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This is not about Trump (except of course it is) – politicalbetting.com
This is not about Trump (except of course it is) – politicalbetting.com
Trump’s second to last tweet before he was banned permanently from Twitter began with the sentence:
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I think it'll get worse before it gets better, the perennial prediction, because Biden will want to do quite a few things quite fast while he still has both the House and the Senate, and that will make those Trump voters think Biden is going to try for a really radical agenda, when I'd think Biden's instincts would be more to shore up institutions, then go much more middle of the road so as not to upset them.
Population ratios are about 7 to one.
So it doesn't seem as if you need to feel hard domne by on a regional basis, or that the Tory MPs are doing any harm (though I recall a certain PBer asserrting that people who don't vote Tory should be ignored by the UK Gmt, admittedly not in this context of the vaccine).
No consolation though for you or Mrs G - wonder if htere is a local problem with your GP?
And if you want to get the vaccination out asap, you start with the regions of highest population density, which is Glamorgan.
Of course, Glamorgan is where all Labour's strength is. 😁😁😁
A more politically astute operator than Drakeford would be thinking a bit harder how to counteract the perceived sense of bias.
Time and again, I've seen studies of actually productivity which end up with *productivity* per dollar (or whichever currency) being rather equal, across the world, for skilled work.
The reason that labour is cheaper in India is quote simply that labour is less productive there.
The reason for that is environment - health care, law, infrastructure etc etc. These are massive multipliers of productivity.
In one job we had teams around the globe. The most productive per dollar wasn't in India or China. It was in London.
What is interesting is that much of the *left* has given up on trying to understand this - that spending on such services, if it is done in a suitable and sensible way, creates higher wage conditions.
The problem is that raw wage numbers are dumped into the equation and used to decide policy.
The classic of this genre is
1) A new manager comes in . "Why are we using high cost locations?", he screams
2) Outsources everything
3) Gets a promotion
4) After a year or 2 the collapse in productivity is noticed. More money is thrown in.
5) A new manger is bought in. He, tired of the complaints, brings everything back on shore.
6) Costs go down a bit, productivity soars.
7) He is promoted
8) A new manager comes in . "Why are we using high cost locations?", he screams
The wrinkle in this is that after a while some people began to get wise. So super low cost locations became less favoured. Eastern Europe was the next thing. But while productivity was higher, the problem was the productivity multiplied by wage cost was still not an easy win.
So the last stage in this was bring the low cost workers *onshore*. That way you can get 1st world productivity out of them, for low wages. Until they learn the language and leave. For a job that pays enough that they don't have to live 4 to a room....
So you need a conveyer belt of more low cost workers.
https://twitter.com/RowlandWhite/status/855838372467793921
I thought @Sean_F put it very well when he said many Americans know he's a son of a bitch but think he's their son of a bitch.
I think that's an artefact of the education/VI split we're seeing in America with the poorly educated ending up poor.
I will never forget it
I think both @rcs1000 and myself thought he was full of hot-air in 2016, and would end-up governing as a relatively standard Republican with a lot of populist windy rhetoric on top.
But Richard might approve of the other Nod slogan 'Peace through Power'.
If you're nostalgic you can buy the remastered version, for modern PCs, on Steam now for like a tenner or something. They've upgraded all the graphics and original soundtrack.
The GOP did not adopt a "programme for government" just "re-elect Trump".
For Trump, it was never about getting actual things done.
You don't get 75 million votes out of thin air for a man like Trump without good reason. And you can't easily dismiss them all as mad, bad and sad, although remarkably people still do.
And I'm so pleased to be able to use "was" in the above sentence.
Good header too, Richard. I do not agree with it all by any means but it's very good.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55567831
"We walked round the building and there's a big car park at the back and it was just a big snake of people, a good few hundred."
"There were elderly people there, there were clearly vulnerable people, a couple of people had to have wheelchairs brought out to them because it was so cold. They weren't dressed for it, it was 2 degrees."
"There were people turning away, leaving the queue."
Wales is behind England, N Wales behind S Wales and it looks like Llandudno is at the back of the pack in N. Wales, I'm afraid.
What they need is more of a European mindset where the collective looks after the individual and where they dispense with the brutality that leads to the sort of fractured society Trump has taken advantage of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBDhloLk5qY
If any year was one where we should have seen a Democrat landslide, given how bad the Republican candidate was, it was 2020.
And we see from the subsequent polling that there are still millions of Americans actively supporting Trump even as the Republican leadership has, at long last, abandoned him. As has already been said, they cannot all be mad or bad. Most of them will be desperate people who just need help and hope and don't see it coming from the mainstream of either party.
A lot of it overlooked by knee jerk pro free market commentators.
Maybe it's just as simple as the American era as the economic superpower is over?
There is no ever expanding frontier over the horizon waiting to be exploited. No new land to be farmed, oil discovered. Nowhere to move on to.
Actually, I think I WILL reserve the right to feel scorn at those who voted for Trump.
Here is a man who, before the election, was revealed to be a racist, disability-mocking sex pest.
Anyone who voted for him, voted to put him into a position of trust. The position where not only the buck stops in terms of overseeing the care of the vulnerable, but also the tone is set.
Even if you thought your economic interests would be marginally better with that kind of man in the White House (and I doubt that's the case anyway), you're throwing the vulnerable under the bus.
That's the voting equivalent of pushing a granny over to grab the last bottle of paracetamol off the pharmacy shelves, because hey, YOU want it.
Trump is not, and has never been "at times borderline psychopathic". He's fully over the line 100% of the time. He's not just damaged, he's full-blown mad, and as much was clear LONG before even the Rep primaries were finished.
If you aren't going to pay enough attention to whom you're voting for, don't fucking vote at all, you don't know what you're doing. If you don't care that someone is a clear and present danger to the democratic process, don't fucking vote, you don't deserve it. If all you care about is your own pocket, no matter who gets hurt then vote as you see fit but don't get your knickers in a twist when someone calls you a scumbag for your choice.
Every single person who voted for Trump either had their eyes closed or just didn't care that people would get hurt. No exceptions. I have more respect for people who drink drive, and I really, really hate those bastards.
The whole political class needs to consider why Trump won in the first place.
What they were designed for is beside the point, although my father in law remembers them being on the runway at Finningley fully armed during the early 60s.
I witnessed the last flight. Such a shame it had to be grounded.
The point made about Trump's voters are likely to migrate to someone similar is I think correct. I don't think the Biden Administration will do much about it to be honest because, even if Biden thinks he should, white middle class / working class voters will be bottom of the priority list for many in the Democrats.
For you to sit here and scorn them for hoping to make their lives better reflects very poorly on you.
https://twitter.com/chicagotribune/status/1347907488155193344?s=19
Got nothing on a Mrs U trip to CostCo!
This stuff deserves our attention because we need to defend democracy in all places. Hong Kong and the USA are, in different ways, the most depressing developments of recent years.
This thing is worth fighting for, and it's worth us keeping our eyes and ears open.
Trump was always going to be detrimental to US democracy, and I am not in the least bit charmed by the naiveté of the tens of millions of people who gambled it and nearly lost. It's worth our attention to help make sure it doesn't happen here.
Trump is a symptom, not a cause, as Richard identified. It also should be noted that many of his supporters thought he was an unadultered asshole but voted for him anyway because they thought he was the only Republican politician with the balls to push back against what was seen as an agenda that would further marginalise the white working and middle class.
The one thing that should worry the Democrats though is that many Hispanics increasingly identify with the WWC / W(lower)MC view of the world.
Not that I disagree with the thrust of your post.
Additionally, culturally america is very important to us, and precisely because it is not this country it is generally easier to follow without getting too emotionally invested so it can be fun (Trump has tested that point).
Added to that while it is not followed as much, as they approach the French election and other European elections will be talked about on here as well, as were the Australian and Canadian ones.
Elections and politics are interesting.
2024 will be the first time in PB that sees a UK general election and a Presidential election in the same year.
The primaries will take place during the campaign period of a UK general election.
And polarisation is enormous.
In comparison, we can say here Brexit has been polarising, but only a tiny minority think things like COVID is a hoax, nobody is debating Boris won the GE and we generally agree across the political spectrum on many issues, it normally arguments about nudging the lever a bit more one way or another. And as soon as protests turn violent, the public quickly aren't on board.
Where as the US, it seems far too many people willing to excuse behaviour of their side because the other side did it.
But from that article, further evidence for my plan to close all social media.
Stepanek’s attorney John Bruzek said his client was influenced by social media and political rhetoric characterizing the protesters as dangerous criminals. Stepanek initially believed he was legally justified but has come to see he was wrong and apologized, Bruzek said.
“Michael understands how his conduct could have resulted in a much more serious and harmful situation,” he said.
I scorn them for endangering EVERYONE'S lives.
You might as well chide me for scorning a drunk driver for just wanting to get home in good time. Nah, I don't mind that desire, and hey, perhaps you'll even make it home safe.
But if they smash into a pedestrian because they misjudged the situation horribly are you going to sit there are stroke your chin and say hmmm, yes, I can see why they made that choice.
It was a bad choice. And not only in hindsight. It was risky, selfish, self-defeating. And we absolutely are allowed to call out the stupid choices other people make. It's actually a necessary part of the democratic process.
A lot of poor white people are said to take comfort in at least not being poor black people, and a backlash against a black President has also been a large part of Trump's appeal.
This is not to crudely deride Trump supporters as deplorable racists, worthy only of scorn, but you do have to look honestly at what the problems are if they are to be addressed. Part of what is lacking is a story of America that's more appealing for poor white people that includes them, but isn't based on white racial superiority.
Another problem is propaganda. I remember around the time when Trump was seeking to abolish Obamacare, the story of the guy who was against Obamacare, and who claimed he would still be covered by the Affordable Care Act - not realising they were one and the same.
Democrats have to manage not only to help the poor who have been left behind, but be seen by them to have helped them. That might be an even more difficult problem than simply helping them.
Lost the House.
Lost the Presidency.
Lost the Senate.
Took the L on a grand scale.
Sad!
If your entire body politic not only deny the genuine problems of a large chunk of the population but go on to vilify them for trying to raise them, at some point the volcano blows.
We need to separate out the genuine grievances of Trump's supporters from the imagined or cynically exploited ones, and address them, if worse is not to follow, as both Mr Tyndall and Mr Herdson have both highlighted. Denigrating 74+m voters, per Ms Batty, is precisely the wrong thing to do.
For example while Trump won whites without a college degree by a landslide 67% to just 32% for Biden, Biden actually won whites with a college degree, who are still doing relatively well from globalisation in professional jobs less hit by lockdowns and less affected by automation, by 51% to 48% for Trump.
However Trump's appeal to white working class voters did not extend to non white working class voters. Biden won non-whites without a college degree by a a landslide 72% to just 26% for Trump. Trump actually did better with non-whites with a college degree, getting 27% of their votes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
I don't really know - although I would make two points on that.
If any year was one where we should have seen a Democrat landslide, given how bad the Republican candidate was, it was 2020.
And we see from the subsequent polling that there are still millions of Americans actively supporting Trump even as the Republican leadership has, at long last, abandoned him. As has already been said, they cannot all be mad or bad. Most of them will be desperate people who just need help and hope and don't see it coming from the mainstream of either party.
The problem Trump has had, though, is that while he's often identified serious problems (the US's import-export balance, for example), his policies have often made the problems worse.
Under President Trump, the US's Current Account Deficit has widened alarmingly. In the third quarter of 2020, it was $176bn. That's a $700bn annual run rate.
That's almost the same as the combined total exports of Canada and Australia ($800bn).
Why has the deficit got worse under redoubtable trade hawks like Wilbur Ross? Well, it's because if you use tariffs to increase the price of steel in the US, then you make US vehicles more expensive than German or Canadian or Japanese ones. A few thousand jobs saved in steel or coal often results in jobs lost down the chain, and a worse trade deficit.
Ultimately, while Trump identified pain points, he found himself in hock to narrow interests, seeking their own benefit. (The irony is that if you want to reduce the overall trade deficit, you might want to start reducing tariffs on factor inputs.)
https://twitter.com/SMTuffy/status/1347981530245849089
(that the FBI would try to get them to admit to their crimes by this route!)