They were lied to, yes. And I see the correlation you’re making. I don’t think you’re super off-base, but I also don’t think you’re quite right.
The thing is, Trump in particular and the GOP in general are both lying about the problem. They’re saying that the problem with people’s bank accounts being empty is that the “illegals” are “taking stuff” (jobs, aid, low-cost housing) that “real americans deserve.” They then proceed to follow up on the attack against what they (maliciously) claimed the problem was.
On the other hand, Democrats are by-and-large truthful (or simply silent) about the causes of the affordability crisis. They then are stymied by a terrorist majority-GOP congress (or minority GOP wielding the filibuster) into inaction, or make token bipartisan progress without addressing the root of the issue. Then, as re-election rolls around, they spin the tiny gains they’ve made as bigger than they actually are.
We saw this in the Harris campaign. Her plans were almost entirely about encouraging and supporting small businesses–which is, indeed, a valid way to push down prices, and likely to pass muster with Republicans! But it’s not nearly enough, and voters recognized that (and, in fairness, they were also lied to about the fact that she had a plan at all by the conservative media).
In short, I think that while the GOP lies, the Democrats are just lazy. They think it’s still 1998, and they can just figure it all out over drinks if given the chance.
I’m not sure if that really makes it better. But I do think it’s different.
…Democrats are by-and-large truthful (or simply silent) about the causes of the affordability crisis.
Wut? the same Democrats that came out and said “The economy is good akshually, you just don’t understand”.
Yes, it was dumb to think that the Republicans were going to fix the economy, but lets stop pretending that the Democrats ever had any intention of fixing it.
In short, I think that while the GOP lies, the Democrats are just lazy.
The Democrats act lazy, but in reality, they want the same thing that the GOP wants: Their donors to be happy. They only pretend to fight, until they can get the votes to keep their seats.
When did they say “the economy is good?” I remember Harris talking during her campaign about how they did a lot of work and made a lot of progress, but there was still a long way to go. True, they didn’t make a huge deal out of it like Mamdani did, but I can’t find any evidence of them saying “nah man, everything is ok.”
The Democrats act lazy, but in reality, they want the same thing that the GOP wants: Their donors to be happy. They only pretend to fight, until they can get the votes to keep their seats.
Let’s be clear: every employee is responsible for doing what their employer wants. Elected representatives made it into office through a convoluted hiring process, and so the people who got them into office are their employers. I’m not oblivious to that at all. When I say “the Democrats are lazy,” it’s reductive in the same way that “the people elect the president” is reductive. Actually, the people vote for electors and the electoral college elects the president. And so no, the Democrats aren’t actually lazy; a less-reductive way to say it would be “the people that the Democrats see as their employers aren’t telling them to fix the affordability crisis.”
That may seem cynical, but the reason that this is notable is that, up until fairly recently in historical terms, the Democrats and Republicans alike treated their constituents as their employers, in at least some capacity. In some cases they weren’t their only employers, maybe some particularly corrupt ones in safe districts didn’t need to worry about the voters’ opinions at all, but for most of them the “other employers” (that is, the donors) also wanted them to keep the voters happy because they wanted us to keep buying their stuff, and a happy population is a consumptive population.
Now, though, almost none of the elected officials in Congress consider their constituents to be their employers.
The Republicans consider Trump to be the one signing their paycheck; even though their money is still coming from their donors, Trump has (or at least had) such an outsized impact on their electoral chances, and therefore their lobbyist money, that he commanded essentially all of their obedience.
And the Democrats have decided that just not being MAGA is good enough for their constituents to keep electing them (and in fairness, if they were up against the opposition they had in 1998, it would’ve been), so they don’t actually need to work that hard at following through as long as they just stay not-MAGA; so they’ve decided to put more effort into making their donors happy, and since their donors also supported Trump, their marching orders are just to not kick up too much of a fuss.
In the meantime, all of the donors have decided they’re okay with all of us being too poor to buy their stuff now for some reason (my personal theory is that it’s a really stupid game of chicken or some twisted prisoner’s dilemma thing), so that part of the historical backpressure is gone too.
The way that ends up working itself out is the Republicans saying whatever Trump says, even if it’s a lie, because he’s their employer; and the Democrats being lazy, because their employers say to be.
So no, I don’t think that Democrats are actually lying. They’ve just decided that they don’t work for us anymore. Which means we need to fire them (primary each and every one of them who isn’t doing what we want) to show them that, actually, they do; because if we hire the other guys, we already know who they’re going to be working for.
“Folks, I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is literally the envy of the world…America is rising. We have the best economy in the world…”
You can try to reform the Democrats all you want, and I legitimately wish you luck, but I’m pretty pessimistic that swaping them out will do anything. They have already shown that they would rather lose, than let anyone with any principles have power in their party.
Honestly, I hadn’t even processed that because it’s such boilerplate fluff, but you’re right. Biden did indeed inherit an economy on the brink, and he deserves some amount of credit for the “soft landing,” but he definitely didn’t do enough to materially help low and middle income folks as he implies in that speech.
Still, he wasn’t telling voters that the problems were over. He was telling other rich people (Congress), and for them the economy was (and still is) pretty good. If you were to ask him, I wonder if he wouldn’t say that that’s the difference.
I still think the worst failure of Biden’s presidency was not prosecuting Trump, though.
Buddy, we got to this point thanks to fence sitters making excuses for the people pulling their fence to the right. Don’t be that guy. Democrats might be useless, but Republicans are fuckiing evil, and there’s no both sides to the shit they’ve done since the fence sitters handed them power.
You think the Democratic party, the same party that bombed innocent people, did mass deportations without due process, and tortured people, are “useless”?
True, and they were lied to.
Not unlike when Democrats promised change in 2020 and then ignored the rising affordability crisis.
The point is the switch to Donald was economically-motivated in both cases.
They were lied to, yes. And I see the correlation you’re making. I don’t think you’re super off-base, but I also don’t think you’re quite right.
The thing is, Trump in particular and the GOP in general are both lying about the problem. They’re saying that the problem with people’s bank accounts being empty is that the “illegals” are “taking stuff” (jobs, aid, low-cost housing) that “real americans deserve.” They then proceed to follow up on the attack against what they (maliciously) claimed the problem was.
On the other hand, Democrats are by-and-large truthful (or simply silent) about the causes of the affordability crisis. They then are stymied by a terrorist majority-GOP congress (or minority GOP wielding the filibuster) into inaction, or make token bipartisan progress without addressing the root of the issue. Then, as re-election rolls around, they spin the tiny gains they’ve made as bigger than they actually are.
We saw this in the Harris campaign. Her plans were almost entirely about encouraging and supporting small businesses–which is, indeed, a valid way to push down prices, and likely to pass muster with Republicans! But it’s not nearly enough, and voters recognized that (and, in fairness, they were also lied to about the fact that she had a plan at all by the conservative media).
In short, I think that while the GOP lies, the Democrats are just lazy. They think it’s still 1998, and they can just figure it all out over drinks if given the chance.
I’m not sure if that really makes it better. But I do think it’s different.
Wut? the same Democrats that came out and said “The economy is good akshually, you just don’t understand”.
Yes, it was dumb to think that the Republicans were going to fix the economy, but lets stop pretending that the Democrats ever had any intention of fixing it.
The Democrats act lazy, but in reality, they want the same thing that the GOP wants: Their donors to be happy. They only pretend to fight, until they can get the votes to keep their seats.
When did they say “the economy is good?” I remember Harris talking during her campaign about how they did a lot of work and made a lot of progress, but there was still a long way to go. True, they didn’t make a huge deal out of it like Mamdani did, but I can’t find any evidence of them saying “nah man, everything is ok.”
Let’s be clear: every employee is responsible for doing what their employer wants. Elected representatives made it into office through a convoluted hiring process, and so the people who got them into office are their employers. I’m not oblivious to that at all. When I say “the Democrats are lazy,” it’s reductive in the same way that “the people elect the president” is reductive. Actually, the people vote for electors and the electoral college elects the president. And so no, the Democrats aren’t actually lazy; a less-reductive way to say it would be “the people that the Democrats see as their employers aren’t telling them to fix the affordability crisis.”
That may seem cynical, but the reason that this is notable is that, up until fairly recently in historical terms, the Democrats and Republicans alike treated their constituents as their employers, in at least some capacity. In some cases they weren’t their only employers, maybe some particularly corrupt ones in safe districts didn’t need to worry about the voters’ opinions at all, but for most of them the “other employers” (that is, the donors) also wanted them to keep the voters happy because they wanted us to keep buying their stuff, and a happy population is a consumptive population.
Now, though, almost none of the elected officials in Congress consider their constituents to be their employers.
The Republicans consider Trump to be the one signing their paycheck; even though their money is still coming from their donors, Trump has (or at least had) such an outsized impact on their electoral chances, and therefore their lobbyist money, that he commanded essentially all of their obedience.
And the Democrats have decided that just not being MAGA is good enough for their constituents to keep electing them (and in fairness, if they were up against the opposition they had in 1998, it would’ve been), so they don’t actually need to work that hard at following through as long as they just stay not-MAGA; so they’ve decided to put more effort into making their donors happy, and since their donors also supported Trump, their marching orders are just to not kick up too much of a fuss.
In the meantime, all of the donors have decided they’re okay with all of us being too poor to buy their stuff now for some reason (my personal theory is that it’s a really stupid game of chicken or some twisted prisoner’s dilemma thing), so that part of the historical backpressure is gone too.
The way that ends up working itself out is the Republicans saying whatever Trump says, even if it’s a lie, because he’s their employer; and the Democrats being lazy, because their employers say to be.
So no, I don’t think that Democrats are actually lying. They’ve just decided that they don’t work for us anymore. Which means we need to fire them (primary each and every one of them who isn’t doing what we want) to show them that, actually, they do; because if we hire the other guys, we already know who they’re going to be working for.
During his State of the Union Address:
You can try to reform the Democrats all you want, and I legitimately wish you luck, but I’m pretty pessimistic that swaping them out will do anything. They have already shown that they would rather lose, than let anyone with any principles have power in their party.
Honestly, I hadn’t even processed that because it’s such boilerplate fluff, but you’re right. Biden did indeed inherit an economy on the brink, and he deserves some amount of credit for the “soft landing,” but he definitely didn’t do enough to materially help low and middle income folks as he implies in that speech.
Still, he wasn’t telling voters that the problems were over. He was telling other rich people (Congress), and for them the economy was (and still is) pretty good. If you were to ask him, I wonder if he wouldn’t say that that’s the difference.
I still think the worst failure of Biden’s presidency was not prosecuting Trump, though.
it was very much UNLIKE that actually, he lies like a shark swims.
Both parties do.
That’s how we got to this point.
Buddy, we got to this point thanks to fence sitters making excuses for the people pulling their fence to the right. Don’t be that guy. Democrats might be useless, but Republicans are fuckiing evil, and there’s no both sides to the shit they’ve done since the fence sitters handed them power.
You think the Democratic party, the same party that bombed innocent people, did mass deportations without due process, and tortured people, are “useless”?
That sounds a lot like “fucking evil” to me.
Don’t put words in my mouth, I said they might be useless.
They’re not useless. They’re collaborators.
Democrats also ignored the immigration problem for far too long. Not even a policy on max numbers per year.
To say they ignored it is untrue.
They put kids in cages and deported millions too. They just didn’t unleash the Gestapo and kidnap and torture legal immigrants as Donald is doing.