Category: Political
Post Election Ruminations – Take Two
The American people have spoken. Even though our economy is roaring right now, the average working American is suffering economically. When you look at the last 50 years, wages have gone up gently to keep up with inflation, so that most luxury goods are within reach of the working class. We have more TVs and other consumer electronics now than we had 50 years ago, and they are cheaper. We can afford gadgets and toys, like smartphones, bikes, refrigerators, household stuff, even cars, all the things we surround ourselves with. Those items are affordable and generally within reach, more than they were 50 years back.
But some things have gone up tremendously. Those are:
- Housing
- College Education
- Child Care
- Health Care
- Food
When the Republicans asked us about whether we were better off than we were four years ago, that’s what they were talking about. Going out to restaurants is now much more expensive, especially after Covid. And it won’t go back down. Child care costs have risen enormously. They were high before Covid, and with many providers shutting down, it’s become much worse in just the last few years. And I don’t need to elaborate on housing, college costs and health care! We all know.
These trends didn’t start with Biden. They started with Carter. This has been going on. Covid and its aftermath has just broken the camel’s back, and Trump is riding on the benefit.
I don’t believe for one minute that anything Trump is planning to do in the next four years is going to fix the cost of these five categories. The policies they are talking about are not going to lower the cost of any of these items. On the contrary. I expect food (they call it bacon and eggs) will continue to go up, brought about by the deportation of agricultural workers and tariffs.
Tax cuts are not going to help, either. Below is a list of the major tax cuts of the last 50 years, titles in red are by Republicans, blue by Democrats.
1. Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981
- Date: August 13, 1981
- Overview: This act was signed by President Ronald Reagan and included substantial tax cuts, particularly for individuals. It aimed to stimulate economic growth through reduced marginal tax rates and increased depreciation allowances.
2. Tax Reform Act of 1986
- Date: October 22, 1986
- Overview: Also signed by Reagan, this act simplified the tax code by reducing the number of tax brackets and lowering the top marginal tax rate from 50% to 28%. It also eliminated many tax shelters and deductions.
3. Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
- Date: August 5, 1997
- Overview: Under President Bill Clinton, this act included reductions in capital gains taxes, expanded the child tax credit, and offered tax relief for education and home sales.
4. Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA)
- Date: June 7, 2001
- Overview: Signed by President George W. Bush, this act provided significant tax cuts, including reductions in income tax rates and the elimination of the estate tax over time.
5. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
- Date: May 28, 2003
- Overview: This act accelerated tax cuts from EGTRRA and included reductions in capital gains and dividends taxes, aimed at boosting the economy during a recession.
6. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
- Date: December 22, 2017
- Overview: Signed by President Donald Trump, this act significantly lowered corporate tax rates, reduced individual tax rates, and increased the standard deduction while eliminating personal exemptions.
We have had some major tax cuts, the most recent by Trump in 2017. Now looking back, it’s obvious that none of these tax cuts have solved the problem that has kept the American working class under the boot. Trump is going to enact another tax cut, which will cost another four trillion dollars, which will be added to the national debt. And four years from now, we will look back again, and housing will be more expensive than it is now, college education will not have become more affordable and students will continue to run up debts, health care will be catastrophic (I am not even seeing any “concepts of plans” to make that better), it will still be difficult for many families to find affordable child care, and a trip to McDonalds will be over 20 bucks.
Tax cuts are not going to solve our fundamental problems, deportation of farm workers will make food more expensive, and knee-jerk tariffs will make many of those consumer goods that are still within reach less affordable.
The American people have spoken. Trump is getting “out of jail free” and four years from now, if all goes well, we’ll be right where we are now.
Post Election Ruminations
Biden received 81 million votes in 2020. Harris only 68 in 2024. She was 13 million votes short of Biden.
Trump received about 74 million votes in 2020 and 73 million (so far) in 2024.
This means that Trump kept his votes and his base. The Republicans did what they did in the last election, just a bit short of those numbers.
Harris was a whopping 13 million votes short, which is a 16% drop.
Trump didn’t win this election, the Democrats lost it because they didn’t care enough to bother to go out and vote.
For some reason Democrats didn’t vote for Harris. Did they not vote because they didn’t like her stance on Palestine? Or that she was a woman? Was that enough of a reason to put a convicted felon with a long list of offensive behaviors in office? We will all feel the effects of this decision for years, possibly decades to come. Long after I am gone, my grandchildren will be affected by the results of yesterday’s election.
Again, Trump did not win this election, but the 13 million Democrats who didn’t bother to show up lost it for all of us. I can’t reconcile this. It was not necessary. It made no sense. It should not have happened.
But it did.
And – read my lips – we will all be paying for it.
Grift in the Open
A few days ago I received this text message:
I am not aware of having done anything for the Trump family, but obviously, they think so.
It is beyond my comprehension that they can get away with this. Here is a family that is making themselves out to be billionaires, but then they ask strangers to “dig deep one more time.” And unfortunately, many will do just that.
This is almost like Europe in the early 1800s, when Bonaparte brothers and relatives all of a sudden started becoming kings and marrying into foreign royal families. One ruthless guy had figured out to bleed a country dry, and then he usurped the right for his family to do it all over Europe.
This is going on in the United States of America in 2024. One family thinks it has the right and authority to enrich itself at the cost of our institutions, our country’s future, our health and our world reputation.
I am not digging deep.
Movie Review: Hillbilly Elegy (2020) – Take Two
After reading J.D. Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy last month (review here) I decided to watch the Ron Howard movie of the same name. When I did, I realized right away that I had seen the movie before. After watching it again, I checked my records, and sure enough, I had already reviewed the movie on December 29, 2020. I had given it 4 stars, and I stand by that review now.
It turns out, the movie was made in 2020, long before Vance became a senator, but after 2018, when he first thought of running against Sherrod Brown but eventually decided not to. He started his senate career with funding from Protect Ohio Values, a Peter Thiel super PAC, in 2021.
Just like after reading and reviewing Vance’s book, upon watching the movie again, I am seriously puzzled. Vance pulled himself out of a severely disadvantaged childhood and youth, eventually became a senator and then vice-presidential candidate. That is frankly astonishing when you witness his struggles in early life and his youth. His resulting set of values and outlook on life could not be more opposed to those of Trump. The two just don’t reconcile. This explains that Vance had to retract and change his statements about Trump in years past. The only explanation I have is that he purposefully is using Trump to gain access to the highest levels of the United States government. He is only 40 years old and obviously has a career ahead of himself, no matter what eventually happens to Trump.
This is a movie review, not a statement about a political candidate, but somehow I can’t separate Vance, the public figure, and his book and the movie about the book. The two come as a package.
For a movie review – I recommend you watch Hillbilly Elegy, then read the book, and then come back here and tell me what you think is going on with J.D. Vance and the weird persona he is projecting in this campaign.
Book Review: Hillbilly Elegy – by J.D. Vance
Published in June 2016, when Vance was just 32 years old and about three years after he graduated from Yale Law School, Hillbilly Elegy is a remarkably good book and a must read, no matter what your political bent may be. There is also a Netflix movie that I have reviewed here.
Vance wrote the book long before he had political ambitions. It is a passionate and highly descriptive narrative of his own personal life and upbringing. He is only one year older than my daughter, so I could relate to the chronology of when and how Vance grew up and what shaped him.
The odds against such a child just simply surviving the desperate fight out of drugs, poverty and despair, let alone being successful, and achieving a stellar political career, are astronomical. In the end, I took away that the United States Marines saved the boy, made him a man, and served as his springboard. Vance tells not only his and his family’s personal story, but he shows us what social and class decline feels like in huge swaths of this nation. It helps us understand the decline of the rust belt, and the impact of manufacturing leaving our country for she shores of Asia.
It is therefore no surprise to see how some of Vance’s political views were shaped. I have a hard time understanding where some of the controversies come from that he has created since he associated himself with Trump. After reading his book, the Trump-Vance alliance seems unlikely and I can’t quite figure out how it happened. It almost does not make any sense. Perhaps it’s just the next logical step for him to ascend the ladder. While he obviously disagrees with some of Obama’s policies, views and strategies, he admired Obama and modeled some of his own life to Obama’s rise. That, I speculate, might have driven him to Trump as a stepping stone to the national stage. After the Trump era is over and Trump is gone, Vance will still be a young man and now we all know him, don’t we?
There is also nothing about any couch in this book, and nothing objectionable that might push you away from Vance as a character. On the contrary, you want to meet him and chat with him at a backyard BBQ.
I am not going to vote for Trump-Vance, but I am telling you that Hillbilly Elegy is a remarkable book. If you are at all interested in understanding the decline of America’s white middleclass, you need to read it.
Don’t Forget to Vote
I just spent a day impromptu with Canadian friends at their lake house about a hundred kilometers in the mountains north of Montreal. Over dinner, they asked me what I thought of U.S. politics. They thought we Americans were all going crazy. “What the heck is going on down there?”
Clearly, my Canadian friends were deeply worried – and powerless to do anything about it. As we got back in the car, after having said goodbye, they were standing in their driveway as we drove away, and I saw him mouthing something. I stopped, rolled down the window, and he said: “Don’t forget to vote.”
That night I watched Trump give his acceptance speech at the RNC. I was dumbfounded about how bad it was. He has one asset over Biden, and that is that he can speak, for the most part, without stuttering or stumbling. His speaking ability is that of a 5th-grader, but at least it’s comprehensible. But there it stops.
Trump’s thinking is confused and jumbled. He can’t keep track of a single coherent thought. He can’t even read a 20-minute prepared speech from a teleprompter. He has to go off script, and then ramble asinine delusions, lies and misrepresentations in endless word salads. I can’t believe that so many people are okay with that being “their guy.” I had to force myself to listen until the end hoping there would be some conclusion. There was no conclusion, no message, no passion. It was just a doddering old man rambling on and on and on. I would not leave a toddler in his charge for ten minutes – I’d be worried. But we’re okay with giving him the nuclear codes?
And then there is Biden. It’s excruciatingly obvious: He’s senile. After watching his horrible debate performance, topped off a few days later with the Stephanopoulus interview, and then a few days later the Holt interview, Biden is not fit for the job either. Biden is a good man, well intentioned, who dedicated his life to politics. But he is senile now.
I am a hiker. I can still climb mountains and I feel very fortunate about that. But one day, my knees will no longer be good enough, and I’ll have to stop that activity and replace it with something that is not so hard on the knees. When that time comes, I’ll have to stop climbing mountains.
That’s what happened to Biden, but it’s not the knees, it’s the brain. And it’s sad that it’s happening in front of the whole world to see. It’s sad and perhaps humiliating. But it’s very obvious. Biden isn’t going to make it through another debate with Trump. He is not making it through any town hall rally convincingly. Our young people aren’t going to be excited to vote for him. To them he is a doddering old man. I am an old man, and to me he is a doddering old man. Biden is also not going make a fiery convention acceptance speech.
We are left with one malignant senile narcissist, and another well-meaning incompetent who has no chance of winning the election.
To my Canadian friends who urged me to not forget to vote:
I need somebody that I can vote for!
Am I Better Off Than 4 Years Ago
Today I checked my stock ticker:
The Dow Jones is at 40,000.
At the end of Trump’s term, the Dow was at 30,930.52. Trump’s legacy for investors was his aggressive corporate tax cuts and his hands-off approach to regulation. Corporate profits did well.
Trump famously predicted that the stock market would crash if Biden won the election. That hasn’t happened. The economy has performed fine under Biden, given where it was when he started, in the doldrums of the pandemic.
Yep, I am better off.
Trump Saluting General of North Korea in June 2018
Here is President Trump on June 5, 2018, saluting to North Korean four-star general No Kwang Chol.
Look at Jim Jong Un in the background. Even he looks like he can’t believe his eyes. This shows you how ignorant Trump is with respect to foreign policy and the role of the United States in the world. Trump should never have gone to North Korea, let alone salute its generals. This was an abomination and an embarrassment to our country.
It also shows where Trump’s respect lies.
In the spirit of fairness: remember when Obama bowed to Japanese emperor Akihito in 2009? The whole country went apeshit. Here is a post I wrote then.
I stand by the comments I made then.
I would so like to be able to vote for a leader in our country that I have some respect for.
The Devolution of Presidential Debates
I received the above text from Trump this morning.
I have watched all presidential debates since the Jimmy Carter years. Last night’s debate was the very worst one I have ever seen.
I am proud of my country, but after last night’s performance I am embarrassed for our country, not because “they don’t have any respect for us” as Trump spouted last night, but because out of 330 million people in the United States, THIS IS THE BEST we can come up with for two people for president? It is an abomination.
Trump was Trump. He does rallies all the time, where he spouts nonsense, gibberish, incoherent word salad, with no real objective other than hear himself talk. Last night’s debate was another Trump rally, this time with a gigantic, world-wide audience. Yes, thanks CNN for giving him this opportunity. Trump didn’t gain any voters last night. He didn’t answer any questions. He lied and misrepresented reality all night long. He insulted large swaths of people, me, an immigrant, included. Biden should have made short work of Trump last night.
Biden wasn’t Biden. This was arguably Biden’s most important 90 minutes of his career. Trump is a conman and an impostor. He has no agenda, other than enrich and glorify himself. That was obvious. Biden’s job was to show that. It should have been easy. But he could not handle it. I was dismayed within the first two minutes. I was afraid he might start to cry. He as a feeble, senile man desperately trying to hold his own. But he was obviously not up to the job. He came apart in front of the nation. Where was the Biden of the last state of the union address?
Out of 330 million people, these are our choices. Biden gets an F- from me for his performance last night. I myself could have done better. I could have walked up on that stage in my Birkenstocks, jeans and T-shirt and took care of Trump. All I needed to do is ten “table-topics.” For those of you who do not know the Toastmasters International program: A “table-topic” is a two-minute speech you give extemporaneously, without any preparation, without notes, and without knowing what the topic is going to be. Last night was basically ten table-topics, and I would have done just fine.
I would have answered every question the moderators asked. Even though I am not a politician, I know enough about the immigration crisis, the border, the pandemic, economics, taxes, and inflation that I could have given coherent answers in full sentences, with an introduction, a body and a conclusion, using up my 120 seconds. In the rebuttals I would have simply pointed out Trump’s hyperbolic distractions or outright lies and corrected the facts. Maybe I would not have scored A+, but I am sure I could have been in the B range. I am sure that there are another 10 million other Americans who could have done just as well as I would have.
President Biden is not up to the job anymore. In the most important 90 minutes of his career he could not perform. I do not trust him to handle Xi or Putin. I do not trust him in another debate with Trump. His senility is obvious. The emperor has no clothes.
Obama would have made mincemeat out of Trump. Pete Buttigieg would have eaten Trump alive. Go and watch some Buttigieg YouTube videos and observe how sharp and quick that man is. Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris would have been orders of magnitudes more effective than Biden.
Instead, we got to watch in horror how Trump wiped the floor with Joe Biden last night.
What do we do now?
Alexei Navalny’s Death and the Credibility of the World’s Press
We all shook today when we found out that Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison. The news reverberated throughout the world and in Russia itself. All I know about Navalny I have learned through his portrayal in the western media. This includes statements about Navalny’s character by Ambassador Michael McFaul, who knew Navalny personally and considered him a friend.
Digging deeper, particularly in circles of Russians, Navalny does not appear to be the knight in shining armor that we all think we know. Apparently, many Russians do not support Navalny and even consider him to be further on the right than Putin.
Here is an interesting article in the Workers World, which gives an entirely different viewpoint of Navalny, his history, and his status.
Alexei Navalny: Why is Biden supporting a Russian fascist? – Workers World
I might warn you, if you have never read anything in Workers World: It is the official newspaper of the Workers World Party (WWP), a communist party in the United States. So you might take its content with a grain of salt. Even in this article they denounce capitalism as a systemic tool of abuse of workers.
I have to state and admit that I do not have more information than what I read in the western media and what sources like Workers World downplay as western liberal propaganda.
If you are interested in learning more about Russia, its propaganda machine, its disinformation engine and its brutal oppression of political opponents, pick up the book Red Notice by Bill Browder.
This experience highlights to me how little we actually know about what is really going on in the world. It does not surprise me when I hear that 70 million people, many of whom consume only information propagated by Fox News, plan on voting for candidate Trump in the next election. They can’t help it. It’s all they know.
Just like I can’t help it. I am not sure I know what Navalny really stood for in Russia, and how much of what I read in opposing articles like the one I linked to above is reality, or just another flavor of Russian propaganda.
This shows how hugely important it is to have a free press and have a choice so we can choose as unbiased a source as we can.
Pirro’s Ludicrous Warning to Taylor Swift
Mainstream personalities such as Fox News host Jeanine Pirro recently warned Swift not to “get involved in politics.”
Who is Pirro to tell any celebrity not to get involved in politics? Apparently the Right is worried. Not like there isn’t any precedent:
- Ronald Reagan
- Jesse Ventura
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Mehmet Oz
- Donald Trump
With the exception of Oz, all actually won office, and all except Ventura were Republicans. Ventura was with the Reform Party.
So it apparently works when celebrities run for office. Maybe Swift should run for president.
Oh, no, she is not qualified because she is not old enough, per the constitution. She is only 34 now. However, she would be 35 by inauguration time. Close enough for me.
There is another candidate running who is not qualified, that one for instigating an insurrection in the past. It does not seem to stop him.
Whether any of these people know how to govern does not seem to be a question anyone is asking. You just have to be popular, rich, willing to spend lots of money and time, and win elections.
So Pirro, in my opinion, is way out of line telling a celebrity not to get involved in politics. If I were Swift I’d get involved out of spite.
Anthony Sabatini and My Right to Choose
I just saw this post by Anthony Sabatini, a 35-year-old member of the Florida House of Representatives:
I have no problem with his statement that the state (or any government) should have power to force vaccines upon citizens. Government should leave people and their bodies alone, and let people make their own decisions about what they put into their bodies, or what they do with their bodies.
I might add that I have voluntarily taken five separate Covid vaccines, upon consultation with my physicians, and I am glad I did. But it was a decision I made, not my government.
Having said that I support Mr. Sabatini’s right to an individual choice, I would like to know what he thinks about a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions with regard to reproductive processes?
Or does that right stop when the citizen is a woman? Or when the citizen is a pregnant woman?
Should people have the power to make decisions about their own bodies or should they not? We can’t have it both ways.