Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

So, which phase from YMP’s post will be the December thread title

It was fairly eye opening to be out at my mom's house this weekend. It's always leaned conservative, so there's been no surprise that it's gone for Trump. Even so, what I saw out there this year was just jaw dropping and massively depressing. For context this is a small town about an hour west of Chicago, with a population of around 1,800 in 2010. Even during the 2020 election, while Trump signs probably outweighed Biden signs 15-1, you could probably have counted every election sign in town on both hands and both feet. Driving out there for Thanksgiving though, I'd say easily, a conservative estimate would be pro-Trump signs, flags and banners in 50% of the yards. And not just election style signs, but large 'Trump 2024' flags and "Let's Go Brandon" banners. One subdivision I pass through to get to my moms holds 18 houses. Seven of them had "Let's Go Brandon" banners up.

Now a large part of this would be due to the opening of "THE TRUMP STORE" (as it declares in an obnoxiously large sign), which popped up last summer as a roadside stand, but has now moved into a sizable storefront in a strip office building otherwise filled with a dentist and a lawyer's office. When we drove by it on midday Sunday, there was a line of approximately 10-12 waiting to get in. All of this in a town of 1,800 people.

Like I said, Trump signs out there don't surprise me in the least, but the level I saw this weekend was way out of proportion compared to anything I've seen out there, particularly for a non election year. It's insane.

Raymond - hell no, I suggested this month's. Surely it's someone else's turn

The hinterlands of Maryland have a lot of Trump signs up, the 2020 election editions, threatening slogans, outlines of the man like he was on a coin or whatever.

NE Pennsylvania, where I used to live, is home to many Trump roadside stands but it’s been a while since I’ve been back so maybe they’ve graduated to storefronts.

YMP, fair enough! I was kidding.

Mostly I wanted to inspire thread title talk

"Home To Many Trump Roadside Stands," perhaps?

we have to put ourselves in the mindset of mid-december

what's gonna be happening in US politics then? we need outrage! we need clicks!!

an angry, insult-laden thread title will bring in 5 times the clicks than a funny pun

YOU'D REALLY BELIEVE THIS, YOU FOOL!?: US Politics December 2021

Put Up or Shut Up: US Politics December 2021

It’s Not Q Friends, It’s Q Business: US Politics December 2021

Please let's don't suggest anything Christmas-themed (like no "Manchin Claus is Comin' to Town" or "Joe-ngle Bells" or anything cringey like that, plz)

Submitted as a potential thread title (see attached image):

Today in unsolicited email . . . pic.twitter.com/pdQvoBlGGQ

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) November 30, 2021

Good King Wenceslas Looked Out, Then Put On A Cleverly Unsettling Gater: US Politics December 2021

Kidding, kidding, ignore me

it seems like people are way more concerned with the price of gas than the fact that we probably won't have a democracy in about 3 years

Is democracy putting groceries in my fridge? RIDDLE ME THAT

the rest of y'all know where I'm politically at

we need outrage! we need clicks!!

I misread this, thanks for new display name KM

Yes I chose to buy a huge SUV and to live 40 miles from my work because I needed more Sq footage to store all my crap/kids but it's the guvmint's fault I ""can't afford"" gas.

^ Ngl, blaming people for the misdeeds of city planners, NIMBY types, and the automobile industry is kind of ugly.

Lol Neanderthal

For anyone who needs to hear it, VP is a vital partner of POTUS: US Politics December 2021

it seems like people are way more concerned with the price of gas than the fact that we probably won't have a democracy in about 3 years

something something material circumstances yada yada yada

Something something Mussolini made the trains run on time.

xp to table

we blame people as much as city planners and nimbys because those same people are deeply invested in the policies advocated by those latter groups. our fox news radio station has a local morning show that i would occasionally tune into on the way to work, and their only talking point for over a year was recode, an effort to update and modernize our zoning laws. it's no mystery why the local pundits were so invested in this particular dog whistle. recode is not only a harbinger of right wing culture war boogeymen, threatening eg their right to barrel around town in a coal rolling four ton truck because the city narrowed the street and put planters in by the sidewalk; it also raises the possibility that a non-white person will move in next door in a newly affordable apartment, townhouse, duplex, ADU or what-have-you. and local non-pundits have these same concerns and will express them in explicit terms.

i choose disunity over empathy for someone who would sooner see me and my loved ones dead than ride a bus. i don't have patience for concern over the proverbial trump voting diner patron, but from the left, and certainly not when the matter at hand is the desire for cheap acreage.

pretty sure i can never afford to live near my job in DC and i live on .008 acres rn but yeah everyone concerned about gas prices chose to live far away from work so they could cheaply store their kids in their SUV/mcmansion and is in a trump diner. just to add to the series of strawmen set up here.

I mean, also sometimes companies move their offices/warehouses/headquarters/whatever and most don't bother to ask their employees if that's convenient with them before doing so. All of that without getting into people who are asked to work shifts that are incompatible with public transportation schedules/options, etc etc etc.

Which isn't to say I defend people driving monstrous pickup trucks or gigantic gas guzzling SUVs just because, but there's a whole lot of ugly strawmen in that argument.

Yeah, sorry, but setting up all people who don't live in cities as relentlessly fascist hicks who don't care about the planet is fucking idiotic, period.

Beyond that, it's also untrue.

It's also not something anyone has said but go off son

Fortunately there's an alternative, and it's called the electric car

...which is overwhelmingly a luxury product for rich people

Personal consumer choices still don’t matter.

I can’t wait for my apartment complex that hasn’t been remodeled since 1975 and has probably 600 cars parked on the lot every night to install charging plugs for all of them.

Yeah close-in, mixed-use, high-density development that is engineered for walkability? Unfortunately, it's still largely a luxury product, mainly consumed by rich people.

New urbanism is great but even I can barely afford it, and I'm pretty well off.

My office is 30 miles from Chicago. There's plenty of single family homes within short drive of it. Yet many of my coworkers choose to live in what are basically rural areas so they can afford a larger home. None that I know of drive anything other than a huge suv. Obv this isn't all or even most ppl! But they're out there and they tend to be the ones I hear bitch about gas prices. Ymmv Har Har.

Imo this isn't an either/or situation, it's a both/and one. Sometimes people's choices are limited by things outside of their control so we shouldn't rest blame on anyone at the bottom of a power structure, AND ALSO some people make bad & selfish choices and are proud of doing so for reasons that are incompatible with community survival and that's not a value-neutral choice they're making.

This isn't really a strawman in my experience. The white flight from cities to suburbs has clearly moved on out to rural areas and townships where the taxes are low and minorities are rare. More and more farmland is being parceled up for them and boy oh boy do they love putting Trump signs on their oversized lawns.

I don't think anyone is arguing that this isn't happening, more just that those are not the ONLY people who live in far-flung suburbs and rural areas.

More and more farmland is being parceled up for them and boy oh boy do they love putting Trump signs on their oversized lawns.

Was in the Fresno/Clovis area for Thanksgiving, and I can confirm this is true. Former orchards now sprouting beige, enormous faux-tuscan abominations

If a development is called Quail Brook, you can surmise that quail used to live by a no longer existent brook

yeah, any subdivision named after an animal comes about when the animals are gone.

“Quail Brook” sounds like the title of a lame solo Malkmus c-side from 2003

in orbit otm

the assholes are just louder, maybe more likely to be in the office workplace, and have land to put their trump signs on. it's selection bias.

If they all moved back to the suburbs or cities, it also wouldn't matter (to the climate or anything else), aside from making the rapidly diversifying suburbs as unaffordable as the cities.

En route to Fresno, saw a bunch of variations of this: "Newsom! Stop Dumping Our WATER INTO THE OCEAN!"

Even ancient watersheds and rivers are now the democrats' fault

idk how much I trust the whole yard sign thing my area was fucking slammed with Trump shit in 2020 and he wound up actually losing here by a small amount. Trump is just an entire identity to some people. It goes way beyond politics and policy. as crazy as the people putting up the Trump/Rambo flags are if I ever saw anyone do that with Biden I'd think they were fucking insane

those are not the ONLY people who live in far-flung suburbs and rural areas.

Did someone say that though? I thought it was an example of a person ironically complaining about gas prices and that is exactly what you will hear out there. They gotta have at least one truck, an ATV and a lawn tractor but they aren't farming anything. They like being able to shoot their guns in the back yard. And family farms that can no longer stay afloat are understandably cashing out by selling their land to them. The rural midwest is increasingly becoming a conservative/libertarian playground and they blame Biden for the higher gas prices that are cramping their rugged individualist lifestyle.

Top House Democrats are considering whether to take action against Lauren Boebert for her “harmful and dangerous” comments implying Ilhan Omar is a terrorist threat, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says.

https://t.co/gII8QYhcMT

— Axios (@axios) November 30, 2021

hmm gonna have to mull this one over