rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

oops (if he was actually a proponent he could have stolen the election by pushing McConnell for another round of checks in October)

Those checks (the bill passed largely with Pelosi's help) are about the only good thing he ever did.

I agree with that, it's just that's not what the MAGA crew means when they talk about the Trump economy. Or what Trump means either, obviously. And to map's point, I know lots of people whose personal circumstances were greatly aided by the stimulus checks. Just saying that that's not what the Trump people mean.

Like, if I wanted to get on some peoples' good side re: interest rates I would not renominate the lifelong Republican Fed Chair who was explicit about using interest rate hikes to punish workers who managed to make marginal gains during the pandemic.

biden being the guy under whom everyone had to start repaying their student loans and also punting on any relief is also a huge part of the i'm-not-doing-great poor person picture

Out of curiosity: has anyone here or anyone you know used the loan forgiveness program? I know a couple people.

yep i'm looking forward to being forced to work for the government for the next 10 years of my life in order to get it at 51 years old, if it isn't snatched away before then.

dems needed a big accomplishment for normal people in order to soundly win afaict. forcing the next president to be the one who restarted student loan payments should have been a no-brainer. anyway i'm at my quota for politics posts this year, yall and myself are going to be happier if i keep avoiding these threads.

But why does it work both ways? if we're talking about things breaking Trump's way. I'm not talking about people like us, but actual voters who are actually not dyed in the wool Republicans/Democrats.

Trump gets credit for enhanced unemployment, even though that was something Democrats held up the relief bill to ensure was included (for which they were criticized for holding up the bill).

Also the rollout was very poor in many states. My mother took three months of my brother and I paying her bills until we finally got her claim fixed by emailing specific DEO employees. Some said they didn't get their money for 6 or mo

Biden passed a comprehensive relief bill, SCOTUS blocks it, so he had to find another angle. Yeah voters are mad about that but they're going to vote for the guy who nominated the justices that scrubbed it?

Like yeah a lot of people did better during the pandemic. Me included. Because I didn't have anywhere to go for the majority of 2020-2021. The places I used to spend my money were closed.

My mother did better because of the enhanced unemployment Dems fought for. It wasn't extended because of actions taken....by Republicans in Congress to vote against extending it. And Republican state Governors didn't want to extend it. Voters complained about people being paid not to work and the narrative was "we need to get back to work" among many independent folks.

Most of us who benefitted during the last year of Trump did so due to an unique unprecedented situation that was unsustainable long term.

Some people, the enhanced unemployment was a significant pay cut that caused them to fall behind on their rent. Many of the negative effects we are experiencing today are holdovers from year one of the pandemic, including supply chain issues, past due rents, etc.

My post isn't saying "EXONERATE DEMOCRATS, THEY DID NOTHING WRONG, THEY SHOULD DO NOTHING DIFFERENT", it's asking why are we legitimizing the views of voters who clearly assess different sets of rules for both parties?

If Biden came forward today and called Israel purveyors of genocide....we would cheer. I would cheer. He'd then lose a similar or bigger chunk of voters than he already is.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't do it because I believe in doing the right thing even if it costs you a few votes, but as others have pointed out, throwing a vote to the guy who will unequivocally throw full-throated support behind Israel's actions is going to improve things?

I just feel like my frustration with this thread isn't the discussion of what Dems should do from an ethical standpoint, because I'm there with you. But when we start framing the discussion as far as why he's behind in the polls and losing the voting population and 90% of the things cited are things that Trump, his administration, his appointees, and his cronies did, and voters are merely mad that he didn't do enough to fight it....

Ok, that at least makes sense of you're arguing why a voter sits out the election or votes third party. Yea. WE as leftists do expect more from Dems than Republicans. That's not true of Joe Undecidedvoter. He's just making a personal judgment call.

But when people give these as a reason for why people are voting Trump in these polls, and speaking as if these are reasonable positions...

It comes across like that episode of the Simpsons where Sideshow Bob beats Mayor Quimby by saying Quimby cant be trusted because he let him out of jail. Like at some point can we just acknowledge that there is a significant portion of the voter base who has been conned and seduced by false narratives and stop pretending that Biden is going to somehow win these votes back with tangible action as opposed to winning them over by using slightly better shitty rhetoric and one-liners than Trump?

People are struggling now under Biden. My mother is practically on food stamps, I took out 20k in debt to help her and it still didn't help. They will also struggle under Trump. Maybe not even more than under Biden.

Their view of whether they are struggling or not will be based on many factors, many of which have nothing to do with anything Biden did.

Yeah, Biden administration should be doing a lot more to aid people that are struggling. Do any of us really think the guy who complained about too many immigrants from shithole countries that claimed he solved unemployment is going to offer to do anything for these people?

Like, yes, fair play to criticize Biden, idngaf, but this thread feels like everyone blaming Dems for Trump in November of 2016 and downplaying the racism element until Charlottesville happened and woke everyone the fuck up.

Xxxxxposts

*Biden forgave student loans, then got told "lol naw" by SCOTUS is basically what I meant and typoed

dems needed a big accomplishment for normal people in order to soundly win afaict

If there was one thing the Republicans were determined to do as soon as they re-took the House majority, it was to deny the dems any such big accomplishment for the past year and a half. They preferred to look like fools and incompetents, so long as the dems could get nothing of substance done.

It's like everyone criticized Dems for failing to pass a big enough stimulus when Republicans did when quite obviously what happened was those stimulus checks were passed with bipartisan support in an election year to try and help their candidate, and immediately this support vanished the moment Biden took office so they could blame him even though none of them wanted the original stimulus to begin with

They don't universally have different sets of rules - when gas prices were high under Bush, Republicans suffered. Trump's numbers were never good pre-COVID in part because people were waiting for the economy to shit the bed. (And his instability made people whose idea of a good economy is "line goes up" nervous.) All we've experienced for the past decades are a series of bubbles and their popping, even when things were going 'well' there was an expectation of something bad about to happen.

But it's not about legitimizing or treating any particular idea as reasonable (our political and economic systems are completely unreasonable - we labor under the Senate and Electoral College after all) but they're a reality you have to work with, right? What's the alternative, telling people they're morons who can't see the truth?

I feel like if there is any commonality between media, entertainment, and politics today (I almost included education), it’s the near impossibility of persuading significant numbers of human beings to pay attention to any message.

I wonder if that’s why so many Americans *embrace* authoritarian government. They just want someone with the power to cut through all the layers and MAKE IT SO (whatever IT is)

agree with that, I think. I feel like Republicans, Fox News, Newsmax etc. are very good at persuading a significant number of people to pay attention to their message

Xpost the alternative is admitting we have less control over these things than we thought abd that things other than facts and accomplishments drive votes.

Obama, btw, won re-election despite the narrative that gas prices almost doubled under him (which was technically true only because they cratered due to demand bottoming out due to decreased consumer consumption due to record costs. People stopped traveling!

That narrative didn't sink Obama, he still won handily, despite gas being at an average of 3.34 a gallon in Nov 2012.

Most of us not named Iago Galdston thought Trump was unelectable because we assumed the general public wasn't that fucking stupid and we were wrong.

Biden should do better things regarding the economy and Gaza and student loans because it's the right thing to do. But GTFO with pretending they are going to move the needle. Independents are largely vibes, low info voters. You win them with a slightly better personality and rhetoric than the other guy.

I think most Americans (left or right) would prefer to have an authoritarian leader, as long as they agreed with them policy wise.

Xpost Bush didn't open the door for Obama due to gas prices, it was due to Iraq fatigue, Katrina, and presiding over the Great Recession. Which frankly has its seeds planted during Democratic and Republican administrations. McCain just took the fall for Dubya

Gas prices the summer before Obama's election were incredibly high - $4 gallon in 2008 dollars is still the record IIRC.

and yes, that was absolutely a major factor in the lead-up to November 2008 - "“When asked in an open-ended format to name the economic or financial problem they have been hearing the most about in the news lately, fully 72% of Americans point to gas and oil prices,” the Pew Research Center wrote in June 2008. “No other issue comes close. The housing and mortgage crisis is a distant second.”"

XP^^And that was goosed by China hoarding fuel for the summer Olympics and some big Gulf hurricanes limiting off-shore production.

I'm talking about the 2012 election. Gas prices had declined to about like 2.17 a gallon by election day 2008. They went under $2 by the time Obama took office.

Romney seized on that and stated during his debate that gas prices had almost doubled from the time Obama took office to election season 2012. There was a huge, racist Super PAC billboard on I-4 around exit 87 eastbound that said "STOP, OBAMA!", that pictured a very racist caricature of Obama kneeling before two Arabs in front of a gas pump that said $5.

It was a narrative. It didn't work. People just didn't like Romney

You also referred to 2008 directly above?

In June 2008. Gas prices dropped sixty cents per gallon between September and October and almost a dollar by November.

Gas prices are the one thing that isn't vibes based. I sincerely doubt that was the defining factor by November.

June was around the time frame oil spiked at $147/barrel. Of course THEN people would cite that

I said "Obama, btw, won re-election despite the narrative that gas prices almost doubled under him (which was technically true only because they cratered due to demand bottoming out due to decreased consumer consumption due to record costs. People stopped traveling!

That narrative didn't sink Obama, he still won handily, despite gas being at an average of 3.34 a gallon in Nov 2012."

If you don't wanna read what I said tho....fine

Gas prices will definitely rise this summer because the people who control them want trump to win.

https://wapo.st/44HTW53

A choice young voters see: Upend the country too much or not enough?

I don't know what "generationally charismatic politician beat the gas narrative" illustrates, though (aside from the argument about Biden lacking "main character energy" maybe having a kernel of truth)? Economic vibes (and in that era the actual economy) did a hell of a number on Democrats nationwide from 2008-2012.

Yes it did. But not in the Presidential election. Which is what we're talking about itt.

It's almost as if significantly fewer (and different) people vote in midterms vs Presidential elections

Yeah, it's simultaneously true that Biden has some real policy/political wins, that the economy as a whole has been OK under his watch by historical standards, that those historical standards are not what people base their sense of "the economy" on, that Trump in a 2nd term would have absolutely faced the same inflation Biden did (duh it was a global phenomenon), that Biden himself has never been a super popular figure much less a beloved leader, that the U.S. right now seems like an exhausting mess from any number of political perspectives, and that when the main thing two-thirds of the country can agree on is that it's headed in the "wrong direction," it's always bad news for an incumbent.

In re YMP's WaPo linked story, the apparently strong and widespread appetite for "tearing down the system completely" is disheartening to me for the simple reason that all the mechanisms for major change that are built into the system have been rendered inoperable by the political climate, so the only avenue for "tearing down the system" would be the application of force majeure. Because the instruments of such force are already concentrated in the army, police, 'national security' apparatus, the wannabe militias, and quite a few criminals, I don't see traveling that avenue as ending in a better system or a better life for anyone who is currently oppressed by the heavy forces of wealth, property rights and white privilege, because the system as it now stands does at least exert some minimal safeguards and constraints on these forces and any such constraints would be entirely swept aside if a fascist takeover happens. The only beneficiaries would be the collaborators, not the resistance.

I don't necessarily think you should read too much into statements like that (though I don't think you should read too little either). A lot of polling has these really open ended and abstract questions that could be interpreted in a myriad of ways, or where terms like capitalism, genocide, socialism, free speech and other signifiers mean all kinds of different things at the same time - which is how we end up with people simultaneously saying "Israel is committing a genocide" and "Israel is trying its best to avoid civilian casualties". On the face of it, only one of these statements can be true, but it depends how the person who said this interpreted it, for them both can be true

Its also relevant how something tracks over time, if 13% of voters think x and 10 years later 16% of voters think x, thats not especially significant, but if its a shift from 3% to 12% thats more significant

Precisely. There were mechs put in place with thought time and effort precisely to avoid this shit. The failures of same are not so much evidence of bad foresight or design but instead of a very extreme insistence by wealth an power in defeating, disregarding, and removing them. And imo to insist “well it’s obvious those control mechs are shit and would never work, and usa needs better systems than say, the judicial one, and impeachment”…ok. but i am near a point of believing that no systems will FORCE a people to act ethically or lawfully if enough of em decide just to be fucking shit people to do v bad things. But to eviscerate or overthrow those mechs, i cannot assume anything better is remotely possible amidst chaos as the rich and armed put all other interests to the wall or under the boot. it’s bad enough and hard enough as it is. i think i get who they will make suffer, because we’ve seen it thousands of times.

after writing all this crap i re-read aimless, and it feels like a fucking re-statement. nevertheless.

"it depends how the person who said this interpreted it, for them both can be true"

i think it needs to be very clearly stated that there is no reasonable way both can be true

yes, that's a sign the poll is flawed not that large numbers of people's interpretations of reality are nonsensical

anvil: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/

i think it needs to be very clearly stated that there is no reasonable way both can be true

Depends on if they're using the same definition of genocide as you, and what that definition is we can't know. This is the problem with abstract terms that masquerade as definitive

not that large numbers of people's interpretations of reality are nonsensical

I don't know that interpretations of reality are necessarily nonsensical. Its just that a lot of terms aren't just interpreted differently by different people, its that they're often extremely flexible and pliable. Bernie Sanders is a socialist, millions of people love Bernie and say they support socialism - but is Bernie a socialist? and do they? I would say absolutely not, in a literal sense, but literalism is for the dictionaries

i included the word reasonable and i stand by the statement

Thats fair, but may leave you short of a full eleven

the disappointing counterpart to a baker's dozen

I don't necessarily think you should read too much into statements like that

I used the word "appetite" for a reason. Polls questions like that gauge the emotional temperature of the respondents, not their reasoned conclusions. What's disheartening to me is that mass political bodies move upon their emotions, not reasoned conclusions, and if the system denies a redress of their frustrations then those will eventually find an outlet in the act of literally "tearing the system down".

Some people believe that this is the inevitable path to a socialist revolution by the downtrodden, and in some political masses I think that would be correct. I do not see that coming to pass in the US masses, who have been propagandized from childhood to accept fascist authoritarianism in preference to socialist revolution.

New w/ @HansNichols

It’s not just public spin, Biden doesn’t believe his bad poll numbers nor do many of his top aides, per Dems who have spoken privately with the president and his team.

This informs the largely steady-as-she-goes campaign strategyhttps://t.co/Lu7ilWV59l

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 14, 2024

polls are skewed, i repeat, polls are skewed

Reasoned conclusions are mostly illusory but I don't think this is necessarily more or less so than at other times. But I'm not sure this is measuring emotional temperature all that highly either (though it might be the case, I don't think its a given)

I think for "tearing the system down" to be more substantive, we'd need a better idea of what people actually mean by that and with how much conviction, otherwise its too much of an abstract signal

Has there been a deep-dive into how much of Trump's base has died over the past 4 years? I feel like that number is not insignificant. Perhaps I just perform a search...

In this cohort study evaluating 538,159 deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before. These differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates, and primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio.

src: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617

found this from a few years back:

"Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points)."

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/political-party-affiliation-linked-excess-covid-deaths

xp!!

I posted that Bump piece partly in response to Neanderthal:

None of the things that are true today will change unless massive violence breaks out in the streets because nobody has to listen to the average American anymore otherwise. But few seem to have the stomach because for most, things rarely get bad enough to the point where they feel they have no other choice. It's a persistent state of "wow this is really bad but I still have much to lose and I have family that I can't make these decisions for".

The only major movements in making change have come through civil disobedience, civilian uprising through obstruction, or rioting.

That definition of "tearing the system down" seems more prevalent than, I dunno, a new convention in Philadelphia with powdered wigs 'n' shit.

thanks for that piece, YMP

"Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzvk0fWtCs0