US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1636

On July 05 2019 17:43 Danglars wrote:

Having just scoffed at even asking if the speech was good, I think you particularly need a little distance from who said it to look at it objectively. That tone or theme is established very soon after introducing the guests in attendance. Why would someone who can't believe the speech's quality is even a real question be believed to really engage with the speech itself?

On July 05 2019 18:17 ShambhalaWar wrote:


I scoffed at it because the man is known to frequently lie, attack, and insult others at every one of his speeches I've heard or heard reported. I've also never heard him say anything inspiring, the man's reputation is abysmal.

I was asking for your perspective, because I'm genuinely interested in how you feel inspired.

I'm not interested in (nor do I think it would be possible for) you changing my mind or opinion about the man himself. But I am curious about your perspective if you would share it?

On July 05 2019 18:17 ShambhalaWar wrote:


I scoffed at it because the man is known to frequently lie, attack, and insult others at every one of his speeches I've heard or heard reported. I've also never heard him say anything inspiring, the man's reputation is abysmal.

I was asking for your perspective, because I'm genuinely interested in how you feel inspired.

I'm not interested in (nor do I think it would be possible for) you changing my mind or opinion about the man himself. But I am curious about your perspective if you would share it?

As we gather this evening in the joy of freedom, we remember that all share a truly extraordinary heritage.

Together, we are part of one of the greatest stories ever told, the story of America. It is the epic tale of a great nation, whose people have risked everything for what they know is right and what they know is true.

It is the chronicle of brave citizens who never give up on the dream of a better and brighter future. And it is the saga of 13 separate colonies that united to form the most just and virtuous republic ever conceived.

On this day 243 years ago, our founding fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to declare independence and defend our God-given rights.

On July 05 2019 19:19 Danglars wrote:

I'll bite a little, out of curiosity

That's some goddamn uplifting shit. Like, definitionally. As in, if you read or heard the whole speech delivered by Biden, half of this thread would say it's great to finally have a president who acts Presidential. I just think the human condition means that for all Trump's other bullshit, nobody actually cares if he does one or two things right in the speechcraft.

It's like all the hate can make you look at a slogan like Make America Great Again and not even recognize the aspirational qualities present in it, and need somebody to explain what exactly is appealing about that. I highly recommend watching the speech if you want further engagement on the topic; I'm not here to be anybody's intellectual slave.

On July 05 2019 10:58 Ben... wrote:
This was something I figured he or his handlers would have figured out long ago when he did that scripted SOTU address that CNN claimed showed he was "presidential". Though this would require him to control his impulses enough to stick to the script, and he seems incapable of doing so most of the time.

If you think about it, a massive number of issues this administration has had have been caused by him blabbing about something rather than sticking to talking points. The appointment of the special counsel was caused by him saying in an interview that he fired Comey because of "the Russia thing".

On July 05 2019 19:37 GreenHorizons wrote:


Clinton used it, Beinart, and even David Corn used MAGA as a positive slogan. You're right that neoliberals/Democrats eat that nonsense up too. You're wrong to see at as much more than propaganda though imo.

On July 05 2019 20:03 Dan HH wrote:
Plain vanilla exceptionalist cliches, it boggles the mind that anyone at all is still enthusiastic about such tripe. And yes it's just as vomit inducing when the other party does it.

On July 05 2019 20:24 Danglars wrote:


Same with Trump's recent speech. I get the feeling people that don't want to do some work listening to it are wanting their ideological biases confirmed by someone who did the work. You can definitely think a politician is lying through their teeth, and not check your brain at the door when asked about what kind of speech they gave. I thought that basically every time Obama opened his mouth. I at least don't need to ask some Obama dem what they found uplifting. He was hope and change. Trump, and mainly his speechwriters, just did a good job. I get the feeling that everybody's missing their two minutes of hate. They were poised to ridicule how Trump made the speech all about him, or about trashing the Dems, or trashing America's foreign enemies, and I should wait to let the disappointment sink in. In a couple tweets, he can all go back to his usual, awful form and we can maybe give credit where credit is due.

On July 05 2019 20:29 Acrofales wrote:

Or maybe we just don't care about grandiose speeches backed up with military might that glorify america, while the "border crisis" is continuing unabated?

On July 05 2019 20:29 Acrofales wrote:

Or maybe we just don't care about grandiose speeches backed up with military might that glorify america, while the "border crisis" is continuing unabated?

On July 05 2019 21:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I think liking or disliking a speech is subjective, and even potentially calling a speech good or bad can be subjective, because different people might choose to focus on different elements (words, tone, uniqueness, how the speech compares to the speaker's actions and reputation, etc.). For example, obviously a speech celebrating Independence Day should speak about freedom, but there's a deep irony that the leader of the "free" world is hosting concentration camps. Your excerpt also mentions that Trump is preaching the defense of rights, which is contrary to many of the things that Trump proposes and practices.

For me, I didn't find the speech particularly uplifting or inspiring for 3 reasons:
1. I generally don't find his tone very convincing (one can certainly deliver a great set of words very poorly);
2. I find it difficult to take what he says seriously when his actions betrays his speechwriters' words;
3. Part of his speech gave a shout-out to taking over airports during the Revolutionary War... an anachronism that wouldn't be occurring for over a hundred years later. I don't know if he was improvising there or if a speechwriter was just screwing with him, but air travel didn't occur until the 1900s, not the 1700s.

On July 05 2019 22:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Fair enough. When you said the speech was uplifting "definitionally", I (mis-?)interpreted that to mean that it was objectively uplifting. You also criticized that people would have a different reaction to the speech if it were said by a different speaker, but I think a different reaction is a totally reasonable thing to occur; I think a lot of the gravitas and effect of a speech is based around who's delivering it, rather than just what the words are.

On July 05 2019 22:34 Gahlo wrote:

They're hardly minor when they undercut the entire spirit the speech is supposed to have. It's a total "We are what we say, not what we do" fantasy dripping in platitudes to an excess. It is a false, hollow veneer painted over a horrid state.

Judging from last week’s debate, Democrats running for President see America as a Dickensian nightmare of inequality. It’s the best of times for millionaires and billionaires, and the worst of times for everybody else. Time to wake up from the Barack Obama economy, folks, and admit how many more Americans are prospering from the faster economic growth and tighter labor market after the policy changes of 2017.

“Who is this economy really working for? It’s doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared at the debate. “When you’ve got a government, when you’ve got an economy that does great for those with money and isn’t doing great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple.”

Sen. Cory Booker, who hails from high-tax New Jersey, moaned that “I live in a low-income black and brown community. I see every single day that this economy is not working for average Americans.” California Sen. Kamala Harris added: “You ask [the President], how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? And they point to the jobless numbers.”

So job numbers and other economic evidence are fake news? Hardly. The reality is that wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade for lower-skilled workers, and unemployment among less-educated Americans and minorities is near a record low. Democrats want Americans to believe the fictions they spin rather than what they see with their own eyes.

The press this week has noted that the economic expansion reached its 10th anniversary, the longest on record. But the accounts ignore that the last two years have been far different than the first eight in economic policies and results. We’re long enough into the Trump era to track the differences.

Start with Mr. Booker’s claim that minorities are being left behind. Really? The jobless rate for blacks is 6.2%, which is only 2.9 percentage-points higher than for whites versus a 4.6 percentage-point difference before the start of the 2008 recession. Unemployment has fallen twice as much among blacks as whites since December 2016.

Nearly one million more blacks and two million more Hispanics are employed than when Barack Obama left office, and minorities account for more than half of all new jobs created during the Trump Presidency. Unemployment among black women has hovered near 5% for the last six months, the lowest since 1972, and a mere 3.5% of high school graduates are unemployed.

But what about Senator Harris’s assertion that folks are stringing together jobs to make ends meet? About 5% of Americans hold more than one job, and this rate has held relatively constant since 2010. Yet there are now 1.3 million fewer Americans working part-time for economic reasons than at the end of the Obama Presidency.

A tighter job market is also pushing up wages for the average Cory or Kamala. Average hourly earnings for production-level manufacturing workers have grown at an annual rate of 2.8% during the Trump Presidency compared to 1.9% during Barack Obama’s second term. Production-level manufacturing wages have accelerated even faster in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana. (See the nearby chart.)

While parts of Appalachia continue to struggle from a decline in coal mining, shale-gas drilling has created thousands of jobs including downstream in pipeline construction and petrochemicals—all of which Democrats want to kill. Private worker wage growth in West Virginia has averaged 5.1% annually during the Trump Presidency versus 1.2% in the second Obama term.

Mining and manufacturing have especially benefited from the Trump Administration’s deregulation, but wages have been growing faster for production-line workers across industries. (See the nearby chart.) Productivity growth spurred by capital investment and tax reform increased markedly last year, which should lift wages over time even if job growth weakens.

Democrats are trying to woo folks in swing states who have been harmed by President Trump’s trade brawls. But per capita incomes have grown at significantly faster rates under President Trump than they did under Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin and even Iowa despite retaliatory tariffs on American exports.

The disparity between middle America and coastal bastions of affluence has also shrunk. Incomes in Maryland, Massachusetts and Hawaii grew faster than the national average during the second Obama term but have since tracked lower. While New York state has become wealthier, its finance income over the last two years has declined.

And here is the great paradox of the Barack Obama economy. The Federal Reserve’s bond purchases and near-zero interest rates for eight years drove up asset values and let corporations borrow cheaply while the Administration’s punishing regulations bred business uncertainty that depressed investment in human and physical capital. Those with financial assets prospered more than middle-class wage earners. The Obama Democrats talked constantly about inequality rather than growth, and the result was less growth and more inequality.

The Trump Administration has for the most part focused on growth. Its policy mix of deregulation and tax reform has unleashed more private investment and job creation that has lifted productivity and wages for the non-affluent. The result has been faster growth and less inequality. Corporate profits have grown four times as much during President Trump’s first two years than during Mr. Obama’s second term. Yet investor dividend payments increased more during the Obama Presidency as businesses pulled back on investing in equipment, buildings and workers.

There are no guarantees this growth will continue, and bad trade and monetary policy could derail it. But the Democrats now running for President want to return to the Obama policy mix of high taxes, willy-nilly regulation and income redistribution, and more of it. To win the economic argument they have to deny the reality that Donald Trump’s policies are helping the Americans that Democratic policies left behind.