I have been reading a lot of the threads on here, and I just don’t get it. People are acting like Trump is going to move into their spare bedroom and molest the family dog, or he is going to single handedly save the nation from all the brown people.
I just don’t get it. Things have never gotten better in any place that I have lived based on the president or anything that any president did. Sure Obama gave us the ACA, but that isn’t what he really wanted, and I don’t know why he fights so hard for it. It is better than nothing but its sorta a gold plated turd. I couldn’t afford it just like I couldn’t afford regular pre-ACA insurance. I didn’t have to pay the penalty though, so at least there is that. If Trump does repeal the ACA and doesn’t have some sort of replacement that is similar, he will get dumped in 4 years and I don’t think that the GOP would let him do something that stupid. They still gotta get elected, right? I don’t see them as someone who would fall on their own stupid sword just because they promised to do it.
It seems to me that the problems that the people I know go through are based on the greed of a few individuals at some point. Its not like rich people greed suddenly went away during Obama. It didn’t go away during Bush or Clinton or Regan. Rich people gotta rich, bro.
People seem to be cheering like Jesus was elected or are frightened that Satan came and wiped his ass with the American Flag. I just don’t get it. Does anyone feel like I do or am I just dumb? I really could be dumb. The older I get the less smart I feel.
What are people so emotional about? Its like I live on a different planet. Can anyone explain this to someone that isn’t really political? I feel like I’m supposed to care based on what everyone on the SDMB says, but it makes me care less. I wanna care. Smarter people than I am seem to care.
The executive branch is actually very influential in day-to-day policy as well as over Congressional legislation, and this particular incoming POTUS is not just extraordinarily uninformed and unqualified, but is nominating extremists and imbeciles to senior government positions. If you doubt that this is important, consider Bush the Younger: the incalculable costs in life and treasure of the needless Iraq invasion, the needless loss of life during the black comedy that was enacted while Hurricane Katrina ravaged its destruction, the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression that followed him out of office, and the appointment of right-wing extremists to the Supreme Court whose impacts already enacted will endure beyond most of our lifetimes.
Compared to Bush, the Obama administration was like an American Renaissance. But compared to what is just on the horizon, we’d all happily settle for Bush.
I’m fairly political-minded but I had a friend a few months ago who isn’t, ask me directly, “what difference does it make to me who wins the election?” and the reality is, probably not a lot. Your taxes might go down a little or up a little, you might get some tweaks in the healthcare system or not, but most of what he does is unlikely to affect you.
Personally, I’m a big gun guy, and so seeing a Supreme Court that will protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms is important to me. The only way that was going to happen was if Trump won the election. He did, so I’m delighted, but I’m not surprised that non-gun folks and not particularly political people don’t really care either way. They can probably shrug and go on with life and it’s probably not going to affect them much.
ETA: this calculus probably changes significantly if, for example, you’re in the military, or you rely on government research grants on climate change to support you, or you work for a federal contractor, etc. If you’re a fairly typical American without special ties to the federal government, then most of what they do is probably just fiddling around the edges of your day-to-day life and not really impacting it directly in a significant way.
I care. You can’t tell me that if Gore was president we still would’ve gone into Iraq under false pretenses. I spent two Christmases in that crappy country because of “WMDs.”
There’s something to be said for having a leader who’s not an embarrassment internationally. I live in California, and for a few years there every time I went over seas (or even to Canada) I got asked about Governor Schwarzenegger. It wasn’t so bad, as Schwarzenegger turned out to be a moderate, but it was still a little embarrassing we’d elected a movie star.
The *idea *of President Trump bothers me because he’s gotten elected in spite of (or maybe because of) his public embrace of racism and misogyny. It’s like his public stance has allowed every asshole in America to be loud and proud of her/his own racism and misogyny. I’d prefer a president who inspired people to be their best selves, not their worst.
Leaders matter because even when not making or setting some new policy that affects you, your family, or your job, they set the tone. In '98/'99, parents were suddenly trying to explain oral sex to their children and why this was one of the issues that led to President Clinton being impeached. Similarly, much of the particularly crude and nasty language that Trump used (either on old audio/video or while campaigning) has likely led to a lot more of those old '98/'99 type discussions.
Beyond that, though, the big issues that are going to affect people are foreign policy and trade policy. If Trump starts a trade war with China, that will likely cost a fair number of Americans their jobs. If Trump tries to implement a tax or restriction on remittances people in the U.S. send to family in Mexico unless Mexico agrees to fund a wall, that’s going to affect millions of people and their families either way that goes. It is unlikely that any other president other than George W. Bush would have pushed the 2003 Iraq invasion, which resulted in several thousand American deaths and likely hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, let alone the tens/hundreds of thousands of wounded.
I honestly don’t know. I live in a state where the GOP routinely wins the governorship and legislature, and it doesn’t bother me or affect me. But I care about the federal level too much.
I think a big reason for me is that I don’t want the ACA repealed or medicare turned into a voucher system. If that weren’t an issue, I would care far less. I also don’t want Trump to cause any kind of major damage to national security (but people were worried about that under Obama too and it didn’t materialize).
Also the fact that so many people felt Trump was qualified to be president means our country has a lot more serious issues on the ground level than a lot of us realized (Trump has many flaws and negatives to his emotions, mind, character, policy competence, etc). It will take a while to accept that fact that so many people didn’t care.
But you helped a few people make a crap-ton of money, so there’s that. (Looking at you, Blackwater and Halliburton). And really, doesn’t that make you feel all good about the country?
I’m sorry that you had to go. I had two really good friends die over in Iraq. I remember talking to others over the phone at 3 AM when I was a college admin and how the delay was and how empty they felt being there. I was just talking to one of my vet friends, and he isn’t convinced that Gore wouldn’t have done the same thing. He said something to the effect that “bad intel is bad intel. It didn’t really matter who would have gotten it, they might have done the same thing.”
I don’t know a lot about Gore, honestly, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say. He wasn’t running this time though so we would have the option of someone who voted to go in the first place (if what they say on the news is correct) or someone who said it was stupid to go. We seemed to have elected the guy that wouldn’t have gone.
While true, virtually everyone becomes dependent on the government in the form of medicare and social security when they retire.
Also about 2.5 million Americans went to Iraq & Afghanistan, which when you factor that they are parents, siblings and children who all have their own families, that means a fairly large minority of the country was personally affected by the foreign policy idea of war.
Also what gun control are you afraid of happening? Assault weapons ban? CCW permit bans? Extended magazine bans?
Could you elaborate? I’m not being snarky or anything, I’m honestly curious.
I might be one of the few left that turns to the SD for my own personal ignorance bashing. I have piles of ignorance about all kinds of things that I would love sorted out.
I remember the blow job crisis. I was already driving by then and I took my dad into town to get lawnmower parts and his stance on WhiteStainGate was something like “who cares where he puts his pecker.” I guess some people really cared though, or the way he tried to get out of it.
Do you think that his cabinet of rich folks would let him put the country in the crapper though? From what I was led to believe, he was going to be largely hands off and delegate most of the presidential type stuff to other folks. These folks seem to be very well to do, and if the economy takes a dump wouldn’t they have more to lose? I am 32, have no retirement or savings, I don’t have the money to play on the stock market. When the economy tanked in my 20’s, I lost all of my 401k (95 grand about) and have been pay check to pay check ever since. Obama didn’t really fix that, it just seemed to keep going in the same direction. The rich folks got richer and well, we all stayed the same.
I guess it matters about war and all that, but I think the “middle east needs no dicking around with” cat is out of the bag at this point. It seems to be common knowledge that screwing around over there is like kicking over fire ant mounds, and I don’t see another war coming. I’m probably wrong, though. I usually am.
You’re right, things that affect the direct military-enlisted population also affect their families and freinds, and so have broader reach. Same with policies that will affect immigrants / green-card holders / refugees for example.
The Obama administration nearly-banned the most common .223 ammunition on the market. My impression is that had they succeeded, it would have made ammo in that caliber significantly more difficult to find and expensive to buy. Right now I don’t really have many fears of more gun control happening. Things are probably going to get significantly better on that front, not worse, except perhaps in a few blue states.
I suspect that we’ll get the Hearing Protection Act passed and perhaps some form of federally-mandated CCW reciprocity, probably get some more imports legalized, maybe remove short-barrel rifles and shotguns from the NFA too, maybe get a Supreme Court that will strike down state-level AWB and magazine capacity restrictions in the future (although my state has neither, so this is only of tangential benefit to me personally).
I don’t get the gun control fear thing. I grew up in a town of 600, and they taught us how to handle guns in high school. We had to get a hunting license as part of our curriculum, and nobody was obsessed about guns being taken away. Clinton was president. Where did this come from? I have never seen anything about anyone getting their guns taken away. What about Clinton made you feel that way?
Please don’t say it was something that the NRA told you. I used to be a member until they had one of their call centers call me and tell me that Obama was going to take our guns away, and when I looked into it, he was actually interested in having rounds that were bigger than 50 cal being etched so they could be tracked. This didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time to me, because there was a lady that got tagged from a 50 cal bullet through the side of her trailer, it almost blew her arm off. She was by the Texas Motor Speedway, and the guy that fired the gun was legally doing it at a shooting range miles away, but the gun misfired and the bullet went way off. It seems to me that you aren’t hunting anything with a 50 cal, and if that gun is fucking up and sending bullets somewhere it shouldn’t be, you’d wanna know.
I don’t know of anyone that needs a 50 cal for personal protection, but I don’t think they should be outlawed or something. Probably registered. If I had one I would want it registered so if someone stole it (like they stole my little .38 in Texas and used it in a liquor store robbery in Florida in 2005) I could prove that it wasn’t me and get the damn thing back. I STILL HAVEN’T gotten the 38 back. Its still “evidence”.
I don’t understand how the GDP effects me personally or those I know. It probably does, but I don’t understand that. I only had two economics classes in college ten years ago.
