Not sure why people think Trump was a good president. Because the stock market was going up on unprecedented years of Fed 'QE' (money printing), helping lay the ground for our current inflation crisis? Because he did another Wall Street bailout? Upper class tax cuts? Because he caved and helped arm Ukraine? He also bombed Syria and occup…
Not sure why people think Trump was a good president. Because the stock market was going up on unprecedented years of Fed 'QE' (money printing), helping lay the ground for our current inflation crisis? Because he did another Wall Street bailout? Upper class tax cuts? Because he caved and helped arm Ukraine? He also bombed Syria and occupied it with troops that are still there? I still have rotting factories in my city, I thought Trump was going to bring jobs back. Trump looks all to familiar, just another US president mis-managing our imperial decline when serious disciplined structural changes are required.
I was born in 1980 and I haven't had a single good president in my lifetime.
China is only an “adversary” because the DOD needs an “enemy”, preferably one with an ancient complex culture, people of a different race, “non Western values” and determined to take a stand against our Hegemony. Our Leaders are traitors to democracy.
There is always a conflict between nations who seek wealth and power.
The Chinese have used their population control/cheap labor to entice American corps to relocate manufacturing to the mainland to their advantage in economic espionage/theft of intellectual property and to the detriment of American labor.
Got nothing to do with "ancient complex culture" or "race" or "Western values" or any other bullshit woke narrative.
China seeks power and influence over the same countries/world policies that we do.
Our corrupt bureaucracy, the Uniparty, Corporations and our DOD have become the only Real enemies Americans need to fear. They brought us the Vietnam war, the Iraq War, the Afghan war, the Kennedy Assassinations, the Ukraine war, the Covid Plandemic, the Covid Killer pseudo “vaccine”, the lockdowns, the Fear Porn, the censorship of Truth, the destruction of millions of small businesses, the closing of hospitals during a “pandemic”, the censoring of RFKJr in his present campaign and nearly every other Evil we face today! Its not “woke” to say that our Elite uses race, gender, culture and diversity as dividers..its just a fact! If we were really supporting democratic ideals worldwide against tyranny I might agree with you but WE are the Tyrants now and those who profit from it in our institutions are fully prepared to impose full tyranny here and its happening as we write.. have you had your 6th booster??
Just a FYI...yeah, most of your rant is kinda, almostly true. But even if it was all 100% accurate, (instead of 40 -50% ), you're still missing one huge thing:
The Chinese have their version of your all-powerful Cabal. Or are you stupid enough to think only Americans do evil stuff?
The tax cuts were great for lower income workers; they were not merely "upper class tax cuts".
And Trump brought a long overdue economic confrontation with China. What other leader would've had the cojones to do that? The insipid Biden has kept those policies, after Trump more-or-less singlehandedly proved the concept.
I used to give him credit for the three Justices added during his term, but less so these days...
Tax cuts in the US always skew the benefits to the wealthy. Look at Reagan's lowering of the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 29% and then spending like a drunken sailor on the military. It tripled the national debt. CEO compensation went from ~33X the average worker to ~400X the average worker. Trump's tax cuts were a naked giveaway to the rich, because trickle down economics has done so much for the US in the previous 40 years.
I was born in '64 and it's the same for me. I just missed Kennedy who was killed likely because he was a good man. Reagan was the knife they used to cut the social fabric in the west and still has my vote for the president who did the most damage to the US and the globe in my lifetime. There are probably Young Republicans furiously auto-erotic asphyxiating about St. Ronnie as I type this.
I base my judgements on presidents by their policies, execution of those policies and their leadership skills... not their previous employment history.
You may want to judge them on the history you've so obviously avoided reading. GHW Bush was involved in the JFK hit. His dad got his bank taken by the USG for being the Nazi's banker. Ronnie set us on the path of unsustainable debt, fun little forever wars and exponentially-growing inequality. And what actual good policies did GHWB have? Read, my brother.
You say you "agree completely" yet their previous employment was your first argument why they were not "good presidents". Call me skeptical.
As for their accomplishments... we'll have to agree to disagree. Reagan & Bush accomplished loads in their 12 years - both domestic and international - Reagan in particular. I was born in 1963 so I lived thru it as an adult and don't rely on today's "historians".
Forgive me for being flippant in my opening attack of being an actor and CIA head. This is a message board. I do agree that people should be judged on their accomplishments.
Reagan has a few dirty wars under his belt, including funding South American death squads that wiped out villages. He also amped up the whole supporting Right-wing religious thugs in Afghanistan and calling them 'Freedom fighters', which had considerable blowback. Domestically he was a warrior against the gains the working class made in the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's. The whole firing the air traffic controllers incident. He also peeled back anti-monopolistic regulation in telecom and transportation. You know how we complain today how the media is owned by just a handful of people? That process began with Reagan's policies and legislation. Ditto for transportation - the major railroads have merged and are now close to being a small number of regional cartels. Lastly, ever hear of stock buybacks? Corporations didn't use to be able to do that. They had to use more of the profits to either pay workers or reinvest in the company. Stock buybacks are basically a direct wealth transfer from the consumer and worker to the people who own the biggest share of the stocks, who, coincidentally, are the wealthiest. Anyways, Stock buybacks became a normal legal fixture under Reagan.
And I won't even go in to Bush. More of the same, but he also had a bigger unnecessary war of choice.
The Reagan Revolution was the beginning of the end. By that I mean the end of balance, which is still the cornerstone of our Constitution. It was when the word progress was coopted by the right to mean not progress toward equality and justice for all but progress toward fascism (so-called trickle-down economics) and freedom for the rich to do whatever the hell they liked. Matt's list was on the nose. When the DNC and the GOP switched roles but Trump only gave lip service to populism while denying climate change, deregulating everything and cutting taxes on the rich and corporations, I realized that going to the polls was akin to Dorothy and her friends going to see the Great Wizard of Oz. Pointless.
I'm pretty sure one can go back to all US Presidents (or all foreign presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, tsars, etc...), over analyze everything that occurred during their term(s) whether they caused it or not, ignore all the things that may have occurred since and extrapolate big evil societal consequences. That's not a game I choose to play...
If that is your choice I can safely say you will NEVER have a good president.
We've had at least a couple good presidents. Lincoln and FDR. Men of their time, flawed in some ways, but definitely the best president one could hope for under the circumstances. I believe we might have good leadership again.
Maybe someday, but not now and likely not soon. I see nothing from either party to inspire hope. Given current lawfare trends and the state of our media (both social and "news") no 3rd party candidate has a chance - nor could they accomplish anything if elected with the dumpster fire that we call congress.
Agreed completely. It is definitely an uphill battle. We need to make out of whole cloth a reliable, solid political party and everything that goes along with that, and get millions of people to vote for it. Problem is the de-programming that needs to happen among millions who are wedded to either the Democrats or Republicans. And quite frankly, the millions that actually benefit from the current corrupt power structure of the Democrats and Republicans. Although things are bad right now for 10's of millions of Americans, there are also a great many who are kept quite comfortable by the system.
"Upper class tax cuts" is a tired talking point. Look it up for christsakes. Under Trump, the lower your income, the greater the percentage your tax break was.
One problem is that people trying to make a point switch back and forth between relative percentages and absolute figures.
For example, in California about 50% of the budget comes from 1% of the population. So if there were a 5% flat tax cut, people would be saying "half the cut went to the top 1%" to make it sound terribly unfair. Or even "half the population got nothing" (because half don't pay any taxes to begin with, so 5% of nothing is nothing).
But if there were a flat 5% hike, silence - nobody wants to point out that half the new revenue came from the top 1%, and the bottom end of the scale had no hike at all.
So, even if a cut produced a higher percentage reduction for lower income people, it will generally save absolute higher dollar amounts for the higher income people who pay for more of the budget, and thus try to fan unmerited resentment.
Some tax changes really do disproportionately benefit the rich, even in percentage rather then absolute terms. Those changes are not the ones I'm discussing here, though.
I support progressive taxation, with higher marginal rates as taxable income goes up. But I also support honesty and good numerical understanding. And there are plenty of real things to resent, without making up bogus ones.
You can't talk dollars when it comes to tax cuts. Obviously, ANY tax cut for someone making $1,000,000 annually is going to swamp a tax cut for someone making $30,000.
We are agreed; I was just elaborating more on why, for anybody who might be following the thread.
The press should discuss tax cuts in terms of percentages (eg: how many percent for the $1m and the $30k taxpayers). But misleading headlines like "most of tax cut went to the rich" are unfortunately common.
Well now the stock market is at all time highs and they call that Bidenomics. Which it actually is. Just like cheap money, the influx of tens of millions of illegal (even cheaper) laborers will reduce wages in the USA for the next 20 years at least which is what stock market valuation is all about (long term profitability). If you think it is all short term, what do you think Apple stock would sell for tomorrow if everyone knew ABSOLUTELY FOR SURE that in exactly 5 (or 10) years it would be worth zero? The huge influx of illegal labor and the unwillingness of the powers that be in both parties to actually stop it or even think about deporting them makes the long term wage stagnation highly likely. Just as the long term wage stagnation accompanied the 10-30 million illegals that have been in the country since 1980.
Biden let them in, but the R's in congress kept funding the activities that made it happen.
I'll tell you about the poor illegals. And why despite building the wall they are tolerated.
If there is one thing our technocratic elite hate, it is organized labor. They want the working class to work for dirt and be grateful.
Having a large number of poor immigrants coming in used to a low standard of living is a godsend for the elites. They can have a housekeeper, groundskeeper, nanny, and dog walker all happy to be there. And it splits the working class along racial lines, defeating any organization or common cause.
Not sure why people think Trump was a good president. Because the stock market was going up on unprecedented years of Fed 'QE' (money printing), helping lay the ground for our current inflation crisis? Because he did another Wall Street bailout? Upper class tax cuts? Because he caved and helped arm Ukraine? He also bombed Syria and occupied it with troops that are still there? I still have rotting factories in my city, I thought Trump was going to bring jobs back. Trump looks all to familiar, just another US president mis-managing our imperial decline when serious disciplined structural changes are required.
I was born in 1980 and I haven't had a single good president in my lifetime.
We didn't get into any new wars and he rightly engaged with China as an adversary.
Low bar, I know, but compared to the clowns before and after...Trump was better.
Border was under control as well.
As we should expect of our government.
But, but, but...the Border Patrol was whipping innocent immigrants!!!
…. while on a horse …….
4 years of harassment
2 Impeachment trials
& a Democratic Congress for 2 years
It’s a miracle that he got anything done...
But he did!
China is only an “adversary” because the DOD needs an “enemy”, preferably one with an ancient complex culture, people of a different race, “non Western values” and determined to take a stand against our Hegemony. Our Leaders are traitors to democracy.
Huh?
There is always a conflict between nations who seek wealth and power.
The Chinese have used their population control/cheap labor to entice American corps to relocate manufacturing to the mainland to their advantage in economic espionage/theft of intellectual property and to the detriment of American labor.
Got nothing to do with "ancient complex culture" or "race" or "Western values" or any other bullshit woke narrative.
China seeks power and influence over the same countries/world policies that we do.
Hence, adversary.
Our corrupt bureaucracy, the Uniparty, Corporations and our DOD have become the only Real enemies Americans need to fear. They brought us the Vietnam war, the Iraq War, the Afghan war, the Kennedy Assassinations, the Ukraine war, the Covid Plandemic, the Covid Killer pseudo “vaccine”, the lockdowns, the Fear Porn, the censorship of Truth, the destruction of millions of small businesses, the closing of hospitals during a “pandemic”, the censoring of RFKJr in his present campaign and nearly every other Evil we face today! Its not “woke” to say that our Elite uses race, gender, culture and diversity as dividers..its just a fact! If we were really supporting democratic ideals worldwide against tyranny I might agree with you but WE are the Tyrants now and those who profit from it in our institutions are fully prepared to impose full tyranny here and its happening as we write.. have you had your 6th booster??
Jesus, son, lay off the coffee.
Just a FYI...yeah, most of your rant is kinda, almostly true. But even if it was all 100% accurate, (instead of 40 -50% ), you're still missing one huge thing:
The Chinese have their version of your all-powerful Cabal. Or are you stupid enough to think only Americans do evil stuff?
Read some history and lighten up, Francis.
The tax cuts were great for lower income workers; they were not merely "upper class tax cuts".
And Trump brought a long overdue economic confrontation with China. What other leader would've had the cojones to do that? The insipid Biden has kept those policies, after Trump more-or-less singlehandedly proved the concept.
I used to give him credit for the three Justices added during his term, but less so these days...
Tax cuts in the US always skew the benefits to the wealthy. Look at Reagan's lowering of the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 29% and then spending like a drunken sailor on the military. It tripled the national debt. CEO compensation went from ~33X the average worker to ~400X the average worker. Trump's tax cuts were a naked giveaway to the rich, because trickle down economics has done so much for the US in the previous 40 years.
Top 1% grew faster under Obama than any time in history. Yes, socialism pays!
In terms of total dollar amount, tax cuts will favor the rich simply because they're the ones paying the vast majority of taxes in the first place.
CEO compensation is unrelated to taxation rates, so why mention that in this context?
I was born in '64 and it's the same for me. I just missed Kennedy who was killed likely because he was a good man. Reagan was the knife they used to cut the social fabric in the west and still has my vote for the president who did the most damage to the US and the globe in my lifetime. There are probably Young Republicans furiously auto-erotic asphyxiating about St. Ronnie as I type this.
You had good presidents for the first 12 years of your life...
An actor and a CIA head? Good Presidents? What are you smoking.
I base my judgements on presidents by their policies, execution of those policies and their leadership skills... not their previous employment history.
You may want to judge them on the history you've so obviously avoided reading. GHW Bush was involved in the JFK hit. His dad got his bank taken by the USG for being the Nazi's banker. Ronnie set us on the path of unsustainable debt, fun little forever wars and exponentially-growing inequality. And what actual good policies did GHWB have? Read, my brother.
Oh yes, I agree completely. And you do not want to go down that path with Reagan and Bush based on their actual accomplishments in office.
You say you "agree completely" yet their previous employment was your first argument why they were not "good presidents". Call me skeptical.
As for their accomplishments... we'll have to agree to disagree. Reagan & Bush accomplished loads in their 12 years - both domestic and international - Reagan in particular. I was born in 1963 so I lived thru it as an adult and don't rely on today's "historians".
Forgive me for being flippant in my opening attack of being an actor and CIA head. This is a message board. I do agree that people should be judged on their accomplishments.
Reagan has a few dirty wars under his belt, including funding South American death squads that wiped out villages. He also amped up the whole supporting Right-wing religious thugs in Afghanistan and calling them 'Freedom fighters', which had considerable blowback. Domestically he was a warrior against the gains the working class made in the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's. The whole firing the air traffic controllers incident. He also peeled back anti-monopolistic regulation in telecom and transportation. You know how we complain today how the media is owned by just a handful of people? That process began with Reagan's policies and legislation. Ditto for transportation - the major railroads have merged and are now close to being a small number of regional cartels. Lastly, ever hear of stock buybacks? Corporations didn't use to be able to do that. They had to use more of the profits to either pay workers or reinvest in the company. Stock buybacks are basically a direct wealth transfer from the consumer and worker to the people who own the biggest share of the stocks, who, coincidentally, are the wealthiest. Anyways, Stock buybacks became a normal legal fixture under Reagan.
And I won't even go in to Bush. More of the same, but he also had a bigger unnecessary war of choice.
The Reagan Revolution was the beginning of the end. By that I mean the end of balance, which is still the cornerstone of our Constitution. It was when the word progress was coopted by the right to mean not progress toward equality and justice for all but progress toward fascism (so-called trickle-down economics) and freedom for the rich to do whatever the hell they liked. Matt's list was on the nose. When the DNC and the GOP switched roles but Trump only gave lip service to populism while denying climate change, deregulating everything and cutting taxes on the rich and corporations, I realized that going to the polls was akin to Dorothy and her friends going to see the Great Wizard of Oz. Pointless.
WHY please tell me are there so many immigrants coming from S. America?
YOUR wars. El Salvador. Guatemala. Panama. Chile tc etc.
I'm pretty sure one can go back to all US Presidents (or all foreign presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, tsars, etc...), over analyze everything that occurred during their term(s) whether they caused it or not, ignore all the things that may have occurred since and extrapolate big evil societal consequences. That's not a game I choose to play...
If that is your choice I can safely say you will NEVER have a good president.
We've had at least a couple good presidents. Lincoln and FDR. Men of their time, flawed in some ways, but definitely the best president one could hope for under the circumstances. I believe we might have good leadership again.
FDR whose policies extended the Great Depression? That FDR?
You can believe in whatever alternate economic history you want.
"I believe we might have good leadership again."
Maybe someday, but not now and likely not soon. I see nothing from either party to inspire hope. Given current lawfare trends and the state of our media (both social and "news") no 3rd party candidate has a chance - nor could they accomplish anything if elected with the dumpster fire that we call congress.
Agreed completely. It is definitely an uphill battle. We need to make out of whole cloth a reliable, solid political party and everything that goes along with that, and get millions of people to vote for it. Problem is the de-programming that needs to happen among millions who are wedded to either the Democrats or Republicans. And quite frankly, the millions that actually benefit from the current corrupt power structure of the Democrats and Republicans. Although things are bad right now for 10's of millions of Americans, there are also a great many who are kept quite comfortable by the system.
Are you smoking crack rocks?
"Upper class tax cuts" is a tired talking point. Look it up for christsakes. Under Trump, the lower your income, the greater the percentage your tax break was.
One problem is that people trying to make a point switch back and forth between relative percentages and absolute figures.
For example, in California about 50% of the budget comes from 1% of the population. So if there were a 5% flat tax cut, people would be saying "half the cut went to the top 1%" to make it sound terribly unfair. Or even "half the population got nothing" (because half don't pay any taxes to begin with, so 5% of nothing is nothing).
But if there were a flat 5% hike, silence - nobody wants to point out that half the new revenue came from the top 1%, and the bottom end of the scale had no hike at all.
So, even if a cut produced a higher percentage reduction for lower income people, it will generally save absolute higher dollar amounts for the higher income people who pay for more of the budget, and thus try to fan unmerited resentment.
Some tax changes really do disproportionately benefit the rich, even in percentage rather then absolute terms. Those changes are not the ones I'm discussing here, though.
I support progressive taxation, with higher marginal rates as taxable income goes up. But I also support honesty and good numerical understanding. And there are plenty of real things to resent, without making up bogus ones.
You can't talk dollars when it comes to tax cuts. Obviously, ANY tax cut for someone making $1,000,000 annually is going to swamp a tax cut for someone making $30,000.
We are agreed; I was just elaborating more on why, for anybody who might be following the thread.
The press should discuss tax cuts in terms of percentages (eg: how many percent for the $1m and the $30k taxpayers). But misleading headlines like "most of tax cut went to the rich" are unfortunately common.
Well now the stock market is at all time highs and they call that Bidenomics. Which it actually is. Just like cheap money, the influx of tens of millions of illegal (even cheaper) laborers will reduce wages in the USA for the next 20 years at least which is what stock market valuation is all about (long term profitability). If you think it is all short term, what do you think Apple stock would sell for tomorrow if everyone knew ABSOLUTELY FOR SURE that in exactly 5 (or 10) years it would be worth zero? The huge influx of illegal labor and the unwillingness of the powers that be in both parties to actually stop it or even think about deporting them makes the long term wage stagnation highly likely. Just as the long term wage stagnation accompanied the 10-30 million illegals that have been in the country since 1980.
Biden let them in, but the R's in congress kept funding the activities that made it happen.
I'll tell you about the poor illegals. And why despite building the wall they are tolerated.
If there is one thing our technocratic elite hate, it is organized labor. They want the working class to work for dirt and be grateful.
Having a large number of poor immigrants coming in used to a low standard of living is a godsend for the elites. They can have a housekeeper, groundskeeper, nanny, and dog walker all happy to be there. And it splits the working class along racial lines, defeating any organization or common cause.
How many lives were destroyed during Trump's presidency?