I suggest Trump drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
I don’t want Trump to drop out. I want him to be barred from the ballot
I want him to be barred from the ballot in only half the battleground states, that way the GOP ends up eating itself
I’d rather see Dems win with a more coherent and less partisan option. Having trump drop and get replaced with desantis would continue the primary issues of trump with a less divisive and objectionable face…
Trump votes are mainly confrontational IMHO. People who vote trump have a lot of “stick it to the libs” going on. I feel like desantis would be voted on as being more of a normal type candidate, and might kinda normalize the alt-rightness that trump brought to the table (and desantis has as much as trump does, he’s just not in your face about it).
Which is all to say that both trump and Biden are problematic, but the only problems that can pragmatically be addressed are the ones with biden, as he’s just old and out of it. The trump crazyness will continue if you replace him.
I feel like desantis would be voted on as being more of a normal type candidate, and might kinda normalize the alt-rightness that trump brought to the table (and desantis has as much as trump does, he’s just not in your face about it).
The dude literally copies Trump down to the hand gestures and clothing choices. And have you seen Florida lately? He is more of a fascist than Trump is, except instead of being driven by money, he’s driven by an unquenchable desire to “eat with the popular girls.”
If, by some twist of fate, he normalizes anything on the right, it’s because he has an unassailably dull and shallow personality, not because he is more normal or reasonable than Trump.
he’s driven by an unquenchable desire to “eat with the popular girls.”
He also desperately wants to be 5’11”.
Awww… Petite dictators are so cute. I just wanna squeeze those little cheeks!
And everyone else desparately want that to be relevant. Much like Trump’s small hands, Biden’s weirdly hands on approach to familiarity, Obama’s love of gourmet condiments, etc… it’s nothing more than attempt at making something innocuous into something monumental.
He’s got plenty of awful qualities, wearing lifts isn’t one of them. To focus on it is to distract from meaningful criticism.
Here’s my meaningful criticism: he’s a cruel fascist, and I hope his balls explode.
it’s because he has an unassailably dull and shallow personality, not because he is more normal or reasonable than Trump.
(and desantis has as much [alt right] as trump does, he’s just not in your face about it).
Did I not say the exact same thing there? I feel like I said the exact same thing… I certainly meant the exact same thing…
DeSantis as a normal type candidate? Have you kept up with the news on him? He’s more overtly fascist than Trump was. Maybe not more so than Trump is these days, but more than he was in the past.
Desantis lacks the big boisterous spray tanned clown face. The politics of trump (increased, you say, and I agree) would be brought back to the table without the big cartoon quality of trump.
The net effect of which would be a normalization of those specific politics. Desantis’ public persona is far more normal than trumps is. No oompa loompa, no toddler tantrums, that sorta thing… You see? That’s not a good thing, therefore it’s better if trump stays on the ballot and the weak polls get addressed by something a little less senile on the Dem side.
Or continue to claim Biden is perfectly fine, and watch the swing states’ differing opinion return the presidency to chaos, I guess.
Sure, but I’m voting D, no matter what. Because I’m not a fucking traitor.
Honestly I don’t understand why anybody would vote GOP.
There is no platform. There is no ideas. They’ve literally done nothing except bitch and moan, in-fighting, and then hold bills hostage.
Where Dems have a huge list of accomplishments in the past three years, all the GOP has done was show pictures of Hunter Biden’s dick.
Honestly I don’t understand why anybody would vote GOP.
Fear, hatred and anger, mostly based on the lies they constantly consume.
Don’t forget ignorance. The GOP thrives on the ignorance they cultivate.
They want to make liberals, or people they believe are liberal, cry and suffer. That’s about it. Same for any group they deem “less than”: POC, immigrants, non-xtians, gay/trans, women etc…
I have mixed opinions. Would I rather elect someone else? Yes. But also, lack of faith in their current leader doesn’t usually mean good things for incumbent parties.
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This far out, polls are not guesses about election results, but rather estimates of sentiments. That’s how they’re read.
The position being taken here is that the national sentiment is against Joe Biden. You can think he could still power through. You can think that the undecided will break his way. You could think that people realize losing Roe will be the least of their concerns if Trump gets in.
But these are legitimate measures of public sentiment. Biden has a national poll-of-polls approval rating of 39%. That’s Carter and Bush I territory.
I will always vote Democrat but I had hoped he would be one and done. This is feeling like 2016 all over again.
Not a bad idea, and pushing “Bidenomics” isn’t resonating with people.
When there are articles about “The economy is good! Why don’t people care??!??” I think about my own story.
My wife totalled my car last week. She’s fine. We pulled the dashcam footage, insurance determined the other driver was 100% at fault (speeding, crossed a double yellow line, no license, no insurance, baby in the front seat with no car seat).
So they just cut me a check. I have $12K in the bank and another $2K coming when they get the title.
Went shopping for a new car. Not bragging, but I have a REALLY good credit score, and even my credit union can’t get me an interest rate lower than 8.3%.
I saw one quote as high as 12.25%… on a CAR LOAN.
Thank god I work from home and we don’t technically NEED two cars. But now, I feel kind of trapped in my own home. I’d like the freedom a car offers, but I just can’t justify 8.3% on a car loan.
These are the sorts of pocketbook issues people are talking about when they say they aren’t happy with what Biden has been doing.
I’m working three part time jobs and still don’t have health insurance. This country fucking blows.
Because part-timers don’t qualify for benefits. :( That needs to change.
Health care should be a right of all, and not tied to work.
And none of this “subsidized by the govt” shit we’ve got going on with the prison system, either. People’s health is precious and they shouldn’t be treated like a number in the bottom line by some bastard looking to squeeze as much profit from the system as possible. Fully funded and run by the gov with taxpayer money or nothing.
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Biden doesn’t set the interest rate. That’s the Fed. The Fed Chair was appointed by Trump. He printed a shitload of money during Covid (which imo should have never happened) and now the chickens have come home to roost. The interest rate hikes are to combat inflation. They are trying to decrease the money supply to unfuck everything and get us back to normal. They are there to make you, in your situation say, this is a bad financial decision paying the same price as 2 years ago with a substantially higher rate maybe I don’t need this, or I’ll wait for prices to come down since the payment is not affordable. People then consume less and it decreases demand for goods and services, and prices should in theory stop going up or even go down a bit. Your example is proof that what they want to happen is happening. I was trying to buy a house, and gave up after being outbid numerous times during the pandemic. At these rates, I’ve pretty much decided to shelve the idea of homeownership at least for now.
It absolutely sucks ass, but if we’d let the low rates continue, inflation would have spiralled out of control by now. And while we are certainly in a short term period of pain, I have to hope that it will work out in the end and we can get back some semblance of affordability and pop the everything bubble we created. The low rates were as bad if not worse for the economy. Every home in my area was going $300k over asking with multiple offers sight unseen, and asking price would be 20% higher yoy . New and used cars went crazy in price, groceries practically doubled and everything was getting really bad. This shit sucks, but it’s because of our fiscal policies of covid under Trump. Yes, you can say that helicopter money didn’t help with inflation, but it was kinda a drop in the bucket compared to what Powell did.
I personally don’t think the Fed has done enough, and needs to go full Volcker on us and jack the rates even more. The Fed aims for getting inflation back to 2%, but imo we need to aim for a brief period of deflation to make up for the inflation we’ve suffered the last 3 years. It sucks to say, but we need a full blown recession to get us back to normal, otherwise it will stay shitty and the rich will get richer while the poor get poorer. We need to force investors out of the housing market and bring them pain. Unfortunately, that only happens when people lose jobs and don’t pay rent. Then owning property to rent is less desirable, and property owners sell and put their profits into HYSA’s and other safe investments. More inventory gets put on the market, supply goes up, demand goes down, price goes down and we can celebrate actually being able to afford stuff again. If we don’t go full recession, you will own nothing and be happy and corporate landlords will continue to jack rent and sit on property for an eternity. Enjoy serf life. There’s no way to fix this without pain unfortunately. It’s a shitty situation all around.
I don’t think low rates caused inflation, and I don’t think high rates were to lower inflation.
Inflation resulted from supply chain issues and businesses believing (correctly) that they could raise prices beyond their increased costs and rake in additional profit, all while blaming inflation.
High interest rates were to punish labor - to raise unemployment in order to prevent labor from obtaining enough power to demand better pay and better conditions.
It can be all of those things! The pandemic introduced a lot of wildcards into the economy and exacerbated already existant trends. Even financial experts say there’s really no way to tell how much each factor contributed to the situation. I agree that supply chain issues is an obvious factor, but because interest rates were so low, people didn’t think twice about paying more than they normally would because debt was so much cheaper. We saw this when it came to electronics and home improvement items when people were trapped at home and wanting to go into new hobbies, or get projects done (crypto boom also hurt the GPU situation even more, but suckers continued to pay 2-4k for scalped NVIDIAs anyway).
The fed has gone on record saying they’re using unemployment as a metric for when they’ll start letting up on the rates, so another checkmark for you on “punishing workers”, but they’re also tying worker’s purchasing power as a direct contibuter to inflation outside of interest rates, which is a debatable opinion depending on what study you look at and I personally disagree with, but that does make it harder to deliniate if it’s actively malicious on their part or just passively malicious.
Biden had the opportunity to replace the Fed chair and failed to do so:
Yeah, but at that point, the Fed had already begun tackling inflation which I believe Biden was on board with, and didn’t want to change horses in the middle of the race. Brainard who was the frontrunner at the time was more dovish, and likely would have made inflation worse. I do think it’s no coincidence that the Fed took no action on inflation until Biden was in office. Likely hoping get people pissed off by the next election cycle to get the orange guy back. It’s a god damn mess.
Even with 12k down? That’s crazy, I just got 4% in the same situation about a year ago. My credit is decent, but I’m not financially savvy in the slightest, so idk.
My biggest problem with the whole situation was the state I’m in requires you to pay registration and taxes in full when you buy a car. So through no fault of my own, I lost $5k. I also was one day late getting my insurance swapped over, so my insurance went from $100 to $450 monthly. Never been at fault for an accident and my only ticket was like 7 years ago. Yet now I spend more on insurance than some people I know dealing with DUI charges on a SR71.
Also had no choices at the time because used car market was in shambles at the time, so I settled on a car I don’t love. The car I did love, I made my final payment on the week before I got hit.
Yeah, I was looking at $42K for the car, $12K down, finance $30K… 8.3%… it’s nuts right now.
That is total ass man, sorry to hear it. Hope you’re able to figure something out or you enjoy your payout to the fullest atleast.
Well, money isn’t going anywhere. Banking the cash, saving money, if interest rates go down, great. If they don’t? Pay cash in '25.
where i live you could get a used toyota for 2K
I probably could too… with 250,000 miles on it. :) Or a 1983 truck.
oh… my yaris had 100k on it and was 1400€. i guess cars are more valuable where you live.
Get an ebike, a decent one is 2k.
I have issues in my legs and feet, so a bike isn’t in the cards, but I am thinking about this: :)
That could do the trick.
I would be okay if every current politician over the age of 60 did the same. Bernie included (that man deserves a good retirement, anyway).
True, that said, I would also let Bernie stay.
Only Bernie.
Bernie praised Venezuela as a good model when Chavez was in power. It is easy to make promises and shit on policy when you don’t need to explain how it is paid for. I don’t think he has good policy at all.
Are you talking about higher education for all or healthcare for all?
Because he did release full budgets for both programs.
He proposed increasing taxes on millionaires and billionaires by like 4 percent.
That was enough to fully fund both programs.
His whole package.
The uber rich billionaire do not make up enough people to even amount to a small amount of this additional tax so it is mainly the millionaires who make up much of the middle class. Effectively it is the middle class paying for it.
And what he also failed to mention is that a great deal of capital leaves there country when you start to tax excessively. This is not a question if if but how much. And while that reduces the taxes gained from these individuals, it has a multiplier effect in that it reduces investment into the country thus resulting in less corporate taxes as well as all the personal taxes for that many fewer jobs.
I understand wealth inequality is an issue but people like Bernie only put it simple solutions because he knows people with little economic understanding will eat it up. Worse he knows he is lying which really bothers me more than anything.
Just like when all of this originally happened.
You say “he didnt say how he would pay for it!”
Then you were directed to how he said he would pay for it.
Then without pause you start throwing out make believe nonsense while completely ignoring the fully drafted budget.
And at some point in the moderate future, you will start another conversation (or more accurately, scream your drivel into the void) by saying he never said how he would pay for it.
Also, the unmitigated idiocy to say “millionaires who make up much of the middle class” almost guarantees you are a stooge making less than 100k a year who champions to make the rich richer and the poor poorer because you believe some day you’re magically not going to be poor.
Millionaires are not middle class. Not even close. For the record:
“Pew defines “middle class” as those earning between two-thirds and twice the median American household income, which in 2021 was $70,784, according to the United States Census Bureau. That means American households earning as little as $47,189 and up to $141,568 are technically in the middle class.”
I stand corrected. I should have been more precise. Yes he said he would pay for it but he was lying that it could be paid for. The guy thought chevez’s Venezuela was something to praise after all. And many people making 141000 pre year have a million or two in assets. It will be this class that is paying for it and then some as capital leaves.
Alright. I see it.
Pretty sure his tax hike in “millionaires and billionaires” was in the context of income tax, not in the context of someone who saved 100k a year over 10 years.
So, I’ll say you sound selfish, greedy, and like you want to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, you want the masses uneducated, and you want the poor to die of easily treatable medical conditions.
But yes. On prompt “what does tax the millionaires and billionaires”, i dont know the deets.
And your hatred for a model of equal distribution of wealth doesn’t earn you any points with me.
Oh brother.
Where art thou?
would have agreed with you like 10 years ago, he caved in to the dnc too.
At his core, he still says the right thing. He is the first to voice something that doesn’t sync up with the Dem party line.
Obama was sitting back clammed up until Bernie made his statement that Palestine needs an immediate humanitarian break, and the world needs to figure out how we break this cycle during that break.
Every time Bernie speaks up, his words still ring true as ever, but yes, every time I curse him for kissing the Democrat ring and letting Hilary rig him out of the general election.
I still truly believe he would have been the first third party president and would have stopped BOTH Trump and Hilary from doing what they did to the federal government.
Trumps weird appeal to folks that “just want to shake up the system” idiots would have been neutralized by third party Bernie, hardcore leftists that would have never vote for a neoliberal would jump at the chance to vote for him, that popularity and “across the aisle” appeal like that could bring in a bunch of centrists and those who don’t usually vote because “both sides”. He’d certainly have had a really good chance, he’ll even my conservative ass dad thinks Bernie is worth some respect because of how long he’s been doing it and saying the same thing
Yeah, it’s that “how long” that gets me. I think he’s still a great person that genuinely tries to do the right thing for everyone, but he’s old (he’s older than Biden). As far as I’m concerned, he’s served his country well. He should not be on the front lines fighting Zionism and American Fundamentalism anymore.
Oh I 100% agree his time passed us by, we desperately need youth in all positions of government.
Because it was the best thing for the country.
Biden can be an instant king-maker. All he has to do is hold a press conference where he endorses another Democratic candidate, along with an announcement that he is bowing out of the race to protect the country from Donald Trump. It would be the most potent endorsement ever made.
It’ll be Gavin Newsom
All of you, including Axe, can dream as much as you want, but it will be Biden/Trump in the end.
I have a fantasy where an independent candidate wins after thoroughly clowning both of them and pointing out terrible they both are. It brings on a wave of change and we end up with a strong third party.
I’m tired of every little thing being black or white, red vs blue, good and evil, heads or tails. Are you Republican or Democrat? Do you support Palestine or Israel? Are you anti-gun/vax/abortion/gay or pro?
Seems like everything is framed like this to put us into buckets and turn the buckets against eachother while the propaganda machine starts churning.
Big dreams sleepy. But, you will wake up at some point.
Literally 2016. And the third party is the maga tumor of the GOP. 2017-2020 is what happens when voters give up and vote for a populist promising to upend the system
wait, is he running again???
