My (bare) understanding was that Russia wanted and provably tried to collude with Trump's team and Trump's team wanted and provably tried to collude with Russia, yet neither side was competent enough to actually get those corrupt streams to cross.

I'm sure they won't but that's also beside the point. I agree with the logic in your initial post; you can't reasonable claim someone is a genius and also that they're an idiot/incompetent at the same time.

Any someone. Whether they are someone we support or they are someone we don't.

Thanks for the link. Honestly I think long-term the answer is give up on electing our own leaders. The population of this country isn't capable of doing it sensibly. It's not new of course - there was across the board dead-wrongness during COVID, and it's been a long-term issue in general, but I think it's getting worse.

Kind of the problem you run into when you have an old President who can't reliably speak to the public. Others get to set the narrative for you.

And I think people will view the economy from their own personal lens. Why would your average American care about the S&P being up if that's mostly benefiting a select few wealthy people? If you can't afford rent or a mortgage and are severely in debt, you're not going to view the economy favorably. Especially when prices have been going up and wages aren't keeping up.

Also the focus of the Biden administration hasn't been the economy. They're laser focused on Israel and Ukraine. Great if you work for a defense contractor, not so great for everyone else.

lol Biden

JUST IN: Nikki Haley says she will vote for Trump

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) May 22, 2024

I'm quite sure that the Biden campaign did not expect the lifelong GOP member and VP hopeful (delusional of her, but still) to randomly decide to vote for the Dem.

Yeah, the delusional anti-Trumpers on social media expected it, but that's sound and fury signifying nothing.

He's spent the past 6 months catering his campaign to Haley voters at the expense of his own base. Just another bad decision.

Biden campaign makes new digital ad buy in Pennsylvania to court Nikki Haley supporters | CNN Politics

Oh, I totally think he should be trying to get moderates and conservatives who are scared of Trump (i.e. Haley voters). He needs to do something to make up for the attacking-Biden-from-the-left folks. I just don’t think he or anyone who is paying attention ever expected Haley herselfto publicly say she was going to vote for him.

I would not have staked my campaign on Haley voters and instead made the people who voted for me in 2020 happy. We'll see if the 2016 Hillary strategy works though.

It's impossible to prove a negative, but I think you are way overestimating the intelligence and willingness of the general populace to understand or want to understand the reality of a complex ecosystem like the economy, particularly to believe that someone who spoke more clearly and was not considered too old could sway people to believing the economy is actually pretty good and they are not at fault for the off-base perceptions of Americans simply because they are in the WH.

You act like we haven't had a not insignificant portion of the populace lapping up lie after lie about demonstrably provable facts from one of the party leaders for damn near a decade now. Why would anyone choose to believe anything differently, even from a clear-headed, younger, well-spoken individual?

We believe what we want to believe and what we experience. Yeah, gas was under $2 when we couldn't drive anywhere, good cost less, interest rates were down, etc. Who fueled the spending spree before COVID, when it was unnecessary to cut taxes (increasing the deficit)? People don't want to know, refuse facts, or ignore the recent past because of the here and now.

Why is there any reason to believe any of this would be different with someone other than Biden in office?

I think people who keep pointing to the Covid years and comparing things are missing the point of why people feel this way. They aren't comparing how bad THEIR economy is to the Covid year. They are comparing it to the ten years before Covid. And I emphasize "their" because they really don't care how well things like the stock market or business profit reports are doing. They are paying by a percentage of their take home pay more for basic living expenses (food, housing, transportation) than they have ever had to before. And history tells us that when people feel like the economy is bad, they blame the current leaders for it. It is no surprise to me people feel like we are in a recession, because they judge that by their bank accounts not by the Dow Jones average.

Speaking of Hillary's 2016 strategy (or lack thereof), I wonder if Biden will visit Wisconsin at least once during the fall campaign?

The problem is a lot of these same people used the DOW as an example as to why the Trump economy was doing so well when he was in office.

Can't have it both ways.

But other polling says that's not what's happening for most people. 2/3 to 3/4 of people in polls say their personal economic situation is good but then 50-60% also say the country's economic situation is bad.

It's very similar to immigration polling where the most fervently anti-immigrant folks are the ones living in communities with the fewest immigrants. A lot of people are certain that everyone else's life is in the shitter.

Since 2019, housing has increased by 54%. (141% over the last ten years, btw). Food cost rose by 25%. Transportation cost up 27%. Low wage workers' income has grown by 12% over the same time period.
Gee, I wonder why they believe there is a recession?

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I see this dynamic I my friend group. Everybody gripes about how the world is collectively miserable, but all of those individuals are doing the best they've ever done.


...having said that, I think we/they also feel that our financial security is far less stable than it's ever been
Although everyone I know is relatively secure at this exact moment there is the distinct feeling that several flavors of minor disasters could wipe out that security on an instant

But again, a lot of people are saying their personal economic circumstances are good.

You can be in a good financial position and still upset that you're paying 25% more for food than you were a few years ago.

The average person doesn't give a shit about some cherry-picked numbers that economists are telling them. They care about their own personal experiences. They notice their grocery bill is $30 more each week. They see that houses are unaffordable and their rent going up. The car they need to buy now has an 8% interest rate attached to it. They're paying a chunk of their paycheck to student loans which barely puts a dent into the principal. Many are one health problem or bad storm away from being destitute. And their wages are not keeping pace.

That's all that matters. Sure people are getting by and doing well. But those underlying problems are getting worse. The focus is on more endless wars halfway across the world. There is no solution being offered. Instead, they're told they're stupid for not appreciating the economy more and whatever moronic spin is put on another failed supply-side policy.

It's a tone deaf response from a tone deaf administration. Trump won't offer any better solutions, but he'll feign interest in doing so. To some, that's better than the guy who not only doesn't give a shit, but is blaming you for not appreciating him more.

What exactly is the answer? You're pissed because Biden isn't waving his magic wand?

My issue is that people are too stupid or one-sided to understand the full context of where we are, how we got here and how there's no magic solution. You can sit there and talk about "he's not doing anything" but I don't hear ANYONE saying what the fix is. The spending started before COVID, when things were already good. Then when we needed the economic stimulus for a legitimate purpose, we spent ourselves into oblivion by piling onto the previous unnecessary spending.

I don't care about what you perceived as bad messaging. What's the answer that Biden has refused to put in place or ignored?

He's the President. He's the guy with economic advisors and Larry fucking Summers (lol) on speed dial. If you don't have any solutions as President, maybe you're not cut out for the job.

If you're blaming spending for all this, Biden isn't exactly going out of his way to curb that. Spent the last few months demanding a hundred billion dollars in foreign military aid on top of the billions he's already given to those countries. Feels like that money could have been used for something good in this country (or to reduce the deficit). He's the one

And there may be no magic wand for a President, but he's the one telling people he can fix inflation. He's the one who made a bill to reduce inflation a centerpiece of his Presidency. So if there is nothing he can do, maybe come out and say that instead of floating more bullshit?

I find it strange and interesting that RFK. Jr. Is married to Cheryl Hines from Curb Your Entusiasm and that Larry David introduced them.

How does she find the time in between drinking babies blood and recruiting children for pedos in Hollywood?


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Trump's "I alone can fix this" resonated with a lot of people.

People want the President to be a more powerful office than it is. They want things to be easy. They don't want things to be as complicated as they are.

Not that surprising that Trump's "I'm going to be a literal dictator" message hasn't dented his support in 2024. Dictators are easy; democracy is hard.

This is me but I'm not going to vote an all time horrible human being just because eggs are .60 cents more.

There is little doubt that the far right and the far left long for a dictator. One of the many ways they are two sides of the same coin.

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Joe Biden, big fan of democracy.

I really don't think many people are flipping from Biden to Trump (or vice versa). It's mostly a game of turnout from the bases.

Totally agree, which is why I think (hope) most of those voters come out for Biden when the real threat of another 4 years of Trump insanity starts materializing.

Wouldn't it be easier to just have the one man give people a reason to vote for him instead of convincing millions to vote for a shitty candidate under some bizarro extortion scheme?

I've been drinking and don't understand what you;re trying to say

I think it's easier to convince one man to change his positions than it is to convince millions to vote for someone who doesn't share their beliefs.

82 million people voted for Biden and if he just did things that are popular with those 82 million, he would win. Instead he is doing the opposite and now trying to convince millions to vote for him still. Just seems like it'd be easier if he appealed to those 82 million.

The irony of Hillary blaming Russia is that her husband is the man most responsible for Putin coming to power. She should be mad at Bill.

I'm still mad at Bill. The ripples from his multitude of shitty policies and rampant deregulation are still strong. It's ironic that he became the ultimate conservative boogieman.

He cut welfare, passed a draconian crime bill, deregulated everything and balanced the budget. Not to mention didn't have to pay off his mistress. He's like if Trump was remotely competent.

I agree. The "Bernie would just put all the big business leaders in a room and not let them leave until they agree to stop being evil" set are the leftist version of the same thing.

Re: Clinton and Russia.

There's a story I remember about Yeltsin visiting the White House and somehow getting out drunk one night and trying to find a pizza. Like, the Secret Service or something had to find him to bring him back.

It was a simpler time.

Speaking of Bill Clinton. I have an uncle by marriage that I will never forget when I was younger he got very emphatic in explaining to me that he could never vote for Bill Clinton because, "How dare Clinton force him to address oral sex with his kids because there's no way to avoid it since it's all over the news." He could never vote for someone like that...

He is an adamant and fervent Trump supporter.

Yeah, that's a classic.

When a Russian President Ended Up Drunk and Disrobed Outside the White House | HISTORY

There's some crazy Yeltsin stories out there from Russia too. He once got so drunk that he ran into the woods naked with a gun in the middle of the night threatening to kill himself and the Russia secret service had to chase after him and bring him home.

It's truly remarkable that man lived as long as he did.

If anyone is interested in the crazy 90's Russia, I highly recommend this series from Radio War Nerd. Mark Ames, who is one of the hosts, is an American who created The Exiled in Russia in the 90's. He was literally there when they shelled the White House in '93 and probably knows more about that era than any living American. It's a fascinating story about Yeltsin and his failed policies which gave us Putin.

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The first parts of each episode you can usually skip through till they get to the story. But the whole podcast is great if you want to learn about obscure wars and such that are rarely covered here (they do have a phenomenal series on the Civil War). John Dolan is the other host and he's a former professor who travels the world now and is quite eccentric.

I question the narrative that the economy is bad at all.

Anecdotal, but I have been in poverty my whole life. Mid-30's. My income doubled in the last 5 years, easily. I could be making way more if I wanted to apply for more responsibility-heavy jobs. I have healthcare. I have dental insurance.

I remember a time when there were very few jobs that seemed like they were paying anything approaching a living wage. There seem to be so many jobs available that pay decently now, that I don't even worry in the slightest about getting fired or taking time off when I need it. Employers seem to respect me taking sick days for the first time in my life. I don't need to worry about whether my car is in good working order, because there is decent transit and bicycle lanes all around me to get around my metro area.

One difference was moving from a red rural county to a blue urban county.

Am I saving for a house? No, but the faux American dream of suburban houses and pesticide-sprayed, oil-mowed lawns of invasive grasses with wide roads and automobiles is destructive to our economy and partially responsible for our climate crisis and habitat loss and species extinction, so I don't really care about that. And again, the path forward to higher earnings is relatively clear in my state.

Now, I understand not everyone lives in a decent city under a functional liberal state government, and it is much harder to see things through rosy eyeglasses when your state governments are actively making your life worse and the White House doesn't seem to help either.

But, are there enough people in Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Miami, and Cleveland who feel similarly, or are the outstate frustrations more pronounced in those states? Isn't that really all the Presidential election comes down to anyway?

I’ll change the title if Kennedy qualifies. I want to see him debate, still don’t know who he hurts the most.

He'll go at Biden in a debate and lay off Trump because he's being funded by Trump supporters.

Congrats on being one of the lucky ones.

Like most things, it depends on your situation. If you were looking to buy a house (e.g. the traditional American Dream), I suspect you’d be in the camp of bad economy. If you have a large family, I’d suspect grocery bills would hurt.

For me personally, I’m not that sensitive to housing or inflation. And the recent market run up makes Joe vs Trump a wash for now. Regarding the huge debt, I’m still waiting for either side to really address it. So for me, I’d agree the economy is not that bad right now.

Alitos wife is a crazy bitch...

Still too early to really tell, but a good sign.

Just a moment...

That 15% of registered Republicans is consistent with the 10-20% who voted Haley in the primaries. But as always, the real question is how many of them can bring themselves to not vote for the GOP if they otherwise strongly identify with the GOP.

This is how the GOP thinks.

Just think about how much better women had it when they didn't have to worry about pesky things like balancing a checkbook and who to vote for.

Maga going crazy claiming Biden shit his pants today at the d day event. The same people who literally wear diapers to rally’s.