The American Politics Thread!

[TeamAudra]

 

[Gmm99]

14 minutes ago, RTV said:

It's a little surprising that Democrats are suddenly polling higher than Republicans, despite Biden's consistently low approval rating. Gas prices dropping probably helped.

 

from Newsweek today:

 

 

 

Doesn't help that a lot of the GOP nominees aren't particularly good at all + Trump is still getting involved with politics through endorsements.  Still months until November but yeah...the senate has been extremely iffy to flip for the longest time now. 

[RTV]

10 minutes ago, Gmm99 said:

Doesn't help that a lot of the GOP nominees aren't particularly good at all + Trump is still getting involved with politics through endorsements.  Still months until November but yeah...the senate has been extremely iffy to flip for the longest time now. 

True, the Senate flipping hasn't looked likely. But we've gone from talk of a "red wave" to now more people in four polls this week saying they're planning to vote Democrat than Republican in November despite Biden's low ratings, the economy, and everything else. 

[TeamAudra]

15 minutes ago, Gmm99 said:

Doesn't help that a lot of the GOP nominees aren't particularly good at all + Trump is still getting involved with politics through endorsements.  Still months until November but yeah...the senate has been extremely iffy to flip for the longest time now. 

Two of those candidates who the GOP needs to win badly…Oz and Walker. Yikes, they are awful candidates. Remember when Hannity and Trump told us Oz was the electable one? 
 

I won’t blame Walker on Trump, because he was going to run, and win the nomination with, or without Trump, and be a terrible candidate either way.  

[TeamAudra]

2 minutes ago, RTV said:

True, the Senate flipping hasn't looked likely. But we've gone from talk of a "red wave" to now more people in four polls this week saying they're planning to vote Democrat than Republican in November despite Biden's low ratings, the economy, and everything else. 

True, but I will add that polling has been terrible for the past few cycles. There is no doubt there’s been a shift of independents, but these pollsters are likely oversampling Democrats, and there are still a significant number of conservatives who won’t talk to pollsters. If one called me, I’d probably just hang up the phone. 

[Gmm99]

7 minutes ago, RTV said:

True, the Senate flipping hasn't looked likely. But we've gone from talk of a "red wave" to now more people in four polls this week saying they're planning to vote Democrat than Republican in November despite Biden's low ratings, the economy, and everything else. 

 

4 minutes ago, TeamAudra said:

Two of those candidates who the GOP needs to win badly…Oz and Walker. Yikes, they are awful candidates. Remember when Hannity and Trump told us Oz was the electable one? 
 

I won’t blame Walker on Trump, because he was going to run, and win the nomination with, or without Trump, and be a terrible candidate either way.  

The red wave was on the horizon...but holy hell did the GOP put in some AWFUL candidates -- a lot of them who Trump endorsed.  And it looks like they aren't doing well with the independents at all. That group of voters at the end of the day are ones that the GOP needs to win over. Putting in Trump-endorsed candidates like Oz and Walker is not a very good idea (even Kevin McCarty too). The GOP should have let Trump fade into obscurity for the midterms, but they clearly aren't.

Add the overturning of Roe v. Wade as part of the reason too. I don't know how long it will last, but it became a factor (at least for now).

Edited July 29, 2022 by Gmm99

[TeamAudra]

1 minute ago, Gmm99 said:

 

Look I wanted a Red Wave too...but holy hell did the GOP put in some AWFUL candidates -- a lot of them who Trump endorsed.  And it looks like they aren't doing well with the independents at all. That group of voters at the end of the day are ones that the GOP needs to win over. Putting in Trump-endorsed candidates like Oz and Walker is not a very good idea (even Kevin McCarty too). The GOP should have let Trump fade into obscurity for the midterms, but they clearly aren't.

He has a solid lock on about 1/3 of the party. They will do whatever he says. It is what it is.  

[Gmm99]

8 minutes ago, TeamAudra said:

He has a solid lock on about 1/3 of the party. They will do whatever he says. It is what it is.  

I'll just insert a comment from the article that was mentioned in the tweet you posted...

"But now it’s time for him to fade away. He is unelectable and is only hurting the party and therefore the country at this point. The honorable think for him to do would be to bow out of the 2024 race and only support candidates where he carried over 60%." 

 

Obviously not the full comment (that viewer thought Trump did a good job), but case in point. There are more similar comments to that. 

Trump ain't an honorable man at this point though.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Gmm99

[Gmm99]

The GOP would have stood a better chance if they rejected and allowed Trump to fade into obscurity. He himself should have just stayed away from politics in general but clearly he didn't. I have said this before, and I'll repeat it again.

Just looking at these candidates...I really want a split congress at this point. 

 

If the GOP still has a "wave," that will be despite their horrible campaign strategies. And will be undeserved.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Gmm99

[TeamAudra]

4 minutes ago, Gmm99 said:

The GOP would have stood a better chance if they rejected and allowed Trump to fade into obscurity. He himself should have just stayed away from politics in general but clearly he didn't.

Just looking at these candidates...I really want a split congress at this point. 

It’s a strange situation. His base becomes even more emboldened the more he’s investigated, while Independents move even further away. Now, I totally understand that the media goes after Republicans, and lets Democrats skate. A lot of stuff is total B.S., but in the case of Trump, there are a lot of self-inflicted wounds.  He makes new enemies almost daily, and there usually isn’t a good reason for it. Elon Musk, for example. 

[Gmm99]

7 minutes ago, TeamAudra said:

It’s a strange situation. His base becomes even more emboldened the more he’s investigated, while Independents move even further away. Now, I totally understand that the media goes after Republicans, and lets Democrats skate. A lot of stuff is total B.S., but in the case of Trump, there are a lot of self-inflicted wounds.  He makes new enemies almost daily, and there usually isn’t a good reason for it. Elon Musk, for example. 

Only his loyalists. The base is getting smaller by the day. For the candidates, it's best to just mention Trump once and move on at least I think. Don't accept endorsements or anything.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Gmm99

[TeamAudra]

1 minute ago, Gmm99 said:

Only his loyalists. The base is getting smaller by the day. For the candidates, it's best to just mention Trump once and move on at least I think. Don't accept endorsements or anything.

DeSantis hasn’t asked for it, and why would he? There would be nothing to gain. 
 

Youngkin turned down Trump’s offer to campaign with him days before the VA election. 
 

I do think his endorsement helps in some of these tightly contested primaries, though. The problem is he thinks he owns them for life. 

[Gmm99]

4 minutes ago, TeamAudra said:

DeSantis hasn’t asked for it, and why would he? There would be nothing to gain. 
 

Youngkin turned down Trump’s offer to campaign with him days before the VA election. 
 

I do think his endorsement helps in some of these tightly contested primaries, though. The problem is he thinks he owns them for life. 

It's certainly a double-edged sword. It can help and hurt candidates. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Gmm99

[RTV]

1 hour ago, TeamAudra said:

True, but I will add that polling has been terrible for the past few cycles. There is no doubt there’s been a shift of independents, but these pollsters are likely oversampling Democrats, and there are still a significant number of conservatives who won’t talk to pollsters. If one called me, I’d probably just hang up the phone. 

That's true. One thing is for certain, though. Democrats are doing everything they can think of to sway voters to their side—including lying to the public.

[RTV]

Data from the Commerce Department today showed that gross domestic product fell 0.9% in the second quarter. That follows a 1.6% decline in the first quarter. GDP is the broadest measure of the economy and encompasses the total level of goods and services produced during the period. A separate report Thursday showed that layoffs remain elevated. The consumer price index rose 8.6% in the quarter, the fastest pace since the fourth quarter of 1981. Inflation hit its highest 12-month increase since 1981 in June.

 

Officially, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private research group, declares recessions and expansions. But two straight quarters of negative GDP growth is a long-held basic view of recession. Most commentators and analysts use, as a practical definition of recession, two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's real gross domestic product, according to International Monetary Fund in March 2009. Google's English dictionary, which is provided by Oxford Languages, defines recession as "a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters." Since 1948, the economy has never seen consecutive quarterly growth declines without being in a recession.

 

Yet President Biden and others in his administration are insisting that this isn't a recession. Apparently, it's "a transition."

 

Biden on Monday: We're not coming into recession, in my view.

Biden on Thursday said the U.S. "is not in a recession" and added:

We are on the right path and we will come through this transition stronger and more secure.

 

Top White House aides say they have no choice but to try to make the case that the economy is better than polling would suggest.

 

One said, "The reason it's important to go out and explain the economy accurately is you don't want people getting excessively pessimistic about factors in the future and only relying on those in the media with the biggest megaphones."

 

Even as other indicators show signs of softening, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on July 27 told reporters, "I do not think the U.S. is currently in a recession."

 

economist and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen:

This is not an economy that is in recession.

I do want to emphasize what a recession really means is a broad-based contraction in the economy and even if that number is negative, we are not in a recession now.

 

Biden aide and Council of Economic Advisers member Jared Bernstein:

What we are trying to do is explain things in a much more nuanced way than most people are getting from the daily news flow. 

The idea that two quarters of negative GDP growth is a technical definition of a recession is wrong.

 

Excerpts from Tucker Carlson's video tonight:

 

What matters is not the way that things actually are. What matters are the words we use to describe things. We can change reality merely by calling it something else. If we call a man a woman, that's what she is. If we call an open border a secure border, that's what we have. And as you just saw, if we tell you that a collapsing economy is a robust economy, well, then it's time to celebrate our newfound prosperity and feel free to buy champagne on your EBT card. It's on us. It turns out that when you think you’re God, all that matters is what you say—your commands. "In the beginning was the Word" and this week the word was definitely not "recession." That word is now an operative.

 

On July 21st, the White House officially changed the definition of recession. They said it, so it's true now. In a blog post, officials explained that two consecutive quarters of declining GDP is "neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle."

 

Peter Doocy: If things are going so great though, then why is it the White House officials are trying to redefine recession?

Karine Jean-Pierre: No, we're not redefining recession.

Doocy: If we all understand a recession to be two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth in a row, and then you have White House officials come up here to say, "No, no, no, that's not what a recession is, it's something else," how is that not redefining recession?

Jean-Pierre: Because that's not the definition.

 

CNN White House correspondent John Harwood wrote on 08/20/19:

recession equals economy shrinks for two quarters

 

National Economic Council of the U.S. director Brian Deese:

Well, we're certainly in a transition, and we are seeing slowing as we all would have expected But I think if you look at the full data and the type of data that NBER looks at, virtually nothing signals that this period in the second quarter is recessionary. And certainly, in terms of the technical definition, it's not a recession. The technical definition considers a much broader spectrum of data points.

 

Deese wrote in 2008:

Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

 

Associated Press:

The U.S. economy shrank for a second straight quarter, raising fears the nation may be approaching a recession.

 

Associated Press in January 2022:

Mexico's economy entered a technical recession at the end of last year with two consecutive quarters of contraction.

 

Associated Press article in 2013:

French economy falls back into recession

"A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth."

 

Politico chief economic correspondent Ben White wrote on July 27:

The White House is scrambling behind the scenes and in public to get ahead of a potentially brutal economic punch to the face that could give Republicans the chance to declare that the "Biden recession" is under way. Wall Street analysts, economists and even some in the Biden administration itself expect a report on Thursday to show the economy shrank for a second straight quarter, meeting a classic — though by no means the only — definition of a recession. Senior administration officials are hitting the airwaves and arm-twisting reporters in private, imploring anyone who will listen that the economy — despised by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats fed up with inflation — is still healthy. But White House officials admit that changing people's minds is a daunting task as the highest inflation in four decades severely cuts into wages even as the economy continues to churn out jobs and Americans keep spending.

 

Politico tweeted on Wednesday night:

Tomorrow we get the first, possibly inaccurate and certain to be revised reading of U.S. economic performance in the second quarter of this deeply weird economic year — one metric to measure if we're in a recession.

 

White wrote on July 27:

We tease. But just a bit. Because it is actually a big deal whether the reading shows the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, grew by a touch or declined by a hair in the second quarter. If it's the latter, which many but certainly not all economists expect, it would be the second straight quarter of shrinking GDP. That's one, though not the only definition of, (cue scary music) RECESSION! It's certainly an obsession at the White House these days, where senior officials from President Joe Biden on down have been feverishly telling anyone who will listen, in public and private, that even two quarters of negative growth would not mean recession. This is where it gets a bit confusing for the non-econ-obsessed, so hang with me until we get to the politics. Because technically the White House would be correct. Two declines in a row is one classic hallmark of recession. But as I've noted in this space before, there is no official definition of recession in the U.S. beyond a broad decline in economic activity spread over time. Democrats — and frankly all of us — should be more concerned with fresh inflation numbers out Friday morning.

 

White tweeted on July 27:

The White House is pretty obviously right that even two quarters of shrinking GDP would not show the economy is currently in recession.

 

White tweeted on July 28:

Yeah I did a bad tweet a while ago referring to two negative q's in a row as a recession. Should have known better at the time but it had been a while since I'd studied recession criteria and that's not it. Nothing to do with giving Biden any kind of break. Just accurate now

 

White wrote on 06/22/22:

And while we may not be in one yet (though it's possible we are), I'm sorry to report that the conditions are ripe for a slide in gross domestic product growth that lasts at least two quarters, the technical definition of recession.

 

White tweeted on 03/27/20:

IHS just downgraded first quarter growth to -2.1% others are also going negative. The second quarter will be down by double digits. All of this just means we are in a recession right now.

 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/larry-kudlow-woke-economists-biden-administration-dont-care-growth

Edited July 29, 2022 by RTV

[TeamAudra]

This is a very good poll for DeSantis. 
 

 

[RTV]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem-rep-biden-reelection-2024-america

[RTV]

food prices (including at home and at restaurants) rose 10.4% in June compared to a year ago
food-at-home (grocery purchases) rose 12.2% this month

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/food-inflation-surges-new-costs-family-dinners

Edited July 29, 2022 by RTV

[RTV]

https://thepostmillennial.com/wikipedia-redefines-recession-to-resemble-bidens-changes-then-locks-page-to-new-edits

[RTV]

Florida is not listed among the suing states.

https://thepostmillennial.com/ohio-joins-21-states-sue-biden-admin-over-plans-to-stop-free-lunches-unless-schools-comply-with-gender-identity-policies

Edited July 29, 2022 by RTV

[TeamAudra]

“…sends a clear message to out-of-state cars…”  

 

 

[sneaky]

Ugh. That license plate. There's a reason I stick the major cities in Florida. I've experienced enough rednecks in my lifetime

[TeamAudra]

15 minutes ago, sneaky said:

Ugh. That license plate. There's a reason I stick the major cities in Florida. I've experienced enough rednecks in my lifetime

I’m not a redneck, but there’s a reason I wouldn’t live in a major city. Too many brain dead liberals. I’m around them enough as it is.  

Edited July 30, 2022 by TeamAudra

[sneaky]

5 minutes ago, TeamAudra said:

I’m not a redneck, but there’s a reason I wouldn’t live in a major city. Too many brain dead liberals. I’m around them enough as it is.  

Dems suck. But take a look at the ten lowest states by IQ. Not looking good

 

I know. CA which has a bunch of non English speakers.

 

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-by-state

[TeamAudra]

17 minutes ago, sneaky said:

Dems suck. But take a look at the ten lowest states by IQ. Not looking good

 

I know. CA which has a bunch of non English speakers.

 

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-by-state

There are a decent number of states in the top ten with Republican Governors (4/10), and several on the bottom with Democrat Governors. I would imagine the margin of error is quite high. Some states do have advantages, and naturally higher scores as a result. Having said that, some of the smartest people I know have zero common sense. I’ll bet we can all relate to that. 
 

Why are you assuming non-English speaking people have lower IQs?

Edited July 30, 2022 by TeamAudra