This has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS. BE PATIENT!!!

[stevenkesslar]

US economy shrinks as Americans brace for Trump’s trade war

Quote

The Commerce Department on Wednesday estimated that the U.S. economy shrank during the first three months of 2025, its worst performance in three years. 

Quote

“Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’

Quote

This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” Trump said.

 

Canada, could you please take us over, so we can be one of your provinces?  Then we can have a leader who understands the economy.

Asking for a friend.

 

[Suckrates]

And every other arrogant and intentional LIE Trump told during his fiercely Attrocious interview on ABC last night...

Basically Trump told the interviewer that he can do whatever he wants because HE CAN.   He was elected to run the country and he is doing that, in HIS mind.   

He CAN follow the law, but he doesnt want to.  Being lawless cant/wont hurt him, and its easier to break the law. .

He created his own King narrative, and he sure stuck to it !  

[stevenkesslar]

6 minutes ago, Suckrates said:

Being lawless cant/wont hurt him, and its easier to break the law. .

Apparently that is the conclusion he reached during his four years in exile.  Jan. 11th and rape and being a felon just don't matter.

I think it's actually worse.  In his first act he had no particular agenda, really.  Something about THE WALL while fentanyl poured in.  But now he wants retribution.  That is the agenda.  Just tear shit down.  Including the law, and judges.

Meanwhile, coming soon to an economy near you:

Quote

“To be frank, it’s still not completely clear what the U.S. really wants. They ask a very disparate number of different things,” said one European diplomat, who described the talks as in the discussion phase. “So we are still trying to figure out what are the real priorities from the U.S.”

Quote

"BE PATIENT!!!” Trump said.

 

And 

 

Quote

“Europe coming up with offers would be a fucking mistake. Americans don’t want to negotiate,” said an EU diplomat. “It’s about strategic patience: let’s not push things and let [themselves] stew.”

Quote

"BE PATIENT!!!” Trump said.

 

And

Quote

but when the boom begins, it will be like no other.” Trump said.

 

 

At least sometimes Trump tells the truth.

[Suckrates]

When your Poll numbers tank, and a lot of people "turn on you",  there's only one thing for you to do......

Blame Joe Biden

Blame Joe Biden for EVERTHING, even the policies YOU put in place.

Keep your base Hating Biden......

YOU are the President, BUT its ALL BIDENS fault !

That's the LIE, and you gotta stick with it.  Its what MAGA expects. 

[stevenkesslar]

43 minutes ago, Suckrates said:

Blame Joe Biden

 

Well, he's not really blaming Biden, Sis.

He is blaming the "Biden overhang".  Can you blame him?

 

[KeepItReal]

4 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

 

Well, he's not really blaming Biden, Sis.

He is blaming the "Biden overhang".  Can you blame him?

 

Well Trump talks about Biden so much...perhaps it isn't a hangover, maybe it is a Biden addiction?? 🤭

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, KeepItReal said:

maybe it is a Biden addiction?? 🤭

Or Joebesity?

Biden spurs?

Or maybe he is secretly Jillous of Biden?

[Suckrates]

Trump and JD Vance come to blows over "Pencil" mandate....

JD Vance pleads to Trump he cant live with ONLY 5 pencils.   He uses 5 pencils PER WEEK......

Trump must make a carve out for Vance, so that the VP will always be "camera ready" and Pretty ! 

IF Trump plays "hard ball" with Vance and doesnt concede, Vance may have to resort to borrowing pencils from Melania..... 

 

 

[Pete1111]

The pencil helps Vance look forever young.

Just like his boss wants to do.

[stevenkesslar]

4 hours ago, Suckrates said:

Trump and JD Vance come to blows over "Pencil" mandate....

JD Vance pleads to Trump he cant live with ONLY 5 pencils.   He uses 5 pencils PER WEEK......

Trump must make a carve out for Vance, so that the VP will always be "camera ready" and Pretty ! 

IF Trump plays "hard ball" with Vance and doesnt concede, Vance may have to resort to borrowing pencils from Melania..... 

 

 

 

I am gonna be super-pissed if I only get one Trump doll this Christmas.

I can't tell you what I do with them, because it may be against the law or something.   Let's just say they are not sex dolls.

But it is my way of giving Trump what he deserves.  And if I can only get one doll to ..........................well, it may just mean a mental health crisis.

If I only get one fucking Trump doll, please pencil me in to the nearest insane asylum.  Assuming there are any pencils left.  😉

[Suckrates]

2 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

 

I am gonna be super-pissed if I only get one Trump doll this Christmas.

I can't tell you what I do with them, because it may be against the law or something.   Let's just say they are not sex dolls.

But it is my way of giving Trump what he deserves.  And if I can only get one doll to ..........................well, it may just mean a mental health crisis.

If I only get one fucking Trump doll, please pencil me in to the nearest insane asylum.  Assuming there are any pencils left.  😉

 

I am waiting for my "Scott Bessent" doll..... He is my latest MOST despised politician.  He is pompous, arrogant and the epitome of "Bitchy Queen"....  She pouts when she speaks, and always talks "down" to people....  I hate him more than Stephen Miller, but only slightly.....   Bessent is a DISGRACE to gay culture. 

[stevenkesslar]

2 hours ago, Suckrates said:

I am waiting for my "Scott Bessent" doll....

Perhaps he can play with my Steve Mnuchin doll.

I think they'd make a hot couple.

Quote

Furthermore, while former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was widely seen as a meaningful buffer between Trump and Wall Street’s sensitivities, Bessent is signaling that he is unlikely to tailor his recommendations to the vicissitudes of market forces.

As one former Trump administration official put it to your host: “Whatever the guardrails that were in place the first administration no longer exist.”

 

Wow!   Hard play with no guard rails with Trump-devoted fat cats.  

What could possibly go wrong?

[Suckrates]

5 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

Perhaps he can play with my Steve Mnuchin doll.

I think they'd make a hot couple.

 

Wow!   Hard play with no guard rails with Trump-devoted fat cats.  

What could possibly go wrong?

They look and "perform" like  2 wooden puppets. 

[Stable Genius]

Wait… I thought President Trump told us at his rallies that “China would pay the tariffs”. You mean that hard working, middle-class Americans who are already struggling will get stuck with the bill for these tariffs? That sounds like a tax increase, and not putting America first, which is not what we were promised. How can this be? I am so confused. /s

President Trump on Saturday threatened Walmart over its plan to raise prices in the face of tariffs, demanding it absorb the costs instead.

Why it matters: The White House, facing the risk of looming tariff-driven inflation, has turned to publicly threatening retailers to keep prices in check.

Catch up quick: On Thursday, Walmart said it could no longer hold the line on costs, even with tariffs on China dropping to 30% from 145%, and would have to start raising prices on some items as soon as this month.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/17/trump-walmart-tariffs

[Suckrates]

56 minutes ago, Stable Genius said:

Wait… I thought President Trump told us at his rallies that “China would pay the tariffs”. You mean that hard working, middle-class Americans who are already struggling will get stuck with the bill for these tariffs? That sounds like a tax increase, and not putting America first, which is not what we were promised. How can this be? I am so confused. /s

 

President Trump on Saturday threatened Walmart over its plan to raise prices in the face of tariffs, demanding it absorb the costs instead.

Why it matters: The White House, facing the risk of looming tariff-driven inflation, has turned to publicly threatening retailers to keep prices in check.

Catch up quick: On Thursday, Walmart said it could no longer hold the line on costs, even with tariffs on China dropping to 30% from 145%, and would have to start raising prices on some items as soon as this month.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/17/trump-walmart-tariffs

Maybe Mutherfucker Trump should kick in some of those Billions the Saudis bribed him with and subsidize Walmart ?    Its so funny that Trump doesnt think anyone deserves ANYTHING but him....  He expects everyone to sacrifice and support his perverse vision. 

[stevenkesslar]

2 hours ago, Suckrates said:

Maybe Mutherfucker Trump should kick in some of those Billions the Saudis bribed him with and subsidize Walmart ?    Its so funny that Trump doesnt think anyone deserves ANYTHING but him....  He expects everyone to sacrifice and support his perverse vision. 

Forget about Walmart.

The insolent racist raping pig Trump is at war with Black small businesses and Hispanic small businesses and Asian small businesses.

Why does Donald Trump want to assassinate the very same moderate Black and Hispanic and Asian small business owners that in many cases helped elect him, because inflation not only hurt them but hurt their businesses?

Walmart will survive tariffs.  For many small businesses Trump may as well put a gun to the head of a Hispanic business owner and pull the trigger.  He will kill them with tariffs.  

He is such a dumb racist fuck that he does not even care.  But it is a fact that a huge percentage of Blacks and Hispanic and Asian-owned businesses are small businesses.  And depending on where they get their products and materials - not to mention labor - from, tariffs and deportations of law abiding and employed undocumented immigrants could be fatal.

Plus, the ignorant racist piece of shit is  tearing down any effort to specifically help Black small businesses, or Hispanic small businesses, or Asian small businesses, or women-owned small businesses.  What a racist sexist raping insolent pig!  He is on a rampage to kill small businesses. If the tariff bullet doesn't kill them, his attack on anything that helps businesses that are not White or male like him and his fat cat donors will.  All to give tax cuts to his mostly White rich donors!

The racist piece of shit Trump has shit all over the efforts of Republicans like senator Tim Scott to build Black capitalism and Black small businesses.

There are polls saying most Americans, and even most Blacks and Hispanics, are not for defunding the police or for illegal immigration.  On equal opportunity, most polls say that most Americans want to move away from racial preferences.   But I have never seen a poll that says that most Americans are against a thriving Black Main Street, or a thriving Hispanic Main Street, or a thriving Asian Main Street.  And now Trump is out to kill their path to wealth creation.

[PeterRS]

On 5/1/2025 at 1:31 AM, stevenkesslar said:

I think it's actually worse.  In his first act he had no particular agenda, really.

Agreed. But he had no agenda because he really did not expect to win. When Hillary blew it, he had to make one up very quickly and depended on others to feed him his policy nuts. Then he realised that he'd picked a group of idiots whose only error was they did not like him or what he was doing. So he started on the "You're fired!" trail.

This time he absolutely knew he would wipe the shithouse with Biden. Not even Harris was going to affect his second coronation. So he had his plans and his allies all lined up behind him, ready to wipe his ass whenever he wished. How anyone in the Democratic Party seriously thought Biden could actually beat Trump needs a huge investigation. I can't speak for his policies within the US, but his actions overseas were desperately poor and basically ineffective. In the eyes of this outside observer, he was a rotten President.

One might hope that some intelligent person would get their legal semi-automatic out of its case, send the secret service in all wrong directions and end the Trump turmoil once and for all. The problem with that, though, is Vance may end up an even more idiotic and senseless leader. The USA willingly got itself into this mess. They must now suffer the consequences.

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

How anyone in the Democratic Party seriously thought Biden could actually beat Trump needs a huge investigation. I can't speak for his policies within the US, but his actions overseas were desperately poor and basically ineffective. In the eyes of this outside observer, he was a rotten President.

 

So inquiring minds want to know.   I assume you are referring to Biden being a rotten President.   What "actions overseas" are you referring to?

I think I could guess based on your comments on some of the other debacles of the past century.  But I'm curious.  As you said, you are an outside observer.  So how do Biden's actions fit into your global parade of follies?

I have some thoughts about Biden's entire history on foreign affairs, including as Senator and Veep as well as POTUS.  But I will await your comments before I weigh in.

I will make some observations about Biden's role in the 2024 election that I consider to be neutral, wonky, and interesting. 

I'm still a big fan of Alan Lichtman and his Keys to The White House.  Up until 2024, he used them to correctly predict the winner of every Presidential election since 1984. Including Trump in 2016.  Even though Trump himself didn't think he would win.  There is an asterisk on the record because Lichtman predicted Gore in 2000.  But Lichtman maintains a fair recount would have showed Gore won Florida, and thus the electoral college.  That Florida thing was so close that either way I'm not going to judge the Keys system based on a razor close mess in one state. 

Mostly, what I find flattering about the Keys is they presume voters are not stupid.  And they make reasonable decisions based on real issues like the economy, and war and peace.

Now on to 2024.  The Keys system is based on the idea that every election is a thumbs up or down referendum on the party in power.  If 6 of the 13 keys are false answers, it is in effect six nails in the coffin, and the party in power is dead.  Any less that six strikes against them and the incumbent party wins.  Lichtman decided Harris/Democrats had four keys against them, and would win.

So it's possible to just throw out the whole system and say it was always hogwash.  Or it's possible to say Lichtman made a few bad calls.  I believe the latter.

In my mind, the no brainer one Lichtman got wrong was that we are not a recession.  Technically we were not.  But every poll said a huge percentage of Americans felt we were.  And I am so wonky on this stuff that I know in 1992 Lichtman predicted accurately that Clinton would win, and his Keys cited the 1990 recession as a nail in the elder Bush's coffin.  Lichtman argued in a 1992 interview that even though the recession was over by election year, people still felt like it was a recession.  So he kind of flip flopped on his own rule in 2024.  

Lichtman did count Gaza as a military failure, which was another strike against Biden.  But he also argued that Biden had a foreign policy success:  the Ukraine War.  His argument was that in the long run history would view what Biden did as a success, defending democracy and a sovereign nation from Putin.  

So if I had to argue what Lichtman got wrong, that would be the second bad call.  In order to count against Biden, the Ukraine war did not have to be considered a failure.  Simply not calling it a success would have been sufficient for a sixth and fatal key to fall.  So the way I think about 2024 is that by electing Trump voters were in effect saying, "We do not see this war as a success."  The obvious big issue was the economy, stupid.  But it makes sense to me that both Gaza and Ukraine probably hurt Biden at the margins.

Trump and his campaign manager have both said he won because of inflation and the border.  That's true, and I think most people would agree.  And of course incumbent parties all over the world got slaughtered thanks to inflation.  But underneath that the election may also have been a referendum on how people were simply tired of America's Forever Wars.

[PeterRS]

4 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

I assume you are referring to Biden being a rotten President.   What "actions overseas" are you referring to?

I think the basic problem in the USA is that the vast majority of the population neither travel outside the USA nor have much interest in what happens outside the USA. That is why too much faith is paid to Congressmen and Senators - and to a certain extent Presidents and their teams - whom, people believe, know more than them. If only they realised the truth! The USA has made so many foreign policy mistakes since WWII, there are many experts around the world, not a few legal, who believe that people like McNamara and Kissinger should be tried for genocide. Kissinger's record, despite the spin he and his company worked hard to create, in many parts of the world is responsible for many millions of deaths. As McNamara admitted in his 'mea culpa' book, he and his Presidential colleagues "thought" they were doing right in Indo-China! Britain's Tony Blair also "thought" he was doing right by backing Bush II in the Gulf War. Like McNamara he finally offered a public apology. I don't recall Bush II ever apologising for anything, not even 9/11!

Undoubtedly the mega-mistake was Afghanistan. I seem to recall that the withdrawal had in fact been agreed by the Trump administration. If so, Biden was left with a big problem. The way he went about it, though, was disastrous, not least for the Afghans who had taken a hugely risky gamble wth their lives to help the USA and the other alllied powers. I know from the arguments in the UK, that the way the withdrawal occurred and its speed was a huge folly. Why did the USA keep open the Kabul airport when the air base at Bagram was far better defended and far more suited to a mass evacuation? The USA secretly withdrew its large number of troops and handed the base back to the government in Kabul on July 2. Yet the Afghan governement troops could not hold it and the Taliban took over on 15 August. I have yet to see any logical reason why it was not kept in US hands and used for the evacuation.

And as in the UK, many Afhghans who had filed the relevant paperwork to ensure their evacuation never got approval. The US civil servants were inundated and the process hideously slow. I happen to have spent my life in a business that deals with deadlines. We know two years agead of time what must happen on a certain date and a certain time. Our planning is geared up to ensuring that all along the way we meet a very extenisve series of secondary deadlines. We never once failed to meet a major deadline! Biden's people had more than 18 months - much of it clearly wasted. He could easily have used his Executive powers to speed up the Immigration process. He didn't.

The fact is that the Taliban had not been beaten. Nor had they submitted to foreign demands. They merely realised that the best way of achieving their ends was partially to withdraw and make it seems as though this was permanent. Then they nodded ther heads and told all who would listen they had changed. The USA was totally taken in by the Taliban - as of course all the world now knows. 

The counter-argument I have read is that this could have resulted in mass attemped evacuations. I find little validity in this. The US and its alllies had a very specific duty to get its front line troops out. It got some. It left many behind. And the evacuation itself was somewhat similar to that in Cambodia nearly half a century earlier - all last-minute and virtually unprepared for.

Israel/Palestine is another mega-disaster. Instead of being statesmanlike, lambasting Hamas and offering sympathy to israel, by not sitting on the fence at the outset and making known his own absolute support for Israel at every turn, he alienated much of the world. Certainly Israel deserved  a lot more than sympathy after the Hamas attacks. But continuuing for so long to agree with israel's position and to back a murderer and crook like Netanyahu made it all worse. And when we know that nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been murdered, many women and children, and the remainder are close to starvation due to Israel's actions, and that the Gaza strip will require many billions to become remotely habitable again, Biden's backing has backfired spectacularly.

You could count Ukraine as one of his partial successes but not when you consider that Ukraine's first requests and needs were met only after very, very long delays. I blame Biden for this. He has always regarded himself as the great conciliator. In times of war, time is crucial. Had he been faster off the mark and used his Executive powers, Ukraine might have been better off than it now is.

I can't speak much for the situation within the USA, but the appointment of Merrick Garland was a mega-disaster. That this judge moved at a pace slower than a snail to nail Trump for his many excesses was a complete disaster. Trump could well have been in a far worse legal position in the run up to the election and the volume of his crimes might just have persuaded some of his on-the-fence supporters not to vote for him. And for Biden to sit back without pressing Garland at every turn to 'get moving fast' on Trump will not be a positive in his legacy. The President leads a team. He is responsible for the team. He failed most of his team and he failed most of the Americna people - in my view.

[Suckrates]

I am not one that slice, dices and dissects the 2024 election like some of the posters on this forum.   I take things at face value and draw my conclusion so here it is.....

Americans had 2 choices,  a fat OLD incompetent Agent Orange WHITE MAN whose campaign strategy was to LIE to them about EVERYTHING, and an intelligent ,competent, well spoken BLACK WOMAN,  something they never had before....

So instead of going with the unknown, and capitalizing on Americas under current of RACISM and misogyny, they CHOSE to elect Trump, the Old WHITE MAN, with all his transgressions and convictions, a FELON who speaks at a childs pre-school level, and who they KNOW is a LIAR and GRIFTER.   Yes polling may show their reasons as "the war, the economy, the border", but thats simply because they dont want to say "I elected Trump because I am a RACIST and not Pro-woman....   Thats makes the picture so much clearer as to what we are dealing with in the American public.  Sure, other reasons mat have been floating around, but they are not THE reason Trump won and she Lost..... 

And the questions remains in MY mind "Did Trump REALLY win?" .   Combine all the chicanery we have seen him pulling off,  plus his DESPERATION to win to stay out of jail, and the influence of corrupt foreign powers WANTING him to win, makes me wonder if the election was "Safe and Secure" ?    But that would be descending into conspiracy theories, and I'm NOT that kinda girl !   

And now people are constantly jabbering about what Trump is doing thats ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and saying "he cant do that".....  Reality check:  HE IS DOING IT, so instead of repeatedly pointing it out, perhaps the pundits need to tell us "what they are gonna DO about it ?"     The Democrats may he handicapped, but the American people are not, so its WE that must do something before Trump has us ALL in foreign gulags, because you know, Trump doesnt like when people speak badly of HIM, it hurts his feelings, and for THAT, you need to be imprisoned FOR LIFE !    While he flys around on his $400 million Spy Plane, which the American people end up paying for, while HE cuts EVERY right and benefit the average American has left.  

Trumps WIN solved ALL his problems, but has caused ALL of ours.  Trump TOLD us he would be a Dictator, and that has proven to be the ONLY lie he hasnt told,   

[stevenkesslar]

9 hours ago, Suckrates said:

"I elected Trump because I am a RACIST and not Pro-woman....   Thats makes the picture so much clearer as to what we are dealing with in the American public. 

Yes and no.

On this one, I will just make it personal and talk about my own family. 

I have a sister and a niece, my sister's daughter, who have both proven to me time and again that they respond very well to race-coded emotional appeals.  They'd both insist they are NOT racist, of course.  But when I asked my sister why she voted for Trump in 2020, it was all this stuff about Black college students who were protesting and breaking windows and blah blah blah.  She viewed BLM as a threat.  I visited her daughter in Michigan last Summer and planned to take a Greyhound bus back to Chicago.  She insisted I take the train instead because it was Juneteenth and there were going to be race riots on Juneteenth and the bus station is near where Blacks live. 

None of what I just wrote makes any sense.  There were no race riots.  But it teaches me there are people in my own family who are more racist than they think, or want to admit.  Meanwhile, the other daughter of this sister sent me a text of her and her daughter at a Kamala Harris rally last Fall.  And that niece and I - who are both Democrats - joked about her budding young activist of a daughter.  It's complicated.   

The fact is that all four people I just described were going to vote how we voted, anyway.  We have very fixed views on race and politics.  At least three of us do.  Two hard Democrats, one hard Republican, which we just accept.  My one niece is always going to vote Republican and harbor a lot of ill feelings about Blacks who, she disdainfully says, look up to Oprah and Michelle.  She looks up to Gutfeld.  That says it all.  My sister is more the type of tuned out person who knows little about politics and is kind of lab-designed to respond well to race-coded arguments.  But she would not respond well to her White brother saying she is "not Pro-woman."  Let alone being called an ignorant racist.  Even though I love her, and  my brothers and I do see her as an ignorant racist.  🙄

This is exactly where I really like Lichtman's theory.  Everything I just said is true.  But it was not sufficient for Trump to have won in 2016 or 2024.  It took more than having a lot of racism and sexism around.  It took a verdict against the incumbent party, which is what Democrat got.

Back when I was a kid growing up in the Chicago burbs there is no way in hell that a talented Black woman like Lauren Underwood could have run and won as Democrat for US House in the mostly White Chicago burbs, in the House district my sister lives in.  That is a huge sign of lifetime progress of people electing her neither for nor against the color of her skin, but based on her talent and passion. 

So in 2024 we had something interesting.  Black men and Hispanic women voting for Donald Trump.  And also lots of young White men who grew in a racial melting pot I never grew up in, in my all-White Chicago suburb.  So I do think it was the economy, stupid, and the inflation, stupid, and the immigration, stupid.  There are a lot of studies that I think have documented that the people like my sister and one of her daughters, who harbor what I think can be called racial animosity or White grievance, were always going to vote for Trump, anyway.  Thankfully, there were not and are not enough of them to get to 50 %.

So Lichtman's theory says that 2024 and all elections are a referendum on the status quo.  And if people don't like it, they will go for whatever alternative they have.  In theory the Republican Party could have offered a better alternative.  But they are captured by Trump and his racism and sexism and raping and lying and bullshit.   .   A two party system is better than tyranny.  But in this case it failed us, and a lot of people feel that way. So I agree with @PeterRS.  We got exactly what we deserved.

To reverse the race argument, I will end with this.   Why are DEMOCRATS so fucking RACIST and STUPID?  What the fuck is OUR problem?  Harris herself did a very noble job running as the incumbent party at a time when almost every incumbent party all over the world was being punished for inflation.  But just south of the border, there is this guy named AMLO who is so popular that he got a Jewish progressive woman elected in Catholic culturally conservative Mexico.  WTF???!!!

Sheinbaum is a great leader in her own right.  But she for sure won on AMLO's coattails.  So why the fuck are we not all literally moving to Mexico to learn from their success?  What the fuck is OUR problem?  Harris sure could not win on Biden's coat tails?  So what is the difference?

In a nutshell, AMLO focused like a laser on raising wages and standards of living for the working class, reducing poverty, and literally putting money in the hands of seniors.  His coalition was ideologically impure and tolerant on all the culture war issues.  So a lot of college-educated Mexicans think AMLO was impure on fossil fuels and LGBTQ wedge issues and many other things.  But working class Mexicans in Mexico like cheap energy.  Just as much as Mexican Americans in Pennsylvania who work in the fracking industry like their jobs and cheap gas for their trucks.  Sheinbaum is an environmentalistand did the green stuff way back when AMLO was Mayor of Mexico City.  So it will be fascinating to see whether she can pursue green things without the kind of massive political backlash we have seen in the US and Europe.

So my point is:  this is on us.  Yes, Trump is an evil racist piece of shit.  And, yes, my sister and niece will always be racists who vote for racists like Trump.  I love them, anyway.  And that was not sufficient for Trump to win. 

Unless we Democrats fix these other problems, we are creating a situation where really shitty and racist alternatives like Trump actually seem like the lesser evil.

[stevenkesslar]

11 hours ago, PeterRS said:

I think the basic problem in the USA is that the vast majority of the population neither travel outside the USA nor have much interest in what happens outside the USA. That is why too much faith is paid to Congressmen and Senators - and to a certain extent Presidents and their teams - whom, people believe, know more than them. If only they realised the truth! The USA has made so many foreign policy mistakes since WWII, there are many experts around the world, not a few legal, who believe that people like McNamara and Kissinger should be tried for genocide. Kissinger's record, despite the spin he and his company worked hard to create, in many parts of the world is responsible for many millions of deaths. As McNamara admitted in his 'mea culpa' book, he and his Presidential colleagues "thought" they were doing right in Indo-China! Britain's Tony Blair also "thought" he was doing right by backing Bush II in the Gulf War. Like McNamara he finally offered a public apology. I don't recall Bush II ever apologising for anything, not even 9/11!

Undoubtedly the mega-mistake was Afghanistan. I seem to recall that the withdrawal had in fact been agreed by the Trump administration. If so, Biden was left with a big problem. The way he went about it, though, was disastrous, not least for the Afghans who had taken a hugely risky gamble wth their lives to help the USA and the other alllied powers. I know from the arguments in the UK, that the way the withdrawal occurred and its speed was a huge folly. Why did the USA keep open the Kabul airport when the air base at Bagram was far better defended and far more suited to a mass evacuation? The USA secretly withdrew its large number of troops and handed the base back to the government in Kabul on July 2. Yet the Afghan governement troops could not hold it and the Taliban took over on 15 August. I have yet to see any logical reason why it was not kept in US hands and used for the evacuation.

And as in the UK, many Afhghans who had filed the relevant paperwork to ensure their evacuation never got approval. The US civil servants were inundated and the process hideously slow. I happen to have spent my life in a business that deals with deadlines. We know two years agead of time what must happen on a certain date and a certain time. Our planning is geared up to ensuring that all along the way we meet a very extenisve series of secondary deadlines. We never once failed to meet a major deadline! Biden's people had more than 18 months - much of it clearly wasted. He could easily have used his Executive powers to speed up the Immigration process. He didn't.

The fact is that the Taliban had not been beaten. Nor had they submitted to foreign demands. They merely realised that the best way of achieving their ends was partially to withdraw and make it seems as though this was permanent. Then they nodded ther heads and told all who would listen they had changed. The USA was totally taken in by the Taliban - as of course all the world now knows. 

The counter-argument I have read is that this could have resulted in mass attemped evacuations. I find little validity in this. The US and its alllies had a very specific duty to get its front line troops out. It got some. It left many behind. And the evacuation itself was somewhat similar to that in Cambodia nearly half a century earlier - all last-minute and virtually unprepared for.

Israel/Palestine is another mega-disaster. Instead of being statesmanlike, lambasting Hamas and offering sympathy to israel, by not sitting on the fence at the outset and making known his own absolute support for Israel at every turn, he alienated much of the world. Certainly Israel deserved  a lot more than sympathy after the Hamas attacks. But continuuing for so long to agree with israel's position and to back a murderer and crook like Netanyahu made it all worse. And when we know that nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been murdered, many women and children, and the remainder are close to starvation due to Israel's actions, and that the Gaza strip will require many billions to become remotely habitable again, Biden's backing has backfired spectacularly.

You could count Ukraine as one of his partial successes but not when you consider that Ukraine's first requests and needs were met only after very, very long delays. I blame Biden for this. He has always regarded himself as the great conciliator. In times of war, time is crucial. Had he been faster off the mark and used his Executive powers, Ukraine might have been better off than it now is.

I can't speak much for the situation within the USA, but the appointment of Merrick Garland was a mega-disaster. That this judge moved at a pace slower than a snail to nail Trump for his many excesses was a complete disaster. Trump could well have been in a far worse legal position in the run up to the election and the volume of his crimes might just have persuaded some of his on-the-fence supporters not to vote for him. And for Biden to sit back without pressing Garland at every turn to 'get moving fast' on Trump will not be a positive in his legacy. The President leads a team. He is responsible for the team. He failed most of his team and he failed most of the Americna people - in my view.

I agree with everything you said.

I will add three thoughts.  

First, in hindsight Biden is the kind of guy who should have been a US Senator.  As you said, he is a conciliator.  He was not a great wartime President - assuming there even is such a thing.  But Churchill comes to mind.  As does Putin, actually.  If you want to fight and win a war you probably want someone like them.  It for sure hurt Democrats politically that Biden just quietly let Bibi The Baby Killer get away with genocide. 

Second, until 2020 I had this idea that it it is a good thing that everyone who was clearly for the Iraq War lost the Presidency, from 2008 on.  McCain was for Iraq, and he lost.  Romey was for Iraq, and he lost.  Obama rode his opposition to Iraq to primary victory in 2008.  And it did not hurt him in either the 2008 or 2012 general election.  If anything he could kind of paint Romney as a warmonger as well as a fat cat.  In 2016 Hillary lost.  Trump's actual history on Iraq is clouded, I think.  But he never voted for it, like Hillary did.  Biden did vote for the Iraq war, which I think was one of his worst decisions.  And one reason he was far from my favorite in 2020.  He of course tried to explain it all away.  So arguably that came back to haunt Democrats.  2024 was mostly about the economy, stupid.  And immigration, stupid.  But I think all your points add up to something.  A lot of people were tired of the forever wars.  Including a lot of Democrats or Democrat leaners who did not vote, or voted for Trump in protest.  And Biden kind of was the official spokesman for forever wars, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Ukraine.

Third, Biden's smartest move, as Veep, was to practically beg Obama to get out of Afghanistan early in his first term.  In retrospect, I think Biden was right.  Obama was known to have said that he thought the DC Establishment has a bias toward war.  And he did not know what to do about it.  I'm guessing Obama felt that going up against the military industrial complex, who wanted and got a  surge in Afghanistan that ended disastrously, would have ended badly for him.  So Obama on the surge was kind of like Biden on Ukraine. He split the difference.  Which seems to work better in politics than in war.   Had Obama pulled out of Afghanistan in 2009, it would have saved Biden from the embarrassment.  Not to mention the lives of many Americans and allies and Afghanis.  That said, no one is arguing that Afghanistan sealed Biden's fate.  Lichtman would argue that Gaza and Ukraine were the foreign policy/war issues that mattered in 2024.

 

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, stevenkesslar said:

First, in hindsight Biden is the kind of guy who should have been a US Senator.  As you said, he is a conciliator.  He was not a great wartime President - assuming there even is such a thing.  But Churchill comes to mind.  As does Putin, actually.  If you want to fight and win a war you probably want someone like them.

Yet as a conciliator, Biden did not have a clean record. After the shambles of the Robert Bork nomnation for the Supreme Court under Reagan, there was a lot of pressure on Bush I to ensure his nominee to replace Justice William Brennan sailed through the process. David Soutar, a judge with a great deal of experience at several levels, won the seat by acclamation. Yet within a year the civil rights icon on the Court, Thurgood Marshall, announced he was standing down. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas as "the best person for the job", a description that has come to haunt him as much as Thomas. Based on his extensive inexperience Thomas clearly was very far from the best person. But he was black and an ultra-conservative and Bush and his cohorts  pressed ahead.

The nomination process was a near shambles. A former exacutive who had worked under him came before the Senate Committee, Professor Anita Hill, and accused him of sexual harassment. There were three other ladies waiting outside the court to back up Hill's claim. Professor Hill took a lie detector test and passed. To give Thomas time to refute the allegations, he was given a day before exonerating himself before the Committee. I happened to be living in Tokyo at that time and was having supper with friends that evening but we were riveted on the television to see how Thomas responded. Instead fo rebutting Ms. Hill's claims, Thomas resorted merely to what can only be described as a vicious angry rant against a system that failed "uppity blacks" like him. I turned to my friends and misquoted Shakespeare, "Methinks he doth protest too much!"

Bush had been warned by his Attorney General that any attempt to replace one of the most revered liberal Justices with an ultra-conservative idealogue with little experience could backfire, just as the Bork nomination had backfired on Reagan. After hearing Thomas's vituperation, the Committee failed to call the three other women to back up Ms. Hill's claim, and Thomas was voted in as a Justice by a very narrow margin.  The Chairman of that Judiciary Committee was -Joe Biden. Given the degree of controversy, I do not believe that committee led by Biden should have approved the Thomas nomination. It was a prime example of Biden the conciliator and it backfired with serious consequences, even if we only take into consideration the examples of Thomas's ethics violations in recent years.

That the US has a system where Justices are political appointees, where there are no stringent ethics rules for Justices and, worse, that Justices are on the Court for life is, in my view, some form of madness. Either there should be a mandatory retirement age like the UK, or the appointment should be for a fixed term, like a President although for considerably longer. 

 

[Suckrates]

2 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

Yes and no.

On this one, I will just make it personal and talk about my own family. 

I have a sister and a niece, my sister's daughter, who have both proven to me time and again that they respond very well to race-coded emotional appeals.  They'd both insist they are NOT racist, of course.  But when I asked my sister why she voted for Trump in 2020, it was all this stuff about Black college students who were protesting and breaking windows and blah blah blah.  She viewed BLM as a threat.  I visited her daughter in Michigan last Summer and planned to take a Greyhound bus back to Chicago.  She insisted I take the train instead because it was Juneteenth and there were going to be race riots on Juneteenth and the bus station is near where Blacks live. 

None of what I just wrote makes any sense.  There were no race riots.  But it teaches me there are people in my own family who are more racist than they think, or want to admit.  Meanwhile, the other daughter of this sister sent me a text of her and her daughter at a Kamala Harris rally last Fall.  And that niece and I - who are both Democrats - joked about her budding young activist of a daughter.  It's complicated.   

The fact is that all four people I just described were going to vote how we voted, anyway.  We have very fixed views on race and politics.  At least three of us do.  Two hard Democrats, one hard Republican, which we just accept.  My one niece is always going to vote Republican and harbor a lot of ill feelings about Blacks who, she disdainfully says, look up to Oprah and Michelle.  She looks up to Gutfeld.  That says it all.  My sister is more the type of tuned out person who knows little about politics and is kind of lab-designed to respond well to race-coded arguments.  But she would not respond well to her White brother saying she is "not Pro-woman."  Let alone being called an ignorant racist.  Even though I love her, and  my brothers and I do see her as an ignorant racist.  🙄

This is exactly where I really like Lichtman's theory.  Everything I just said is true.  But it was not sufficient for Trump to have won in 2016 or 2024.  It took more than having a lot of racism and sexism around.  It took a verdict against the incumbent party, which is what Democrat got.

Back when I was a kid growing up in the Chicago burbs there is no way in hell that a talented Black woman like Lauren Underwood could have run and won as Democrat for US House in the mostly White Chicago burbs, in the House district my sister lives in.  That is a huge sign of lifetime progress of people electing her neither for nor against the color of her skin, but based on her talent and passion. 

So in 2024 we had something interesting.  Black men and Hispanic women voting for Donald Trump.  And also lots of young White men who grew in a racial melting pot I never grew up in, in my all-White Chicago suburb.  So I do think it was the economy, stupid, and the inflation, stupid, and the immigration, stupid.  There are a lot of studies that I think have documented that the people like my sister and one of her daughters, who harbor what I think can be called racial animosity or White grievance, were always going to vote for Trump, anyway.  Thankfully, there were not and are not enough of them to get to 50 %.

So Lichtman's theory says that 2024 and all elections are a referendum on the status quo.  And if people don't like it, they will go for whatever alternative they have.  In theory the Republican Party could have offered a better alternative.  But they are captured by Trump and his racism and sexism and raping and lying and bullshit.   .   A two party system is better than tyranny.  But in this case it failed us, and a lot of people feel that way. So I agree with @PeterRS.  We got exactly what we deserved.

To reverse the race argument, I will end with this.   Why are DEMOCRATS so fucking RACIST and STUPID?  What the fuck is OUR problem?  Harris herself did a very noble job running as the incumbent party at a time when almost every incumbent party all over the world was being punished for inflation.  But just south of the border, there is this guy named AMLO who is so popular that he got a Jewish progressive woman elected in Catholic culturally conservative Mexico.  WTF???!!!

Sheinbaum is a great leader in her own right.  But she for sure won on AMLO's coattails.  So why the fuck are we not all literally moving to Mexico to learn from their success?  What the fuck is OUR problem?  Harris sure could not win on Biden's coat tails?  So what is the difference?

In a nutshell, AMLO focused like a laser on raising wages and standards of living for the working class, reducing poverty, and literally putting money in the hands of seniors.  His coalition was ideologically impure and tolerant on all the culture war issues.  So a lot of college-educated Mexicans think AMLO was impure on fossil fuels and LGBTQ wedge issues and many other things.  But working class Mexicans in Mexico like cheap energy.  Just as much as Mexican Americans in Pennsylvania who work in the fracking industry like their jobs and cheap gas for their trucks.  Sheinbaum is an environmentalistand did the green stuff way back when AMLO was Mayor of Mexico City.  So it will be fascinating to see whether she can pursue green things without the kind of massive political backlash we have seen in the US and Europe.

So my point is:  this is on us.  Yes, Trump is an evil racist piece of shit.  And, yes, my sister and niece will always be racists who vote for racists like Trump.  I love them, anyway.  And that was not sufficient for Trump to win. 

Unless we Democrats fix these other problems, we are creating a situation where really shitty and racist alternatives like Trump actually seem like the lesser evil.

Agreed, but we already had Trumps 1st term to learn WHO and WHAT he was and what he will do....  Basically nothing in Trump 1.0 because he was STOPPED by decent, LAW abiding people.   There are no more of those around, so now Trump gets to live out his Fantasy unencumbered and unchallenged.  I doubt all those that voted for him in 2.0 really believed he would accomplish Something..... they just voted against a BLACK WOMAN, which was a HARD NO for them !    Sorry Sis, I just like things simple, and sometimes "simple" is the Best answer.   I really DONT think most voters are as wrapped up in politics as you are, and as I have become ?    They probably didnt even know anything about WASTE/FRAUD and ABUSE until it became the "Cause du jour"  of Musk and the DOGE boys.   FRACKING ?    WTF !   Energy ?  Yeah we need gas and oil to run things.....   But am I gonna vote for a BLACK WOMAN President ?    Not so much......  Thats the way a huge swath of American Neanderthals think. 

[stevenkesslar]

15 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Kissinger's record, despite the spin he and his company worked hard to create, in many parts of the world is responsible for many millions of deaths.

I used my bandwidth, but I will add this.  Sorry folks.

All of these issues are very complicated.  With someone like Kissinger, especially during his official career when he had power and it mattered most, there is a strong case to accuse and convict him of war crimes.

That said, he was mostly right on Ukraine.  Maybe this was an older and apologetic Kissinger seeking redemption.    But he met with Putin a lot, and saw Ukraine for a long time as a bridge of peace between Russia and the West.  Meaning, specifically, Ukraine in NATO should never have been on the table. Every effort should have been made to keep Ukraine neutral and prevent a war.

I think it is fair to tie some of the blame for this on W, yet again.  He was the one who let the cat out of the bag and insisted Ukraine should eventually join NATO.  

Ukraine was the one time I willingly signed on with the US military industrial complex.  And the reason I did is all the reasons Biden gave.  Which was a near consensus among Americans for at least a while.  By the time the war started, meaning once Putin invaded a sovereign country based on a whole bunch of bullshit - same as W did in Iraq - Kissinger himself changed his mind as the facts changed.  At that point Kissinger said it was too late, and the only way to keep Ukraine safe was NATO.

The other unsung hero in this picture is Mark Milley, who spoke out in Fall 2022 that Ukraine should sue for peace while Russia was on the back foot.  Milley was also the guy who said Kyiv would fall in 72 hours, so he was hardly unblemished.  But at least with 20/20 hindsight whatever deal could have been put together then would be no worse than what could be put together today.  Arguably, it would be the difference between Bush 41 and Bush 43, as seen through the lens of the Powell Doctrine.  At least Bush 41 had measurable and limited goals that he objectively won.  The equivalent with Ukraine is we stopped Putin in his tracks and now we will negotiate some kind of neutral territory blah blah blah.  It would have been weak.  But it would have been a way, again like Bush 41, that Biden could have declared victory, even if it was a stalemate.

Quote

Yet as a conciliator, Biden did not have a clean record

No shit!

Here's another sad fact about history.  The last decade can be seen as a battle between left wing populism (Sanders) and right wing economic populism/nationalism (Trump).  Not just in the US, of course.  It was always predictable in the US that in a conflict like that, right wing populism/nationalism would probably win.  In every survey, moderates outvote conservatives who both outvote liberals.  Liberals are a minority.  So all my life, being a liberal political whore, I have known that liberals only win by building coalitions with moderates.  Hence, Joe Bidenism.

As POTUS Biden tried to manage a wave of left-wing populism, and did some good things.   This is my mantra.  Had he pushed like hell to keep a child tax credit that for one year lowered child poverty by 50 % and put money in the pockets of tens of millions of working class people, many of them Trump voters, that one single thing might have been enough for Harris to win.  Meaning we fought like hell for the working class.  And there is no fucking way we will give tax cuts to Elon Musk so your child can be poor again.  We will fight like hell!  That is why AMLO and his movement came to dominate Mexico.  Instead Biden was painted as weak and woke.

And unlike Clinton in particular I don't think he had a strategy.  Biden acted more like Senator In Chief.  You can say he had history against him, with inflation he could not stop.  But AMLO governed in Mexico under the same circumstances, and came out smelling like a rose.  You can argue these are two very different countries with two different sets of circumstances.  But to a great degree it was the Mexican working class that elected AMLO, and the Mexican American (or at least the broader and diverse Latino) working class that weighed in just enough for Trump to allow him to re-infect the nation.

Had we had a better political leader, like AMLO, things could have turned out better I think.

Oh, the folly!