Inflation is out of control. Housing is unaffordable. The healthcare system is broken. Everyone is drowning in student debt. Ecosystems are collapsing. We’re constantly on the brink of war.
This is a better description of Trump’s presidency than Biden’s, especially right now when inflation is not out of control, and Biden has done everything he can to forgive student loans.
That’s how it always works. Republicans shit in the bed, but it’s only uncovered after a Democrat gets elected. Then they fix everything, only for the next republican to start the process over.
Kind of like how W. Bush ran up all kinds of debt off the books in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama gets slammed for bringing it front and center:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/us-public-defrauded-hidden-cost-iraq-war
And that doesn’t even take into account the massive Pentagon fraud perpetuated year after year:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/
It’s the Republican tradition… Bash the solution then blame the problem on the other side.
it’s the right wing playbook, the same shit happens everywhere
I mean none of these things got better under any president in recent memory, they just got eroded a lot less quickly under certain ones
Didn’t Obama try to come up with a healthcare solution that was undermined by conservatives? Which Trump tried to neuter as hard as possible?
Didn’t Biden try to forgive student loans, which conservatives kept stopping?
I feel the “both sides are doing it” argument isn’t entirely true.
You’re absolutely right that there IS a difference between the two parties.
But Obama’s healthcare plan was a rebrand of a Heritage foundation (conservative) plan that had been enacted at the state level by Romney in Massachusetts, and the most progressive part (the Medicaid expansion) was a last minute compromise to make the plan CHEAPER because the majority of the plan is a tax payer subsidized government enforced insurance monopoly. It hasn’t ended medical bankruptcies and it doesn’t cover everyone.
Biden is actually better than I expected, while he gave in to the antics of Sinema and Manchin a little too easily and he’s still drilling oil and gas, the “Inflation Reduction Act” is the best climate and infrastructure legislation we’ve had, just 20 years late and still too little. Meanwhile he lets the courts roll him on student loans, on reproductive rights, etc.
So yeah, the Democrats are better than the Republicans but they still SUCK.
Since Eugene McCarthy in the early 70s to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, and recently Bernie, working inside the Democrats has not worked. But obviously neither has working outside. We need to keep trying, and I wish I had a better answer. But we need to do better than the Democrats.
With respect, it looked like a “try” in many cases but consider his decades in politics and knowing likely outcomes of any given proposal. Then consider his best of the best, Ivy League-educated cabinet, advising him on every chess move. If you don’t look at both sides, you might find yourself in a disingenuous ruse.
I tried but what could I do?
How could I have known Joe Manshun would say no?
We didn’t have a filibuster proof majority (which we could have eliminated with a simple rule change like we did with the debt ceiling- but oddly didn’t for infrastructure).
Oh those legal challenges came out of left field and our best and brightest from Harvard never saw it coming.
I co-authored the bankruptcy bill that exempted student debt when I was a Senator but now my intentions are different. Student debtors, I’m on your side now. Don’t you see?Tried =/= improved lives
Also when did i say both sides same? Never did
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clearly democrats are incompetent so we should just go full fascist
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when republicans and their supporters denounce jan 6 and push out trump we can talk until then no they don’t deserve nuanced replies
But my original point was that no matter whats been tried very little benefit has been felt. Do you remmeber any president talking about how we’re quite literally killing our planet? Any of them say we need to stop drilling oil and actually follow through? Its all a distraction to make you forget how the world is falling apart around us and we are doing almost nothing to stop it
Also I never said it was his fault. Try as hard as you want when over half the government refuses to govern makes it a bit hard.
Trump was literally on Twitter bullying the fed chair to not raise rates, threatening to fire him. The inflation situation is very uniquely his fault.
The inflation is caused by a conglomeration of things, and mostly not from us giving out stimulus. Trump is a clown but he didn’t cause the inflation.
The inflation is supply side. That means it’s caused by reduced stuff, not increased money. The Russian war caused oil to skyrocket and that caused a significant amount of the inflation.
Wrong. Just… wrong. Too wrong to care to fix. You cannot say, “it’s complicated, buuuuut it’s this other thing and TOTALLY not the other partt of the equation!”
You are dumb if you think it is supply side only. Purely, utterly stupid.
And he bitched about the Fed under Obama for keeping interest rates low and claimed that the real unemployment rate was like 42%.
So inflation started after trump? Its not inherent in the system?
It’s not something that magically flips on or off… It’s a result of market pressures. Pressure takes time to move things like markets. Trump very early on elevated the pressure, and COVID made sure the average working person was never going to match it. That’s the inflation we’ve seen.
Inflation happens constantly because rich fucking morons designed the economy to require it in order to open their own avenues and justify their own jobs.
We’re saying the same thing. The system is designed this way. Also most “inflation” is just corporate greed and seeing how much they can take from the poor
Not really. You keep trying to say negative things in response to positive news about “Biden’s economy”, type stuff. I was responding to you asking questions about inflation.
While Biden does not have his hand on some magical economy wheel, to repeatedly bring up negative things in response to positive discussion absolutely comes across as partisan gaslighting.
You are talking as if you are a partisan hack. I am talking as if I know things about the economy. We are not the same.
The “economy” is rich people’s bank accounts, not the health of the population, not the happiness, not the wellbeing
Things got infinitely better for the rich under Reagan. Remember Ronald Reagan, the corporate, senile puppet who taxed grandmothers on Social Security while giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy and also opening the door to corporate raiding?
some of us remember clinton
How did your life get better under Clinton (i’m being serious, i was too young to rememeber)
Wait a second. You said none of these things got better in any of your recent memory of the Presidency, but you’re also too young to remember Clinton? In the U.S.? So you must be my age or a bit younger, within 8-10 years. I was taught a lot of this in school. Well as a route 66 overview here are a few paragraphs in brief.
In that timeline our only presidents were Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. Clinton ended in 2001 ending with a surplus and extremely low unemployment, a trend which would continue for 2-3 years - and then Bush after his 8 years with a terrible response to natural disasters and the war led us into an extreme recession and deficit. Again. Which led to Obama’s first term having to deal with a housing crisis, banks, and businesses all crashing and being bailed out.
I was born in the latest of the millennials and I remember all this living through it, and was also taught about Clinton in school as well as Desert Storm and its effects so I am a little at a loss here. But I did graduate before Betsy Devoss was made secretary of education.
By the time Obama was done, despite all the wars (or maybe because of…) and a couple of natural and biological disasters we were on a lowered trend of unemployment, housing was still an issue but slowly working down, the effects of the recession were finally beginning to fade. Some states were even generating surpluses due to the certain taxing and legalization of a certain something, though not all of it was being properly utilized due to how the laws were written (still widely true today).
Then 2016 happened and we’re still recovering from the decisions made then on so many levels, from environmental protections and pollutant regulations, to literal repealing of women’s autonomy and right over their own body. For what, some COVID money, if you qualified? What a trade, a few thousand for taking multiple steps backwards.
And now we’re nearing the end of 3 years in on Biden. Remember how it took 2-3 years of lingering upward trend from Clinton to Bush? And how it took 2-3 years of recovery from Bush to Obama? That’s a common historical trend among pretty much all transitioning Presidencies where the lingering effects of the previous administration is seen and felt during the current one. It’s why generally 2 term (8 year) Presidents are able to be so effective, because unless there’s a political gridlock the 2nd term is generally able to make lots of headway on the campaign policy they ran on.
Trump managed his bout so poorly that even without COVID in Jan-March of 2020 his “2-3 year trend” from Obama was run into the ground in a very young 2 years due to the sheer number of aforementioned policy decisions (the removal of the EPA, the removal of the CDC branches, the removal of pollution regulations on corporations…).
Now here we are again, today, at the end of Trump’s 2-3 year trend. Still seeing the effects from COVID with businesses just barely beginning to show signs of recovering. Homelessness is still a massive issue with finally some minor strides being made in some areas but hardly overall. More than anything right now is the divide between political ideologies, if you can call human rights and health political. Double that divide due to the conflict outside of the U.S.
I would pay attention to this next year. And maybe get involved in local politics to find people passionate about making change within your community, it often gives you a wider sense of what people have felt. You’d also be surprised by the range of people you meet.
It’s also always fun to take some classes on government and political science, it can really highlight a lot of the systemic issues and historical trends, such as how conflicts between the police and black communities and queer communities from the 70’s and 80’s are still happening today. From the murderer George Zimmerman who shot and killed a young man Trayvon Martin to over a decade later the murderer Derek Chauvin who killed a man George Floyd by suffocating him for nearly 9 minutes while pinned to the ground. Back to 40 years ago when so many of the same stories happened in New York and so many other states, like Stonewall and the Miami Riot.
The reason I went in on all this is because despite many shortcomings, the answer is a clear, definitive, one side consistently props up all people and the other tears it away. Despite some states having their own positions (say, California or Texas) the effects are still strikingly visible, in these last 8 years it’s been a gaping tear and we have been living through the open wound. There are so many things to learn about but it’s important to remember that the most effective changes are made locally by being present in your community and by staying vigilant by making sure history repeats itself with positive reinforcements and not negative ones.
To me it seems like the last time the average person got some help was back with the New Deal in the 30s. Some minor things have been done, but overall we’ve been heading downhill since
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I know i glossed over civil rights, but we are quite literally killing the planet, seems like there are much bigger issues than how equally we treat people.
good reply
Thank you. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
People unfortunately still have the perception that inflation is out of control despite it being under 3%.
Liberal government here in Canada managed to fuck all of those things up too, not unique to Trump sadly
The real problem is pronouns. We have to get rid of them. Nothing but proper nouns.
“George likes proper nouns in George’s sentences.”
Me, Grimlock, no see problem.
Me, Slag, say you full of beryllium baloney!
BOB DOLE!
George is getting upset!
If they want a dick pick. All they have to do is ask.
I won’t judge.
if they did that you’d see them asking 6 year old kids
Too late.
Well, I don’t have that. But if they want to be specific I’ll be happy to refer them to the appropriate department…
the jail department
(Don’t tell them that… it’s supposed to be a surprise… an Xmas present for all the little kids…)
You won’t judge who ask or who provides? Cause I’m kinda shy.
If you stop having kids, who the fuck am I going to send to my war??
- ouR Congress
Drones. The answer is drones.
We still need kids to pilot the drones!
Nah, we just need kids to play war video games as training data for AI killing machines. Congress might pitch it as an AI jobs program.
Nah, drone pilot systems don’t have the type of visceral feedback a game does. How are these kids going to bomb people without a hitmarker, hitreg sound, scoreboard, killstreak rewards or an exp system? They can’t even customize their predator drones!
Worst game ever, 1/10
Interesting twist to Ender’s Game.
Literally the plot of the Robin Williams movie Toys.
Of course those genitals are important! If they don’t do that, then their god will not magically fix said problems. They themselves are of course powerless to do anything about it. Far too busy lining their and their donors pockets!
Just to clarify the point: Republicans only shriek about issues like transgenderism to put the focus on these non-issues, away from real issues like healthcare, poverty and inequality, war, climate change, etc…
“It’s God’s judgement.”
Reprobate nation and all that stuff. It’s like lesbians causing hurricanes.
To them, these are - or can be - connected.
Funny how they never comment on the high rate of floods, drought and tornados in the Bible Belt.
That’s gods punishment on them for not fighting the gay agenda hard enough. Once all the gays are back in the closet and all the babies are forced to be born and all the schools are Christian, the tornadoes will stop.
Which is why these issues and the left identitarian fringe that pushes them to center stage are so problematic. It takes two to tango.
Why aren’t the Democrats addressing those issues. Do they just shriek about other things? I feel like they shriek about the same things, actually, and that’s how culture war bullshit serves both “sides”, or should we say the two available flavours of neoliberalism.
- They are, but you aren’t looking.
- They’re pretty centrist so it won’t always be as aggressive as it should be.
- The GOP has literally, out loud, said in the past that their goal is to literally obstruct and vote down basically every single piece of Democrat legislation and there was a long time where two pretty rightwing fuckers were spending more time voting with Republicans than anything else and that really got in the way.
So, I dunno, pay more attention?
No, I’m not American and it’s already annoying how much I have to hear about US politics. Republicans are clearly much worse.
If conservatives want to be a part of the solution, they can be. But they aren’t.
Newt Gingrich was the last Republican to create policy and even he is problematic.
Gingrich was a dick
Good fucking riddance.
I regret to inform you that he is still alive
Who served his wife divorce papers while she was in a hospital bed recovering from surgery!
And that’s not the worst of it!
https://www.cnn.com/2011/12/26/politics/gingrich-divorce-file/index.html
The only way conservatives can be part of the solution is if they take themselves out of the equation.
Newt may have been the last but that’s his own fault. He oversaw the GOP as it shifted from everyday “shitty conservatives” to insurrectionist nationalists.
I just want to make sure I get that off my chest. Newt heavily contributed to starting this. He’s the original McConnell. He wrote the playbook.
He also wrote the first republican purity test with the “Contract with America”, which started the repubs on their fanatical obsession with only having “true” repubs in office. He’s responsible for so much of what’s wrong nowadays, but so many people seem to have forgotten that.
Those of us that DO remember want him executed but Democrats and enlightened centrists keep telling me that we just need to win him over with better ideas while reaching across the aisle to join together in a spirit of bipartisan aloha.
He also wrote the first republican purity test with the “Contract with America”, which started the repubs on their fanatical obsession with only having “true” repubs in office. He’s responsible for so much of what’s wrong nowadays, but so many people seem to have forgotten that.
Newt Gingrich is a hypocritical piece of shit. Worried about the budget but wanted a capital gains tax cut. Worried about ethics but was fine violating basic ethics. Even when presented with evidence that violent crime was down in 2016, he didn’t want to go with the “theoriticians” (aka the facts) but instead went with his gut (aka bullshit). And he is an election denier. Fuck him.
The older I get the more apt this aphorism becomes:
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
The conservative question: “can I fuck it?”
“If we can’t fuck it, we kill it”
more cum for the cum god
“It’s fuckable, sure, but you’re safe. No one wants to fuck you.”
They’ve missed the entire point. It’s about manufacturing outrage to distract from things people should really care about.
I’m gonna keep sending them pictures of my balls anyway.
Meh. The illusion is starts to fade at the mention of student debt and totally broken with the word “ecosystems”. Need to dial up the conservative and make it about how jobs don’t pay enough or how much you have to run the AC now days. Also, not sure about the war part being bad in a conservative view, rather it’s that we don’t really win wars anymore.
When it’s a conservative president: We are protecting our country from brown people.
When it’s a democratic president: we are wasting funds attacking no-name countries instead of making gas cheaper
We need to make gas more expensive
Me when asked to sign a petition to repeal the gas tax.
Image Transcription: Social Media
Low Quality Facts, @lowqualityfacts…
For the sake of empathy, I ask you all to take a second to consider things from the perspective of Conservatives:
Inflation is out of control. Housing is unaffordable. The healthcare system is broken. Everyone is drowning in student debt. Ecosystems are collapsing. We’re constantly on the brink of war.
So naturally, one would ask, how can we even hope to solve these daunting and complex issues if we do not have detailed information on the genitals of every American citizen?
Why couldn’t there be a party that people vote and also that has sane economic policies AND sane social policies? Why do the tribes have to be “good at one thing, horrible at the other”?
But, have you considered: Got mine, fuck you?
When you have nothing to conservative why be conservative?
