"...the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn.... In his three years in the White House, [Biden] has not been able to reverse the stagnating life expectancy and increasing inequality of incomes.... In many parts of the US, school absenteeism has risen sharply, as has homelessness and dependency on food stamps.... Almost half of the population thinks the porous US-Mexico border constitutes a crisis.... All this plays into Trump’s hands and fuels his shameless demagoguery – demonising his political foes as 'vermin' and accusing immigrants of 'poisoning the blood' of America.... Trump’s incendiary language cuts through, thrilling his supporters by infuriating his opponents.... His unapologetic populism and incorrigible personality are two sides of the same coin, and go with a brazen confidence and an irrepressible desire to win...."
Writes Adrian Pabst, in "Why Trump will win/His rhetoric – and even his personality – continue to appeal to ordinary American voters" (The New Statesman).
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100 comments:
Shameless demagoguery?
You know who’s shameless? The main stream media and the democrat party. Sorry to be redundant.
Left unsaid, Trump's incendiary language is justified.
Shared responsibility through progressive prices and ethnic Springs with benefits. Throw another baby... uh, "burden" on the barbie, they... it's not viable.
The quoted passage lists facts until it gets to immigration. Then it presents feelings, what people think. Accounts of the number of people who've crossed and the impact they're having on city finances and services don't allow the writer to work in the requisite Orange Man Bad template.
the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn
It makes only an American wonder where all that money went, I suppose...and if you aren't denying the homelessness and dependency and school absenteeism and illegal immigration Trump isn't guilty of demagoguery, he's appealing via rational argument. Did Susie Dent change the definition of demagoguery for UK viewers?
They really don't understand what's happening in the United States anymore, do they?
Turns out there’s nothing compassionate about generational government dependency. Who knew?
“ the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn”
When you’re not smart enough to realize that your proposed solution of printing money and burdening the next generations, is itself one of the grievances.
Biden is a liberal patrician? That level of delusion is frightening. He still has no clue why Trump won in 2016.
All this plays into Trump’s hands and fuels his shameless demagoguery
Adrian Pabst is a liberal professor at the University of Kent. A political science professor and "expert" who doesn't understand that it's assholes like him who make the American working class support Trump.
This Brit understands the American working class just like David Brooks. Clueless.
It's funny how they can't make the connection between how 7 or 8 million people crossing our borders in three years without even a "by your leave," has something to do with lower wages and higher housing prices and increasing homelessness. It's forbidden to even make the suggestion. Just because 20 years ago, any economics freshman could have pointed this out, doesn't mean that, today, you are not a crypto-nazi for even making the suggestion.
The New York Times position as chief mindguard of the designed Groupthink, means that they must make every effort to control the Overton Window. So they write this story telling you in no uncertain terms that you are a horrible person if you follow your rational thoughts down this road.
In 1984, remember, Goldstein used to make the most accurate and discerning critiques of The Party, and the crowd was then made to boo and jeer these truths that Goldstein spoke, in unison. This was state of the art propaganda in 1948, when he wrote the book, and is SOP now for the American Regime. This is the real thinking behind the article.
From the article:
"...the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn.... In his three years in the White House, [Biden] has not been able to reverse the stagnating life expectancy and increasing inequality of incomes...."
Stagnating life expectancy...between COVID and the jab side effects, small wonder.
Inequality of incomes...Federal employees, you go first.
Between Biden and Soetoro administrations the United States has lost serious ground. Pun also intended. Truly a lost decade, (at least), at this point.
Life expectancy in the US under Joe Biden is not stagnant. It is actually dropping. Propelled in part by massive numbers of fentanyl overdoses coming in through our open border. In another part by way too many young people dying from maladies like sudden cancer spread or heart issues. Not sure why this happened after 2020. Maybe someone can point to something that started in 2020?
So, yeah, the population does see the border and open immigration as a problem. And, oh by the way, it's much more than "almost half" of the population that sees this as a problem. Try almost 70% of the population.
The Trump as a combination Hitler/Pol Pot/Jack the Ripper attacks are already picking up. By November we will see people frothing at the mouth on MSNBC, CNN, and Meet the Depressed. While they're spitting out their visible hate on TV, those darn "ordinary American voters" will move on, vote based on the disintegrating civilization we see around us, and watch as heads explode in January of 2025.
His rhetoric, his personality . . . It couldn't be that the border presents a real crisis, could it, or that the spending tsunami is absurd, or that the green transition will harm us, or . . .?
Of course, prog rhetoric also serves to remind us why Trump is the alternative, even to those of us who would prefer someone other than the inept Covid manager and yuuge loser of 2020.
"Trump's incendiary language is justified."
January 6, 2021
20:13:26 I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you! - @realDonaldTrump
But if describing what the Democrats did to rig the election is "incendiary," what does that say about Democrats? A better answer would have been to give him his day in court, and then prove him wrong, but this prospect terrified Democrats.
As Scott Adams says, there can be no trust in a system that does not allow a meaningful audit of an election, not just recounts of the votes that have already gotten past any "safeguards," which is not an audit. In PA, for one example, the Supreme Court ruled that rules were violated in ways that benefited Biden and penalized Trump, which means that it was up the the State Legislature, per our Constitution, to adjudicate the election.
In Wisconsin, employees of tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg had read/write access to official voter rolls, and were. deployed to maximize turnout, but illegally, only in precincts that were heavily Democratic. This is a direct violation of equal protection.
I could go on, but listing these facts that are not even in dispute would be "incendiary" as they would call the sanctity of our elections into question, right? Marx may not have been great on governing, but his manual for seizing power is pretty rock solid.
Cults have these things called "thought stopping phrases." They are designed to keep their members from thinking about things that undermine the authority of the cult. Here is an example: "Left unsaid, Trump's incendiary language is justified."
and increasing inequality of incomes
The United States is historically the MOST equitable nation related to both wealth and income. Of course critics fudge the numbers by failing to count government transfer payments and focus attention on only a few hundred of our highest earners- not the one percent but the one percent of the one percent...
...importing millions of people who choose to abandon their third world incomes for US government transfer payments you don't count helps the trick, too...
Gusty Winds said...
"All this plays into Trump’s hands and fuels his shameless demagoguery
Adrian Pabst is a liberal professor at the University of Kent. A political science professor and "expert" who doesn't understand that it's assholes like him who make the American working class support Trump.
This Brit understands the American working class just like David Brooks. Clueless.
1/16/24, 8:21 AM"
Well, they're just a bunch of hulking brutes, don't you know. Brainless chimp like humans who use sophisticated computers to fix your car. Install your HVAC systems and grow you're food. Who are easily manipulated by the alt right.
It's not so much that they're cluess. It's that they're hopelessly smug in their assumptions. Which they never question.
Yes, the Kenyan Muslim Marxist drove a wedge into the fabric of America.
Race race race race race race
Fuck him
Demagoguery isn’t as bad as actually removing your political rivals from ballots as Biden and Democrats across the country are doing to Trump and other Republicans. But sure, Trump says mean things. Did A. Pabst miss Biden’s speech at Valley Forge? How about the one last year in front of Independence Hall?
I also think a bit more than half think the porous border is a problem. CBS had it at 63% on Jan. 7th.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see Trump continue with a big pivot. He doesn't need to be inflammatory anymore because the people that he appeals to with outrageous rhetoric are always going to support him through thick and thin. He needs to capture the independent voters that great silent majority of 70% of the electorate that doesn't like either party. I wouldn't say it's a genius move it seems like common sense like pulling the chair out from underneath the Democrats by not giving them the fodder that they have been feasting on for the last 8 years.
I love the New Statesman. It’s the unofficial organ for Old Labour intellectuals (as opposed to New Labour, i.e. Tony Blair, third-way leftism).
The writers have to make sure that they demonize Trump a little to keep their windows unbroken, but they do address his issues honestly, because they are the same issues of the working-class voters they’re trying to hold onto on their side of the pond.
Same reason they give at least some intelllectual respect to Rowling and other TERFs.
JSM
Mostly true.
Who said he's trying to arrest it?
The answer, according to team Brandon is, as it always is for many Demmies and many repos
MORE FASCISM!!!!
Fascism will obviously work, they (team Brandon et al) just need to be less namby-pamby about it.
For the really deep thinkers here that don't realize, the above is not my view at all.
It is why I have been Team MAGA since forever. President Trump was the most libertarian, most anti/non fascist president we have had in my lifetime. I full expect President Trump to carry that forward in 24.
John Henry
The collective left enjoy the lies they tell each other about the open border.
It just isn't a big deal to them.
"... shameless demagoguery ...."
The country, maybe the world, is unraveling. Half our population is too evil or too stupid to acknowledge it. Our leader is a doddering grifter. Trump is besieged by crooked Democrat lawfare. His family is endangered by rampant, aggressive antisemitism. The border is overwhelmed by military age young men, many from the Middle East and China. Etc.
And he should be ashamed of his demagoguery? Seriously?
the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn
Can anyone explain how this works? How does taking $3.8 trillion from taxpayers, mostly future ones, and then centrally controlling that money actually improve the economy? For example, how many EV chargers did Biden’s $7.5 billion actually create that were not already existing from Tesla? It would be great if pundits on the left didn’t just make “positive” statements from their side without explaining what about them is actually positive.
I’m still waiting for why porous borders are actually better for the US? If they are so great, why wouldn’t Mexico take advantage of all these refugees and keep them in Mexico? Why wouldn’t NYC and Chicago, heck even Canada, be begging for us to bus more refugees to them? I bet Boston wants more of them. Maybe Martha’s Vinyard and the Hamptons would like to take some now.
Howard said...
“I wouldn't be surprised if we see Trump continue with a big pivot. He doesn't need to be inflammatory anymore because the people that he appeals to with outrageous rhetoric are always going to support him through thick and thin. He needs to capture the independent voters that great silent majority of 70% of the electorate that doesn't like either party.”
This is exactly the advice given to every losing Republican candidate by every losing political analyst. Every single one of them says, “I have a brilliant idea, it’s never been done before: Let’s move to the center, you’ve already secured your base so you can treat them like shit now.” Then they point to glowing write-ups in the NYT (just foolin’ - The NYT still calls their candidate Hitler). Then they lose.
The democrat party is now the party of the rich... the ultra rich.
Democrats like crook Joe give all the issues lip service - but everyone knows he is full of shit.
Along with all the other Biden(or, who?) policies that have negatively impacted our national defense, our social & political comity, and our national debt balance, are policies like this one that will have adverse consequences on a HUGE (pharma) segment of our economy (as well on our national health stats) if a Biden/Dem administration takes us four more years into the future.
Murdock sounds hyperbolic in this piece, but tell me where he's wrong. Think about what happened when Venezuela and Chile, etc., expropriated U.S. energy companies' exploration and development projects....
Those energy companies quit working there, because why expend time and money on innovative projects when a government is likely to take it from you?
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/14/opinion-emperor-bidens-big-government-is-marching-in-to-seize-us-patents-deroy-murdock/
In his three years in the White House, [Biden] has not been able to reverse the stagnating life expectancy and increasing inequality of incomes....
Is Adrian Pabst stupid? The whole point of unrestricted immigration is income inequality! Rich guy found an immigrant who is desperate enough to mow his half acre lawn for $25 and he’s expecting to find someone in the next batch of immigrants desperate enough to do it for $20.
More to the point, immigrants are no threat to take the jobs of the college educated — based on my experience hiring contractors an awful lot of the immigrants those contractors employ are illiterate in their own language, much less English. But their cheap labor exerts a downward pressure on the wages for people at the bottom end of the economic ladder; roofers, handymen, day laborers, etc. Thus the people at the upper end of the economic ladder pay less to get workers’ labor and pocket the difference themselves. And don’t think the people at both ends of the economic ladder don’t know exactly what is going on.
And I know that it is an article of faith with Democrats and Democrat-adjacents that any problem can be solved by throwing enough money at it, but throwing almost four trillion dollars at inflation is not likely to help solve it. Milton Friedman lives!
the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn
Narrator's voice: "But unfortunately, the problems caused in part by spending like a drunken sailor are not diminished by spending even more."
But that's the playbook in so many areas of life, not just politics: create a problem (often, I think, maybe even usually, with good intentions), then cobble together a solution that creates its own problems.
Tags: Pushing on a string; Doubling down with a losing hand; Pride goes before destruction
Obama's deep state operatives went public after the Democrats 2010 election loss: They started legislating through agencies rather than congress. The harbinger of change was Obamacare being "deemed passed" without a direct vote. The EPA suddenly found an authority to regulate all waterways in the entire country. The four words "affirmatively furthering fair housing" were expanded into 1,000,000 more words and federal rules. Etc.
Losing leftists became totalitarians and autocrats after a couple generations of selling the same old unpopular (or failed) policies and demanding revolution rather than accepting gridlock or trench warfare. Biden's handlers tried (and initially succeeded) in buying votes for The Old Ways through myopic costly gifts -- gifts that are now being rejected by those who wanted them (Defund the Police, Sanctuary Cities, etc.).
Trump and populism fades away only if and when the many failed know-it-alls in power admit to their failures. Surrender to the new era. Forget the USSR Cold War and Peace Dividend -- China is eating us alive. When the old priorities fade away true moderation can arise. True forward thinking can happen. Then stale old trench battles such as abortion and gun control can achieve détente and become footnotes.
“He needs to capture the independent voters that great silent majority of 70% of the electorate that doesn't like either party.”
Note to Howard: He’s already done that.
Oh, BTW, medical care is coming under increasing stress under the weight of more people arriving over our borders unannounced than are born each year.
Can any Republican overcome Democrat election fraud? It seems unlikely, particularly with a Romney in charge of the RNC.
"Old Labour intellectuals"
There is such a thing as MAGA communism, and it's aimed at creating an alliance with the disaffected workers who support Trump. Leftism without the cultural baggage, and genuine anti-fascism. Trump is not the fascist and authoritarian, Biden is. Remember the rule 'who smelt it, dealt it." It will clarify at least half of American Regime propaganda.
Immigration shifts power to the owning classes. The more of it, the greater the shift. Which is why our billionaire oligarchs support the Democrats so heavily, and why Biden would rather lose the war in Ukraine than give on this point.
This may describe some voters, but it is entirely backwards in my case. Trump's personality and rhetoric has NEVER appealed to me. However, I do appreciate his policies and their results. Also, I am utterly disgusted by his opponents behavior.
The problem with Trump is that they couldn’t reign him in, he’s not bought and paid for, Trump is not beholden to anybody and that means Trump is the biggest threat to their power and influence. The more scared they are of Trump the more I read that as Trump being the answer the country needs.
In summary: Biden is ruining the country, but this Trump guy, hes super mean.
The thing about elections is that choices are limited. And what limits in 2024!
You are absolutely right, Eva. No other Republican candidate can succeed by pivoting to the left. In case you haven't noticed, Trump breaks all the rules and gets away with it.
Go back and listen to Trump's very conciliatory and humble Iowa caucus victory speech. Donald called for uniting the country liberal and conservative alike to help fix all of the problems in the world. He's even sounding like a globalist. The point being it doesn't matter what he says he is not going to lose his base ever so he can do whatever he wants and whatever is necessary to win. This is like trilateral diplomacy that Nixon used to set the stage for the defeat of the Soviet Union. It is also how Bill Clinton by signing on to a number of favorite Republican legislative Acts was at the height of his popularity after he was impeached with nearly a 70% approval rating.
"demonising his political foes as 'vermin'"
What did Trump actually say? Let's see...
"We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country."
Saying that "radical left thugs live like vermin within the confines..." is not the same thing as saying they are vermin anymore than saying that someone "runs like a gazelle" is the same as saying that person is a gazelle.
Demonising and demagoguery, indeed.
"All this plays into Trump’s hands and fuels his shameless demagoguery ..."
Demagogue - a successful politician whose policies differ from my own.
I originally typoed that as "Femagogue". A frightening but strangely intriguing word.
I love the New Statesman. It’s the unofficial organ for Old Labour intellectuals (as opposed to New Labour, i.e. Tony Blair, third-way leftism).
Yeah, they see populism as being in favor of workers, as opposed to the elites. And they (correctly) view Trump as the favorite of the working class, and his opponents (in both parties) as being elite.
Late in the article they attack Trump for perceived racism. But without that attack, I would characterize this as a benign and fairly accurate description of his platform.
Leftists in our country can't talk about Trump's positives because they are so race-obsessive. For many of them, race is the only mechanism by which to think about human beings. They are disdainful of white people, even (or especially) if they are poor or working class white people.
This article reminds me of the Marxists attacking the 1619 "journalism" from the NYT.
"...the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn.... In his three years in the White House, [Biden] has not been able to reverse the stagnating life expectancy and increasing inequality of incomes.... In many parts of the US, school absenteeism has risen sharply, as has homelessness and dependency on food stamps.... Almost half of the population thinks the porous US-Mexico border constitutes a crisis.... All this plays into Trump’s hands and fuels his shameless demagoguery
Is it still shameless demagoguery if it is true? Can you have truthful shameless demagoguery?
"...the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn.... In his three years in the White House, [Biden] has not been able to reverse the stagnating life expectancy and increasing inequality of incomes.... In many parts of the US, school absenteeism has risen sharply, as has homelessness and dependency on food stamps.... Almost half of the population thinks the porous US-Mexico border constitutes a crisis.... All this plays into Trump’s hands and fuels his shameless demagoguery
Is it still shameless demagoguery if it is true? Can you have truthful shameless demagoguery?
+1 to Old and Slow.
I can turn off Trump just as I can Biden, Obama, and Bush, but have to live with their policy.
If "[h]is unapologetic populism and incorrigible personality" is what it takes to put America and the needs of Americans first again instead of having them at the back of the line behind the needs of illegal aliens, then count me in!
Blogger Old and slow said..."This may describe some voters, but it is entirely backwards in my case. Trump's personality and rhetoric has NEVER appealed to me. However, I do appreciate his policies and their results. Also, I am utterly disgusted by his opponents behavior."
+1
"In many parts of the US, school absenteeism has risen sharply, as has homelessness and dependency on food stamps."
Isn't this a 'Win' for democrats? Keeping the masses dependent upon daddy government.
And, as always, once it is done it can't be undone.
The dems push the country 3 steps to the left. The Rs pull it back half a step and call it victory.
But we are still 2 and a half steps further left.
Same as it ever was...
Howard
That was pretty insightful. Thank you. What many in his base don't realize is that before he became a republican Trump was a New York liberal. IOW a pragmatic liberal. He knew how the sausage was made so he wasn't an all out leftist.
Unfortunately You are still going to vote for Biden no matter what it costs your fellow citizens.
"'We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.'
"Saying that 'radical left thugs live like vermin within the confines...' is not the same thing as saying they are vermin anymore than saying that someone 'runs like a gazelle' is the same as saying that person is a gazelle."
Sure it is. When one says something is like something else, one is saying the two things are akin. One can even describe a fleet runner as a gazelle, without the "like." When the word "vermin" is used relating in any way to humans or human activity, it always has but one meaning, that they are lower than human, but are merely rodents or cockroaches. Trump is purporting a lie that America is teeming with "...communists, Marxists," (redundant, much?)"fascists, and...radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country."
Our nation has a scant population of people who can truly be called communists, probably not enough to populate a small American town. (As of 2023, the US Communist Party has only 5,000 members.) There are more fascists in the US than communists, as witness a portion of the Republican party, not to mention such groups as the KKK or the various American Nazi groups. In his manner as a politician, Trump is behaving as a fascist would, though I doubt he has any genuine political program or beliefs other than serving his own ego and greed. However, he has sired such creeps as DeSantis, who lacks any of Trump's charisma or humor or charm, (yes, Trump has these useful salesman's traits), but who would be more diligent than Trump about actually trying to implementing his program into practice.
Reverse the decline
"There are more fascists in the US than communists, as witness a portion of the Republican party, not to mention such groups as the KKK…"
It's been a few years now, but the FBI estimated the number of KKK members as 3,000 people.
I originally typoed that as "Femagogue". A frightening but strangely intriguing word.
ha ha ha
Years ago, there was somebody on the left who used to have sex fantasies about Margaret Thatcher. And sometimes you hear people on the left who have a thing for Ann Coulter. Bill Maher could use it. "She's my femagogue."
Tulsi would be mine except she's too nice. She doesn't femagogue at all!
"Sure it is. When one says something is like something else, one is saying the two things are akin"
Well, he was applying the description to "thugs," but I guess that you would spring to the defense of thugs, naturally. I have been reading a lot of actual leftists, from, the international left, and they *hate* fascists. They sympathize with Trump and consider Biden to be a fascist. They think that the Canadian Truckers was an authentic workers' movement. They don't actually think that there are very many actual lefties in the US anymore, just fascists who have been deluded by very effective fascist propaganda.
Russel Brand is a traditional leftist. You should check him out on the fascism of the American Regime. Somehow you have a kind of naive faith that these people could not take over the Democratic Party, the party of saints, but I would ask you then what would be stopping them? Why is the Democratic Party the party of war, suddenly. Why, when a collection of Democratic congresspeople from the "Left" wrote a letter objecting to our involvement in a war on the other side of the world, did they walk it back within a day?
These are good questions for you to ponder, Robert.
"the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn"
There was just a neocon apologist writing for Foreign Affairs, maybe, who said that Putin was going to ruin the Russian economy because the election in March would force him to spend big dollars on handouts. Well, who smelt it, dealt it.
"'In many parts of the US, school absenteeism has risen sharply, as has homelessness and dependency on food stamps.'
"Isn't this a 'Win' for democrats? Keeping the masses dependent upon daddy government."
No. The uneducated and unthinking are much more likely to fall for Republican demagogues, as the Republicans, following Trump's lead, are actively pandering to them. And don't think those on the right don't also need or use public assistance.
Nate Silver@NateSilver538
Trump is more popular than he's been in a long while and it's time to admit that "deplatforming" him didn't work.
lol, they will never admit that. "In Soviet Union, the party disappears you, in America, they just make you invisible." But every now and then a guy comes along that you can't just "make invisible." You know, to protect anybody who might be sympathetic to his message from Crimethink.
I was at a friend's house for a football game, and everybody there but me was a Jewish Democrat, and all of them hate Trump with righteous passion, but getting past that, when you heard them talking about immigration, and crime, and what it has done to our cities, they sounded like a collection of MAGA Republicans. I just shut up and chuckled, except for one time when I asked one couple how their trip to San Francisco went. (Despicable me!)
"Trump is behaving as a fascist would,"
You misspelled Biden. Who smelt it, dealt it.
“Can anyone explain how this works? How does taking $3.8 trillion from taxpayers, mostly future ones, and then centrally controlling that money actually improve the economy? For example, how many EV chargers did Biden’s $7.5 billion actually create that were not already existing from Tesla? It would be great if pundits on the left didn’t just make “positive” statements from their side without explaining what about them is actually positive.”
It’s called Keynesian Economics, which has never been shown to work. It can’t, thanks to the misallocation of resources due to government control of such. The amount of GDP it is supposed to generate is termed the Keynesian Multiplier. When the Dems controlled Congress under Obama, they got into a bidding war on predicting how much big their Keynesian Multiplier was. Pelosi was predicting 4x or 5x. Reality is that it has never been above 1. This has been well known in Economics since the 1970s. Are the Dems venal or stupid here, claiming that govt spending can spur real GDP?
"When the word "vermin" is used relating in any way to humans or human activity, it always has but one meaning..."
Bullshit. Destroying the meaning of words is one of the things the left does best.
"It's been a few years now, but the FBI estimated the number of KKK members as 3,000 people."
How many of them work for the FBI?
If those trillions of dollars were used to deliver something beneficial like decent roads and decent schools, people might be more satisfied. But instead it has delivered inflation and a bloated bureaucracy that seems bent on making our lives worse by meddling in every aspect of our lives.
The easier explanation is- government spending counts toward GDP, or whatever they changed the term GDP to in order to obfuscate…Atlanta Fed still uses GDPNow, however…
Even a blind squirrel like Professor Pabst finds an acorn now and then. I was impressed that he said this:
"Many voters who are angry with the status quo-including a sizable part of working-class black and Hispanic communities--correctly understand that they are governed by managers and technocrats hostile to democracy and more traditional ways of life".
Well Americans (and I'll include "illegals" resident in the United States here) by and large are not dumb. They recognize that the ruling bicoastal "elites" and swamp dwellers on the Potomac don't give a flying flip about them and their legitimate economic and social concerns.
The posse that manages and controls the senescent coot in the Oval Office simply represent the third term of Obama. Was it Adam Smith who said that "There's a lot of ruin in a nation". I may have the wrong guy saying that--but it's pretty clear that Obama-Biden are trying to find out just how much ruin they can visit on the United States.
"The uneducated and unthinking are much more likely to fall for Republican demagogues, as the Republicans, following Trump's lead, are actively pandering to them"
The "Left" loves the "working class," but not the people in it. Robert even understands that he supports the party of the rich, the Democrats.
Thanks Bruce.
This: "Are the Dems venal or stupid here, claiming that govt spending can spur real GDP?"
It's one reason I'm sad to see Vivek out of the race today. Instead of talking about his accusers, refusing to talk about slavery and the Civil War, or doing whatever secret squirrel thing DeSantis has been doing with his campaign; Vivek was the one challenging journalists to explain themselves. I know it is Keynesian Economics as a policy, but when has it actually worked? Can we take a moment to look at the failing Chinese economy and ask why all their spending on infrastructure hasn't created an economic boom right now? Why South Korea is outpacing North Korea? Why Texas and Florida are growing while California and New York decline?
The Press loves this line: "Claimed without evidence". Well, let's play their game and ask for their evidence. No theories of how things work, but the actual evidence that supports them. Don't tell me social distancing works without the evidence to back it up. Don't tell me government spending works while I wonder when California will ever finish Obama's high speed rail or NASA will catch up with SpaceX. Show me the infrastructure that Biden and the Democrats bought in 2021 and how it is improving the economy?
Howard says: “Donald called for uniting the country liberal and conservative alike to help fix all of the problems in the world.”
Yes he did do that. And I’m all for more voters moving to Trump.
"The uneducated and unthinking are much more likely to fall for Republican demagogues..."
How is life in the bourgeoisie, Robert?
tim in vermont said...
"The uneducated and unthinking are much more likely to fall for Republican demagogues, as the Republicans, following Trump's lead, are actively pandering to them"
"The "Left" loves the "working class," but not the people in it. Robert even understands that he supports the party of the rich, the Democrats."
He doesn't even know what "the working class" does. All he knows is he wants to the commissar that tell the skilled tradesmen how to build the gulags.
What he also doesn't realize is that "the working class" are better armed than the police. So the "class struggle" that he and his uber progressive friends so desperately want is going to be a one sided one.
Carter started the issues leading to Trump. Carter let the Ayatollah enter Iran, jump starting Islamic fundamentalist jihad worldwide. Clinton continued the issues leading to Trump. Clinton exemplified personal irresponsibility and serious corruption and was never removed from office, leading to those traits becoming the norm for government office holders. Obama finalized the issues leading to Trump. Obama weaponized all federal agencies against the citizenry, and especially against political opponents, ignoring any sense of ethical responsibility in favor of pure authoritarianism.
Hillary Clinton would have combined the worst traits of all three previous Democrat presidents with her own personal charm, unbounded responsibility, ethical behavior in all things, and selfless sense of service. God help us all had she not lost to Trump due to her own failure to campaign effectively.
Biden won through extreme, organized, mass vote harvesting of universal mail in ballots. He or his pre-voting replacement will do so again if that practice is not made at least auditable. Biden, a mere placeholder run by others, continues Obama's governemetn weaponizataion for Party first, Party last, Party always, and all others to be destroyed by any means necessary fair or foul. Only Hillary could have been worse.
So yes, there are genuine grievances against the Democrat party. I've listed only one per administration, make your own list and see if any are addressed by anyone this time around, because I still don't see Trump's campaign message for 2024 beyond "Gimme that back!"
"If the Obama administration helped create the conditions for the genuine grievances propelling Trump to power in 2016...the Biden administration has tried to arrest that decline by unleashing a vast programme of federal spending totalling some $3.8trn...."
Starts to make sense if you replace "tried to erase that decline" with "doubled down."
Biden ballooned Obama policies of fomenting racial divisions, debasement of the coinage (inflation), and ruination of truth (destruction of the meaning of words).
The problem with the government spending during Covid was that it should have been a one time situation. But that's not how Washington works. Unfortunately, politicians don't get elected by spending less each year; they usually get elected by spending more each year.
Mason G said...
"It's been a few years now, but the FBI estimated the number of KKK members as 3,000 people."
How many of them work for the FBI?
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As I recall, there were a few sting operations where both sides were Feds. So for the KKK/Nazi folks, I'd estimate 2500+. There will ALWAYS be nutcases, but without attention they wither and die, not flourish.
As has been said elsewhere on the web, the actual supply of racists/Nazis is pretty damned thin on the ground any more...
Leland said:
"Don't tell me government spending works while I wonder when California will ever finish Obama's high speed rail or NASA will catch up with SpaceX. Show me the infrastructure that Biden and the Democrats bought in 2021 and how it is improving the economy?"
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You've got to take them at their word on the 'improvement' - but the sad fact is that most of that money is going to disappear into the accounting ether, never to be seen again except in the balance sheets of consultants and lawyers. {And the occasional cash donation to countries that hate us, because you can buy love and respect - right?)
HSR is something that can be used to disappear a LOT of money - billions in the case of California. NASA... not so much, but they've become a jobs program much more than a space program/agency. Run by bureaucrats, fearful of any sort of failure. The slow cadence of SLS launches they're depending on to get humans back to the moon shows that actual launches aren't their priority, while SpaceX hit almost 100 last year, and are looking at 144 launches this year.
We are in a strange time where the party in charge seems to actively hate the people that put them there. Open borders, rules and regulations that make no objective sense, incompetence in handling foreign and domestic affairs, a feeling that they believe 'We can't do things differently, because we don't know what the effects will be, so we'll keep on doing things that we've been doing for decades, no matter how bad the results.'
So they throw money away like drunken sailors, and we end up with the hangover.
Trump is willing to try something different, and his tenure as President worked as far as I was concerned. Obama? Not so much. Biden? Yeah, no.
I don't have to LOVE a candidate to vote for them. I don't necessarily need to even LIKE them. What I DO want is what I consider good results, which Trump provided and Biden hasn't. When it comes to ANY D or Trump - I'll vote for Trump.
If Trump wants to dismantle the DC power structure, strip every agency down to their bare essentials re personnel, purpose, and regulatory making ability, and hand a LOT of power back to the states, I'd be good with that.
Pabst will never win a ribbon writing this sort of rot!
"Why is the Democratic Party the party of war, suddenly. Why, when a collection of Democratic congresspeople from the "Left" wrote a letter objecting to our involvement in a war on the other side of the world, did they walk it back within a day?
"These are good questions for you to ponder, Robert."
I wouldn't say the Dems were ever really the "Peace" or "No War" party. They've always voted for war as enthusiastically as the Republicans, when war was in the offing. At most, they've had a few outspoken war opponents (or skeptics) who were a distinct minority in their party. The only real change has been more Republicans expressing some reservations about military adventuring, (though not enough to stop our transfer of huge sums of taxpayers' money to Ukraine and Israel). Plus, the Dems have moved more to the right over the past few decades, (as the Republicans have moved even more to the right.) As to Dem "opponents" walking back their letter objecting to our support for continued support for Ukraine, I infer they were scolded by their Party leadership. Their "opposition" was apparently only operative as long as it didn't imperil their job perks (such as plum committee assignments, chairmanships, or other sanctions).
As I've said previously, we have no substantive "left" in America, in either of the two parties. (Those who rant routinely about the presumed hordes of "lefties" and "commies" in America at large--or who believe all Democrats by definition are lefties--are delusional.) The Dems serve the same benefactors as do the Republicans: the wealthy corporate entities whose donations are lifeblood of the politicians' ability to run for office every term and remain in their privileged elected sinecures. War enriches those who enrich the politicians. (I've also said previously I haven't voted for a Democrat for President for 30 years...the last one a grudging vote for Bill Clinton in his first election in 1992.)
"Carter let the Ayatollah enter Iran, jump starting Islamic fundamentalist jihad worldwide."
How did Carter "let" the Ayatollah enter Iran? How could he have prevented it?
My gut instinct is that there are very few actual KKK members out there, but that sort of racist is more common than you might think. I had a black girlfriend for a while, and I had more than a few shocking experiences with in your face racism. People in cars rolling down their windows and shouting at us "race mixer!" was one of them. I was confused about what they were even saying. It seemed so weird. The reaction at my country club was also eye opening. I'm glad I am not black. It would be very trying. I am also glad to see less of Crackmc recently. This was becoming all about him.
Blogger Robert Cook said...
"How did Carter "let" the Ayatollah enter Iran? How could he have prevented it?"
Fair point. Carter by most accounts was a real asshole, and seemed a bit ineffectual, but he did deregulate the trucking and airline industry. He also signed legislation legalizing home brewing and wine making. I'd be delighted to have him back at this point...
I don't have to LOVE a candidate to vote for them. I don't necessarily need to even LIKE them. What I DO want is what I consider good results, which Trump provided and Biden hasn't. When it comes to ANY D or Trump - I'll vote for Trump.
If Trump wants to dismantle the DC power structure, strip every agency down to their bare essentials re personnel, purpose, and regulatory making ability, and hand a LOT of power back to the states, I'd be good with that.
Ditto, as Rush Limbaugh used to say. I agree completely.
Our nation has a scant population of people who can truly be called communists, probably not enough to populate a small American town. (As of 2023, the US Communist Party has only 5,000 members.) There are more fascists in the US than communists, as witness a portion of the Republican party, not to mention such groups as the KKK or the various American Nazi groups.
The Communists used to call everyone who disagreed a Nazi. I see Cook is following that tradition.
Stoned little prick wanted to "fundamentally transform" us. He sure as fuck fundamentally transformed me.
No. The uneducated and unthinking are much more likely to fall for Republican demagogues
Cool! Then Trump will win easily, thanks to an overwhelming majority of the votes of the uneducated and unthinking poor urban black Americans who have been so terribly served by Democrat education policies and teachers' unions in their cities. Excellent! We'll see what a Republican demagogue can do in that space.
Robert. Think it through before you say it.
"The Communists used to call everyone who disagreed a Nazi. I see Cook is following that tradition.
You can't expect much from someone who thinks "Bill runs like a gazelle" means the same thing as "Bill is a gazelle."
Mason G has the better grasp of the vermin-gazelle axis and he is dead on when he pushes back on the word referees throwing the Jew challenge flag on “vermin.” The word is absofuckinlutely not “uniquely associated” with the ethnic slur. I have a beautiful and accurate vermin rifle bolt action .22 and it is perfect for varmints, the redneck pronunciation of vermin.
Nice work Mason.
Mason G said...
"It's been a few years now, but the FBI estimated the number of KKK members as 3,000 people."
There are even fewer Nazis.
Joe Smith said...
"The dems push the country 3 steps to the left. The Rs pull it back half a step and call it victory. But we are still 2 and a half steps further left. Same as it ever was...”
I see the Democrats as Thelma and Louise locking hands, gunning the throttle and driving America over the cliff.
The Republicans are a little nebbish sitting in the back seat who is making sure speed limits are observed and turn signals used properly.
How did Carter "let" the Ayatollah enter Iran? How could he have prevented it?
Ayatollah Khomeini had been living in Paris, so whether or not Carter could readily have prevented his triumphal return to Iran, France could have. Beyond that, Carter prevented a military coup in Iran from forestalling Khomeini's accession to power.
"You can't expect much from someone who thinks "Bill runs like a gazelle" means the same thing as "Bill is a gazelle."
Apparently you're not well-versed in the many expressive ways of English writing and speaking, and the differences between similes ("Bill is like a gazelle") and metaphors ("Bill is a gazelle")...or metaphors such as Hitler's go-to, "The Jews are vermin," or the racists' standby "black monkeys," (and nasty variants of that metaphor, e.g., "n----r monkeys," etc.). To end on a nicer note, there is the globally known simile of Romeo's: "Juliet is the sun."
"Ayatollah Khomeini had been living in Paris, so whether or not Carter could readily have prevented his triumphal return to Iran, France could have. Beyond that, Carter prevented a military coup in Iran from forestalling Khomeini's accession to power."
What business was it of the US to interfere in Iran's internal affairs? (It was our meddling in their affairs for decades that led ultimately to the events in 1979.) Why would or should Carter have allowed a military coup to occur in Iran? Did he actually prevent a military coup in Iran? If so, how so? This story presents a more complicated and confused situation at the time, with claims and counterclaims by different parties.
It seems events unfolded too swiftly for the US (and other parties) to anticipate, and we were unable to decide on what action to take, if any. It does seem Carter did want the Iranian military to take action to allow a civilian takeover of Iran, rather than the Shah, but he preferred there not be a military coup except as a last resort. But, history is more complicated, fast-moving, and chaotic than newspaper accounts or history post-mortems might otherwise suggest.
"The Republicans are a little nebbish sitting in the back seat who is making sure speed limits are observed and turn signals used properly."
Hahahahaha!
The Republicans are the nasty bullies who beat up nerds and sissies, pull down their pants on the playground, shove their heads in toilet bowls, etc. and snicker at their victims' humiliation.
"The dems push the country 3 steps to the left. The Rs pull it back half a step and call it victory. But we are still 2 and a half steps further left.”
If only!
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