Off the cuff, when he talked about the tariffs dealing with China and overall not giving China a free run, I was in agreement.
But again eventually I thought it became a tit for tat instead of a well thought out tariff strategy
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Because itâs funny AF
Why is it funny?
Dark side humour.
So, he made a couple of promises backed up by nothing, which he failed to deliver in any meaningful way.
Has his âstanding up to Chinaâ changed the situation at all?
Has a wall (paid for by Mexico) been built?
All youâre saying is that he made some empty promises. Thatâs not the same as saying the right thing.
Nope empty promises are not doing anything at all on what was said. Saying the right thing does not mean the right actions are followed through. From Politicians to corporates, they say the right things many a times but also many a times execute poorly.
Trumpâs promises were straight out of the populists playbook:
Blame someone else, preferably foreigners, and promise tough action against them.
He has no positive, inclusive policies that would bring the nation forward.
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While vigorously attacking the Obama adminâs policy on reigning in Chinese power and influence because he mistakenly believed China were involved in the TPP. The fact both Hillary and Bernie campaigned against the TPP on strategic grounds (supporting jobs in non-Chinese asian countries that could come to the US) meant Trumpâs opposition to it kind of got lumped into the same conversation so he was never made to account for the fact he never understood even the most basic fact of one of his biggest policy agenda items from his 2016 campaign.
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I just re-watched the video of Biden and the wife comment, but got my wife to listen to the 30 seconds of the portion without giving her any information, and asked her if she hears anything funny, and she reconfirmed that it sounds like âfucking your wifeâ. Now, interestingly, when I listed to it at the same time, I could hear it as âtalking to your wifeâ.
Itâs just a funny thing, and he obviously would not be saying âfucking your wifeâ, however this is what happens with this guy, his mumbling has gotten worse, which leads to hilarious soundbites like this.
Regarding immigration, the attacks from the right about how the left want open borders (with an insinuation, sometimes directly stated, that the motivation is to create new voters who will vote for them) has not changed at all since the Obama era. Itâs probably relevant then to review this analysis of the Obama record from the Cato Institute, a RW think tank
Highlights include
- The harshest enforcement of deportations of any administration in history
- This was achieved in part by expanding a bush era policy that connected local law enforcement with the federal government to prioritize the deportation of violent criminals
- Enforcement of punishments of employers for employing people without work authorization, resulting in massive increases in fines and arrests (8 and 15 times) than were levied under the Bush admin
- The expansion of e-verify, the federal program that makes it easier for employers to verify the work authorization status of their employees.
- Ending wet foot-dry foot, a policy that grants Cubans (specifically Cubans) legal status if they can make it onto dry land. Amusingly that was criticized by Republicans becauseâŚsomething something communism
He balanced that against moves to protect the group who came to be known as Dreamers, the children of people here illegally for whom America is the only home they have known, but only had limited success in that.
So when you hear RWers talk about being motivated to address open border policy this is the reality of what they are talking about and either dont know about it or are lying to make people believe that is what mainstream Dem policy is. Dems arent drinking from the same poisoned fountain of misinformation and so are not motivated by concern over an open border policy than has been entirely made up by bad actors.
With all that said, we do have a proper problem with immigration, and more specifically managing the traffic at the southern border. Every president is forced to act by a set of laws that have not been updated since the 90s when the challenges were very different (different number of people, from different countries, and coming for different reasons) and are faced with courts that have shown they will only allow a very narrow interpretation of those laws often forcing the administrations into bad policy that produces bad outcomes. This is on congress to sort out and now president is going to be able to manage the situation effectively and humanely until either congress gets it shit together or people choose to stop coming. The difference is presidents can approach the situation to make the best of a bad situation, or use the challenges for managing the situation humanely as a way to weaponize an anti-immigrant message where the cruelty is the point (the difference between Obama building juvenile detention centers because the courts didnt allow them to house children without family members with adults vs Trump purposefully separating families, deporting the adults and keeping no record of who the kids were and who their family is). Trump has very much been the latter and is clearly and consistently arguing he will be even worse in his second term. Opposing that is not advocating for open borders.
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I think the party that loses the presidency, house or senate seats, needs to reflect on why they losing, instead of doubling down on a losing strategy (obviously we donât know who has the losing strategy at this moment)
I believe that the Democrats have been horrible at this and feel that they are out of touch especially on some of the main issues (Border, not an issue. Economy, no problem, numbers are fine so all this noise about things being more expensive is irrelevant). Itâs like they are brushing issues that really matter, under the carpet, while at the same time pushing irrelevant stuff down the throats of voters.
I think at this stage, the Republicans are learning from past mistakes. E.g. the red wave that never materialized (house) = horribly formulated abortion message. They have now rearticulated the message into a less extreme seeming stance of putting it with the states to decide. Trump also handled that question as well as can be expected, during the debate. Saying he doesnât agree with abortion, but people should follow their hearts, and that he thinks there should at least be exceptions. This strategy imo works for the election as a place like South Dakota has essentially no abortion allowed and it doesnât matter as it will vote Republican. On the other hand, swing states for the most part have reasonable abortion laws in place already, so fear mongering on abortion in these states is less effective.
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If you were at Jamestown you would have two servings of the kool aid. And as you lay dying you would have said âI didnt really have time to learn what was in the kool aidâ.
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Thatâs part of the problem with how the Democrats right there in your reply. You disagree, so you move to the absolute extreme view, ridicule, or put it down to rw propaganda, and then are bewildered why there is such a divide.
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Democrats nowadays are an interesting bunch. Unfortunately it is not the same party that I grew up voting for here in the United States. If you even question them, disagree, try to have a civil conversationâŚthey always fall back on the same things. You are a racist, a threat to democracy, bigot, EXTREME right wing, fascistâŚ
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Bidenâs administration has arrested more people crossing the border than any other administration. Democrats are taking it seriously, they just donât also use those people as pawns in political games by labelling them as criminals, rapists and murderers here to eliminate the white race.
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Bidenâs administration has arrested more people crossing the border than any other administration.
- Yeah, itâs crazy. You tell everyone the boarders are open, we will give you free shelter for 90 days, free debit cards, take you to whatever city you want to go to, etc etcâŚthen once it becomes a major talking point, you start to âarrestâ them to claim we are taking it seriously.
Democrats are taking it seriously, they just donât also use those people as pawns in political games by labelling them as criminals, rapists and murderers here to eliminate the white race.
- Yes, NOW they are. You donât care when these illegals come across the boarder because Texas has to deal with them. But once they start to get bused/flown to your âsanctuaryâ state and see what a mess it is, you take it seriously. Also, all of these major sanctuary cities are heavily black populated. The black community is starting to express their disapproval on all these illegals, so yes, now you start to care.
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Rhetoric utterly detached from reality. Deportations will always be closely linked to attempts to cross the border, and so perceptions that a Biden admin would have weaker enforcement than a Trump one did encourage a big surge in border crossing attempts, but the adminstration was clear that would not happen, that they would be turned back
and then started enforcing deportations of illegal crossing immediately
Yes sure, Im just a mean old Dem who cannot tolerate differences of opinion, but you two could do your part and stop drinking from the firehouse of misinformation of where ever it is you get your news from so you show up in these conversations with information approximating the real world.
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What I find so fascinating about people inclined to be favourable towards Trump is they are in large because they are tired of politicians always lying and being in it for themselves. Yet they latch on to a guy who talks out of both sides of his mouth on all issues, often in consecutive sentences, making no attempt to reconcile his internal inconsistency, and people will then just pick up on the version that best suits their internal narrative on why Trump isnt that bad and accept that as the truth.
Trump has a track record on abortion from his first term that has produced a catastrophic loss of access to reproductive healthcare all across the country. His entire campaign is intimately intertwined with the project 2025 plan that is clear it wants to make the matter even more strict. He speaks repeatedly about post birth abortions which is absolutely not a thing, and wanting to criminalize women and doctors. Any candidate with that around their neck who wanted to moderate on the issue should be required to do far more than make a couple of throw away statements.
If during his first term Trump enabled the institution of policies based on the understanding the world was flat and frequently spoke about punishing round earthers, but then yesterday said one line about the world being round, and made no attempt to explain his turn around, would you take that seriously? Would you take anyone seriously who did?
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