Question for Trump supporters

Thanks for your responses.

You are entitled to your opinions.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Thanks again, guys.

 

I'm not in a party.

 

There is no GOP anymore. You must long for the days of the GOP versus the Blue-Dog democrats. Those friendly days are gone, and they are never coming back, unfortunately.

 

1. Leftists here are not moderate. There are few moderate democrats here with whom you can carry on a conversation with.

2. I hope you don't believe Too Hot is the sole domain of leftists hence you question of why we conservatives, center right people, post here.

3. Trump is not a bad person as you see in your possibly left of center eyes regardless of your protestations. Trump has taken on the establishment and has been attacked mercilessly by folks on the left side of the isle, lamestream media, and alphabet law enforcement since the day he rode the escalator down to announce his run for president in 2015. That he is still standing today is from shear will and power in the man. Nobody else in the world could have withstood all he has had to deal with to try to make America a better place, not even an assassination attempt after which he stood up, fist pumped, and said fight, fight, fight! Truly Trump is a remarkable human being. The right man for the times to be president.

To explain why so many conservatives support Trump, me included, you have to look back to 2009. That was the year the Tea Party, took its name from the Boston Tea Party, became politically active and decided to work as part of the republican party to get the changes we wanted:

1. Lower taxes
2. Lower national debt
3. Lower federal spending
4. Smaller government
5. Opposed ACA as the national health care plan
6. Strict adherence to the US Constitution
7. Much respect for the Founding Fathers & the US Republic
8. Belief in American exceptionalism
9. Opposed liberal world order, globalism
10. Avoid foreign wars

If you watch any Trump rally, you will hear all of these things being talked about plus more.

Obama took the Tea Party seriously as a dangerous threat to his presidency. He weaponized the IRS to target Tea Party members. In 2016, court cases were decided in favor of Tea Party members who were attacked by the IRS. Obama was the first to weaponize a federal government agency this way insofar as I know. Obama might have tamped down their openness, but not their resolve.

What amazes me is how leftists completely misunderstand Trump. It started in 2015/2016 when Trump praised the Tea Party during his campaign and actively sought their support. Trump didn't create a new thing when he used Make America Great Again as his campaign slogan. If you look at the list above which isn't exhaustive, you will see all of those things incorporate into MAGA today. It isn't a cult, or we are drawn to him for inexplicable reasons, it's because Trump is the face of the movement for we the people. The reason you no longer hear the term Tea Party is because the Tea Party with Trump as its head has taken over the republican party from within. This probably explains those who say they used to vote republican and now don't. The party has been taken over by we the people and is no longer the party of the Bushes and other globalists who have had their party taken from them. These people no longer voting republican likely didn't have anything in common with the Tea Party either.

Trump is our leader as he fulfills what we the people want based on our economic, political, and religious beliefs.

To take this a step further, what is going on in the democratic party today and has been since around 2018, is that the democratic party is no longer the democratic party of old either. The group known as the squad and their grassroot organizations have targeted the democratic party for take over from within. These people are socialists and communists bent on taking over the party and the nation from within without a shot being fired. While they would have loved to have had Bernie Sanders as their standard bearer, he has grown too old and too soft. Kamala Harris being the furthest left of any senator and presidential candidate in American history will do to finish the job. Joe Biden divided the nation as much as he could after campaigning on being a moderate and a uniter only to govern more far left that any American president. The green new deal? Right out of the communist handbook. Trump calls it the green new scam. Anti-Israel/antisemitism has flourished for the first time ever in the US. Just today, both Biden and Harris disrespected Netanyahu and the Israeli people demanding a cease fire now and a two-state solution that includes Hamas, encourages pro-Palestinian protesters, rather that wholeheartedly supporting Israel. The democratic party today bears no resemblance to the democratic party of the past which is why I refer to it as the democratic socialist communist party even though leftists don't like it, the shoe fits.

 

Nah, I’m just fresh out of [patience] for anyone that can look at Trump’s resume and behavior and think he’s worthy of championing.

I’m happy to have policy discussions on actual issues with just about anyone, regardless of their positions, but I just don’t have patience anymore for MAGA.

But sure, call me really angry or whatever other cute little dig you think will get under my skin. I clearly got under yours for some reason.

 

I'll keep it relatively simple:

1) He's not my first choice.
2) The way I see it, the choice is binary, and he beats the alternative on policy and big picture vision for the country which are the two most important things. I thought he was excellent on both fronts.
3) The rhetoric, character, and personality matter too, but not nearly as much as Democrats act like they do. They mattered to me a lot more in 2016 because he had no record as a politician so I had no idea what to expect from him. I do now.
4) Despite the personality being a net negative for a person in that role, it's not all bad. It's entertaining and charismatic which counts for something. Knowing what he looks like on his actual record, and liking it, makes the Trumpian goofiness a much easier pill to swallow, and certainly easier to laugh about than cringe.
5) Also, with respect to the narcissism, flaws, lies, self aggrandizement, crassness, and cruelty... literally none of those qualities are exclusively a Trump problem. They are the norm in American politics. Trump just dials the narcissism and one-liners to 11 in sometimes hilarious fashion, sometimes embarrassing fashion, and sometimes both.
6) Democrats don't do themselves any favors when they mobilize the entire criminal justice system against him for political reasons, compare January 6th to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, and compare Trump to Hitler. Making someone a martyr typically doesn't make them less popular.

Chappelle also sums a lot of the Trump popularity pretty well.

 

And the comparisons to Hitler and claims that a Trump win would end in a dictatorship incited an assassination attempt on Donald Trump mere inches away from being successful.

And we know the comparisons are disingenuous because fortunately, most Democrats recognize the shooter as a crazy person, not a hero trying to save Democracy by killing Hitler before he gets elected.

 

Or, hear me out, Democrats think Trump being a martyr might actually lead to more political violence and inevitably be a greater threat to our democracy. If we beat Trump at the ballot box, he's done. If he dies a "martyr," I don't want to think about what comes next.

 

I have yet to decide but if I vote for Trump, it is because I simply don’t want a far left liberal like Kamala Harris running the country.

I wish we had better choices but we are stuck choosing from two really bad candidates. It’s the lesser of two evils for me and right now, Trump would get my vote.

 

In the big scheme of things
Nothing comes next
Trump
Won’t bring down democracy (such a silly thing tinkering).
Kamala won’t end the US as we know it.
Biden wouldn’t have destroyed the nation, neither would Newsime or. Cruz, or Rubio or any other person.
I disagree with much of the democrats vision for America. I disagree with much of the Republicans vision for America.
I consider them all garbage people and garbage leaders. Had Trump been killed there would have been 2-4 weeks of outcry, they weeks of wacko conspiracy theories ( as there is now) a new candidate and a crazy few months before the election. And then… back to trudging along and watching our “elected” officials getting richer and richer while we pay more and more just o survive.
There is a two party system in America
The politicians vs the common man
They just were smart enough to duvude and conquered us by feeding us little moral defeats and victories. It’s the greatest play ever written.

 

Simple. As a leader for conservative policy he has been the best since Reagan. As a leader that exudes strength for America he has been the best since Reagan.

You have to ignore the media and fascist that are scared of him. The biggest difference in Reagan and Trump is that Trump is a narcissist. But in this day and age. That might be necessary to deal with the opposition.

Now why do you view MAGA as negative? Or define people in a way that sure seems/insinuates negative by profiling them as MAGA?

It is not just “MAGA” as you think that supports Trump. No doubt the media has drilled in the negative narrative. But I am attending a funeral Saturday almost certainly thanks to Fentanyl. Would it had happened if Trump was president? Possibly. But I think you have to be naive to think the border is in better shape and Fentanyl has slowed under the current leadership.

 

It's JFK all over again, only this time with tons of actual evidence the government did everything they could to take Trump out.

 

Reagan was the BIGGEST GOV prez of our lifetimes & it's not even close. But, you FEEL like he was a con.

how do you not know this???

even hunted down an old post for you. How do you not know this??? this was to @tilly to demonstrate that Ronnie BIG GOV Reagan was in fact BIG GOV.

1. ALL OF THE METRICS: But, if'n yer into brevity, I will use the big one. Surely you know this. RR increased the debt by 161%. Next closest in our lives GW Bush at a measly 72.6%
   
   Taxes:
   _1981 the year of the Reagan "tax cut" resulted in the avg American paying a HIGHER % of their income in taxes even though the official rate went down. This was due to unaddressed bracket creep & a massive increase to SS which RR didn't call a tax
   _1982 he gave us the LARGEST SINGLE TAX INCRAESE IN AMERICAN HISTORY! the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. TEFRA—the largest tax increase in American history—was designed to raise $214.1 billion over five years
   _Loophole closing in the perversely named Tax Reform Act of 1986 RAISED taxes
   _The facts are that federal tax receipts were $517 billion in the last Carter year of 1980. In 1986, revenues totaled $769 billion, an increase of 49%
   _ in all Reagan passed 11 tax increases & his "tax cut" while lowering marg rates in high brackets INCREASED the avg tax payers' taxes.
   _Taxes by the end of the Reagan era were 19.4%, the so-called historic average is 18.3%.
   
   Spending:
   _first & foremost, he increased spending AS A % of GNP
   _1980, the last year of free-spending Jimmy Carter the federal government spent $591 billion. In 1986, the last recorded year of the Reagan administration, the federal government spent $990 billion, an increase of 68%
   _federal spending as percent of GNP in 1980 was 21.6%, and after six years of Reagan, 24.3%.
   _ A better comparison would be percentage of federal spending to net private product, that is, production of the private sector. That percentage was 31.1% in 1980, and a shocking 34.3% in 1986
   _Carter’s last year as president, the federal government spent a whopping 27.9% of “national income” (an obnoxious term for the private wealth produced by the American people). Reagan assaulted the free-spending Carter administration throughout his campaign in 1980. So how did the Reagan administration do? At the end of the first quarter of 1988, federal spending accounted for 28.7% of “national income.”
   _Ford and Carter did a better job at cutting government. Their combined presidential terms account for an increase of 1.4%—compared with Reagan’s 3%
   _The budget for the Department of Education, which candidate Reagan promised to abolish along with the Department of Energy, has more than doubled to $22.7 billion
   _The price of farm programs went from $21.4 billion in 1981 to $51.4 billion in 1987, a 140% increase.
   _Federal entitlements cost $197.1 billion in 1981—and $477 billion in 1987.
   
   
   Deficits:
   _Carter habitually ran deficits of $40–50 billion and, by the end, up to $74 billion; but by 1984, when Reagan had promised to achieve a balanced budget, the deficit had settled down comfortably to about $200 billion
   
   Regulation:
   _the code of federal regulations increased by 20%
   _the war on drugs went into overdrive
   
   
   Free Trade:
   In his 1988 State of the Union address , Ronald Reagan said, “We should always remember: Protectionism is destructionism. America’s jobs, America’s growth, America’s future depend on trade — trade that is free, open, and fair.” The hypocrisy is apparent when Reagan’s policies on trade in the preceding years are examined.
   _Not only did Reagan expand the New Deal-style agricultural subsidies that have persisted for nearly a century now, but he reinstated import quotas on certain crops. For a decade from 1972 to 1981, federal farm programs cost an average of $3 billion per year; in its three years in office, the Reagan administration spent $34 billion on the same programs.
   _one-quarter of all imports in 1988 were restricted, a 100% increase over 1980.
   • Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports;
   • Tightened considerably the quotas on imported sugar;
   • Negotiated to increase the restrictiveness of the Multifiber Arrangement governing trade in textiles and apparel;
   • Required 18 countries, including Brazil, Spain, South
   • Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, Australia, and the European Community, to accept “voluntary restraint agreements” that reduce their steel imports to the United States;
   • Imposed a 45% duty on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems;
   • Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles;
   • Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory chips;
   • Removed third-world countries on several occasions from the duty-free import program for developing nations;
   • Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more American-made parts;
   • Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools;
   • Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings on grounds so that the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen;
   • Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes;
   • Extended quotas on imported clothes pins; Maine used to be a swing state..
   • Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and timber cut from federal lands;
   • Redefined dumping so domestic firms can more easily charge foreign competitors with unfair trade practices;
   • Beefed-up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to distorting the American economy at the expense of the American people in order to artificially promote exports of eight large corporations.
   But I guess since the economy was so robust no one notice all the big gov.
   _avg UE rate = 7.5%
   _Inf = 4.4% in his last year
   _lowest mort rate under Big Gov Ronnie = 10.19%

 

If you read my post up thread I said what is most important is how they exercise the power of the office. Right now I don't believe Trump will exercise the office in any kind of pro-abortion way. I could be wrong, but it is at least a question mark with Trump. We know for sure that the Democrats are beholden to Murder Inc, and the power of the government is at Murder Inc's command when the Democrats have power. Trump is not making any campaign promises wrt abortion, which makes him the better choice in a binary match up with anyone who has pledged fealty to the Democratic Party and their platform. I wish there was a lot we could change about him, but he is the better choice on the ballot this election cycle. As far as economics go that is way down the list of priorities for me. The day when this nation decides that life is a more important issue than the economy will be a very good day in this country. I am uncomfortable with Trump's stance on abortion, and I will continue to evaluate him through the day of the election.

As far as cheating in the 2020 elections go...I am agnostic on that. I don't know what happened, but I do know it is very important for the country to have confidence in election integrity. So, I do support voter ID for all, and I also support printed ballots in every state in the US. I also oppose mail in voting for all and ballot drop boxes. I think what happened in 2020 was sketchy to say the least.

 

A felon and rapist who tried to violently stop Congress from certifying the election and who openly insults Kia and pow while praising Putin and Xi is better than a Cali liberal...wow

 

Both sides still have a chance to vote Libertarian. We don't need to win, we just need equal ballot access.

 

while I get some of your points you were really cherry picking here.

My recollection was of the tax cuts Reagan passed, the double digit number of increases he passed afterwards amount to about half of the amount of the cuts.

I think to pin the social security reform on him is a bit disingenuous. That problem, like the one we have now, was a long time in the making. I give him credit for going along with a bipartisan commission recommendation to keep it solvent - which it did for about 50 years.

You mention bracket creep - the tax cuts he proposed were 10% for 3 years. What they passed was 5/10/10, with indexing after the tax cuts. The initial tax receipts came in less than expected, because the Volcker rate hikes squashed inflation faster than expected, actually resulting in less bracket creep, and less tax revenue in those 3 years. Whether that is a success or failure depends on how one wants to spin it.

As to taxes being a higher percent of GDP at the end vs the beginning, that was because of a better economy. When the economy does better tax off to gdp goes up due to the progressive nature of the income tax code.

This graph shows actually shows 1987 being less than 1980 as pct to GDP

Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

1. 
   
   This shows spending percent GDP about the same in 1980 vs 1988
   
   Federal Net Outlays as Percent of Gross Domestic Product
   
   
2. 
   
   deficits left gdp went from 2.5 to about 3.0% gdp from 1980-1988, but yes a lot of debt racket up in between, primarily due to the tax cuts and sluggish economy due rate hikes to fight inflation.
   
   Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product
   

Your overall point is valid - Reagan wasn’t nearly the libertarian conservative many make him out to be. He was actually pretty pragmatic and mainly just reprioritized the govt more towards defense and less towards domestic spending. His record was similar as governor in CA - spending actually increased materially.

From my perspective much of these were pragmatic accomplishments but I’m not one who is pining for small government.

 

We finally agree on something

 

I think you meant to say it backfired on the left