U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

Re tension between inflation and employment, remember Larry Summer almost salivating when he talked how unemployment was just gonna have to go up? He's probably still pissed he didn't get the suffering he wanted. It was definitely the right thing to do, politically as well — as terrible as the inflation and the hit from it was, 8 percent unemployment would have been worse.

don't think you can tax the rich your way out of post-pandemic supply-chain driven inflation. at least i'm not aware of any precedent for that in any country in history.

Isn't asking for precedents for any way to handle a post-pandemic situation illogical since, by definition, a pandemic of this magnitude worldwide was without historical precedent?

re: turnout, it seems like turnout is fairly steady in the swing states (maybe a little bit behind population growth idk) but in some safe states, both blue and red, there's large drops in dem turnout which seems to be the key factor behind most of the more significant swings, and surely why trump was able to win the popular vote

okay flopson mcgaslighter, are those two full time jobs? or does that take into account two or more jobs of any kind? half of the people i know work a full time, have a weekend gig. i work two “part time” (aka would be considered full time if this country weren’t insane or i was tenured) jobs and at one point was doing that and working a weekend gig. all while going to school, and barely having any money much of the time. so shove your stats up your ass.

obviously it would've been great if biden could've delivered high employment and low inflation, but it's not obvious how or whether that could've been achieved. irrespective of whether voters appreciate it or not, i think he did the right thing

― flopson, Friday, 8 November 2024 bookmarkflaglink

This piece talked about targeted price controls:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/inflation-price-controls-time-we-use-it

"Today, there is once more a choice between tolerating the ongoing explosion of profits that drives up prices or tailored controls on carefully selected prices. Price controls would buy time to deal with bottlenecks that will continue as long as the pandemic prevails. Strategic price controls could also contribute to the monetary stability needed to mobilize public investments towards economic resilience, climate change mitigation and carbon-neutrality. The cost of waiting for inflation to go away is high."

Again, not buying that this is post covid clearing out of governments. The governing class don't give enough of a shit, and flopson's stats have been met with a response at the ballot box.

Either listen or lose.

ULine had a substitute. Fuck those christofascists.

Fuck them indeed. Here's an alternative for anyone who may need it.

https://refuseuline.com/

sorry for being so aggro there, flopson— just frustrated that the very thing i have been talking about for months was being enacted on this thread, namely the Dems not recognizing or outright dismissing the economic pain a lot of people are feeling with graphs, charts, and “well, actually” statements. i know you didn’t mean to upset me, but you did— just feel like an alien in this space at times.

in the meantime, has anyone made the point that both recent losses by Dem women had VP choices of dudes with the first name ‘Tim.’ NO MORE TIMS

The Tims, they aren’t a-changing

Tim Harrington would make a great VP.

everything that flopson posted may be correct, i’m not qualified to talk about economic policy on that level. but you don’t have to be able to do that to make the obvious point i’m going to make, which is that the job of the politician and the political party is not just to pull the correct policy levers but also to communicate w/ the electorate in a way that effectively explains and sells your governance. to speak not to logic but to emotions. if you can’t do that then you might lose elections even if you did the right things. democrats being blindsided by the idea that inflation would matter more to people than unemployment is completely exemplifies their disconnection from the voter and their abdication of their duty to strategize the winning of the election

not sure how biden and harris were blindsided by how inflation mattered to folks

now communicating that? sure, i feel you on that. but that's the fault of our shit media landscape--which i think the dems do not understand at all.

but they understood inflation was a big deal. she talked about lowering perscription drug costs and grocery costs. but we've done well as an economy w/inflation vs other countries. that's not biden or harris's fault if people don't understand that

We're going in circles. If people don't understand, then it IS the fault of the explainers. I don't call my students stupid if they don't get my instructions.

no one's calling anyone stupid here

At some point, as an American citizen, it's on you to understand how our system operates, within our country and the world.

That attitude loses elections.

Everyone knows how the system operates - it doesn't because it's fucked!

Civics classes are not offered in a lot of schools now, and it shows.

Tim Walz was engaging and popular and should have been listened to over Kamala’s stupid Uber c-suite techbro in law whose big ideas tanked her primary run in 2020. Where is Uber dude’s trifecta, huh?

civics classes would be a nice start. dems being able to storytell better--a point I conceded above--would be another start

I do think this is largely a messaging/brand problem. In polls, people generally respond well to specific Democratic economic policies, even if those policies are insufficient at addressing deep structural inequalities. But a lot of people simply feel more affinity for Trump and other Republicans because they are able to give voice to their grievances in emotionally satisfying ways, even if the policies they propose are absurd and unworkable. What Democrats need to do to win on the economy is less a matter of coming up with better policies than with getting people to trust them and see them as their champions.

its crazy that repubs can promise stuff and never deliver and people's lives get worse and as a result people get angrier and then they just end up voting for more...repubs. because they are the party for pissed-off people. what a world we live in. and quite a racket they have going.

What flopson pointed to as the tension between inflation and unemployment is just one of the contradictions in our political economy that makes progressive policy difficult to enact. Improve one area and another one goes out of whack. As long as the profit motive is the engine of investment and economic growth it is hard to actually hard to take control of our own society. Some kowtowing to the investor class is probably necessary? Unless we can build a completely different kind of system.

I was historically really resistant to this idea and thought pro-worker policies could be done, it was only greed that allowed the erosion of strong welfare states in europe and america, bernie-ism could be achieved with enough political will. But now I think the problem is more difficult and structural and bigger than messaging. Perhaps voters intuitively grasp this and don’t even try to understand the real policy positions of the candidates. They vote on vibes or to troll

I will always vote for and support the leftmost democrats. This is my politics. I think if you work 40 hours a week you should not be living in poverty. If you can’t work for some reason, you still shouldn’t be living in poverty. And healthcare and housing are human rights.

But these are moral positions not pragmatic ones. What would have happened if bernie won and had a mandate? If he was able to do whatever he wanted? What roadblocks would he have faced, what unforseen consequences?

"They vote on vibes or to troll"

People were so distracted by their phone they didn't vote! That's it!!

Maybe they were wishcasting with a vote for trump, who after all was inspired long ago by norman vincent peale, this very american positive thinking bullshit.

It’s not very meaningful in any sense. Realistically trump will not help the working class.

At some point, as an American citizen, it's on you to understand how our system operates, within our country and the world.

― a (waterface), Friday, November 8, 2024 10:01 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I can barely wrap my head around that kind of stuff (e.g. "we've done well as an economy w/inflation vs other countries"). I mean, I CAN wrap my head around it, but the economic systems that dictate or describe how that is happening are pretty much inscrutable magic to me. Upbeat economic reports on the front page of the NYT do feel like gaslighting, and what I tell myself is "you don't understand this and I imagine it actually takes a long time to reinvigorate the economy after a downturn." But I have a steady job (not great pay, but decent benefits, and steady) and a lot of patience. I struggle with car repairs and dentist bills and shit, but I at least feel like there is an arc toward economic progress, even if we're dealing with more expensive hot dogs these days.

Just saying that most people don't have (some combination of) 1.)inclination 2.)intelligence/education 3.)time to figure out why hot dogs cost more. They just hope new guy fix it.

xp Trump'll make them feel better temporarily by enacting awful policies that directly hurt immigrants, minorities and women. that, he'll definitely follow through with

And he was saying idiotic things. He is going to reduce prices while imposing 20% tariffs on all imports? He is pro worker but admired Musk’s “strength” in dealing with unions? Venezuela is deliberately “sending” criminals and mentally ill people? I truly think he believes the word asylum has to do with insane asylums because he is illiterate.

because they are the party for pissed-off people

This is where Dems are wrong.

Dem voters are pissed-off, too. Everyone is pissed-off.

Sorry i was following up on my other point.

In 2016 many said trump voters were expressing economic pain. I think this can only be part of the story. And I also am unsure whether the democrats as currently constituted *can* rise the floor of living standards to a point where people would feel relief. That is my bigger questions. If the dems wanted to, could we institute real social democracy?

Dem voters are pissed-off, too. Everyone is pissed-off.

Kinda related to that, a little anecdata -- one of my regular podcast listens are Drag Race vets Willam and Alaska's Race Chaser episode-by-episode reviews; their side comments got so popular they set up a second weekly podcast called Hot Goss about anything and everything, including politics. Latest episode of that just dropped, recorded Wednesday morning, and they were of course not happy with the results. But in talking about good things here and there (Sarah McBride's election, etc) they mentioned the Prop 8 repeal in CA, with them being all "Well yeah, that's great, for the 1970s," and then Alaska going into a quick but vivid tear about the price of things, housing costs, etc. being more to the fore of her mind at present.

"Dem voters are pissed-off, too. Everyone is pissed-off."

nah, they are still way too hopeful. give them a few years.

we need our own version of the terrible "I Did That" sticker

there is absolutely some level of truth to the idea that americans’ understanding of the world around them is severely warped particularly in a way that can make it hard for democrats to convey their policy achievements to voters. i do not want to hand wave that away. BUT the democratic party cannot itself adopt this attitude because they are all paid to win elections. i say this not from a POV of idealism but from a POV of cynicism. they are participating in a contest where there are winners and losers. the objective is to win the contest. i will not argue that cutting thru conservative media propaganda is easy but the people in the democratic party who choose to take on the responsibility of winning elections do need to figure out how to do that. they need to blow up the structure that houses the structural problems. again i’m not saying this is easy but there are people getting paid lots of money to accomplish these tasks

So apparently black students in many public schools are receiving violently racist text messages and email. We just got a message from my kid’s school that it’s happening here too. Surely has something to do with what happened on Tuesday.

There was similar hateful flexing in the days after Trump’s first win.

yes there was and I immediately thought about it Tuesday night

this one's actually creepier though as it happened across like 25 states with people using burners and data-gathering phone numbers of black individuals

its crazy that repubs can promise stuff and never deliver and people's lives get worse and as a result people get angrier and then they just end up voting for more...repubs. because they are the party for pissed-off people. what a world we live in. and quite a racket they have going.

watching libs pushing the "15 million missing votes" conspiracy theory to the point where several news outlets had to publish a factcheck for it today, while not realizing that MAGA people are the ones egging this on because it helps them sew further doubt in the 2020 results and elections in general, is fairly annoying.

one friend I know started up w/ similar shit yesterday ("something stinks about these numbers, I don't buy it!"), but thankfully that's it.

― Kurt Dandruff (Neanderthal), Thursday, November 7, 2024 6:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Can you provide links to these fact checks? To paraphrase Ben Bradlee, we need to be especially careful with what we want to be true.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/nov/07/threads-posts/no-20-million-democratic-votes-didnt-disappear-and/

the votes disappeared because no one cast them

One thing that doesn’t get discussed in employment stats is whether the jobs are any good! Like how many of these jobs are shitty and exploitative and conditions are worse than they used to be? I think the people who voted for T are delusional in thinking that his administration would improve this, but I also think there’s truth in the feelings of malaise and desperation and wtf how much were groceries this month and the power bill has doubled and even if you wanted to move, could you afford it?

plus, i think if someone has three part-time jobs they count that as one job? lots of part-time jobs out there because employers don't want to have to pay full-time benefits/overtime/etc. it can be really hard to find a "good" full-time job in the u.s.

Scott otm … and then there’s the issue of benefits that basically result in net zero for families (mostly talking about women here) where the cost of child care makes it just as “beneficial” to work part time.

on trump's nyc gains: https://gothamist.com/news/as-donald-trump-made-gains-throughout-nyc-dem-margins-plummeted

Across the city, Trump gained about 94,000 more votes than he had in 2020 — while Harris garnered around 573,000 fewer than Biden did four years ago.

a lot of liberals and dem-sympathetics sat out this election.

I wonder how many people left the top of the ballot blank or wrote in someone in places like NYC.

I wonder how many people left the top of the ballot blank or wrote in someone in places like NYC.