Here’s how Stoermer describes Liberal Nationalism and the role it plays in american politics:
There’s a belief system that combines two things — first, that change must happen through official channels (voting, courts, proper debate), and second, that this procedural faith is wrapped in American exceptionalism. The system isn’t just legitimate. It is sacred because America itself is exceptional.
Now here’s where it gets complicated. Klein says the project is “the American experiment.” Newsom builds on that. Kirk said the same things, but meant something completely different. Kirk’s American experiment would destroy Klein’s and Newsom’s — he wanted to dismantle multiracial democracy, restrict voting, and return to what he called the real Founders’ vision. That would end everything Klein and Newsom claim to value.
Yet Klein’s nationalism enables Kirk’s. By treating Kirk’s anti-democratic project as legitimate discourse within the American experiment, by claiming they share common ground, Klein validates extremism as just another voice in the great American conversation.
And I keep wondering: Does the white Christian nationalist movement understand something about liberal nationalism that we don’t? Do they realize that as long as they frame their goals in terms of the Constitution, the Founders, and the American experiment, individuals like Klein will always find common ground with them?
I found other notable liberal figures saying similar things while perusing twitter. Notably senator John Fetterman recently insisted that americans (sorry, I refuse to capitalize demonyms. Sue me) should stop calling Trump an autocrat and pleaded for toning down the anti-Trump rhetoric. To me this attitude plays right into MAGA’s hands. This is the kind of stuff that whitewashes bigotry and helps reactionaries move the Overton window further right.
I would venture that in a similar situation, on this side of the pond we would be out on the streets, striking the economy to a screeching halt. But in the US, there seems to be this nationalist bootlicking mentality that prevents people from even considering direct action, simply because they believe the system will somehow fix itself and everything will be honky dory in the end.
I can’t help but think the US of A was never truly the haven of freedom we were told it was. And as much as I appreciate the comparably stronger fighting spirit of the working class here, I’m not sure it will be enough to resist the rise of the far right here in Europe either, propped up by the ever influential american politics. I’m a pessimist, so please give me hope, or don’t. Thoughts, please?
Allan Miller,
Can you list what you think are his policy failures? He has been in office 9 months so in fairness you probable have too little time to judge this.
What do you think he has done well if anything? Do you think the last administration did a better job in the first 9 months, if so how?
On my counting, this is the fifth round of these already answered questions. Maybe sixth. The guy who never answers anything and never cites a fact keeps going round in circles just for the pure joy of cultism.
On the other hand, his consistent behavior is entirely in line with his messiah, who also repeats nonsense endlessly, gets all his facts wrong and whose ignorance is impenetrable. Bill has found a soul brother (and happiness).
While I am sympathetic to the goal of reducing the size of the federal government, what DOGE attempted is like taking a machete to a patient in need of a bowel resection. Not good. I will agree that it is too early to assess the consequences of his environmental deregulation, but it looks like standard kleptocracy to me. So let’s go with the obvious ones: his immigration ‘crackdown’ is a racist pile of shit that will drive us into a recession, his tariffs are already costing American consumers money, and that’s about to get a lot worse. His defunding of scientific research is batshit crazy, and ending ACA subsidies is going to drive many citizens to bankruptcy.
I think Trump’s done an admirable job of demonstrating how spineless the Republican Congress is. Tuesday’s election results demonstrate that. Given your “the electorate is always right” fetish, that’s gotta hurt.
Biden avoided a pandemic-induced recession, but I don’t see how your weird comparisons are useful. Biden didn’t commit any war-crimes in the Caribbean either…
Of course, you won’t engage on any of these topics.
I think you can be a bit more generous than this. Trump, though not a career politician like most of them, was able to grasp that for members of Congress, re-election is far and away the top priority. So if you want a subservient Congress, you grab them by their re-election prospects and you squeeze. If you can get them primaried, you own them. Only a couple cases to make an example (and there were quite a few), and just the sheer threat of being primaried does the trick. Even winning a primary is an expensive, exhausting, time-consuming challenge. Hell, just shaking down donors is a serious distraction.
And Trump has realized he has enough influence in red districts and states to trigger a primary of anyone who bucks him – and they know it! It’s not a coincidence that most of the Republicans who spoke against him had already announced their retirement.
If the midterms go the way of last Tuesday’s elections, I think the spell will break and Congress may do something – or at least the Senate might. Mike Johnson’s worship of Trump is like Bill’s, and the latest news says that Trump plays a fairly prominent role in the Epstein files. But headcounts indicate that if Grijalva is allowed to sign the petition, plenty of House Republicans will vote for release of the files. And Johnson is well aware of this – if he ever allows that to happen, Trump will hang him high.
colewd,
Something of a deflection from the points being discussed. And since, in 6 months, you have steadfastly refused to acknowledge any but the weediest criticisms of the man, I feel that would be a pretty futile exercise. Even his godawful reactive, petulant tariff policy is OK by you.
Allan Miller,
So as a socialist lite you don’t care about policy? Your attacking a candidate and his party constantly as your only choice of dialogue seems like democracy is not your cup of tea 🙂
I can only conclude from you lack of real dialogue about policy issues is you want a one party system.
My position is nit picky criticisms of a candidate does not differentiate positions and does not get us any closer to making sense of who is the right choice for the job given current conditions. How does having a discussion like this 3 years before the next election move the ball forward?
This is NOT a discussion. This is you, being corrected, educated, and informed while you pretend you can’t read or think. You have been asked to discuss one practice, policy, decision, or grift after another, and you simply ignore every one. No discussion possible.
Flint,
This is an assertion based on an ideology first mentality and facts don’t matter.
colewd:
OK, time to explain what a candidate is, since you keep making this mistake. A candidate is someone running for office. Trump was a candidate in 2024, before the election. He wanted to be president — he was a candidate for that office. After the election he was no longer a candidate. He was the president-elect. He had won the office he was seeking. Now, having taken the oath of office (which he violates continually), he is the president. He is not a candidate. He is not running for office. Despite that, his performance as president matters. We care about what presidents do in office, Bill, and we criticize them when they screw up. That includes you, when Trump isn’t the one being criticized.
I can only conclude that you are truly desperate if a non-sequitur based on a false premise is the best you can come up with.
You’ve been running away from policy discussions for months. Recently you ran away from our OBBBA discussion. Here’s what you left unanswered:
My question is:
You will probably run away from that question, because that’s what you do. So stop pretending that we don’t want to discuss policy when you are the one refusing to do so.
All you’re doing is trying to shield yourself from criticism of your Dear Leader and his policies. I’m calling your bluff. You want to talk policy? Answer my questions about the OBBBA.
Lol. What are those nitpicky criticisms? Name them, and I’ll name the ones that aren’t nitpicky, and we can compare.
If you’re concerned about elections, why haven’t condemned your Dear Leader for his attempts to steal them? And if you think criticism of public officials is off limits except during campaign season, why? This is a democracy.
42 million Americans are in danger of going hungry due to Trump’s SNAP idiocy. How do you feel about that? Would you tell those 42 million Americans to shut up and wait three years before complaining?
A question for you, and I am dead serious: Do you care about people going hungry? Is your answer “That depends on what the Dear Leader wants me to think”?
Yes, and the state censorship of US scientists by prohibiting federal agencies to use certain terms, like “woman” or “climate science” and Trump’s attempts to interfere with university admissions and curriculum by threatening with funding cuts.
We hear preciously little about the hostility of the Trump administration to universities and science in general, even on this site that originates in the evolution debate. I guess that worrying about academic freedom is another casualty from flooding the zone.
keiths,
These are bald assertions that look at a single policy without considering others.
How do the current policies all working together benefit the American people? Unless you take these points with realistic analysis you are not discussing you are simply beating up the President and the republican congress. How do these policies compare to previous policies?
You have OBBBA, tariffs on products (supporting us domestic manufacturing), a boarder that has been essentially closed with net undocumented people being reduced, wars being stopped, energy production increasing, lower taxes being sustained on all, tax reduction for hourly workers, drug prices being reduced,
You can cherry pick issues to try to win an argument but that is simple incompetent logic that gets you fired from a normal job involving oversight.
Can you describe Trumps overall strategy for improving the countries conditions?
Can *you* describe Trump’s overall strategy? Can you demonstrate that there is a strategy and what is the strategy aiming to achieve?
Everything on this list is either a lie (wars being stopped???????????????), harmful or lawless, most often harmful *and* lawless. Demonstrate that anything on this list is lawful and economically beneficial. We may end up with arguably one thing, which undercuts your argument that Trump has a broad strategy consisting of all these elements or that he knows what he is doing.
Trump had many routine workers fired – too many, had to hire some back. Right now he is not paying essential workers such as flight controllers. Also, Trump complained about job growth numbers – the numbers were collapsing, he fired the person responsible and appointed another, but now the job statistics stopped altogether. The strategy here is……?
colewd:
You’re fond of the phrase “bald assertions”, but do you know what it means? I’ve backed up every claim I’ve made about the OBBBA, citing data from nonpartisan sources. They aren’t “bald assertions”.
I look forward to your “realistic analysis” of how the OBBBA, in the broader context, was a good bill that deserved to be passed. I gave you some fill-in-the-blank questions earlier. Here are some more:
Earlier I wrote:
If you were a member of Congress, you would have voted for the bill. Why? Please answer the question instead of running away. Why would the OBBBA have gotten your vote?
We all know the answer. Trump would have wanted you to vote for it, so you would have voted for it. It’s that simple. Your principles would have gone out the window and you would have slavishly followed your Dear Leader’s commands.
“Cherry-picking” is another phrase you don’t understand. When the topic is the OBBBA, talking about the provisions of the OBBBA isn’t cherry-picking.
Your choice: defend the OBBBA, or run away again. But if you choose to run away, keep that in mind the next time you feel like accusing us of not wanting to discuss policy.
No, because he clearly doesn’t have one. He’s in it for himself, period. Recent examples:
Trump destroyed the East Wing of the White House after lying and saying that he wouldn’t. Why? Because he wanted to destroy it in order to construct a gaudy ballroom that 99.999… percent of the American people will never set foot in. He destroyed the property of the American people because it benefits him personally.
Trump is fighting to withhold SNAP benefits from 42 million Americans. Why? Because he thinks that by making them go hungry, he can pressure the Democrats into ending the shutdown, thus allowing him to screw the 24 million Americans whose healthcare premiums are set to double, on average, due to the OBBBA. He is trying to starve Americans in order to achieve his goal of making their healthcare unaffordable. It’s good for Trump and bad for the American people, and that makes it a good thing in Trump’s eyes.
Trump’s strategy for improving the country? Nonexistent.
It might be good to reflect for a moment about what OBBBA stands for. Recall that initially Republicans in Congress wanted to craft policy-specific bills of some undetermined number of at least three. Trump wanted all of his demands lumped together into a single bill, which he called the ONE big beautiful bill. This is known as an omnibus bill, or a kitchen sink bill. It is NOT “a policy”. Trump was well aware that if he wanted a separate bill for each policy, he couldn’t get it. One of the key reasons for creating an omnibus bill is to get congress people to vote for what they oppose, in order to get what they favor. A package deal, and congress members have to hold their noses about some of the policies in it, to get others.
colewd,
I care about policy; I see no future in discussing it with you, who can see no fault in either man or policy. Look at your anodyne approach to cogent criticism of his tariff policy: “Wait and see”.
I don’t attack the party (except insofar as they are craven). Criticism of Trump is criticism of Trump. Why is it invalid to criticise him?
Such a conclusion betrays only a lack of comprehension. It is, if anything, Republicans who would see Democrats nowhere near the levers of power ever again. I am all for pluralism in politics. Trump, however, is not the Republican party. His many flaws, as man and as policymaker, stand apart.
He is the incumbent. “Thou shalt not criticise the incumbent, wait for the next guy” is an absurd position.
Allan Miller,
You have OBBBA, tariffs on products (supporting us domestic manufacturing), a boarder that has been essentially closed with net undocumented people being reduced, wars being stopped, energy production increasing, lower taxes being sustained on all, tax reduction for hourly workers, drug prices being reduced,
Above is a list of policies and the policies effects the administration is following. What would you do differently if it were up to you?
keiths,
OBBBA stopped tax increases for everyone. It also targeted tax cuts for hourly workers and workers making tips. These are not the upper one percent 🙂
What’s most interesting to me Is other policies like tariffs to increase manufacturing on our soil. This is important to counter balance job loss due to AI.
He also closed our southern boarders protecting the wages mostly of hourly workers.
He also has fought to end wars that have no real utility and can ultimately help get the budget balanced.
Can you learn the difference between “boarder” and “border”. I’m getting tired of seeing this mistake.
colewd, to Allan:
The U.S. is losing thousands of manufacturing jobs, analysis finds
Trump’s economic policies have been disastrous for the job numbers, and this makes sense to economists and others who, unlike Trump, understand basic economic principles.
The dismal job numbers are one more reason why 61% of Americans think Trump has made the economy worse, compared to only 27% who think he’s made it better, according to the latest CNN/SSRS poll.
colewd:
If you’re opposed to tax increases, why do you support the tariffs, which are a tax on Americans?
The richest one percent get more in tax cuts than the bottom 60% combined. Justify that.
I’ve already shown you the net effect of the tax provisions of the OBBBA:
I’ve also shown you the net effect of all of the OBBBA provisions:
I don’t know why I bother presenting charts and data to you. You are a puppy dog whose Master can do no wrong, and the charts have absolutely no impact on your thinking other than to make you avoid thinking at all.
Why is screwing the poor and transferring money from the less wealthy to the more wealthy across the entire income spectrum a good thing? How does it advance what you claim is the most important goal, which is improving the quality of life for everyone?
Trump is killing manufacturing jobs in the US. See my previous comment.
As we’ve discussed many times, he’s blowing up the national debt by $4 trillion via the OBBBA. You support it because you only care about the national debt when someone other than Trump is increasing it. That principle goes out the window where Trump is concerned.
He’s lied about ending
sixseveneighttenGod knows how many wars. He idiotically boasted about the Gaza ceasefire:As of yesterday:
“The greatest deal of them all”, indeed. Trump is afraid to stand up to Netanyahu, and Netanyahu knows it, hence the continued attacks.
Trump’s latest on Russia and Ukraine is that “Sometimes you have to let it just get fought out.” He said that to Putin, who he’s also afraid to stand up to.
Meanwhile, he’s carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean, blowing up Venezuelan boats without bothering to find out whether they are carrying drugs, and despite the fact that if any of them are carrying drugs, they’re not heading to the US. Venezuela plays only a minor role in trafficking drugs to the US.
He’s also sending troops into American cities despite the fact that they aren’t wanted or needed there. He got slapped down for that yesterday by a federal judge who has ruled that his invasion of Portland with National Guard troops was unjustified, and that his claims about the situation there are “untethered to the facts”.
To top it off, he’s threatening to invade Nigeria “‘guns-a-blazing”. His exact words.
Give that man a Nobel Peace Prize. He will be known by history as the Peace President. The world is so lucky to have him.
To extend the metaphor, you are the puppy dog following your Master adoringly, wagging your tail, as he goes around shooting people. If there were ever any doubt, it has long since evaporated. You are a cult member, Bill. Period.
colewd,
Hardly a policy. Just a ‘flood the zone’ kind of thing.
How much manufacturing has been repatriated? What of raw materials costs which are also tariffed (doubly if someone in the nation happens to bruise his fragile ego).
Border. It’s a border.
This claim has already been extensively addressed and found wanting.
Is that a good thing? Won’t you just run out quicker?
Funded out of tariffs…
I wouldn’t shill bitcoin from the Oval Office, hide payments to porn stars, cheat at golf, pull people off the streets and deny due process, tariff on a whim, appoint antivaxxers to run Health, defund science and the Parks Service (inter alia), instruct DoJ to go after my enemies, pardon cop-beaters. You know, all that nitpicky stuff.
Allan Miller,
With all due respect I see both you and Keiths cannot look at policies holistically. I did not ask you what you would not do, I asked you what would you do? I ask Keiths to look at all the policies together and he pivots to cherry picking the OBBBA as if it is the only new policy issue.
A top executive of the BBC is leaving. Have you followed this story?
https://chatgpt.com/share/6911be3f-722c-800b-82f2-2fbdaaa1f818
Trump initiated the 2020 election lies and Jan6 insurrection. All part of his holistic policies, right?
colewd:
I’ve asked you again and again to explain why, taking everything into account, you support the OBBBA. Just a few comments ago I wrote:
If the OBBBA makes sense in context, you should be able to answer the following questions. Answer them taking everything into account: the situation in the country, the complete array of Trump policies, all of the relevant factors. Consider everything, and then fill in the blanks:
1. When you look at the big picture, it’s good that Trump and the Republicans are taking money away from the poor, who are suffering, in order to give it to the rich, who don’t need it, because _______.
2. All things considered, we need more uninsured people in this country, because _____. The OBBBA accomplishes that, and it’s a good thing.
3. We have a serious debt problem. When you take everything into account, adding $4 trillion to the debt via the OBBBA is clearly the right move, because _______.
4. In context, it’s clear that the ultra-rich should be able to deduct 100% of the cost of their yachts and business jets in the first year, as the OBBBA provides, because ______.
5. The most important issue is improving quality of life for everyone. The OBBBA improves the quality of life for the wealthy few by decreasing the quality of life of the many, and particularly the poor. That sounds bad, but once you’ve accounted for all the factors, you can see that hurting the poor is a very good thing, because ______.
6. The OBBBA hands more in tax cuts to the the top 1% than to the bottom 60% combined. Holistically, you can see how beneficial that is. It’s exactly what the country needs, because ______.
keiths,
I disagree with your assumption that Trump and the Republicans are taking money away from the poor. They are lower taxes and everyone benefits. They are protecting the American workers with immigration control and protecting the industries and their jobs with tariffs.
When you argue about the OBBBA in isolation you are not looking at the problem Holistically.
Don’t forget DOGE cheques and medbeds. Look at the big picture, include all policies holistically. Incidentally, this also means conquest of Greenland, Canada becoming the 51st state, and invading Mexico to nuke the drug cartels.
colewd,
That’s pretty meaningless, and emphasises the futility of discussing policy with you. Can’t discuss tariffs without seeing how it fits in with his desire to annex Greenland? Can’t discuss appointing an antivaxxer without seeing how it fits in with ‘stopping wars’? You’re just creating an undiscussable lump. Was he acting holistically when he petulantly added tariffs because some Canadian quoted Reagan? All part of some overall strategy, and not some childish reaction? It’s just the 4D chess thing again. Slavish belief that Daddy Has A Plan.
You have to look at Trump.holistically…
Yes. Apparently Americans only think he incited insurrection because they watch Panorama.
Allan Miller,
If we are discussing the subject of how the new policies help or hurt the poor economically then you must look at the policies holistically to get the overall picture. Tax is only one issue. Wages are another and may very well out weigh the tax issue especially for those paying very little tax in the first place. Of course consumer pricing also plays a big role. Remember Clintons famous words ” Its about the economy stupid”
This chart is quite interesting as you will see the poorest Americans increased their support for Republicans from 2016 to 2024.
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtNQ%3D%3D_030d9084-d889-48fa-ba9e-17012e21723c
This trend generates great opportunity for all who make a living based on the American consumer.
Once again, the OBBBA was an omnibus bill. Trump wanted to include everything, all at once. So when we speak of the OBBBA, were not “isolating” anything, we’re looking at a whole raft of policies taken all together. Not that we expect you to notice this, since it refutes your repeated misunderstanding.
It is very difficult to get a man to understand something when his cult membership depends on his NOT understanding it.
I guess when Trump needs to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get a totally inexperienced prosecutor to indict an innocent person nobody at the DoJ was willing to indict for lack of evidence, this is NOT corruption, this is “thinking holistically.”
colewd,
Again, I simply see this demand that a debate on policy be framed ‘holistically’ to be meaningless. If that’s how you wish to see it, there are no grounds for a discussion.
Trump has threatened the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit if demands aren’t met. I wish they would fight it – he cannot claim reputational damage after being impeached for this rhetoric – but I fear they will be bullied into acquiescence.
Allan Miller,
Hi Allan
Its not more complicated then if you ask your investment advisor if you have enough money for retirement and he only asked you for your retirement income. This data without knowing how much you are spending is not useful.
Only looking at tax relief policy without looking at the wage policy is not informative. Do you notice that in 2024 50% of earners under 50K in annual earnings voted republican..
Was the BBC without fault here? Are you ok with the BBC manipulating a false narrative when it supports your political preference?
colewd,
The edit was clumsy. But that Panorama was broadcast in 2024, long after Trump had undergone an attempted impeachment on this speech’s role in the insurrection. Now – because the BBC is not up his arse, like Fox – he is using his money to bully it. To extort a payout under threat of a substantial suit. He does this all the time: it’s one of the more disgusting habits of the suoer-rich.
The BBC is under threat- ironically, from the Right. The people resigning were political appointees of Boris Johnson who have had a significant role in the BBC disproportionately platforming Nigel Farage’s Reform party. A party which, ironically, wishes to dismantle the BBC.
Karoline Leavitt urges people to watch GB News in preference – a minor station which almost exclusively promotes Reform. The BBC has its faults but – like the NHS – is a national institution deserving of protection. The situation is all kinds of fucked up.
Neil, to colewd:
Allan:
For fun, and because it’s an interesting AI exercise, I had ChatGPT write a Python script that counts the number of times colewd used the word ‘boarder’ in this thread. The total was 7, lol, and that’s just in this thread.
Bill, on it’s own this isn’t a big deal, but it is annoying, and it speaks to your general inability to learn from your mistakes. The latter is a big deal, because you repeat your mistakes again and again, and it’s keeping the discussion from progressing.
Example: You accuse us again and again of falling for propaganda. Every time you do, I ask you to point to a specific example and explain what we got wrong. You can’t find any, so you ignore the question. Every single time.
Could you, for once, learn from your mistake? The next time you get the urge to make that accusation, stop and think to yourself:
I get your frustration. In our months-long conversation, you’ve completely failed to defend your Dear Leader. Your primary obligation as a cult member is to defend him, and you’ve botched it. That upsets you, and it’s why you attack your opponents (does the phrase ad hominem ring a bell?) instead of attacking their arguments.
That just makes Trump look worse, because each time you do that, you’re confessing that you don’t have an answer to what we’re saying. You’re confirming that we’re right and that our criticism hits the mark. And each time you do it, you’re confirming that you aren’t a good faith participant in the discussion. Is that what you want?
It’s not an assumnption, Bill. It is a fact that keiths has supported with data from the government’s own Budget Office.
Except when, for every dollar in reduced taxes, there are 15 dollars in reduced benefits: find the courage to actually look at that CBO graphic!
So you assert, but any economist will tell you that’s not how either of those things work. There’s an excellent article in the Guardian that explains Trump’s magical thinking about trade, but you won’t read it. What the tariffs and the racist immigration policy will do is tank the US economy.
Good news though, Bill: that’s the only surefire way to reduce immigration.
colewd:
Trump’s policies, looked at ‘holistically’, suck. But let’s leave that aside for the moment and concentrate on your investment advisor metaphor.
Suppose you and your advisor have come up with a plan that is likely to earn you a solid 10% per annum. Then your buddy down at the bar tells you about this great opportunity to invest in a penny stock that is about to explode in value. He advises you to put as much money into it as you can.
The stock is a sure loser, and you can see that. The money is going to go down the drain. It will reduce the expected return on your portfolio from 10% to 5%. Should you invest in the penny stock?
Let’s employ your reasoning. You think “with a 5% return, I’m still ahead of inflation. Since I’m coming out ahead, the penny stock is a good investment.” You call up your advisor and tell them to buy the stock. “I’m going to lose the money, but that’s OK. I’m still coming out ahead. Buying the stock is the smart choice.”
,
You buy the stock, your return drops from 10% to 5%, and you pat yourself on the back, thinking “That was an excellent decision. Looking at it holistically, losing money was the smart thing to do. I’m still ahead of inflation.”
Do I have to spell out the analogy for you? That’s the logic you’re using in defense of the OBBBA, and it’s idiotic.
colewd:
It’s not an assumption. I showed you the frikkin’ chart. (It’s the second chart in that comment.) If you don’t understand it, ask questions. First lesson: You see those big bars that go below the line? Those are losses. Poor people get screwed, and the slope of the line connecting the bars is positive, meaning that the wealthier you are, the more you benefit. That’s the opposite of what is needed. Money should be transferred down the chain, not up.
Why should the people who are struggling the most have the most taken away from them in order to shower money on the rich, who don’t need it? Is it because struggling builds character, and by forcing the poor to struggle more, we’re helping them to become better people? Unlike the rich, who are already wonderful people and don’t need any character-building?
Read this again.
Protecting jobs by destroying them? Is being unemployed another one of those character-building experiences that the unwashed poor need to undergo, while the ultra-rich use their OBBBA tax cut windfall to upgrade their yachts and bizjets (the entire cost of which they can deduct in the first year, thanks to the OBBBA)?
And:
The irony is that you are the one who is cherry-picking. I talk about the OBBBA holistically, considering its overall impact, and you only want to talk about the tax cuts.
Even those are horribly unfair. Look at the tax chart. The richest 1% get a 3% tax cut as a percentage of income, while the poorest 10% get a measly 0.1%. The ultra-wealthy get 30 times as much. Yay! The 1% are the ones who need more money, not the poor.
Did you notice what Trump said on the campaign trail?
Trump:
And:
And:
And:
To those under-$50K people, getting tired of winning sounded pretty good. They bought the lie. Now they’re paying higher prices and 61% of Americans think Trump has made the economy worse. “Tired of winning” yet?
You can get people to vote against their own best interests when you lie to them incessantly. Trump’s biggest political asset is his willingness to lie shamelessly and pathologically, and he used it to con suckers like you into voting for him.
Trump said that he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and wouldn’t lose a single vote. Clearly, Trump had an intuitive understanding of the Bills of the country. I’m always amazed how many people voted for Trump, have lost their job and can’t make ends meet because of his tariffs, and would gladly vote for him all over again. The 5th avenue claim was NOT hyperbole. Bill proves it.
BBC did not manipulate a false narrative. Their narrative is that Trump incited the assault against the Capitol. Nobody, not even Trump, claims that this narrative is false. The accusation, now a $1B lawsuit, is due to BBC showing snippets of Trump’s speech where there were minutes apart without making it clear that there were minutes apart between the snippets. This edit can be misleading for those who have not seen the whole speech and do not know about the events from elsewhere, but it does not affect the main point – Trump is the insurrectionist – at all.
By the way, how is Trump’s $1B lawsuit against WSJ going? Trump claimed that there was no birthday letter to Epstein. Of course there was, a big beautiful and perfect birthday letter from him.
And how do Trump’s relations with Epstein and his treatment of Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell fit into the big picture of his policies? Are you feeling the country keeps getting better and lives of people are improving when pedos are enabled – specifically, that a pedo is leading the country?
To point to a certain irony: the BBC is not being viewed holistically. One bad edit – by an outside company – and it is under significant threat, cheered on by UK people on both sides of the spectrum who think it’s not biased enough in their favour.
He said the words, and the American reaction long preceded the 2024 broadcast. They are hardly under the influence of arcane Brit telly. But it seems likely the greedy, ‘uncorruptible’ bastard will get some more cash in his trough, through legal extortion.
This reminds me of an anecdote (some say it’s a Scottish anecdote) of a farmer couple in a village whose church receives a new pastor. The husband goes to church on Sunday and, when he returns, the wife asks, “How’s the new pastor? What was the sermon about?” The husband says, “A good pastor. He said that thou shalt not steal.” Next Sunday husband again visits the church and upon his return the wife asks the same thing, “How’s the new pastor? What was the sermon about?” The husband says, “The new pastor is turning terrible. He said that it’s a sin to steal sheep.”
In many people there is this kind of failure to connect the obvious dots. Trump is enriching himself at the expense of federal funds and by corrupting the big business. He is denying allocated funding to common people, he is overturning the constitutional order, disrupting international relations and plundering industries, but for colewd none of this means anything as long as his personal investments look good. And when his personal investments stop looking good, it must be Biden’s fault because you can only blame those who are not “candidates”. Trump is an eternal “candidate”.
I have quite a bit of money tied up in the S&P 500. And of course many peripheral investments would be affected by a crash. I’m mystified – because I’m not much of an economist – how well it’s doing. But I’d still like to see the back of the kleptocracy, a widening of healthcare provisions and welfare, investment in National Parks instead of exploitation, progressive taxation, sensible bilateral trade agreements, an end to families being torn apart, troops unasked on the streets, bullying of media. If it costs me money … meh. I think it’s artificially high anyway.
Viewing holistically, there seems to have been a hodgepodge of unrelated grievances brewing about BBC that the edit debacle blew the lid off of. I know that for at least half a century people have been angry about the “licence fee” that apparently people with TV sets need to pay. £174.50 a year, seriously? In my book, this *is* high for an ultra-narrowly specific tax. But of course, this is not an issue about BBC whether ultra-narrowly specific taxes are a good idea, how high such taxes should be and how to collect them.
On the other hand, it is an issue related to BBC how to implement (and fund) public broadcasting. A good implementation of public broadcasting would certainly limit the spread of misinformation, which needs to be done as we can see these days. My country happens to get by without any extra tax on TV or radio sets or on the promise of public broadcasting – government-funded broadcasting is there without any specific tax or fee.
In USA there is, in one sense, no single government-funded public broadcaster. In another sense there are several – PBS, NPR, Voice of America and Radio Freedom (and Trump administration is gutting them all). To all large broadcasters there also applies a fairly sharp distinction of “local stations” versus “national broadcasting”. The national image of, say, Fox News is what it is, but at most local stations of Fox there is normal reporting and journalism going on. To watch/hear any of these, there are varied payment schemes with their hoops and strings attached. You can see TV “for free” in a bar or pub or at a bus waiting hall, but at best it’s news headlines or some sports event, more often something that really dumbifies you, such as an endless reel of random CCTV-captured crime events or traffic accidents.
Assuming that you are invested in a fund indexed to S&P 500, the idea is that your investment is tracking the 500 top-performing companies. If the fund managers are doing their job, they are regularly removing from the fund the companies that fail and add companies that perform well enough to be included.
So, given that it is working this way, the fund absolutely must be doing well, even while economy at large is doing badly, because the fund is *not* tracking the economy at large. It’s like tracking the remuneration of the CEO and not the salaries of any other employees in a corporation (not to mention tracking people who were laid off and thus receive zero from the corporation from that point on) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robert-reich-says-ceo-pay-133358044.html
We all know about inflation, so – everything else remaining the same – the number of billionaires *must* keep increasing, since the stock market is *not* tracking the poverty numbers, and even more since Trump has very officially stopped publishing job creation/loss numbers.
This is but a small illustration of how the stock market is not the economy nor any sort of real indicator of it. Stock market is specially configured to always go up. However, precisely because it is configured to always go up, it should be taken seriously when it goes the opposite way, even temporarily, as it did earlier this year soon after Trump assumed office.
Flint:
What’s even sadder is that Trump doesn’t care that his policies are hurting them. 77% of the people whose premiums will double (or worse) due to the OBBBA live in states that voted for Trump. He doesn’t care. Millions of Republicans depend on SNAP benefits and Medicaid. The OBBBA slashes both, and Trump doesn’t care. If that weren’t bad enough, he’s fighting right now to prevent Americans, including Republicans, from receiving their SNAP benefits. He wants Americans, including Republicans, to go hungry. Why should he care? He can eat all the Big Macs he wants, and if the poor don’t like being hungry, let them eat cake.
He truly is a sociopath.
I wonder if Bill realizes that Trump doesn’t care about him and people like him at all. Bill was just a vote in Trump’s eyes, nothing more, and now that the election’s over, he’s expendable. Bill no longer has value, and Trump would throw him under the bus in a heartbeat if it benefited him to do so.
There is nothing to wonder about this one. Under the bus Bill would blame Biden, Soros, immigrants, etc. exactly the way many of those who are losing access to their Medicare and Medicaid are doing now. “The system is broken/rigged by the Dems/liberal elite.” It’s a cult.
Edit: Another thing that the cultists are not getting is that Trump is at least as selfish (actually far more selfish, pathologically so) as themselves. The cultists are unconcerned about Trump’s demolition of the lawful order as long as they think it affects immigrants, tourists and other undesirables more than themselves. However, unfortunate for the cultists, Trump thinks the same way – as long as he can throw perv billionaire feasts for himself, he does not care that the economy and institutions around him are collapsing.
Allan Miller,
This does not instil trust as an unbiased news source. We have the same problem in the US. CBS lost a similar lawsuit. The medias job appears to be to keep the public naive of the real facts that challenge their chosen ideology. Should we care about truth? As citizens it takes real hard work to stay informed.
Leavitt’s recommended alternative is 100% biased for the Right – and, incidentally, promotes antivax views that seem to go hand in hand with being right wing.
The usual complaint of the BBC, especially from those on the Right: “it doesn’t portray us perpetually in a good light, so it’s biased against us”.
That’s nonsense. I see plenty of evidence for ‘bias’ in both directions at the BBC. But I don’t expect everything to reflect my politics absolutely.
Nah. It takes hard work to stay ignorant. There are sufficient different sources available at the click of a button to cross-verify reportage. But if one only looks at sources one considers pure and unbiased, one will naturally gravitate towards biased sources – ironically. Media not wedged up Trump’s arse is ‘biased’, to an avowed Trumpist.