No Red Wave

Not really. An opinion piece from an anonymous Australian teacher about the American education system is not exactly high reliability. Especially when the opinion piece contains little in the way of hard evidence. I'm sorry but articles from major, primary collection news sources that are rated as biased towards the Center (which you objected to earlier) are better sources of information than a single opinion article from an anonymous author who would apparently have no actual expertise in the US system.

Conversely, how many Republicans just tried to run on it and failed to win Governor's races? Is that evidence that it isn't happening?

Another opinion piece. However, the point is that younger people agree with what the author claims are the tenants of CRT (interestingly, one of which has literally nothing to do with race and is instead about gender, and others are not really CRT arguments either). So the author's argument is that CRT is being taught in schools because people agree with what he calls CRT (which includes gender). Is that really the argument that you want to use?

 

Immigrants have been coming to the New World for centuries. They keep coming for the same, basic reasons. War, abject poverty, famine, and persecution at home, and better opportunities here in the US. Millions have been coming across the southern border for decades too. 4 million legally under the Bracero Program, 1 million granted amnesty in 1986 with another 1 million eligible who didn't register, and millions since.

And you're wrong about Trump being effective even slowing down undocumented immigration. From the Cato Institute, a right wing, Libertarian Group, Trump lowered legal immigration numbers, but accomplished nothing with illegal immigration.

As for Biden, his early response to COVID was good. Trump has no vaccination distribution plan. Biden took over late January, and by April, there was enough vaccine that anyone could get the jab.

Since then, Biden has been hit and miss with COVID. Should have had better education and outreach for the vaccine, especially in poor and minority neighborhoods. Better education on the race we were in vaccine versus variant might have helped too. But in the end, there are none more blind who refuse to see. An impossible task to vaccinate those who flatly refuse all medical science.

Last, I didn't excuse any leader from the mistakes made during the pandemic. But when dealing with a novel viral pandemic, mistakes are to be expected. Cuomo's decision to send sick elderly back into homes was a mistake that killed people. Unexcusable. Trump's mistakes? Killed tens of thousands more.

 

Can you explain exactly how you think the tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese goods helped US farmers?

 

Don’t be nasty!

 

Well I could make up a lot of stuff to give Biden credit for like you did with Trump, but I prefer to stick with facts. Biden's record is easy enough to look up. The legislation passed, Afghanistan, Ukraine, low unemployment... Feel free to look it up if you actually want an honest debate.

 

I got this. They helped US farmers because Trumped bailed them out with billions of our tax dollars to make up for the crops they couldn't sell to China.

‘Here’s your check’: Trump’s massive payouts to farmers will be hard to pull back

 

It’s communism!

 

Exactly. China retaliated after Trump’s tariffs by increasing tariff on soybeans and other U.S. crops. US farmers lost billions in sales.
So trump handed them billions in federal money.

 

You are going to give Biden credit for Afghanistan. Now that is rich. He did give the country more Gold Star Family's but that's about it. Not to mention the Billions upon Billions of dollars of equipment just left behind. His pull out in Afghanistan was one of the biggest gaffes of his Administration. No wonder you can't list any of his accomplishments because if they start with that one your list would be embarrassing.
Everything on my list of Trump accomplishments actually happened or you would point out which ones didn't. It would be great and refreshing if you just stuck with facts.

 

That he got from China tariffs. Something had to be done about the unfair trade practices with China. Trump helped the farmers that were most affected. Something had to be done to stop the impact of China on this country from intellectual theft to unfair trade.

 

Again. How did the tariffs help the farmers?

 

How come you are not as concerned about the Billions of our tax dollars Biden likes to give away such as forgiveness of student loans. At least the money Trump gave came from tariffs the likes of which China had never seen before.

 

Here are some facts about the Afghanistan withdrawal. The treaty was signed between Trump and the Taliban before the election. Trump didn't include the actual Afghan government in the negotiations, further undermining the government's authority.

The original withdraw date was May. Biden quickly realized that wasn't enough time, and got the Taliban to agree to an October date. Had we not had the additional months, the cluster to withdrawal would have been even worse.

The intel we had stated the Taliban wouldn't reach Kabul until mid November at the earliest. That intel turned out to be incorrect. They reached the capitol in October, in the middle of our withdrawal efforts. This created the unfortunate chaos, as Afghanis became desperate to leave.

In the end, we were able to take hundreds of thousands of Afghani refugees out of the country in a short time, while only leaving behind a small percentage who wanted to leave. Plus a tragic, but small number that didn't survive. We also withdrew all but 14 troops who also tragically died in the process.

As for equipment, what the US military left was completely inoperable. The only equipment the Taliban could potentially use was equipment left for for the Afghani government military. But we knew this military would fall to the Taliban, so we didn't leave too much heavy equipment, and didn't leave any spare parts or maintenance information. In the end, what the Taliban did gain from the US military was minimal, and mostly inoperative.

While any loss of life, especially US service men and woman is tragic, our withdrawal was actually successful. About 98% of Afghanis who wanted to evacuate did so successfully, as well as 99% of our troops. Perhaps, some of the problems might have been avoided had Trump actually included the Afghan government in the negotiations? Would have been better had our intel been correct about the Taliban and Kabul, again, in the end, the results weren't that bad.

 

Of course I'm going to give Biden credit for Afghanistan. Do you think there was some other president in office when we extracted ourselves from that 20 year quagmire? Trump had 4 years to do it but he didn't get it done. Just like he had 4 years to pass an infrastructure bill but didn't get it done despite repeated 'infrastructure weeks'.

We've already pointed out some of your laughable Trump accomplishments, like removing CRT from the schools and helping the farmers with the China trade war. Those things didn't actually happen. If I get time, I'll give you a few more, but I have to work today.

 

You like to hang your hat on the midterm elections as a mandate from the American people that Biden policies are working. Let's look back. The Virginia Governors race was about issues of the day. CRT was a very big issue and ABORTION rights were not on the ballot. McCauliffe realized how bad Biden was doing, so much so, that he didn't want to be seen within 3 states of him during the campaign. Youngkin pulled off what was described as one of the biggest political upsets in political history by winning in a deep Blue state.

Now lets move forward to the mid terms. The Democrats knew they had to change the focal point from policies to rhetoric if they were going to have any chance at all. While many of you here can't stand the make up of the SCOTUS, I would suggest to you that they bailed you out. By getting rid of Roe v Wade and calling it a state issue the Dems had the ammunition they needed. All they had to do was was spend billions of dollars lying to the American people and telling them the GOP wants to completely ban ABORTION. Again they spent billions of dollars driving home that false narrative. I know this because for 2 weeks I was in Wisconsin and political adds were 10 to 1 Democratic. 9 out of every 10 of those adds were solely about ABORTION and nothing else (please don't dispute this by sending me some leftist article) I saw these adds with my own eyes.

I have news for you most Republicans believe in ABORTION laws similar to Roe v Wade. I agree that there were some extreme Republicans that thought this was an opportunity to push their extreme ABORTION agenda and that was extremely harmful to GOP candidates. I fully disagreed with them as I have stated on other posts. Here is how the Dems survived the mid terms. Notice I didn't say they won the mid terms because winning the House was huge for the GOP.

1. Don't take accountability for all the bad policies the Biden Administration forced on people. Instead blame MAGA for the policies making your life miserable. Please explain to me how you turn the phrase "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" into a negative. Doesn't everyone want to make America great. That was their way of bringing Trump into the election even though he hasn't been in office for 2 years.

2. Say that Democracy was on the ballot. Bring in everyone from Obama to Clinton to Biden himself and pound into the heads of gullible steadfast Democrats that if they don't vote for Democrats they are voting against Democracy. What a bunch of horsesh*t that was.

3. Tell people that the Republicans are trying to take away voter rights. Another lie but effective in harvesting votes. Notice I did not say illegal votes. Dems had a plan that started with COVID to allow for extreme absentee voting. They put that plan to good use and harvested pre-election votes in numbers never before seen. That's why they keep trying to do away with voter ID. The less restrictions there are the easier it is to present absentee votes. As a side note the GOP better figure this out and start harvesting their own voters instead of just waiting for election day, not everyone can make it to the polls on election day for many reasons. Reasons such as scheduling conflicts, weather, family emergencies ( I myself could not vote because my flight home from Wisconsin on Monday got canceled and I could not get home until after the election). I always thought that elections should be held on election day, I do not think that anymore and I will early vote from now on. The GOP must address this issue or they will face the kind of struggles they faced in 2020 and 2022 with reference to voter turnout.

4. ABORTION- The SCOTUS gifted the Dems with the only issue they could run on and boy did they. I saw this coming the day the SCOTUS announcement was made. While there were at least 10 issues Republicans tried to focus on (all of which favored the GOP) the DEMS only focused on the issues I stated above. ABORTION is such a powerful issue in this country that the GOP better figure that out and get behind common sense laws that the majority of Americans can get behind.

Last but not least Biden pulled out his ace in the hole by doing an executive order (which he knew was unconstitutional) to forgive student loans. In other words he bribed everyone with a student loan and then had the audacity to say he passed that law by a few votes. Everyone including you know that there were no votes taken, even Nancy Pelosi made a blunder by coming out and saying he can't do that without going through congress. Why let that get in the way of a good campaign. Biden (to whatever capacity he has to understand anything anymore) knew his gift would be overturned but hey at least it got him through the mid term election.

The entire Democratic campaign was run on inuendo, name calling, denial, down right lies and of course TRUMP. It worked to a certain degree and now here you are patting yourself on the back thinking the American people are behind you. You are creating a false sense of what the American people will put up with. If the GOP can get ABORTION out of the mainstream conversation and the BIDEN administration keeps forging ahead with these horrible policies than the 2024 election will be a landslide like you have never seen. Like I said sometimes a wave needs time to form.

 

Interesting. So when people voted for a Republican, it was proof of how what you are calling CRT was important. But when they don't vote for Republicans, it isn't proof that what you call CRT wasn't important. That seems...motivated. Heads you win, tails, you don't lose sort of thing.

Really? Can you show me where the Republican Party or its elected representatives have proposed or supported the re-institution of Roe-level rights? A single bill that has been proposed by Republicans to do that? I can point to you quite a number of states run by Republicans that outlawed abortion. Just because you don't support it doesn't mean that Republicans do.

Trump's candidates won the vast majority of their primaries. So he was part of the race right from there. That is what the Republican voters did. It might be comfortable to blame somebody else, but it was the Republican primary voters that didn't move on (as well as the Senators who were too weak to get him out of politics after his supporters tried to overthrow an election with his encouragement). Leading us to...

Except it wasn't. Republicans in many races were quite open about challenging any election that they didn't win. For example, the Republican candidate to head elections in Nevada stated that if he and his similar candidates won (and there were quite a few such candidates), they would make Trump the President again. Which is not supposed to be the role of those that run election, and is clearly anti-democratic. That candidate lost, as did the people similar to him in swing states (thankfully). It should be noted that all three Governor race flips occurred in states with election deniers in place as the Republican candidate, as did their loss in potential gain states like Pennsylvania (where the candidate was on the Capitol grounds for January 6).

So you thought elections shouldn't be held early until you were personally hurt by it and Republicans were hurt by it?

Hmm, so when Republicans run an election on CRT and win, it is a true sign of an issue's importance, but when Democrats run on a series of issues, and wins, it is a lie? That seems...convenient for you.

 

I took a few days off here and all I missed was that Travlingator gets his news from Infowars?

 

I agree that the Democrats don't have a mandate. Neither side does, and partisan swings will probably continue. You are probably correct that the Dobbs decision hurt Republicans. But in terms of other policies, I also think most Americans are closer to the Democratic party.

Many feel that there was some overreach on Covid, but that was largely handled by states and local governments, and IMO Trump lost largely because of his messaging and trying to downplay it. Most Americans support same sex marriage and support some additional regulations on guns. They support a softer approach on drugs - at least marijuana. Religious affiliation is on the decline, which has future implications about how people view various issues. Fiscal issues are more complicated, but for example, even in Florida -which has trended red - a super majority of voters passed the minimum wage increase in 2020. Obamacare is pretty popular, too. IMO, the main thing Republicans had going for them in 2022 was inflation and economic concerns, but I think those are international problems and that Republicans failed to offer any serious and consistent policy agendas for those issues.

All that said, Republicans did win the House even if they under-performed expectations. Republicans are also in charge of most state governments. They also have the benefit of being able to win the White House while losing the popular vote, which has happened twice since 2000 (both Republicans) yet only three time in our history before that. They also have the benefit of a state like Wyoming getting the same number of Senators as California. So I understand that national popular opinion only matters so much.

 

Cannot rebut the message so attack the messenger. Got it.
By the way this is from the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, not exactly a left-leaning source. Although the entire article is behind a paywall, the title and introductory text say it all.
Trump Tariffs Are Short-Term Pain Without Long-Term Gain, Economists Say
And this is from Forbes, again not exactly a left-leaning source especially considering that it's owned by Steve Forbes, a former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and a strong supporter of Reaganomics.
Trump’s Tariffs Were Much More Damaging Than Thought

Edit: I apologize for conflating your defense of Trump's tariffs with your defense of his Covid policy although that still doesn't change the fact that Pfizer and BioNTech received grants from the German government not the US government when developing their mRNA vaccine.

 

You are aware that the tariffs weren't paid by the Chinese, they were paid by American consumers and businesses that continued to purchase imported Chinese products and components. The theft of intellectual property by the Chinese is actually a real problem. Imposing tariffs paid out of the pockets of Americans is not the solution. Claiming the Trump helped the farmers who lost markets as the result of his tariffs is like the fireman who commits an act of arson and then claims credit for putting out the fire.