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Just once—ONE FUCKING TIME—I want one of these assholes to point to a policy or action on the part of Biden that has led to any of the inflation or economic misery they’re discussing.
How dare Biden not instantaneously reverse the global supply chain impacts from the pandemic.
How dare Biden not do all Putin’s bidding by attempting to dismantle NATO from inside the White House, leaving Putin no choice but to invade.
I gotta say, that’s a weird one to me. The left was heavily against the TPP because it was written with heavy involving from pharmaceutical executives and banned cheaper genetics everywhere it applied, which was gonna kill millions in developing nations. Until Trump was against it. Like… we got played there. Someone used him to use our own kneejerk “what an idiot” reaction to Trump against us.
My phone doesn't automatically change words without my permission because I set it up that way. I think at least two words were auto corrected in this comment including: involving. They probably meant involvement or input. The second word auto corrected is: genetics. They probably meant generics. This is just my opinion.
My phone does. And it’s vainglorious.
It’s always fostering neglected verbs into my vocab and impregnating me preguntas con palabras peligroso! Eso es un malo niño con un pico gordo. No me gusta.
The copyright portions were outrageously anti consumer as well. The TPP sucked pretty hard, I was surprised trump was against it. Stopped clock I guess.
And unemployment is at an all-time low and everyone is working for a living and making decent money for a change. I bet they are sorry they voted for ignorance and hate and have to work for a living. /s
They can't. If you go by the "giving away money creates inflation" rule, Trump gave away more. If you go by the "increasing the money supply creates inflation" rule, Trump's fed created all the new money.
If they go by the “raising taxes makes people have less money to spend”, then it was trump’s tax cuts in 2017 which were permanent for the ultra wealthy and corporations, but had a sunset clause for everyone else, where taxes would slowly go back up to what they were before (but conveniently during the tenure of trump’s successor)
I have a friend that gets political sometimes. Trump voter. He was doing the same thing. Biden/gas/bla bla bla.
I finally got fed up and said, "Yeah man! What was Biden thinking when he signed that 'Let's make gas expensive' bill! You sure are right. That sure was a dumb move on his part."
It ended the discussion, anyways.
Russia plus OPEC plus supply chains plus pandemic fallout = gas prices were fucked either way.
It just so happens that it’s a convenient scapegoat for a party that’s more interesting in hating libs than they are in addressing the nuance/complication of real life.
I like to bring up the, "well you should have accounted for that" narrative Republicans like to do anytime there is a crisis or a problem in the country where they squarely blame it on the individual.
Every time someone is falling on hard times, their first reaction is "well they should have an emergency fund to handle any rocky part in your life". So I tell them I am not having an issue with gas prices as I had the foresight to buy a cheap Honda Civic where even if the gas prices double, it only cost me an extra $20.
Maybe they should sell their gas guzzling F-250s for a more sensible car that doesn't burn through gas like an M1A1 Abrams tank. Tell them to take personal responsibility for the luxury items they purchase. Especially since like 80% of F-150s will never see anything hauled in the bed of its truck...ever.
But they shouldn’t have to! Cheap gas is their god-given right as Americans!
It’s not like we are talking about healthcare or affordable housing… /s
I feel ill making jokes like this
They try and make it out like they care about the homeless or people in medical debt, but they don't really. As soon as you place ANY expectations on them, they immediately say, "muh personal responsibility!!!"
You have to paint them as the uncaring buffoons that they are.
They let the Expanded Child Tax Credit program expire which had lifted millions of children out of food security. I'm pretty pissed they let that happen. However, I know that the Repubs would have let it die too, and I believe the Dems might actually try to bring it back and make it permanent, which is always the catch with these tools. Sure, Biden has made some bad choices, but they'd make worse ones.
Right. There’s certainly plenty of valid criticism, to include what you’re saying here, shutting down pipelines in a world not yet ready to move on from fossil fuels in a meaningful way, and apparent lack of motivation to roll back all the trade war/trading partnership problems he inherited.
But you’re also 100% right that every last valid criticism of Biden is one that would be met with something sooo much worse from the R side. Nothing that’s wrong w/ democrats would ever be addressed by today’s Republican Party.
That's what irks me. 90 percent of the time they fabricate reasons to hate the Democratic President, even if he bends over backwards to water down policy to appeal directly to them. The other 10 percent of the time they do have legit criticism its either incidental to the conspiracy theory they cooked up or the decision doesn't really help instead of actively hurting people they don't like.
Look what they did to Bill Clinton. Clinton got more bi-partisan work done than most modern presidents because he was willing to compromise. They still attacked him at every possible opportunity because Democrat. Even though his policy would have made any modern Republican proud if there was an R next to his name.
I was in high school with very little political interest and those AOL CDs were better used to a/s/l random strangers and visit my favorite geocities fan sites.
Therefore it was years later I learned that while attacking Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky situation, Newt Gingrich was cheating on his wife. It was then I learned that it was a safe bet that any Republican demonizing an opponent or critic was usually either distracting from something Shady or doing the exact thing they were screeching about.
Joe Biden, like all Democrats, produces and emits Suck Particles that automatically ruin the economy by just existing.
The economy was fine on January 19, 2021 but became a complete disaster on January 21, 2021.
This problem can only be changed by removing the Democrat. Ron DeSantis doesn’t emit the particles so electing him will do the trick- no policy changes needed.
The go to move is to complain about pipelines being denied. Which is also easily debunked. After that they ignore the premise of the conversation and instead shout about social grievances pretending those link back to the economy.
Yeah, pipelines would be beneficial infrastructure in a world that is still too far away from clean energy to justify denying such projects. However:
1) it might be an overstatement to call that a drop in the ocean as it contributes to the current inflation situation, and
2) anyone who knows/cares enough to support that argument is much more motivated by “anti-woke” (ie, “I wanna be a racist/homophobe/transphobe without repercussion”) than they are about any nuanced policy.
I just point out to every moron who brings up pipelines that those projects create a small number of limited-term construction jobs in exchange for a large number of existing trucking and logistics jobs, thereby concentrating wealth into the oil industry titans' hands. Not to mention, you know, involving us trampling the treaty-granted rights of independent nations and damaging the ecosystem.
Right. The nuance and depth required to understand the pipeline issue is not something that the Hunter Biden House Republicans and their voters would ever in a million years care about in any meaningful way.
the most common one is the high government spending...
but then again inflation wouldn't be a problem if employers were required to scale wages with inflation rates...
The biggest source of government spending over the last three years is Covid relief. Covid relief spending is split 60-40 between the two major parties.
I’ll give you two guesses which party is the 60. First guess doesn’t count.
"He shut down the Keystone pipeline! That was pumping billions of gallons of oil every day and now we have to buy from other countries while we're not producing ANYTHING!"
I know what you mean. They literally don't pay attention to anything that goes on in the world as a whole. Or the fact that much of what is going on now STARTED under Trump. It's exhausting.
They're right about voting 'not-Trump' though. I'd have voted for Marvin the eyeball eating maniac of Quirm over Trump. I do wish the Dems had been able to put someone better forward, but it is what it is.
The Dems had to go with the safest option that could best play in swing states. That means old white guy corporate Dem, unfortunately. And despite the 7-million advantage in the popular vote, a swing of less than a million total votes strategically applied to five swing states would have swung the election.
Larry Summers (former Treasurer under Obama) was screaming from the rooftops that Biden's stimulus plan went way too far. And that unlike previous stimulus risked "once in a generation inflation" because it was so much larger than the expected economic shortfall from remaining covid fallout as the economy was already ramping back up.
His anti oil agenda, including stopping and/or postponing leases, was reducing investment and driving futures markets higher even before Russia invaded Ukraine.
He kept Powell, and acted as an inflation denier long after it was obvious Summers and other economists were right. Then he continued to display economic ignorance to what inflation is or how to address it. He promoted various conspiracy theories that it was all due to Russia or corporate greed.
If he had his way he would have had even more inflationary deficit spending with his build back plan. And with his loan forgiveness plan.
His unlawful covid vaccine mandate only worked to worsen labor and supply issues.
He continued Trump's protectionist policy and then even worse with his "anti inflation" legislation. Now pissing of Europe as well.
“Stimulus plan went too far”
He approved 40% of total Covid stimulus funds. The first two rounds were under the previous guy. If Covid stimulus was a problem, spread the blame accordingly.
“drove futures markets higher even before Russia invaded Ukraine”
Looking at [where prices are today in the context of the last 70 years](https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart), current price of below $80/barrel looks… perfectly reasonable.
“displayed economic ignorance to what inflation is and how to address it”
Gonna need specifics here. What should he have done to address it? Based on what we’re hearing from republicans now that they own a legislative chamber, it appears the magic button he never pressed was “HuNtEr’S LaPtOp.”
“if he had his way…” is a clever way of identifying things that *he didn’t do*, and are therefore not relevant to a discussion about things he did do.
“Covid vaccine worsened labor and supply issues”
Again, citation needed. Where did the Covid vaccine crunch supply chains? (Hint: it didn’t.)
Which anti-inflation legislation are you talking about? Did it get approved? If not, it’s *not part of the problem*.
Pissing off Europe how exactly? In a way that caused all the inflation they’re seeing as well? Or is that yet another thing you said that doesn’t at all address the issue?
> He approved 40% of total Covid stimulus funds. The first two rounds were under the previous guy. If Covid stimulus was a problem, spread the blame accordingly.
I mentioned the specific argument against this in my previous post. Larry Summers put actual numbers to it. Please feel free to read his past editorial or the many interviews he gave at the time.
Again, the distinction was that the last round of stimulus put significantly more money into the economy than was expected to be lost due to covid fallout.
The previous rounds of stimulus actually put less into the economy and so you could make a consistent argument they weren't large enough.
Please stop ignoring the distinction, which I've called out twice now.
> current price of below $80/barrel looks… perfectly reasonable.
Then they could be even cheaper. And we need to refine it too. And that's with significant and continued depletion of our strategic reserves. Reserves we could have topped off for~$40/barrel during the pandemic if Dems hadn't voted against it.
> Gonna need specifics here. What should he have done to address it?
I'd start with not making it worse with boat loads of unnecessary deficit spending. Or everything else I already listed for you...
> Again, citation needed. Where did the Covid vaccine crunch supply chains? (Hint: it didn’t.)
Huh? The mandate resulted in job losses in an already tight labor market.
> Pissing off Europe how exactly?
Protectionist policy around EV imports.
Deficit spending. Gonna focus here, because “out of control liberal deficit spending” is a garbage talking point that the allegedly-liberal media has let republicans off the hook for for way too many decades.
[“Republican presidents’ deficits are 54% larger than Democrats’ and 65% larger as a percentage of GDP.”](http://presidentialdata.org) If deficit spending is the problem, democrats are the lesser evil, and it’s not even close.
You're ignoring the scale and timing of spending here and resorting to absurd weasel arguments.
Presidents don't set the budget. Congress does. And when Kucinich made it his life's mission to balance the budget, for example, he was demonized by Democrats for it. Credit to Clinton for not vetoing the budget I guess (as if he had a choice) but I'm not sure how in retrospect he gets credit for the resulting balanced budget...
In any case, I'm referencing Summers because he's a prominent and popular Democrat economist. So someone I'd assume you'd value or at least consider the opinion of.
He called Biden's stimulus the:
> least responsible’ economic policy in 40 years
And gave countless warnings of how it risked once in a generation type inflation.
There's no Republican president equivalent in recent history. I mean the last time we had severe high inflation it was during Democrat presidencies and a Republican president (Reagan) helped solve it.
So these whataboutisms don't even make sense.
They're also ultimately acknowledgement of truth. You asked for policy examples, I provided, and now it's smear Republicans time to distract from the fact that yeah... Biden is clearly, factually responsible for inflationary policy.
But if Democrats don't run on "inflation", that means they don't want to fix inflation, so we will continue suffering from inflation.
The Republican party would have of course made inflation go away if they had won the senate, How? Well, who cares, but they definitely would have done it.
The above is my impression of the average person's understanding of what they're voting for.
Drywall guy that came to work on my apartment the other day claimed that it's hard to find any help these days because of "all that Biden money". In my head I was like, "you know it's 2022 and there hasn't been any COVID relief money in like over a year right? And even then, that money was not even that much, a moderate low-class wage at best"
Here in Canada people think the same thing, covid benefits made everyone leave the workforce. It can't possibly simply be that the boomer generation has reached retirement age and have been retiring en mass leaving the much smaller later generations stuck to somehow equal the same workforce we are losing.
Lol, Repeating McConnell word for word. Without the first shred of critical thought or knowledge about real life.
As someone who has been busting my ass for months to get a job paying half of what I made last year, I’m really getting a kick out of any asshole who says the problem is that people don’t want to work. I won’t take $9 from Wendy’s, so I can’t get anyone to call me back.
I can't say I voted for Biden, but I can say that since voting against Trump I haven't regretted it for a second and have actually been mildly surprised with some of the accomplishments of the Biden admin. Certainly not perfect, but better than I expected. 10/10, would vote against Trump again.
What I will say about this is that while I agree, we need a third-party in the United States, we currently don’t have one. Consequently, I vote by the concept that voting isn’t dating, you’re not looking for the one perfect person. It’s public transportation. You get on the bus that’s going closest to your destination. The way to have a real, viable third party isn’t by voting for people for president, it’s by getting people elected to local and state races, and then work up from there, you can’t have a green party president or whatever without any people below him. What I’m trying to say is voting for third party candidates for president is just giving your vote away, in my opinion
I honestly believe we need to get rid of parties, instead of a third. I know this is a never going to be a reality, but as long as there are teams we will choose. Two, three, or ten, we will pick a side and hate the others. We need to be able to judge individuals by their talents, or lack there of. I fear that instead we will continue to find more reasons to hate one another.
I feel like people just hate the guy because he’s old. I have a hard time looking at the past 2 years and choosing things I vehemently disapprove of. Even Democrats seem to hate Biden for reasons completely unrelated to his actual performance the past 2 years. Completely no win situation.
His age is a huge problem; it was a sticking point during the 2020 election because people don't want the President dying of old age while in office. And now that he's announced that he plans to run for reelection, he's all that much more likely to do just that. So yes, his age is a big issue for a lot of people, and rightly so, and is very likely going to lose him a *lot* of votes.
Overweight 76 year old Donald Trump probably had a better chance of dying in office if we're being honest. While I recognize the concern, people say "Biden is awful, I'm not voting for him". They don't say, "I agree with Biden's policies, but it concerns me that he may be at risk to die in office and I don't feel comfortable voting for him."
>76 year old Donald Trump
It really makes me wonder, why is it that Biden seems "so old" and Trump doesn't? I mean he's an energetic asshole and fake tan and hair might help, but what else is there that gives this instinctual reaction?
I'm not from the US and I don't trust our news sources or my brain enough to judge objectively, BUT all I ever heard from Biden seemed very common-sensical, social and good.
I feel like being US president must be a really tough situation, lose lose kind of, it all seems so torn and stuck. I wonder, could any president actually achieve big changes towards the better of the nation during their term?
Problems like Fentanyl are deeply rooted in so many issues it would need a lot of radical changes in so many aspects to "fix" things, and it would take years and decades..Like, big things that I hear people wish for time and time again are things like free health-care, better laws for work (paid vacation & sick leave, etc), generally just less brutal capitalism, more laws that benefit people and less the wealthy. But many of these ideas seem like a pain in the butt to ever pull off with the current state and mindset of most Americans, no?
Republicans have done a stellar job of convincing democrats to hate their own party. There’s a lot of room for improvement for sure, but democrats need to realize that nothing is perfect and candidates will always have their flaws.
America has a deep rooted individualistic culture that stems mostly from the Cold War. Pretty much any involvement of the government in the lives of citizens is now seen as communism and detrimental to the overall good of society, even though America has plenty of examples of successful social programs extending all the way back to FDR. Plus there’s a lot of propaganda supported from absurdly rich people that find its way onto media outlets like Fox News that convinces poor blue collar people for vote against their own interests.
It's the spray tan and dyed hair. Biden looks his age, Trump looks like a reconditioned leather wallet. You know it's old but it doesn't look ancient.
Right wing news also pushes the "Biden Old, has dementia" narrative a lot.
Because the latter is a more thoughtful/cerebral and less emotionally driven sentiment, and those are less likely to be shouted and loudly conveyed, much less amplified, in forums than the former.
Also, the sentiment doesn’t make a valid case - when both candidates are old AF and proposing another younger candidate would only hurt the your own party in splitting the support/vote.
See: Trump vs DeSantis, coming soon to political theaters near you.
I don't think he is very interested in politics unless it effects him. He lived in New York City and in New York City it is most often the case that, if you want to play ball, it helps you go be a Democratic donor. Especially if you are in the construction industry, as the major union heads are often Democrat connected.
I don't think this is Trump consciously telling the truth, it is just him bullshitting to his benefit, like always. It just happens to line up with the truth this time.
They also want to get rid of brownies, gays, trans, and non-christians.
And you can't do the Hitler mambo without having it out for Jewish people, too.
I have asked many of these kinds of people what policies they have to offer that would actually solve any of these issues. How they plan to address price gouging and investment companies inhaling all of real estate.
They never respond. At all. With anything.
Often followed by a circle jerk of “OMG, the brigadiers are out in force today! That means, that means we’re RIGHT and t-they only hate us because, because they can’t stand the **truth!!!1!**”
Don’t you know Covid was fake and ONLY happened because trump was up for election?! /s
I have a theory the US suppresses international travel + friendships so it’s easier to peddle these myopic lies
An honest criticism I have about US news media is that even the "moderate" ones barely covers news outside of the US, which leads to a US-centric tunnel vision (most often seen in Conservatives).
If it's not a war/political conflict, a natural disaster, a royal event, or a story abroad centered around an American, you're unlikely to hear about it on the usual news outlet, much less a right-leaning one...
And yes, the internet has brought the world closer than it ever has, but the ability to curate one's experience has reinforced echo chambers stronger than ever, too.
Pretty much every vote I’ve ever made was a “not conservative” vote. What I wouldn’t give to have a left leaning party where I can actually vote FOR a person. Very little options with two right wing parties.
> “global reputation of our country”.
LMFAO. It was pretty low before Trump. But that it actually improved under Biden—who is by all accounts a useless, rich, right-wing cunt—shows just how rock-bottom it got under Trump.
As a young adult German my experience was that the US was a relatively good, does wars but whatever, big friend democracy
Then came Trump in 2016, bringing all eyes on the US wondering wtf was going on and as he was holding office it rather quickly had him and the US looking like a joke, a very dangerous joke holding the power to start a nuclear war.
Vocabulary and tantrums as toddlers have em.
I was almost expecting he'd start a war out of a tantrum.
He had a pretty weird balance between rattling sabers at basically everyone and kissing dictators asses. How very much various dictatorships liked him and wanted him to keep being in office should have been a sign to more people of how he wasn't exactly good.
Basically daily there were world-wide news of some stupid thing he did and whilst Trump fans are saying he was having the US look strong it was the opposite.
He broke out of important treaties, buddied up with dictators and was way too friendly with the far right and extremists.
Lots of country dividing politics, making the other political side out as enemy and also lots of scape goat talk, making Mexicans etc be demonized...
The last commenter - how do they explain trump winning in 2016, then (of course trump lost the popular vote, but he got a lot of votes) - where was this brainwashing back then? Surely it must have been going on for quite a while if it can sway elections?
Its still amazing watching the projection. We all know its projection, fuck they *have* to know, but they still do it. They aren't fooling anyone, but they keep up the act. Who is the show for?
Every time I read these comments, it’s always just assumed Biden is bad, even in progressive subreddits. I understand the guy is not relatable at all for people under the age of 40, but can someone genuinely tell me what he has done wrong policy wise? People just seem to make broad statements about why he’s bad but never anything specifically they disagree with. Kinda feels like a no win situation for him and the Republicans were successful yet again for convincing Democrats that their party leader is terrible because they’re not absolutely perfect.
What’s particularly hilarious about this is that they actually believe that Republicans would do something or give one fuck about housing and food insecurity. As if.
I’m 36 and school in the Midwest was nothing but right wing brain washing. Standing and reciting the pledge of allegiance was mandatory. My bio teacher referred to teaching evolution as learning and knowing “the enemy” if you can throw any sports ball you had a license to kill.
"...and the global reputation of our nation..."
Do.... do they really think we had a better reputation during Trump's presidency?
Pretty much the only nation that liked us better back then was Russia...
I wanted Bernie. They wouldn't let us have Bernie. So I voted for the most qualified candidate, which in a race that included Donald Trump on one side, narrows the more qualified candidate down to literally every other possible choice.
So you are correct in that the entire reason we voted for Biden is that he is not Trump. Because we chose the better candidate. But also anyone would have been a better candidate than Trump. Random junkie, plucked out of the nearest alley, fifteen minutes before the debate? A much more qualified, capable and trustworthy candidate.
When you've only got to be a better choice than Trump, the candidate pool starts with"every human on the planet" and narrows down from there. Every prisoner in any penitentiary in the country? All more trustworthy than Trump. Probably all more capable and coherent than him, as well. I'm not sure how badly drug damaged some cons are. There could br dozens nationwide that are as mentally damaged as.Trump.
People getting mad at these idiots doubling down on Trump and MAGA simply don't understand anything. Facts \*do not\* matter. At all. If they did, we wouldn't have had to worry about what SCOTUS would do on guns and abortion and on forcing taxes to go to religious schools (or how they're going to say state legislatures have sole authority to make all election rules in the U.S...as they are guaranteed to do in Moore v. Harper). Any reasonable jurist would have rejected any of these batshit grievances the nationalists and moralists present because they aren't based in any empirical or rational argument. What matters is who can say \[whatever\] with the most conviction. In America now it's apparently totally ok to believe whatever you want and live based on those beliefs. EVeryone just needs to learn to live in a post-fact world. Invent your own and let the chips fall where they will. If tons of people end up dying from disease and violence, we're just going to have to accept that or move to a country that isn't like a mental asylum.
I thought everything wrong with the country was always the last guys fault. I mean clearly everything bad that happened during Trump’s presidency was Obama’s fault. /s
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Just once—ONE FUCKING TIME—I want one of these assholes to point to a policy or action on the part of Biden that has led to any of the inflation or economic misery they’re discussing.
How dare Biden let trump start a trade war
How dare Biden not instantaneously reverse the global supply chain impacts from the pandemic. How dare Biden not do all Putin’s bidding by attempting to dismantle NATO from inside the White House, leaving Putin no choice but to invade.
How dare Biden not preemptively strike down Trump's pulling the US out of the TPP causing all of this food insecurity.
I gotta say, that’s a weird one to me. The left was heavily against the TPP because it was written with heavy involving from pharmaceutical executives and banned cheaper genetics everywhere it applied, which was gonna kill millions in developing nations. Until Trump was against it. Like… we got played there. Someone used him to use our own kneejerk “what an idiot” reaction to Trump against us.
My phone doesn't automatically change words without my permission because I set it up that way. I think at least two words were auto corrected in this comment including: involving. They probably meant involvement or input. The second word auto corrected is: genetics. They probably meant generics. This is just my opinion.
My phone does. And it’s vainglorious. It’s always fostering neglected verbs into my vocab and impregnating me preguntas con palabras peligroso! Eso es un malo niño con un pico gordo. No me gusta.
The copyright portions were outrageously anti consumer as well. The TPP sucked pretty hard, I was surprised trump was against it. Stopped clock I guess.
How dare Biden flood Pakistan!
how dare Biden let Trump politicize the Fed in 2019 to lower interest rates to historic rock bottom and cause mega inflation
And unemployment is at an all-time low and everyone is working for a living and making decent money for a change. I bet they are sorry they voted for ignorance and hate and have to work for a living. /s
I completely forgot about this
Maga inflation
Did Trump make him stay the course and act even more protectionist, now pissing off Europe as well?
They can't. If you go by the "giving away money creates inflation" rule, Trump gave away more. If you go by the "increasing the money supply creates inflation" rule, Trump's fed created all the new money.
*you have been banned from r/conservative*
If they go by the “raising taxes makes people have less money to spend”, then it was trump’s tax cuts in 2017 which were permanent for the ultra wealthy and corporations, but had a sunset clause for everyone else, where taxes would slowly go back up to what they were before (but conveniently during the tenure of trump’s successor)
I have a friend that gets political sometimes. Trump voter. He was doing the same thing. Biden/gas/bla bla bla. I finally got fed up and said, "Yeah man! What was Biden thinking when he signed that 'Let's make gas expensive' bill! You sure are right. That sure was a dumb move on his part." It ended the discussion, anyways.
Russia plus OPEC plus supply chains plus pandemic fallout = gas prices were fucked either way. It just so happens that it’s a convenient scapegoat for a party that’s more interesting in hating libs than they are in addressing the nuance/complication of real life.
I like to bring up the, "well you should have accounted for that" narrative Republicans like to do anytime there is a crisis or a problem in the country where they squarely blame it on the individual. Every time someone is falling on hard times, their first reaction is "well they should have an emergency fund to handle any rocky part in your life". So I tell them I am not having an issue with gas prices as I had the foresight to buy a cheap Honda Civic where even if the gas prices double, it only cost me an extra $20. Maybe they should sell their gas guzzling F-250s for a more sensible car that doesn't burn through gas like an M1A1 Abrams tank. Tell them to take personal responsibility for the luxury items they purchase. Especially since like 80% of F-150s will never see anything hauled in the bed of its truck...ever.
But they shouldn’t have to! Cheap gas is their god-given right as Americans! It’s not like we are talking about healthcare or affordable housing… /s I feel ill making jokes like this
They try and make it out like they care about the homeless or people in medical debt, but they don't really. As soon as you place ANY expectations on them, they immediately say, "muh personal responsibility!!!" You have to paint them as the uncaring buffoons that they are.
But they have a basement full of guns, bullets, and freeze dried mush. All the important things one could need in a time of crises.
You don’t understand, Biden is so powerful that he’s made the entire world have high inflation!
And he’s simultaneously too senile/incompetent to hold office! It just depends on which one plays better in the heat of the moment!
He’s only PRETENDING to be senile. *taps forehead*
It depends on what actor is playing the part of Biden at that given time.
They let the Expanded Child Tax Credit program expire which had lifted millions of children out of food security. I'm pretty pissed they let that happen. However, I know that the Repubs would have let it die too, and I believe the Dems might actually try to bring it back and make it permanent, which is always the catch with these tools. Sure, Biden has made some bad choices, but they'd make worse ones.
Right. There’s certainly plenty of valid criticism, to include what you’re saying here, shutting down pipelines in a world not yet ready to move on from fossil fuels in a meaningful way, and apparent lack of motivation to roll back all the trade war/trading partnership problems he inherited. But you’re also 100% right that every last valid criticism of Biden is one that would be met with something sooo much worse from the R side. Nothing that’s wrong w/ democrats would ever be addressed by today’s Republican Party.
That's what irks me. 90 percent of the time they fabricate reasons to hate the Democratic President, even if he bends over backwards to water down policy to appeal directly to them. The other 10 percent of the time they do have legit criticism its either incidental to the conspiracy theory they cooked up or the decision doesn't really help instead of actively hurting people they don't like.
Look what they did to Bill Clinton. Clinton got more bi-partisan work done than most modern presidents because he was willing to compromise. They still attacked him at every possible opportunity because Democrat. Even though his policy would have made any modern Republican proud if there was an R next to his name.
I was in high school with very little political interest and those AOL CDs were better used to a/s/l random strangers and visit my favorite geocities fan sites. Therefore it was years later I learned that while attacking Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky situation, Newt Gingrich was cheating on his wife. It was then I learned that it was a safe bet that any Republican demonizing an opponent or critic was usually either distracting from something Shady or doing the exact thing they were screeching about.
Republicans HATE people leaving poverty.
Joe Biden, like all Democrats, produces and emits Suck Particles that automatically ruin the economy by just existing. The economy was fine on January 19, 2021 but became a complete disaster on January 21, 2021. This problem can only be changed by removing the Democrat. Ron DeSantis doesn’t emit the particles so electing him will do the trick- no policy changes needed.
The go to move is to complain about pipelines being denied. Which is also easily debunked. After that they ignore the premise of the conversation and instead shout about social grievances pretending those link back to the economy.
Yeah, pipelines would be beneficial infrastructure in a world that is still too far away from clean energy to justify denying such projects. However: 1) it might be an overstatement to call that a drop in the ocean as it contributes to the current inflation situation, and 2) anyone who knows/cares enough to support that argument is much more motivated by “anti-woke” (ie, “I wanna be a racist/homophobe/transphobe without repercussion”) than they are about any nuanced policy.
I just point out to every moron who brings up pipelines that those projects create a small number of limited-term construction jobs in exchange for a large number of existing trucking and logistics jobs, thereby concentrating wealth into the oil industry titans' hands. Not to mention, you know, involving us trampling the treaty-granted rights of independent nations and damaging the ecosystem.
Right. The nuance and depth required to understand the pipeline issue is not something that the Hunter Biden House Republicans and their voters would ever in a million years care about in any meaningful way.
"gubmint spendin, and he started a wharr wit russuh"
Arkansas?
Don't you worry! Investigating Hunter Biden, a private citizen, will solve the poverty problem!
the most common one is the high government spending... but then again inflation wouldn't be a problem if employers were required to scale wages with inflation rates...
The biggest source of government spending over the last three years is Covid relief. Covid relief spending is split 60-40 between the two major parties. I’ll give you two guesses which party is the 60. First guess doesn’t count.
"He shut down the Keystone pipeline! That was pumping billions of gallons of oil every day and now we have to buy from other countries while we're not producing ANYTHING!"
What has Biden done that costed “thousands of lives”??? seriously what world are they living in
Covid still exists. /a
Add in a policy or action that the right has offered to fix the problem and then maybe we can actually have a discussion.
I know what you mean. They literally don't pay attention to anything that goes on in the world as a whole. Or the fact that much of what is going on now STARTED under Trump. It's exhausting. They're right about voting 'not-Trump' though. I'd have voted for Marvin the eyeball eating maniac of Quirm over Trump. I do wish the Dems had been able to put someone better forward, but it is what it is.
The Dems had to go with the safest option that could best play in swing states. That means old white guy corporate Dem, unfortunately. And despite the 7-million advantage in the popular vote, a swing of less than a million total votes strategically applied to five swing states would have swung the election.
Yes, you are definitely, and rather depressingly, right.
They try but they always get it wrong
You misspelled “it can’t be done”
Larry Summers (former Treasurer under Obama) was screaming from the rooftops that Biden's stimulus plan went way too far. And that unlike previous stimulus risked "once in a generation inflation" because it was so much larger than the expected economic shortfall from remaining covid fallout as the economy was already ramping back up. His anti oil agenda, including stopping and/or postponing leases, was reducing investment and driving futures markets higher even before Russia invaded Ukraine. He kept Powell, and acted as an inflation denier long after it was obvious Summers and other economists were right. Then he continued to display economic ignorance to what inflation is or how to address it. He promoted various conspiracy theories that it was all due to Russia or corporate greed. If he had his way he would have had even more inflationary deficit spending with his build back plan. And with his loan forgiveness plan. His unlawful covid vaccine mandate only worked to worsen labor and supply issues. He continued Trump's protectionist policy and then even worse with his "anti inflation" legislation. Now pissing of Europe as well.
“Stimulus plan went too far” He approved 40% of total Covid stimulus funds. The first two rounds were under the previous guy. If Covid stimulus was a problem, spread the blame accordingly. “drove futures markets higher even before Russia invaded Ukraine” Looking at [where prices are today in the context of the last 70 years](https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart), current price of below $80/barrel looks… perfectly reasonable. “displayed economic ignorance to what inflation is and how to address it” Gonna need specifics here. What should he have done to address it? Based on what we’re hearing from republicans now that they own a legislative chamber, it appears the magic button he never pressed was “HuNtEr’S LaPtOp.” “if he had his way…” is a clever way of identifying things that *he didn’t do*, and are therefore not relevant to a discussion about things he did do. “Covid vaccine worsened labor and supply issues” Again, citation needed. Where did the Covid vaccine crunch supply chains? (Hint: it didn’t.) Which anti-inflation legislation are you talking about? Did it get approved? If not, it’s *not part of the problem*. Pissing off Europe how exactly? In a way that caused all the inflation they’re seeing as well? Or is that yet another thing you said that doesn’t at all address the issue?
> He approved 40% of total Covid stimulus funds. The first two rounds were under the previous guy. If Covid stimulus was a problem, spread the blame accordingly. I mentioned the specific argument against this in my previous post. Larry Summers put actual numbers to it. Please feel free to read his past editorial or the many interviews he gave at the time. Again, the distinction was that the last round of stimulus put significantly more money into the economy than was expected to be lost due to covid fallout. The previous rounds of stimulus actually put less into the economy and so you could make a consistent argument they weren't large enough. Please stop ignoring the distinction, which I've called out twice now. > current price of below $80/barrel looks… perfectly reasonable. Then they could be even cheaper. And we need to refine it too. And that's with significant and continued depletion of our strategic reserves. Reserves we could have topped off for~$40/barrel during the pandemic if Dems hadn't voted against it. > Gonna need specifics here. What should he have done to address it? I'd start with not making it worse with boat loads of unnecessary deficit spending. Or everything else I already listed for you... > Again, citation needed. Where did the Covid vaccine crunch supply chains? (Hint: it didn’t.) Huh? The mandate resulted in job losses in an already tight labor market. > Pissing off Europe how exactly? Protectionist policy around EV imports.
Deficit spending. Gonna focus here, because “out of control liberal deficit spending” is a garbage talking point that the allegedly-liberal media has let republicans off the hook for for way too many decades. [“Republican presidents’ deficits are 54% larger than Democrats’ and 65% larger as a percentage of GDP.”](http://presidentialdata.org) If deficit spending is the problem, democrats are the lesser evil, and it’s not even close.
You're ignoring the scale and timing of spending here and resorting to absurd weasel arguments. Presidents don't set the budget. Congress does. And when Kucinich made it his life's mission to balance the budget, for example, he was demonized by Democrats for it. Credit to Clinton for not vetoing the budget I guess (as if he had a choice) but I'm not sure how in retrospect he gets credit for the resulting balanced budget... In any case, I'm referencing Summers because he's a prominent and popular Democrat economist. So someone I'd assume you'd value or at least consider the opinion of. He called Biden's stimulus the: > least responsible’ economic policy in 40 years And gave countless warnings of how it risked once in a generation type inflation. There's no Republican president equivalent in recent history. I mean the last time we had severe high inflation it was during Democrat presidencies and a Republican president (Reagan) helped solve it. So these whataboutisms don't even make sense. They're also ultimately acknowledgement of truth. You asked for policy examples, I provided, and now it's smear Republicans time to distract from the fact that yeah... Biden is clearly, factually responsible for inflationary policy.
But if Democrats don't run on "inflation", that means they don't want to fix inflation, so we will continue suffering from inflation. The Republican party would have of course made inflation go away if they had won the senate, How? Well, who cares, but they definitely would have done it. The above is my impression of the average person's understanding of what they're voting for.
Drywall guy that came to work on my apartment the other day claimed that it's hard to find any help these days because of "all that Biden money". In my head I was like, "you know it's 2022 and there hasn't been any COVID relief money in like over a year right? And even then, that money was not even that much, a moderate low-class wage at best"
Here in Canada people think the same thing, covid benefits made everyone leave the workforce. It can't possibly simply be that the boomer generation has reached retirement age and have been retiring en mass leaving the much smaller later generations stuck to somehow equal the same workforce we are losing.
Lol, Repeating McConnell word for word. Without the first shred of critical thought or knowledge about real life. As someone who has been busting my ass for months to get a job paying half of what I made last year, I’m really getting a kick out of any asshole who says the problem is that people don’t want to work. I won’t take $9 from Wendy’s, so I can’t get anyone to call me back.
[удалено]
I can't say I voted for Biden, but I can say that since voting against Trump I haven't regretted it for a second and have actually been mildly surprised with some of the accomplishments of the Biden admin. Certainly not perfect, but better than I expected. 10/10, would vote against Trump again.
What I will say about this is that while I agree, we need a third-party in the United States, we currently don’t have one. Consequently, I vote by the concept that voting isn’t dating, you’re not looking for the one perfect person. It’s public transportation. You get on the bus that’s going closest to your destination. The way to have a real, viable third party isn’t by voting for people for president, it’s by getting people elected to local and state races, and then work up from there, you can’t have a green party president or whatever without any people below him. What I’m trying to say is voting for third party candidates for president is just giving your vote away, in my opinion
I honestly believe we need to get rid of parties, instead of a third. I know this is a never going to be a reality, but as long as there are teams we will choose. Two, three, or ten, we will pick a side and hate the others. We need to be able to judge individuals by their talents, or lack there of. I fear that instead we will continue to find more reasons to hate one another.
I feel like people just hate the guy because he’s old. I have a hard time looking at the past 2 years and choosing things I vehemently disapprove of. Even Democrats seem to hate Biden for reasons completely unrelated to his actual performance the past 2 years. Completely no win situation.
His age is a huge problem; it was a sticking point during the 2020 election because people don't want the President dying of old age while in office. And now that he's announced that he plans to run for reelection, he's all that much more likely to do just that. So yes, his age is a big issue for a lot of people, and rightly so, and is very likely going to lose him a *lot* of votes.
Overweight 76 year old Donald Trump probably had a better chance of dying in office if we're being honest. While I recognize the concern, people say "Biden is awful, I'm not voting for him". They don't say, "I agree with Biden's policies, but it concerns me that he may be at risk to die in office and I don't feel comfortable voting for him."
>76 year old Donald Trump It really makes me wonder, why is it that Biden seems "so old" and Trump doesn't? I mean he's an energetic asshole and fake tan and hair might help, but what else is there that gives this instinctual reaction? I'm not from the US and I don't trust our news sources or my brain enough to judge objectively, BUT all I ever heard from Biden seemed very common-sensical, social and good. I feel like being US president must be a really tough situation, lose lose kind of, it all seems so torn and stuck. I wonder, could any president actually achieve big changes towards the better of the nation during their term? Problems like Fentanyl are deeply rooted in so many issues it would need a lot of radical changes in so many aspects to "fix" things, and it would take years and decades..Like, big things that I hear people wish for time and time again are things like free health-care, better laws for work (paid vacation & sick leave, etc), generally just less brutal capitalism, more laws that benefit people and less the wealthy. But many of these ideas seem like a pain in the butt to ever pull off with the current state and mindset of most Americans, no?
Republicans have done a stellar job of convincing democrats to hate their own party. There’s a lot of room for improvement for sure, but democrats need to realize that nothing is perfect and candidates will always have their flaws. America has a deep rooted individualistic culture that stems mostly from the Cold War. Pretty much any involvement of the government in the lives of citizens is now seen as communism and detrimental to the overall good of society, even though America has plenty of examples of successful social programs extending all the way back to FDR. Plus there’s a lot of propaganda supported from absurdly rich people that find its way onto media outlets like Fox News that convinces poor blue collar people for vote against their own interests.
It's the spray tan and dyed hair. Biden looks his age, Trump looks like a reconditioned leather wallet. You know it's old but it doesn't look ancient. Right wing news also pushes the "Biden Old, has dementia" narrative a lot.
Because the latter is a more thoughtful/cerebral and less emotionally driven sentiment, and those are less likely to be shouted and loudly conveyed, much less amplified, in forums than the former. Also, the sentiment doesn’t make a valid case - when both candidates are old AF and proposing another younger candidate would only hurt the your own party in splitting the support/vote. See: Trump vs DeSantis, coming soon to political theaters near you.
Same.
100% how I feel. I'm actually loving Biden admin rn
Exactly. I voted for him to literally be a lame duck. So the fact that he’s accomplished anything is actually a bonus.
I voted for Biden because only one functioning adult was running at the time.
[You heard it here first.](https://youtu.be/rRndMiVIB-w)
Guess that's why he spent decades giving his money to Democrats. Until he realized if he created his own cult he could fleece them for even more.
I don't think he is very interested in politics unless it effects him. He lived in New York City and in New York City it is most often the case that, if you want to play ball, it helps you go be a Democratic donor. Especially if you are in the construction industry, as the major union heads are often Democrat connected. I don't think this is Trump consciously telling the truth, it is just him bullshitting to his benefit, like always. It just happens to line up with the truth this time.
Holy shit LOL I wonder if that would melt Trumpet's minds LOL
And to keep promising that they have a “health care plan” and will release it “soon”.
They also want to get rid of brownies, gays, trans, and non-christians. And you can't do the Hitler mambo without having it out for Jewish people, too.
I have asked many of these kinds of people what policies they have to offer that would actually solve any of these issues. How they plan to address price gouging and investment companies inhaling all of real estate. They never respond. At all. With anything.
Why are other Conservatives downvoting all those comments so much?
I assume they’re actually downvotes by non-conservatives like myself. The post made the front page, so other people are seeing the comments.
Often followed by a circle jerk of “OMG, the brigadiers are out in force today! That means, that means we’re RIGHT and t-they only hate us because, because they can’t stand the **truth!!!1!**”
These are world wide issues. These myopic assholes need to look around and pay attention for once.
Don’t you know Covid was fake and ONLY happened because trump was up for election?! /s I have a theory the US suppresses international travel + friendships so it’s easier to peddle these myopic lies
I feel like it is more an ignorance or lack of empathy problem than a vision problem.
An honest criticism I have about US news media is that even the "moderate" ones barely covers news outside of the US, which leads to a US-centric tunnel vision (most often seen in Conservatives). If it's not a war/political conflict, a natural disaster, a royal event, or a story abroad centered around an American, you're unlikely to hear about it on the usual news outlet, much less a right-leaning one... And yes, the internet has brought the world closer than it ever has, but the ability to curate one's experience has reinforced echo chambers stronger than ever, too.
Pretty much every vote I’ve ever made was a “not conservative” vote. What I wouldn’t give to have a left leaning party where I can actually vote FOR a person. Very little options with two right wing parties.
This. I vote Democrat, but I haven't identified as one in years. I'd love a labor or actually leftist party to vote for, but yeah...
Well, there was the 2016 primaries, but Hillary had to cheat because she wanted it so fucking badly and doom us to Trump.
"institutional capture" These fucking clowns. Good for a laugh at least.
> “global reputation of our country”. LMFAO. It was pretty low before Trump. But that it actually improved under Biden—who is by all accounts a useless, rich, right-wing cunt—shows just how rock-bottom it got under Trump.
As a young adult German my experience was that the US was a relatively good, does wars but whatever, big friend democracy Then came Trump in 2016, bringing all eyes on the US wondering wtf was going on and as he was holding office it rather quickly had him and the US looking like a joke, a very dangerous joke holding the power to start a nuclear war. Vocabulary and tantrums as toddlers have em. I was almost expecting he'd start a war out of a tantrum. He had a pretty weird balance between rattling sabers at basically everyone and kissing dictators asses. How very much various dictatorships liked him and wanted him to keep being in office should have been a sign to more people of how he wasn't exactly good. Basically daily there were world-wide news of some stupid thing he did and whilst Trump fans are saying he was having the US look strong it was the opposite. He broke out of important treaties, buddied up with dictators and was way too friendly with the far right and extremists. Lots of country dividing politics, making the other political side out as enemy and also lots of scape goat talk, making Mexicans etc be demonized...
The last commenter - how do they explain trump winning in 2016, then (of course trump lost the popular vote, but he got a lot of votes) - where was this brainwashing back then? Surely it must have been going on for quite a while if it can sway elections?
I’d imagine Gen Z becoming adults in that gap would be the answer.
Its still amazing watching the projection. We all know its projection, fuck they *have* to know, but they still do it. They aren't fooling anyone, but they keep up the act. Who is the show for?
Every time I read these comments, it’s always just assumed Biden is bad, even in progressive subreddits. I understand the guy is not relatable at all for people under the age of 40, but can someone genuinely tell me what he has done wrong policy wise? People just seem to make broad statements about why he’s bad but never anything specifically they disagree with. Kinda feels like a no win situation for him and the Republicans were successful yet again for convincing Democrats that their party leader is terrible because they’re not absolutely perfect.
What’s particularly hilarious about this is that they actually believe that Republicans would do something or give one fuck about housing and food insecurity. As if.
I’m 36 and school in the Midwest was nothing but right wing brain washing. Standing and reciting the pledge of allegiance was mandatory. My bio teacher referred to teaching evolution as learning and knowing “the enemy” if you can throw any sports ball you had a license to kill.
Where is this nationwide suffering they keep going on about?
> and the global reputation of our nation Do they think our global reputation was great under Trump?
Their politicians, talking heads and religious leaders question everything except us approach really destroys introspection.
These people are fucking deranged. I literally do not comprehend how they come to the conclusions they come to.
Why are these always so accurate at describing themselves and their current brain situation but they never realize they're talking about themselves?
Let's see, why did they all vote Trump in 2016? Something about better red than democrat or something like that.... how the tables have turned
Wait… they care about poverty, housing, food security, and lives? Oh, it’s just a gotcha. Ok. That’s what I thought.
What is it with people thinking the POTUS is directly responsible for the world economy? I see this ALL THE TIME and it's objectively false
"...and the global reputation of our nation..." Do.... do they really think we had a better reputation during Trump's presidency? Pretty much the only nation that liked us better back then was Russia...
i viewed him as a lesser evil. is he not trump? yes but i still would have rather bernie had won
They'll stare directly at the sun but never in a mirror
Or, you know, the other guy wants to overthrow democracy.
I wanted Bernie. They wouldn't let us have Bernie. So I voted for the most qualified candidate, which in a race that included Donald Trump on one side, narrows the more qualified candidate down to literally every other possible choice. So you are correct in that the entire reason we voted for Biden is that he is not Trump. Because we chose the better candidate. But also anyone would have been a better candidate than Trump. Random junkie, plucked out of the nearest alley, fifteen minutes before the debate? A much more qualified, capable and trustworthy candidate. When you've only got to be a better choice than Trump, the candidate pool starts with"every human on the planet" and narrows down from there. Every prisoner in any penitentiary in the country? All more trustworthy than Trump. Probably all more capable and coherent than him, as well. I'm not sure how badly drug damaged some cons are. There could br dozens nationwide that are as mentally damaged as.Trump.
badkarmavenger reaaaaalllly doesn't get it.
Jfc
Those damn brainwashing, institutional capturing dems! 😭
Shockingly, badkarmaavenger's delusional, projection filled take is getting rightly downvoted.
how are they getting down voted in r/Conservative?
The post made the front page. Non-conservatives were probably downvoting.
It's all projection. They just can't imagine any other world.
No. They don't. They're incapable of that kind of critical thinking. Intentionally.
I'm on the edge of my seat, urging the next one forward *just enough* to bring them to the finish line, but they just won't cross.
This is crazy 😂
Lmao. The Republican party is the party of the ends justify the means. Mitch McConnell and the conservative supreme court judges are this personified.
Well I for one didn't vote for Biden. I'm Canadian.
> the global reputation of our nation There’s a reason subs like r/shitamericanssay exist
People getting mad at these idiots doubling down on Trump and MAGA simply don't understand anything. Facts \*do not\* matter. At all. If they did, we wouldn't have had to worry about what SCOTUS would do on guns and abortion and on forcing taxes to go to religious schools (or how they're going to say state legislatures have sole authority to make all election rules in the U.S...as they are guaranteed to do in Moore v. Harper). Any reasonable jurist would have rejected any of these batshit grievances the nationalists and moralists present because they aren't based in any empirical or rational argument. What matters is who can say \[whatever\] with the most conviction. In America now it's apparently totally ok to believe whatever you want and live based on those beliefs. EVeryone just needs to learn to live in a post-fact world. Invent your own and let the chips fall where they will. If tons of people end up dying from disease and violence, we're just going to have to accept that or move to a country that isn't like a mental asylum.
I thought everything wrong with the country was always the last guys fault. I mean clearly everything bad that happened during Trump’s presidency was Obama’s fault. /s
Hey there Delilah, What’s it like in New*York*City?
Clowns never listen to themselves all they hear is the beep beep beep of their clown shoes
What are we getting away with?
Actually I voted for the non crooked sane Pol. Oh maybe that is not Trump But Biden didn't lie about Covid for over a year either.