news 2024 US Election Megathread 🇺🇸🏛️

[Haus]

20 minutes ago, Bloo said:

The latest poll has his disapproval at 58% which is tied with the 37% approval poll in this very link.

 

Regardless, if you wanna gleefully adulate Biden having two recent polls with low-40 approval, have at it sis. The bar is in hell, after all.

[GhostBox]

?if they’d re gonna vote for it when it comes back up why put themselves through all of this bad pr ?

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by GhostBox

[rihannabiggestfan]

Imagine bragging about these abysmal poll numbers

 

[GhostBox]

7 minutes ago, rihannabiggestfan said:

Imagine bragging about these abysmal poll numbers

 

I didn’t brag about anything. I Simply shared the information two consecutive polls are showing him back in the 40s and asking wonder if it will be a trend or not ?

if that bothered you so bad and you took it as “bragging”  then that’s your problem not mine (also your picture has some  old data) 

Edited July 31, 2022 by GhostBox

[Kassi]

1 hour ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Biden changing the dictionary to avoid being pegged as a recession president doesn't change actual voters' perception.

When will you be commending Manchin for sparing the country (and Democrats) the impacts of even worse inflation by shutting down Bernie’s $3.1 trillion BBB? 

[Kassi]

I wonder if anybody is willing to go on record in stating that Bernie’s suggested $6 trillion package was a categorically AWFUL idea.

 

 

[ClashAndBurn]

3 minutes ago, Kassi said:

When will you be commending Manchin for sparing the country (and Democrats) the impacts of even worse inflation by shutting down Bernie’s $3.1 trillion BBB? 

Never? I'm not even talking about inflation, I'm talking about the recession that Biden's Fed is intentionally bringing down to hammer workers while CEOs get richer from laying them off. Not that you care about any of that since you believe in the magic of austerity. Or that BBB being passed would have been to betterment of us all.

[Communion]

16 minutes ago, Kassi said:

When will you be commending Manchin for sparing the country (and Democrats) the impacts of even worse inflation by shutting down Bernie’s $3.1 trillion BBB? 

Rich people pretending to know about how economics works is my favorite category of shitposting on here. 

"Hmmm odd that you poors aren't incensed over how trying to stop the world from burning would have caused the same inflation you now find offensive. Odd you'd be upset over exports of weapons and billions in stock buybacks but not new solar panels. "

Edited August 1, 2022 by Communion

[rihannabiggestfan]

Love to see the political hack getting dragged

 

 

[ClashAndBurn]

2 minutes ago, Communion said:

Rich people pretending to know about how economics works is my favorite category of shitposting on here. 

"Hmmm odd that you poors aren't incensed over how trying to stop the world from burning would have caused the same inflation you know find offensive. Odd you'd be upset over exports of weapons but not new solar panels. "

You can tell they're absolutely gleeful that Biden's solution to the economic disaster that HE IS BRINGING DOWN ON WORKERS is going to be to cut Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid AND taking up Macron's neoliberal project of raising the retirement age.

[Communion]

12 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

You can tell they're absolutely gleeful that Biden's solution to the economic disaster that HE IS BRINGING DOWN ON WORKERS is going to be to cut Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid AND taking up Macron's neoliberal project of raising the retirement age.

Liberals losing their grip on reality. "Of course Obama couldn't codify Roe into law, he was too busy saving us from a recession and a financial crisis. Introducing historical new spending was the only way out of it and, as a product of such, there was simply no more political capital for other boutique items far leftists wanted! We love progressive icons like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi passing things like the largest stimulus packages in history.  "

 

*5 seconds later*

 

Liberals losing their grip on reality. "Thank god Manchin helped Biden not fall for progressives' trap of new spending during a recession. Who thinks new spending is the way out of a recession? Slash slash slash, my dears! "

 

You just gotta point at laugh. 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Communion

[Kassi]

41 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Never? I'm not even talking about inflation, I'm talking about the recession that Biden's Fed is intentionally bringing down to hammer workers while CEOs get richer from laying them off. Not that you care about any of that since you believe in the magic of austerity. Or that BBB being passed would have been to betterment of us all.

The recession and inflation are inextricably linked, so that’s a hollow distinction. But, more to the point, people have yet to “feel” a recession. Whereas Biden’s polls have been tanking on the basis of inflation for the better part of a year due to, as you put it, the “reality of the lived experience for the average American”. 

 

I just need you to keep the same energy toward things that would’ve made inflation worse when you’re gleefully sneering at how the “economy is in fact worse off “ and the doom that spells for Dems.

[Bloo]

Why are the Democratic loyalists in here bragging about the Manchin-Schumer deal (which will give hand-outs to the fossil fuel industry, enriching Manchin) while Sinema is apparently planning to block it?  

[Kassi]

I still remember when the stupid excuse @ClashAndBurn came up with was that inflation was a result of gas prices rising due to Biden’s involvement in Ukraine lol.
 

Now that they’re going down, apparently that’s not a positive development for Democrats given how the average American feels about the economy.  
 

Hmm. If that’s how they feel, then, very simply, they should be thanking Manchin for stopping another trillion dollar cash infusion designed to spur spending, invariably leading to more demand-pull inflation (i.e. too many dollars chasing too few goods).

[ClashAndBurn]

1 minute ago, Kassi said:

I still remember when the stupid excuse @ClashAndBurn came up with was that inflation was a result of gas prices rising due to Biden’s involvement in Ukraine lol.
 

Now that they’re going down, apparently that’s not a positive development for Democrats.  If that’s how they feel, then, very simply, they should be thanking Manchin for stopping another trillion dollar cash infusion designed to spur spending, invariably leading to more demand-pull inflation (i.e. too many dollars chasing too few goods).

Literally just acknowledged that the war in Ukraine was a contributing factor to raised gas/energy prices, ergo lifting inflation even more, but please. Do continue exposing yourself as disingenuous and mischaracterizing people's positions as severely as the people in the Ukraine thread do.  

[Communion]

Lowkey dreading the nightmare scenario where Fetterman and Barnes win for the Senate, proving progressives are the safest choices, but nearly everyone else, including Cortez-Masto due to a cratering of Hispanic support, loses.

 

aka progressive voters did literally all that was asked of them but continual leadership failure will be projected outward.

[Kassi]

28 minutes ago, Communion said:

Liberals losing their grip on reality. "Of course Obama couldn't codify Roe into law, he was too busy saving us from a recession and a financial crisis. Introducing historical new spending was the only way out of it and, as a product of such, there was simply no more political capital for other boutique items far leftists wanted! We love progressive icons like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi passing things like the largest stimulus packages in history.  "

 

*5 seconds later*

 

Liberals losing their grip on reality. "Thank god Manchin helped Biden not fall for progressives' trap of new spending during a recession. Who thinks new spending is the way out of a recession? Slash slash slash, my dears! "

 

You just gotta point at laugh. 

This doesn’t even make sense. 
 

The point of what’s driving inflation is precisely that Dems overshot aid with 3 different trillion dollar packages, while flirting with a 4th (BBB), after learning from the mistakes of 2009. The result being that things are temporary more expensive, which is a better problem to have than a long, drawn out recovery. 

Manchin shooting down the 4th package isn’t about “new spending during a recession”, that was already done 3 times.  It’s about new spending at the onset of inflation.

[Communion]

17 minutes ago, Kassi said:

Now that they’re going down

Thank god most of the world outside of Europe has side-stepped these inflation-inducing sanctions on Russia that needlessly disrupted countless supply chains to where we've even reached this point of gas prices dropping, with America itself barely committing itself to the entire premise versus Europeans' continued commitment onward.

 

From a constant spam on messaging for the last few months across all platforms to literally only 1 mention of Ukraine from the @POTUS twitter account in the entire month of July. These awful instincts are truly something else.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Communion

[Kassi]

13 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Literally just acknowledged that the war in Ukraine was a contributing factor to raised gas/energy prices, ergo lifting inflation even more, but please. Do continue exposing yourself as disingenuous and mischaracterizing people's positions as severely as the people in the Ukraine thread do.  

Okay, if I’ve mischaracterized you, can you clarify by answering these very simple, no gotcha yes/no questions?

 

Should Democrats have passed Bernie’s $6 trillion version of BBB? 
 

Did Manchin save Democrats by shooting down their $3.1 trillion dollar spending package?

[ClashAndBurn]

3 minutes ago, Kassi said:

Okay, if I’ve mischaracterized you, can you clarify by answering these very simple, no gotcha yes/no questions?

 

Should Democrats have passed Bernie’s $6 trillion version of BBB? 
 

Did Manchin save Democrats by shooting down their $3.1 trillion dollar spending package?

Without knowing what exactly would have been allocated in Bernie's $6T, because it was never seriously proposed as legislation, I can't answer your attempt at a gotcha question.

 

As for Manchin "saving" Democrats, no that's not reality. He completely blew the lid off of Democrats' overall perception as being competent stewards of governance on the heels of Biden's PR nightmare in coming out of Afghanistan. That did more damage, I think, than a revenue-neutral spending package that Manchin and Sinema both worked in tandem to stay in the way of by making their demands mutually-exclusive to one another (Manchin wanted pay-fors and tax increases on the rich while Sinema wanted none of that).

[Communion]

6 minutes ago, Kassi said:

This doesn’t even make sense.

It does if you understand what actually causes inflation and how to solve inflation instead of peddling the kind of neoliberal austerity that has perpetually failed for the last 40 years of documented history. 

 

Of course though you would exalt massive spending that directly profited the already-rich in response to a man-made crisis of corruption (predatory subprime mortgages) years ago while holding your nose in disgust and thinking we've gone too far because we've required multiple rounds of massive stimulus *in response* to catastrophes like a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic or the greatest disruption to global supply chains in decades by deciding sanctions and armed conflict is better than diplomacy between the world's largest exporters of wheat, crude oil, and other goods. 

 

Of course the BBB package proposed by progressives at $6T needed to be passed. It would have had the exact kind of booming impact on the economy that good spending typically does. We're not experiencing inflation because people got stimulus like checks or extra tax money back. The kind of spending that has been directly negative is the kind of corrupt spending we have seen people raise flags about, like publicly-subsidized stock buybacks.

 

Funny you think sanctions on Russia had no impact on gas prices and miraculously think a multi-billion dollar giveaway to big tech to subsidize chip manufacturing (with no guarantee this will not be used for things like stock buybacks) is no big deal, but claim that a bill to let senior citizens put their money back into the economy as opposed to saving up in the hopes that they'll afford the thousands of dollars needed for dentures was a reckless trap. 

[Kassi]

1 hour ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Without knowing what exactly would have been allocated in Bernie's $6T, because it was never seriously proposed as legislation, I can't answer your attempt at a gotcha question.

 

As for Manchin "saving" Democrats, no that's not reality. He completely blew the lid off of Democrats' overall perception as being competent stewards of governance on the heels of Biden's PR nightmare in coming out of Afghanistan. That did more damage, I think, than a revenue-neutral spending package that Manchin and Sinema both worked in tandem to stay in the way of by making their demands mutually-exclusive to one another (Manchin wanted pay-fors and tax increases on the rich while Sinema wanted none of that).

According to Manchin, it was the same spending allocation as the $3.5 trillion “compromise”, but with full funding for 10 years and without the budget gimmicks… if that helps your analysis any.  

 

And he was largely correct. BBB was full of delayed starts, phony phase-outs, and cost shifting to states designed to fit the $3.5 trillion into a 10-year budget window.
 

So the correct answer, if you care about inflation, is: NO, Bernie’s 6 trillion budget plan was an awful idea… idk why it’s so hard to say this. 

[Kassi]

The reason I’m pushing @ClashAndBurn on this is because when the facts change, smart people are supposed to change their minds.

 

I was also on the BBB bandwagon thinking Manchin was debating in bad faith, but he was legit on the ball. And could be argued, based on the sequence of events that the rest of the caucus was debating in bad faith (they weren’t of course, they just had a blind spot):

 

• June 2021: Manchin tells Schumer that he’s willing to embrace up to $1.5 trillion in new spending if it is fully paid for with excess revenue dedicated to reducing the deficit. 
• July 2021: Schumer keeps that quiet, and leadership moves forward with $3.5 trillion in new spending.
• August 2021: The caucus fights it out in the press and eventually settles on $1.7 trillion
• September 2021: Pelosi moves a bill that uses phase-out gimmicks to try to generate a $1.7 trillion score for what was really intended to be $3.5 trillion worth of new programs. 
• October 2021: Manchin calls foul on the proposal, setting the stage for negotiations on crafting an actual proposal that would fit the criteria Manchin outlined to Schumer back in June. 
• November 2021: Democratic leaders press pause on the process (to reign in the public discourse and secretly revisit it… well now)

 

All this time, Manchin is ranting about inflation and how he thinks it’s likely to be worse than Biden or the Fed are saying — and then inflation did turn out to be worse than Biden or the Fed was saying.

 

Given this timeline in hindsight, it’s easy to make the argument that Manchin was acting in perfectly good faith (he’s even back at the table now), while Schumer was acting in bad faith and the White House was showing bad judgment about the economic situation.

[ClashAndBurn]

12 minutes ago, Kassi said:

The reason I’m pushing @ClashAndBurn on this is because when the facts change, smart people are supposed to change their minds.

 

I was also on the BBB bandwagon thinking Manchin was debating in bad faith, but he was legit on the ball. And could be argued, based on the sequence of events that the rest of the caucus was debating in bad faith (they weren’t of course, they just had a blind spot):

 

• June 2021: Manchin tells Schumer that he’s willing to embrace up to $1.5 trillion in new spending if it is fully paid for with excess revenue dedicated to reducing the deficit. 
• July 2021: Schumer keeps that quiet, and leadership moves forward with $3.5 trillion in new spending.
• August 2021: The caucus fights it out in the press and eventually settles on $1.7 trillion
• September 2021: Pelosi moves a bill that uses phase-out gimmicks to try to generate a $1.7 trillion score for what was really intended to be $3.5 trillion worth of new programs. 
• October 2021: Manchin calls foul on the proposal, setting the stage for negotiations on crafting an actual proposal that would fit the criteria Manchin outlined to Schumer back in June. 
• November 2021: Democratic leaders press pause on the process (to reign in the public discourse and secretly revisit it… well now)

 

All this time, Manchin is ranting about inflation and how he thinks it’s likely to be worse than Biden or the Fed are saying — and then inflation did turn out to be worse than Biden or the Fed was saying.

 

Given this timeline in hindsight, it’s easy to make the argument that Manchin was acting in perfectly good faith (he’s even back at the table now), while Schumer was acting in bad faith and the White House was showing bad judgment about the economic situation.

He's "on the ball" only if you assume that the only cause for inflation is government spending. Some of it might have been, but the much worse, more prevalent factors involved are the following:
 

Supply chain breakdown due to American companies outsourcing their labor/production overseas for cheap

Energy prices surging due to people not staying locked in their homes and generally traveling more

Energy prices surging due to sanctions on Russian oil limiting the supply that the West would accept, making OPEC oil more expensive

Food prices surging due to America helping the world's largest exporter of grain prolong a war that it can't possibly win outright

 

None of this is factored in by the Elites in American government and media because they want to keep their cheap outsourced labor, they want workers to suffer under recession so that unions can be busted again,  and they want the Russo-Ukrainian war to be drawn out as long as possible down to the last Ukrainian's life in order to enact regime change against Putin. That's why austerity and the Federal Reserve (headed by a Trump appointee that Biden willingly kept) raising interest rates are the only solutions being offered. That's why you yourself are exhorting praises upon Joe Manchin for making Democrats appear incapable of governing and making the Republicans look like the more sane, stable party for voters to flock to in November.

[Communion]

22 minutes ago, Kassi said:

So the correct answer, if you care about inflation, is: NO, Bernie’s 6 trillion budget plan was an awful idea

This feels like talking to a Pod Saves America bro trying to ensure his paycheck. 

 

No one buys the idea that there is simply too much money pumped into the economy - most people felt the most comfortable they have financially in years due to massive federal spending and are feeling hit where such would have no impact, like energy shocks from disruption to oil supply - the issue Is that much of the money pushed is captured by a very tiny minority of people. In fact, just ask most Americans who they blame for inflation as a fact: