America Divided - I'm right, you're wrong

[Nationalist]

13 hours ago, robosmith said:

So, you're running on empty AGAIN; bankruptcy as USUAL. LMAO

You're completely IGNORANT about all the things Trump did which made the pandemic much worse here.

At the top of the list are the TWO travel bands which were so badly BUNGLED they were super-spreader events.

I'll bet you missed Trump's confession given to Woodward ON TAPE because FOS LIES didn't report it.

Robo...the Trump economy was so good that libbies were considering how far they'd got to trash it so he didn't look so good.

Ur blowin' chunks.

[Nationalist]

9 hours ago, Hodad said:

Excellent fact-based rebuttal. 

This is why you need "elites." You're not funny to land a man on the moon with your feelings, or fix an economy.

Again...ur full of it.

The Trump economy was roaring. You can deny that all you like but, it only shows how blinded by hatred you are.

[Hodad]

48 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

Again...ur full of it.

The Trump economy was roaring. You can deny that all you like but, it only shows how blinded by hatred you are.

No, Trump told you it was amazingly awesome (as he does about all things Trump) and you lack the interest and ability to validate that statement. But let's be honest, you'd believe that Trump farts rainbows if Dear Leader told you that was the case. 

It's simply not true. Trump inherited growth trajectories in all metrics and, despite taking on massive deficits, he didn't change those trajectories. Even if you want to give him a freebie on the pandemic year (which is absurd) the numbers for the non-pandemic years of Trump look almost exactly like the numbers for the 4 years leading up to Trump. There is no jump. there is no "Trump boom." He didn't bend the curve, let alone jump start anything. And all of this despite reckless deficit spending.

 

Again, try some facts.

About the same GDP growth, despite Obama bringing deficits downs and Trump blowing them up.

 

Similar jobs numbers.

 

Unemployment fell faster under Obama and the trend continued, though a bit slower under Trump

 

As anyone with eyeballs can see, Trump didn't jump start anything. He took over a growing economy based on good fundamentals and coasted along on the same track. And I'm not even going to talk about his trade war nonsense creating drag. Nor do I have to talk about the disastrous COVID mismanagement. 

Trump's true economic legacy is record deficits, record debt and the worst jobs performance since the great depression. Now go tell us about your feelings and fondle his balls during a ticker tape parade. 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Hodad

[CdnFox]

16 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Unfortunately, political parties in the US have taken the role that religious sects used to play. There can be no middle ground. When a person changes party these days, they tend to renounce their old beliefs with a fervour that is unwarranted. 

Politics exists downsream of culture. The politics has taken that turn because the culture has - if someone disagrees hurt them. Punish them. Cancel them. Don't allow opposing views.  If someone wants to talk and you don't like what they have to say - burn the stage down.

If i'm having a tough time it's the fault of whitey/the govt/the immigrants/privlidge  And i should hate and strike back at those things.

Parents and society allowing that kind of crap thinking poisons the water and we get the kind of politics we have to pander to it,

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by CdnFox

[Nationalist]

5 hours ago, Hodad said:

No, Trump told you it was amazingly awesome (as he does about all things Trump) and you lack the interest and ability to validate that statement. But let's be honest, you'd believe that Trump farts rainbows if Dear Leader told you that was the case. 

It's simply not true. Trump inherited growth trajectories in all metrics and, despite taking on massive deficits, he didn't change those trajectories. Even if you want to give him a freebie on the pandemic year (which is absurd) the numbers for the non-pandemic years of Trump look almost exactly like the numbers for the 4 years leading up to Trump. There is no jump. there is no "Trump boom." He didn't bend the curve, let alone jump start anything. And all of this despite reckless deficit spending.

 

Again, try some facts.

About the same GDP growth, despite Obama bringing deficits downs and Trump blowing them up.

 

Similar jobs numbers.

 

Unemployment fell faster under Obama and the trend continued, though a bit slower under Trump

 

As anyone with eyeballs can see, Trump didn't jump start anything. He took over a growing economy based on good fundamentals and coasted along on the same track. And I'm not even going to talk about his trade war nonsense creating drag. Nor do I have to talk about the disastrous COVID mismanagement. 

Trump's true economic legacy is record deficits, record debt and the worst jobs performance since the great depression. Now go tell us about your feelings and fondle his balls during a ticker tape parade. 

 

LOL...you sure do try hard to deny that which everyone experienced. Sad but...you cultists are hooked.

[Hodad]

31 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

LOL...you sure do try hard to deny that which everyone experienced. Sad but...you cultists are hooked.

And you try very hard to remain ignorant.

Like our record domestic oil output, you cover you eyes and ears while running your mouth about your feelings, entirely unconcerned that they do not align to reality in any way.

It's pitiable, really, to see someone who superficially want to engage on politics but lacks the capacity. And while it's sad on an individual level, people like you create a real problem for democracy. Democracy only works when you have an informed and invested populace. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Politics exists downsream of culture. The politics has taken that turn because the culture has - if someone disagrees hurt them. Punish them. Cancel them. Don't allow opposing views.  If someone wants to talk and you don't like what they have to say - burn the stage down.

If i'm having a tough time it's the fault of whitey/the govt/the immigrants/privlidge  And i should hate and strike back at those things.

Parents and society allowing that kind of crap thinking poisons the water and we get the kind of politics we have to pander to it,

 

Such attitudes apply across the political spectrum. I’ve seen multiple examples of people of who have changed party in the US and then feel obliged to make their change in policy positions more extreme in order to join their new tribe and denounce their old faith. One factor here is America’s weird two party system that forces disparate positions into only two boxes.  

[impartialobserver]

The current two party system in America does create some interesting dynamics. A factor that gets left out of this discussion is the impact of the internet and technology. 1985... if I was to write out a political opinion, I had to write it out on paper, mail it, and send it to a newspaper where they had discretion on whether to include it or not in the letters to the editor section. Today.. everybody can distribute their opinions in seconds and do so with anonymity and no recourse. When you sent a letter to the editor.. you had to include your name and the fact that it showed up in the Courier News (just an example) tells one that you are somewhat local to gooding, idaho. A forum like this.. geography is meaningless and everyone is anonymous. 

[Nationalist]

9 minutes ago, Hodad said:

And you try very hard to remain ignorant.

Like our record domestic oil output, you cover you eyes and ears while running your mouth about your feelings, entirely unconcerned that they do not align to reality in any way.

It's pitiable, really, to see someone who superficially want to engage on politics but lacks the capacity. And while it's sad on an individual level, people like you create a real problem for democracy. Democracy only works when you have an informed and invested populace. 

Yes well...you death-cultists regularly deny the truth so you can justify your pure hatred of mankind.

But alas...the first 3 years (pre Rona) of Trump's presidency produced the best economy the USA has ever seen. You can...and likely will go to your grave believing in warped numbers but...everyone lived through those years and they were lightyears better that this chickenshit of Biden's.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Such attitudes apply across the political spectrum. I’ve seen multiple examples of people of who have changed party in the US and then feel obliged to make their change in policy positions more extreme in order to join their new tribe and denounce their old faith. One factor here is America’s weird two party system that forces disparate positions into only two boxes.  

Sure. One tends to beget the other.  It's always been that way. 

[CdnFox]

10 hours ago, Hodad said:

No, Trump told you it was amazingly awesome (as he does about all things Trump) and you lack the interest and ability to validate that statement. But let's be honest, you'd believe that Trump farts rainbows if Dear Leader told you that was the case. 

It's simply not true. Trump inherited growth trajectories in all metrics and, despite taking on massive deficits, he didn't change those trajectories. Even if you want to give him a freebie on the pandemic year (which is absurd) the numbers for the non-pandemic years of Trump look almost exactly like the numbers for the 4 years leading up to Trump. There is no jump. there is no "Trump boom." He didn't bend the curve, let alone jump start anything. And all of this despite reckless deficit spending.

 

Again, try some facts.

About the same GDP growth, despite Obama bringing deficits downs and Trump blowing them up.

 

Similar jobs numbers.

 

Unemployment fell faster under Obama and the trend continued, though a bit slower under Trump

 

As anyone with eyeballs can see, Trump didn't jump start anything. He took over a growing economy based on good fundamentals and coasted along on the same track. And I'm not even going to talk about his trade war nonsense creating drag. Nor do I have to talk about the disastrous COVID mismanagement. 

Trump's true economic legacy is record deficits, record debt and the worst jobs performance since the great depression. Now go tell us about your feelings and fondle his balls during a ticker tape parade. 

 

Sorry -  but that's just not true and anyone with half a brain can see why your 'facts' aren't facts.

You compare obama's second term for example with trumps first neglecting to mention he reduced deficit spending FROM THE INSANE HIGH THAT HE HIMSELF PUSHED IT TO EARLIER.

Unemployment fell faster under obama because of his reckless spending -  which again you don't mention here despite including his first year magically all of a sudden,

And again compare obama's second to trump's first.

Trump's  economy was better

https://archive.ph/H3M6V

A cursory look at those numbers might lead you to believe that the improvement under Trump was at best a continuation of a trend that began nearly a decade earlier

 

It’s necessary to place those numbers in context. By 2016, officials in the Treasury Department and at the Federal Reserve had concluded that the economy was at full employment and that further improvement in the labor market was unlikely. This was in line with the Congressional Budget Office’s guidance that further declines in the unemployment rate would push the economy beyond its sustainable capacity.

So - trump increased employment while the dems and others said it was impossible

Family income rocketed up under trump - so not only were more employed the jobs were better

 

And while you dismiss the bump in gdp it's still a very real bump - achieved in just 3 years before covid hit

 

It would be wrong to say trump was massively better than obama - but if you actually compare apples to apples instead of trying to cherry pick your data - in the few short years he had trump did better.

[SpankyMcFarland]

I think social media plays some role too. We admire extreme opinions more than we used to. 

[Guest]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:00 AM, Rebound said:

Donald Trump threatened to drop nuclear bombs on North Korea. 
Donald Trump created an openly hostile relationship with China. 
Donald Trump rejected democratic leaders across the world. 
Donald Trump embraced the dictatorial, fascist leaders of Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia

How many wars started under Trump?

How many US presidents met, and shook hands with North Korean leaders? 

How's the US relationship with Russia, now?

[Rebound]

3 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

How many wars started under Trump?

How many US presidents met, and shook hands with North Korean leaders? 

How's the US relationship with Russia, now?

I think that Donald Trump’s foreign policy initiatives were categorically across the board horrendous. 
The only positive score was an agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Otherwise, his conduct was horrible. He insulted long standing US allies, weakened NATO, insulted Mexico, China, and many other nations for no reason.  

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Rebound said:

I think that Donald Trump’s foreign policy initiatives were categorically across the board horrendous. 
The only positive score was an agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Otherwise, his conduct was horrible. He insulted long standing US allies, weakened NATO, insulted Mexico, China, and many other nations for no reason.  

No wars though, however. Thanks for participating. 

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

No wars though, however. Thanks for participating. 

Well this is the thing. 

It's fine to disagree with his foreign policy. We can debate whether recognizing Jeruselem as the capital of isreal was a good idea or not. And certainly he was rude and disruptive with many leaders.  And that's fine - but that's opinion one way or another.

But - no wars. Trade deals did get done, NAFTA or whetever we call it now was renegotiated favorably for the US. etc.  Pretty much every other president sent their soldiers to die in one conflict or another.

So in a real world measurable sense he did have success that others did not. 

Now - he was really only in power for 3 'normal' years, and one covid year which turned the world on it's head temporarily. But still.  Again it's a metric that he can honestly say the world was a quieter place while he was in charge of the US than it was for many many other presidents.

[impartialobserver]

15 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

I think social media plays some role too. We admire extreme opinions more than we used to. 

ESPN radio did this experiment. For one week, the talk show hosts only focused on stats, analytics, and breaking down games. No predictions, no social topics, no "hot takes". Ratings dropped by 85%. The second week, they turned the tables and had the hosts do nothing but strong, adamant opinions and predictions along with carte blanche to bring social justice topics into it. Ratings not only recovered from the previous week but were up 15% in the net. That should tell you all you need to know about our preferences when it comes to extreme opinions. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Well this is the thing. 

It's fine to disagree with his foreign policy. We can debate whether recognizing Jeruselem as the capital of isreal was a good idea or not. And certainly he was rude and disruptive with many leaders.  And that's fine - but that's opinion one way or another.

But - no wars. Trade deals did get done, NAFTA or whetever we call it now was renegotiated favorably for the US. etc.  Pretty much every other president sent their soldiers to die in one conflict or another.

So in a real world measurable sense he did have success that others did not. 

Now - he was really only in power for 3 'normal' years, and one covid year which turned the world on it's head temporarily. But still.  Again it's a metric that he can honestly say the world was a quieter place while he was in charge of the US than it was for many many other presidents.

Exactly.

So he was a bully and crooked. 

I look at policy.

If I looked at honesty and never breaking any rules I would never vote.

All politicians are liars and corrupt. Some more or less than others.

You should vote based on policy, and keeping the promises you were voted in on.

[impartialobserver]

The primary reason that I do not like Trump is his well demonstrated tendency to take conspiracy theories seriously. I can't take someone seriously who honestly believes in these mostly fabricated (but not disprovable) stories. 

[WestCanMan]

3 minutes ago, impartialobserver said:

The primary reason that I do not like Trump is his well demonstrated tendency to take conspiracy theories seriously. I can't take someone seriously who honestly believes in these mostly fabricated (but not disprovable) stories. 

For example?

IMO the biggest conspiracy theory that he got sucked into was the covid jab. He's the one who protected vax-manufacturers with the Prep Act which brings their liability to 0% unless someone can prove 'malicious intent'.

That means that they can put their vaxes out there even if they know, for example, that it will kill some people and it's only 3% effective, because the people who lost loved ones can't even sue them. I.e., they can never prove malicious intent. The vax co's can just say "We knew it would help a lot of people, our tests showed that it saves about 10,000 lives per 100 people accidentally killed by it". Can one prove that they were being 'malicious' when their drug was expected to result in a net decrease in the number of deaths? Nope. 

 

Wanna know some examples of fabricated stories the left got sucked in by? Good gawd, I can name ten off the top of my head. I can't say for sure how many leftard leaders were actually sucked in by them and which ones just play along while knowing that they were lies, but I actually see the second one as being much worse.

[WestCanMan]

15 hours ago, Rebound said:

I think that Donald Trump’s foreign policy initiatives were categorically across the board horrendous. 

I think that you gobble up so much CNN propaganda that it's coming out of your ass. 

Trump inherited a global tire fire and by the time he was gone islamic terrorism was a memory, islamic state was gone, American servicemen hadn't died in Afghanistan in 18 months, Arab nations had normalized relations with Israel, Ukraine and Russia hadn't had any escalation in military friction, NATO embers were on alert that their contributions were insufficient, important trade issues with China had been addressed, etc.

The world wasn't backsliding at all when Trump was POTUS, pretty much everything got better. It was the exact opposite of when Obama and Biden were POTUS. Two global dumpster fires later...

[WestCanMan]

TBH, the replies in this thread are a perfect example of what's wrong with politics.

It's glaringly obvious to the naked eye that the US-domestically and the world improved under Trump. If you just pretend that the president had nothing at all to do with what happened, and just look at it all objectively, the global improvement is visible from outer space.

I don't even need to name the wars and entire terrorist countries that sprang up under Obama which were extinguished by Trump, or how messed up Afghanistan became when Biden took over. Or what happened in Ukraine after Biden came in. 

The global trajectory under Obama was from peace towards war.

Under Trump that trajectory switched from war and genocide towards peace and stability.

That trajectory nose-dived when Biden came in. AL-Qaeda had resurfaced within months. There was a war in Ukraine, and the US committed a terrorist attack on a Russian/German pipeline. There was runaway inflation in the US. Soaring interest rates. Vaccine lies and mandates. The president even hate-mongered all 74M Trump voters:

Leftists want to compare all that with "I feel like Trump said some things that were mean", and "our NATO allies didn't like being called out for underachieving". Waah.  

Your feelings don't really count against the backdrop of war and genocide in Levant, war in Europe, and an astonishing rise in deep-seated hatred between political groups. 

[Nationalist]

28 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

TBH, the replies in this thread are a perfect example of what's wrong with politics.

It's glaringly obvious to the naked eye that the US-domestically and the world improved under Trump. If you just pretend that the president had nothing at all to do with what happened, and just look at it all objectively, the global improvement is visible from outer space.

I don't even need to name the wars and entire terrorist countries that sprang up under Obama which were extinguished by Trump, or how messed up Afghanistan became when Biden took over. Or what happened in Ukraine after Biden came in. 

The global trajectory under Obama was from peace towards war.

Under Trump that trajectory switched from war and genocide towards peace and stability.

That trajectory nose-dived when Biden came in. AL-Qaeda had resurfaced within months. There was a war in Ukraine, and the US committed a terrorist attack on a Russian/German pipeline. There was runaway inflation in the US. Soaring interest rates. Vaccine lies and mandates. The president even hate-mongered all 74M Trump voters:

Leftists want to compare all that with "I feel like Trump said some things that were mean", and "our NATO allies didn't like being called out for underachieving". Waah.  

Your feelings don't really count against the backdrop of war and genocide in Levant, war in Europe, and an astonishing rise in deep-seated hatred between political groups. 

Bravo.

Game

Set

Match.!

[impartialobserver]

What is sad about American politics is that no matter how great your ideas... you will lose unless you have a terrible case of verbal diarrhea. You need to be brash, unfiltered, and made big, bold claims and if you have nothing to back them up.. so be it. 

[Freddie]

On 9/4/2023 at 7:37 AM, Rebound said:

Really? Democracy isn’t fragile?

Russia was a democracy. 
1930’s Germany was a democracy

Russia was a democracy 

Venezuela was a democracy

All it takes is a President who refuses to leave office. 

And Trump did in 2021. Our Democracy is safe.