As I say so often, Trump is not the problem, he is the symptom.
The problem was a system that increasingly was built to manage decline. That prevented upward mobility. That managed problems rather than solving them.
A vote for Trump was a vote of desperation. Address the desperation, and people will get rid of trump.
The most important thing you can do for people is make life easier and cheaper. Want to know why people REALLY hate DEI? Because it makes life harder and more complicated. That's it, the sum total of why people hate it.
Want people to love you? Endow a charity hospital in a major city with enough money that it can provide free medical care for everyone. Not only would you get some free medical care for the poor, but also, we would LOWER insurance costs for that city, and LOWER spending by the city on medical care. Win win win win.
"This kind of shift doesn’t happen often. It’s happened three times³ in American history:
1776 through Jefferson.
The Civil War through the Gilded Age.
The New Deal through post WWII."
Go read The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe.
Steve Bannon has, and that has colored a lot of the urgency and tactics of the Right. The GOP doesn't want to get locked out like the Dems were after the Civil War, or the GOP was after FDR. Do the Dems realize the stakes they face?
Trump and the GOP are directionally correct on a lot of things (federal spending, immigration control, crime), as are the Dems (LGBT rights, reproductive rights, environmental concern).
The problem is, with both parties, the devil is in the details and while the principles may be good, the execution sucks.
DOGE slash and burn. Cruel or due-process-free deportations. Lack of police accountability. Pedal-to-the-metal on transitioning kids. Transwomen in women's sports. Taxpayer-funded abortions and advocacy groups. BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) environmentalism.
The Right's dirty laundry is regularly thrown in the street by the MSM, while the Left's tends to get buried unless outed by the Right. But at least the Right's strategies and tactics are getting pressure-tested and devil's-advocated. Meanwhile, the Left's ideas remain in a hothouse.
Winning should not be the goal, real change in perennial government spending deficits and decimation of US debt are the fundamental issues. Don't learn from India's ideological victories without any real utility.
"Trump is the only guy in the room who looks like he’s doing something."
And something beats nothing, every time.
Voters thought Democrats had completely lost the plot on illegal immigration, law enforcement, social disorder, DEI, and climate change. People HATED their policies. Yet democrats made these issues the only thing they seemed to care about. Say what you want about COVID response (which was, ahem...poor), but bottom line, outside the laptop class, people got screwed. People got screwed on "free trade". People got screwed over on the question of Biden's competence. We can argue back and forth, but the perception is the Democrats lied and demagogued these issues to death. So how can a single word they say be taken seriously? Even if they had a plan (and they don't) who in the world would bother listening?
And before you accuse me of being a Trump loving far right blah blah, I worked on both the Carter and Dukakis campaigns. I voted for Obama. I sat out the first election for Trump, and haven't voted for president since, finding all the candidates to be unacceptable.
The real problem is this - democrats abandoned issues that matter to most people in favor of cultish faculty lounge stuff. And Trump swooped in and took those issues away from them. Worse, because they have demagogued Trump to such a degree, they can't go back. Trump has boxed them into the 20% on numerous 80/20 issues.
trumps real power is he doesn't give a fig about republican policy, or Democrat policy. He has no allegiance to fixed positions. he is doing maneuver warfare against the trenches. he isn't pinned down to old ideas of what can or can't be done. To a large extent he is benefits from breaking logjams on policy questions that have left us stuck on so many issues.
You make a number of good points. Where I strongly disagree is Trump's motivations. I think he's mostly focused on personal enrichment and revenge on his enemies. And the policies he is pushing is to take us back to a fantasy version of 1900.
But yeah, he's enabled his minions to go break things. In a few ways good things, in a lot of ways needlessly destructive and cruel ways.
Well, I didn't discuss motivations, just what he seems to be doing. I don't see him getting rich, he'll be lucky to dodge a jail cell.
As to revenge - maybe. But then again, his opponents tried several times to bankrupt him or put him in a jail cell over some pretty frivolous stuff, so...? I honestly think he wouldn't have run again if Dems had simply left him alone.
Listening to democrats, I hear variations on "I don't understand why the guy I tried to put in jail for political reasons wants revenge." You mean you don't understand why sending armed agents to paw through his wife's panty drawer might make him mad? Yeah, it's just baffling. Why couldn't he just be cool with it? What a jerk he is!
Trump is the symptom of a much larger problem, a problem mostly with the democrats.
As I say so often, Trump is not the problem, he is the symptom.
The problem was a system that increasingly was built to manage decline. That prevented upward mobility. That managed problems rather than solving them.
A vote for Trump was a vote of desperation. Address the desperation, and people will get rid of trump.
The most important thing you can do for people is make life easier and cheaper. Want to know why people REALLY hate DEI? Because it makes life harder and more complicated. That's it, the sum total of why people hate it.
Want people to love you? Endow a charity hospital in a major city with enough money that it can provide free medical care for everyone. Not only would you get some free medical care for the poor, but also, we would LOWER insurance costs for that city, and LOWER spending by the city on medical care. Win win win win.
"This kind of shift doesn’t happen often. It’s happened three times³ in American history:
1776 through Jefferson.
The Civil War through the Gilded Age.
The New Deal through post WWII."
Go read The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe.
Steve Bannon has, and that has colored a lot of the urgency and tactics of the Right. The GOP doesn't want to get locked out like the Dems were after the Civil War, or the GOP was after FDR. Do the Dems realize the stakes they face?
Thank you for the book suggestion. It’s now on my Kindle and I’ll read it next.
What will blow your mind is that this book was published in 1997!
Trump and the GOP are directionally correct on a lot of things (federal spending, immigration control, crime), as are the Dems (LGBT rights, reproductive rights, environmental concern).
The problem is, with both parties, the devil is in the details and while the principles may be good, the execution sucks.
DOGE slash and burn. Cruel or due-process-free deportations. Lack of police accountability. Pedal-to-the-metal on transitioning kids. Transwomen in women's sports. Taxpayer-funded abortions and advocacy groups. BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) environmentalism.
The Right's dirty laundry is regularly thrown in the street by the MSM, while the Left's tends to get buried unless outed by the Right. But at least the Right's strategies and tactics are getting pressure-tested and devil's-advocated. Meanwhile, the Left's ideas remain in a hothouse.
Winning should not be the goal, real change in perennial government spending deficits and decimation of US debt are the fundamental issues. Don't learn from India's ideological victories without any real utility.
Step 1 is winning. Step 2 is what to do once we've won.
You have to know that the US electoral system will not allow a policy to be implemented in the long term, and each political party has its own ideas.
Not all free will is good for the United States.
"Trump is the only guy in the room who looks like he’s doing something."
And something beats nothing, every time.
Voters thought Democrats had completely lost the plot on illegal immigration, law enforcement, social disorder, DEI, and climate change. People HATED their policies. Yet democrats made these issues the only thing they seemed to care about. Say what you want about COVID response (which was, ahem...poor), but bottom line, outside the laptop class, people got screwed. People got screwed on "free trade". People got screwed over on the question of Biden's competence. We can argue back and forth, but the perception is the Democrats lied and demagogued these issues to death. So how can a single word they say be taken seriously? Even if they had a plan (and they don't) who in the world would bother listening?
And before you accuse me of being a Trump loving far right blah blah, I worked on both the Carter and Dukakis campaigns. I voted for Obama. I sat out the first election for Trump, and haven't voted for president since, finding all the candidates to be unacceptable.
The real problem is this - democrats abandoned issues that matter to most people in favor of cultish faculty lounge stuff. And Trump swooped in and took those issues away from them. Worse, because they have demagogued Trump to such a degree, they can't go back. Trump has boxed them into the 20% on numerous 80/20 issues.
trumps real power is he doesn't give a fig about republican policy, or Democrat policy. He has no allegiance to fixed positions. he is doing maneuver warfare against the trenches. he isn't pinned down to old ideas of what can or can't be done. To a large extent he is benefits from breaking logjams on policy questions that have left us stuck on so many issues.
You make a number of good points. Where I strongly disagree is Trump's motivations. I think he's mostly focused on personal enrichment and revenge on his enemies. And the policies he is pushing is to take us back to a fantasy version of 1900.
But yeah, he's enabled his minions to go break things. In a few ways good things, in a lot of ways needlessly destructive and cruel ways.
Well, I didn't discuss motivations, just what he seems to be doing. I don't see him getting rich, he'll be lucky to dodge a jail cell.
As to revenge - maybe. But then again, his opponents tried several times to bankrupt him or put him in a jail cell over some pretty frivolous stuff, so...? I honestly think he wouldn't have run again if Dems had simply left him alone.
Listening to democrats, I hear variations on "I don't understand why the guy I tried to put in jail for political reasons wants revenge." You mean you don't understand why sending armed agents to paw through his wife's panty drawer might make him mad? Yeah, it's just baffling. Why couldn't he just be cool with it? What a jerk he is!
Trump is the symptom of a much larger problem, a problem mostly with the democrats.