vs Harris? Read it and weep.
"arguably more prosperous"
By what metric? The stock market is at record highs and there's been a massive surge in domestic manufacturing.
Working class wages relative to inflation went up for the first time in two generations during Trump's first term, partly due to things done under his administration which the current administration has quietly kept.
It's also amusing nobody has elected to argue against the "peaceful" claim.
I removed this comment because it was an ad-homenim attack.
and the Obama admin sicked the fbi on the 2016 trump campaign and his irs on conservitve non for profits. The bidden admin has sicked the doj on trump for crimes that bidden already commited in a less defensible way. Every administration does shady shit. It seems to me the only thing trump is guilty of that can't be said of all presidents is he was less subtle with his winks and nods.
That's not at all what happened
Uh, what? All these things happened.
The IRS was never "sicked" on conservative non profits. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/10/after-four-years-irs-finally-confirms-there-was-no-targeting-of-tea-party-groups/ it's the stupidest scandal ever.
Also, "Obama" never directed the FBI to investigate Trump campaign, as has been established by multiple investigations.
At any rate, even Republicans agreed there was ample reason for the FBI to investigate https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intelligence-russian-interference-report.html
It's all a matter of DISCRETION.
Will Fauci get indicted for lying to congress? Whatever came of the manifestly bogus giant pile of fake ActBlue donations?
Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout, whatabout...
Try actually caring about things for a change, or challenge yourself to understand how governance works. Also, try to understand that Fauci was there under Trump, and consider what that might say about how effective Trump is at being an executive.
It sure seemed like a disaster to me! It was a shitshow from day 1 when we had to hear that creepy unnatural address about carnage and then the lies over the size of the crowd. Day 2 introduced us to the term “alternative facts”. Why does everyone forget the global pandemic and Trump’s incompetence at managing us through it? It’s like everyone has PTSD about it and has erased that year from their memories. Sure, maybe it wasn’t his fault, but neither was the global inflation it caused afterward that hangs around Biden’s neck. I’m tired of (1) Trump’s bullshit and (2) the American people for not seeing through the constant fog of lies, manipulation, and misinformation. I can’t believe we are pretty much depending on a coin flip to keep us from having to suffer a second term. It’s like everyone, and especially the media, secretly wants the second term to happen just for the entertainment value.
The Trump presidency was pretty good time for me. At the end democrats did Covid and blm to us and I will never forgive them. Last four years have been a shitshow, want it to end.
Ah, but it wasn't as MUCH a shitshow as it could have been. It could have been a kick-line of dancing shits in Santa hats. It could have been shits doing backflips while riding on the backs of ponies. It could have been shits singing karaoke in drag. But it wasn't. It was just a pile of elephant dung on the sidewalk: bigger than the doggie-doo you usually see on your morning run, but still not particularly entertaining.
I neither have nor will vote for Trump, but the Dems would make a far better case if they hadn't been in their own way just as bad. How many times did the courts smack down Biden’s efforts to rule via "a pen and a phone"? (Remember the eviction moratorium and the covid vaccine mandate?)
And neither candidate has a plan for the deficit.
I don't think that Biden continuing the long trend of expanding executive power is the same as trying to use the Justice Department to enact vengeance and trying to overturn an election. And it's true that neither candidate has a plan for the deficit, but it's also true that Trump's proposals project as being twice as bad for the deficit as Harris'. https://www.crfb.org/papers/fiscal-impact-harris-and-trump-campaign-plans
Correct, they are not equivalent. But I fear Trump’s excesses less because they are so dependent on his own malignant personality that they are unlikely to survive him.
I view the accumulation of power in the Executive to be among the greatest dangers
to our country, but I understand most people have other priorities. It didn't start with Biden, nor with Obama. It's been growing inexorably for over a century with the support of both major parties.
If either major party would promise to do less, particularly to do less legislating from the Oval Office, it would get my support.
Trumps whole schtick centered on his authority as president. He wanted, and wants, more executive pow and hose surrounding him now vs back hen, will gladl help him do it.
Yikes…where is spell check when you need it?
See also https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-plan-boosts-budget-deficits-by-7-5-trillion-double-harris-proposal-526effd2
“Trump’s Plan Boosts Budget Deficits by $7.5 Trillion, Double Harris’s Proposal
Former president’s tax, spending ideas add up to more red ink than those of vice president, new analysis shows”
So suppose Trump wins re-election. The Democrats and the Media (but I repeat myself) are going to maturely, calmly, and graciously accept the will of the people, right?
"Maturely"? It depends on what that words means. But last time, Democrats who matter immediately and unequivocally accepted that Trump won, and I expect the same to happen this time.
I hope you're right, but I'm not optimistic. I recall large numbers of super-bummed-out lefties taking to the streets when Trump won in 2016, chanting "not my president". I expect that if Trump wins we'll see riots rivaling those of the summer of 2020.
The phrase “not my president” generally refers to a sense that the elected person doesn’t represent one’s political *views*, not that they weren’t legitimately elected. I think some Republicans are practicing projection and think that large numbers of Democrats think the way they do about electoral legitimacy, for which there are not facts in evidence at scale.
Yeah, I remember when, having lost the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton incited an armed mob to storm Congress and try to lynch Tim Kaine.
She denied he won and spent four years trying to impeach him.
She conceded the day after the election. How can you say she denied he won?
Armed? Citation please.
Hillary still denies Trump won and spent four years trying to impeach him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
I generally agree on the dangers of another Trump
2.0, but I do want to push back on this. I recall a (comically inept) campaign, including a SNL skit, to convince electors to switch their vote. It was Obama who pushed Clinton to concede when it was clear she lost, but no statement was forthcoming. While there was unequivocal recognition that he won within the first day or two by “democrats who matter,” within a few days was the first rumblings of the Russia investigations and calls for impeachment before he even took office.
Which is what happened in 2020 as well.
Except dozens have had their lives ruined because of that, but not a single member of the "Resistance" met with anything but accolades.
The “not my president” marches did not try and steal an election, trash the Capitol, beat on Capitol Police, or chant anything about hanging anyone. What many of feared came true…appointments of a bible thumping partisan SCOTUS, loss of women’s right to bodily autonomy, the beginning of the destruction of our public school system, an end to environmental protections for clean water, thousands of children locked in cages away from parents, complete failure of leadership when leadership was needed (Covid), etc.
"My stupid prediction of how people will behave if Trump wins is why I'm voting for Trump."
I haven't decided if I'm voting at all yet, actually. I can't bring myself to vote for Trump, but I definitely can't vote for Kamala.
Spoiler alert: you're definitely voting for Trump.
In that case, write-in is also an option. It is possible to vote for neither of them.
Right, that's what I am thinking, not voting for either.
Are you a man of faith, perchance?
It's also worth wondering what 1776 part three will look like if he loses. I'm sure the cultists and their dear leader will also act mature, calm, and gracious right?
Jeff is completely correct that the past performance is no guarantee of future results. However, that fact doesn't call for freak-out (or for further freakification of existing freak-out). There is absolutely nobody in the country (perhaps on the planet) who hasn't heard the Bad News that Trump wants to destroy democracy at least five times. Doing it a sixth, but louder, won't convert anybody who's not already convinced. It may, in fact, convince a few undecideds that the left is stark raving mad. Which is not altogether false.
It is unbelievable how low we’ve sunk the bar. Have you watched Trump’s behavior lately? Do you recall his antics in the past? Also there’s that Project 2025, which was penned by many of Trumps past advisors, including Steve Miller, and Cabinet members. Vance wrote the introduction to the book that the main author, Roberts, of P2025 wrote about the conservatives’ plan for all of us. Please don’t say Trump knows nothing about it.
I'm confused. Did you mean to reply to my comment?
Oh, sorry. I don’t think so. Jeez…not sure what I did there.
It’s happened to me, too. Still not sure what causes it.
Total gobbledygook.
Are we actually to believe Obama, Clinton and Biden don’t violate norms? For those counting at home this collection of totalitarians is seeking to censor free speech and change the “norms” of the Supreme Court. Try to jail Trump? Where to begin?
AHarris and Biden have destroyed the sex-based rights of women and girls. We are now forced to disrobe in front of, compete against and be locked in jail cells with males who claim a woman identity. As a liberal feminist and mother, I’ll take Trump over Harris any day.
Hahaha.
Not a feminist I take it?
Not a lunatic.
You just enjoy the suffering of women.
All this plus J. D. Vance a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
Fantastic.
This is why I feel GOOD about voting for Trump.
You had me at hello :)
"40 of Trump’s 44 cabinet officials don’t support him."
Despite the use of present tense, the link goes to a July 2023 article. An August 2024 WaPo story has more up-to-date numbers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/trump-cabinet-endorsements/
Spoiler: a lot more support for Trump, but only a slight majority.
I didn't know the Post had done this. I updated the article.
I was actually surprised an how much damage he was able to do. Legal immigration took a huge hit. Trade became much more restricted. And he was able to pass another on of the Republicans "cut taxes for the rich and run up the deficit." bills. And politicizing NPI in the pandemic was just gratuitous .
I would draw a distinction, though, between bad policy (and I agree, there was plenty) and norm-breaking bordering on illegality. We're not supposed to agree on what constitutes good policy, but we're supposed to agree on the basic rules of the game.
So much this. The blurring of norm breaking with general policy disagreements has really hurt the left’s case against Trump
How do you expect them to both oppose key policy differences and also authoritarian stuff? Did you think they wouldn't oppose tax cuts for 4 years just so it didn't look uncouth?
Agreed, the Democrats are not inspiring confidence that they are the party to uphold norms: threatening to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster to pass abortion protection. (Although for the latter I don't believe for a second that they will actually do it, as abortion is the number one fundraising and base-inflaming issue for the Democrats, and legalizing protection would take that away.)
Are Biden/Harris threatening to pack the court? I also think the blurring of “Democratic officials” with “idiots on Twitter” is a logical fallacy of the right (and the left too)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-goes-to-war-on-supreme-court-and-backs-term-limits
Did I miss something? That article reports she’s suggesting term limits for SC members and laws about extralegal presidential conduct. I don’t see anything about court packing.
Major, puleeze be sensible. Abortion as a fundraising tool for Dems? And be fair…in just the past week I heard Trump repeat how proud he was to have packed the court and ended Roe. He had their nominations handed to him by
I feel like our government resembles the early Internet, back when it only connected a few big universities. All the protocols were built on the presumption of basic good faith by all participants. Why would anyone ever want to flood a server with so many requests it shuts down? Why would someone send email to a million people they don't even know?
Why would the Senate ever flatly refuse to even vote on a Supreme Court nominee? Why would a state give 100% of its Electoral College votes to a candidate that won 50.001% the the state's votes? I despair of creating a rulebook complete enough to prevent every possible dirty trick.
Hey remember when you locked me in my house over the flu while marching hand in hand with mobs of crazed looters? That was pretty norm breaking.
Good, good, spending what stupid capital he had left on a tax cut to capitulate to the old guard was one of the biggest mistakes he made, and what?
It just stuns me that almost half the country wants to give this brain dead fool another chance to destroy our economy and take away more rights.
Projector 2025 has already been applied in Britian by the conservative Tories over the last 14 years with massive influence from the University of Chicago and their economy is a mess. The gubmint size has been "shrunk" to what it was in the 1930's. How? Outsourcing! Of course corruption and profit taking has followed while services for citizens are more limited. They don't want to "shrink" anything, they want to make money off of it.....
Half of the country views the Democrats as the greater threat to our rights....Ketanji Brown Jackson and John Kerry and Tim Walz whining that the First Amendment unnecessarily hamstrings the government is a prime example. It's the first amendment for a reason, and it's a feature, not a bug.
Rationalize it however you'd like. Does throwing out over half of voters' Presidential ballot count as suppressing free speech?
??? But fewer than one half of voters voted for Trump both times.
feldspar, is that you with a sockpuppet account?
Our economy was better during the first Trump term.
Unemployment, interest rates, and inflation were low, and working class wages rose for the first time relative to inflation in two generations.
The deficits may be similar to Ryan Trump’s but UK did not reduce legal immigration as Trump did. Even Brexit was less restriction on trade that his tariff proposals. Toory poicies were unwise, but not self destructive like Trump’s
Add this to reasons not to return him to office.
https://www.alternet.org/trump-chicago-economic-club/
https://x.com/acyn/status/1846242042785288257?s=61&t=d57_wdu2mp3jUpQgi28A5Q
https://x.com/acyn/status/1846252022385070487?s=61&t=d57_wdu2mp3jUpQgi28A5Q
To piggyback on your analogy, how certain are we that the emergency brakes in that elevator have been recently serviced? Are our safeguards as strong as they were before? Weaker? The same?
My sense is that a lot of it came down to a handful of people refusing to comply, and I gotta say, that doesn't instill a lot of confidence...
Well said. I might add that Trump is demonstrably more deranged and addled then he was back in 2016.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/15/politics/video/trump-dancing-pennylsvania-ldn-digvid
You do know that he was vamping because there were medical emergencies in the crowd, and he did not leave because he stayed until everyone could leave, right?
The reactionary partisan outlet ABC News pointed this out.