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President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Moderator1, Nov 12, 2016.

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  1. Tweener

    Tweener Well-Known Member

    Wait, so because unemployment has been trending down (since before Trump took office, really), Democrats need to convince African American voters of issues that necessitate a change in the WH? What the hell are you talking about? Most Americans, particularly people of color, face a hoard of issues that extend well beyond whether they are gainfully employed.

    If life is so dandy, why are black voters so eager to vote his ass out?

    Poll: Overwhelming majority of black voters back any 2020 Democrat over Trump
     
    Tweener, Feb 18, 2020
    #163585
  2. SoloFlyer

    SoloFlyer Well-Known Member

    He's potentially partially right, more in related to the economy than the voting intentions of African Americans.

    A positive economy, even if it minimally impacts the lower classes, lifts all Presidents. Somehow it convinces people that things are OK, so they'll be OK, even if they're not. But Americans are often short-sighted in politics. They don't worry about trends or projections. If the economy is OK in November, Trump's odds improve.

    As far as the black vote, where BTE is partially right is that black conservatives may prioritize the economy and financial decisions under Trump over his otherwise racist behavior. But the black vote largely leans Democratic, so that pool of black voters willing to put up with Trump is likely quite small. So BTE is likely mistaken that there will be a groundswell of support from the black community, even if they're not overwhelmed by the Democratic candidate.
     
    SoloFlyer, Feb 18, 2020
    #163586
    Tweener likes this.
  3. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    HanSenSE, Feb 18, 2020
    #163587
    heyabbott likes this.
  4. garrow

    garrow Well-Known Member

    Lemme guess: Trump as a pawn (of Russia).
     
    garrow, Feb 18, 2020
    #163588
    2muchcoffeeman and Twirling Time like this.
  5. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    daemon, Feb 18, 2020
    #163589
    Tweener likes this.
  6. garrow

    garrow Well-Known Member

    Back in 2016, the Office of Legal Counsel made a presidential speechwriter take down a Halloween decoration that read "Don't Boo, Vote" because it might have violated the Hatch Act. Trump’s Going to Cheat

    Since January 2017, the OLC's view of the Hatch Act:

    [​IMG]
     
    garrow, Feb 18, 2020
    #163590
  7. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    2muchcoffeeman, Feb 18, 2020
    #163591
    OscarMadison likes this.
  8. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    This is where this board consistently takes 1+1 and gets 11.

    A poster asked, "What issues would make African-Americans vote for Trump."

    And my answer was the same as it would be for ANY incumbent: The past four years trump (no pun intended) any issues. If the past four years are OK, then there will be no great energy --- no "groundswell" --- to rock the boat. That doesn't mean they "support" Trump (at least not consciously). But they're just not likely to feel any great urge to get out and vote for some 70-80-year-old white candidate to shake things up, either. Oh, the Dem candidate will win an overwhelming majority of the black vote --- but HOW MANY of them actually vote is the key.

    From 2012-2016 the number of voting age blacks increased by 1,773,000.
    From 2012-2016 the number of blacks who voted DECREASED by 765,000.

    This is why Trump won.

    The number of whites who actually voted INCREASED by 2,808,000.
    The number of blacks who actually voted DECREASED by 765,000.

    And before you scream, "The racist whites got out the vote for Trump!" a higher PERCENTAGE of whites actually voted in 2004 (67.2) and 2008 (66.1) than in 2016 (65.3).

    Voting in America: A Look at the 2016 Presidential Election
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2020
    BTExpress, Feb 18, 2020
    #163592
    Donny in his element likes this.
  9. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    That black unemployment thing is one of the biggest crocks of shit (and that is saying a lot), out of the nonsense the BLS has been reduced to.

    The overall labor force participation rate is at an all-time low. And among African-Americans, it is about 7, 8 percent lower than it is for whites. If they stop counting any more people because they inconveniently don't make for a rosy picture, they might create a narrative that unemployment is actually a negative number. It's not like those people don't exist though.

    The U.S. is at full employment, and the unemployment rate among blacks is less than 6 percent. ... IF you don't count the 35 to 40 percent of black people who don't have jobs and seem to have just given up on even trying to get one.

    I understand most people don't really look beyond the headline number that gets fed to them on unemployment, and the nonsense just gets regurgitated as ridiculous as it is on the face of it. ... but use common sense. Wages have gone nowhere. In real terms, they are way down. If the labor market was as tight as the ridiculous numbers they report suggest it is, wages would be going through the roof. According to them, we are at full employment. ... but there is a ton of slack. And people don't question absurdities like that any longer.

    The unemployment rate is only 3.6 percent. ... if you don't bother counting tens of millions of people who don't have jobs, do all kinds of random seasonal adjustments to make the number more positive and count people multiple times because they now have 2 part time jobs to replace the one better paying full-time job they had 14 years ago.

    As for African Americans. ... of course, millions of them wake up every day to the reality that their actual lives aren't matching the nonsensical fairy tale they are being told. Any more than for millions of others who are being told that the economy is spectacular, their actual reality is that they are in a lot of debt, struggling to make ends meet, and running out of money before their next paycheck arrives.

    Lets be real.
     
    The Big Ragu, Feb 18, 2020
    #163593
    Tweener and SoloFlyer like this.
  10. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    By conventional economic statistics, Ireland is doing great. Low unemployment, good growth, rising wages. But they just had an election where the two longtime dominant parties came in second and third because wages are not keeping up with housing costs and health care cost increases. Economic stats are a very blunt instrument for measuring how people are doing and more importantly, how they feel they're doing. We have a tendency to assume that when people say, "things could be worse" that means they think things are going great.
     
    Michael_ Gee, Feb 18, 2020
    #163594
  11. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    It's not even a "blunt instrument" thing when it comes to the BLS and what they do with unemployment, their CPI, PCE measures, etc. These are full-fledged dishonest instruments in what they have been turned into.

    The CPI measure drives me the battiest -- because people use it to mean "inflation." As much as the mind-boggling adustments they now do to the unemployment rate make it into a manipulated, fairy tale number, it's even more ridiculous to report CPI like it is an apples to apples thing with past numbers when you 1) are constantly changing the basket of goods you measure and doing all kinds of adjustments, and 2) you make things like health care, housing, education -- where costs have gone through the roof -- a relatively small part of the basket, even though that is where people are spending a disproportionate amount of their incomes.

    Of course, though, when entitlements are indexed to that number, and we can't afford to make good on the promises those entitlements have made, you need to resort to dishonest methods of keeping the payments down. So you juke that number to make it lower than it what it really is, and you get the added bonus of it making the equally ridiculous GDP number higher than what it actually is (and that is with the economy limping along during the recovery since 2008 at something like 1.8 to 2.0 percent per annum).
     
    The Big Ragu, Feb 18, 2020
    #163595
  12. Regan MacNeil

    Regan MacNeil Well-Known Member

    I bet Ragu can explain what quantitative easing means.
     
    Regan MacNeil, Feb 18, 2020
    #163596
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