1. Government policy has almost zero effect on the day to day lives of the hoi polloi.
2. Any federal administration is constrained to "govern from 40 to 60". Extremism of any sort when you're actually in power is simply not possible. Trump's rhetoric may have been extreme but his actual governance?
1. Government policy has almost zero effect on the day to day lives of the hoi polloi.
2. Any federal administration is constrained to "govern from 40 to 60". Extremism of any sort when you're actually in power is simply not possible. Trump's rhetoric may have been extreme but his actual governance?
This is back to the argument that nothing SO bad happened on his watch, which is backwards to me. We're lucky nothing SO bad happened. He was held back from extremism by the constraints of our government -- this is your defense of him? But you're missing my point to RJF. There are reasons people voted for Trump, reasons I can respect. My brother, who describes himself as right-of-center voted for Trump in 2020 b/c he thought the liberals had gone nuts and that Biden wouldn't be able to withstand a party deep into critical race theory and promoting maximum spending. I don't agree with my brother, but I can understand his reasoning. But just "stick it to the liberals" is not a reason I can respect.
If government policy actually has little impact on the day to day lives of ordinary citizens then what is the motive behind voting? Cultural issues, and that is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today. You may not like it but survey after survey has found that what really motivates political partisans is their dislike for the other side.
the effect on the day-to-day life of millions of people (mostly factory workers, but also middle class office workers and family farmers) whose jobs were off-shored should be obvious.
2. "bad middle eastern wars"
such wars had more than zero effect on the working class people in the military
3. "criminals/illegals swarming over the border"
millions of working class people lost earning power as a result of the 10s of millions of illegal, low wage immigrants that came to the USA in the last 25-40 years.
---
As far as how effective Trump was on those specific policy topics:
1. not very effective, but he shifted the debate about the evils of neoliberalism in the center toward populism.
the extremists and radicals on the cultural-left were NEVER going to change their mind, and in fact have doubled down on the anti-working class and anti-white rhetoric, as expected.
2. Trump made it a LOT harder for people on the "right" to openly embrace neocon war mongering.
Did that change the increasingly bizarre stuff going on inside the military-industrial-complex? Not that I can tell, there is increasingly rampant corruption and dysfunction, and the MIC is now openly embracing the violent totalitarianism of radicals on the cultural-left.
3. Sorta. Trump sent the only message to the illiterate, diseased peasants and the cartels and human traffickers in latin america that they will understand: brutal repercussions for illegal immigration. Trump did benefit from being able to invoke COVID to "shut down" the border.
Kamala Harris has now begun to use a watered-down version of Trump's "don't come here" rhetoric. lol
1. Government policy has almost zero effect on the day to day lives of the hoi polloi.
2. Any federal administration is constrained to "govern from 40 to 60". Extremism of any sort when you're actually in power is simply not possible. Trump's rhetoric may have been extreme but his actual governance?
This is back to the argument that nothing SO bad happened on his watch, which is backwards to me. We're lucky nothing SO bad happened. He was held back from extremism by the constraints of our government -- this is your defense of him? But you're missing my point to RJF. There are reasons people voted for Trump, reasons I can respect. My brother, who describes himself as right-of-center voted for Trump in 2020 b/c he thought the liberals had gone nuts and that Biden wouldn't be able to withstand a party deep into critical race theory and promoting maximum spending. I don't agree with my brother, but I can understand his reasoning. But just "stick it to the liberals" is not a reason I can respect.
If government policy actually has little impact on the day to day lives of ordinary citizens then what is the motive behind voting? Cultural issues, and that is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today. You may not like it but survey after survey has found that what really motivates political partisans is their dislike for the other side.
1. "bad trade deals"
the effect on the day-to-day life of millions of people (mostly factory workers, but also middle class office workers and family farmers) whose jobs were off-shored should be obvious.
2. "bad middle eastern wars"
such wars had more than zero effect on the working class people in the military
3. "criminals/illegals swarming over the border"
millions of working class people lost earning power as a result of the 10s of millions of illegal, low wage immigrants that came to the USA in the last 25-40 years.
---
As far as how effective Trump was on those specific policy topics:
1. not very effective, but he shifted the debate about the evils of neoliberalism in the center toward populism.
the extremists and radicals on the cultural-left were NEVER going to change their mind, and in fact have doubled down on the anti-working class and anti-white rhetoric, as expected.
2. Trump made it a LOT harder for people on the "right" to openly embrace neocon war mongering.
Did that change the increasingly bizarre stuff going on inside the military-industrial-complex? Not that I can tell, there is increasingly rampant corruption and dysfunction, and the MIC is now openly embracing the violent totalitarianism of radicals on the cultural-left.
3. Sorta. Trump sent the only message to the illiterate, diseased peasants and the cartels and human traffickers in latin america that they will understand: brutal repercussions for illegal immigration. Trump did benefit from being able to invoke COVID to "shut down" the border.
Kamala Harris has now begun to use a watered-down version of Trump's "don't come here" rhetoric. lol