A thread on politics- have some balls and post

[martinson]

T

Missed the point. Deliberately?



Pretty accurate from what I understand

The point is he can make decisions that have huge negative impacts on a large amount of the population even if it's unpopular amongst republican supporters

I thought I did address your point. But to expand your underlying narrative totally misses the issue that poor people think their lives are disenfranchised and not progressing under the current admin. This is how votes are won. Someone else comes along and they hope for better. How do you think Obama got in ? By convincing the people in those states that their lives would be better. They weren't. They've already had one Trump admin so it's not as if they're taking a shot in the dark.

 

[Nathan Barley]

T

I thought I did address your point. But to expand your underlying narrative totally misses the issue that poor people think their lives are disenfranchised and not progressing under the current admin. This is how votes are won. Someone else comes along and they hope for better. How do you think Obama got in ? By convincing the people in those states that their lives would be better. They weren't. They've already had one Trump admin so it's not as if they're taking a shot in the dark.

Except things are better. They are just so ****ing stupid they believe the blatant lies coming from Trump. Plus a heavy dose of confirmation bias

Can't remember where I saw it but they asked a bunch of Trump supporters about key economic indicators and whether they had improved or got worse under Biden. They all said it got worse but they had actually all improved

You just can't argue facts with Trump supporters because of the fake news rhetoric he started. Anything they disagree with, fake news

 

[martinson]

Except things are better. They are just so ****ing stupid they believe the blatant lies coming from Trump. Plus a heavy dose of confirmation bias

Can't remember where I saw it but they asked a bunch of Trump supporters about key economic indicators and whether they had improved or got worse under Biden. They all said it got worse but they had actually all improved

You just can't argue facts with Trump supporters because of the fake news rhetoric he started. Anything they disagree with, fake news

Honestly . You're a bit hysterical the other way.

' a bunch of Trump supporters ' ?? What, on the telly ??

 

[Nathan Barley]

Honestly . You're a bit hysterical the other way.

' a bunch of Trump supporters ' ?? What, on the telly ??

bunch

1. a number of things of the same type fastened together or in a close group…

dictionary.cambridge.org

 

[Dalions]

So because it is Trumps second time around, if he is to win the election, is he only allowed to serve 1 term considering he has already served one term previously?
Or allowed to go 2 again if re-elected.

 

[martinson]

So because it is Trumps second time around, if he is to win the election, is he only allowed to serve 1 term considering he has already served one term previously?
Or allowed to go 2 again if re-elected.

No way Dalions.

2 terms max. , 8 year limit.

So if Trump wins in 2024 Biden can still have another go in 2028.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Sometimes you get a Kennedy or Reagan or Obama that comes along where the time is right and they just have that superior moral high ground over their opponent.

But honestly if none of those guys had been Pres. the USA would still be exactly where it is right now.

So who would have got the Civil Rights Bill across the line if Kennedy had never been President? Who would have started the neoliberal era of scything business regulations and tax rates (that directly led to the GFC) if Reagan had never been President? Who would have implemented a government health insurance system if Obama had never been President? And I'd also argue that Obama led directly to Trump becoming President because his two terms got a lot more racists to become politically engaged and they became the low-hanging fruit for Trump's movement. Remember where birtherism came from.

.The Clintons ,Obamas and Biden string pullers conspired with the FBI with the Russian thing for the major part of Trump's last go which basically crippled it . That was clearly shown to be a total invented smokescreen and sham .

How so?

So if Trump flukes it again expect any term to be mired in legal battles with him completely hamstrung.

The Supreme Court just made him bulletproof (a fun metaphor in light of recent events) against any legal issues while he's President.

With the exception that Trump has shown extreme reluctance to drop bombs unlike many of the nutjobs in his party and the Clinton/Obama/Biden cartel who just dropped bombs everywhere there's an issue. Like Gaza on steroids.

Are you just going to pretend that Trump didn't bomb Syria? Shall I find the news reports?

That's definitely a factor but the reality never matches the expectation. Trump talks a lot but what happened last time ? Not a lot.

As has been said by others, he was reined in by the Supreme Court last time. And from 2019 onwards, reined in by Pelosi. These won't be issues for him next time.

Obama was going to change the fabric of American society with the Yes we can campaign being the first coloured Pres and all and he turned out to be just as conservative as Bush.

Thing is Obama did exactly what he advertised in terms of policy. He was always a conservative, and anyone actually paid attention to his policies could have told you that.

All the fuss about him was because it served his interests to present himself as the candidate of change, and it served the interests of all sides of the mainstream media to do the same. Centrist media loved a candidate that would capture the votes of progressives without making any fundamental economic change. Fox News basically made its living off of presenting the scary black man as a dangerous communist who wants to kill your grandma and destroy America.

The last time I was over there homelessness has become a massive social issue .Places like SF and NYC are overloaded with homeless ghettos and none of the candidates have talked about it for the last 20 years.

Both major parties in the US are neoliberal capitalists. They all care about money above everything else and believe being in poverty is a moral failing that shouldn't be permanently alleviated. And homeless people mostly don't vote. So of course the major parties don't care about homelessness.

But none of the candidates? No, you missed one.

Bernie Sanders' 'housing for all' plan aims to add millions of homes — and a rent cap

Bernie Sanders' $2.5-trillion housing plan aims to end homeless in the U.S. and protect renters. He says he would pay for it with a wealth tax.

www.latimes.com

Let's be clear, the free market cannot solve homelessness. There isn't a single place I know of where that's happened. This is exactly where governments need to step in and provide what the market can't. But that won't happen when the major parties are rabid neoliberals. Any government program to house the homeless would be immediately attacked as socialism and against freedom.

During my lifetime we haven't had one Pres. who's changed the course of history in a way that one from the other side wouldn't have done.

I disagree. Reagan changed everything about capitalism.

Previously, there were ideas stemming from the days of FDR that the government should implement strong business and financial regulations to prevent another Great Depression, and that there should effectively be a maximum income beyond which tax rates were punitive, to ensure society did not become extremely unequal and result in abject suffering for the poor.

Reagan and Friedman destroyed this entire consensus that had lasted for 50 years and started the "greed is good" era. Businesses took on huge levels of debt to engage in leveraged buyouts. The resulting business giants closed US factories and moved all the jobs to China. The resulting huge profits were used to pay fat bonuses to executives and engage in share buybacks, rather than being used to look after the former employees who were now out of work. Almost all the financial regulations on banks disappeared so they engaged in all kinds of predatory lending, which eventually led to the GFC. Money poured into the stockmarket as investment bankers chased higher and higher returns, resulting in bubbles, collapses and recessions every ten years.

Gone was the focus on whether the poor could afford the basics, now the economists just cared about what level inflation was at, and whether GDP was increasing overall. And of course governments started to cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, and since that meant they had less revenue, they started doing less and cutting spending. Public housing became a shadow of its former self. Government employees were laid off and functions outsourced to the private sector, such as the operation of prisons. Government assets were sold off, no matter how effective they were, because Reagan and Friedman held the attitude that the government couldn't do anything right and the private sector could always do it better in every circumstance. It was nothing less than a reshaping of the economy and of government.

It's hard to fathom now how different things were, given how much neoliberalism has taken over our society and become the default position. Even the ostensibly centre-left parties across the Anglosphere (Democrats, UK Labour, Aus Labor) all ditched socialism in the 80s and 90s and became devotees of the neoliberal consensus. It's got to the point where anyone who advocates changing some things back to how they used to be, like Jeremy Corbyn, is dismissed as a dangerous lunatic who wants to destroy the economy.

Trump's had everything that could be thought of against any human being thrown at him since 2015 and is still standing.

Incorrect. He's never faced the easy association between being non-white and being a dangerous radical that was used for scaremongering against Obama, who as you say was actually rather conservative. Trump himself was pushing this racist wheelbarrow with the birtherism nonsense.

Aside from that Trump is a genius marketer with the hide and resilience of a buffalo

Please spare us the hagiography. Yes, he knows how to be a demagogue and has no shame. That doesn't make him a good leader. Not that I think Biden is excellent even when he had his full mental faculties, but I trust him to delegate to smarter people more than I trust Trump. That, to me, is the single most important quality in a leader - surrounding yourself with smarter people and knowing which of them to delegate to and when.

The Clinton/Obama/Biden dynasty has ruled the US for a long time and they're totally gobsmacked that anyone like Trump could disrupt their gravy train.

You are aware that there was a President between Clinton and Obama, yes? And he wasn't even a Democrat. It'd be very strange for someone to be gobsmacked that their dynasty was interrupted by someone when that had already happened for eight years.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I can not be bothered NB, I will leave you with your Democrats are all good and holy and the Republicans are the devil incarnate mindset... I'm off on my daily walk now, beautiful outside today.

This is a real dummy spit of a response. Come on, you're better than that. Don't mischaracterise what others are saying.

Also FWIW Trump did not change the abortion laws interpretation the Supreme Court did, and he was not the President when the Supreme Court ruling came down.

It just so happened that three of the eight justices on that Supreme Court were selected by Trump, so his fingerprints were all over the decision. It was exactly what he and his party wanted, and he cannot escape responsibility for what happened.

What was particularly disgusting of the Republican Party is that there was a vacancy on the Court for a whole year because they blocked Obama's selection of a justice in February 2016, claiming that selections shouldn't happen in an election year, which allowed Trump to make the pick instead once he became president. And then Trump selected another justice in October 2020, shortly before the election that year. They're hypocrites who were blatantly trying to engage in social engineering.

 

[martinson]

So who would have got the Civil Rights Bill across the line if Kennedy had never been President? Who would have started the neoliberal era of scything business regulations and tax rates (that directly led to the GFC) if Reagan had never been President? Who would have implemented a government health insurance system if Obama had never been President? And I'd also argue that Obama led directly to Trump becoming President because his two terms got a lot more racists to become politically engaged and they became the low-hanging fruit for Trump's movement. Remember where birtherism came from.


How so?


The Supreme Court just made him bulletproof (a fun metaphor in light of recent events) against any legal issues while he's President.


Are you just going to pretend that Trump didn't bomb Syria? Shall I find the news reports?


As has been said by others, he was reined in by the Supreme Court last time. And from 2019 onwards, reined in by Pelosi. These won't be issues for him next time.


Thing is Obama did exactly what he advertised in terms of policy. He was always a conservative, and anyone actually paid attention to his policies could have told you that.

All the fuss about him was because it served his interests to present himself as the candidate of change, and it served the interests of all sides of the mainstream media to do the same. Centrist media loved a candidate that would capture the votes of progressives without making any fundamental economic change. Fox News basically made its living off of presenting the scary black man as a dangerous communist who wants to kill your grandma and destroy America.


Both major parties in the US are neoliberal capitalists. They all care about money above everything else and believe being in poverty is a moral failing that shouldn't be permanently alleviated. And homeless people mostly don't vote. So of course the major parties don't care about homelessness.

But none of the candidates? No, you missed one.

Bernie Sanders' 'housing for all' plan aims to add millions of homes — and a rent cap

Bernie Sanders' $2.5-trillion housing plan aims to end homeless in the U.S. and protect renters. He says he would pay for it with a wealth tax.

www.latimes.com

Let's be clear, the free market cannot solve homelessness. There isn't a single place I know of where that's happened. This is exactly where governments need to step in and provide what the market can't. But that won't happen when the major parties are rabid neoliberals. Any government program to house the homeless would be immediately attacked as socialism and against freedom.


I disagree. Reagan changed everything about capitalism.

Previously, there were ideas stemming from the days of FDR that the government should implement strong business and financial regulations to prevent another Great Depression, and that there should effectively be a maximum income beyond which tax rates were punitive, to ensure society does not become extremely unequal and result in abject suffering for the poor.

Reagan and Friedman destroyed this entire consensus that had lasted for 50 years and started the "greed is good" era. Businesses took on huge levels of debt to engage in leveraged buyouts. The resulting business giants closed US factories and moved all the jobs to China. The resulting huge profits were used to pay fat bonuses to executives and engage in share buybacks, rather than being used to look after the former employees who were now out of work. Almost all the financial regulations on banks disappeared so they engaged in all kinds of predatory lending, which eventually led to the GFC. Money poured into the stockmarket as investment bankers chased higher and higher returns, resulting in bubbles, collapses and recessions every ten years.

Gone was the focus on whether the poor could afford the basics, now they just cared about what level inflation was at, and whether GDP was increasing overall. And of course governments started to cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, and started doing a lot less now that they had less revenue. Public housing became a shadow of its former self. Government employees were laid off and functions outsourced to the private sector, such as operation of prisons. Government assets were sold off, no matter how effective they were, because Reagan and Friedman held the attitude that the government couldn't do anything right and the private sector could always do it better in every circumstance. It was nothing less than a reshaping of the economy and of government.

It's hard to fathom now how different things were, given how much neoliberalism has taken over our society and become the default position. Even the ostensibly centre-left parties across the Anglosphere (Democrats, UK Labour, Aus Labor) all ditched socialism in the 80s and 90s and became devotees of the neoliberal consensus. It's got to the point where anyone who advocates changing some things back to how they used to be, like Jeremy Corbyn, is dismissed as a dangerous lunatic who wants to destroy the economy.


Incorrect. He's never faced the easy association between being non-white and being a dangerous radical that was used for scaremongering against Obama, who as you say was actually rather conservative. Trump himself was pushing this racist wheelbarrow with the birtherism nonsense.


Please spare us the hagiography. Yes, he knows how to be a demagogue and has no shame. That doesn't make him a good leader. Not that I think Biden is excellent even when he had his full mental faculties, but I trust him to delegate to smarter people more than I trust Trump. That, to me, is the single most important quality in a leader - surrounding yourself with smarter people and knowing which of them to delegate to and when.


You are aware that there was a President between Clinton and Obama, yes? And he wasn't even a Democrat. It'd be very strange for someone to be gobsmacked that their dynasty was interrupted by someone when that had already happened for eight years.

That's all too much for me to take in but many thanks for taking the time and effort to put all that together.

On a perusal I don't agree with some of your responses but on a prima facie basis they're legitimate counter points.

Just to your last point of course everyone is aware Trump served a 4 year term in between. And they naturally thought that was the end of that. And of course there was Bush. I misworded my point which was that the Clinton/Obama/Biden cartel has been in operation for over 30 years and still the most predominant force in Democratic politics , and despite the Clintons and Obamas being bitter enemies to begin only strengthened the power base once Obama left office.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I misworded my point which was that the Clinton/Obama/Biden cartel has been in operation for over 30 years and still the most predominant force in Democratic politics

And won't be for much longer. Biden is senile, Hillary isn't coming back and Michelle has no desire to be President. This is their last hurrah.

, and despite the Clintons and Obamas being bitter enemies to begin only strengthened the power base once Obama left office.

Can you please explain this?

 

[martinson]

And won't be for much longer. Biden is senile, Hillary isn't coming back and Michelle has no desire to be President. This is their last hurrah.


Can you please explain this?

The Clintons took it very badly when Obama turned up out of nowhere because they had set up Hilary for the next 2 terms. But once Obama was done he ultimately supported Hilary as next in line and they were all happy that everyone would get their turn.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

The Clintons took it very badly when Obama turned up out of nowhere because they had set up Hilary for the next 2 terms.

I agree with this...

But once Obama was done he ultimately supported Hilary as next in line and they were all happy that everyone would get their turn.

...but not with this. I saw no real enthusiasm from Obama for Hillary. He endorsed her just as everyone from a major party endorsed the Presidential candidate of the same party (until Liz Cheney and Trump, anyway). And they're all cut from the same wealthy neoliberal cloth anyway. But so is Trump. What differentiates Trump isn't anything to do with economics, just his uncouthness and lack of respect for democracy.

 

[M Malice]

This is a real dummy spit of a response. Come on, you're better than that. Don't mischaracterise what others are saying.


It just so happened that three of the eight justices on that Supreme Court were selected by Trump, so his fingerprints were all over the decision. It was exactly what he and his party wanted, and he cannot escape responsibility for what happened.

What was particularly disgusting of the Republican Party is that there was a vacancy on the Court for a whole year because they blocked Obama's selection of a justice in February 2016, claiming that selections shouldn't happen in an election year, which allowed Trump to make the pick instead once he became president. And then Trump selected another justice in October 2020, shortly before the election that year. They're hypocrites who were blatantly trying to engage in social engineering.

LOL, I have never had a fair dinkum dummy spit on Big Footy JB.

That is the system in the USA for the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, there would be the same whining from the right if it was a left leaning Supreme Court making rulings they didn't like. I don't see either political side of the Supreme Court as altruistic, totally impartial and only basing their rulings on the written law, every decision is each individual Justice's subjective opinion not an objective black and white decision.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

That is the system in the USA for the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, there would be the same whining from the right if it was a left leaning Supreme Court making rulings they didn't like.

Of course there would be. But my point is, Trump selected the justices so he is responsible for the outcome. It can't be hand waved away just because he wasn't president when the ruling happened, because he replaced a left leaning judge (Ginsberg) with a conservative extremist (Coney Barrett) one month before he lost the election.

And my other point is that the reasoning the Republicans gave for refusing Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court was suddenly forgotten when the shoe was on the other foot. It's hypocrisy.

I don't see either political side of the Supreme Court as altruistic, totally impartial and only basing their rulings on the written law, every decision is each individual Justice's subjective opinion not an objective black and white decision.

I don't pretend to know enough about the law to say. All I know is that a judicial system is fundamentally broken when the judges are partisans. And the US has this system at all levels. Lower level judges run for re-election and need fundraising campaigns just like politicians, which itself is an incentive to not be impartial.

 

[M Malice]

Of course there would be. But my point is, Trump selected the justices so he is responsible for the outcome. It can't be hand waved away just because he wasn't president when the ruling happened, because he replaced a left leaning judge (Ginsberg) with a conservative extremist (Coney Barrett) one month before he lost the election.

And my other point is that the reasoning the Republicans gave for refusing Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court was suddenly forgotten when the shoe was on the other foot. It's hypocrisy.


I don't pretend to know enough about the law to say. All I know is that a judicial system is fundamentally broken when the judges are partisans. And the US has this system at all levels. Lower level judges run for re-election and need fundraising campaigns just like politicians, which itself is an incentive to not be impartial.

I would blame the Justices, they are their own person or at least should be, you would hope they are basing their rulings on their own interpretation of the law re each case before them, if not they and the system is totally corrupt.. which it probably is sadly.

The USA is an Empire in decline, not likely to completely fall before my time is up in this realm though.

BTW love your political insights (and martinson ) JB. You are both a lot more versed than me on the subject.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I would blame the Justices, they are their own person or at least should be, you would hope they are basing their rulings on their own interpretation of the law re each case before them, if not they and the system is totally corrupt.. which it probably is sadly.

Do you think party politicians are going to choose someone because they're impartial, or because they have similar views to themselves? This is exactly why politicians shouldn't select judges. They pick people who will reliably vote for their preferred form of social engineering.

The USA is an Empire in decline, not likely to completely fall before my time is up in this realm though.

Probably not, but I would like to see a more multipolar world.

BTW love your political insights (and martinson ) JB. You are both a lot more versed than me on the subject.

Thank you, I appreciate that. And I appreciate being able to have conversations respectfully where we may not agree. It's easy to stay in an echo chamber, but sometimes it's hard to talk to others with other points of view because they're more interested in trolling than in serious discussion. I'm glad you and others here are sensible.

 

[martinson]

Just on the broader issue of what happens next, the Trump assassination attempt and his physical reaction to it is the biggest potential inflection point I can ever recall in a US election campaign. Maybe in democratic countries anywhere off the top of my head ( unfortunate turn of phrase there ).

How the Dems respond to that and how they push back on the calls for Biden to step down is a delicate political exercise fraught with danger. And can he possibly hold it together for 4 months ?

They spent Biden's term hiding Kamarla Harris from clear view and I believe the best thing she had going for her was that she wasn't a threat to him and she would get obliterated were she the nominee.

But the other potential candidates are virtual unknowns to the public at large.

I think it's now Biden or bust unless they can manufacture an episode that leaves him physically unable to continue in which case they can get a fresh narrative going with a fresh face and no blood spilt.

 

[Whatamark]

Really easy to suggest a medical issue for either Biden or Trump to step down given their age.
In reality both should. Being 75+ as President in the US system is too old. If they were a figurehead then fair enough.

 

[martinson]

Really easy to suggest a medical issue for either Biden or Trump to step down given their age.
In reality both should. Being 75+ as President in the US system is too old. If they were a figurehead then fair enough.

That I agree with.

Reagan was nearly 78 at the end of his second term but he was of totally different character to Trump and still sharp ( well compared to Biden ). A big issue in the leadup to Reagan's Presidency was his age , ironically barely 70. No one imagined he'd get to a 2nd term.

Tbh I was staggered that after the trauma of Trump getting elected and then all the trouble they took to get rid of him that the Democrats didn't turn to someone younger with leadership and vision. Just to wipe the slate clean.

It's Pythonesque having Trump vs. Biden with incredibly Trump sounding like the sensible one.

 

[Nathan Barley]

That I agree with.

Reagan was nearly 78 at the end of his second term but he was of totally different character to Trump and still sharp ( well compared to Biden ). A big issue in the leadup to Reagan's Presidency was his age , ironically barely 70. No one imagined he'd get to a 2nd term.

Tbh I was staggered that after the trauma of Trump getting elected and then all the trouble they took to get rid of him that the Democrats didn't turn to someone younger with leadership and vision. Just to wipe the slate clean.

It's Pythonesque having Trump vs. Biden with incredibly Trump sounding like the sensible one.

Trump does not sound like the sensible one

 

[M Malice]

It's Pythonesque having Trump vs. Biden with incredibly Trump sounding like the sensible one.

I would go with Idiocracyesque, that movie is looking more and more like a documentary, the opening dialogue is eerily prophetic now.

 

[dlanod]

Reagan was nearly 78 at the end of his second term but he was of totally different character to Trump and still sharp ( well compared to Biden ). A big issue in the leadup to Reagan's Presidency was his age , ironically barely 70. No one imagined he'd get to a 2nd term.

It's since come out that Reagan was completely out of it for a lot of that second term too. 100% a compelling argument for age limits across the board for these roles. It's insane that it's a 78 and an 81 year old fighting over who's too old.

 

[DERRINALPHIL]

So who would have got the Civil Rights Bill across the line if Kennedy had never been President? Who would have started the neoliberal era of scything business regulations and tax rates (that directly led to the GFC) if Reagan had never been President? Who would have implemented a government health insurance system if Obama had never been President? And I'd also argue that Obama led directly to Trump becoming President because his two terms got a lot more racists to become politically engaged and they became the low-hanging fruit for Trump's movement. Remember where birtherism came from.


How so?


The Supreme Court just made him bulletproof (a fun metaphor in light of recent events) against any legal issues while he's President.


Are you just going to pretend that Trump didn't bomb Syria? Shall I find the news reports?


As has been said by others, he was reined in by the Supreme Court last time. And from 2019 onwards, reined in by Pelosi. These won't be issues for him next time.


Thing is Obama did exactly what he advertised in terms of policy. He was always a conservative, and anyone actually paid attention to his policies could have told you that.

All the fuss about him was because it served his interests to present himself as the candidate of change, and it served the interests of all sides of the mainstream media to do the same. Centrist media loved a candidate that would capture the votes of progressives without making any fundamental economic change. Fox News basically made its living off of presenting the scary black man as a dangerous communist who wants to kill your grandma and destroy America.


Both major parties in the US are neoliberal capitalists. They all care about money above everything else and believe being in poverty is a moral failing that shouldn't be permanently alleviated. And homeless people mostly don't vote. So of course the major parties don't care about homelessness.

But none of the candidates? No, you missed one.

Bernie Sanders' 'housing for all' plan aims to add millions of homes — and a rent cap

Bernie Sanders' $2.5-trillion housing plan aims to end homeless in the U.S. and protect renters. He says he would pay for it with a wealth tax.

www.latimes.com

Let's be clear, the free market cannot solve homelessness. There isn't a single place I know of where that's happened. This is exactly where governments need to step in and provide what the market can't. But that won't happen when the major parties are rabid neoliberals. Any government program to house the homeless would be immediately attacked as socialism and against freedom.


I disagree. Reagan changed everything about capitalism.

Previously, there were ideas stemming from the days of FDR that the government should implement strong business and financial regulations to prevent another Great Depression, and that there should effectively be a maximum income beyond which tax rates were punitive, to ensure society did not become extremely unequal and result in abject suffering for the poor.

Reagan and Friedman destroyed this entire consensus that had lasted for 50 years and started the "greed is good" era. Businesses took on huge levels of debt to engage in leveraged buyouts. The resulting business giants closed US factories and moved all the jobs to China. The resulting huge profits were used to pay fat bonuses to executives and engage in share buybacks, rather than being used to look after the former employees who were now out of work. Almost all the financial regulations on banks disappeared so they engaged in all kinds of predatory lending, which eventually led to the GFC. Money poured into the stockmarket as investment bankers chased higher and higher returns, resulting in bubbles, collapses and recessions every ten years.

Gone was the focus on whether the poor could afford the basics, now the economists just cared about what level inflation was at, and whether GDP was increasing overall. And of course governments started to cut taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, and since that meant they had less revenue, they started doing less and cutting spending. Public housing became a shadow of its former self. Government employees were laid off and functions outsourced to the private sector, such as the operation of prisons. Government assets were sold off, no matter how effective they were, because Reagan and Friedman held the attitude that the government couldn't do anything right and the private sector could always do it better in every circumstance. It was nothing less than a reshaping of the economy and of government.

It's hard to fathom now how different things were, given how much neoliberalism has taken over our society and become the default position. Even the ostensibly centre-left parties across the Anglosphere (Democrats, UK Labour, Aus Labor) all ditched socialism in the 80s and 90s and became devotees of the neoliberal consensus. It's got to the point where anyone who advocates changing some things back to how they used to be, like Jeremy Corbyn, is dismissed as a dangerous lunatic who wants to destroy the economy.


Incorrect. He's never faced the easy association between being non-white and being a dangerous radical that was used for scaremongering against Obama, who as you say was actually rather conservative. Trump himself was pushing this racist wheelbarrow with the birtherism nonsense.


Please spare us the hagiography. Yes, he knows how to be a demagogue and has no shame. That doesn't make him a good leader. Not that I think Biden is excellent even when he had his full mental faculties, but I trust him to delegate to smarter people more than I trust Trump. That, to me, is the single most important quality in a leader - surrounding yourself with smarter people and knowing which of them to delegate to and when.


You are aware that there was a President between Clinton and Obama, yes? And he wasn't even a Democrat. It'd be very strange for someone to be gobsmacked that their dynasty was interrupted by someone when that had already happened for eight years.

You have read the contra opinion of Roosevelt's economic policies?

Start with Tom Woods podcasts on the issues and you will find an opinion that Roosevelts policies prolonged the depression. Look at the more severe turn down that occurred just after the Great War and what was the government response and remember the roaring 20's!!

There wasn't a roaring 30s. I wonder why?

 

[Johnny Bananas]

You have read the contra opinion of Roosevelt's economic policies?

Start with Tom Woods podcasts on the issues and you will find an opinion that Roosevelts policies prolonged the depression. Look at the more severe turn down that occurred just after the Great War and what was the government response and remember the roaring 20's!!

There wasn't a roaring 30s. I wonder why?

If you look at policies only for what they do for five years and not what they do for 50, then you won't get a complete picture. FDRs policies set the US up for future prosperity, including the boom of the 50s, and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act directly led to the GFC occurring.

 

[notliondown]

So here's the thing.

You can hate Trump and what he stands for and have a very legitimate fear of what he promises to do in a second term without loving Biden... or being a Democrat.

The stuff in this thread is exactly why politics at the moment is throwing up the people it does. The polarization of people is nonsensical and cultish.

You only have to look at JD Vance and Nikki Haley who despite years of bitter resentment towards Trump are now true sycophants. People who are moderate Republicans backing Trump simply because he is the person most likely to win despite the misgivings.

The backers of Biden who despite knowing his limitations stand by him for the same reasons.

Trump was disastrous for social cohesion in his first term. He created division and hatred that still lingers. His agenda for the second term is worse.

There has never been a President so hell bent on interfering with the personal lives of the population or pushing his or his supporters religious and social agendas.

Leaders have 2 roles. The first is to create economic stability and growth for the good of the people. The second is to create a society of cohesion and harmony. Everything else is framed by those 2 principles.

No matter your view on the first, Trump has no desire to ensure the second benefits all of society, just a select few.

And that alone makes him the worst choice. Regardless of Biden's problems.