~46~ Lame Duck Unfit Uncle Joe Biden ~46~

[Peter Brown]

Must have killed George to say this: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWQ4SjRl6Y ... _copy_link

In other news.... the Taliban cruizin down the street in our vehicles while brandishing our weapons, Let's hope this never comes back to bite us in the rear: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ta ... np1taskbar

Most of the weapons and equipment the Taliban forces are now using are those supplied by Washington to the American-backed government in Kabul in a bid to construct an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.

9-year old afghani girls are being sold off by parents to pay debts. Videos all over the internet where the girls ate dragged off by middle aged men. Stomach churning stuff.

Great exit, Joe.

Oh, i agree. We should send our troops back in, Pete. And let American soldiers get slowly picked off as the years roll by -----you know, not enough dead American soldiers for guys like you to notice or care.

Great plan. Maybe we can vote Republican in a few years, and get right back in there.

And Afghanistan isn't the only place in the world where women are treated like this, Pete. Are we going to invade those countries, too, my hippie liberal friend?

I say we invade them with several battalions of Third Wave Feminists. This would have the added benefit of thinning the ranks of public school teacher union members and Women and Gender Studies professors.

I’d be okay with that plan.

Where a fan is misleading the reader here is I’m not suggesting going back in,

Oh yes you are. Because that's the only way to change the situation you described. If we leave, that's what we get.

Our ONLY option is to leave. Biden's greatest achievement will be getting our men and women the firetruck out of Afghanistan, and that pointless non-mission.

We have got to elect better politicians. We simply must. Biden, Harris, Trump…honestly they are all so bad. Let’s start getting competency in the White House, folks.

So after years of "anyone with a R is awesome", you're here lecturing us about getting better leaders.

Dude: you are LITERALLY the problem in America. You are WHY we got Trump----and Biden, for that matter----and will continue to get leaders of that caliber.

You got nothing correct with this post.

No, I’m not advocating going back in. I just want better leaders who demand better intelligence, so we as a country can avoid these mistakes.

Yes, Republicans by and large are better than the modern day Democrats. But that doesn’t mean they all are. I continue to absolutely love Abigail Spanberger (D), Manchin, Synema, Ro Khanna, and a number of others. I’ve done this before, listing Democrats I like, and yet here you are yet again saying I won’t. Give them credit. I might kid around, but there are some D’s who are great.

Unfortunately, the majority of Democratic politicians are absolutely worthless, and even harmful, to America.

And yet, there are many Republicans I roll my eyes at, often for reasons you can’t imagine. I think Kinzinger for instance is a total fake, looking to score a television gig. I don’t hate him for his never Trump stance. He can have that view honestly. But now he’s looking to score a broadcasting gig and it’s quite transparent.

So far as Trump, to the extent I liked him, it was simply because he was a stick in the eye of the DC establishment. He was rolling economically, which I liked, but there is too much I do not like about the guy for me to repeat here.

[kramerica.inc]

Start voting Republican.

Yeah, I tried that. Especially in local elections. Know what they did? They blew even more money on Socialized K-12 and Higher Ed, so long as it was THEIR kids who got it. The only thing that upsets them is when "someone else's kids" gets the tax money.

Even if I disagree on certain aspects of your arguments I’ve always agreed that there’s a hypocrisy among some (an parabolically increasing) portion of this crowd. Democrats play the game as well but it’s less honest the way it’s been presented by populist republicans for a while

Well, if you haven't noticed-----I'm a frustrated fiscal conservative that desperately wants 1970's era Republicans, who walked the walk, to return to American politics. Pay our bills. Use our GDP to bully other countries around in terms of superior infrastructure and training for our people. Stay out of our private lives.

If they did that? They'd win every election. All of them. It sucks that we can't fine them anymore. So I get frustrated with R's in particular.

The days of Jack Kemp and Pat Moynihan working together are gone

True.
“Compromise is for politicians.”
Even the saying is a thing of the past, unfortunately.
As afan has pointed out on multiple threads, Republicans have/had a chance to make things right, but do seem to prefer being the dissenting voice rather than governing to fix the problem. I think they would make more headway and win more hearts and minds if they did implement the fiscal conservative policies they espouse.

[Peter Brown]

Start voting Republican.

Yeah, I tried that. Especially in local elections. Know what they did? They blew even more money on Socialized K-12 and Higher Ed, so long as it was THEIR kids who got it. The only thing that upsets them is when "someone else's kids" gets the tax money.

Even if I disagree on certain aspects of your arguments I’ve always agreed that there’s a hypocrisy among some (an parabolically increasing) portion of this crowd. Democrats play the game as well but it’s less honest the way it’s been presented by populist republicans for a while

Well, if you haven't noticed-----I'm a frustrated fiscal conservative that desperately wants 1970's era Republicans, who walked the walk, to return to American politics. Pay our bills. Use our GDP to bully other countries around in terms of superior infrastructure and training for our people. Stay out of our private lives.

If they did that? They'd win every election. All of them. It sucks that we can't fine them anymore. So I get frustrated with R's in particular.

The days of Jack Kemp and Pat Moynihan working together are gone

True.
“Compromise is for politicians.”
Even the saying is a thing of the past, unfortunately.
As afan has pointed out on multiple threads, Republicans have/had a chance to make things right, but do seem to prefer being the dissenting voice rather than governing to fix the problem. I think they would make more headway and win more hearts and minds if they did implement the fiscal conservative policies they espouse.

I think you’re looking at the wrong subset of Republicans. Guys like Desantis do not lead from behind, and I’d be willing to bet that Youngkin is the same way. You have some excellent Republican governors out there, including Hogan and Baker, senators like Romney, Scott, and Paul, and none of them fit the bill as described in your post.

It’s a new dawn. Don’t confuse guys (especially senators) like Cruz or Marco for this new crowd. The younger guys are even more impressive. Florida congressman Byron Donalds, I guarantee he sees some remarkable growth in politics over time. George P Bush. These are good people, who love America and capitalism and are smart enough to defend both.

Trump remains a problem, but he will slowly mercifully go away, much to the chagrin of the media who keep resurrecting him.

There can be no doubt that the future of the party is very bright. You’ll see. Really great people, but better yet, the better message, Americans are not into identity politics, and Democrats will bury themselves in that nonsense over the next few years.

[MDlaxfan76]

Not until Republicans bury Trumpism, put a stake through it's vampiric heart, will the GOP remotely be capable of becoming a governing party.

Youngkin and DeSantis are unwilling to cut the ties with Trumpism, they are kowtowing at each turn to the social hater crowd that drives the Trumpist movement. Paul is among the very worst Trumpist bootlickers. George P is an embarrassment to his family; he's a Trump bootlicker. Rick Scott, too, is a Trump bootlicker.

Hogan and Baker yes, Romney yes, but they are darn few and far between.

A fan will tell you, and painfully I agree, that Republicans gave up on actually governing well before Trump himself rose to prominence. But at least they weren't actually trying to destroy democracy. Up until the Obama Presidency, they were at least ostensibly partners in democracy. Under Clinton, Gingrich, arguably, gave us the early warning sign of this non-governing impulse, but he too was, at least back then, willing to participate in the process of reaching compromise. And obviously W was a traditionalist, at the core, as a participant in democracy.

This broke in reaction to Obama's election.

[kramerica.inc]

How do you put a stake through the Trump heart when the media, and certain parts of the left and right, simply don't want to let him disappear because it helps promote their agenda? The media loves trump because his ridiculousness and bombast always gets eyeballs. The left likes/hates him because he's the ultimate boogeyman that gets under their skin and the right likes him because he rallies their fringe. I think he'll be lurking until 2024 election is over.

[Peter Brown]

How do you put a stake through the Trump heart when the media, and certain parts of the left and right, simply don't want to let him disappear because it helps promote their agenda? The media loves trump because his ridiculousness and bombast always gets eyeballs. The left likes/hates him because he's the ultimate boogeyman that gets under their skin and the right likes him because he rallies their fringe. I think he'll be lurking until 2024 election is over.

Trump is only using the possibility of running to raise money for his PAC. That’s all. He won’t run in the end. But he will have $250,000,000 minimum to use to his hearts content.

His flirtation with the process will marginally hurt any R candidate, but he knows he can’t possibly win unless Biden simply drives the economy into the ground. Trump has no way to go around the press…no more Twitter among other things denied him. I always say that the left did him the best favor by forbidding him from participating in their platforms. It works to great effect for Republicans who don’t need to respond to his every utterance.

[kramerica.inc]

Biden said Build Back Better “won’t cost us anything” because we will be looking into your taxes, bank accounts and finances more with the program.

Never mind. Might be a few hundred billion short.

All that, and “please, let’s see those personal bank statements!”

Biden’s reliance on I.R.S. enforcement to pay for $1.85 trillion bill hits a snag.

The Congressional Budget Office is expected to show that the social and climate policy package could raise less than $200 billion over 10 years.

Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
By Alan Rappeport
WASHINGTON — President Biden’s pledge to fully pay for his $1.85 trillion social policy and climate spending package depends in large part on having a beefed-up Internal Revenue Service crack down on tax evaders, which the White House says will raise hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.

But the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that the I.R.S. proposal would yield far less than what the White House was counting on to help pay for its bill — about $120 billion over a decade versus the $400 billion that the administration is counting on.

A formal tally is expected to be released on Friday, but the projection by Phillip Swagel, who heads the budget office, could pose another setback for Mr. Biden’s domestic policy legislation, which is already facing steep hurdles in the House and Senate.

The White House has begun bracing lawmakers for a disappointing estimate from the budget office, which is likely to find that the cost of the overall package will not be fully paid for with new tax revenue over the coming decade. Senior administration officials are urging lawmakers to disregard the budget office assessment, saying it is being overly conservative in its calculations, failing to properly credit the return on investment of additional I.R.S. resources and overlooking the deterrent effects that a more aggressive tax collection agency would have on tax cheats.

“In this one case, I think we’ve made a very strong empirical case for C.B.O. not having an accurate score,” Ben Harris, Treasury’s assistant secretary for economic policy, said in an interview. “The question is would they rather go with C.B.O. knowing C.B.O. is wrong, or would they want to target the best information they could possibly have?”

The C.B.O. tends to believe that the tax collection prowess of more enforcement agents will wane over time, while the White House assumes that taxpayers will become more compliant with the I.R.S. when they see tax dodgers facing consequences.

Such estimates are crucial to Mr. Biden’s ability to get the next leg of his agenda through Congress. Lawmakers have to rely on the budget office’s so-called score, which estimates whether the spending will add to the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years.

A disappointing assessment that shows the bill adding to the deficit could prove problematic. A group of moderate Democrats in the House have said they want to see an assessment from the budget office before moving forward with the legislation. And some lawmakers have expressed concerns about whether the bill is fiscally responsible, with Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key swing vote, expressing concern that the package could add to the national debt and stoke further inflation.

Because Democrats are using a budget procedure called reconciliation to pass the bill with a simple majority, they cannot afford to lose a single vote in the Senate and no more than three votes in the House.

The administration’s ability to raise taxes to pay for the spending has already run into resistance. Mr. Manchin and other moderate Democrats have opposed efforts to sharply raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. That has left the Biden administration increasingly reliant on capturing uncollected tax revenue from the $7 trillion “tax gap” to pay for a sweeping expansion of child care, health and climate initiatives.

The proposal to give the I.R.S. an additional $80 billion over a decade has drawn fierce resistance from Republicans, right-leaning advocacy groups and banks, which have warned that an empowered tax collection agency will be weaponized against conservatives and target ordinary taxpayers.

The Biden administration has insisted that audit rates for people earning less than $400,000 per year would not rise, but that a large expansion of the nation’s social safety net could be funded just by collecting tax revenue that is already owed to the government.

The big question is: How much money is there for the taking?

A preliminary assessment by the budget office this year suggested that the administration was being overly optimistic and that those who had avoided paying taxes in the past would adjust their activities to continue evading the I.R.S.

On Monday, Mr. Swagel suggested that the Biden administration was betting too heavily on the idea that more aggressive auditing would deter rich people and corporations from finding ways to avoid paying taxes. He said such groups could take even more aggressive measures to keep their tax bills low, making it harder for the federal government to collect as much tax revenue as anticipates through better enforcement of the tax code.

“The research literature on deterrence is very mixed,” Mr. Swagel said, suggesting that the Biden administration was taking a more optimistic view.

Mr. Harris described the discrepancy as a methodological shortcoming. He said it was “patently absurd” that bolstering the enforcement capacity of the I.R.S., which has been depleted for years, would not compel taxpayers to be more compliant. The C.B.O. also predicts that the “return on investment” of giving the I.R.S. more money will decline over time, while Treasury disagrees.

The C.B.O. has been releasing its assessments of the House Democrats’ legislation in parts and has been racing to get an overall number to lawmakers ahead of a possible vote this month. Most of the estimates are expected to be in line with White House projections, but the I.R.S. measure is likely to be an outlier.

The I.R.S. has for years been a favorite target of Republicans, who have accused the agency of political bias and worked to starve it of funding. From 2010 to 2020, funding for the I.R.S. declined by about a fifth and its enforcement ranks fell by 30 percent, making it difficult to pursue audits and legal fights against well-financed tax evaders.

In recent weeks, Republicans in Congress have expressed growing alarm about the prospect of an empowered I.R.S.

“The I.R.S. will double in size,” Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, said last month. “It will be more involved in the day-to-day lives of every American. And the result will be an invasion of privacy and the heavy hand of the government squeezing out smaller, more local businesses.”

The Biden administration believes that doubling the enforcement staff at the I.R.S. will go a long way toward combating tax dodgers.

Charles P. Rettig, the I.R.S. commissioner, who was picked for the job by former President Donald J. Trump, said last week that the agency was long overdue for a financial infusion. He said the agency had fewer auditors than at any time since World War II.

“If given the resources we need, we will be able to make a sizable dent in noncompliance over several years,” Mr. Rettig wrote in a Washington Post opinion article. “A properly funded and trained work force will also have a significant deterrent effect on cheating.”

A separate proposal that would also have required banks to report more information about the finances of their customers to the I.R.S. has so far been left out of the legislation amid backlash over privacy concerns. The Biden administration is still pushing for a more narrow version of that proposal to be included in a final bill.

Douglas Elmendorf, who directed the C.B.O. from 2009 to 2015, said estimating the returns on additional I.R.S. enforcement was challenging because large funding infusions to the agency had little precedent and it was difficult to quantify the “indirect effects” of more auditors. He said lawmakers should take that into account when setting policy.

“I think Congress should always look beyond the budget estimate when deciding what to do about legislation,” Mr. Elmendorf said.

With slim majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats could need to find other ways to pay for their plans if they are not ready to rely on the I.R.S.

John Koskinen, the I.R.S. commissioner in the Obama and Trump administrations, said it was unfortunate that the proposals to fund the agency became so politicized. He suggested it was not so far-fetched that an agency that already collected more than $3 trillion a year could capture another $40 billion annually if it was properly staffed and modernized.

“When you underfund the I.R.S., it’s just a tax cut for tax cheats,” Mr. Koskinen said.

[kramerica.inc]

Shortages everywhere. Rising prices.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/supply-c ... 50733.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/la-long- ... 48353.html

Truckers and port workers want to work, Longshoremen, not working:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/as-suppl ... 07621.html

And why is this posted on this thread, not the one about the economy?

You're not saying that the federal government should own and run all these sectors of private enterprise are you?

You're not suggesting that they should regulate more are you?

and calling on Biden?

We've had a massive disruption to our economy, with consumers now spending far more on hard goods than they did previously, and much less on services. The mix is very, very different from what these private supply chains were fine tuned to handle.

Private enterprise has optimized that fine tuning to maximize quarterly profitability, not extreme tail events like this.

Some of that is going to eventually shift back, some of that may persist.

Depends somewhat on Covid and our longer term changes in behavior. Really, really difficult to predict, much less fine tune for.

Here's a chart of lumber prices: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber

crazy, crazy high last May, falling back to reasonable norms this summer until Delta began to scare everyone again...coming down again now.

But hey, the stock markets keep setting record highs...

So Biden has no responsibility in this.....that's your take?

Why have this...To improve the quality of life for all American people and communities, from rural to urban, and to increase the productivity and competitiveness of American workers and businesses. https://www.transportation.gov/

Why have this....The mission of the Department is to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity: https://www.commerce.gov/

I have folks disrupted by the global supply chain. They are all managing it. You know who these management teams blame? Nobody.

Yea....ships backed up in US waterways is the new norm.

Whoever you are speaking with has not looked at their labor reports recently...unless they are just middle men. Labor burden is on the rise, companies staffed for their high and continued growing backlog, but margins are dropping significantly due to lack of product.

Boards and executive management teams are to blame-themselves.

I was told by one “middleman” last week that some of the material they need is stuck a container off the coast of LA but the impact will be immaterial….another mentioned its a 5% headwind that will be +/- 5 % of revenue or $30MM….. won’t be material and will continue to see sequential quarterly earnings growth and positive cash flow. Can’t endure forever but don’t expect the disruption to last forever.

It’s just the downside of just in time/reduction in slack and minimizing utilization. It worked until it didn’t. But we’re seeing labor wage growth which will enable price increases that should allow businesses to reshape the supply chain into something different (more expensive) in the future.

The self correcting mechanism of business without intervention.

.....as noted here. https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2021/10 ... VmpAqDuylo

Its rather easy to lay off assembly line workers, then ramp back up. Not so much for skilled labor, specialists, tradesmen, etc.

Interesting graphic from yahoo finance:

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/6429749/embed?auto=1

[cradleandshoot]

According to Jen Sake... just call him Sheriff Joe.. I wonder if this woman is nipping at the hootch to get through her day? I wouldn't blame her if she did.

[Peter Brown]

According to Jen Sake... just call him Sheriff Joe.. I wonder if this woman is nipping at the hootch to get through her day? I wouldn't blame her if she did.

It obviously will come as no surprise that I find most Democratic politicians lacking in skill, but this Administration is quite possibly the worst collection of ineptitude we have ever seen.

I’m still waiting on one Fanlax lib to defend Biden’s selection of an actual communist to be Comptroller of the Currency. I mean, what in the hades are these jokers doing?!?!? An actual communist.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-want-th ... 1636668294

Also, how is it that an actual eco-terrorist is nominated to lead the Bureau of Land Management?!?! Tracy Stone-Manning, Google this loser.

What is going on?!? I feel like I’m in a Kafka movie.

[kramerica.inc]

According to Jen Sake... just call him Sheriff Joe.. I wonder if this woman is nipping at the hootch to get through her day? I wouldn't blame her if she did.

Perhaps she is experiencing a little of the post Covid "fog."

Psaki Refuses to Explain Why Biden Labeled Rittenhouse a ‘White Supremacist’

https://news.yahoo.com/psaki-refuses-ex ... 38524.html

[kramerica.inc]

Unfit Uncle Joe Biden?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/1 ... val-522785

Voters have increasing doubts about the health and mental fitness of President Joe Biden, the oldest man ever sworn into the White House, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Only 40 percent of voters surveyed agreed with the statement that Biden “is in good health,” while 50 percent disagreed. That 10-percentage-point gap — outside the poll’s margin of error — represents a massive 29-point shift since October 2020, when Morning Consult last surveyed the question and found voters believed Biden was in good health by a 19-point margin.

Asked whether Biden is mentally fit, voters are almost evenly split, with 46 percent saying he is and 48 percent disagreeing. But that negative 2-point margin stands in stark contrast to Biden’s numbers last October, when voters believed he was mentally fit by a 21-point margin.

The poll questions are part of a long battery of attributes about which voters were asked to rate Biden — the same battery employed multiple times during Donald Trump’s presidency, and asked about both candidates last fall, prior to the 2020 presidential election.

The new polling comes amid persistent questions about whether Biden — who turns 79 on Saturday — will run for reelection in three years and as Democrats have grown increasingly concerned with the party’s gerontocracy. Biden says he will run again, but some longtime allies have raised doubts. Even “Saturday Night Live” recently ribbed Biden over whether he was “lucid."

[cradleandshoot]

According to Jen Sake... just call him Sheriff Joe.. I wonder if this woman is nipping at the hootch to get through her day? I wouldn't blame her if she did.

Perhaps she is experiencing a little of the post Covid "fog."

Psaki Refuses to Explain Why Biden Labeled Rittenhouse a ‘White Supremacist’

https://news.yahoo.com/psaki-refuses-ex ... 38524.html

IMO poor Jen is in the very early stages of PTSD. Her boss resembles a line from a Beatles tune...he's not half the man he use to be. I wonder how long it will take before Sake decides she needs to spend more time with her family. She is already in the early stages of the 2000 yard stare, AKA..shell shock.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxserp=0

[kramerica.inc]

Regardless of who is in office, good luck with whoever has that job. Especially in today's environment.

[Peter Brown]

Regardless of who is in office, good luck with whoever has that job. Especially in today's environment.

I take the opposite side of that. I feel like you should be able to do that job with ease. It’s simply that we have had two of the single worst presidents of history the last two times. Trump was tough to shill for for obvious reasons, and Biden is simply unaware of anything that is happening, plus Democratic policies are so awful for America, they cause immense damage to the country.

A press secretary for a guy like Desantis would be a cakewalk, and fun.

[get it to x]

Not until Republicans bury Trumpism, put a stake through it's vampiric heart, will the GOP remotely be capable of becoming a governing party.

Youngkin and DeSantis are unwilling to cut the ties with Trumpism, they are kowtowing at each turn to the social hater crowd that drives the Trumpist movement. Paul is among the very worst Trumpist bootlickers. George P is an embarrassment to his family; he's a Trump bootlicker. Rick Scott, too, is a Trump bootlicker.

Hogan and Baker yes, Romney yes, but they are darn few and far between.

A fan will tell you, and painfully I agree, that Republicans gave up on actually governing well before Trump himself rose to prominence. But at least they weren't actually trying to destroy democracy. Up until the Obama Presidency, they were at least ostensibly partners in democracy. Under Clinton, Gingrich, arguably, gave us the early warning sign of this non-governing impulse, but he too was, at least back then, willing to participate in the process of reaching compromise. And obviously W was a traditionalist, at the core, as a participant in democracy.

This broke in reaction to Obama's election.

Could you define Trumpism?

[youthathletics]

Not until Republicans bury Trumpism, put a stake through it's vampiric heart, will the GOP remotely be capable of becoming a governing party.

Youngkin and DeSantis are unwilling to cut the ties with Trumpism, they are kowtowing at each turn to the social hater crowd that drives the Trumpist movement. Paul is among the very worst Trumpist bootlickers. George P is an embarrassment to his family; he's a Trump bootlicker. Rick Scott, too, is a Trump bootlicker.

Hogan and Baker yes, Romney yes, but they are darn few and far between.

A fan will tell you, and painfully I agree, that Republicans gave up on actually governing well before Trump himself rose to prominence. But at least they weren't actually trying to destroy democracy. Up until the Obama Presidency, they were at least ostensibly partners in democracy. Under Clinton, Gingrich, arguably, gave us the early warning sign of this non-governing impulse, but he too was, at least back then, willing to participate in the process of reaching compromise. And obviously W was a traditionalist, at the core, as a participant in democracy.

This broke in reaction to Obama's election.

Could you define Trumpism?

Its a moving target, one that waffles depending on which which way the wind blows, and is at the users discretion.....oh, and it can only applied to anyone with (r) by their name.

[MDlaxfan76]

Not until Republicans bury Trumpism, put a stake through it's vampiric heart, will the GOP remotely be capable of becoming a governing party.

Youngkin and DeSantis are unwilling to cut the ties with Trumpism, they are kowtowing at each turn to the social hater crowd that drives the Trumpist movement. Paul is among the very worst Trumpist bootlickers. George P is an embarrassment to his family; he's a Trump bootlicker. Rick Scott, too, is a Trump bootlicker.

Hogan and Baker yes, Romney yes, but they are darn few and far between.

A fan will tell you, and painfully I agree, that Republicans gave up on actually governing well before Trump himself rose to prominence. But at least they weren't actually trying to destroy democracy. Up until the Obama Presidency, they were at least ostensibly partners in democracy. Under Clinton, Gingrich, arguably, gave us the early warning sign of this non-governing impulse, but he too was, at least back then, willing to participate in the process of reaching compromise. And obviously W was a traditionalist, at the core, as a participant in democracy.

This broke in reaction to Obama's election.

Could you define Trumpism?

Its a moving target, one that waffles depending on which which way the wind blows, and is at the users discretion.....oh, and it can only applied to anyone with (r) by their name.

Actually, there may be a few I Trumpists, though I think the polling indicates that almost all those have moved to R...mostly that was voters who rarely voted at all, some never before in decades of eligibility to vote. So, no prior affiliation. There may have been some D's originally as well, but those have moved too.

Trumpism is primarily the cult of the one man, whatever he says it is at any given moment. There do not appear to be any sort of firm principles, certainly not ones we'd recognize as 'traditional' principles. Except for loyalty to Der Leader.

So, rule of law simply doesn't apply TO Tump and Trumpists, only a tool against perceived 'enemies'. There is no objective truth, only the statements of Der Leader.

Thus, the Big Lie is embraced by Trumpists, non-Trumpists of all stripes easily reject it.

There are other 'policy' aspects, but note that these are fleeting, only useful in the moment to rally support to Der Leader. They could just as easily be jettisoned if no longer useful for that purpose.

And yes, there's a strong fascist element to Trumpism.
Elevation and loyalty to the 'strong' leader, hatred of 'enemies', demonization of the Other to explain various ills, frustrations, and anxieties, whether social or economic.

[get it to x]

Not until Republicans bury Trumpism, put a stake through it's vampiric heart, will the GOP remotely be capable of becoming a governing party.

Youngkin and DeSantis are unwilling to cut the ties with Trumpism, they are kowtowing at each turn to the social hater crowd that drives the Trumpist movement. Paul is among the very worst Trumpist bootlickers. George P is an embarrassment to his family; he's a Trump bootlicker. Rick Scott, too, is a Trump bootlicker.

Hogan and Baker yes, Romney yes, but they are darn few and far between.

A fan will tell you, and painfully I agree, that Republicans gave up on actually governing well before Trump himself rose to prominence. But at least they weren't actually trying to destroy democracy. Up until the Obama Presidency, they were at least ostensibly partners in democracy. Under Clinton, Gingrich, arguably, gave us the early warning sign of this non-governing impulse, but he too was, at least back then, willing to participate in the process of reaching compromise. And obviously W was a traditionalist, at the core, as a participant in democracy.

This broke in reaction to Obama's election.

Could you define Trumpism?

Its a moving target, one that waffles depending on which which way the wind blows, and is at the users discretion.....oh, and it can only applied to anyone with (r) by their name.

Actually, there may be a few I Trumpists, though I think the polling indicates that almost all those have moved to R...mostly that was voters who rarely voted at all, some never before in decades of eligibility to vote. So, no prior affiliation. There may have been some D's originally as well, but those have moved too.

Trumpism is primarily the cult of the one man, whatever he says it is at any given moment. There do not appear to be any sort of firm principles, certainly not ones we'd recognize as 'traditional' principles. Except for loyalty to Der Leader.

So, rule of law simply doesn't apply TO Tump and Trumpists, only a tool against perceived 'enemies'. There is no objective truth, only the statements of Der Leader.

Thus, the Big Lie is embraced by Trumpists, non-Trumpists of all stripes easily reject it.

There are other 'policy' aspects, but note that these are fleeting, only useful in the moment to rally support to Der Leader. They could just as easily be jettisoned if no longer useful for that purpose.

And yes, there's a strong fascist element to Trumpism.
Elevation and loyalty to the 'strong' leader, hatred of 'enemies', demonization of the Other to explain various ills, frustrations, and anxieties, whether social or economic.

Wow. Rule of Law doesn't apply? So the FBI, the DOJ, SDNY, Mueller/Weissman and the US House of Representatives never really got him on anything criminal. The two impeachments were so weak only the Romney types gave them any credence. The House impeached because they felt like it.

I would counter by saying that most Trumpists were looking for results, and largely got them, in these areas:

1) Strong national defense
2) Tight border control
3) Low unemployment
4) More economic opportunity
5) Middle East peace accords

Also, I see way more demonization of the "other" coming from Dems. The unvaccinated, white men, law enforcement. I don't recall Trump ever calling fellow citizens terrorists, or siccing the DOJ on his enemies without cause. Maybe you're ok with Judge Garland targeting parents.

[kramerica.inc]

And yes, there's a strong fascist element to Trumpism.
Elevation and loyalty to the 'strong' leader, hatred of 'enemies', demonization of the Other to explain various ills, frustrations, and anxieties, whether social or economic.

Do you think this is limited to Trumpism? This is liberalism and today's politics in a nutshell too.