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Folks on the left and the right should both remember that at the end of the day, the next presidential election is important, but not the most important thing that will ever happen.
Whoever wins, it's only 4 years. You're not going to save or destroy the country.
For the left, remember that America survived 8 years of George W. Bush, despite his best efforts.
For the right, remember that America survived 8 years of Obama, despite his best efforts.
For the left, remember that America already survived 4 years of Donald Trump, despite Ray Epps best efforts.
For the right, remember that America already survived 3 years of Joe Biden, despite his deployment of shunananmaprezure and batacathcare.
Far more important than any single election are the general trends in public opinions, and it's those things that help inform what's really going to happen as the people who are doing things end up percolating through the system.
People forget that George W. Bush and his agenda wasn't just his, a lot of people agreed after 9/11 that something big needed to be done about islamic terrorism, and not just on the right. Most of the congress and the senate voted to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan regardless of their rewriting of history later -- he appeared to be going with the cultural consensus of the time.
People also forget that Barack Obama and his agenda wasn't just his, a lot of people agreed after the war on terror and the ensuing assault on civil liberties as well as the collapse of the economy after the 2008 that big changes needed to happen and at the time it appeared that he was going with that cultural consensus. People forget that the Democrats had a supermajority in the senate for a short time, people were voting en masse for Democrats rejecting the Republican paradigm of the moment.
At the moment, there is no broad cultural consensus around either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. 2016 was a coin flip, 2020 was really a coin flip, and it's possible this November will be one as well.
MAGA populism is the answer that came out of the collapse of the Republican party in 2008. In my view, it's an objectively better ideology than the 2001-2008 strategy, even if Donald Trump as its avatar is kind of a bumbling blowhard.
I was actually hoping that the Democrats would catastrophically lose 2020 because they're working off a strategy book that assumes it's still 2008, and a lot has happened since 2008 including all of us learning that the things they did to "recover" from 2008 didn't really work and everyone's lives have gotten a lot harder.
Anyway, my other post talks more about this cultural consensus, but it's just some whitepills for people who think the world is about to end. It's gonna be ok bros.
- BowserNoodle ☦️ likes this.
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Just "Vote Blue No Matter Who", and remember "Women creating a safer, more loving world". /sarcs.
I have no idea what Donald Trump could have fucked up better than Obama did under Joe Biden.
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I guess you do have a point. It's like carrying capacity. If there was an island that supports 100 deer with the plants on the island, if a 101st deer is born the island does not immediately die, but it starts a long and slow destruction of the island until all the deer are dead.
American has survived so far, but that doesn't mean it will continue to survive just because it isn't dead yet.
Your point on national debt is also kind of a big deal (but also really damning of the 2-party system since both parties stabbed America in the back by racking up the debt) -- 30 trillion in debt and no plans to ever balance the budget, and exploding inflation even after raising interest rates.
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I grew up in Soviet-occupied Hungary, I do not believe any of the bullshit you wrote here.
30+ trillion debt and an open border to BILLIONS of opportunist invaders is the Death of the USA.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
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@FourOh-LLC @sj_zero >I grew up in Soviet-occupied Hungary, I do not believe any of the bullshit you wrote here.
I know a few fellas who grew up in Soviet countries, and their rejection of mainstream narratives without the need to cling to popular American alternatives is something I appreciate.
>30+ trillion debt and an open border to BILLIONS of opportunist invaders is the Death of the USA.
I find it odd how often talking heads step over these points and the connection between them. We've had decades of policy designed to fix things for the bottom, never actually doing so, and in the process made things worse for everyone who actually pays taxes. It's brutal.
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I always like to point out that prior to the world wars there was no federal income tax in either the US or Canada, and there was no state or provincial income taxes either.
In other words, whereas a blue collar worker's last dollar today might consist of 50 cents to the government and 50 cents for themselves, our great grandparents would have paid 0 cents to the government and 100 cents for themselves.
In spite of that, the governments of the past routinely paid back their national debts, whereas today despite taking so much from us they've spent an unimaginable amount of debt.
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@sj_zero @FourOh-LLC We have a lot of things today because a ton of it was financed through things that cost a lot to maintain. The interstate highway system would literally be impossible to build today from scratch, for example. In the 1990s, there was concern that the USA was going to pay off its national debt because we were running so lean. Now we have concerns about looking austerity with infinity invading foreign people pushed here by NGOs. Curious.
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@sj_zero @FourOh-LLC It gets complicated because various government bonds are used for money markets and pension requirements due to federal laws. They'd have to issue them at basically negative yields and force the poor banks (🎻) to buy them. It would screw up pensions though.
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Man, what a concern to have, eh? "Oh no! We won't be handing free money to banks all the time!"
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@sj_zero @FourOh-LLC They'd find new schemes for things I'm sure. Probably with a new and exciting way to screw over White people, men, and the working and middle class.
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So what I'm hearing here is if we pay off the national debt we better also repeal a bunch of federal laws. 🤔
sj_zero
FourOh-LLC
BowserNoodle ☦️
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