I don't care if you're liberal or conservative. The problem with Trump is that all of his success has come from lying, cheating, and manipulation. That's all he knows. This was never a simple matter of political differences. This was not normal.
It looks to me like so many are bothered by Trump because he didn't wrap all the lying and cheating and manipulation in a likeable, family-friendly public persona, like the presidents of the past did. He certainly said a lot of outrageous or false things, but policy-wise he didn't really make any horrible decisions.
So many of you want to desperately believe that the abnormal situation in the US can be pinned on one man and that once he's gone everything will go back to normal, or if not the situation will normalize to a certain extent. That just doesn't seem possible.
Trump is just the convenient scapegoat for the disastrous globalisation which hollowed out American industry, for the race but especially class conflicts which were never really settled and for the ultra-aggressive capitalism which creates many more losers than winners and for the two party system which is fundamentally vulnerable to corruption.
> but policy-wise he didn't really make any horrible decisions
You don't feel how he handled the Covid pandemic was a bad policy? The guy's vanity wouldn't allow him to wear a mask to act as a good example to his base. He blatantly ignored most of what his advisors told him and proceeded to advocate quack remedies and dubious advice.
I really dislike the trope of "all politicians lie" when discussing Trump. It's the worst kind of "what about-ism". I do value a president talking to the American people like we are adults and tell us uncomfortable truths. I think Obama tried that on occasion ands it backfired on him in a major way (comment about those that cling to guns and religion comes to mind).
I do agree with you that it's not solely Trump's fault. The republican party quickly fell into step behind him to get their way above any sort of moral high ground they could have hoped to claim in the past.
Denial of COVID-19 and eventual spats with an educated expert (Fauci), denial of climate change (which we need to act on as a world population), separation of children and parent (which, as a parent, makes me extremely sad). Trump's M.O. was one of denial, ignorance, and stupidity.
Now, one might say these don't affect me. For example, the separation of children and parents of immigrants does not affect you if you are an American citizen who is allowed to vote, has a job, etc. Neither might climate change affect you as it is, or perhaps not enough yet. What did affect us all, in the world, was COVID-19, and the first wave was especially deathly. The nonchalant response of Trump to that issue was what I expected to be an eye opener to the American voter. And honestly, you don't want a president who behaves in such a way to a crisis (also look at how it backfired in Brazil). You want one who addresses the issue, is honest to you, like a gentleman or gentlewoman would.
Every Republican who stood up to Trump, I am proud of you. It takes courage to go against the flow of a powerful lunatic, when everyone follows him. The emperor wears no clothes.
I think that the OP's major point is that Trump was a symptom of the problems in US society, not a cause.
He did say a lot of the quiet parts loud, which makes some oppponents regard him as uniquely bad.
Has everyone forgotten that the Bush administration used similar magical thinking and logic:
> The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.[2]
I think the real problem here is that the extremes of US politics (mostly the right) have been spreading lies and garbage to their base for years, and eventually, they got a President who believed the nonsense.
As the saying goes, a democracy gets the leader it deserves. Dictators sometimes get democratically chosen. The dictator chosen in Germany between WWI and WWII was also a symptom of a problem. You cannot simply deduce everything towards such one person; however you also cannot simply say he is executing the "Will of the People". We're not in direct democracies; we pick our leader for 4 years, and that leader (plus some others) have a lot of power during those. I used to say we rotate dictators we pick every 4 years, but back then I had a rather dystopian world-view.
As for G.W. "you are either for us, or against us" [1] Bush, people forgive and forget quickly. Though I'd argue he was just a vassal for Rummy, Cheney, et al. For an insight into Bush, watch the movie Vice from 2018. It centers around Dick Cheney, how he became Vice President. Bush successfully managed to get the hardcore Christians behind him, which I suppose was a natural path given the Lewinsky-Clinton scandal. Another good documentary of around that time is Adam Curtis' The Power Of Nightmares which you can find freely and legally on Archive.org.
> Has everyone forgotten that the Bush administration used similar magical thinking and logic:
> > The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. [...]'
That's not really magical thinking per-se, it's more akin to "might makes right" or "he who has the gold makes the rules". The most charitable interpretation I can think of is that it's stating a form of realpolitik first-mover advantage (which in a very narrow sense, isn't wrong).
> You don't feel how he handled the Covid pandemic was a bad policy?
It wasn't good, but it wasn't an outlier compared to the west.
In the last week there have been 16 deaths per million from covid in the USA, down below places like the Netherlands, Portugal, UK, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Argentina, Belgium etc.
Overall the US has performed as well as the UK, slightly better than Italy Sweden and France, not as bad as Spain and Belgium.
> > You don't feel how he handled the Covid pandemic was a bad policy?
> It wasn't good, but it wasn't an outlier compared to the west.
Only if you don't adjust for density. The US in general (and even most large US cities) are very low density in comparison to Europe, which could/would/should have helped a lot (turns out, poor public transportation infrastructure + suburban tracts of McMansions + high dependency on cars is good for something after all). Instead, that was all negated by idiotic super spreader events and the like.
I think a lot of the deaths can be traced to structural issues in the US, but his failures of leadership during the pandemic made things worse.
It's not clear to me by how much and I'm guessing that a lot of people might be in the same situation, which would partly explain why he wasn't punished even more at the booth.
A few months ago it looked like Europe's doing great, but now we're getting hammered in spite of all the measures. The countries that were successful at controlling the pandemic have enacted a series of measures that work very well together, but if one or more are missing, the infections spiral out of control, no matter if e.g. masks are mandatory or certain venues are closed.
> but policy-wise he didn't really make any horrible decisions.
I'm not sure if this is permitted by the guidelines. I can prefix perhaps with: I get why a lot of people voted for Trump, and I have sympathy with some of his policies, but I think there _were_ some policy decisions that were judged to be horrible, including by NGOs and internationally. Some examples listed below.
I'm not saying other presidents don't made horrible decisions, but I am saying that there seems to be a tendency to excuse his behaviour by a whataboutism argument, and it's really important to get down in the detail, into the facts, and not let Trump's style of politics trickle down to us all.
While I agree with you on most of those points, abandoning allies of convenience when they are no-longer useful has a long history in US foreign policy, and the Kurds should really have known this might happen given that they were abandoned by Bush 1 in 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq
I don't know enough about the other three, but there are many people who disagree with you on the child separation.
We have 10 million illegal immigrants in the US. Previous administrations have been soft on border enforcement, which led to that number constantly increasing, putting regional pressure on wages, lower class jobs, and regional cultural identity.
Trump increased enforcement of existing immigration laws. He wasn't going to put the kids in detainment centers with their parents. Children don't belong in prisons with adults, there would be incredible abuses that occur. Hence separation pending litigation and/or deportation.
"We have 10 million illegal immigrants in the US. Previous administrations have been soft on border enforcement, which led to that number constantly increasing, putting regional pressure on wages, lower class jobs, and regional cultural identity."
There are lots of ways to solve these problems which don't rely on separating children from families. Interesting you feel the government should act in order to ensure stability of regional cultural identity, and that damaging families of these migrants seem to be a reasonable answer to do so.
Also, no law forced this policy of child separation. They could have created family focused detention facilities. They could have done a lot of things. They did child separation to convince people to not come to this country.
It sounds like the cure was worse than the disease. Solve the immigration problem by taking it out on the children. When this was suggested did anybody step up and say this seemed like a bad idea?
Policy wise he probably didn't make any bad decisions. But his words have made it okay to be racist. As a minority, I experienced more minor forms of racism in last 4 years than in last 20 years before. He made it cool to be racist. He made my life slightly more inconvenient. And I am sure if I didn't had high paying job I would have suffered more balant racism. Trump is evil human and I am glad he will gone soon enough.
> I experienced more minor forms of racism in last 4 years than in last 20 years before
That's awful. What kind of things happened (if you don't mind) and do you think it was an attitudinal change or were there policy decisions that were the cause?
> He made it cool to be racist.
I infer from this it was young people that you think (or know) have been affected.
Mostly attitude changes. Like if our group of mostly brown people with kids is at a festival, security gaurds or cops would all of sudden hangout next to us. We would just laugh it off and cops are not rude or anything. But I rarely noticed cops hanging out near us when we are in mostly white group.
Another thing, a little worse service especially at upscale suburban resturants. Now brown/desi people are known to be cheap when it comes to tips, so that does have some effect on the service. However, before 2016, we rarely got bad/slow service. But it seems we had more issues at resturants in last 4 years than before. (Btw I always tip decent 20% standard and more depending on the service)
From cool I meant people now openly sterotype minorities especially on Facebook. Both young and old. Like friends complaining that they didn't get a job because company was trying to hire a black woman. And, in fact, I have heard from multiple of my Republican friends that a Black Woman is the most powerful person in the US. (Ofc, I don't believe that)
Here is a more balant racism experience I had. On a date night, we sat next to another couple. The guy was really not happy, he started talking just loud enough for us to hear that Trump will round up all Muslims and immigrants and ship them out. Then he started singing that his cousin is Navy Seal and he likes to kill Iraqis, Afghanis, and all the dities. His date kept telling him to shut up. He asked waitress to change tables, I think.
We tried our best to ignore and have a good evening. This is the only incident in last 4 years but never experienced anything like this before especially in upscale restaurants.
That must leave a nasty taste in the mouth. I know from my own experience that it's harder to laugh off these kind of things if you feel they're more pervasive in society than just one idiot. Of course, it's hard to draw good conclusions from anecdotes but they're still evidence of prejudice that too many are too quick to dismiss.
> I rarely noticed cops hanging out near us when we are in mostly white group.
I heard something similar from a mixed race footballer in the UK (where I'm from). Again, it's difficult to draw conclusions but these things add up. Part of the problem is how to measure or validate things like this in such a way that they become persuasive to change.
For what it's worth I hope it doesn't happen again, or the good far outweighs the bad (which may be all we can hope for in life!)
> But his words have made it okay to be racist. As a minority, I experienced more minor forms of racism in last 4 years than in last 20 years before. He made it cool to be racist.
No, he didn’t. He denounced white supremacy more than any politician ever has, but folks were obsessed with these “Trump is a Nazi” lies. There’s a reason that more minorities voted for him than any GOP candidate ever. In fact, the only demographic that he lost ground on was white men.
What minor forms of racism are you saying he caused in your life?
Tell me this: When Trump riled up his supporters to chant "send them back" when referring to the American congresswomen known as "the squad", was it racist or not?
"Go back to where you came from" is a common racial insult non-white immigrants endure even decades or generations after they naturalize.
I find this incredibly disturbing. I don’t mean that negatively or personally in any way. But I routinely meet people who are completely unaware of this and who actually think he called Nazis very fine people. Because the media and the campaign ads and people on social media keep repeating this lie and never show the dozens of times that he has already addressed this, including in the second half of the sentence that quote comes from, but was edited out. The fact that such a significant hoax that is trivially debunked continues to live on for years is a bad sign. Obviously, this is why he attacks the media so much. And who can blame him?
Sibling comment has a compilation of him doing it 38 times. I recommend this video as well:
But Trump [1] also says the non-white congresswomen known as "the squad" should go back to where they came from. Even riled up his supporters [2] to chant "send her back".
You know "go back to where you came from" is a common racial insult hurled at non-white immigrants decades or generations after they naturalize in the USA?
Is Biden any better? Quoting 'adventured' from elsewhere in this thread:
> As opposed to Biden's belligerent life-long racism, which the left universally goes a great distance out of its way to ignore?
> Even Kamala Harris called him a racist. She did her best to run away from that after it was no longer convenient of course.
> See: Biden's statements on "a racial jungle," segregation, busing, and how he didn't want his children going to desegregated schools.
> See: Biden's support of the crime bill that specifically targeted and locked up a million black people.
> See: Biden's past friendships and associations with 'former' KKK memembers like Robert Byrd (someone he considered a good friend and mentor). Byrd was one of the most vile pieces of scum elected to the US Government in the past century. How's that for associating with white supremacists?
> See: Biden's racist statements about Obama prior to the 2008 election.
It is in the context of Trump supposedly “making it cool to be a racist”. You’re not replacing Trump with a pure and just candidate like Sanders, but rather with another racist (if you believe Trump deserve to be labeled a racist) who’s been on the wrong side of history for the majority of his political career. The only difference is that the mainstream media has abandoned all journalistic integrity in order to protect Biden and attack Trump at all costs. They’re really no better than FoxNews at this point.
>but policy-wise he didn't really make any horrible decisions.
This is where the problem lies within our current political discourse: both parties have fundamental differences within themselves on what they view as being morally on the up-and-up.
Both parties view certain demographics in their own way and this allows them to engage in policies that allow them to accomplish their end goal while never causing harm -- because they genuinely believe they are not causing harm to anyone. They're only following through on policies that match their moral compass.
Until this country has a reckoning on what its fundamental
values should be, there will always be a sense of distrust and skepticism between each other.
> Until this country has a reckoning on what its fundamental values should be, there will always be a sense of distrust and skepticism between each other.
Do we need to agree on fundamental values? How might it be possible to avoid reaching a (likely impossible) agreement?
There needs to be some unified national bent, but I think consensus is an entirely unrealistic expectation for the union.
Ultimately, I think the most viable path forward is a cultural reprivileving of state and local politics over national-level politics, and to rehabilitate our national mythology (half the country thinks we're a divine gift, and the other thinks we're a physical manifestation of every sin in Western history).
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if that's a more realistic path than any other at this point. The development and expansion of our bureaucracies under executive control makes the federal government too easy and tempting a tool for the imposition of any one faction's agenda upon all other states.
Perhaps we may not need to agree on every topic but there must be a discourse happening between each other in good faith. This rarely happens in our current political climate as most people (using Twitter as a sample group) is hyperreactive to any sort of criticism from their opponent.
If we, or all nations, want to come together, our first step is to recognize the importance of the United Nations. If we are able to understand that the United Nations can be an apolitical checks and balance to all countries, it may be a major step forward.
An ideal theory is that all countries begin living by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights[1]. Incorporate this into the foundation of your countries government and it sets a tone and example for which type of moral values you prioritize within your borders.
> If we, or all nations, want to come together, our first step is to recognize the importance of the United Nations.
Interesting that the other response to my post (thus far) essentially argues for the opposite. That a re-emphasis on local politics would be preferable.
Personally, I think letting people go there own way as much as possible is the best course, and empowering the United Nations is pretty much the opposite of that. I'm not saying there isn't a lot of good stuff in the Declaration of Human Rights, but to have a super-ordinate body that is in no way directly accountable to the people over whom it rules, and which attempts to reconcile increasingly disparate cultures, will result in authoritarianism and war.
> Personally, I think letting people go there own way as much as possible is the best course, and empowering the United Nations is pretty much the opposite of that.
As in a Native American reservation type of self localized governing? That’s the only way I could see any good coming from separating each individual locality apart and attaching their own executive branch to it. We currently have 50 seperate states which almost govern in that way but they still must answer to an executive branch and that can be confusing.
Should one branch have a say in all local decisions? Who gets to decide on which person makes those decisions for all? My fear would be that governing completely independent of any other branch could also lead to authoritarianism: if one person persuades the locals they have the best mind to guide them through troubles, they’d ultimately have the final say in decision making once they gain their trust and the ability to govern.
(Apologies if formatting makes it sound confusing, I jumped off my laptop and am instead currently using mobile. Will edit to clarify any discrepancies.)
I posted my reply to the parent comment before seeing yours, and I have to say that the second paragraph you write articulates many of my objections to the UN in a succinct way that I've long struggled to achieve.
The parent comment is concerning American domestic cohesion. A tricky problem in and of itself.
To your point, I'm not sold that all nations ought to come together into a unified state. Least of all beneath the banner of the UN, which has hardly shown itself to be apolitical (its very mission presumes a specific cultural and political end).
Articles 7, 13, 26(2), 29(3) are non-starters for much of the country (myself included). As I read them, they have significant implications for national sovereignty.
I think the style of lying is definitely part of it, but I do think the details matter. I was talking with a Trump supporter (I held my nose and voted for Biden, as I did for Clinton in 2016). He was pretty heated, because a lady he flirts with at work let him know that she was a hardcore Democrat and that she didn't think anyone should vote for Trump. It was toward the end of a long day, so I wasn't sure if I was up for the conversation, but he's a pretty decent guy, so I engaged, and we had a solid chat.
I made a point that seemed to resonate with him - Biden represents high-level corruption, the kind of slick corruption that maintains stability and is relatively predictable. Trump, though, represents a mob style of corruption - or the kind of corruption you see from dictators in developing nations. If it benefits him in the short-term, and he can do it, he will. Chess vs Checkers. Some people prefer the latter, and it seems some view it as a more honest type of corruption, but for most people, stability is important.
I've noticed a lot of Right-leaning people would also like to see some form of ranked voting, so I think it's the political parties (both of them) rather than the people holding things back.
I think you bring up key issues in your closing paragraph, but the implementation of Globalization is what really hurt the middle class in the US. Whenever people lose a proper balance, they will suffer, and I think most everyone can agree that the US did a particularly poor job of ensuring balance - probably not by accident.
Anyway, I feel for people who are troubled by the result of the election. I was in their shoes in 2016, and I can relate to some of their concerns. If we start from a place of understanding/trying to understand, we can build systems that work for everyone. If we allow the two-party system to perpetuate artificial divides, progress will be much slower, and we'll take more false steps. The loudest are typically the worst of us. We can't fall into the trap of using them as stand-ins for the other side. This was much more ranty than I intended, but I hope it makes sense.
According to Politifact, 72% of Trump's statements they fact checked were at least mostly false. Thats a hell of a lot worse than your average politician.
Thanks, this confirms what I said. Also, it was written in 2018, and it has continued to decline as of the most recent data, which further undermines the latency hypothesis.
Maybe you have another metric that you think is important, but this data says that his record is on this one is objectively not terrible.
You mean the cages that protesters staged during a demonstration? Or did I miss the actual child abuse that did not receive any sort of congressional oversight?
How do you deal with any of those issues without being demonized as a socialist? My memory is that capitalism and globalization were such a winning platform for the republicans that even the democrats jumped on the bandwagon in the 90s. How do we get out of this mess?
> The only thing this time was the politician was incompetently bad at hiding it.
Whilst all politicians bend the truth and perhaps most do tell a small number of outright lies, that does not make them comparable to Trump.
Trump repeatedly lies, contradicting himself - even within minutes of saying one thing, he'll say the opposite. He doesn't even acknowledge the idea that being truthful is important. This has had deadly consequences, for example in his inability to acknowledge the reality of the pandemic.
It's not just the lying. The narcism and clownish behaviour has made it impossible to take him seriously, and that has damaged America's reputation - this does matter, your reputation matters when negotiating and trying to get things done internationally.
He's also been hateful and offensive towards many individuals and groups. This is bad for social cohesion, but moreover our leaders should try to set an example for us to follow, not debase our society.
Note that I'm not arguing for or against his policies here, and I can understand why some people voted for him.
My point is that it's really important not to normalise his behaviour. That way lies tyranny.
I'm not sure how you can come away from any observation of politics and not conclude that lying is absolutely rampant. Are there politicians who are relatively honest? Sure, but while they may have loyal grass-roots support, they tend not to be the most successful and they are most definitely in the minority.
Most any person with a sense of political history could provide a litany of examples just for recent politicians, not to mention past eras.
I don't think the main difference here is Trump's ability to lie, though he does have an impetuous manner of speaking that makes it hard to sustain elaborate lies. I think the main difference is the willingness (or lack thereof) of people in respectable positions to cover for his lying, because he is not considered respectable.
> lying is absolutely rampant. Are there politicians who are relatively honest? Sure, but while they may have loyal grass-roots support, they tend not to be the most successful and they are most definitely in the minority.
That actually matches my default belief pretty well, FWIW, but I don't have a lot of evidence for it. Yes, there are lots of news stories about lying/corrupt politicians, but without the greater context how can you tell the prevalence? It's like a negative survivorship bias, we only hear about the scandals.
> I think the main difference is the willingness (or lack thereof) of people in respectable positions to cover for his lying, because he is not considered respectable.
Yeah, I found that sad and disgusting.
My personal problem is, is this just what humans are? Can we do better? Should we "Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."?
I try to remind myself that we are in fact getting better, we have the tools to fix our problems, and there's reason to hope. Yay us!
> but while they may have loyal grass-roots support, they tend not to be the most successful and they are most definitely in the minority
Because the electorate want that. If they rewarded honest people we'd have more successful honest politicians. In the end too many people want easy solutions, which often don't exist.
Whataboutism isn't going to win any arguments when comparing trump's lies to other politicians. The difference in scale is many orders of magnitude different.
No it implies all other times when other politicians were better at it. Plenty have been caught (I could name dozens a-la Nixon, Clinton, Boris Johnson, the Mahon Tribunal) but there are plenty of others that get away with what they do too (eg. Albert Reynolds).
Too put an exact percentage on who falls where on a scale of greyness is basically unknowable as a lot shall die with their secrets. But I would sooner claim it was 100% (I don't, not even close) than it is 0% minus Trump which is simply laughably naive.
Someone once asked me, when Barack Obama was first elected, if I trusted him. I was mildly astonished. I said, "That's not what politicians are for!" To me it seems clear that the primary purpose of politicians is to get out in front of the crowd and justify to ourselves and to the world our crimes, cruelties, and vices.
I mean, if people weren't wicked would there be any politicians or lawyers?
I actually dropped out of high school and was homeless for a few years, in part because of disaffection with society and politics. I got over it. Nowadays I tend to believe that most people are doing their best, we just suck. I think it's the aftermath of the Younger Dryas and the invention of agriculture, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Anyhow, I'm curious about how other people view the world and (at this point in history) the political class, so thank you.
> Plenty have been caught (I could name dozens a-la Nixon, Clinton, Boris Johnson, the Mahon Tribunal) but there are plenty of others that get away with what they do too (eg. Albert Reynolds).
I'm going to assume you're Irish (because of the context) - can you explain to me how Albert Reynolds was a liar? Maybe he just looks honest, sandwiched between Haughey and Ahern.
you're the one playing logical foootsie. nothing op said implied that all other politicians are as crooked as trump, only that all the other crooked politicians that do exist are smarter than trump. stop being so disingenuous and actually read that which you react to.
No politician is as outwardly vulgar or crude as Trump, but... for e.g. Bill Clinton is now seemingly allowed, nay, welcomed in polite company after sexually assaulting multiple women. How come the media or our esteemed blue checkmarks never ask dems about that? Trump and his flaws are well represented in US politics.
They're worse then Trump, by far the most exciting thing about him is that he isnt part of that political class that has lied and cheated America for decades.
I really do think the amount of lying and cheating was significantly higher.
Plus, he was not bad at hiding it. He had seen lying as being smart, something to be proud of. Significant part of those who like him to - for them the lies were clever way to own the libtards.
This is wrong on so many levels.
Obama continued the war and killed thousands of innocent people, did nothing for blacks in his 8 years term but he is the baton of morality
So you would have preferred if Obama left bin Laden alone, and if he let ISIS expand all over the middle East.
No you would have just complained about that. Let's face it, you voted to make your country a global laughing stock in order 5o get a $5 tax cut every year.
Please don't assume how other people have voted, you have no idea who GC voted for.
And yes, I for one would've preferred a faster withdrawal from the Middle East. Decades of conflict in the Middle East should make it clear to any mildly competent student of history that intervention of the sort the US has been trying (and Obama ramped up) is the opposite of effective in the long term. The only winning party is the Military Industrial Complex.
I would definitely err on the side of believing it and you are yet to provide any concrete arguments to why I shouldn't. Which makes me think you simply don't have them.
> I would definitely err on the side of believing it
You've never met one person with integrity?
I mean, I admit, in my experience they're rare. Oh sure, everyone thinks that they have integrity, or at least, gets offended if you suggest they don't.
But I've met a few. I even once met a politician who seemed to me to have integrity.
FWIW, I can't tell if we're ruled by well-meaning incompetents, or competent evil people.
Presidents seem to get a lot of, sometimes undeserved, credit for the economy when they were President. Besides inherit a strong and growing economy, what specifically did Trump do to deserve credit for the stock market growth under him? And conversely, does he deserve partial or full credit for the impact of covid-19 (and his slow response to it) on the economy at the end of his term?
I really hope these past eight months cement the idea in more peoples head that the stock market has little correlation to reality.
It fluctuates based on personal sentiment from institutions and money managers. Political policies may drive the market to react in a certain way from time to time but the only real 'direct' effects come from whichever Fed Chair is appointed at the time.
Of course stocks have real tangible value or else we wouldn’t be able to buy and sell them. They’re not something that you barter with.
However, the majority of Americans do not associate stocks with voting rights. Only a slim minority of Americans own stocks to begin with!
Most laymen investors or readers believe that the stock market is an indication of how well our economy is doing — which it’s not.
The value of the stock market, like you said, is based on the buyers expectations. Which is what I said: the market is controlled by institutions and money managers. Those are the majority of your buyers.
Barely half have some sort of 401k program and the average holding amount is only $40,000. Nothing to really gloat about.
Earners of $100,000/year or more have 5x the amount in holdings as compared to those earning $99,000 or below.
Only 14% of Americans are invested in individual stocks outside of a 401k program.
401k assets only amount to 17% of the total US retirement.
None of these numbers tell a great story because Americans are not saving for retirement. If they are, they’re barely saving a years worth of their salary.
I agree it’s sad how far this world is from perfection, and that so many don’t know about the benefits of owning capital.
I wish I could convince people to spend only half of what they spend on weed and alcohol on buying stocks - it would be of great benefit to the masses. How can we show them the benefits?
You're talking past the point under discussion, to wit:
>the stock market has little correlation to reality... It fluctuates based on personal sentiment from institutions and money managers
>a slim minority of Americans own stocks to begin with...
>most laymen investors or readers believe that the stock market is an indication of how well our economy is doing — which it’s not.
And therefore an improved stock market does not equate to an improved 'economy', and therefore it is incorrect to credit Donald Trump with an improved economy purely because tax cuts to the rich may have bumped the stock market. What on Earth does your comment have to do with that?
At best, we're assigning a ton of credit to him based on a vague "probably." Lots of non-Trump factors influenced the stock market over the last four years.
I'm nowhere close to rich or a Trump voter, but I'm glad my 401k) went up when the stocks went up. The Dem's economic policies in recent years are stinkers. I don't like the idea of raising taxes and creating new money-pit departments and thinking the government can fix stuff like education at the federal level. The idea of mandating people to purchase a healthcare product was also abhorrent. I'd much sooner get behind something like a single payer/universal coverage and kill off the useless insurance industry.
It takes a certain level of complete ignorance to not know that for the past 30+ years the economy and stock market has grown more under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.
> I'd much sooner get behind something like a single payer/universal coverage and kill off the useless insurance industry.
At least in Germany most people still have a private care insurance option because the free stuff doesn’t cover everything and it’s just as expensive as the USAs insurance so I don’t think the insurance industry will go away just because their is a single payer system.
Universal access to healthcare is a human right, and insurance as a product by its very nature - is non-universal - as it relies on denying access to make profit.
The pre-existing conditions loophole in the current system means that you can purchase insurance one day before you get sick or need a major medical procedure and a private company is mandated by the government to pay up. The whole Obamacare plan is a clusterF*.
Well, they can't deny emergency care to a human being who is about to die/in critical condition, can they? So lets start on that common ground - They do already have unequivocal obligations in the current system. Now from that end of the spectrum to the other end, say perhaps an elective purely cosmetic surgery that is non-essential (agreed, this is subjective) we can find some middle ground, can we not?
As a practical matter of policy, the government can incrementally build the path towards universal coverage. By identifying problems in the outcomes of the existing system, and using various common-sense priorities to draft legislation, this can be done in a slow and sustainable manner. There are various proposals out there drafted by people far smarter than I. Its not that I think any particular one is a silver-bullet, but the current system where people go bankrupt due to medical costs is very alarming. We need to start somewhere if we are to tackle this problem.
I totally get the fear of creating yet another entitlement program, and how hospitals will possibly milk the government, but the current system isn't working, people are quite literally dying and/or having their lives be destroyed due to medical costs, so it about time we did something. I've seen some of this damage first hand and its terrifying to think it could happen to people I care about or even myself.
>> Well, they can't deny emergency care to a human being who is about to die/in critical condition, can they? So lets start on that common ground
Let’s first find our common ground. If you are a doctor and a patient comes to you, and the doctor refuses on the grounds he will not be paid enough, you think you have the right to compel this doctor to perform the service anyway?
The emergency care example you give is an extreme and shouldnt be used as the basis for all other policy. I would say a doctor who chose the job as an emergency care provider acknowledges your stance when he took the job, to provide service to matter what, not because it is a right but a contractual obligation.
I think the "what right do you have" or "can you force someone" phrasing is adversarial and can't drive a conversation.
Lets instead look at distilling the universal access idea to its essence, we need
1) A capital pool to fund the program
2) A legislative framework that
2.1) Lays out the products and services and the pricing of those
2.2) Allows for price negotiation based on geography and other market driven criteria
2.3) Drafts fines for inappropriate behavior - excessive billing, using unapproved medication, etc
2.4) Defines licensing terms for a provider to bill the government
Now #1 is no different from any other regular insurance, you collect individual payments at the federal level. #2 would also be federal legislation. #2.4 would be similar to how medicare-certified hospitals operate.
Now the question really becomes - why would any provider not take this deal? Certainly, there could be several reasons, and those can be addressed on a case by case basis. But the point I want to make is, we can start small, maybe we only tackle preventative care at first.
The bottomless debt and asset inflation Trump inherited was not a sign of a strong and growing economy.
How can you call a countries economy Strong when its lending its money for near zero interest? It’s a deeply flawed idea that’s not sustainable in the long run. Obama’s fed tried to placate this worry that the QE and low rates were temporary.
Well here we are. 12 years after 2008 and we are back to zero % rates and more QE that doubles the national debt every Presidents term limit.
The Truth is the economy began to show signs of cracking in dec 2018 with the yield curve reversal when Trumps fed tried to raise rates above a measly 2%. A healthy economy would not do this. The economy hasn’t been healthy since early 2000s
His tax cut only made the bottomless debt situation you mentioned even worse. Every Republican administration wants to cut taxes. I don’t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror and still call themselves conservatives.
They didn’t try. They did. And they found out that they couldn’t because as soon as they did the economy started to crumble. So was Trump justified in not wanting to
I'd have to at least partially disagree with both parts of that statement. The president can only do so much to influence the stock market. A lot of how it goes is due to the state of the economy that is inherited when they gain office. That said, the Trump tax cuts and dismantling of environmental and fiscal regulation probably did help the stock market (not to say I necessarily agree with those moves). However, I would definitely argue that much of his lying was in service of propping up the stock market, some of it likely successful. Downplaying the severity of the pandemic would be the latest and most obvious example, but there are many others.
You can make an argument that he decreased taxes for the richest of the rich to do that. I don't think that is a cause worth celebrating. Not to mention that stock market levels don't translate to a good economy or good paying jobs for people. We can see that in the past months, where the stock market was doing well but economy not so much.
What? He asked Federal Reserve to keep buying everything ob lnstock market with newly printed money. Thats how it went up, by also weakening dollar all around the world. Its another scam.
Regardless of the merits of ascribing market action to the president...
To claim that Trump "restored" stock market levels when in reality the S&P 500 had gained 183% in the previous 8 years (the second highest returns of any presidency after Clinton), is an admission of blatant bias and sheer ignorance.
