Merged 2024 Election Thread

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At this point, the economy has become two separate problems for Biden (and the other corporate Democrats who run the party together with him). Only one of them is the fact that it's bad. The other is that they've leaned so hard into the "strategy" of trying to gaslight the public about it and scold & berate their own base for not being obedient enough about pretending along with them about it. That kind of behavior would be exactly how to push away your own potential voters even if the economy were actually good.
 
I don't think the majority of the voting public has the slightest idea of what "the economy" actually is and how it works. It's a damned complex system. What people mean most of the time when they say "the economy" in the context of politics is "how am I personally doing financially". Sorry, buddy, but if you were an idiot with money during a booming period you're not going to be any smarter with money during a depression. Conversely the wealthy are still going to be doing better in a downturn economy because they had more money to begin with.

Anybody who says "the economy" needs to elaborate what the hell they actually mean, saying "the economy is good" or "the economy is bad" is a generalization so broad as to be meaningless. Heck, my mother thinks "the economy is bad now" because Fox News said Biden did that with his devil magic, meanwhile the mutual fund that comprises the largest entry in her portfolio closed yesterday at nearly two hundred dollars a share higher than when I bought it for her. "Economy is bad"? Yeah, if it keeps on being this "bad" I may retire fifteen years early!
 
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TragicMonkey said:
I don't think the majority of the voting public has the slightest idea of what "the economy" actually is and how it works. It's a damned complex system. What people mean most of the time when they say "the economy" in the context of politics is "how am I personally doing financially". Sorry, buddy, but if you were an idiot with money during a booming period you're not going to be any smarter with money during a depression. Conversely the wealthy are still going to be doing better in a downturn economy because they had more money to begin with.

Anybody who says "the economy" needs to elaborate what the hell they actually mean, saying "the economy is good" or "the economy is bad" is a generalization so broad as to be meaningless. Heck, my mother thinks "the economy is bad now" because Fox News said Biden did that with his devil magic, meanwhile the mutual fund that comprises the largest entry in her portfolio closed yesterday at nearly two hundred dollars a share higher than when I bought it for her. "Economy is bad"? Yeah, if it keeps on being this "bad" I may retire fifteen years early!
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I agree 100%. What gets me, too, is that whatever party is in power gets the credit either good or bad. If it's bad, people think the other party will fix it all if they get elected. It's a global economy with so many different forces affecting every country's economy. Nothing happens overnight nor can the POTUS 'fix' it with a wave of a wand no matter what they say.
 
Inflation is simple concept. And while it has improved, it also stopped improving. Is it Biden's fault ? Not really. The whole world is healing after corona, and it's part of it. And so far, US really got it light. But will be Biden blamed for it ? Absolutely.
I guess Republicans wait till we get closer to the election. As it would backfire, if they center the whole campaign around economy, and then the inflation improved. But once it's clear it won't improve anymore, the will IMHO push it hard. And it's Biden's base who suffers from the inflation the most.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Inflation is simple concept. And while it has improved, it also stopped improving. Is it Biden's fault ? Not really. The whole world is healing after corona, and it's part of it. And so far, US really got it light. But will be Biden blamed for it ? Absolutely.
I guess Republicans wait till we get closer to the election. As it would backfire, if they center the whole campaign around economy, and then the inflation improved. But once it's clear it won't improve anymore, the will IMHO push it hard. And it's Biden's base who suffers from the inflation the most.
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The almost funny part of things is that a lot of the national initiatives that Democrats push are things that just happen to end up benefiting Republicans more. The IRA, for example.

Big winners from Biden’s climate law: Republicans who voted against it

GOP lawmakers voted en masse against Biden’s signature bill. But roughly two-thirds of green-energy projects announced since it became law are going to Republican-held congressional districts, a POLITICO analysis found.

Meanwhile, national Republican initiatives are hurting Republicans more, as has been the case when it comes to abortion, COVID, guns, inflation, food security... ugh, the list can go on, but meh.

Turns out that trying to lift everyone up is a bit different than trying to drag everyone down.
 
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TragicMonkey said:
I don't think the majority of the voting public has the slightest idea of what "the economy" actually is and how it works. It's a damned complex system. What people mean most of the time when they say "the economy" in the context of politics is "how am I personally doing financially". Sorry, buddy, but if you were an idiot with money during a booming period you're not going to be any smarter with money during a depression. Conversely the wealthy are still going to be doing better in a downturn economy because they had more money to begin with.

Anybody who says "the economy" needs to elaborate what the hell they actually mean, saying "the economy is good" or "the economy is bad" is a generalization so broad as to be meaningless. Heck, my mother thinks "the economy is bad now" because Fox News said Biden did that with his devil magic, meanwhile the mutual fund that comprises the largest entry in her portfolio closed yesterday at nearly two hundred dollars a share higher than when I bought it for her. "Economy is bad"? Yeah, if it keeps on being this "bad" I may retire fifteen years early!
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Stacyhs said:
I agree 100%. What gets me, too, is that whatever party is in power gets the credit either good or bad. If it's bad, people think the other party will fix it all if they get elected. It's a global economy with so many different forces affecting every country's economy. Nothing happens overnight nor can the POTUS 'fix' it with a wave of a wand no matter what they say.
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I think what people generally mean are things like prices and whether they can buy as much with their salary as they remember being able to.

Sure, much of it is about perception as much as it is about reality, and to the extent that it is about reality people might not be able to accurately attribute causes… but if someone says “ackshually the economy is doing well and you are too stupid to understand that!” it’s not a winning strategy. Some of the commentary that I have seen from my American friends on the social medias seems to be a bit like that. They post stuff from “Occupy Democrats” which aims to prove that the economy is much better now because Biden increases jobs and under Trump, jobs declined massively at the end of his term. I mean, look, that kind of thing is too silly because we know it coincided with Covid. Taking credit for an increase in jobs after Covid and blaming the previous one for losing jobs under Covid looks like cheating, so it’s bad strategy. Similarly, I see the same meme-makers saying “don’t blame Biden for the inflation; that’s due to Covid!” Well, yeah but also don’t change the rules of the argument. This kind of thing insults the intelligence even of people who were stupid enough to vote for Trump and MTG.
 
We truly are the United States of Amnesia...or maybe better said , the United States of Selective Memory.

The financial collapse of 2007 was under a Republican president and was largely due to the deregulation of the banking/mortgage industry and predatory lending that had been happening for years.
Obama inherited an economy in crisis and rebuilt it during his 8 years in office. Trump inherited that revived economy and the GOP loves to claim how great the economy was during Trump's early administration as if he had much to do with it...which he didn't.

Sure, Trump wasn't responsible for Covid, but he's damn well responsible for his (mis)handling of it: his minimizing its dangers when it's been proven he was well aware early on just how bad it could get, fighting the use of masks when he knew it was spread by breathing it in, and not supporting isolation during the early spread all contributed to what followed.

Americans want everything NOW, we're an impatient breed and crave instant results. And when we don't get them we blame whoever's in power at the moment. We really are children.
 
The Trump loyalty will hold till election.
And they don't even have to say anything much. Just vote the party line to survive.

The trouble is what to do in the post Trump era. With Trump gone a Mike Johnson will be nothing.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Inflation is simple concept. And while it has improved, it also stopped improving. Is it Biden's fault ? Not really. The whole world is healing after corona, and it's part of it. And so far, US really got it light. But will be Biden blamed for it ? Absolutely.
I guess Republicans wait till we get closer to the election. As it would backfire, if they center the whole campaign around economy, and then the inflation improved. But once it's clear it won't improve anymore, the will IMHO push it hard. And it's Biden's base who suffers from the inflation the most.
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We complain about voters not being aware of much. Inflation, though, is one that people notice. And they notice things like snack prices going up, where the price of chicken packed up in the stores went up and went down again in 6 months.

What they do not notice is how much their wage went up. Though hourly wages in "real money" have been stagnant, the wages nevertheless went up with the small inflation we have.
 
People have a tendency to see the negative, rather than the positive, especially when it comes to their money and politicians play off that. They tend to focus on their food bills or taxes going up rather than their skyrocketing investments. Of course, people with no investments are **** out of luck.
 
Tero said:
We complain about voters not being aware of much. Inflation, though, is one that people notice. And they notice things like snack prices going up, where the price of chicken packed up in the stores went up and went down again in 6 months.

What they do not notice is how much their wage went up. Though hourly wages in "real money" have been stagnant, the wages nevertheless went up with the small inflation we have.
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Well, inflation has been a global issue, not just America, of course. And many countries have seen worse inflation (such as Argentina).

But according to Wikipedia, it was at 1.3%, 4.7%, 8.0% at 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
 
Investopedia says the US inflation rate dipped almost 50% between 2022 and 2023.-
In 2023, the average rate of inflation was 4.1%. Investopedia link
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What's President Joe Biden's role in this?
In 2021, Biden inherited an economy trapped by uncertainty about the pandemic’s path. He signed a $1.9 trillion aid package, a sum that Republicans and some economists say triggered the upward scramble of inflation, with the consumer price index registering a four-decade high of 9.1% in June 2022. Past and current Biden administration officials say the decline in inflation since then was a result of a set of choices. Biden gave the Federal Reserve the political space to increase interest rates. He buttressed supply chains and helped stabilize gas prices. At the same time, the historic burst of job growth under Biden has continued. Outside economists said that would be impossible if inflation were to fall. Associated Press news link
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when people talk about the economy being bad, it's the rising housing, healthcare, education, and energy costs and the increasing cost of goods and services coupled with a
noticeable decline in quality
 
The economy may be going well but only a tiny proportion of people are better off due to the US' terrible income and wealth inequality.

Democrats may not have done enough to address this but they have been hampered at every turn by Republicans and a vote for the GOP is a vote for making things even worse.
 
The economy may be going well but only a tiny proportion of people are better off due to the US' terrible income and wealth inequality.

Democrats may not have done enough to address this but they have been hampered at every turn by Republicans and a vote for the GOP is a vote for making things even worse.
 
SCOTUS just legalized racial gerrymandering, by simply calling it "partisan" gerrymandering.
 
thaiboxerken said:
SCOTUS just legalized racial gerrymandering, by simply calling it "partisan" gerrymandering.
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Yup. "We're not discriminating against Black people because we hate Black people. We are discriminating against Black people because they won't vote for us. Because we hate them."
 
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