Yep, that argument is bullshit. Didn’t hear a peep from Republicans about Federal government over reach when they rewrote the entire tax code in 2017.
faint I do not understand the both sides are equal logic due to the Democrat not cleaning up Republican trash quickly enough.
Na, don't get me wrong I do not think they're equal. If anything, my stance is that Republicans actively try to move as backwards as a society while the majority of Democrats are perfectly content with where we are. I have no reason to believe Manchin and Sinema are specifically unique in their blow to actual reform. Democrats are always going to be willing to cave to Republicans because they want and need a Republican party. The opposite cannot be said.
I think the corporate money argument on the Democrats is way overblown. The Democratic representatives in Congress are virtually unanimous in most issues. The problem with this Congress is math (and the damned filibuster).
I may be incorrect, but I think the main reason Republicans would come back to power is because we are in pretty bad times right now. COVID has been screwing everything up for the last 2 years. I believe the stimulus checks led to a massive spike in inflation, there are shortages due to various supply chain issues, new COVID variants are still popping up, travel restrictions are being reapplied, etc. I don't think any of this is the democrats (or republicans) fault, but the democrats were in charge during these times so they likely would get more of the blame for the current state of everything.
You are correct. The electorate as a whole (minus the extreme partisans) doesn’t really care whose “fault” it is… the party in power gets the blame. The Presidents party also suffers a midterm “penalty” because voters of the out-party are more likely to vote (against him).
Coming from a conservative perspective, one could say the exact same about the Democrats in 2020. Biden came in, crowed that he would end COVID, half-heartedly talked about extremism for a few months, botched Aghanistan, fought and failed to pass Build Back Better, and now we're seeing supply chain shortages and high inflation. The single achievement of the Biden presidency is the bi partisan infrastructure bill.
I appreciate the thoughtful response. However, I think the conservative perspective is to simply ignore the achievements of any Democrats because "achievement" has a positive connotation. Perhaps a way to diffuse partisanship is to call them facts. In his first year, Biden and the Democratic Congress has done the following:
Let's make the distinction clear: Republican elites do have a governing agenda. However, the public will not be made aware of this governing agenda.
There's a huge difference between your claim that the Republicans will refuse to govern and the fact that they likely won't put out a platform. The former is just straight hyperbole, and makes the GOP sound straight up malicious. The latter - well, maybe it's a bad thing. It could conceivably lead to less effectiveness governance by the GOP come 2022. But I don't think the average citizen is or should be worried that the GOP doesn't want to put forward a platform.
It didn't?
There's a simple reason why Conservatives don't put up a platform. There's a simple reason why Conservatives never want to talk about economic issues or concrete policies, but only about inflammatory, partisan, highly charged social issues-- it's because they know their policies are indefensible.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought they (meaning the Conservatives in the senate) did talk about the economic issues caused by the COVID lockdowns, as well as various other issues like high gas prices, high inflation, micro-chip shortages, etc. IIRC Trump managed to pressure TSMC to build semiconductor factories in the US.
The standard of the GOP and aligned parties abroad has been to frame inflation as a unique phenomenon to their country. I can't recall any of them saying anything about Saudi petrol cuts.
Correct, the sky didn't fall. Instead, you experienced a 9/11 every week, a collapse of American power in the Middle East, one of the most devastating infrastructure attacks in your nation's history, a shift towards selling foreign policy to the highest bidder, a complete break in trust between the United States and its allies, an attack on the Capitol that sought to overthrow the Constitution, and now a third of the country wants to overthrow the government and instate a Chinese-style one party dictatorship.
Talking about what the other party did or didn’t do is not a policy platform. It amounts to - “Democrats are bad.” The rebuttal is “what Republican legislation will be passed to fix those perceived problems?” We get plenty of bitching but no policy. The economic policy under Donald Trump was “jobs! I got the best jobs! Believe me!” which amounted to more tax cuts for rich.
Eh, fair enough. Wasn't aware that the inflation wasn't that bad relative to what it was before, considering I have seen both right and very left-leaning (I believe they are socialist / communist) youtubers say otherwise. Guess this is why its important to always fact-check for yourself.
Inflation was always being overblown for certain factions' political gain. The reality is that inflation is being spurred by sharp increases in increase aggregate demand after the market crash, and by retaliatory Saudi production cuts responding to Biden's condemnation of MBS. But you won't see or hear Republicans complain about MBS.
This statement confuses the hell out of me.
You are literally, completely wrong. This is the full annualized table of inflation. Modest inflation is not only healthy, but vital for an economy.This statement confuses the hell out of me.
We've literally never seen 4%+ inflation,
Let me rephrase, since 1980 back when we used very different metrics to determine inflation. Ever since then, we haven't seen the 6%+ for inflation, not to mention that what you're showing is very misleading to say the least.
Inflation in 2021 was 6.8%. “Normal” inflation is 2-5%. Modest inflation is mandatory in a healthy economy. My broader point was clear; inflation of 6.8% is slightly above normal. That is a completely different picture than what is being portrayed in the media.
Anecdotal evidence is not credible evidence.
