Joe Biden: polls of approval and favorability

[Classic-Xer]

(09-24-2021, 01:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Quote:Minnesota star tribune poll of Minnesota

approve 47
Disapprove 51

https://t.co/zTA3686bXD?amp=1

Surprise! The first poll of Minnesota.

There will be more of this state.




Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

white: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


All in all, this is close to the low point for President Biden in statewide polling.

It's not going to get any better or any easier for Gumby and the fascist leaning Democrats and Republicans from here on. It's only going to get worse and more dangerous for them and for you and the other partisan clowns too.

[pbrower2a]

(09-24-2021, 10:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: It's not going to get any better or any easier for Gumby and the fascist leaning Democrats and Republicans from here on. It's only going to get worse and more dangerous for them and for you and the other partisan  clowns too.

As a pattern I generally do not predict day-to-day movements in polling numbers except as results of obvious events. We have yet to see the criminal trials of participants in the Michigan plot (those trials begin next month, thank you) and the worst offenders in the Capitol Putsch. Legal realities strike hard and fast -- and legal processes are of course capricious. So is public opinion.

Polling usually reflects public opinion and especially its focus at the time. When I think of 'fascist' Democrats I think of the segregationist pols and terrorists (KKK) of the past. When I think of 'fascist' Republicans -- the first person to come to my mind is Donald Judas Iscariot Trump. Americans can forget Afghanistan fast, much as it did not fall for stab-in-the-back rhetoric about the fall of our client state in Vietnam.

You are wise enough to recognize fascism as a snarl word in the same sense as madness, rape, and murder. I question whether you know what fascism really means. I prefer to be precise in the use of language unless I am trying to be cute as in metaphor, hyperbole,  simile, or Freudian slip. "The burglar broke into the house and met the German leopard.. excuse me, German shepherd"... or referring to the late Rush Limbaugh as "Rash Libel".

Your talent for predicting the future makes the astrology column of the National Enquirer look far more reliable.

Yes, it is true: this map suggests that just about any Republican nominee for President will defeat Joe Biden or any possible successor in 2024. Assuming that nothing will change by 2024 is itself folly. I have suggested three sure changes by 2024. Some others that I do not foresee could also ensure that a Republican wins in 2024 -- if timed appropriately for such. One new poll can repudiate any preceding poll. 29 states have been polled in nine months, and I expect that pace to pick up.

Nothing is permanent save change!

At least I show unflattering polls for President Biden even if I have reason to see those as temporary.

[Classic-Xer]

(09-23-2021, 02:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-22-2021, 07:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-18-2021, 12:11 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't think your regressive, reactionary militias are a match for the US army and national guard and police forces. Gen Milley made sure that you guys understand what's what. Even a Trumpist president will not be able to command the US army to go against the Constitution or attack the Capitol.

You don't believe in the Constitution or recognize or support  the Constitution. You've been proving that  to me for many years. What do you think I'm as dumb and ignorant as the typical blue voter these days. I've been proving that wrong for several years too. General Milley is an insecure pussy who earned the ribbons on chest by sitting at a desk in Washington shuffling papers and transferring orders. He's not a field commander, he's a bureaucrat who wears a uniform instead of a suit.

And I've been pointing out to you for years that the only thing in the Constitution that you care about is your "right to bear" guns, which is total bullshit. Yes, I would take away your guns in a heartbeat if I could. I would send the police to take them away from you.

You would take away all of our rights in a heartbeat if you could. But, you don't have the power to do that do you. The only power you have is the power to continue fucking yourselves, continue burning more bridges with more American people and continue making matters worse for yourselves without us being directly involved with making matters worse yet. We gave you (the Left) the power to do that remember. Do you remember when I told you that's what we did and how we positioned the Left to have its own fate in its own hands. So, who's/what's all in trouble now and what's all at stake for the Left now?

[pbrower2a]

(09-25-2021, 12:51 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-23-2021, 02:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-22-2021, 07:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-18-2021, 12:11 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't think your regressive, reactionary militias are a match for the US army and national guard and police forces. Gen Milley made sure that you guys understand what's what. Even a Trumpist president will not be able to command the US army to go against the Constitution or attack the Capitol.

You don't believe in the Constitution or recognize or support  the Constitution. You've been proving that  to me for many years. What do you think I'm as dumb and ignorant as the typical blue voter these days. I've been proving that wrong for several years too. General Milley is an insecure pussy who earned the ribbons on chest by sitting at a desk in Washington shuffling papers and transferring orders. He's not a field commander, he's a bureaucrat who wears a uniform instead of a suit.

And I've been pointing out to you for years that the only thing in the Constitution that you care about is your "right to bear" guns, which is total bullshit. Yes, I would take away your guns in a heartbeat if I could. I would send the police to take them away from you.

You would take away all of our rights in a heartbeat if you could. But, you don't have the power to do that do you. The only power you have is the power to continue (vile word redacted) yourselves, continue burning more  bridges with more American people and continue making matters worse for yourselves without us being  directly involved with making matters worse yet. We gave you (the Left) the power to do that remember. Do you remember when I told you that's what we did and how we positioned the Left to have  its own fate in its own hands. So, who's/what's all in trouble now and what's all at stake for the Left now?

Aside from the right to own practically any firearm of your choosing, what genuine freedom do you support that the rest of us don't?

If your idea of free speech is to use vile words about  people who differ from you in race, religion, or sexuality, then you speak for an empty sort of freedom. I've heard people use a certain f-word as a noun, verb, interjection and (with some modification) adjective perhaps twenty times before they quit speaking. Maybe not as a pronoun, conjunction, or preposition, which would be impossible. Not as an adverb? The people who use so many f-words use few adverbs.  One might be powerful, but it loses its strength with repetition.

Freedom of religion? You act as if you would like to shut down some religious bodies for being different.

Excessive punishments, called "cruel and unusual" in the Bill of Rights? You seem to endorse those. The Constitution bans those.

The biggest freedom for which you seem to stand is the freedom to avoid getting the inoculation for COVID-19. I will pass on that one, just as I would pass on using heroin, driving too fast for conditions, toying with venomous snakes, or consuming random chemical reagents. Stupidity might be a survival value -- in Syria or North Korea.

[pbrower2a]

Here'a how things were for President Trump four years ago:


One pollster, all fifty states and DC. September 2017. A bit more flattering for Trump than what I already have. There will be updates.

Polling data based upon Morning Consult, Note that this data is more flattering, on the whole, to President Trump than what I already had. This pollster is not giving state-by-state analysis this year.

(Electoral votes are for 2020).






Trump disapproval, net negative and

55% or higher (dark red)
50-54% (medium red)
44-49% (pink)

Ties are in white.

If net positive for Trump)

44-49% (pale blue)
50-55% (medium blue)
56% or higher (dark blue)

But raw disapproval numbers appear instead  of electoral votes here:




Disapproval (net negative for Trump) : Similar color scheme.

55% or higher
50-54%
44-49%

Ties are in white.

(net positive for Trump)
46-49%  
41-45%
40% or lower

.............................................

....of course there were shifts from then, but in general where Trump was behind he lost., Exceptions were Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Trump did something politically astute after he saw disdain for him (he was already offending multitudes with hostile bluster, and his promotion of tariffs would hurt certain parts of rural America -- but he opened the spigots on farm subsidies to offset the losses from tariffs, in which case taxpayers ended up buying votes for Trump). Trump still lost.

President Biden is more unlucky because

(1) the Afghanistan withdrawal was Trump's deal and it blew up for the next President,
(2) COVID-19 is still deadly, and it is still deadly because of so many people who failed to do what was right (like getting the vaccine!)
(3) The American economy still reels from COVID-19 disrupting supply chains, which has brought about inflation.

We are in a 4T, and within the last five years at the most. COVID-19 has killed at a level characteristic of a Crisis-era war. In the last Crisis War people people died in war because they were shot, they stepped on mines, their ships were sunk, their aircraft were shot down, or their captors mistreated them. This time you want the shot if you are at all rational. People are dying while hooked up to ventilators in heroic efforts to keep people whose bodies COVID-19 has taken over can't keep up with the damage that the virus has done. People are being crippled, too, and people will get conditions that will shorten their lives.

The neoliberal era in economics that depended upon keeping prices low for retirees by sweating people who did the work and denying them opportunities to escape sweatshop conditions except through extraordinary effort, seems over. Prices were low and steady because real wages fell. Profits soared, especially in the property-rental business. Prices obviously rise when people start to get paid better.

700,000 lives lost? That is in between Washington DC (689,545  - 2020 Census) and Denver (715,522 2020 Census), 20th- and 19th-largest cities in the USA. We had a great national hissy-fit about the deaths from 9/11 about 3000 inexcusable deaths, and rightly so. That's about twenty times the nationwide deaths in an average year (it is actually in decline despite more miles driven), and we spend huge amounts of money to make highways and vehicles safer and dedicate much of the activity of state troopers to enforcing speed and DUI law, and set up red-light traps. The death toll from COVID-19 is more than 200 times that, and we have had days of death as horrible as. 9/11 or the Pearl Harbor attack. In war we cashier generals and admirals who have unexpected and inexcusable death tolls in combat. We whacked Osama bin Laden because he was never going to turn himself in.

We are going through some difficult and confusing times. Few were confused about loving or despising Donald Trump; there was little middle ground. There was little "I love his policies and hate his methods or character" or "He's a lousy President but I li9ke him any way" stuff. I can't fully compare Biden to Trump because we have seen him recently at his best in polling and still see him near his worst, and those are very different. Views of Trump were remarkably consistent in the electorate, and they are not so with President Biden.

[nguyenivy]

I'm wondering if we really were in a 4T at all before 2020. What if we were just in a long 3T until 2020? Maybe the 2008/9 economic crash seemed milder than what I've seen in documentaries about the Great Depression, so now in the COVID-19 world 2008/9 doesn't seem like nearly as big a disruption to life as COVID is. Or is it that 2008/9 is analogous to 1929 & 2020/1 is analogous to 1939/40 where each were different phases of the Crisis?

[pbrower2a]

(10-09-2021, 03:19 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: I'm wondering if we really were in a 4T at all before 2020. What if we were just in a long 3T until 2020? Maybe the 2008/9 economic crash seemed milder than what I've seen in documentaries about the Great Depression, so now in the COVID-19 world 2008/9 doesn't seem like nearly as big a disruption to life as COVID is. Or is it that 2008/9 is analogous to 1929 & 2020/1 is analogous to 1939/40 where each were different phases of the Crisis?

We had powerful people preserving the nastiness of a 3T as long as possible even if it was no longer popular. The neoliberal era was one of underpaying workers and treating them badly, promoting monopolies and cartels, sponsorship of lucrative scams, and the creation of mindless mass slow culture as the 1980-2010 equivalent of Karl Marx' opiate of the masses. For people not in the economic elite, the secret of happiness was stupidity that allowed one to believe that the rip-offs were wise. Workers  were sweated to keep prices down for people who went into the 3T with something or could rely upon inherited income in a trust fund. It was a raw deal.

If one had a brain, it was a maddening time. Often worked at jobs far too small for their spirits (let us say the history major with a BA degree who toiled for a decade or so in a fast-food place for a near-minimum wage), workers were expected to suffer with a smile despite hating their lives. Propagandists of the Right told people that such was creating prosperity and capital that would create opportunities for advancement. I went through that and I frequently contemplated suicide, stopping only out of fear of Hell. The twentieth century offered some of the most realistic images of Hell ever known such as concentration camps and Gulags. It was a merciless order, but much as was so with slave-owning planters in the ante-bellum South the exploiters expected everyone to think of their exploitation and dehumanization as great benefice.

There were exceptions, as in high technology, but even that had as its purpose the reduction in the need for labor, with workers compelled  to compete with their co-workers for the jobs that they had. The 3T was rotten, and the only good thing to say of it was that we did not quite descend into the nightmare of despotism, torture chambers, and concentration camps. Such progress as there was was the enrichment of elites at the expense of everyone else. People were obliged to hustle so that they could work sixty to seventy hours a week just to meet the rent.

This cannot be maintained. It entrenches itself in unspeakable horror or it implodes.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-09-2021, 03:19 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: I'm wondering if we really were in a 4T at all before 2020...

The heart of the crisis has always been shorter than a generation.  The peak is generally a crisis war, which takes about 5 years.  You commonly are in a crisis generation configuration for much longer than that.

At the same time, the crises do become less severe.  In the two race related crises, the Civil War was much more violent than the Floyd demonstrations or January 6.  If a crisis solves the worst problem facing a culture, as time goes on have the worst problems in the culture been solved already?  Is slavery worse than today's structural racism?  Is solving a problem with Industrial Age violence and war always going to be a bigger deal than the Information Age approach of nonviolent protest and legislation?

This time around we do seem to have multiple crises.  I view the Iraq war as an attempt to change values by the conservatives, and they failed to do so.  The economic collapse of 2008 was there, but not nearly as serious as 1929.  I felt no desire to call a trigger around 2008.  Obama was more concerned that the first black president be seen as acceptable than to see a particular agenda succeed.  He did well in putting the economy back together and passing Obamacare, but did not push once he did not have Congress behind him.  Covid and George Floyd’s death do seem more like triggers, causing values change and signaling a major change in dominant parties.  For the first time it feels like the real crisis.

I would say 2001 and 2008 did not resolve the small government vs solve the problem question as debated through the unravelling.  2020 might.  We will know better after the 2022 midterms.  The Republicans are pushing a 'do not solve problems' obstructionism.  We will see if the American people want the problems solved.

[David Horn]

(10-09-2021, 06:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... The Republicans are pushing a 'do not solve problems' obstructionism.  We will see if the American people want the problems solved.

That's a good point. We're not looking at 'do this, not that', which is more typical. Instead, as you noted, it's 'do this or do nothing'. Americans really like 'do nothing' 90% of the time. Is this part of that 90%? If so, then this 4T fails and the next 2T goes into overdrive.

[Eric the Green]

(10-10-2021, 12:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-09-2021, 06:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... The Republicans are pushing a 'do not solve problems' obstructionism.  We will see if the American people want the problems solved.

That's a good point.  We're not looking at 'do this, not that', which is more typical. Instead, as you noted, it's 'do this or do nothing'.  Americans really like 'do nothing' 90% of the time.  Is this part of that 90%? If so, then this 4T fails and the next 2T goes into overdrive.

Remember, if this 4T fails, we are not likely to experience a 2T in any typical sense.

I don't think societies that are too authoritarian, as ours would be, experience turnings very sharply. The saeculum in the modern length is a hurricane of progress. If the 4T "winter" fails, we will not have a "summer". There is no reason to expect typical generations of adaptive artists and idealistic prophets.

What kind of "Awakening" do failed societies experience? If you insist that a 2T will follow a failed 4T, that might be a necessary question to consider.

[pbrower2a]

(10-09-2021, 06:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-09-2021, 03:19 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: I'm wondering if we really were in a 4T at all before 2020...

The heart of the crisis has always been shorter than a generation.  The peak is generally a crisis war, which takes about 5 years.  You commonly are in a crisis generation configuration for much longer than that.

At the same time, the crises do become less severe.  In the two race related crises, the Civil War was much more violent than the Floyd demonstrations or January 6.  If a crisis solves the worst problem facing a culture, as time goes on have the worst problems in the culture been solved already?  Is slavery worse than today's structural racism?  Is solving a problem with Industrial Age violence and war always going to be a bigger deal than the Information Age approach of nonviolent protest and legislation?

This time around we do seem to have multiple crises.  I view the Iraq war as an attempt to change values by the conservatives, and they failed to do so.  The economic collapse of 2008 was there, but not nearly as serious as 1929.  I felt no desire to call a trigger around 2008.  Obama was more concerned that the first black president be seen as acceptable than to see a particular agenda succeed.  He did well in putting the economy back together and passing Obamacare, but did not push once he did not have Congress behind him.  Covid and George Floyd’s death do seem more like triggers, causing values change and signaling a major change in dominant parties.  For the first time it feels like the real crisis.

I would say 2001 and 2008 did not resolve the small government vs solve the problem question as debated through the unravelling.  2020 might.  We will know better after the 2022 midterms.  The Republicans are pushing a 'do not solve problems' obstructionism.  We will see if the American people want the problems solved.

To solve real problems, Crisis Eras need to last long enough to address root causes but not long enough to create catastrophic damage to Humanity. Howe and Strauss suggest what a Crisis Era excessively bloody but ultimately indecisive about the rights of Freedmen could be like. I am tempted to believe that Russia endured a succession of Crises beginning in the First World War and ending only with the demise of Josef Stalin.

The Crisis that we now know began much like those of 1860 and 1940, with a great financial panic that began when a speculative boom imploded. 1857...1929...2008. 72 and 79 years apart, basically long life-spans. Once that happens the money-grubbing that can cover many problems, a scab that covers a festering wound, is torn off. If we are fortunate we deal with the festering to mitigate and cure it. If we aren't so fortunate, then the would gets worse.

People start pointing fingers at anyone who can seem a culprit. In the Crisis of 1940 the Germans let a demagogue cast all fault upon The Jews. We all know how that ended.

I see the Republicans wielding a solution -- absolute plutocracy that a dictatorial or despotic order enforces. Such will maximize inequality and obliterate anyone who gets in the way. Slack off or gripe? Then off to a 'corrective labor plant' where you will be expected to learn how wonderful things are as you work 70 hours a day at dangerous, exhausting toil for starvation rations until you reform into a perfect serf or die.




Different personality, different ideology, different geography, and differing language... but we all get the message. One Great Leader can solve everything, as he alone can fix it. Trump fell short, but someone more resolute, decisive, and ruthless can exploit the need that many Americans seem to have for the man who promises them certainty, meaning, community, and prosperity in exchange for their freedom... and anyone who gets in the way will be a traitor.

Bolshevism, fascism, and Ba'athism have much in common, and if we Americans go into that cesspool of despotism, repression, and cruelty then many of us will deserve to go to concentration camps to die. The only problem is that the first to go will be the most innocent.

Does anyone expect the Trump Cult to recognize how wrong it is? Not I! It will seek a new idol to replace the one that become unpresentable or deceased.

[beechnut79]

(10-09-2021, 01:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here'a how things were for President Trump four years ago:


One pollster, all fifty states and DC. September 2017. A bit more flattering for Trump than what I already have. There will be updates.

Polling data based upon Morning Consult, Note that this data is more flattering, on the whole, to President Trump than what I already had. This pollster is not giving state-by-state analysis this year.

(Electoral votes are for 2020).






Trump disapproval, net negative and

55% or higher (dark red)
50-54% (medium red)
44-49% (pink)

Ties are in white.

If net positive for Trump)

44-49% (pale blue)
50-55% (medium blue)
56% or higher (dark blue)

But raw disapproval numbers appear instead  of electoral votes here:




Disapproval (net negative for Trump) : Similar color scheme.

55% or higher
50-54%
44-49%

Ties are in white.

(net positive for Trump)
46-49%  
41-45%
40% or lower

.............................................

....of course there were shifts from then, but in general where Trump was behind he lost., Exceptions were Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Trump did something politically astute after he saw disdain for him (he was already offending multitudes with hostile bluster, and his promotion of tariffs would hurt certain parts of rural America -- but he opened the spigots on farm subsidies to offset the losses from tariffs, in which case taxpayers ended up buying votes for Trump). Trump still lost.

President Biden is more unlucky because

(1) the Afghanistan withdrawal was Trump's deal and it blew up for the next President,
(2) COVID-19 is still deadly, and it is still deadly because of so many people who failed to do what was right (like getting the vaccine!)
(3) The American economy still reels from COVID-19 disrupting supply chains, which has brought about inflation.

We are in a 4T, and within the last five years at the most. COVID-19 has killed at a level characteristic of a Crisis-era war. In the last Crisis War people people died in war because they were shot, they stepped on mines, their ships were sunk, their aircraft were shot down, or their captors mistreated them. This time you want the shot if you are at all rational. People are dying while hooked up to ventilators in heroic efforts to keep people whose bodies COVID-19 has taken over can't keep up with the damage that the virus has done. People are being crippled, too, and people will get conditions that will shorten their lives.

The neoliberal era in economics that depended upon keeping prices low for retirees by sweating people who did the work and denying them opportunities to escape sweatshop conditions except through extraordinary effort, seems over. Prices were low and steady because real wages fell. Profits soared, especially in the property-rental business. Prices obviously rise when people start to get paid better.

700,000 lives lost? That is in between Washington DC (689,545  - 2020 Census) and Denver (715,522 2020 Census), 20th- and 19th-largest cities in the USA. We had a great national hissy-fit about the deaths from 9/11 about 3000 inexcusable deaths, and rightly so. That's about twenty times the nationwide deaths in an average year (it is actually in decline despite more miles driven), and we spend huge amounts of money to make highways and vehicles safer and dedicate much of the activity of state troopers to enforcing speed and DUI law, and set up red-light traps. The death toll from COVID-19 is more than 200 times that, and we have had days of death as horrible as. 9/11 or the Pearl Harbor attack. In war we cashier generals and admirals who have unexpected and inexcusable death tolls in combat. We whacked Osama bin Laden because he was never going to turn himself in.

We are going through some difficult and confusing times. Few were confused about loving or despising Donald Trump; there was little middle ground. There was little "I love his policies and hate his methods or character" or "He's a lousy President but I li9ke him any way" stuff. I can't fully compare Biden to Trump because we have seen him recently at his best in polling and still see him near his worst, and those are very different. Views of Trump were remarkably consistent in the electorate, and they are not so with President Biden.

Just seems as if this time around it is germ warfare rather than the military kind. But I guess the latter could still be thrust upon us.

[beechnut79]

(10-10-2021, 12:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-09-2021, 06:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... The Republicans are pushing a 'do not solve problems' obstructionism.  We will see if the American people want the problems solved.

That's a good point.  We're not looking at 'do this, not that', which is more typical. Instead, as you noted, it's 'do this or do nothing'.  Americans really like 'do nothing' 90% of the time.  Is this part of that 90%? If so, then this 4T fails and the next 2T goes into overdrive.

Doesn’t seem as if a breaking of the logjam is in sight.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-10-2021, 06:59 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Just seems as if this time around it is germ warfare rather than the military kind. But I guess the latter could still be thrust upon us.

I seem to remember hearing that more folk die in war from disease than enemy action.  No particular reference, but is seems relevant to this discussion.

[Classic-Xer]

(10-09-2021, 01:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here'a how things were for President Trump four years ago:


One pollster, all fifty states and DC. September 2017. A bit more flattering for Trump than what I already have. There will be updates.

Polling data based upon Morning Consult, Note that this data is more flattering, on the whole, to President Trump than what I already had. This pollster is not giving state-by-state analysis this year.

(Electoral votes are for 2020).






Trump disapproval, net negative and

55% or higher (dark red)
50-54% (medium red)
44-49% (pink)

Ties are in white.

If net positive for Trump)

44-49% (pale blue)
50-55% (medium blue)
56% or higher (dark blue)

But raw disapproval numbers appear instead  of electoral votes here:




Disapproval (net negative for Trump) : Similar color scheme.

55% or higher
50-54%
44-49%

Ties are in white.

(net positive for Trump)
46-49%  
41-45%
40% or lower

.............................................

....of course there were shifts from then, but in general where Trump was behind he lost., Exceptions were Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Trump did something politically astute after he saw disdain for him (he was already offending multitudes with hostile bluster, and his promotion of tariffs would hurt certain parts of rural America -- but he opened the spigots on farm subsidies to offset the losses from tariffs, in which case taxpayers ended up buying votes for Trump). Trump still lost.

President Biden is more unlucky because

(1) the Afghanistan withdrawal was Trump's deal and it blew up for the next President,
(2) COVID-19 is still deadly, and it is still deadly because of so many people who failed to do what was right (like getting the vaccine!)
(3) The American economy still reels from COVID-19 disrupting supply chains, which has brought about inflation.

We are in a 4T, and within the last five years at the most. COVID-19 has killed at a level characteristic of a Crisis-era war. In the last Crisis War people people died in war because they were shot, they stepped on mines, their ships were sunk, their aircraft were shot down, or their captors mistreated them. This time you want the shot if you are at all rational. People are dying while hooked up to ventilators in heroic efforts to keep people whose bodies COVID-19 has taken over can't keep up with the damage that the virus has done. People are being crippled, too, and people will get conditions that will shorten their lives.

The neoliberal era in economics that depended upon keeping prices low for retirees by sweating people who did the work and denying them opportunities to escape sweatshop conditions except through extraordinary effort, seems over. Prices were low and steady because real wages fell. Profits soared, especially in the property-rental business. Prices obviously rise when people start to get paid better.

700,000 lives lost? That is in between Washington DC (689,545  - 2020 Census) and Denver (715,522 2020 Census), 20th- and 19th-largest cities in the USA. We had a great national hissy-fit about the deaths from 9/11 about 3000 inexcusable deaths, and rightly so. That's about twenty times the nationwide deaths in an average year (it is actually in decline despite more miles driven), and we spend huge amounts of money to make highways and vehicles safer and dedicate much of the activity of state troopers to enforcing speed and DUI law, and set up red-light traps. The death toll from COVID-19 is more than 200 times that, and we have had days of death as horrible as. 9/11 or the Pearl Harbor attack. In war we cashier generals and admirals who have unexpected and inexcusable death tolls in combat. We whacked Osama bin Laden because he was never going to turn himself in.

We are going through some difficult and confusing times. Few were confused about loving or despising Donald Trump; there was little middle ground. There was little "I love his policies and hate his methods or character" or "He's a lousy President but I li9ke him any way" stuff. I can't fully compare Biden to Trump because we have seen him recently at his best in polling and still see him near his worst, and those are very different. Views of Trump were remarkably consistent in the electorate, and they are not so with President Biden.

Biden completely fucked up with Afghanistan. He wasn't unlucky as you say. He basically fucked himself, fucked his European allies, fucked the Americans who ended up being left behind, fucked Afghan allies, fucked the soldiers who died and fucked their families. Dude, America knows who was in charge and gave the orders at the time. All you are doing is making aimless excuses and pissing more Americans off by insulting their intelligence. Do you know what I've learned from Democrat's over the years? I've learned that the bulk of them are either clueless or dumb/ignorant or careless compared to those of us on the other side. The other thing I've learned, the majority of them are single today.

The issue with the vaccine is COVID-19 is only deadly for some people and that it's no worse than the flu for most people. Plus, the vaccine isn't a cure either. They say about one hundred million Americans have already been infected and survived. I know more people who have died from something other than COVID-19 than died from COVID-19 over the last year and a half. Biden is fighting a losing battle over COVID-19 because most Americans are better educated and more familiar with COVID-19. Oh, did you know that more people have died from COVID under Biden than Trump so far. So, what changed since he's been in office? Do you think the current border crisis that Biden and his ilk caused is having an impact and resulting in more Americans dying from COVID-19?

The issue with the economy is that it's getting worse with every stroke of Biden's. Biden and his ilk clamped down on domestic oil production resulting in higher gas prices. America is no longer energy independent like it was under Trump. Plus, the COVID related mandates are taking their toll on production and the workforce as well. Biden seems content with America moving towards another depression and civil war. So, what was the rest of the world doing as America was fighting its last civil war?

[David Horn]

(10-10-2021, 07:10 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(10-10-2021, 12:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-09-2021, 06:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... The Republicans are pushing a 'do not solve problems' obstructionism.  We will see if the American people want the problems solved.

That's a good point.  We're not looking at 'do this, not that', which is more typical. Instead, as you noted, it's 'do this or do nothing'.  Americans really like 'do nothing' 90% of the time.  Is this part of that 90%? If so, then this 4T fails and the next 2T goes into overdrive.

Doesn’t seem as if a breaking of the logjam is in sight.

Sometimes (actually, quite often), change is extremely rapid after long periods of dithering and handwringing.  Then again, it's far from universal.  So where this goes will be determined in the next few years, and may not be revisited for a long time following.  i have hope but limited expectation.

[Eric the Green]

(10-12-2021, 03:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-09-2021, 01:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here'a how things were for President Trump four years ago:


One pollster, all fifty states and DC. September 2017. A bit more flattering for Trump than what I already have. There will be updates.

Polling data based upon Morning Consult, Note that this data is more flattering, on the whole, to President Trump than what I already had. This pollster is not giving state-by-state analysis this year.

(Electoral votes are for 2020).






Trump disapproval, net negative and

55% or higher (dark red)
50-54% (medium red)
44-49% (pink)

Ties are in white.

If net positive for Trump)

44-49% (pale blue)
50-55% (medium blue)
56% or higher (dark blue)

But raw disapproval numbers appear instead  of electoral votes here:




Disapproval (net negative for Trump) : Similar color scheme.

55% or higher
50-54%
44-49%

Ties are in white.

(net positive for Trump)
46-49%  
41-45%
40% or lower

.............................................

....of course there were shifts from then, but in general where Trump was behind he lost., Exceptions were Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Trump did something politically astute after he saw disdain for him (he was already offending multitudes with hostile bluster, and his promotion of tariffs would hurt certain parts of rural America -- but he opened the spigots on farm subsidies to offset the losses from tariffs, in which case taxpayers ended up buying votes for Trump). Trump still lost.

President Biden is more unlucky because

(1) the Afghanistan withdrawal was Trump's deal and it blew up for the next President,
(2) COVID-19 is still deadly, and it is still deadly because of so many people who failed to do what was right (like getting the vaccine!)
(3) The American economy still reels from COVID-19 disrupting supply chains, which has brought about inflation.

We are in a 4T, and within the last five years at the most. COVID-19 has killed at a level characteristic of a Crisis-era war. In the last Crisis War people people died in war because they were shot, they stepped on mines, their ships were sunk, their aircraft were shot down, or their captors mistreated them. This time you want the shot if you are at all rational. People are dying while hooked up to ventilators in heroic efforts to keep people whose bodies COVID-19 has taken over can't keep up with the damage that the virus has done. People are being crippled, too, and people will get conditions that will shorten their lives.

The neoliberal era in economics that depended upon keeping prices low for retirees by sweating people who did the work and denying them opportunities to escape sweatshop conditions except through extraordinary effort, seems over. Prices were low and steady because real wages fell. Profits soared, especially in the property-rental business. Prices obviously rise when people start to get paid better.

700,000 lives lost? That is in between Washington DC (689,545  - 2020 Census) and Denver (715,522 2020 Census), 20th- and 19th-largest cities in the USA. We had a great national hissy-fit about the deaths from 9/11 about 3000 inexcusable deaths, and rightly so. That's about twenty times the nationwide deaths in an average year (it is actually in decline despite more miles driven), and we spend huge amounts of money to make highways and vehicles safer and dedicate much of the activity of state troopers to enforcing speed and DUI law, and set up red-light traps. The death toll from COVID-19 is more than 200 times that, and we have had days of death as horrible as. 9/11 or the Pearl Harbor attack. In war we cashier generals and admirals who have unexpected and inexcusable death tolls in combat. We whacked Osama bin Laden because he was never going to turn himself in.

We are going through some difficult and confusing times. Few were confused about loving or despising Donald Trump; there was little middle ground. There was little "I love his policies and hate his methods or character" or "He's a lousy President but I li9ke him any way" stuff. I can't fully compare Biden to Trump because we have seen him recently at his best in polling and still see him near his worst, and those are very different. Views of Trump were remarkably consistent in the electorate, and they are not so with President Biden.

Biden completely fucked up with Afghanistan. He wasn't unlucky as you say. He basically fucked himself, fucked his European allies, fucked the Americans who ended up being left behind, fucked Afghan allies, fucked the soldiers who died and fucked their families. Dude, America knows who was in charge and gave the orders at the time. All you are doing is making aimless excuses and pissing more Americans off by insulting their intelligence. Do you know what I've learned from Democrat's over the years? I've learned that the bulk of them are either clueless or dumb/ignorant or careless compared to those of us on the other side. The other thing I've learned, the majority of them are single today.

The issue with the vaccine is COVID-19 is only deadly for some people and that it's no worse than the flu for most people. Plus, the vaccine isn't a cure either. They say about one hundred million Americans have already been infected and survived. I know more people who have died from something other than COVID-19 than died from COVID-19 over the last year and a half. Biden is fighting a losing battle over COVID-19 because most Americans are better educated and more familiar with COVID-19. Oh, did you know that more people have died from COVID under Biden than Trump so far. So, what changed since he's been in office? Do you think the current border crisis that Biden and his ilk caused is having an impact and resulting in more Americans dying from COVID-19?

The issue with the economy is that it's getting worse with every stroke of Biden's. Biden and his ilk clamped down on domestic oil production resulting in higher gas prices. America is no longer energy independent like it was under Trump. Plus, the COVID related mandates are taking their toll on production and the workforce as well. Biden seems content with America moving towards another depression and civil war. So, what was the rest of the world doing as America was fighting its last civil war?

Biden carried out the biggest evacuation in history and got those Americans out who wanted to come out. So the Afghan pullout was not the complete failure you say it was. The mistake is usually not even talked about. The pullout overall was not a mistake. The war as it was fought was a mistake, and it was past time to end it. Trump felt the same way as Biden on this. The mistake was not getting folks out before the troops were taken out. But that didn't mean the troops had to stay past August 31; it meant the folks had to be taken out afterward. There was a failure of intelligence about the Afghan troops and their evident plan to give up. The corruption of the army meant that most of the money for troops and equipment went to a few leaders.

Covid19 has killed 700,000 Americans and over 6 million around the world. There has not been a disease or a war on that scale of death in this saeculum. Most people who get covid recover, I suppose, but many suffer long-term damage. Whatever "they" say that you heard is wrong. Your side is not interested in truth or facts. The number of USA recoveries is 34 million. And many of those did not fully recover. And they can get sick again in a few months. Biden's battle against covid stalled solely because of you guys. In states like Idaho overwhelmed health workers report that their hospitals are full of unvaccinated covid patients and lots of body bags are filled. If more people died from covid under Biden than Trump, that mostly happened in January. I doubt that's true though; the winter surge was extreme. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Domestic oil production has ramped up again after the winter covid surge. Your side has stalled the energy transition so far, so I don't see that Biden and the Democrats have done anything yet to stall oil production. I know my brother has oil investments and they are doing fine after the covid slump in 2020. Many workers laid off during the great Trump recession have become part of the great resignation. They decided that they wanted better work at better pay than under your neoliberal regime. Gas prices are up now, it's true. I think I heard this was weather related, which puts this all back on your side too. Your side not only refuses to deal with covid, but also climate change. Your strategy is denial, but we are not living next to a river in Egypt. It doesn't work.

[pbrower2a]

(10-12-2021, 03:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-09-2021, 01:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (snip)

We are in a 4T, and within the last five years at the most. COVID-19 has killed at a level characteristic of a Crisis-era war. In the last Crisis War people people died in war because they were shot, they stepped on mines, their ships were sunk, their aircraft were shot down, or their captors mistreated them. This time you want the shot if you are at all rational. People are dying while hooked up to ventilators in heroic efforts to keep people whose bodies COVID-19 has taken over can't keep up with the damage that the virus has done. People are being crippled, too, and people will get conditions that will shorten their lives.

The neoliberal era in economics that depended upon keeping prices low for retirees by sweating people who did the work and denying them opportunities to escape sweatshop conditions except through extraordinary effort, seems over. Prices were low and steady because real wages fell. Profits soared, especially in the property-rental business. Prices obviously rise when people start to get paid better.

700,000 lives lost? That is in between Washington DC (689,545  - 2020 Census) and Denver (715,522 2020 Census), 20th- and 19th-largest cities in the USA. We had a great national hissy-fit about the deaths from 9/11 about 3000 inexcusable deaths, and rightly so. That's about twenty times the nationwide deaths in an average year (it is actually in decline despite more miles driven), and we spend huge amounts of money to make highways and vehicles safer and dedicate much of the activity of state troopers to enforcing speed and DUI law, and set up red-light traps. The death toll from COVID-19 is more than 200 times that, and we have had days of death as horrible as. 9/11 or the Pearl Harbor attack. In war we cashier generals and admirals who have unexpected and inexcusable death tolls in combat. We whacked Osama bin Laden because he was never going to turn himself in.

We are going through some difficult and confusing times. Few were confused about loving or despising Donald Trump; there was little middle ground. There was little "I love his policies and hate his methods or character" or "He's a lousy President but I li9ke him any way" stuff. I can't fully compare Biden to Trump because we have seen him recently at his best in polling and still see him near his worst, and those are very different. Views of Trump were remarkably consistent in the electorate, and they are not so with President Biden.

Biden completely f----- up with Afghanistan. He wasn't unlucky as you say. He basically fucked himself, fucked his European allies, fucked the Americans who ended up being left behind, fucked Afghan allies, fucked the soldiers who died and fucked their families. Dude, America knows who was in charge and gave the orders at the time. All you are doing is making aimless excuses and pissing more Americans off by insulting their intelligence. Do you know what I've learned from Democrat's over the years? I've learned that the bulk of them are either clueless or dumb/ignorant or careless compared to those of us on the other side. The other thing I've learned, the majority of them are single today.

Trump cut the deal and stuck President Biden with the results. Yes, it stinks. This said, President Biden was in no position to give any aid to the Afghan republic when it was collapsing almost exponentially.

Nixon cut the accords that basically doomed the Army of the Republic of Vietnam to (ARVN) stand on its own against the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong. It couldn't. The government behind the ARVN was incompetent and corrupt. In 1975 the Communists took Saigon when Gerald Ford was President. In general, history books hold President Ford blameless. Carter did not use that against Ford in 1976.

It is too early to predict who the GOP nominee will be, but if that nominee tries to fault the Biden administration, then Joe Biden or his successor will turn the fault to Donald Trump. But maybe you could understand why beseiged garrisons surrendered in regional capitals:

The rapid collapse of Afghan resistance to the Taliban suggests structural failure of the Afghan army that we supposedly trained and whose loyalty the Afghan government bought. It would look now as if the regional commanders of the Afghan had reason to quit when the quitting was good. The Taliban has a reputation for brutal executions.

Quote:Najibullah was at the UN compound when the Taliban soldiers came for him on the evening of 26 September 1996.[8] The Taliban abducted him from UN custody and tortured him to death, and then dragged his dead (and, according to Robert Parry, castrated)[78] body behind a truck through the streets of Kabul. His brother, Shahpur Ahmadzai, was given the same treatment.[79] Najibullah and Shahpur's bodies were hanged from a traffic light pole outside the Arg presidential palace the next day in order to show the public that a new era had begun. The Taliban prevented Islamic funeral prayers for Najibullah and Shahpur in Kabul, but the bodies were later handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross who in turn sent their bodies to Gardez in Paktia Province, where both of them were buried after the Islamic funeral prayers for them by their fellow Ahmadzai tribesmen.[79]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Najibullah#cite_note-brother&brotherdead-79][/url]
That is quite an inducement to surrender.

.......................

Quote:The issue with the vaccine is COVID-19 is only deadly for some people and that it's no worse than the flu for most people. Plus, the vaccine isn't a cure either. They say about one hundred million Americans have already been infected and survived. I know more people who have died from something other than COVID-19 than died from COVID-19 over the last year and a half. Biden is fighting a losing battle over COVID-19 because most Americans are better educated and more familiar with COVID-19. Oh, did you know that more people have died from COVID under Biden than Trump so far. So, what changed since he's been in office? Do you think the current border crisis that Biden and his ilk caused is having an impact and resulting in more Americans dying from COVID-19?

Who says that about one hundred million Americans have been infected and survived? Who? You need a credible source. Maybe more people died of the usual heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and vehicle incidents. Reputable sources hold that those who survive COVID-19 get lasting harm from organ damage and diabetes that might shorten their life expectancy, COVID-19 also causes sexual dysfunction, which by all accounts is miserable. Survivors often endure cognitive loss (which means that they end up stupider) and thus less competent on the job.

The real fault on COVID-19 is that people who could easily get the inoculation for free have not gotten it. They are the vast majority of people getting COVID-19 and even among those are the ones dying of it. Even before that there were people failing to mask themselves in public.

Comparing COVID-19 to influenza is like comparing HIV/AIDS when it first appeared to the venereal diseases that were then easy to treat if treated early. Maybe medical treatments will catch up... sort of... with COVID-19 as they did after far more years with HIV/AIDS. When HIV/AIDS was infecting and killing the sexually-reckless and IV drug users there were reliable ways in which to avoid it. COVID-19 might be sexually transmissible, but that is not its primary means of transmission. Unlike HIV/AIDS there is a nearly-foolproof way to avoid it that is even easier than abstaining from sex. Just get your @$$ to a clinic or a pharmacy (I will name names -- Wal*Mart, Rite Aid, Walgreen's, Meijer, Kroger, Spartan-Nash, and oodles of independent pharmacies in my general area), bare your arm, and take a nearly-painless jab. Then wait fifteen minutes to ensure that there are no quick repercussions. Repeat one month later, and your risk of dying from COVID-19 practically disappears.

It would be one thing if the American Right concerned itself solely with promoting economic growth by creating a business climate that puts profits first and treats workers badly while fostering corrupt deals and ravaging the environment. Such has some logic (if not morality) behind it. The anti-vax garbage is irresponsible as well as irrational in the extreme. In the past people used to say that they didn't want to wear a seat belt in a car because they did not want to be trapped in a burning car. Well, it's far easier to get out of a car if a seat belt has kept you from being paralyzed and unable to escape without help. 

Quote:The issue with the economy is that it's getting worse with every stroke of Biden's. Biden and his ilk clamped down on  domestic oil production resulting in higher gas prices. America is no longer energy independent like it was under Trump. Plus, the COVID related mandates are taking their toll on production and the workforce as well. Biden seems content with America moving towards another depression and civil war. So, what was the rest of the world doing as America was fighting its last civil war?

COVID-19 imposes something close to wartime economic conditions. Free market economics is impossible in a war or quasi-war. President Biden has not imposed wartime price and wage controls. It is not clear whether we have labor shortages or supply shortages. It is safe to assume that inflation will end when the economic mess that COVID-19 has inflicted is over.

Since when does a mask over a face reduce productivity?

Oh, by the way -- COVID-19 itself implies a huge increase in spending at all levels of government in medical costs alone. Add increases in welfare payments. Note also (and this was inevitable for reasons other than COVID-19) that real wages for industrial and clerical workers have generally fallen since the 1970's despite increases in productivity due to technological gains. That was not going to last.

Your guess is as good as mine on who the people dying of COVID-19 are. One obvious demographic is the MAGA types, and I suspect that they are heavily represented among truck drivers, warehouse workers, and salesclerks.

When it comes to action against COVID-19, Big Business did its role very well -- far better than Trump. President Biden has let Big Business do what it wants with mask and vaccine mandates. OK, so President Biden no more has the means for having people emerge from black helicopters to remove vaccine-resisters to detention camps so that they can be inoculated against the disease (presumably also while getting subjected to political indoctrination in Woke Culture and Critical Race Theory -- snark intended).

You claim to be for freedom, yet you cannot recognize that being sedated while on a respirator gives one less freedom than a prison inmate. It may be hyperbole on your part, but your attitudes toward inoculation against COVID-19 that some prominent people hold and defend, can grossly endanger life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

You see yourself as a defender of freedom and life; I see you as the opposite. I expect to get a booster soon.

Death to COVID-19, and let the American People (whatever their traditions) enjoy freedom again!

[Eric the Green]

(10-12-2021, 12:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Biden carried out the biggest evacuation in history and got those Americans out who wanted to come out. So the Afghan pullout was not the complete failure you say it was. The mistake is usually not even talked about. The pullout overall was not a mistake. The war as it was fought was a mistake, and it was past time to end it. Trump felt the same way as Biden on this. The mistake was not getting folks out before the troops were taken out. But that didn't mean the troops had to stay past August 31; it meant the folks had to be taken out afterward. There was a failure of intelligence about the Afghan troops and their evident plan to give up. The corruption of the army meant that most of the money for troops and equipment went to a few leaders.

Editing is not allowed on this forum. That should change. 

I meant the troops needed to be taken out after the folks had been taken out.

[David Horn]

(10-13-2021, 04:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Editing is not allowed on this forum. That should change. 

I can edit now and always have had that ability.  I don't know what issue you're having, but I dont think it's typical.