I've given up on either the Dems or the GOP doing anything to help poor and working class Americans. They just don't care. I voted for Trump so that he'd tighten border security, deport criminal migrants, end the INSANE transgender policies that deny the existence of biological sex, and give full throated support to Israel in the war against Jihadis (the New Nazis, who are perhaps even more dangerous).
Trump has delivered on all of this, and I don't expect him to do anything else. I have extremely low expectations of government at this point, so I've given up on universal healthcare, affordable housing, breadwinner wages for working class jobs, and mandated permanent supportive housing for treatment resistant psychotic/addicted people (this would drastically reduce chronic homelessness and endless human suffering).
Trump gave me what I voted for; Biden did not. MAGA.
There is a wide assortment of federal programs that help "poor and working class Americans," most of which have been in place for decades, and (prior to the Biden administration's obsession with DEI) were appropriately color-blind in their application. Most important of those is the federal income tax, which is highly progressive -- particularly with its Earned Income Credit. And then there are in-kind programs such as Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), subsidies for public parks and transportation, and regulations related to worker and consumer health and safety. And then there is free public education (which is funded mainly at the local and state level).
Before progressives go on a crusade for expanding these programs, or conservatives go on a crusade for cutting them, the rational thing to do is to objectively analyze how they are working. That appears to me to be what the DOGE commission is doing -- although I won't reflexively accept whatever its recommendations might be for changing a system that isn't nearly as "unfair" as zealots of the far left and far right claim it to be.
My wife and I, Democrats for 50 years, officially resigned from our beloved Democratic Party 2 years ago. Reason: It had gone pure Progressive and no longer represented our views. We could also see that, because of the progressive infestation of the party, we were going to lose future elections. Progressives would rather be "right" than win, and so why should we invest in a party that doesn't want to win?
We live in Arizona. We voted for Trump, we voted for a Democrat for the House Seat, and we didn't vote in the Senate election of Gallego vs. Lake.
Does that make us Independents or Leaners?
The jury is out on Trump. And the jury is out on whether we would vote for Republicans. Some actions we approve of (no trans women in women's sports), and some we strongly disapprove of (pardoning the Jan 6 criminals who attacked police officers......my wife was a police officer in her law enforcement career).
We want people who are normal. And normal people can see both sides of most issues. We also want someone we are proud of. Right now, our favorite is Tammy Duckworth.
But, as we say, we'll give it time. What other option is there?
Assume the above polls were pre DOGE? If Trump and Musk can weed out anywhere near, a trillion dollars in waste, fraud and abuse, voters may still be irked about fired FBI agents and name changes , but they will, probably, prioritize US solvency.
In days, Musk and Co. are finding waste, most non Coastal Progressives or fed employees, find equally, unbelievable and appalling. We have had gay friends for decades. We have friends with gay and transgender children. It would be difficult to find 1 who believes paying millions for foreign sex change operations, or to push LGBTQ dogma in Muslim nations, is a good idea. Imagine how the news has been received in Midwest Swing States?
Don't get me started on the tens of millions to bring DEI governance to Syria, as they slaughtered 600k of their own people. How about $15K a pop Politico subscriptions, and 150 year old Social Security recipients? The Biden administration did not dispute or decline a single payment in 4 years? Seriously? The list of waste is massive, in less than 30 days. Imagine what they will find in 6 months, or a year?
Moreover, the only Dem answer thus far, has been to run to court and claim Mr. Musk is overreaching or attempting to steal personal info. The latter makes perfect sense, because what man worth $400 billion bucks, is not involved in credit card fraud? Federal courts have slowed some the actions. Trump may lose some cases, but it seems highly unlikely, ultimately, SCOTUS will prohibit DOGE from uncovering programs and practices, that needlessly wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
DOGE feels like Immigration 2.0, only instead of being labeled racists, Reps are fascists. It is beginning with a drip, but will, eventually, turn into a river, that drowns most other issues.
Would normally agree, but the waste fraud and abuse is so glaring and massive, much of it needs little investigation. Sat next to an FBI agent on a plane one time, for a long flight. He had been working 9/11 for years. He noted 9/11 happened because so few people could ever imagine anyone flying planes into buildings, no one ever gave any thought to preventing it.
That is how I feel about the last few weeks. Many of us have Poli Sci and law degrees, which should make us a bit better informed, then the public, at large. Still most cannot conceive of the waste revealed in the last 21 days. The programs themselves are nearly unimaginable, but the scope is the real problem. Dems will argue it is a tiny portion of the budget. That is insulting, in a nation where 1/2 of families live on $75K a year or less, and 40% of those, live on less than $45K.
Slow the reviews, and waste and fraud will be hidden, and we will physically, be unable to review everything. Programs that are wrongly ended, can be restarted. Parts of programs, that are worthwhile, can be rerouted. The main issue is not terminating federal employees or even the money saved. Americans must know, in detail, where and how their tax dollars are being spent.
We disagree on some points. There is no doubt waste. But a wise approach is to be careful in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
And a lot of this current culling of federal programs to be more sane is coming with accusations and immature name calling. I can't trust someone who is doing this with juvenile name calling........like they are being immature with their words but not with their actions?
Why would waste and fraud be hidden with being careful? Don't we expect care with all professionals we deal with?
I agree that with your degrees you are better informed than I am on many issues. But I have have a Ph.D. in psychology and taught psychology for 30 years. I know how people function, and when they function in their long term best interests, and
in the interests of others.
Much of this cutting is spite driven, not driven with good motives to save taxpayers money (although those are the words used to cover up the spite and payback).
And it's not smart. One of the reasons we switched from voting for Democrats to voting for Trump is that Progressives had pushed all of their envelopes too far. That kind of thing inevitably leads to backlash.
Push the cutting envelope too far and human nature being what it is, there will be backlash that sets the cause of government efficiency back.
Nice talking with you. It's a real talk instead of what we see a lot on comment boards which is trading insults.
I pretty much agree with your approach of "going slow" so as to not "throw out the baby with the bathwater." But that has been tried repeatedly, most recently and prominently by the Simpson-Bowles Commission in 2010, whose bipartisan recommendations (which I supported) were rejected by a bipartisan majority of the Commission, with the apparent concurrence of President Obama.
Having the good fortune to be a resident of Colorado, I refused to vote for either Trump or Harris. With the full knowledge that Harris would win Colorado's 10 electoral votes, I voted for the candidate of the "Approval Voting Party" in support of their goal of expanding the ability of voters to support credible candidates other than the extremists now being nominated by the two dominant parties. I regarded that as a matter of "showing the flag" for intelligent, patriotic moderation, as I do with my comments on this website. I appreciate that you do likewise (despite having been ardent Democrats while I was once an ardent Republican).
I agree 100%. I just watched the DOGE hearings and the Democrats - every single one - could only talk about Musk. One witness stated that gov't fraud rate is as high as 20% - private business fraud rate is 2%. After listening to that the Democrats went right back to the Musk playbook, they have ZERO interest in ending this theft.
Were they Democrats or Progressives? Progressives often, when it is convenient, hide under the blanket of being Democrats, but they are as different from Democrats as Republicans are.
I've known lots of Democrats who would welcome a hard look at our government spending.
It is academically interesting the way that the term "Progressive" has mutated in American politics over the decades.
One of my favorite U.S. presidents is Theodore Roosevelt, who was so "progressive" relative to the status quo of the early 1900s that he was abhorred by the dominant conservative wing of the Republican Party. After supporting his friend, William H. Taft to succeed him in 1908, Roosevelt became so disenchanted with Taft's conservatism that Roosevelt ran as a third party Progressive in 1912. That split the Republican/Republican leaning voters and resulted in the election of the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.
The "progressive" policies advocated by Roosevelt are now so widely accepted as to be "conservative" relative to the policies advocated by present-day Democrat/Socialist "progressives."
My "moderate" philosophical take is that "progressivism" should involve modest improvements to existing laws, regulations, policies, etc., based on an ongoing data-driven analysis of their costs versus benefits. But certainly not radical government- mandated transformations of society, especially based on isolated events such as the alleged "murder" of George Floyd. That "murder" was the determination of a trial conducted in a lynch mob atmosphere supported by high level "progressive" Democrats, and irrationally served as the "proof" of widespread racism throughout America that "justified" the DEI policies of the Biden/Harris administration to supposedly eradicate it. I regard that as a much more serious perversion of justice than the charges brought against Trump for his legal and moral transgressions.
This is true of almost every election and every administration, but the flaw here is that Democrats are steadily and consistently becoming indies and indies are becoming Republicans. PA is now under 100,000 D advantage---and Rs have gained correspondingly. AZ has seen the R ranks grow since Christmas by 38,000. Florida, of course, is off the charts. Worse, there is no indicator whatsoever that this trend is even slowing down, yet abating. So I would not put much hope in salvation by the great Indies.
Yes, independent voters have long been a critical factor in winning elections. In practice, they provide a necessary check on the extremes of either political party.
John Halpin says "Trump still has a lot of work to do in securing the support of independent voters ..." But in Election 2024 didn't Trump perform better not just with independent voters but crossover traditional Democratic constituencies than any GOP presidential candidate during the past 40 years?
So if Trump or today's GOP "has a lot of work to do" to secure independent voter support, does today's progressive Left leaning Democratic Party have any hope of doing so, given the out-of-touch extremity of its positions on everything from open borders to DEI and gender identity?
The polling data is pretty bland. It is quite easy to like Trump's policies and disapprove of his personality. As to the Right-Wrong poll, that is a lagging indicator. Trump has been in office all of three weeks and you don't turn this super-tanker that fast. Lots of giddiness on the Right these days similar to that on the Left when Obama was first in office.
The questions were slanted as well. What would the results be if "civil rights" was phrased as "trans rights" and "civil liberties" was phrased as "CRT/DEI"?
Watching the DOGE hearings this morning not a singe Dem condemned fraud, waste, and actual theft of the taxpayers. It was 100% "Musk is bad." Watching the Dem representatives promising to take to the streets to oppose Trump makes me think they've learned nothing. (Do you think working men and women who watch this screeching and the "F Trump" rallies will bring independents to their side? And these people are making 6 figures -- are they getting paid to harass security people and grandstand?)
Inflation - that will be the achilles heel as it was with Biden (along with immigration)
If one is not merely following one's ideological pre-baked views, the take-away is clear
1. Immigration is indeed a winner for Trump and Democrats only do better by dumping the Lefty Groups quasi-open borders postions they adopted in recent years
2. Crime: also the Lefty advocacy groups position needs to be dumped.
Other items show enough ambiguity to take away the core lesson that generally populaces ex-partisan cores (rule of thumb 20%ish of overall, max of an overall) dislike disruption and chaos when it touches them. and inflation, everywhere
Trump's incoherent actions, freezes - really just plain bungling in action even if one decided such is needed, execution is bungled as freezing (because inattention to detail, poorly drafted PR oriented declarations - PR not = to good legal and management guidance) farm payments example.
I've given up on either the Dems or the GOP doing anything to help poor and working class Americans. They just don't care. I voted for Trump so that he'd tighten border security, deport criminal migrants, end the INSANE transgender policies that deny the existence of biological sex, and give full throated support to Israel in the war against Jihadis (the New Nazis, who are perhaps even more dangerous).
Trump has delivered on all of this, and I don't expect him to do anything else. I have extremely low expectations of government at this point, so I've given up on universal healthcare, affordable housing, breadwinner wages for working class jobs, and mandated permanent supportive housing for treatment resistant psychotic/addicted people (this would drastically reduce chronic homelessness and endless human suffering).
Trump gave me what I voted for; Biden did not. MAGA.
There is a wide assortment of federal programs that help "poor and working class Americans," most of which have been in place for decades, and (prior to the Biden administration's obsession with DEI) were appropriately color-blind in their application. Most important of those is the federal income tax, which is highly progressive -- particularly with its Earned Income Credit. And then there are in-kind programs such as Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), subsidies for public parks and transportation, and regulations related to worker and consumer health and safety. And then there is free public education (which is funded mainly at the local and state level).
Before progressives go on a crusade for expanding these programs, or conservatives go on a crusade for cutting them, the rational thing to do is to objectively analyze how they are working. That appears to me to be what the DOGE commission is doing -- although I won't reflexively accept whatever its recommendations might be for changing a system that isn't nearly as "unfair" as zealots of the far left and far right claim it to be.
My wife and I, Democrats for 50 years, officially resigned from our beloved Democratic Party 2 years ago. Reason: It had gone pure Progressive and no longer represented our views. We could also see that, because of the progressive infestation of the party, we were going to lose future elections. Progressives would rather be "right" than win, and so why should we invest in a party that doesn't want to win?
We live in Arizona. We voted for Trump, we voted for a Democrat for the House Seat, and we didn't vote in the Senate election of Gallego vs. Lake.
Does that make us Independents or Leaners?
The jury is out on Trump. And the jury is out on whether we would vote for Republicans. Some actions we approve of (no trans women in women's sports), and some we strongly disapprove of (pardoning the Jan 6 criminals who attacked police officers......my wife was a police officer in her law enforcement career).
We want people who are normal. And normal people can see both sides of most issues. We also want someone we are proud of. Right now, our favorite is Tammy Duckworth.
But, as we say, we'll give it time. What other option is there?
The jury is always out on politics or should be.
Should be, but people are tribal, not liberal.
The polling data was from people who at least pretend to be non-tribal.
Assume the above polls were pre DOGE? If Trump and Musk can weed out anywhere near, a trillion dollars in waste, fraud and abuse, voters may still be irked about fired FBI agents and name changes , but they will, probably, prioritize US solvency.
In days, Musk and Co. are finding waste, most non Coastal Progressives or fed employees, find equally, unbelievable and appalling. We have had gay friends for decades. We have friends with gay and transgender children. It would be difficult to find 1 who believes paying millions for foreign sex change operations, or to push LGBTQ dogma in Muslim nations, is a good idea. Imagine how the news has been received in Midwest Swing States?
Don't get me started on the tens of millions to bring DEI governance to Syria, as they slaughtered 600k of their own people. How about $15K a pop Politico subscriptions, and 150 year old Social Security recipients? The Biden administration did not dispute or decline a single payment in 4 years? Seriously? The list of waste is massive, in less than 30 days. Imagine what they will find in 6 months, or a year?
Moreover, the only Dem answer thus far, has been to run to court and claim Mr. Musk is overreaching or attempting to steal personal info. The latter makes perfect sense, because what man worth $400 billion bucks, is not involved in credit card fraud? Federal courts have slowed some the actions. Trump may lose some cases, but it seems highly unlikely, ultimately, SCOTUS will prohibit DOGE from uncovering programs and practices, that needlessly wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
DOGE feels like Immigration 2.0, only instead of being labeled racists, Reps are fascists. It is beginning with a drip, but will, eventually, turn into a river, that drowns most other issues.
I'm in favor of looking for waste, and eliminating it.
But I'm also in favor of doing this carefully. There is a reason for the old saying "haste makes waste."
One of Biden's/Harris'/progressive's flaws is that they acted in haste in too many areas.
I don't see what is being done now by Trump/Musk being careful and thoughtful. And that ultimately leads to backlash.
p.s. we voted for Trump, so this is not just an anti-Trump sentiment on our parts.
Would normally agree, but the waste fraud and abuse is so glaring and massive, much of it needs little investigation. Sat next to an FBI agent on a plane one time, for a long flight. He had been working 9/11 for years. He noted 9/11 happened because so few people could ever imagine anyone flying planes into buildings, no one ever gave any thought to preventing it.
That is how I feel about the last few weeks. Many of us have Poli Sci and law degrees, which should make us a bit better informed, then the public, at large. Still most cannot conceive of the waste revealed in the last 21 days. The programs themselves are nearly unimaginable, but the scope is the real problem. Dems will argue it is a tiny portion of the budget. That is insulting, in a nation where 1/2 of families live on $75K a year or less, and 40% of those, live on less than $45K.
Slow the reviews, and waste and fraud will be hidden, and we will physically, be unable to review everything. Programs that are wrongly ended, can be restarted. Parts of programs, that are worthwhile, can be rerouted. The main issue is not terminating federal employees or even the money saved. Americans must know, in detail, where and how their tax dollars are being spent.
Thanks Ronda:
We disagree on some points. There is no doubt waste. But a wise approach is to be careful in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
And a lot of this current culling of federal programs to be more sane is coming with accusations and immature name calling. I can't trust someone who is doing this with juvenile name calling........like they are being immature with their words but not with their actions?
Why would waste and fraud be hidden with being careful? Don't we expect care with all professionals we deal with?
I agree that with your degrees you are better informed than I am on many issues. But I have have a Ph.D. in psychology and taught psychology for 30 years. I know how people function, and when they function in their long term best interests, and
in the interests of others.
Much of this cutting is spite driven, not driven with good motives to save taxpayers money (although those are the words used to cover up the spite and payback).
And it's not smart. One of the reasons we switched from voting for Democrats to voting for Trump is that Progressives had pushed all of their envelopes too far. That kind of thing inevitably leads to backlash.
Push the cutting envelope too far and human nature being what it is, there will be backlash that sets the cause of government efficiency back.
Nice talking with you. It's a real talk instead of what we see a lot on comment boards which is trading insults.
I pretty much agree with your approach of "going slow" so as to not "throw out the baby with the bathwater." But that has been tried repeatedly, most recently and prominently by the Simpson-Bowles Commission in 2010, whose bipartisan recommendations (which I supported) were rejected by a bipartisan majority of the Commission, with the apparent concurrence of President Obama.
Having the good fortune to be a resident of Colorado, I refused to vote for either Trump or Harris. With the full knowledge that Harris would win Colorado's 10 electoral votes, I voted for the candidate of the "Approval Voting Party" in support of their goal of expanding the ability of voters to support credible candidates other than the extremists now being nominated by the two dominant parties. I regarded that as a matter of "showing the flag" for intelligent, patriotic moderation, as I do with my comments on this website. I appreciate that you do likewise (despite having been ardent Democrats while I was once an ardent Republican).
We would enjoy having a beer together. We could actually have a conversation.
p.s. my adolescence was spent in Fort Collins.
p.p.s. my wife and I agree with you about not having non-extremist candidates.
My point was not that I was better informed, but absolutely stunned despite my background. The list reads like an actual , Babylon Bee budget.
I agree 100%. I just watched the DOGE hearings and the Democrats - every single one - could only talk about Musk. One witness stated that gov't fraud rate is as high as 20% - private business fraud rate is 2%. After listening to that the Democrats went right back to the Musk playbook, they have ZERO interest in ending this theft.
Were they Democrats or Progressives? Progressives often, when it is convenient, hide under the blanket of being Democrats, but they are as different from Democrats as Republicans are.
I've known lots of Democrats who would welcome a hard look at our government spending.
Tell it to the Democratic elected officials. This stack has warned about a defense of the status quo bureaucracy which is what is going on on.
It is academically interesting the way that the term "Progressive" has mutated in American politics over the decades.
One of my favorite U.S. presidents is Theodore Roosevelt, who was so "progressive" relative to the status quo of the early 1900s that he was abhorred by the dominant conservative wing of the Republican Party. After supporting his friend, William H. Taft to succeed him in 1908, Roosevelt became so disenchanted with Taft's conservatism that Roosevelt ran as a third party Progressive in 1912. That split the Republican/Republican leaning voters and resulted in the election of the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.
The "progressive" policies advocated by Roosevelt are now so widely accepted as to be "conservative" relative to the policies advocated by present-day Democrat/Socialist "progressives."
My "moderate" philosophical take is that "progressivism" should involve modest improvements to existing laws, regulations, policies, etc., based on an ongoing data-driven analysis of their costs versus benefits. But certainly not radical government- mandated transformations of society, especially based on isolated events such as the alleged "murder" of George Floyd. That "murder" was the determination of a trial conducted in a lynch mob atmosphere supported by high level "progressive" Democrats, and irrationally served as the "proof" of widespread racism throughout America that "justified" the DEI policies of the Biden/Harris administration to supposedly eradicate it. I regard that as a much more serious perversion of justice than the charges brought against Trump for his legal and moral transgressions.
This is true of almost every election and every administration, but the flaw here is that Democrats are steadily and consistently becoming indies and indies are becoming Republicans. PA is now under 100,000 D advantage---and Rs have gained correspondingly. AZ has seen the R ranks grow since Christmas by 38,000. Florida, of course, is off the charts. Worse, there is no indicator whatsoever that this trend is even slowing down, yet abating. So I would not put much hope in salvation by the great Indies.
That's an interesting point. Thanks, Larry.
Yes, independent voters have long been a critical factor in winning elections. In practice, they provide a necessary check on the extremes of either political party.
John Halpin says "Trump still has a lot of work to do in securing the support of independent voters ..." But in Election 2024 didn't Trump perform better not just with independent voters but crossover traditional Democratic constituencies than any GOP presidential candidate during the past 40 years?
So if Trump or today's GOP "has a lot of work to do" to secure independent voter support, does today's progressive Left leaning Democratic Party have any hope of doing so, given the out-of-touch extremity of its positions on everything from open borders to DEI and gender identity?
The polling data is pretty bland. It is quite easy to like Trump's policies and disapprove of his personality. As to the Right-Wrong poll, that is a lagging indicator. Trump has been in office all of three weeks and you don't turn this super-tanker that fast. Lots of giddiness on the Right these days similar to that on the Left when Obama was first in office.
The questions were slanted as well. What would the results be if "civil rights" was phrased as "trans rights" and "civil liberties" was phrased as "CRT/DEI"?
Watching the DOGE hearings this morning not a singe Dem condemned fraud, waste, and actual theft of the taxpayers. It was 100% "Musk is bad." Watching the Dem representatives promising to take to the streets to oppose Trump makes me think they've learned nothing. (Do you think working men and women who watch this screeching and the "F Trump" rallies will bring independents to their side? And these people are making 6 figures -- are they getting paid to harass security people and grandstand?)
Inflation - that will be the achilles heel as it was with Biden (along with immigration)
If one is not merely following one's ideological pre-baked views, the take-away is clear
1. Immigration is indeed a winner for Trump and Democrats only do better by dumping the Lefty Groups quasi-open borders postions they adopted in recent years
2. Crime: also the Lefty advocacy groups position needs to be dumped.
Other items show enough ambiguity to take away the core lesson that generally populaces ex-partisan cores (rule of thumb 20%ish of overall, max of an overall) dislike disruption and chaos when it touches them. and inflation, everywhere
Trump's incoherent actions, freezes - really just plain bungling in action even if one decided such is needed, execution is bungled as freezing (because inattention to detail, poorly drafted PR oriented declarations - PR not = to good legal and management guidance) farm payments example.