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> I was kind of surprised how the USA bounced back from Trump I. what'd we bounce into? what did we bounce back from? what effects are you talking about specif

by serf 1y ago

> I was kind of surprised how the USA bounced back from Trump I. what'd we bounce into? what did we bounce back from? what effects are you talking about specifically. I work in aerospace and the sentiment was exactly opposite. People cheered both Trump elections and were dead terrified of a blue win ruining contracts and business. I don't ask because I am overtly political, I ask because I think it's fascinating that both sides seem to think we're a stone's throw from the apocalypse.. which very much seems to be projected onto the voter base on purpose..

krapp 1y ago
> I think it's fascinating that both sides seem to think we're a stone's throw from the apocalypse.. which very much seems to be projected onto the voter base on purpose.. Projected by whom, by what means, and to what end? Consider that both sides may have legitimate reasons to be concerned with this term that didn't apply to Trump's first term, and that what you see isn't simply some form of mass-manipulation or "projection onto the voter base."
- nkozyra 1y ago
  Indeed, the 2nd term is a radical departure from the first, which was more muted than most would have expected given the campaign. The 2nd term is making fundamental changes to our economy that carry a promise of bearing fruit. Not only are those promises generally contested by economic experts, the short-term results have been unsurprisingly poor.
nkozyra 1y ago
If there's a dichotomy that I can't really reconcile politically, it's the fundamental idea that people coming here is bad. That we cannot allow anyone else in. We can't even allow things from other countries to come here. The effects of this insular isolationism can only be explained by simplicity that doesn't hold up in reality: things will be more prosperous for us if we keep what we have to ourselves. But in truth growth is growth. To build prosperity, we need more production, which means more people. Perhaps your share gets bigger, but the pot gets smaller.
- defen 1y ago
  > If there's a dichotomy that I can't really reconcile politically, it's the fundamental idea that people coming here is bad. That we cannot allow anyone else in. We can't even allow things from other countries to come here. "People coming here" is not inherently good or bad. Some people would be good for the country, and some people would be bad. I'm speaking of individuals here, not groups. The issue is that the electorate at large feels like it has been given a choice between two extremes: "Effectively allow ANYONE to come here and stay as long as they want" and "Don't let ANYONE come here". If you give a people a choice of two extremes, don't be surprised if they choose the extremism you don't like. Reconceptualize MAGA as voting AGAINST what the Democrats are offering, instead of FOR what Trump is offering, and it might make more sense.
  - lbrito 1y ago
    In what world were the dems advertising allowing anyone in though? Did I daydream Harris saying "do not come" a few years ago?
    - defen 1y ago
      I want to make it clear that we're not having an object-level discussion about this. This is not about "the actual stated policy" of the Democratic party. This is also not about "are those policies good or bad". It is not about my own views on those topics. So when I tell you my perception of other people's perception, please don't come back and say the equivalent "that's not actually what they said" or "yeah but that's a good policy." You might think that my perception of the electorate at large is inaccurate, and that's fine - it's purely based on vibes and anecdotal conversations with people. The issue is trust. Why should voters trust that Kamala Harris will implement immigration policies they want? Why should they expect her not to yield to the most extreme elements in her party, which believe that borders are a fiction and should not exist? Look at Barack Obama's "evolution" on gay marriage over the course of his political career. Now take an issue that is far more important than gay marriage - how is she going to stop unlimited unskilled immigration? How is she going to stop fraudulent claims of refugee status? How is the whole immigration problem itself going to be solved, if you posit that every one of the 10 million "unauthorized immigrants", and every one of the refugee claimants, needs multiple appearances in court to resolve their situation?
andrewflnr 1y ago
> dead terrified of a blue win ruining contracts and business This is expected behavior, but not to be taken seriously as a moral argument. Preserving liberty and rule of law vs preserving money, so hard to choose...
rustystump 1y ago
I dont understand why you are downvoted. It seems like people have a real knee-jerk reaction to anything contrary to their world view which is exactly what you are commenting on. All most all the replies to your comment have nothing to do with the substance of what you said. The reality is that the us system is predominantly run by bureaucrats which make sweeping changes hard. This is a feature of the system. This means that whatever party is in charge will have a harder time enacting the crazy. I never understood the “my side”/“us vs them” from people. There is only one side and we are all on it.
biophysboy 1y ago
The belief that the voter base is easily manipulated and does not have earnest opinions is an overtly political belief.
- tripletpeaks 1y ago
  It’s also a topic of scientific study with a century or more of literature. It’s a little more complicated than what you wrote, but basically: yes. [edit] Example study construction: pick some issue where there’s been a heavy propaganda push against it from one party, but a law they opposed passed anyway. Ideally, something like a tax increase, that can directly affect voters in a way they might reasonably be expected to understand and know about. Observe that the (say) tax hike affects not more than 2% of the population you’re studying. Survey. Observe that 35% or 40% of people say the new tax law increased their taxes, and very nearly all of them favor the party that opposed the hike and was claiming or implying it would affect more people than it did. Repeat similar studies over a period of decades, always with familiar outcomes. Draw conclusions. Separately, you can probe basic understanding of how our government & various policies or laws work. You’ll find half of everyone not knowing how marginal income tax rates work, that almost all the people who think our foreign aid spending is way too high believe it’s 10x, 20x, 30x higher than it actually is, et c. Generally speaking, voters hardly know how anything works, so of course they buy lies about it. That’s not me being shitty, it’s what the evidence overwhelmingly says is true. And this is far from an exhaustive treatment of alarming traits & behaviors of the electorate.
detaro 1y ago
"was exactly opposite"? What is it currently?
tripletpeaks 1y ago
Things Red Team worries about: 1. If a democrat is elected, they will take all their guns (their campaign rhetoric keeps saying this will happen, but it continues being no part of democratic presidential campaign messaging, and hasn’t happened the times they warned it definitely would—this one’s fake) 2. Election security. But republicans keep getting into positions to investigate this and either not doing it (because they know it’s BS) or doing it and finding only a handful of mostly-accidental cases that don’t favor either party. Also fake. 3. Leftward shift around acceptance of non-standard sexual and social norms. This one’s real. Whether it’s a problem or just… fine and not worth worrying about? That’s another matter. 4. A bunch of totally wacky shit like litter boxes in classrooms. Fake. 5. Healthcare prices. Real! Democrats also worry about this. 6. Socialism. LOL we’re not remotely near it, very nearly nobody elected in the Democratic Party is left of center-right in most of the rest of our peer states, on economic issues and social safety nets and such. Fake issue. 7. Illegal immigrants increasing the crime rate (fake) and taking our jobs or driving down wages (true, with an asterisk that the effects are complicated, but sure, true) and bringing in drugs (you want citizen drug mules, they cross the border easier, or to just use shipping containers or cargo trucks entering the ordinary way with some greased palms as you can do crazy volume that way, this is fake) 8. Crime being out of control. Broadly, fake. (“But police stats could be…” yeah we have victimization surveys too, people study this and already thought of your objection. Again, fake) 9. Colleges being too liberal. Look at all that “fake” stuff above. Yeah gee I wonder why, dude. Real, but wholly self-inflicted. 10. Rampant fraud in social programs, by the people receiving the aid. This is extremely well-studied. Fake. 11. The budget deficit. Except Republicans are even worse for the budget than democrats, over the last 40 years. By, like, quite a bit. Mostly because they think tax cuts magically pay for themselves, plus Bush’s wars. They mocked the shit out of Gore for talking sense on this topic, and elected cut-taxes-and-spend Dubya. So. Real issue but they are extremely confused about who to vote for to improve it. There are more but you get the idea. Yes, Fox News and Mark Levin and all them have convinced republicans the world is going to end if democrats win elections. But it’s largely based on completely made-up shit. Left as an exercise for the reader to make a list for Democrats’ side. Nb how much of its worry about Republicans causing harm by trying to address the fake issues above. Probably most of it. And that’s a real thing that happens, to be worried about.
- 1y ago

by serf 1y ago

krapp 1y ago

> I think it's fascinating that both sides seem to think we're a stone's throw from the apocalypse.. which very much seems to be projected onto the voter base on purpose.. Projected by whom, by what means, and to what end? Consider that both sides may have legitimate reasons to be concerned with this term that didn't apply to Trump's first term, and that what you see isn't simply some form of mass-manipulation or "projection onto the voter base."

nkozyra 1y ago
Indeed, the 2nd term is a radical departure from the first, which was more muted than most would have expected given the campaign. The 2nd term is making fundamental changes to our economy that carry a promise of bearing fruit. Not only are those promises generally contested by economic experts, the short-term results have been unsurprisingly poor.

nkozyra 1y ago

If there's a dichotomy that I can't really reconcile politically, it's the fundamental idea that people coming here is bad. That we cannot allow anyone else in. We can't even allow things from other countries to come here. The effects of this insular isolationism can only be explained by simplicity that doesn't hold up in reality: things will be more prosperous for us if we keep what we have to ourselves. But in truth growth is growth. To build prosperity, we need more production, which means more people. Perhaps your share gets bigger, but the pot gets smaller.

defen 1y ago
> If there's a dichotomy that I can't really reconcile politically, it's the fundamental idea that people coming here is bad. That we cannot allow anyone else in. We can't even allow things from other countries to come here. "People coming here" is not inherently good or bad. Some people would be good for the country, and some people would be bad. I'm speaking of individuals here, not groups. The issue is that the electorate at large feels like it has been given a choice between two extremes: "Effectively allow ANYONE to come here and stay as long as they want" and "Don't let ANYONE come here". If you give a people a choice of two extremes, don't be surprised if they choose the extremism you don't like. Reconceptualize MAGA as voting AGAINST what the Democrats are offering, instead of FOR what Trump is offering, and it might make more sense.
- lbrito 1y ago
  In what world were the dems advertising allowing anyone in though? Did I daydream Harris saying "do not come" a few years ago?
  - defen 1y ago
    I want to make it clear that we're not having an object-level discussion about this. This is not about "the actual stated policy" of the Democratic party. This is also not about "are those policies good or bad". It is not about my own views on those topics. So when I tell you my perception of other people's perception, please don't come back and say the equivalent "that's not actually what they said" or "yeah but that's a good policy." You might think that my perception of the electorate at large is inaccurate, and that's fine - it's purely based on vibes and anecdotal conversations with people. The issue is trust. Why should voters trust that Kamala Harris will implement immigration policies they want? Why should they expect her not to yield to the most extreme elements in her party, which believe that borders are a fiction and should not exist? Look at Barack Obama's "evolution" on gay marriage over the course of his political career. Now take an issue that is far more important than gay marriage - how is she going to stop unlimited unskilled immigration? How is she going to stop fraudulent claims of refugee status? How is the whole immigration problem itself going to be solved, if you posit that every one of the 10 million "unauthorized immigrants", and every one of the refugee claimants, needs multiple appearances in court to resolve their situation?

andrewflnr 1y ago

> dead terrified of a blue win ruining contracts and business This is expected behavior, but not to be taken seriously as a moral argument. Preserving liberty and rule of law vs preserving money, so hard to choose...

rustystump 1y ago

I dont understand why you are downvoted. It seems like people have a real knee-jerk reaction to anything contrary to their world view which is exactly what you are commenting on. All most all the replies to your comment have nothing to do with the substance of what you said. The reality is that the us system is predominantly run by bureaucrats which make sweeping changes hard. This is a feature of the system. This means that whatever party is in charge will have a harder time enacting the crazy. I never understood the “my side”/“us vs them” from people. There is only one side and we are all on it.

biophysboy 1y ago

The belief that the voter base is easily manipulated and does not have earnest opinions is an overtly political belief.

tripletpeaks 1y ago
It’s also a topic of scientific study with a century or more of literature. It’s a little more complicated than what you wrote, but basically: yes. [edit] Example study construction: pick some issue where there’s been a heavy propaganda push against it from one party, but a law they opposed passed anyway. Ideally, something like a tax increase, that can directly affect voters in a way they might reasonably be expected to understand and know about. Observe that the (say) tax hike affects not more than 2% of the population you’re studying. Survey. Observe that 35% or 40% of people say the new tax law increased their taxes, and very nearly all of them favor the party that opposed the hike and was claiming or implying it would affect more people than it did. Repeat similar studies over a period of decades, always with familiar outcomes. Draw conclusions. Separately, you can probe basic understanding of how our government & various policies or laws work. You’ll find half of everyone not knowing how marginal income tax rates work, that almost all the people who think our foreign aid spending is way too high believe it’s 10x, 20x, 30x higher than it actually is, et c. Generally speaking, voters hardly know how anything works, so of course they buy lies about it. That’s not me being shitty, it’s what the evidence overwhelmingly says is true. And this is far from an exhaustive treatment of alarming traits & behaviors of the electorate.

detaro 1y ago

"was exactly opposite"? What is it currently?

tripletpeaks 1y ago

Things Red Team worries about: 1. If a democrat is elected, they will take all their guns (their campaign rhetoric keeps saying this will happen, but it continues being no part of democratic presidential campaign messaging, and hasn’t happened the times they warned it definitely would—this one’s fake) 2. Election security. But republicans keep getting into positions to investigate this and either not doing it (because they know it’s BS) or doing it and finding only a handful of mostly-accidental cases that don’t favor either party. Also fake. 3. Leftward shift around acceptance of non-standard sexual and social norms. This one’s real. Whether it’s a problem or just… fine and not worth worrying about? That’s another matter. 4. A bunch of totally wacky shit like litter boxes in classrooms. Fake. 5. Healthcare prices. Real! Democrats also worry about this. 6. Socialism. LOL we’re not remotely near it, very nearly nobody elected in the Democratic Party is left of center-right in most of the rest of our peer states, on economic issues and social safety nets and such. Fake issue. 7. Illegal immigrants increasing the crime rate (fake) and taking our jobs or driving down wages (true, with an asterisk that the effects are complicated, but sure, true) and bringing in drugs (you want citizen drug mules, they cross the border easier, or to just use shipping containers or cargo trucks entering the ordinary way with some greased palms as you can do crazy volume that way, this is fake) 8. Crime being out of control. Broadly, fake. (“But police stats could be…” yeah we have victimization surveys too, people study this and already thought of your objection. Again, fake) 9. Colleges being too liberal. Look at all that “fake” stuff above. Yeah gee I wonder why, dude. Real, but wholly self-inflicted. 10. Rampant fraud in social programs, by the people receiving the aid. This is extremely well-studied. Fake. 11. The budget deficit. Except Republicans are even worse for the budget than democrats, over the last 40 years. By, like, quite a bit. Mostly because they think tax cuts magically pay for themselves, plus Bush’s wars. They mocked the shit out of Gore for talking sense on this topic, and elected cut-taxes-and-spend Dubya. So. Real issue but they are extremely confused about who to vote for to improve it. There are more but you get the idea. Yes, Fox News and Mark Levin and all them have convinced republicans the world is going to end if democrats win elections. But it’s largely based on completely made-up shit. Left as an exercise for the reader to make a list for Democrats’ side. Nb how much of its worry about Republicans causing harm by trying to address the fake issues above. Probably most of it. And that’s a real thing that happens, to be worried about.

1y ago