Comment by Herring
4 months ago
"Bad" is a judgment call. Trump approval ratings haven't dipped that far, so Congressional Republicans won't dare abandon him and there's not much political will for change.
It might change if we get into millions of foreclosures like the great recession and the pain really hits home. From what I can tell right now they're in wartime mode where they just need to buckle down until Trump wins and makes other countries pay for tariffs or something.
Trump only started at 49% approval rating and is currently at 40%. If you consider this as not having "dipped that far", it can only be because it was never high to begin with, although I think an 18% difference is significant.
The economy is great for oligarchs, especially those close to Trump. Congressional politicians generally serve the same masters. Regular Americans do not feature into the equation. We will not as long as the same people are in power. Regular Americans are, of course, feeling it. One spot is at the supermarkets. Food prices are up month to month and particularly year over year (moreso than the historical average).
https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ra...
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/su...
Look, I like liberals, but they're way too blind about living in the same house with Nazis. Immigration is Trump's best polling issue for a reason. https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
Trump won the popular vote. I'd love to just blame a couple oligarchs, but there are a LOT of very normal-looking Americans who really like what is going on with ICE and China. And they're willing to pay higher prices for it.
It's a red state zero-sum mentality, eg they don't want healthcare just because some black/female/trans person might benefit. Yes that's why they're so poor. Yes it applies to food prices. No they won't ever change. Yes they're trying to turn the whole country into one big red state or even a mafia state like Russia. In the long run (10-20 years) I'd say it's 80-20 they'll succeed.
There is some truth in what you say. However, I've come to the conclusion that it's hard to deduce much from things like popular vote totals because our political system is warped in ways that cause a feedback loop between ineffective (or even malicious) representation and apathetic voting. The most obvious example is that the popular vote total includes all voters, but the behavior of voters in non-swing states is pretty clearly influenced by a perception that their votes don't matter. This has been going on for so long and is so embedded in voting psyche that it's hard to conclude much from popular vote totals.
Basically what I'm saying is that the entire system is so terrible at representing voter preferences that I don't think there is any progress that can be made without a complete overhaul aimed directly at ensuring that government action implements voter preferences.
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This thread is about the economy, so that is what I commented on. That aside, it is important to note that Trump won the popular vote with fewer than half of voters voting for him and with a lower margin than Clinton's popular vote victory over him. I don't doubt that there are some people out there like those you describe, and I'll concede that in a country as big as America, you can describe many groups as "a lot" of people, but it is not by their actions or desires that we are in the place we're in. There is plenty of blame to go around, and yes, they own part of it. However, Trump is only able to act as an autocrat because he, congress and SCOTUS have all been bought by oligarchs who decided that checks and balances no longer need apply to Trump. The oligarchs' will is being enacted & these same donors own most media platforms, and as we've seen recently, are consolidating more, so they do have a hand in manipulating American opinion.
However, even despite that, even if not out of solidarity with their fellow man, but for rising costs, fear for their own health and safety or appeals from religious leaders, Americans understand there needs to be a change in healthcare, and their concerns about immigration are easing up a bit (even back in July), probably because they realize that by focusing efforts on law abiding folks, it's not making their communities any safer and is making things more expensive. Silver's polling data that you provide shows that even today, a majority of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio...
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