For many millions of Americans, time seemed to move differently under President Donald Trump.
There was no breathing room — no calm in the eye of the storm. From beginning to end — from the “American carnage” inaugural on Jan. 20, 2017, to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — it felt as though the country was in constant flux, each week a decade. We lurched from dysfunction to chaos and back again, eventually crashing on the shores of the nation’s worst domestic crisis since the Great Depression.
For many, if not most, of these Americans, the choice this November is no choice at all. They escaped Polyphemus once; they don’t intend to return to his den.
There are other voters who take a very different view. To them, Trump’s term was a time of peace and prosperity. They don’t register the pandemic or the subsequent economic crisis as part and parcel of the administration. They don’t hold Trump responsible.
In fact, one of the most striking findings in a number of recent polls is the extent to which a large portion of the electorate has given Trump a pass for his last year in office. For example, in an April CBS News poll of key battleground states, roughly 62 percent of registered voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin said that when they look back at 2020, their state’s economy was good. In the moment, however, a majority of voters in those states disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy.
…
Again, Trump presided over a recession worsened by his total failure to manage the coronavirus. As Covid deaths mounted, Trump spread misinformation and left states scrambling for needed supplies. It was not until after the March stock market crash that the White House issued its plan to blunt the economic impact of the pandemic. And the most generous provisions found in the CARES Act, including a vast expansion of unemployment benefits, were negotiated into the bill by Democratic lawmakers.
None of this seems to matter to voters. “The economy” under Trump is simply the one that existed from Jan. 20, 2017, to March 13, 2020, when the White House declared the coronavirus a national public health emergency. For everything else after that date, the former president gets a pass.
No other president has gotten this kind of excused absence for mismanaging a crisis that happened on his watch. We don’t bracket the secession crisis from our assessment of James Buchanan or the Great Depression from our judgment of Herbert Hoover or the hostage crisis in Iran from our assessment of Jimmy Carter. And for good reason: The presidency was designed for crisis. It was structured with the power and autonomy needed for handling the acute challenges of national life.
There’s an old myth. Man finds a genie. Genie tells him that he gets one wish, and whatever he wishes for will be doubled for his worst enemy. The man chooses to lose an eye so his enemy will be blind. That’s the MAGoos, willing to lose half of what they have to make sure their enemies lose everything.
Why wouldn’t that man ask to lose excess body fat? He would be ripped and his enemy would be emaciated.
It’s hard to see the point of the story with only one eye.
Standing ovation.
10/10 no notes
I assume the genie’s rule is “if I help you, I help him twice as much” rather than simply “I do to him twice as much of exactly the same thing I did to you” because otherwise it’s way too easy to kill the other guy while helping yourself.
Id argue its a story of both pragmatism and intellect. Basically a dumb man will take out their own eye to blind their enemy, a pragmatic man will help himself and his enemy, and a smart man will figue out how to help himself and hurt his enemy.
EXCESS body fat? They would both be ripped and the enemy would just eat some cheeseburgers.
Man: Genie, I wish for you to fuck me half to death!
This is what you get with democracy. Whoever gets the most votes, wi… wait… Trump has never gotten the most votes…
Listen, sometimes democracy needs a little helping hand, or in this case, a giant …
Who am I kidding, we’ve learned our lesson.
Right? Right?
Vote.
see we’re a republic not a democracy - - his supporters anytime that’s pointed out
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact intensifies
If he gets back into office you’ll hear that “not a democracy” line quite a lot.
The voting system in the US is so incredibly dumb. Just because you got a few more votes in the right places you are able to win, even if you don’t have the majority of votes.
The power of location in voting is just weird.
Pretty good for maintaining the interests of the ruling class though
He succeeded for the rich and failed for the rest of us - and future generations (increased debt, doubting climate change, etc).
Precisely. He was highly successful. Just not for you, nor most voters.
“Tough times for the poor whites.”
They got to feel better about their prejudices, don’t think they cared about dragging everyone else they could down as long as they got that.
He’s not going to “fail” in his second term. If anything, we should be glad his first term failed - that due to the chaos and incompetence of his administration they failed to achieve any of the horrific shit he had discussed on the campaign trail. His only legislative win was a tax cut for the wealthy.
Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 will make sure that doesn’t happen during a second administration. They will purge the civil service and restaff with party loyalists who won’t be held up by due process or legality.
The terrifying thing is not another Trump failure. The terrifying thing is if he and the Christian nationalists backing him succeed.
His only legislative win was a tax cut? Let’s not forget the Supreme Court. The Christian nationalists already won a big prize with Roe being overturned. Some of them want to take away more civil rights with gay marriage and now even divorce, hopefully people are paying attention.
It wasn’t a win. Tax plans need to be approved by the IRS. In order to balance out the tax cuts for the wealthy that expire in 2025, he needed to have the low and middle class tax cuts expire in 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/09/trump-tax-cuts-helped-billionaires-pay-less
He didn’t fail at his agenda at all. He succeeded in repealing 112 climate regulations, appointed 234 judges (three to the Supreme Court), repealing civil rights for LGBTQ+, Black, and Muslim rights, allowed for the detainment, torture, and sexual assault of immigrant children while deporting their parents, set up alliances with Russia, North Korea, and Hungary, cut taxes disproportionately for the wealthy which widened the already exploitative wealth inequality, and much more.
That was his first time holding any office, and it happened during a pandemic. How much damage do you think he will cause if he gets another chance?
It’s pretty simple. He failed to help out average people, but people mistake current actions with current administration. Some bills and other items don’t take effect for years to come (including the bills trump put in which were now seeing tank things for the middle class again)
People, so long as they are not educated and kept busy, will not ever look past surface level findings, and the era we are in, is very much so complicated and well below surface level. That’s the reality.
If you seriously can get behind a tyrant who’s literally said he’d jail opponents, media, etc. then that’s symptomatic of the class/culture in your area. That purely anti American and if you can’t see that you are beyond talking to.
We cannot afford to have trump back in office again. Vote. Fight for others rights to vote. Do whatever you can, when you can, how you can. Every little bit matters and unity against the nation of kings is vital if we’re serious about real change for ALL.
Time to remove these leaches and treat the infection.
People, so long as they are not educated
Here’s the crux of it. Most Americans are just simply fucking stupid.
Where are you from?
‘Murica
Another reason why the Electoral College needs to disappear.
Jamelle Bouie, basically the only good opinion writer at the NYT in a sea of festering shit materially contributing to the problems in our society.
My retort to the headline was going to be “yeah, media, are you?” but this piece doesn’t deserve it.
Practically any other writer in their opinion section would have paired this title with something like “wokeness on campus is the reason a 59 year old suburban business owner wearing a MAGA hat told me he isn’t voting for Joe Biden” or “we should all put aside the rancor and rally behind our new president, whoever it is, so they can make America great again”. He is very much the exception to the NYT Opinion rule.
Removed by mod
Every damn day during the Trump presidency would be about some stupid sh*t that Donald said or did. You literally couldn’t keep up with it.
Between Trump getting back in office to the nut jobs drinking raw milk to purposely catch the bird flu, I say if he winss and it mutates then we are fucked.
If he gets in again, I’m going to just completely ignore the news.
He will continue being a threat as long as he’s alive.
From the newspaper that’s been championing the #BidenSoOld stuff!
…yes, I realize it’s an op-ed piece, but still. How much ink/screen space has NYT spent on #BidenSoOld to prop up the horse-race bullshit? I’m thinking all the very rich owners of these outlets are thinking all their wealth will shield them from the very worst outcomes of another Ronald McDonald presidency. Apparently, they have learned little from the past.
It sure seems that way. Our country is full of idiots.
It doesn’t help that the rich have been systematically dismantling our education system since the civil rights era.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
In fact, one of the most striking findings in a number of recent polls is the extent to which a large portion of the electorate has given Trump a pass for his last year in office.
And the most generous provisions found in the CARES Act, including a vast expansion of unemployment benefits, were negotiated into the bill by Democratic lawmakers.
“The economy” under Trump is simply the one that existed from Jan. 20, 2017, to March 13, 2020, when the White House declared the coronavirus a national public health emergency.
“Those politicians and statesmen who have been the most celebrated for the soundness of their principles and for the justice of their views have declared in favor of a single executive and a numerous legislature,” Hamilton wrote.
We have made it a point to judge presidents on the basis of their ability to handle a crisis, whether war or internal rebellion or economic collapse.
With the notable exception of Operation Warp Speed — which he now disavows as he caters to anti-vaccine sentiment among Republican voters — Trump failed to handle his crisis, and the nation paid a steep price in lives as a result.
The original article contains 1,060 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The Democrat Party insists on it.
I hope not, but I’m prepared to continue not voting for him for the rest of his life.
