I have difficulty seeing how Trump would be constrained in the White House with a Supreme Court that says that presidents exercising official powers have absolute immunity and congressional Republicans who reject any and every attempt to hold him accountable.
Another day dawns and I would still vote for Harris (D grade candidate) over (the (F grade) Trump. I will take that test every day until November. GOP will never fit back into the pre-Trump foot print. Expect the nation will survive either candidate winning. Agree that some political figures of stature need to survive for a post Trump GOP. A replacement party is a bottoms up process and not a top down instant solution.
I don’t expect the GOP to go away. There will always be some form of opposition party and the obstacles to starting a new party are nearly insurmountable. It’s more a question of what the GOP will be and who will lead it.
Agreed. The Republican Party was able to be born out of opposition to slavery within the Whig party. Can the same be accomplished from the fracture of today’s GOP?
"I, along with around half the country, would take the years 2017-2019 over 2021-2024. Things cost less, mortgages were cheap, jobs were plentiful for those who wanted them, and if you didn’t pay attention to Washington, D.C., things weren’t that crazy."
Seems like an apples-to-oranges comparison where you give Trump a pass on stuff happening because of the COVID pandemic (I'll agree that it wasn't his fault), but saddle Biden with all the stuff that happened as a result of the pandemic. (Was a broken supply chain his fault?)
I'm curious how you think 2021 - 2024 would have played out under Trump and whether THAT would have been preferable to what we got from Biden.
And of course gives Trump a pass on his poor decision making and failure to take the pandemic as a serious issue affecting Americans. Hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been prevented.
Interesting comment Steve. Here's the difference between the two parties: When a democrat is found culpable for their actions, they resign or are replaced. When a republican does it, they run him as president. Hope that helps.
That would introduce a counterfactual. The comparison is apples to apples in the sense of both periods happened regardless of who was in the White House. The fact that Trump wasn’t worked to his favor politically. Perhaps it would have been worse with Trump. But if he won in 2020, I can tell you it would be better right now in one important way: Trump would not be running and the GOP would be promoting someone else. And that person would likely not be another Trump. (Black Swans don’t repeat.)
We don't elect Presidents on the basis of their good fortune to have been in office at some interval, but on their ability to handle challenges down the road. On that front, even if material circumstances had me preferring the Trump years (those have largely been constant or improving since the beginning of the Obama presidency), I'd still be thankful that it was Biden in office managing the COVID recovery than Trump's daily circus.
I get that I'm an outlier when it comes to incorporating actual relevant context into my view of these things, which makes me wonder where we're failing on this point in teaching folks critical thinking skills.
"I along with around half the country, would take the years 2017-2019 over 2021-2024. Things cost less, mortgages were cheap, jobs were plentiful for those who wanted them, and if you didn’t pay attention to Washington, D.C., things weren’t that crazy."
Where the heck were YOU living in 2017? Fantasyland? I remember waking up with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every morning wondering "What fresh hell awaits us today?" I even took to checking my phone when I woke up in the middle of the night to see if he nuked Russia, or Tweeted something that triggered another riot. It was just one damn thing after another - every single day! There was so much drama that you'd forget after a week because 3 more terrible things had happened in the meantime.
You say jobs were plentiful then? Jobs are plentiful NOW! We just don't have enough people to fill them! And why is that? Because Trump and his followers put a stop to legal immigration. Things cost less? Yes, they did. But that had nothing to do with Trump. Inflation came as a result of the hot recovery and pent up demand from a worldwide pandemic that screwed up the supply chain. And things are still bad! My warehouse is practically empty. Our sales are down because we can't get product. You know what happens when supply can't meet demand? PRICES GO UP! And the Fed raised interest rates to try to bring down the inflation everyone is bitching about! That's like complaining about the chemo the doctors gave you to cure your cancer. Sure, it sucks, but you have to do it.
But the real question is: what do you think Donald Trump is going to do to make any of this better? Tariffs! Let's double our already too high prices! Because prices on imports will go up, and domestic manufacturers will raise theirs to match. Then there will be the inevitable retaliation tariffs on OUR exports, which will hit our farmers (like they did last time) who we will then have to spend money to bail out. Then the mass deportations will start. Then everything will grind to a halt. If we don't have enough workers NOW, what will we do THEN? Mandatory child labor? Not to mention the massive costs.
Finally, the only reason the whole Trump administration didn't go completely in the ditch was because Trump was surrounded by mostly sane help. Pence. McConnell. Ryan. None of those guys will be around next time. You think JD Vance will give wise counsel? And McConnell and Ryan won't be in charge of the Republicans in Congress. You think Secretary of State Tucker Carlson is going to keep supporting Ukraine? What will it be like with Vivek Ramaswamy at Commerce and RFK Jr at HHS? Hilarious!
We BARELY survived the first round. I have ZERO interest in a Trump 2.0.
Merrie, that’s not the way many people see those years. Plus, there is a near zero percent chance (I won’t say zero because nothing is impossible) that Vivek or Tucker Carlson will ever serve in government in a meaningful way. They would never be confirmed by the Senate. Trump would be hamstrung from day one. In any case, Trump is going to lose and we will have months of whining and more bad candidates and the end of the GOP.
Brilliant Merrie and thank you. Those fond remembrances are foolishness at best. Ya, but the price of eggs and gas were lower. Indeed they were as trump rode out the Obama recovery. The truth is by 2019 the economy was slowing down (check the job growth that year if you doubt me) as the tariffs, bailouts and forced lower interest rates were having an impact.
The real measure of his 4 years (including 2020) was the insanity that came with his presidency. Sure his legions loved the crazy, but the vast majority of the "normal" folks saw it and simply asked; "really?" Thank God he was surrounded by kind of a normal staff who tried to keep him from self-immolating.
The problem was they couldn't keep his pudgy little fingers off his phone. Every day twitter exploded revealing how little he knew or understood about one of the hardest jobs in the world. When the pandemic hit, we all saw how grossly unfit he was. He still is and should never be anywhere near the White House.
But, don't be too hard on Steve. I saw the other day he follows A B Stoddard, so maybe there is hope. She, by the way, is sheer genius. I guess maybe it is time to let women get out of the kitchen and take on the heavy lifting (said with a smirk and knowing they've been doing it for more years than i can count).
What's the likelihood of Trump being removed or dying and then JD Vance being POTUS? We really should be talking more about him and his views.
I continue to think it's a mistake to conflate the GOP with conservatism: conservatives in the American tradition aren't welcome in the GOP, and are not likely to be welcomed again. Those that are staying are concerned with their own political prospects, abandoning their principles in the pursuit of power. That means they are no longer conservatives, or perhaps they never were.
So, what is best for conservatism and its principles?
I would vote for Chris Sununu again if he were running for office in 2024. Not requiring every Republican to shipwreck their political career over Trump. But true I would not vote for an election denier Or a candidate that trumps Jan 6 as nothing or politics as usaual.
I understand the thinking, but I disagree: I think it's very telling that Sununu/et al would compromise their principles for their political careers. He knows Trump is poison, knows that what the GOP wants is anathema to his principles - and goes along regardless.
I understand the thinking but I can tolerate Republicans that want to stay in the party to counter the Trump wing when the party hits bottom. Not saying I would myself stay. But as a voter, I am not going to hold it against them. The group on the whole is a small one at that.
The odds of him dying are better than the odds of him being removed. I see zero chance that Republicans would ever remove him, and their help would be needed.
No. It proves the statement I made. Half the country is below the median. Half the country is not doing better than inflation. Median means median. We need to do better than the median.
If the median is higher than it was, and has risen faster/higher than prices have, then yes - people are doing better than they were. That does not mean they could not be doing better, or that there are not areas on which we need to focus on (like housing costs). It's just a factual reality that must be acknowledged, and when you don't acknowledge where we actually are it makes talking about actual policy needs more difficult.
Probably has something to do with your age. I just got a $1500/month decrease in income by the end of the year because of the 50 basis point decrease in the Fed rate. And inflation will continue to decrease my purchasing power. There are always winners and losers when economic policies change.
Regarding the hand count in Georgia elections. I am a pollworker in GA. I'm a poll manager and we have ALWAYS hand counted. My understanding of the election boards hand count rule is that every precinct will hand count the same way. We will not be hand countingby each race and question, including the presidential race. The only time we will count a particular race is if that race is contested. Handcounting is nothing new. Handcounting contested races is nothing new. . It's just that how it is done will be uniform across the state.
Every precinct and county already does handcount the same way. That's part of the GEC regulations and training materials. The question here is not how handcounts are done. The new rule requires all county election officials to perform a handcount to the totals of all precinct and voting machines to ensure the ballot counts are right BEFORE certifying results to the SOS. This is currently NOT done and never has been done unless there is a discrepancy in the tapes generated by the ballot scanners vs the card totals (maintained by SOS or manual count) and the voting machine tabulations. If those matched and reconciled, the county election official is REQUIRED to certify the results. The GEC now says they must also perform a handcount at the precinct level, which was only performed if there's a discrepancy. As a poll manager, you should know this, as you've done it. The handcount is likely to INTRODUCE more error and uncertainty into the results than solve it if the other numbers already agree. It requires opening the sealed scanner boxes BEFORE certification, which is against state election law (OCGA 183-1-12-.12). The GEC exceeded its authority and will cause county election officials (who are sworn poll officers) to violate state law. This is what AG Chris Carr has said. Any county that attempts to comply with the GEC rule will have to declare an emergency situation (which is allowed by state law), or face a Writ of Mandamus forcing certification. Declaring an emergency when no actual discrepancy exists is cause for removal.
I have difficulty seeing how Trump would be constrained in the White House with a Supreme Court that says that presidents exercising official powers have absolute immunity and congressional Republicans who reject any and every attempt to hold him accountable.
Another day dawns and I would still vote for Harris (D grade candidate) over (the (F grade) Trump. I will take that test every day until November. GOP will never fit back into the pre-Trump foot print. Expect the nation will survive either candidate winning. Agree that some political figures of stature need to survive for a post Trump GOP. A replacement party is a bottoms up process and not a top down instant solution.
I don’t expect the GOP to go away. There will always be some form of opposition party and the obstacles to starting a new party are nearly insurmountable. It’s more a question of what the GOP will be and who will lead it.
What's needed is a party based on American conservativism, and that's not going to be the GOP.
Agreed. The Republican Party was able to be born out of opposition to slavery within the Whig party. Can the same be accomplished from the fracture of today’s GOP?
"I, along with around half the country, would take the years 2017-2019 over 2021-2024. Things cost less, mortgages were cheap, jobs were plentiful for those who wanted them, and if you didn’t pay attention to Washington, D.C., things weren’t that crazy."
Seems like an apples-to-oranges comparison where you give Trump a pass on stuff happening because of the COVID pandemic (I'll agree that it wasn't his fault), but saddle Biden with all the stuff that happened as a result of the pandemic. (Was a broken supply chain his fault?)
I'm curious how you think 2021 - 2024 would have played out under Trump and whether THAT would have been preferable to what we got from Biden.
And of course gives Trump a pass on his poor decision making and failure to take the pandemic as a serious issue affecting Americans. Hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been prevented.
What about the ones in New York nursing homes? Blame Trump for that?
Ah, resorting to good ol' whataboutism. Thanks for showing that you're not going to actually bother to be honest about Trump's failures.
Interesting comment Steve. Here's the difference between the two parties: When a democrat is found culpable for their actions, they resign or are replaced. When a republican does it, they run him as president. Hope that helps.
That would introduce a counterfactual. The comparison is apples to apples in the sense of both periods happened regardless of who was in the White House. The fact that Trump wasn’t worked to his favor politically. Perhaps it would have been worse with Trump. But if he won in 2020, I can tell you it would be better right now in one important way: Trump would not be running and the GOP would be promoting someone else. And that person would likely not be another Trump. (Black Swans don’t repeat.)
Then the comparison makes less sense.
We don't elect Presidents on the basis of their good fortune to have been in office at some interval, but on their ability to handle challenges down the road. On that front, even if material circumstances had me preferring the Trump years (those have largely been constant or improving since the beginning of the Obama presidency), I'd still be thankful that it was Biden in office managing the COVID recovery than Trump's daily circus.
I get that I'm an outlier when it comes to incorporating actual relevant context into my view of these things, which makes me wonder where we're failing on this point in teaching folks critical thinking skills.
"I along with around half the country, would take the years 2017-2019 over 2021-2024. Things cost less, mortgages were cheap, jobs were plentiful for those who wanted them, and if you didn’t pay attention to Washington, D.C., things weren’t that crazy."
Where the heck were YOU living in 2017? Fantasyland? I remember waking up with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every morning wondering "What fresh hell awaits us today?" I even took to checking my phone when I woke up in the middle of the night to see if he nuked Russia, or Tweeted something that triggered another riot. It was just one damn thing after another - every single day! There was so much drama that you'd forget after a week because 3 more terrible things had happened in the meantime.
You say jobs were plentiful then? Jobs are plentiful NOW! We just don't have enough people to fill them! And why is that? Because Trump and his followers put a stop to legal immigration. Things cost less? Yes, they did. But that had nothing to do with Trump. Inflation came as a result of the hot recovery and pent up demand from a worldwide pandemic that screwed up the supply chain. And things are still bad! My warehouse is practically empty. Our sales are down because we can't get product. You know what happens when supply can't meet demand? PRICES GO UP! And the Fed raised interest rates to try to bring down the inflation everyone is bitching about! That's like complaining about the chemo the doctors gave you to cure your cancer. Sure, it sucks, but you have to do it.
But the real question is: what do you think Donald Trump is going to do to make any of this better? Tariffs! Let's double our already too high prices! Because prices on imports will go up, and domestic manufacturers will raise theirs to match. Then there will be the inevitable retaliation tariffs on OUR exports, which will hit our farmers (like they did last time) who we will then have to spend money to bail out. Then the mass deportations will start. Then everything will grind to a halt. If we don't have enough workers NOW, what will we do THEN? Mandatory child labor? Not to mention the massive costs.
Finally, the only reason the whole Trump administration didn't go completely in the ditch was because Trump was surrounded by mostly sane help. Pence. McConnell. Ryan. None of those guys will be around next time. You think JD Vance will give wise counsel? And McConnell and Ryan won't be in charge of the Republicans in Congress. You think Secretary of State Tucker Carlson is going to keep supporting Ukraine? What will it be like with Vivek Ramaswamy at Commerce and RFK Jr at HHS? Hilarious!
We BARELY survived the first round. I have ZERO interest in a Trump 2.0.
Merrie, that’s not the way many people see those years. Plus, there is a near zero percent chance (I won’t say zero because nothing is impossible) that Vivek or Tucker Carlson will ever serve in government in a meaningful way. They would never be confirmed by the Senate. Trump would be hamstrung from day one. In any case, Trump is going to lose and we will have months of whining and more bad candidates and the end of the GOP.
Remember the "Acting" positions that Trump used to avoid Senate confirmation?
Brilliant Merrie and thank you. Those fond remembrances are foolishness at best. Ya, but the price of eggs and gas were lower. Indeed they were as trump rode out the Obama recovery. The truth is by 2019 the economy was slowing down (check the job growth that year if you doubt me) as the tariffs, bailouts and forced lower interest rates were having an impact.
The real measure of his 4 years (including 2020) was the insanity that came with his presidency. Sure his legions loved the crazy, but the vast majority of the "normal" folks saw it and simply asked; "really?" Thank God he was surrounded by kind of a normal staff who tried to keep him from self-immolating.
The problem was they couldn't keep his pudgy little fingers off his phone. Every day twitter exploded revealing how little he knew or understood about one of the hardest jobs in the world. When the pandemic hit, we all saw how grossly unfit he was. He still is and should never be anywhere near the White House.
But, don't be too hard on Steve. I saw the other day he follows A B Stoddard, so maybe there is hope. She, by the way, is sheer genius. I guess maybe it is time to let women get out of the kitchen and take on the heavy lifting (said with a smirk and knowing they've been doing it for more years than i can count).
Let me end this way Merrie: Amen sister, amen.
What's the likelihood of Trump being removed or dying and then JD Vance being POTUS? We really should be talking more about him and his views.
I continue to think it's a mistake to conflate the GOP with conservatism: conservatives in the American tradition aren't welcome in the GOP, and are not likely to be welcomed again. Those that are staying are concerned with their own political prospects, abandoning their principles in the pursuit of power. That means they are no longer conservatives, or perhaps they never were.
So, what is best for conservatism and its principles?
I would vote for Chris Sununu again if he were running for office in 2024. Not requiring every Republican to shipwreck their political career over Trump. But true I would not vote for an election denier Or a candidate that trumps Jan 6 as nothing or politics as usaual.
I understand the thinking, but I disagree: I think it's very telling that Sununu/et al would compromise their principles for their political careers. He knows Trump is poison, knows that what the GOP wants is anathema to his principles - and goes along regardless.
Perhaps there's some evidence otherwise.
I understand the thinking but I can tolerate Republicans that want to stay in the party to counter the Trump wing when the party hits bottom. Not saying I would myself stay. But as a voter, I am not going to hold it against them. The group on the whole is a small one at that.
A shame that for such a small group that the majority of the party does not overrule, minimize, and ultimately stamp them out.
Agreed
Same. Haley too. And John Cornyn, Paul Ryan, to name a few.
The odds of him dying are better than the odds of him being removed. I see zero chance that Republicans would ever remove him, and their help would be needed.
Their own party
Correct! Give this man a Kewpie doll.
It'd also be great to note that 2021-2024 has seen:
— Higher prime age employment rate
— Incomes rose more than prices
— Productivity and real output are up
Whose income? Not mine. Or most of the people I know. Perhaps I should have learned to code. (Wait, I can code!)
Steve, you know that your personal situation is not indicative of the median - and how the median works.
Please: you're better than this.
(Also, I do not code: still making more than I did in 2017-2023)
No. It proves the statement I made. Half the country is below the median. Half the country is not doing better than inflation. Median means median. We need to do better than the median.
If the median is higher than it was, and has risen faster/higher than prices have, then yes - people are doing better than they were. That does not mean they could not be doing better, or that there are not areas on which we need to focus on (like housing costs). It's just a factual reality that must be acknowledged, and when you don't acknowledge where we actually are it makes talking about actual policy needs more difficult.
But people don’t vote that way.
What does that have to do with how you talk/write about it?
Probably has something to do with your age. I just got a $1500/month decrease in income by the end of the year because of the 50 basis point decrease in the Fed rate. And inflation will continue to decrease my purchasing power. There are always winners and losers when economic policies change.
Proof please
Prime age employment ratio: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYZ36iYaMAQmOVI?format=jpg&name=medium
Real GDP (e.g. adjusted for inflation): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYaCthtbAAAJ6ZP?format=jpg&name=small
Productivity: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB
Regarding the hand count in Georgia elections. I am a pollworker in GA. I'm a poll manager and we have ALWAYS hand counted. My understanding of the election boards hand count rule is that every precinct will hand count the same way. We will not be hand countingby each race and question, including the presidential race. The only time we will count a particular race is if that race is contested. Handcounting is nothing new. Handcounting contested races is nothing new. . It's just that how it is done will be uniform across the state.
Every precinct and county already does handcount the same way. That's part of the GEC regulations and training materials. The question here is not how handcounts are done. The new rule requires all county election officials to perform a handcount to the totals of all precinct and voting machines to ensure the ballot counts are right BEFORE certifying results to the SOS. This is currently NOT done and never has been done unless there is a discrepancy in the tapes generated by the ballot scanners vs the card totals (maintained by SOS or manual count) and the voting machine tabulations. If those matched and reconciled, the county election official is REQUIRED to certify the results. The GEC now says they must also perform a handcount at the precinct level, which was only performed if there's a discrepancy. As a poll manager, you should know this, as you've done it. The handcount is likely to INTRODUCE more error and uncertainty into the results than solve it if the other numbers already agree. It requires opening the sealed scanner boxes BEFORE certification, which is against state election law (OCGA 183-1-12-.12). The GEC exceeded its authority and will cause county election officials (who are sworn poll officers) to violate state law. This is what AG Chris Carr has said. Any county that attempts to comply with the GEC rule will have to declare an emergency situation (which is allowed by state law), or face a Writ of Mandamus forcing certification. Declaring an emergency when no actual discrepancy exists is cause for removal.