4 ms·

Vote for republicans, get red state policies. Trump won the popular vote. America is trying very hard to become one big red state. Red states have had the wor

Vote for republicans, get red state policies. Trump won the popular vote. America is trying very hard to become one big red state. Red states have had the worst outcomes for generations but they keep going back to republicans. The reasons escape me. Maybe China will motivate them to get their act together.

ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
Trump won the popular vote because people were nostalgic for Obama's economy that Trump got credit for which is what always happens when a Republican follows a Dem into office.
- tokai 2y ago
  Its not even Obamas economy. A lot of people unironically thought they would get another stimulus check if Trump won.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    Its crazy that Dems don't run on policies like these. Imagine if instead of an 80+ geezer or the most corporate woman in the world, they had someone credibly promising stimulus checks !! They'd win in a landslide. Obama won huge on promising universal healthcare and then every dem after that decided to promise nothing.
    - Herring 2y ago
      It doesn’t work for Democrats. They were punished hard for that healthcare bill > According to a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Democratic Party has lost a net total of 13 Governorships and 816 state legislative seats since President Obama entered office, the most of any president since Dwight Eisenhower. https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democrats-suffer-largest-loss-in-power-since-eisenhower/ https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democ... Kamala had a good platform - voters still think she “didnt promise anything” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx924r4d5yno https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx924r4d5yno
      - ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        Republicans understand the power of appealing to emotion and "othering." They have spent decades training their voters to vote against their own interest because it will hurt people that Republicans say are preventing their great success. Trump said he had "concepts of a plan" on healthcare and voters think he had more of a platform than Harris because his main points were about getting even with the world. Make the world pay what it owes us and get these immigrants out of YOUR country. Democrats get punished for trying that too blatantly. Republicans and Democrats are playing different games when it comes to campaigning and propaganda.
        spencerflem 2y ago
        Democrats want universal healthcare and nobody besides Obama has come close to delivering it. And Obama still failed with a supermajority thanks to the filibuster, and even if that passed it would have sucked compared to what voters wanted or what other countries have.
        ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        Democrats want universal healthcare but Republicans will cry socialism which will turn moderates against it. I saw this happen in 08 and again in 16 with Bernie Sanders.
        spencerflem 2y ago
        Democrats (the politicians) voted with Republicans to force schools to teach the evils of Communism in every class. They are both funded by big buisiness and are on the same side against Socialism. Democrats (the voters) are broadly on board in my experience.
        ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        Democrats(the voters) are not a monolith. Like I said, moderate and centrist Democrats are not entirely on board with universal healthcare. The more liberal left wing of Democrats are.
    - throwaway150 2y ago
      For someone like me who isn't very well versed with US politics, could someone explain like I'm a layperson what Obama's universal healthcare is like and what it was meant to do. Was it anything like the universal free healthcare of Canada, UK, European countries? Or was it still paid healthcare but Obama wanted to integrate all of the healthcare in a universal system? Did it get implemented or is still in the works?
      - ctkhn 2y ago
        It wasn't anything like any of those. It was based on a right wing think tank plan and the one bonus is that now insurance companies can't reject you for already having a "pre existing condition"
        ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        It was based on Mitt Romney's healthcare plan that he created for Massachusetts when he was governor.
        ctkhn 2y ago
        Yeah, and Mitt Romney is a Republican which is the right wing of American politics.
        bee_rider 2y ago
        He’s certainly a Republican and he was their presidential candidate against Obama. But, it is also the most conservative plan he could get by the very-Democratic-leaning Massachusetts populace and legislature.
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        From this layman’s point of view: It was a requirement for everybody to get insurance, along with some protections (I forget exactly the mechanism) to prevent insurance companies from excluding people who had preexisting conditions (this is a big deal in the US, private insurance companies don’t want to insure you if they think you’ll be expensive), and a marketplace website thingy that made it easy to sign up for insurance. There was a concern that if insurance companies can’t consider preexisting conditions, people might just wait until they get sick, and then sign up for insurance. So, there was a fine levied if you don’t get insurance. There are also some subsidies for people who can’t afford insurance, but anecdotally the definition of “subsidy” and “can’t afford” vary from state to state. Some states sued to try to get the uninsured fine removed. While the case was going through, the fine was set to $0. Ultimately, the fine was found to be allowed (IIRC), but by the time that happened political leadership had changed a couple times and fines are unpopular anyway, so it wasn’t reimplemented (some states do have their own implementation of the fine, though). The system was implemented and remains. You can go to a government run portal and buy insurance in the US. Whether or not it is a good deal depends on what your state decided to do around subsidies and all that. In conclusion, it was a market-driven compromise plan which still exists and is, in fact, highly compromised.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      What happens if both parties just start running on bribing the populace?
      - ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        Republicans would win and Democrat voters would stay home. Republicans spend tons of time trying to convince you whatever Dem they are running against is corrupt while their voters ignore the blatant corruption in their own party.
      - spencerflem 2y ago
        The democrats would never allow something so broadly popular.
    - krferriter 2y ago
      They wanted another stimulus check but didn't want other people to get a stimulus check. They love stimulus checks and the highly effective policies the US used to mitigate an unemployment spike and avoid a recession that did hit other countries but not the US, and then they turn around and blame the government for causing some temporary and modest inflation (modest in a historic context compared to other periods of much higher inflation in recent memory). The median voter is someone who cannot be pleased. And so much of our political decisionmaking is driven to incoherence by trying to please these swing voters who do not understand anything.
  - const_cast 2y ago
    Some people still do. There's a mass Republican delusion that what DOGE is doing is somehow going to result in a literal check being mailed to them.
Acrobatic_Road 2y ago
They have better outcomes actually. Higher economic growth, higher population growth, lower state debt, lower unemployment. Of course, exceptions apply but the overall data is pretty clear. https://www.richardhanania.com/p/forty-years-of-economic-freedom-winning https://www.richardhanania.com/p/forty-years-of-economic-fre...
- ActorNightly 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - tristor 2y ago
    > If you want proof, look at the state with the highest GDP. And your response is "left-wing" (we don't actually have a left wing in the US) propaganda. Raw GDP is irrelevant for 99.99% of people, because the gains are /very/ unevenly distributed. Reducing cost of living and cost of housing has a much bigger impact on the daily lives of people than increasing GDP, because most people don't benefit from increased GDP, in fact increased GDP is largely tied to increased cost, as it's determined by money flows. GDP is a very flawed metric that doesn't in any way reflect the quality of life of the people who live in the region the metric applies to. Some sort of PPP based metric is more reasonable and is a much more balanced look at life across different US states and is not nearly as rosy a picture for blue states, all of which are some of the most expensive places to live, in part due to political policies. For a high earning person (say a software engineer), California has a higher effective all-in tax rate on income than most European countries but delivers /far less/. The fact it has such a high GDP is because the headquarters of some of the world's largest companies are there and it's /expensive/ which means there's significant money flows in California. That doesn't prove that California's policies are superior to say Texas. It's an entirely flawed comparison that does nothing to account for actual quality of life. I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that someone earning a median tech income in California has a better quality of life than someone earning a median tech income in France, and yet California's effective tax rate is higher (combining state, local, and federal).
    - 1y ago

ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago

Trump won the popular vote because people were nostalgic for Obama's economy that Trump got credit for which is what always happens when a Republican follows a Dem into office.

tokai 2y ago
Its not even Obamas economy. A lot of people unironically thought they would get another stimulus check if Trump won.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  Its crazy that Dems don't run on policies like these. Imagine if instead of an 80+ geezer or the most corporate woman in the world, they had someone credibly promising stimulus checks !! They'd win in a landslide. Obama won huge on promising universal healthcare and then every dem after that decided to promise nothing.
  - Herring 2y ago
    It doesn’t work for Democrats. They were punished hard for that healthcare bill > According to a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Democratic Party has lost a net total of 13 Governorships and 816 state legislative seats since President Obama entered office, the most of any president since Dwight Eisenhower. https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democrats-suffer-largest-loss-in-power-since-eisenhower/ https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democ... Kamala had a good platform - voters still think she “didnt promise anything” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx924r4d5yno https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx924r4d5yno
    - ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
      Republicans understand the power of appealing to emotion and "othering." They have spent decades training their voters to vote against their own interest because it will hurt people that Republicans say are preventing their great success. Trump said he had "concepts of a plan" on healthcare and voters think he had more of a platform than Harris because his main points were about getting even with the world. Make the world pay what it owes us and get these immigrants out of YOUR country. Democrats get punished for trying that too blatantly. Republicans and Democrats are playing different games when it comes to campaigning and propaganda.
      - spencerflem 2y ago
        Democrats want universal healthcare and nobody besides Obama has come close to delivering it. And Obama still failed with a supermajority thanks to the filibuster, and even if that passed it would have sucked compared to what voters wanted or what other countries have.
        ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        Democrats want universal healthcare but Republicans will cry socialism which will turn moderates against it. I saw this happen in 08 and again in 16 with Bernie Sanders.
        spencerflem 2y ago
        Democrats (the politicians) voted with Republicans to force schools to teach the evils of Communism in every class. They are both funded by big buisiness and are on the same side against Socialism. Democrats (the voters) are broadly on board in my experience.
        ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        Democrats(the voters) are not a monolith. Like I said, moderate and centrist Democrats are not entirely on board with universal healthcare. The more liberal left wing of Democrats are.
  - throwaway150 2y ago
    For someone like me who isn't very well versed with US politics, could someone explain like I'm a layperson what Obama's universal healthcare is like and what it was meant to do. Was it anything like the universal free healthcare of Canada, UK, European countries? Or was it still paid healthcare but Obama wanted to integrate all of the healthcare in a universal system? Did it get implemented or is still in the works?
    - ctkhn 2y ago
      It wasn't anything like any of those. It was based on a right wing think tank plan and the one bonus is that now insurance companies can't reject you for already having a "pre existing condition"
      - ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
        It was based on Mitt Romney's healthcare plan that he created for Massachusetts when he was governor.
        ctkhn 2y ago
        Yeah, and Mitt Romney is a Republican which is the right wing of American politics.
        bee_rider 2y ago
        He’s certainly a Republican and he was their presidential candidate against Obama. But, it is also the most conservative plan he could get by the very-Democratic-leaning Massachusetts populace and legislature.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      From this layman’s point of view: It was a requirement for everybody to get insurance, along with some protections (I forget exactly the mechanism) to prevent insurance companies from excluding people who had preexisting conditions (this is a big deal in the US, private insurance companies don’t want to insure you if they think you’ll be expensive), and a marketplace website thingy that made it easy to sign up for insurance. There was a concern that if insurance companies can’t consider preexisting conditions, people might just wait until they get sick, and then sign up for insurance. So, there was a fine levied if you don’t get insurance. There are also some subsidies for people who can’t afford insurance, but anecdotally the definition of “subsidy” and “can’t afford” vary from state to state. Some states sued to try to get the uninsured fine removed. While the case was going through, the fine was set to $0. Ultimately, the fine was found to be allowed (IIRC), but by the time that happened political leadership had changed a couple times and fines are unpopular anyway, so it wasn’t reimplemented (some states do have their own implementation of the fine, though). The system was implemented and remains. You can go to a government run portal and buy insurance in the US. Whether or not it is a good deal depends on what your state decided to do around subsidies and all that. In conclusion, it was a market-driven compromise plan which still exists and is, in fact, highly compromised.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    What happens if both parties just start running on bribing the populace?
    - ujkhsjkdhf234 2y ago
      Republicans would win and Democrat voters would stay home. Republicans spend tons of time trying to convince you whatever Dem they are running against is corrupt while their voters ignore the blatant corruption in their own party.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      The democrats would never allow something so broadly popular.
  - krferriter 2y ago
    They wanted another stimulus check but didn't want other people to get a stimulus check. They love stimulus checks and the highly effective policies the US used to mitigate an unemployment spike and avoid a recession that did hit other countries but not the US, and then they turn around and blame the government for causing some temporary and modest inflation (modest in a historic context compared to other periods of much higher inflation in recent memory). The median voter is someone who cannot be pleased. And so much of our political decisionmaking is driven to incoherence by trying to please these swing voters who do not understand anything.
- const_cast 2y ago
  Some people still do. There's a mass Republican delusion that what DOGE is doing is somehow going to result in a literal check being mailed to them.

Acrobatic_Road 2y ago

They have better outcomes actually. Higher economic growth, higher population growth, lower state debt, lower unemployment. Of course, exceptions apply but the overall data is pretty clear. https://www.richardhanania.com/p/forty-years-of-economic-freedom-winning https://www.richardhanania.com/p/forty-years-of-economic-fre...

ActorNightly 2y ago
[flagged]
- tristor 2y ago
  > If you want proof, look at the state with the highest GDP. And your response is "left-wing" (we don't actually have a left wing in the US) propaganda. Raw GDP is irrelevant for 99.99% of people, because the gains are /very/ unevenly distributed. Reducing cost of living and cost of housing has a much bigger impact on the daily lives of people than increasing GDP, because most people don't benefit from increased GDP, in fact increased GDP is largely tied to increased cost, as it's determined by money flows. GDP is a very flawed metric that doesn't in any way reflect the quality of life of the people who live in the region the metric applies to. Some sort of PPP based metric is more reasonable and is a much more balanced look at life across different US states and is not nearly as rosy a picture for blue states, all of which are some of the most expensive places to live, in part due to political policies. For a high earning person (say a software engineer), California has a higher effective all-in tax rate on income than most European countries but delivers /far less/. The fact it has such a high GDP is because the headquarters of some of the world's largest companies are there and it's /expensive/ which means there's significant money flows in California. That doesn't prove that California's policies are superior to say Texas. It's an entirely flawed comparison that does nothing to account for actual quality of life. I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that someone earning a median tech income in California has a better quality of life than someone earning a median tech income in France, and yet California's effective tax rate is higher (combining state, local, and federal).
  - 1y ago