Drill Baby Drill...the US Politics Thread (Part 2)

https://x.com/politicsusa46/status/1899720013377933800

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https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1899460897552404714
the comments are full of Maga people or maybe bots defending Elon :expressionless:

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https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1899548626395058677

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Watching Bernie Saunders is like watching Planet of the Apes, no? :rofl:

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“Anti Oligarch Tour”

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MAGA will probably come up with a legal reason soon to lock Bernie Sanders up… There is an old proverb that states…
" The nail that sticks out… gets hammered down "

Wish there were more like him…

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:upside_down_face:

You know you are living in bizarre times when you get up in the morning, start making coffee, and one of the serious thoughts in your head is ‘I wonder what batshit crazy economic policy has been announced by the President of the United States on social media while I was asleep’

On that note, welcome to our cousins in Australia to the Tariff Target Club.

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The piece itself is such shoe gazing nonsense. Rather than point out why the dems lost, it actually reflects an attitude too many Dems have that see them lose races they should have won.

“The Dems were punished because of x. Actually, the Dems didnt do x but other people did…” is the mentality that sees median Dem candidates take shots at the party for being too woke to appear different when the target they are taking shots at doesnt exist. All it does it solidify in the minds of voters that this supposed criticism of the other people in the party is valid.

“The public are against puberty blockers for minors, and that is a serious position we should respect and Dems got punished for for ignoring”. Well who the fuck else are puberty blockers for? This is a very wells studied treatment used extensively for decades on cis kids without issue, and when used on kids undergoing counselling for gender dismorphia produces the outcomes that people concerned about this whole thing say they want - kids to not be rushed through the process of medicalizing their situation. The fact people have this opinion is a reflection of people taking a position on something they dont understand (lots of the supposed fact based arguments used to support concern that kids are rushed through treatment comes from conflating counselling and puberty blockers with more permanent solutions). This is common because the general public are generally fucking stupid, and if a party takes it cues only from what the public believes today to be a good idea then that is path to awful positions. It might win you an election in the short term, but it produces shit government. And Dems cannot win in the long term if people see that government is shit. The GOP are not afraid at all of trying to shift public opinion, but the Dems dont. The result is too often they hide from what is right and hope the attacks the GOP are slinging at them will go away, or that they can distance themselves from it by throwing others in their party under the bus.

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I know there was a lot to be disgusted at with that absurd Tesla promotion yesterday, but has anyone asked Trump to reconcile his extensive criticism of EVs and his policies to impede growth of the industry with his praise of the cars/company yesterday?

This isnt political hypocrisy. It is policy incoherence. The sort that when acted upon is causing incredibly damaging outcomes for no good reason.

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From Oz,you are spot on,the whole thing is batshit crazy,wish our politicians on each side would grow a set,they don’t appear to have seen how quick the orange felon can go to water, Canada has shown how quickly that can occur.

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I think there is a rational economic argument for not responding to the tariffs, so I can understand the reasoning for Australia not initiating a retaliatory cycle (at least not yet). For Canada, the situation is very different, because the fundamental purpose of the tariffs doesn’t appear to be economic anyway. Most people here are fairly clear that this is going to hurt, and per capita it will hurt Canadians more.

I was surprised to see how badly Ireland will be hit in the next round, up there with the much larger economies of Germany and Italy.

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The thing I always say with Trump is he puts people in situations where your only options are to pick between ones with bad outcomes, and you just have to pick the least bad one. So much of the shit that has happened has done so because people live in denial of that and their desire to stay dirt free results in the worst case scenario playing out.

It seems Canada is one fo the few cases of someone actually understanding that dynamic and committing to a path that requires pain but in the hope it can avoid worse pain later.

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How I felt every morning during his first term. Now, I wake up and wonder if this country is going to collapse, and should I bolt now. Unfortunately, I have two children here I would be loathe to leave behind.

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Taking up @Limiescouse 's point just above yours, this week is critical - and I have very little confidence in Senate Democrats. If that Continuing Resolution goes through, Congress will have abdicated the power of the purse through to next January. With no actual budget in place, the executive will have more discretion over spending than any time since World War 2. The House will be close to irrelevant, and it is actually difficult to see what votes the Senate will absolutely needed for. I suppose at some point things like the elimination of the Department of Education will need to be ratified, but I am not sure Congress will be much more relevant than the old Supreme Soviet of the Union was to the Politburo.

But the likelihood is that the Senate will shear away from forcing a shutdown crisis Friday in the pretense that doing so will allow something like business as usual.

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I was wondering about this this morning, just after hearing the EU response, tariffs were just on Aluminium and something else. Why retaliate?
Of course I could not come to a conclusion on what should/could be the response. I haven’t the knowledge or experience. All I know is that tariffs cause recessions and wars.
Of course the situation for Mexico and Canada is very different. They have been betrayed and must stand up for their sovereignty.
Tit for tat doesn’t seem like the grown up thing to do by the ‘others’. I would argue for a response based on principle and mine here would be the US has started something (a world trade war) so where do we stand on this, who’s side are we on?
I’m for Canada so I’d formulate a plan to help Canada and hurt the US. I mean it’s the US who have betrayed us all on this, why?
Because we are all nasty and do things and stuff!

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It all depends on what the tariffs are on.They are an economic lever that is applied to your own people. If it is against something that can be sourced elsewhere then it will encourage people to use the alternative. If there is no alternative, then it is just a tax against your own economy. This can hit you twice if the tariffs are against an input to a product that you were hoping to export.

This is why many of Trumps tariffs are more damaging to his own economy rather than competitors.

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Absolutely - and our tariffs are going to result in lower consumer welfare. However, most of what Canada imports from the US are finished goods that can be obtained elsewhere, whereas Canadian exports to the US are generally more commodities. Some of those can be substituted for other sources, some from domestic sources, but generally they are more inelastic.

The Canadian tariffs are fundamentally political in nature, but the political will is there at the popular level - US produce sales have absolutely collapsed for example, even without a tariff on them.

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https://x.com/TristanSnell/status/1899824583076655458

:thinking:

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Surely he has the assets/capital to influence the price of stocks himself (and not just those of Tesla).
Also when he bought Twitter the stock value of Tesla was about where it is today.
Makeing things up isn’t going to help the situation.
Imo it was pure and simply a publicity stunt to encourage those against EV (i.e the MAGA crowd) to change tact and buy Tesla EV’s to off set what’s happening in Tesla showrooms. (An industrial/commercial ploy

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/disappointed-with-your-tesla-this-brands-offering-you-5000-euros-to-break-up-with-musk/ar-AA1AB0Rc

Polestar gives €5000 reduction if you switch from tesla to polestar :upside_down_face:

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https://x.com/Mylovanov/status/1899831474938892761

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