Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[NED funded]

Congressional Republicans have approved the most fiscally irresponsible budget resolution since the modern budget process began five decades ago. It allows Congress to slash taxes by $5.3 trillion and expand spending by $517 billion over the decade. This $5.8 trillion addition to the deficit (plus interest) would exceed the cost of the 2017 tax cuts, 2020 CARES Act, 2021 American Rescue Plan, and 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—combined.

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/...t-bomb/682567/

One of the most frustrating things around the 2024 debate was the idea that Republicans under Trump were going to be fiscally responsible at all

Say what you want abt Biden spending, at least that had specific goals in mind that we were trying to achieve. Republicans are about to create the biggest deficit in our lifetimes and all for the sake of corporate tax cuts and other such stuff. No infrastructure, no healthcare, nada. Its unclear if people will ever see any benefits from this or how that distribution would look like (Americas upper middle class most benefited). All the talk about government waste and balancing the budget thrown out of the window for tax cuts.

And I want to be clear b4 anyone mentions it. Tax cuts are effectively government spending. They arent pairing those tax cuts with cuts to spending that match it. BC they are cowards and are short sighted

[NineSpine]

But with no link or supporting information. I too can google an image that supports my view on things, but it doesn't mean it is useful information, or even real.

"More than 89 percent of counties in the United States shifted in favor of former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...red-shift.html

This is not secret information. It is common knowledge, and you shouldn't be talking about electoral politics if you don't know this already.

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody ever said that it was. That's just your straw-man.

This you?

"That's... what happens when there's economic turmoil. The shift wasn't voting "for Republicans", it was rebuking the party in power, even when it's not justified."

[Moralgy]

Right, the bestest democracy on earth can't stop a rogue president who's ignoring the courts and started an on-off-trade war with the rest of the world.

Let's just sit it and wait, is an approach, good luck.

What should Democrats be doing then? Outside of fighting everything in court and making it known they will keep doing so, not much will stop republicans right now. I don't think pulling a matt Murdoch here and forsaking the law to pull vigilante stuff is the play, personally, as I don't think America is that far gone.

There is a reason republicans have started demonizing judges, because it's the one thing that works to delay and hinder unconditional actions.

[NineSpine]

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/...t-bomb/682567/

One of the most frustrating things around the 2024 debate was the idea that Republicans under Trump were going to be fiscally responsible at all

Say what you want abt Biden spending, at least that had specific goals in mind that we were trying to achieve. Republicans are about to create the biggest deficit in our lifetimes and all for the sake of corporate tax cuts and other such stuff. No infrastructure, no healthcare, nada. Its unclear if people will ever see any benefits from this or how that distribution would look like (Americas upper middle class most benefited). All the talk about government waste and balancing the budget thrown out of the window for tax cuts.

And I want to be clear b4 anyone mentions it. Tax cuts are effectively government spending. They arent pairing those tax cuts with cuts to spending that match it. BC they are cowards and are short sighted

This isn't just the frustrating thing about 2024. This is the frustrating thing about the last 50 years. Every Republican president since Reagan has run up massive deficits to paper over their mishandling of the economy.

- - - Updated - - -

What should Democrats be doing then? Outside of fighting everything in court and making it known they will keep doing so, not much will stop republicans right now. I don't think pulling a matt Murdoch here and forsaking the law to pull vigilante stuff is the play, personally, as I don't think America is that far gone.

There is a reason republicans have started demonizing judges, because it's the one thing that works to delay and hinder unconditional actions.

The Democrats in the Senate passed the Republican budget bill, and you want to gaslight everyone into thinking that Democrats are already doing everything they can. There is no national strategy. There is no coherent message. Jeffries almost literally said "What do you want us to do about it?" The Democrats, with few exceptions, are absolutely asleep at the wheel. Why aren't they holding large press conferences demonstrating things Trump is doing wrong, or presenting a vision for the future? Why aren't they publicizing bills the Republicans won't take up that contain things Americans overwhelmingly support?

[PhaelixWW]

This you?

"That's... what happens when there's economic turmoil. The shift wasn't voting "for Republicans", it was rebuking the party in power, even when it's not justified."

Sure is, yup.

Let me dumb it down so there's no mistaking my meaning:

The economy is always a factor.

It was the deciding factor in 2024.

It is not always the deciding factor.


Any other reading is just your bullshit straw-manning.

Have fun arguing with yourself.

[Kathandira]

"More than 89 percent of counties in the United States shifted in favor of former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...red-shift.html

This is not secret information. It is common knowledge, and you shouldn't be talking about electoral politics if you don't know this already.

Can read as there is a paywall.

[NED funded]

Right, the bestest democracy on earth can't stop a rogue president who's ignoring the courts and started an on-off-trade war with the rest of the world.

Let's just sit it and wait, is an approach, good luck.

Its fascinating to me that you guys dont realize the internal contradictions. If this was Europe the president wouldnt be ignoring court orders. Bc the courts would be on their side all the time. This shows a perfectly functional government

- - - Updated - - -

This isn't just the frustrating thing about 2024. This is the frustrating thing about the last 50 years. Every Republican president since Reagan has run up massive deficits to paper over their mishandling of the economy.

Remember the 2018 JCA?

Trump added Trillions to the deficit and just when that damage could at least be mitigated they are planning to destroy it even more.

My contempt for Republicans keeps growing

[Mazza]

Biden barely squeaked out a win against Trump in the middle of a pandemic that Trump mismanaged, when hundreds of thousands of people were dying. If you were right, that election should have been a 48 state blowout in favor of Democrats, not a paper-thin lead based on 50,000 votes across a couple of states.

Elections are harder to win when your party is in power and the economy isn't great, but it isn't a foregone conclusion. The economy was not great when Bush beat Kerry. What was the Democratic message on the economy? It's not that bad and maybe we will create a means tested tax incentive you might be able to qualify for if you are in this subgroup of people. Wow, I'm so inspired just thinking about it. I can't believe so many voters stayed home.

- - - Updated - - -



Ah, and the democratic gaslighting begins, so now we all have to pretend that the country shifted left in 2024 but Trump somehow still won.

Before we are in an off topic shouting match that lasts 20 pages again: Kindly fuck off this way. Thank you in advance.

[NineSpine]

Sure is, yup.

Let me dumb it down so there's no mistaking my meaning:

The economy is always a factor.

It was the deciding factor in 2024.

It is not always the deciding factor.

Any other reading is just your bullshit straw-manning.

Have fun arguing with yourself.

You said "That's what happens when...", which implies that this is a rule, not something that is true when it fits your narrative, and false when it doesn't.

You cannot separate out the state of the economy and the poor Democratic campaigning on economic issues. You seem to be implying that there was nothing Democrats could have done to mitigate the economy as an issue, and that is total bullshit. Their message on the economy was pathetic gaslighting bullshit, dragged down by pointless granular policy minutia that communicates to people "This is going to be some BS red tape program I won't be able to use".

Additionally, the polling for the economy was all over the place. An overwhelming majority of Americans said they were personally doing well AND that the economy was bad. But the polling for the economy is worse right now than it ever was for Biden, yet extremely small numbers of people say that they would change how they voted, which indicates the economy was NOT their deciding factor.

- - - Updated - - -

Can read as there is a paywall.

https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harr...states-1981422

https://abcnews.go.com/538/americas-...y?id=116639076

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/...ompare-to-2020

[Moralgy]

That's not how it works. Different things work at different levels. I can tell you how we organized Occupy Wall Street and handled the PR for it, but I think your intention here is not to get answers but to ask me questions you assume I don't have answers for.

Unfortunately occupy wall street got demonized and infiltrated as it was easy to do so do to the ambiguous nature of the whole thing. It was missing a clear message for everyone to repeat that was there and it did wonders to treat it as "crazy leftists" as the clips kept coming out. While this happens to republican things as well, the media is by large conservative in this country and it lost the branding war eventually. So I'm not sure that is a great example ngl.

Maybe that's because Democrats do nothing bold and constantly apologize for existing.

Probably true to some extent ngl. Jasmine Crocket is a pretty good example of what dems should become if they want to complete with what conservatives have become.

[NineSpine]

Unfortunately occupy wall street got demonized and infiltrated as it was easy to do so do to the ambiguous nature of the whole thing. It was missing a clear message for everyone to repeat that was there and it did wonders to treat it as "crazy leftists" as the clips kept coming out. While this happens to republican things as well, the media is by large conservative in this country and it lost the branding war eventually. So I'm not sure that is a great example ngl.

As someone who was there, this criticism is pretty much right. The decentralized nature meant no clear leadership and therefore no clear face. That said, Occupy was part of a change to the national narrative, and I don't know if Bernie would have run in 2016 if not for that shift. People who haven't been around as long might not realize that prior to Occupy wealth inequality was not a part of any national conversation.

Probably true to some extent ngl. Jasmine Crocket is a pretty good example of what dems should become if they want to complete with what conservatives have become.

Crocket has been a good, but a little grand-standy. AOC seems to be taking the reins from Bernie, and Im curious to see how she does in that kind of leadership position. The Democrats need to be a lot more like Republicans in their messaging. They need to keep the messaging simple and punchy, not a list of tax credits they want to give people. Trumpism is not going to be defeated with centrist tax credit proposals and less housing regulations.

[Endus]

Ghandi was the leader of a political party.

That famous MLK quote: "Go fuck yourself, pig!"

In both cases, there was both;

A> Widespread popular involvement at the grass roots level involving large-scale civil disobedience, and

B> Similarly widespread violent resistance against the same regime existed in both cases, allowing MLK and Gandhi each to present a peaceful alternative to that violence.

Without that backdrop of violent resistance, peaceful resistance can often be ignored. Or worse, harshly penalized and actively destroyed by the regime. My point continues below;

JFC you're calling Republicans Nazis for voting for Trump and his cohort of Nazis to then turn around and say "nothing the Democrats can do about it". So if you really think that, stop talking down on Germans that did nothing to stop the Nazis, because they had to fear death not merely prison.

Democrats should act as leaders and lead, not stand by and hope that people will be hurt enough to vote for them again.

It wasn't politicking that took out the Nazi Reich. Politicking did nothing to prevent their rise to and securing of power.

And those Germans chose to keep themselves safe while, at best, turning their heads away from those who weren't just fearing death and prison, but actively being hunted and dragged off.

Which is already happening right now in the USA. People are already being dragged to prison or even being sent to death camps outside the USA (and Auschwitz, I'll note, is in Poland, not Germany).

My point is that you can't wait for politicians to save you. It won't happen. It practically can't happen, outside of an election, given how the USA's systems work. The American people need to fix this. Move fast and break things. Swinging a protest sign and chanting isn't going to do anything; protests work with businesses because you directly interfere with that business via the protest. A lack of "awareness" isn't the problem, it's a lack of "action". Which doesn't mean marching, it means throwing wrenches into the systems of government by whatever means necessary. You can't break fascism by playing by the rules; they make the rules, and will use them against you.

The next chance the Democratic Party has to meaningfully affect anything is the 2026 midterms. And even then, it's reliant on the voters to do any of it. This is down to the masses, not the leadership.

[Moralgy]

The legal fight and the political fight are related but also distinct. It's good to fight in the courts. It's not a substitute for winning the public.

There we go, a concession finally. But what I am getting at is that when it comes to fighting this administration, the courts are all that do anything to delay harming people. Messaging is something for 2026, but actually DOING SOMETHING to reduce the harm being done is limited entirely to the courts right now. I feel as though you constantly switch between the two, mixing up what you are talking about in most posts, which does cause most of the disagreement with others.

1 - I think most people can agree democrats failed at messaging since republicans were flat out lying and are now doing the exact opposite of what they claimed they would do. But harris did flat out say these things from time to time but no one listened, so bit of people don't care to investigate claims and a bit of democrats failed at messaging imo.

2 - There is no actual resistance that democrats can do right now on the congressional level outside of saying "none of us are going to vote for this" if something can not be filibustered.

How about we start with this simple one: Don't pass Trump's fucking budget bill like Schumer did. I mean what the fuck are we even talking about here? Democrats are literally capitulating on legislation right at the outset with no fight, and you are acting like I'm being crazy for asking for more than that.

Agreed, vote Schumer out because they had the power to actually make republicans concede things on this and some senate dems decided to bend the knee.

The thing is, I just want specifics on stuff instead of screaming into the wind saying DEMS DO SOMETHING NOW!!

[Breccia]

In a fun point-neutral post, CNN posts that Trump is attacking FOX News again.

It’s perhaps a bad day for Trump when even Fox News is suggesting things may not be going so well.

Trump took aim at Rupert Murdoch and two of his media holdings on Thursday after Fox News published a poll highlighting Americans’ concerns about inflation and economic uncertainty resulting from Trump’s chaotic tariff rollout.

In a late morning Truth Social post, Trump burned Murdoch, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal, saying that the nonagenarian media mogul “has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so.”

“This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years,” Trump wrote. “Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!”

Trump’s tirade appeared to be in response to Fox’s on-air coverage of its Wednesday poll, which looked at American attitudes towards Trump as he approaches 100 days in office. Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.

So of course, CNN had to use "appeared to" because Trump did not specify. Of course, he also didn't specify what the pollster did wrong. Probably because it was not just an accurate and correctly-done poll, but also, the best FOX News could find without cheating...which is what Trump was accusing them of anyhow.

Also, just a reminder, when Trump says "someone told me this" that is not proof of anything. Even if Murdoch told Trump he would remove that pollster, which I doubt, but even if he did, there's no reason to believe Murdoch was telling Trump the truth, either. I mean, why fire a pollster doing honest, accurate work?

And, as CNN continues to report, probably while laughing hysterically, it's not like FOX News was the only one posting how bad things were for all current WH residents named Trump attacking the economy.

It’s not the only major poll finding that Trump’s economic approval rating has cratered. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week found that only 37% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, a record low for either of his terms. A new Gallup poll this week found that a record-high 53% of Americans believe their economic situation is getting worse — making it the first time since 2001 that a majority have felt that way, per Gallup.

CNN spends the rest of the article listing times Trump and Murdoch have fought, then relaxes with a cigarette.

[NineSpine]

In both cases, there was both;

A> Widespread popular involvement at the grass roots level involving large-scale civil disobedience, and

B> Similarly widespread violent resistance against the same regime existed in both cases, allowing MLK and Gandhi each to present a peaceful alternative to that violence.

Without that backdrop of violent resistance, peaceful resistance can often be ignored. Or worse, harshly penalized and actively destroyed by the regime. My point continues below;

I agree, but the moderate resistance came first. The extreme resistance came after, from different corners.

It wasn't politicking that took out the Nazi Reich. Politicking did nothing to prevent their rise to and securing of power.

There was little politicking against the Nazis, because everyone else was too busy fighting among themselves. The two far left parties (SPD and KPD) were obsessed with purity testing each other. There was no unified, coordinated opposition.

- - - Updated - - -

There we go, a concession finally. But what I am getting at is that when it comes to fighting this administration, the courts are all that do anything to delay harming people. Messaging is something for 2026, but actually DOING SOMETHING to reduce the harm being done is limited entirely to the courts right now. I feel as though you constantly switch between the two, mixing up what you are talking about in most posts, which does cause most of the disagreement with others.

1 - I think most people can agree democrats failed at messaging since republicans were flat out lying and are now doing the exact opposite of what they claimed they would do. But harris did flat out say these things from time to time but no one listened, so bit of people don't care to investigate claims and a bit of democrats failed at messaging imo.

2 - There is no actual resistance that democrats can do right now on the congressional level outside of saying "none of us are going to vote for this" if something can not be filibustered.

Agreed, vote Schumer out because they had the power to actually make republicans concede things on this and some senate dems decided to bend the knee.

The thing is, I just want specifics on stuff instead of screaming into the wind saying DEMS DO SOMETHING NOW!!

My argument is not that the Democrats should do something and everyone else should do nothing until then. My point is that Democrats HAVE to win in 2026, because that is the only thing close to a way out of this we have, and they only win if they do something now, and that something is just being more coordinated and bold. Leadership is practically hiding at this point. It's an embarrassment that Sanders is getting more media time than actual party leadership.

Where are these guys? Where are their proposals? Where is their vision? They are nowhere to be seen. The Democratic Party needs to be seen as strong, coordinated, and capable. Their image right now is that they are weak, chaotic, and feckless, especially after the Biden mental fitness debacle. They should be putting a vanguard of young, intelligent Democrats out there, and we see very little of that. The closest thing we have from the core of the party is... Mayor Pete? Seriously?

Trumpism is going to have to be defeated politically, and a party does not win by saying "What do you want me to do about it?" and telling everyone "I told you so, better vote for me next time!"

[MCMLXXXII]

Yes, 20 more pages of the Democrats brought it to themselves, can't wait!

[alach]

Sorry to interrupt what appears to a lively debate, but I did just write this yesterday on the Ukraine thread that seems relevant to the topic.

I ain't going to trash talk any politicians but I am curious why there isn't more of a push for this. The majority of voters support Ukraine and don't like putin. Support for democracy and a nation's sovereignity is still a big selling point even if we live on a world where it doesn't feel like it.
And to a few that like to repeatedly call the current elected officials inadequate, it's a great time to get into politics, the world needs fresh faces, especially on the liberal side.

[NineSpine]

Yes, 20 more pages of the Democrats brought it to themselves, can't wait!

I'm sorry, am I getting in the way of your pointless pissing and moaning by presenting ideas for actually beating Trump?

[Endus]

I agree, but the moderate resistance came first. The extreme resistance came after, from different corners.

In both cases, there were decades of escalating violence preceding the non-violence movements.

There was little politicking against the Nazis, because everyone else was too busy fighting among themselves. The two far left parties (SPD and KPD) were obsessed with purity testing each other. There was no unified, coordinated opposition.

And there couldn't be. They were separate parties. If you're losing elections because the vote is split between multiple parties, that's how electoral systems work.

That has nothing to do with what happened after the elections, once Hitler seized power (because the Nazis didn't win the election.

Also, the Nazis went from 2.6% of the popular vote in 1928 to 18.3% in 1930 to 37% in July 1932 to 43.9% in March 1933. That's not "because other parties were bickering", that's a massive population shift supporting the Nazi Reich over just 4 years, before they seized full control.

[MCMLXXXII]

I'm sorry, am I getting in the way of your pointless pissing and moaning by presenting ideas for actually beating Trump?

Start a Democrats messed up the elections megathread. Probably will be a great success like your section 230 thread.