06-14-2024, 04:06 PM
dk62 wrote:
[quote=pdq]
Oh please.
Our economy is currently the best in the developed world - empirically, not just my opinion. Stock markets reflect this (plus some irrationality, honestly) but in any case, setting new records nearly every week and doing waaaay better than the last guy did.
We just had unemployment’s longest run of sub-4% since the 50’s.
Inflation (which was, for the hundredth time, a world-wide post-pandemic phenomenon) has come down as fast or faster than other countries. Mortgages are still high, but that’s largely due to a recalcitrant Fed. And workers pay has exceeded inflation, especially on the low end, so that for the first time in a generation the income gap may be narrowing.
Deficits, while of concern, have been halved since Trump’s last year.
We are actually on a course - not just promising to release a secret plan in two weeks - to tackle aging infrastructure, and are pursuing it.
Crime is down nationally and dropping “precipitously”.
Immigration has soared (not surprisingly, since people from all over want to live here for the reasons above), but Biden presented a plan for immigration reform his first day in office, and the Senate finally hammered out a bipartisan (plus Independents) compromise along those lines. But Trump decreed that that problem must not be solved, so he can yammer about it, and the GOP capitulated and threw the conservative Senator James Lankford (who negotiated it) under the bus.
We are in no foreign wars, but have supported and enabled a much smaller country to resist Putin’s aggression for years now.
Now, a third of the country has drunk the Trump Kool-aid and (and least pretends) they believe the country is in horrible shape. (Hey, are you gonna believe me, your great leader and stable genius, or your own lyin eyes?)
And Biden is old.
If I recall correctly, four years ago you said you hated Hillary Clinton and everything she stood for. Trump won and appointed three more young compliant conservative culture warriors to the SCOTUS that have since upended women’s lives, among other things. Don’t like Biden? Vote for whoever you want.
But don’t give us this crap about how stupid the Democratic party is. When given the presidency, they’ve accomplished all of the above, despite the best efforts of the other side and their allies in the Faux News universe. And that should be worth the vote of anyone who hasn’t closed their mind.
Okay?
Rant over.
Yes but no. When was the last time that rational thinking and facts won an election? They may drive 30%-40% of the votes, but not the rest. You need energized and excited voter base that is willing to consider all the options and will get out and vote. Biden did not have the excitement last time either, but he had the despicable opponent. The same opponent is not any less despicable, but people have forgotten the disgust they shared in 2020. Coupled with disappointment in Biden's handling of Middle East (a no-win scenario either way), general feeling of worse economy than in the preceding 4 years hyperbolized by GOP messaging, unclear and insufficient Democrat messaging on the points you delineate above, and the apparent cognitive and energy decline*, there will be fewer Democratic and independent voters coming out due to apathy. And it is a pity, as getting both houses of Congress in Democrat hands is ultimately more important than who the president is. Failing that, MAGAts will be able to do crazy things with Trump as a winner, or completely block Biden if he is.
*Do not make a mistake of comparing this with Trump's mental incompetency. That one does not matter to his devotees or die-hard GOPers.
Do crazy things is kinda an understatement. If Trump wins and somehow gets both houses along with SCOTUS, we can cross a threshold that we can't cross back over. We can lose the country. Imagine being a Russian. We can't go "oh wow, this guy is crazy, we made a mistake, we'll correct it in the next election." While at this very moment, states are unraveling everyone's right to vote. They'll be asking everyone they hate to guess how many jellybeans are in a jar in order to "vote."
There's a larger portion of the left that just want to be contrarians. I think it's the Dunning-Kruger Effect? You know enough about something to think that you're right, but not enough about it to know that you're wrong. I think I'm getting that right.
The right and the left have been fighting a battle of how to stick it to one another. Both sides have become mobs with no hopes of consensus.
The right are just monsters with zero concerns.
The left are just monsters with zero concerns.
Right now, the left is Mike Tyson on auto-pilot. We don't want the right to be Buster Douglas whose mama just died.