CNN reports that 92% of Republicans say Donald Trump's time in office was a success. Some of that is just MAGA cultists, but before you roll your eyes, take a look at Trump's term through even a normie conservative lens:
- Banned travel from various, mostly Muslim, countries.
- Killed Obama's Iran nuclear treaty.
- Pulled out of the Paris climate treaty.
- Appointed hundreds of conservative judges, including three to the Supreme Court.
- Tried to gut Obamacare, and successfully repealed the individual mandate.
- Moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
- Brokered the Abraham Accords.
- Passed a big tax cut.
- Got tough on illegal immigration.
- Established Operation Warp Speed to produce a COVID vaccine in record time.
- Told Europe to make good on their NATO commitments.
- Instituted big tariffs on China.
- Fought against DEI, CRT, and other forms of wokeness.
- Put in place an order that required the repeal of two regulations for every new one. Generally deregulated vast swaths of industry.
- Launched a worldwide push against using Chinese 5G technology from Huawei and others.
- Consistently supported religious rights.
- Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and declared an end to multilateral trade deals.
- Passed USMCA, a replacement for NAFTA.
- Approved oil pipelines, fracking, offshore drilling, new coal leases, LNG exports, and opened ANWR. Killed Obama's Clean Power Plan as well as several other big environmental regulations.
- Revoked most of Obama's policies that had opened up engagement with Cuba. Withdrew most personnel from the embassy in Havana.
- Established the Space Force.
- Fought relentlessly against Democratic efforts to steal the 2020 election.
- Before COVID hit, oversaw three years of strong economic growth, low inflation, rising wages, and low unemployment.
Sure, there was also lots of buffoonish behavior, bombastic talk, paranoid rants, and embarrassing ignorance. Even a lot of Republicans weren't happy about that stuff. But hey, in the end it was mostly harmless, amirite? And look at what he actually did in office. He saved us from four more years of liberals destroying the country.
USMCA is not a replacement for NAFTA; it's a package of amendments to NAFTA.
True. But when have conservatives cared about Truth?
Man, not nearly enough sarcasm indicators in this post. The humorless lefty patrol is gonna shred you. 😛
What sarcasm?
As a conservative who agrees with most of your points here I would only object to a few:
1. The Muslim travel ban was a stupidity - Muslims are among our strongest allies fighting the Jihadis because they are under the greatest threat. Banning travel from our Muslim allies is just stupid. There should be increased vetting though, especially of social media histories - even our Muslim allies have plenty of home grown nut jobs who we should not allow in.
2. TPP withdrawal was also stupid. It was a gift to China and trade unions. That is one campaign promise Trump should have reneged on.
Other than these, yes. And this is why I and so many other Americans (apparently a majority if we believe the polls) will vote for Trump in November.
Many of the items on that list were incredibly stupid. And #22? Maybe better described as collective mental illness?
I don't understand how you can read this blog and make this post, does 95% of what KD writes just zip right over your head? This is cognitive dissonance on the level of a Schoenberg symphony.
Nice analogy. But with Schoenberg, cognitive dissonance produces emotional disturbance. With MAGA, emotional disturbance results in cognitive dissonance.
Also unlike Schoenberg, you can't just turn it off.
I can read Kevin without agreeing with his politics.
I know this concept is alien to the modern American left. We on the right still believe it.
Unfortunately Kevin's dead on with this post. It's a really clear headed view of what a lot of Trump fans think.
Dead on, except he left out Trump's single most important accomplishment: he made America great again.
Don't forget he built that wall and the Mexicans paid for it.
And Infrastructure Week! and health care that would cost a pittance!
Its disturbing that in 2024, anyone would do an "eye roll" that an actual voting Republican is not 92% likely to agree with Trump.
How did he get 70 million votes twice? There is this theme among Dem libs that "if only" people really understood what an idiot Trump is and what stupid things would happen and did happen when he was elected, that they would not vote for him.
They may not get this 23 list, but 4, 8 and being an asshole to liberals encompasses most of his base.
Of course 92% agree. That's what they want.
Nailed it !
Bold of you to assume that most Republican view Operation Warp Speed as a good thing.
Yeah, I think he needs to remove that one as a positive amongst the cult.
Will never not be hilarious seeing Trump get booed by his fans when trying to claim credit for Operation Warp Speed during a speech.
I'm mostly presenting this as a list of things that probably appeal to normie Republicans who might otherwise be repelled by Trump's boorish behavior.
Not sure there are many “normie” Republicans left. If there are, why didn’t DeSantis or Haley do better in the primaries?
And I agree. I consider myself a "normie" republican. I am not a Trump fan but I am thankful for most of the items you listed. I'm not voting for Trump this time since he tried to overthrow our government. But me not supporting him is in spite of his accomplishments while in office, not because of them.
#16 ought to be "Consistently supported Christian rights".
Nope. Also Jewish, Muslim, etc.
Trump loves Muslims? Who knew? Who could tell?
He did refer to Sisi (Egypt) as "my favorite dictator".
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-awaiting-egyptian-counterpart-at-summit-called-out-for-my-favorite-dictator-11568403645
Yes. And if you have spent any time in the Arab world you will understand that democracies in these countries would be short lived disasters for everyone including their own citizens. The only possible exception is Morocco.
Just so long as they understand this is a “Christian” country and are willing to submit to him.
Muslims in Michigan are supporting Trump because they see Biden as too pro-Israel. How they haven't noticed that Trump says Biden isn't pro-Israel enough, I dunno.
They don’t care. All they want is revenge against Biden. Even this doesn’t move them:
“In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests would be canceled. U.S. consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html
"I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!!!"
I keep shaking my head at that logic. So Muslims want to vote against Biden, resulting in . . . . POTUS Trump 2024. How's THAT going to work for Muslims???
I think that when emotional disgust reaches a certain level, logic flies out the window.
You don't spend much time in the Middle East.
Among the professional class here (which is different than the educated class - part of the problem) Trump is very popular. He is seem as someone with clarity of vision, a clear understanding of who America's friends and enemies are, and the courage to execute based on that.
These are qualities the Arabs in charge value. For example, none of them like Israel but they know they need Israel. You works be amazed how many people in the Middle East have told me how impressed and surprised they are that Biden is standing by Israel after abandoning Afghanistan. Then they all ask how they can figure out if their country is one he and other Democrats would stand behind or abandon. They have no such worries about Trump.
Their biggest worry is some kind of grand bargain with Iran that leaves them unprotected from Tehran. The only country that the KNOW will stand with them in that case is Israel. That is why they helped protect Israel from the recent Iranian attack. Democrats seen to want that bargain. Trump obviously does not.
Ummm...he supported Muslim's rights to be banned from travel to the US??
I'm a lifelong Liberal democrat. In the words of Harold Bloom, I wouldn't vote for a Republican dogcatcher. And yet I am completely in favor of this item from the list of Trump's accomplishments:
"Fought against DEI, CRT, and other forms of wokeness."
Good for him. Trump has also stated that he will remove DEI from the federal bureaucracy if re-elected, and I'm glad that at least that one good will (probably) happen if he wins.
And there's another step that Trump's admin took which I approve of, though I'm not sure if Kevin mentions it. From CNN a few years back:
"Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday formally announced new protections for those accused of campus sexual harassment and assault, a controversial move that upends Obama-era guidance she had argued denied due process to the accused.
"The changes, which critics argue may discourage victims from coming forward, include provisions under the federal law Title IX that allow those accused of harassment or assault to question evidence and cross-examine their accusers."
Denying due process to the accused (in the context described above) remains one of the great stains on Obama's record.
Amazingly, Biden is now repeating the same mistake. And I say this as a fairly consistent Biden fan: his assault on due process is enough to make me reconsider voting for him;
Unfortunately, he's running against Trump.
So that's the choice we face in this Presidential election. The Republicans have nominated an entirely unfit conman facing multiple felony charges who has no respect for our constitution or international commitments. The Dems have nominated someone who abandons due process and promotes censorship (in the form of DEI) in order to placate a far Left sect of illiberal lunatics.
And that's quite a choice. Probably the worst of my lifetime.
"lifelong Liberal democrat"
Suuuuuuuure you are.
@Bosh:
Is there anything in my post above that leads you to doubt my assertion that I'm a lifelong Liberal Democrat?
I am promoting due process and free speech. Those are very much Liberal values.
And whether we like it or not, those values have come under sharp and sustained attack from an illiberal and yet influential faction of Leftists.
Sigh... you really don't get it, do you?
If those are important values to you you need to consider joining us Republicans. Come to the dark side, Leo1008!
Sure. You think it's reasonable to fight against diversity, education, and inclusion. And you think Critical Race Theory is a thing. That makes you an illiberal hypocrit.
@ illilillili:
DEI has little if anything to do with Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion.
It is, rather, a fundamentalist ideology that promotes equal outcomes in direct opposition to the inevitable inequalities of a free society.
It disparages liberal tolerance and insists that any dissenters (heretics) be excommunicated (cancelled).
It is, in effect, a dangerous cult of ideological extremists. And if our open society is to survive, its influence must be curtailed.
DEI is training on how not to be racist, sexist etc.
It doesn't promote equal outcomes. It promotes equal opportunities.
Maybe that's really what you're against?
I notice they always have to use "DEI" as an abstraction, because when you demand they show you an actual example of what they object to, they stammer and stutter and change the subject.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Such a cancer on the country and harms companies so much that Trump's own Truth Social has diversity and inclusion policies.
👍👍👍Really, a lifelong what????
So a few students may not have had a proper defense in a non-judicial proceeding. But you’re not bothered by the violation of the civil rights of the demonstrators at Lafayette Square, who were tear-gassed and manhandled despite demonstrating peacefullly?
@KenSchulz
LOL. Straw men don't get stuffed full of more straw than that.
You're inventing an adversary who is "not bothered by the violation of the civil rights of the demonstrators at Lafayette Square," and then you're pretending that person is me.
Well, I understand that President Biden didn't put a chocolate on your pillow last night either. Damn him.
So - you are considering voting for a lying, pu**y-grabbing, serial wife cheating, tax cheating, lying POS as a better option?
IF you are a "liberal Democrat" (not likely) - there is no choice between the absolute piece of criminal trash (Trump if you didn't figure that out) and a slightly imperfect really good man who is currently president.
Leo is using the 'But I have black friends' routine. Let him dodder along.
So what you are saying is that on one hand you have DEI, and a Betsy DeVos (!!!) decision reversed by Biden. On the other hand we have ‘an entirely unfit conman facing multiple felony charges who has no respect for our constitution….’. And you, a lifelong Liberal Democrat, think Biden versus Trump is the worst presidential choice of your lifetime and may reconsider voting for him? Talk about cognitive dissonance. In reality, this is the easiest choice in the history of the United States. If you really are a liberal ‘fairly consistent Biden fan’ it is people like you who are the reason Democrats have a hard time winning elections. We all disagree with some decisions or policies of presidents we support. No politician alive can perfectly match everyone’s policy preferences but to also deliver on them with no compromise. Republicans almost unanimously plan to vote for Trump even though everything about him repulses them. Do you really think Trump and his judges will be better on due process in general? Sure they will be great on protecting due process for Trump himself and other rape defendants, and wealthy defendants will certainly count on getting all the due process money can buy. But you don’t have to be very smart to see what their attitude is for other types of defendants.
You don't have to be smarter than a fifth grader to be skeptical of your own assumptions. You just have to be as smart as a fifth grader. In your case, you may have been as smart as a fifth grader, but you're heading away from there in the wrong direction.
Let's say wokeness is bad and Trump fought against wokeness, but what do these bad woke people if not say, in word and/or in deed, "I'm right, your wrong, and this conversation is over." Children from good families have stopped doing that by the time they reach fifth grade. Adults behaving that way is a problem. Your solution to immaturity is to take an enabled five-year-old in an old man's body and once again make him the most powerful person on the planet. Brilliant.
And your criticism of President Biden is that he's not the kind of person that, in word or in deed, tells people he disagrees with "I'm right, you're wrong, and this conversation is over."
Again, you're heading in the wrong direction my friend. Wake up and smell the coffee or you'll find yourself on the conquered side of the Republican Party's divide and conquer strategy.
"And I say this as a fairly consistent Biden fan: his assault on due process is enough to make me reconsider voting for him;"
This was a major reason I didn't vote for Biden in 2020 since this was a campaign promise of his. (I didn't vote for Trump either.)
Leo, in comment sections such as this one, any deviation from party orthodoxy is not allowed. We all march in lockstep here and never, ever disagree with each other over anything.
Same with the dated, no longer relevant, aging white-male blogosphere that hosts the comments - they are all required to say the same thing as each other and never, ever, ever disagree with each other over anything.
If one could ignore everything else, either withdrawing from the Iran nuclear treaty, or the anti-environmental, climate-change accelerating actions is more than reason enough to vote against TFG. But that presumes the ability to reason.
Here's the problem: This isn't about policy, it's about whether or not we want liberal democracy to survive or to go with Russia's illiberal democracy (which ostensibly looks like a democracy-- elections! -- but really isn't).
Whenever people bring up policy, it's a tool to alleviate cognitive dissonance on what's really at stake. One after another, Republicans are lining up to use this tool being trotted out by none other than liberals looking to make this "a fight on policy and oh yeah Trump is crazy", only to have it flung back at liberals as "yeah, this is fight on policy so it's okay if Trump is crazy".
Do you see clearly, now?
If we make this about policy, we give Republicans an excuse to ignore the threat to liberal democracy.
+100
Talking about Trump's policies completely misses the point. He is going to destroy democracy.
You're right. This is about culture. But what is culture if not the glue that holds society together? So it's a battle between cultures. The MAGA Republican Party is promoting the idea that civilization depends on handing the levers of power to a small number of superior individuals. Their culture holds that small group together. The rest of us are just opportunities to be exploited, threats to be neutralized and otherwise utterly irrelevant. The Democratic Party is promoting a different idea, which is basically: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty AND justice for all."
+100 to quote David Roth, policy and Trump are like a house cat and a Rubik’s cube - they may be at the same place at the same time, but that doesn’t mean they have anything to do with each other.
Voting for Trump is always going to be a choice based on the id. What he does is unleash white people’s inner douche bro.
Cutting taxes for the wealthy and the corps.
Giving away our intelligence secrets to foreign powers.
Kissing the rings of autocrats around the world.
Setting his daughter up with Chinese IP.
Setting his son in law up with Saudi money for years to come.
Encouraging racism xenophobia and ethnocentricism among our population.
Discouraging efforts at even minimal gun control.
I'll go with ABORTION for 2,000.
So... You're saying conservatives are fascists?
if it quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck and looks like a duck, chances are it's a duck
Conservatives are not fascists. A conservative is like a progressive in that both are open minded and skeptical. A conservative is unlike a progressive in that the former is more skeptical than open minded, and the latter is more open minded and less skeptical.
The MAGA Republican Party is neither open minded nor skeptical. Instead, it is cynical and naive -- and thus too far to the right to be conservative. A conservative position is between 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock. The MAGA Republican Party's position is at 6 o'clock.
An excellent summary, Jim Carey. Dwight Eisenhower was a conservative. Everett Dirkson was a conservative. Mitch McConnel was a conservative way-back-when, before he caved in to the need to placate the MAGA wing at the cost of his principles.
Maga Republicans are not conservatives. They haven't the faintest idea what the name "Conservative" even means. They are not ideologues, any more than the worshipers of Baal were during the time of Moses. (Ref: the section titled "Israelite Opposition" in the Wikipedia article on Baal.) They were simply blindly following the crowd, just like today's MAGAnuts.
Yeah. This is the problem. Most things don’t matter to people. I remember hating trump in 2019, but admitting he hadn’t really screwed anything up yet. He and his supporters are just mean and nasty people. And there are lots of them. I’m not particularly interested in helping them so the typical Democratic Party agenda isn’t very useful right now. No one really cares. And the fact that so many are obsessed with a religious war halfway around the world is a bad look.
A while back, someone here wrote that when Americans elected trump, the gods punished us by sending a plague. 😂. So there’s that.
If you didn't notice the Trump administration screwing things up, you weren't paying attention, maybe because you don't care. News bulletin: some people care. You'll care too if you find yourself in the crosshairs of an authoritarian regime.
What was his admin screwing up? Of course republican presidents will do things democrats don't like and vice versa. I assume that by "screwing up" you mean something beyond policies that are unpopular to the other party.
Tax breaks that benefit a small number of people that already have more money than they need while unnecessarily increasing the country's debt to historic levels, promoting ideas that cost Herman Cain and countless others their lives, demonizing immigrants in lieu of addressing legitimate issues related to immigration, continuously saying they were going to address the country's crumbling infrastructure while otherwise doing precisely nothing.
It would be a lot easier to say what they didn't screw up. If they were influencing anything, they were screwing it up. If something good happened, it was because they didn't care about it ... except to take credit for in hindsight.
The Democrats are imperfectly engaging in political practice, which is serving the group at the expense of its subjects. The subjects pay in the short term, but they benefit in the long term from the group's strength.
The Republicans are committing political malpractice, which is serving a subject at the expense of the group. The subject benefits in the short term by weakening the group, and all the group's subjects suffer in the long term due to the group's weakness.
Voting for President Biden is to politics what visiting a doctor is to your health. Voting for Citizen Donald is to politics what visiting you neighborhood drug dealer is to your health.
Your first sentence is an example of policy that you just don't like. And what you said is not true. The vast majority (something like 90%, if I remember correctly) of taxpayers benefitted from the tax cuts. Saying they benefitted only a small number of people is flatly false. And you saying "more money than they need" is about as stupid as it gets. First, because, as I said, the vast majority of people were able to keep more of their income. Second, who are you to say how much money people need? You can never have too much. My wife and I make decent livings but are not wealthy and need to scrimp and save. I'm sure some people would think we have a lot of money but the couple hundred dollars a month of our income we were able to keep because of the tax cuts greatly benefitted us.
Dems need to admit that outside a super majority and owing all three houses, their promise of a tax hike “only on the ultra rich”, is well intentioned but only holds up for the "proposed bill". After PAC lobbyists are done, all the Have More's tax loopholes are still in place. You get an extra $200, Romney gets an extra $2M, so guess who gets the bill for the revenue shortfall?
Follow the (K-St) money
The struggle with income, we save a couple hundred dollars a month tax math does not work. About $30/month if in the second quintile in 2025. $76/mo. in middle quintile. $5,091/mo. if in top 1%. If you are getting $200/mo. that would place you in the 80-85 percentile. Congratulations for being a rich person. Sorry you can't manage your largess.
He was blatantly incompetent at all times. If you weren't paying attention that's your fault.
As Obama found out, steering the ship of state is like steering an aircraft carrier--it's not going to turn on a dime.
McConnell wanted Obama to be a one term president, so gummed up everything...then kept at that after Obama's re-election. There was never a chance to re-visit a stimulus package to get back on track after the 2008 great recession. Even with those constraints, Obama was able to do a lot right. Just cleaning up the basic functioning of government, though certainly not perfect, was a huge deal. The Bush years left things in a bit of a shambles, what with putting people in charge of departments that they thought should not exist.
The net effect was once the Republicans got the White House, and start spending like drunken sailors, the economy was poised to take off due to Obama's policies.
The average Republican couldn't list more than three of these. They are voting with their racist cult that just wants to poke Libs in the eye above all else.
Yes, as opposed to all those high information democrat voters in the inner cities who can rattle off all of the Biden admisntration accomplishments.
This is a stupid comment for several reasons: it's badly written, it's vaguely racist, it uses "democrat" instead of "Democratic", and it demonstrates a pointless cultishness.
That is, he did two categories of things, one more than the other.
(1) standard Republican pro-business pro-wealthy stuff: tax cuts, deregulation, spending on the military, judges (for the most part)
(2) now-standard Republican hatemongering: bashed immigrants (legal or not), Muslims and non-Christianists generally, LGBTQ folk, and most of all, that blackety-black-black Obama and all his Obama stuff.
In other words, a reprise of the Southern aristocracy: take everything for themselves, and give the poor White man overt displays of bigotry.
Ladies and Gentlemen, your modern Republican Party: handouts for the rich, and hatred for everyone other than heteronormative Christianist Whites.
That's Nixon's "Southern Strategy"! Who knew it would be effective for so long! (Depressing, isn't it?)
.. and cancel democracy.
We can't stop the MAGA Republican Party from referring to itself as pro-Christian, but we can recognize that to be a Christian is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that the MAGA Republican Party is thus as anti-Christian as it gets.
I am not a practicing Christian, but I can tell the difference between a real Christian and a hypocrite. The thing I can't do is overstate how important it is that we all make that distinction.
This is why I use the term "Christianist," like "Islamist" terrorists who carry out terrible anti-Islamic acts claiming they are in the name of Islam. It's all form and no substance. MAGAts are for the most part Christianists -- always proclaiming their Christianity and love of Jesus VERY publicly, and then overtly disparaging, in word and deed, love of your neighbor, assisting the needy, etc. It's contemptible.
Articulated as one of my favorite bumper stickers
The Christian Right
Is Neither
People want what they want, and then they look for justification for their decisions.
When I was a kid, I thought that the world was divided between the good Capitalists and the bad Communists.
Once I traveled around a bit, I decided that the world was divided between countries where men were above the law, and countries where the law was above men.
I now think that I was giving people too much credit for rational thought. Everyone seems to be run by their limbic system, which appeared around the time that mammals evolved, informed by early childhood experiences of safety or of bullying.
The world is divided between people who want a strong, authoritarian father figure to govern their lives, tell them what to think and do, and punish the wicked, and those people who think that society's laws should bind and protect everyone, equally.
When I'm feeling scared and threatened, I find myself in the first camp. When I find myself feeling safe and able to think rationally, I want to be in the second group.
... informed by early childhood experiences of safety or of bullying.
I had the same thought. When I'm in caring-for-other-people mode (note to "conservatives": it's a librul thing, you might not understand), I often think that at least some of what motivates a lot of "conservatives' " hatred is fear: fear of people or situations that aren't familiar, that look or sound different, or that require unfamiliar concepts or other knowledge, and that consequently are scary and evoke an irrational -- although arguably evolutionarily justified -- hostility that has its roots in childhood and that isn't sufficiently (or at all) mitigated by adult rationality.
When you're in a caring for other people mode, you're practicing wisdom. When you stop practicing wisdom, you stop caring. There are many wisdom practices including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, science, capitalism, etc. People who have stopped caring are not practicing Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, science, or capitalism. The Republican Party has stopped caring about any of those things. Thank God for President Biden.
I don't think even one conservative person in a hundred could name even half of the things on that list.
We've talked before about how the vast majority of people aren't tuned into politics, and that goes for the MAGA folk as well.
Trump didn't rise to power by talking about issues or policy. He rose by appealing to raw tribal affiliation, grievance and resentment.
To the extent that one conservative person can name some of those issues, it is only in service to the politics of resentment.
24. The friend of authoritarian regimes around the world, and the defacto thrall of at least one of them.
The great conservative ideological split is between the authoritarian and anti-authoritarian factions, and the authoritarians are in control.
100% Kevin. A few of these, like the cancellation of the Iran nuclear deal, weren't big issues with Republican voters until Donnie made them issues.
"He just said it, and they believe him!."
Can add a few more wonderful accomplishments that are so beloved by so called "normal" Republicans:
Lying about our National Security by declaring that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1J915T/
Calling US soldiers "suckers and losers"
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-confirms-trump-privately-disparaged-us-service-members-vete-rcna118543
And when Iran develops a nuclear weapon earlier than they would have but for the treaty Il Duce shit canned, conservatives can also thank him.
He managed about 30,000 lies during the 4 years of his first term. I'm sure he will
surpass that number if he wins a second term.
Is there some number of lies that, tallying less than means its an aberration, and exceeding it means something different? Most people recognize that lying means you can't trust any damn thing that comes after. If TFG is re-elected, his relentless lying will be meaningless because he'll just do what he wants, what anyone other than his MAGAstans think about it won't matter.
I can see that #1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 22 definitely improved the lives of the Perpetually Economically Anxious, either economically* or socially.** Totally worth it that we give the PEAs maximum electoral power through House gerrymandering and Senate equal apportionment by state, and then compound that power through the Electoral College and selection of SCOTUS judges. Thanks again, Founding Fathers!
*their alleged cri de cœur
**their actual "anxieties," as demonstrated by their observed behavior even when economically doing just fine
Sidebar: has any group of men managed to irrevocably fuck shit up for their own country for so many years after their deaths, solely by their choices and actions they made while they were alive?
I would think the British Empire is a strong contender, but they've managed to mostly - Brexit excepted - fuck shit up for other countries while (whilst?) leaving their own country largely unscathed... and it took multiple generations for British leaders to really fuck up the world. (Oh hi Israelis and Palestinians both promised the same piece of land! Oh hi Hong Kongers promised One Country Two Systems not that long ago!) I guess the whole island of Ireland is another thing the Brits irrevocably fucked up, even before Brexiting brought that back to the forefront.
But the FF really have to be up there on liberty-for-all's shit list with writing a binding document that has proved nearly impossible to update and created a system of governance which practically guarantees most people will be disenfranchised to some degree on every issue important to them while empowering the most ignorant among us to rule one of the only two allowable political parties forever and potentially imploding the entire thing, and then calling the whole thing "democracy!"* Kudos to you, FFs for fucking us over, almost two and half centuries later!
*Several FFs are quoted as calling the US a "democracy" so preemptive Fuck You to any "we're a republic not a democracy" pedantics out there.
+1 Especially for that last remark - it also reminds me of the people here in Virginia who "correct" me if I refer to this place as a state, rather thsn a commonwealth, as if there aren't 50 states & 50 stars on our flag representing them. It is doubtful that most of my critics know the names of the other three commonwealth states, or the insignificance of their objection to their refusal to call a commonwealth state simply a state. One very young man also "informed" me that I was wrong about something else: saying "the United States." Like a good proponent of "states' rights," he claimed that our nation is rightfully named "these United States." Difficult to please such people, or even talk with them. And then there are the folks with Gadsden plates - the "Liberty for me, but not for thee" crowd.
You are a little too harsh on th FF.
They were acting 250 years, withot any expeience or example of a proper democracy, and with slave states that didn't accept human equality.
The assassination of Soleimani and the attempted installation of Guaidó as Venezuela's president were too bipartisan of accomplishments to list as part of the focus of conservatives.
He failed at (22)...and I prefer a president who did NOT have an election stolen from them. I mean, how incompetent do you have to be for that to happen. After all, Trump had the power of the entire federal government at his disposal; yet, Biden just swoops in and steals the election right from under his nose. That dark Brandon is pretty damn crafty!
Did various things that took the national debt from about $20 trillion to $28 trillion.
This both 1) explains the good GOP economy (life is always nice with unlimited credit cards) and 2) shows how different he is from the old Paul Ryan/Mitt Romney Republicans. Key point of similarity with those old guard types is that he used the open-spigot credit card to make the super rich happy with big tax cuts. This is why I personally find Trump a kind of meaningless figure. He'll lose this fall (I think, I hope) and we'll forget about him because he did nothing on the issue that really matters, inequality.
Yes, the Trump administration won some battles in the culture wars. To fight those battles is why he was elected and as promised he has been much more aggressive in ostensibly protecting White Christian Supremacy. Abortion bans, which are mainly a symbol of the dominance of "Christian" values, have finally been passed in red states - although a lot of supposedly anti-abortion people don't really support bans if applied to themselves. But LGBTQ people are still not outlawed completely - in fact they are no longer legally discriminated against in most places - and non-whites continue to increase their visibility and influence as well as population share.
The economy has continued on the recovery or expansion path started in the Obama administration. After the interruption of the pandemic, the economy is back on essentially the same path. Who has been President has had very little to do with this. With his tax cuts Trump continued with the standard Republican objective of making rich people richer - he did nothing for the working MAGAs who support him. Anybody who thinks the economy was much better for working people during the Trump administration is either delusional or doesn't understand economics, or both.
As to why lower-income whites continue to support Trump and Republicans despite the fact that Republican policies and actions are to their material detriment, this is simple and actually obvious. The dominance of their White Christian tribe is more important to them than their own economic welfare. Once their tribal partisanship has been aroused sufficiently they will believe almost anything bad about the "other" side, including Trump's claim that the election was stolen and his nonsensical claims about the economy. For whatever reason the MSM are reluctant to acknowledge the role of racism, and continue to try to ascribe Trump's success to economic and educational factors.
" The dominance of their White Christian tribe is more important to them than their own economic welfare. "
I don't think it is obvious that this is the reason they continue to vote for Republicans and Trump. I suspect many of them don't understand that the Republicans policies are against their interests.
I like 2 or 3 of those myself.
Though libtards at DKos flip their shit everytime I talk about how the economy was fine too good under trump.
In the midst of one of the strongest and best economic periods in recent American history, 70% of respondants say that the economy is bad. Lol, this is amazing.
My uncle was telling me something similar just last week. The economy sure is rough right now, people are struggling. He has a new job, higher pay, better hours, less work, better benefits, more vacation....but its been rough. He's touring Europe later this summer for the first time ever and has a new (used) boat. Some friends are building a new house on a nearby lake but its taking a long time. Tough times, everybody is struggling. Have you seen the price of chips at the store? Cars are so expensive, who could afford one? Why is Biden ruining the auto industry? But which of my $60,000 cars in the driveway should we take to go get some ice cream for the kids?
3 more:
* Defeated ISIS.
* Passed the First Step act.
* Putin didn't invade anybody while he was president.
The bulk of the fighting against ISIS was in 2014-2017, Trump's achievement there was to stay out of the way.
The First Step Act was heavily bipartisan (Senate 87-12, House 358-36) and I guarantee if you asked him about it today he wouldn't know what it was. Again, his achievement was to not get in the way.
We still don't know what the exact relationship is between Putin and Trump except that Trump is demonstrably in his thrall. If you want to argue that Obama did a poor job of pushing back against Russia in 2014, I don't disagree.
"Trump's achievement there was to stay out of the way."
Actually, he tried to get all those troops fighting ISIS withdrawn, but the Joint Chiefs basically ignored him.
Why should three items I list below be inherently pleasing to conservatives?
Killed Obama's Iran nuclear treaty.
Moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Revoked most of Obama's policies that had opened up engagement with Cuba. Withdrew most personnel from the embassy in Havana.
I have been looking at the list for a while trying to make sense and I finally got it. Most of the list is performative actions impacting outside the US. Meaning they really don’t do anything to anyone. I mean does anybody care how many foreign officers are in Havana? Embassy in Jerusalem? Chinese based company cannot import to the U.S.? New NAFTA? On and on. Now granted, the Iran nuke thing did turn out to be dumb. When Israel gets hit by a bomb, they can thank Bibi. But overall the international related accomplishments are really another way to own the liberals and thus people can say how great Trump is but really they accomplish very little. That’s not to say the US could and should take a leadership role on climate or more free trade and we are abdicating that leadership role but these things get sorted our regardless. Anyways besides judges and tax cuts this is some weak tea.
Exactly. Fascists can't actually fix problems, they can only maintain them in manageable form or use them as cudgels. Any amount of greater action leads to long-term problems, like how he wanted the Fed to lower interest rates to supercharge the economy before the election, which would obviously lead to economic chaos later on.
I'm a pretty normie conservative and that list is vastly outweighed by the things he did wrong. The abuse of power, the explosion of the deficit, the massive open corruption and, ultimately, the attempted coup, which is unforgivable. And I know that, whatever he may have done the first time, the people who constrained him are all gone and he will be infinitely worse his second time out. He's talking about forced deportation, monitoring of pregnant women to insure they don't have abortions, replacing the civil service with political hacks, more tax cuts, pardons for all 1/6 terrorist, etc. None of that is conservative.
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