What now for Republicans?

[ValleyGal]

That last part is easy to say and of course there could be other factors, some beyond our control.

However, the Biden administration has been responsible for almost all the downturn we've experienced, almost totally by itself. We've referred here to only a few of the disastrous decisions that have been imposed on the USA in less than four years by the current administration.

Every single administration will make disastrous decisions and most of the time it's the People who pay for it. But most administrations also make a few good decisions. Let's not discount those.

However, back to the original discussion - if I were American, I used to be more democrat, but since polarization, definitely neither. Again, let the republicans keep Trump and those who are moderate should create a party for those voters who are not so intensely polarized and need a balanced approach to government.

 

[Albion]

Every single administration will make disastrous decisions and most of the time it's the People who pay for it. But most administrations also make a few good decisions. Let's not discount those.

Why can't you appreciate that some administrations succeed and others fail? This administration is one of the most disastrous in our history, turning prosperity into recession with high inflation all at once, and doing it in less than four years. And this is to say nothing of the worst foreign policy blunders of any administration in our lifetimes or of its campaign against free elections and personal liberties seldom seen before in the USA.

those who are moderate should create a party for those voters who are not so intensely polarized and need a balanced approach to government.

As I explained before, that would be impossible. It's thanks to the joint efforts of Democrats and Republicans to prevent any significant challenges on the ballot coming from any party other than theirs.

 

[ValleyGal]

Interestingly, Dr. Phil had an economist on today who said the pandemic created the inflation problem. People got locked down and couldn't spend, and during that time, supply chain broke down, and now people want to buy and they can't = supply and demand = increased prices. The economist said it's also a global issue - inflation as well as interrupted supply. People didn't go back to work because they had money from not spending during pandemic. If you want to make Biden your scapegoat, go ahead, but that's a pretty narrow view, imo. And before you declare him a failure, why not wait another two years until you can see whether the economy starts to correct itself. Will you then give him credit? Or will you give credit to supply chain? I'd venture to say that you would credit supply chain; however, the truth is, if you blame him now, you have to give him credit later when it starts to correct.

 

[Albion]

Interestingly, Dr. Phil had an economist on today who said the pandemic created the inflation problem. People got locked down and couldn't spend, and during that time, supply chain broke down, and now people want to buy and they can't = supply and demand = increased prices. The economist said it's also a global issue - inflation as well as interrupted supply. People didn't go back to work because they had money from not spending during pandemic.

All of that ^ is secondary compared to the trillions of dollars that Biden and Co. simply threw away at home and abroad while also suppressing American industry. But his own and Hunter's friend Xi didn't suffer at Biden's hands. It was quite the opposite.

By the way, "People don't go back to work" when they're having a check from the feds showing up in their mailboxes every few week.. The claim that they were plush from not having anything to spend their salaries on during Covid is nonsense.

 

[ValleyGal]

Tell that to the economist.

 

[Albion]

Tell that to the economist.

Glad to, but I'll let facts help him out...and you.

Here's a rundown of many of Biden's economy-killing misadventures, along with some of the lies he likes to tell about them to cover his trail. One thing that is helpful about this article is that cold, hard facts are mainstays of the presentation--

Debunking 10 of Joe Biden’s lies about the state of the US economy

Perhaps Biden’s only hope is that the fact checkers can persuade people: “Don’t believe your lying eyes!”

nypost.com

 

[ValleyGal]

I'm not American so I don't have much of a stake in this conversation, but when I evaluate Canada's economic situation, I have to evaluate all the contributing factors no matter how easy it would be to just blame the guy in power who lies and I don't happen to like in the moment.

 

[tango]

The simple reality is that it's not as simple as "it was Biden" or "it was COVID" or "it's global supply chains".

For starters, the pandemic didn't cause anywhere near as many economic issues as the government response to the pandemic. Shutting down everything in sight was done by the government rather than the virus. That said, when people can get $15/hour plus unemployment, why would they work for less than $15/hour? It would make no sense at all, and so we end up with a labor shortage.

Some people continued to work during the pandemic but to argue they had nothing to spend their money on is not true. Although many local retailers were closed down the larger stores stayed open, Amazon stayed open, many dining establishments shifted to offering takeouts and so on. Stimulus checks did nothing to help the national budget, creating another huge deficit while doing nowhere near enough to help the people who really needed it while sending free money to many people who didn't need it.

When everything reopens while supply chains are disrupted it invariably impacts supply, which causes a huge mismatch and demand surges and supply does not, causing prices to increase. The fact interest rates have been so low for so long does nothing to help this - this dates back to 2008 and so if any politicians should be blamed then that would include Obama, Trump and Biden.

Another part of the problem is when supply chains go through specific bottlenecks. Where many things are concerned, meat processing being one classic example, fewer and fewer companies control ever-larger shares of the market. Close one company down because of a COVID outbreak and the national supply is disrupted. On the production side everthing backs up and farmers have no way of getting rid of their livestock while on the consumption side the supply dries up and prices spike. Many people are sufficiently divorced from the actual source of their food they have little if any way of buying directly from the farmer and cutting out the bottlenecks. This is partly a function of a trigger-happy approach to shutting everything down for a small number of infections, partly a function of long-term consolidation of companies, and partly down to workers being in a confined space. Again, if any politicians should be blamed it goes back several presidential cycles rather than just Biden.

Of course Biden has done many things that have made a bad situation worse. Shutting down the Keystone pipeline and restricting drilling for oil does nothing to dampen demand, it just restricts the supply and causes prices to rise. When prices rose he used a strategic national reserve for political gain while doing nothing to address the underlying problem. While demand exists for oil his actions mean that the oil will be drilled elsewhere and some of it will be used to transport it from outside the US - in other words what happens is the exact opposite of what he allegedly wants to achieve. For good measure unilaterally cancelling a major infrastructure project tells international trading partners that the US isn't a stable business partner.

Forgiving student debt is also inflationary. It pushes more money into the system which creates more demand for goods and services, which in turn pushes the prices up. It also creates all sorts of ongoing problems, much like the huge subsidies associated with the "Affordable" Care Act - if companies know the government is paying the bill there is no reason for them to reduce the price of anything. Just as the free availability of student loans pushed the price of education ever-higher, the process of forgiving those debts simply means more students in the future will borrow more money expecting their loans to be forgiven. Along the way it transfers wealth from those who never went to college to those who did - it doesn't seem unreasonable to question why the guy who mops the floor at Walmart should subsidise further education for a would-be lawyer. It's a nice notion that debt is "forgiven" and simply goes away but the reality is someone has to pay the tab. It might make more sense to forgive medical debts - people choose to go to college but generally don't choose financially ruinous medical conditions.

The endless bleating that inflation was "transitory" simply made matters worse. Back in the 70s when Paul Volcker pushed interest rates into double digits it brought inflation under control but at the price of an economic recession. Of course he wasn't dealing with $31,000,000,000,000 in national debt - if interest rates on that debt hit 10% the country will be paying $3trn in interest alone. Sadly while the government was blathering on about debt being cheap it was borrowing short-term rather than long-term. When the debt needs to be rolled over (with deficits north of $1trn there's little chance of any debt being paid, other than by rolling it into a new debt instrument). As rates rise, the cost of servicing the national debt rises in short order. That's the sort of thing that should be very deflationary, but it's hard to see the government doing what is required to really fight inflation when it would bankrupt them in short order.

Ultimately the issue of inflation is partly down to some catastrophic things Biden has done but partly dates back to 2008 and before. Sometimes it's possible to kick the can down the alley but sooner or later you run out of alley.

I suspect part of the problem the Republicans had was that inflation was a pretty easy target, but people want to see an alternative to deal with it rather than lots of shouting that it's a problem. We know it's a problem, we want to know what is going to be done about it.

 

[Albion]

That's an excellent post, tango. The closing comment there does seem a bit abrupt, however, and I am not sure that saying "people want to see an alternative to deal with it rather than lots of shouting that it's a problem. We know it's a problem, we want to know what is going to be done about it" does justice to the matter.

For one thing, and as you are aware, getting one's message to the people is not so easy when almost all the media are working hard to prevent it getting to them.

For another, it's not as though the Republicans had no plans to offer, along with specifics. Here, for instance, is an outline of the House Republicans' "Commitment to America," which they intended to be instructive:

1. Crime has risen rapidly. Therefore, we propose to add 200,000 new police personnel to help bring it down.

2. Fentanyl will be criminalized completely.

3. Prosecutors who routinely fail to do their duty by letting repeat criminal back on the street almost immediately are to be met with federal action, including cutbacks of federal funding.

4. There will be created a "Parents Bill of Rights" that has the following provisions: A, B, C, D, etc. In other words very specific provision that you can easily deduce but which I needn't copy here.

5. Order will be restored to the House of Representatives that, under Pelosi, has prohibited amendments to whatever legislation the Democrats bring to the floor for a vote, allowing members of the House to stay home or on the campaign trail and have someone else cast votes in their name, even on critical issues, and setting up phony investigative panels like the January 6 one, made up entirely of Pelosi clones, rather than being bi-partisan in the normal way.

6. End the weaponization of the Dept of Justice that has turned important agencies of government in to arms of the Democratic Party/

7. Prevent more preferential lockdowns of the American people and businesses, allowing the governors, etc. to drive some businesses into bankruptcy while not enforcing the same orders against the politicians themselves or the businesses that contribute to their election campaigns.

And that's just my summary. The point is that the Republicans were specific, but for one reason or another, it didn't make much of an impact. Part of the reason was that they failed to press their cause effectively in speeches and in their own advertising. But it was not that they had no proposals. Democrats crying "extremist" as their #1 campaign appeal seems to have had success, however.

 

[Josiah]

What Tango and Albion said above....



.

 

[tango]

That's an excellent post, tango. The closing comment there does seem a bit abrupt, however, and I am not sure that saying "people want to see an alternative to deal with it rather than lots of shouting that it's a problem. We know it's a problem, we want to know what is going to be done about it" does justice to the matter.

For one thing, and as you are aware, getting one's message to the people is not so easy when almost all the media are working hard to prevent it getting to them.

For another, it's not as though the Republicans had no plans to offer, along with specifics. Here, for instance, is an outline of the House Republicans' "Commitment to America," which they intended to be instructive:

(details cut for brevity)

Sure, my post wasn't to say that the Republicans offered nothing, but I wasn't seeing anything relating to inflation specifically. To untie the hands of the police while hiring more police to fight crime makes sense, but doesn't bring the price at the pump down. It doesn't make the weekly grocery shopping any cheaper.

I won't argue that most of the media is hostile to anything that runs counter to the Democrat's message (although I was interested to see CNN fact-checking Biden shortly before the election and calling him out on falsehoods). The trouble is that dealing with inflation isn't a trivial process. It didn't appear overnight and it won't go away overnight, but it would be good to know what either of the parties plans to do about it beyond hoping it goes away by itself. The clamoring to send out stimulus checks to help people affected by rising prices indicates few people understand what caused it in the first place.

Part of the problem is that the majority of the population have debts, so raising interest rates hurts more people than it helps. The people who lose their jobs when the economy slows down are unlikely to favor the process of slowing the economy, even if it does mean they'll be better off in a few years time than they would otherwise have been. So then comes the question of what, if any, help to offer the people affected by the economic slowdown and how it can be done without undoing all the work required to get everything under control again.

In some ways the Republicans have poor form here - when they talked for years about "repeal and replace Obamacare" I was interested to see what they had in mind in 2016 when they took power. It was very disappointing to find that they had had many years to come up with an alternative only to find they apparently had nothing. So the disaster that is Obamacare rolls on, getting progressively worse.

 

[Albion]

Hmmm. So you believe that bringing down inflation was the key issue on voters' minds and the Republicans' failure to drive home a solution to this issue was the reason they didn't do better? I'm not sure I can agree to that, although it appears to have been the #1 issue. So what IS the solution to inflation that they could have ridden to victory?

As for Obamacare, wasn't the post-election revenge vote of John McCain against his own party the reason Obamacare survives?? I'm likewise uncertain that I can call that a failure of the Republican campaign strategy during that other election year.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Maybe republicans are not God's chosen political party after all, eh?

The Democratic Party isn't.

Perhaps a lesson worth taking from the election is that Christ hasn't endorsed any earthly political party, so maybe Christians shouldn't endorse any too.

 

[Albion]

Maybe republicans are not God's chosen political party after all, eh?

The Democratic Party isn't.

Perhaps a lesson worth taking from the election is that Christ hasn't endorsed any earthly political party, so maybe Christians shouldn't endorse any too.

Unfortunately, we've drifted into a situation that I think is unique in our history as a nation.

There are major problems with our country's values and policies, but there is no good way to go for anyone wanting to address them. Not with respect to elections and government, that is.

The Democratic Party is the problem itself or at least is the vehicle for the people causing the problems.

The Republican Party doesn't offer a serious alternative. Even when it's given a change to govern, it caves, and enough of its elected legislators go over to the opposition when critical policies and votes face them.

The minor parties that are--or might be considered to be--to the right of the Republicans barely exist and are not on the ballot in most states. That would be the Constitution Party, mainly.

The Libertarian Party IS on the ballot in all or most of the states, but this party is situated about halfway between the two major parties, policy-wise, and so is incapable of attracting anyone other than theorists and idealists who dream of some perfect society that cannot exist.

And then there are the Greens and several "Workers" parties that would, if given power, support everything that the Democrats have done wrong...but push those policies even more aggressively.

 

[1689Dave]

God controls the vote and who is President. I see the USA under His wrath everywhere I look and can only expect the worse.

 

[psalms 91]

The bible tells us that it will get worse and worse and it also show Israel under attack in the last days so either our support for her has to decline or else our power and influance has to be taken away. I dont think the USA is in for many good things in the coming months and years

 

[Albion]

The bible tells us that it will get worse and worse and it also show Israel under attack in the last days

If that conclusion is to be applied to everything that happens, which is what people who consider every last thing any government does, whether good or bad, to be...

then what explains the creation of the American Republic with its values and its role, later on, in defeating several of the most infamously immoral institutions and rulers in the world? All of that would also have to be signs of things getting worse and worse, etc. etc..

Either that, or what's turned sour recently in our country might not be a sign of the last days but, instead, amount to only part of the many 'ups and downs' that have occurred in world history. None of them ushered in the last days, and yet most of them were accompanied by people who were convinced that the last days were imminent.