Donald Trump is the American voters' consistent response to the excesses and consistent shortcomings of the Obama presidency, the Hillary Clinton candidacy, the Biden presidency and, most recently, the Kamala Harris candidacy.
Any chance Democrats, and notably the Party's emergent, rabidly progressive Left wing, will get the message? Before this century is out?
Common sense as always. Dovere's book, "Battle for the Soul," confirms much of Bidens prog tilt.
However, in all honesty we need to acknowledge that even in 2020 Biden's mind was gone. He had early dementia then, and his government was run by different prog cabals with him knowing little of what was going on. That doesn't excuse his hideous, extreme, and even quasi-fascist actions, but it means he didn't know they were taking place.
Absolutely agree. I’m a physician and Biden’s cognitive impairment was obvious to me in 2019. The Democrats have lied about this for four years and maintained an unelected shadow government. This should be the political scandal of the century (along with Hunter’s multimillion dollar influence peddling operation aided by Joe), but due to a compliant press and a corrupt DOJ these things have never been fully revealed.
Biden was never a moderate, but a vessel for Dems who truly believed "demographics are destiny". Obama's wins and CA's single party rule, gave birth to the Dem fantasy, with the right voters, the entire US, could be CA. The largest, permanent Progressive enclave, in the world. If only Texas voters, more closely mimicked the Obama coalition, the Progressive party, need never end. The simplistic theory, took on a religious fervor, after Trump's first win.
The shortest route to permanent Blue WH rule, is turning Texas Blue. Without Texas' 40 electoral votes, Reps would never again hold the WH. Dems assumed flooding Texas with migrants would endear them with Hispanic Americans, and, eventually, produce millions of new Dem voters, when mass amnesty was granted or a new generation of grateful Dems was born.
And the plan almost worked. The US Press ignored the millions of mostly impoverished and sparsely educated new arrivals, for years. Texans were drowning in a sea of humanity with no place for them to sleep, eat or receive healthcare, when Abbott and DeSantis relocated a tiny fraction to Blue States.
Dems never foresaw how a taste of their own medicine might affect Blue States, and independent voters. Nor did they anticipate how Hispanic Americans would react to millions of migrants overwhelming their schools and hospitals, while driving up the cost of affordable housing and driving down Blue Collar, and low skilled wages. Violent crime, committed by migrants, could no longer be hidden, when Laken Riley was murdered. Inflation, crime and insane social policies, made bad immigration policy, worse for Dems.
If 2024, becomes a repeat of 1980 and Dems wander the political wilderness for a decade and a half, or longer, they should understand, what began their journey, and how it was not remotely moderate.
I am a huge fan of your publication. I have learned a lot from you. You have changed my politics and I am sharing your insights with my friends and family and encouraging them to read you. I know looking back and learning from these mistakes is crucial. I also hope that you and your colleagues in the center will soon help us understand how to move forward. For example: I would appreciate reporting from inside the DNC. Is anybody, anybody, thinking about these things? If so, who and how can we support that person? Also, you've talked so persuasively about finding and supporting working-class candidates. How can we support the ones who are in office (if they are not our representatives) and find more? Maybe an Emily's List or incubator for aspiring MGPs or Fettermans? Let's find candidates and policies that express your vision and work on them even as we continue to learn from our mistakes.
Thank you! I know I and people in my network are actively looking for a home where we can contribute in some way -- our time, our skills and to a greater and lesser degree, depending the person's income, our money. There are staunch Democrats with money who want to focus on pocketbook issues and are hungry for substantive policy discussions.
Until there is a political home for common-sense, effective and efficient government, Ds and Rs should check out and support the members of their party belonging to the House Problem Solvers Caucus.
Biden was never really a moderate. He is, at heart, a McGovern Democrat. More importantly, Biden is a bully. Think Biff from "Back to the Future." When he's not in power, he's obsequious, always getting in front of where the Party is moving. But give him money and power, he will use it to the hilt. The best example isn't domestic policy but the withdrawal from Afghanistan. As Vice President, Biden always advocated withdrawal, but President Obama disagreed. Once Biden became President, he was going to withdraw, no matter the cost. If you look at the history of his approval ratings, the cost was his Presidency.
Reflexively, as sure as the sun rises every day, someone will deflect to Trump when the subject is Biden's incompetency. The Afghanistan withdrawal was an epic failure, 13 of our soldiers lost their lives, and yet no one lost their job. Biden was 'proud' of the way it went down. To this day he won't admit to what everyone in America saw with their own eyes.
When Biden was on the campaign trail, he never told me he was going to destroy women's civil rights as we know it. He tried to change a historic, civil rights law for women with the dept. of education.(Title IX) He also tried to compel speech. That's straight out of Mao's little red book. Just imagine if Trump did that. They call him a dictator, for it is an action of a dictator. I voted for Joe and Kamala, and then watched them lose their minds in real time, and then go on a destruction spree, destroying our country and rights as we know it. I HATED Donald Trump, but slowly saw how brainwashed I had been, with the grotesque lies of the propaganda media and the democrats repeating them. I love Trump now, God bless him. The American people saved him from the clutches of the Democrats, and he saved us from their totalitarian hell. We have a symbiotic relationship, and at its core is LOVE. MAGA people are beautiful. I will never forget how they stayed to protect Trump, when bullets were flying. The Democrats destroy their leaders, republicans stand by them. Thank you Joe, Kamala, Gavin etc. for turning me RED. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
If Joe Biden is the best (or even one of the best) leaders that Democrats can come up with, your Party is in a lot worse shape than you realize. Based on his 50 years+/- in political life it is obvious that he lacks any moral compass, he lacks a rational governing philosophy, he surrounds himself with yes people and he is dishonest. He is a liar, mean spirited and inherently bigoted. Laying his short comings solely as adopting too much of a Progressive bent really is somewhat delusional. The man is every bit the threat to democracy that he and most of your Party accuse Trump of being. While your critique of the Progressive agenda is spot on, you have missed the boat on leadership when you don't call out Biden and his ilk for their total lack of any leadership dimensions.
I had a career as a civil engineer, but unlike most others in the construction industry (including labor unions) understood that many public works projects that were “desirable” were not cost-effective, and if implemented at all should have been deferred to a time of high unemployment and low government debt. As this article explains, Biden’s policies were the opposite of that and supported by most Democratic politicians. Stimulus payments to people unemployed by the pandemic were appropriate but went too far and would have been more affordable if the national debt had not been so high initially.
Helping people out of work was appropriate, but both parties took it way too far. People who never lost a single paycheck were handed multiple govt checks, as were retirees, who be definition, did not miss work income. The same for those with vast assets, but little income.
A friend in La Jolla lunches with an elderly friend of her late Mother, a few times a year. The wealthy widow, resides, alone, in a multimillion dollar beach "cottage", large enough for 3 families. At a Covid lunch, the widow insisted on the check, explaining Biden would not stop sending her money, so the least she could do, was buy lunch, before the rest of the check, went to the Food Bank.
My friend could not stop herself from asking, why such a wealthy, retired person would be sent a Covid check. The widow explained due to CA's high state income tax, and her age, her income is purposefully deferred, as much as possible, until after her death. Most of her friends are in the same boat, and also received Covid checks, because the checks were only income limited, not asset tested.
Given Biden’s obvious cognitive impairment as early as the 2019 campaign, I don’t think he was the driving force behind many of the actions taken by his administration. With the glaring exception of the reckless and poorly executed retreat from Afghanistan (which Biden seemed to have been thinking about for years), most of his supposed efforts seemed to have been cooked up by committees of radical leftists from the Sanders/Warren camp. I’m 68 years old and I think that Biden is by far the worst President that we have had in my lifetime.
The Spectator has an article today about Justin Trudeau: "Farewell to the Last of the Lockdown Tyrants." https://thespectator.com/topic/farewell-last-lockdown-tyrants-justin-trudeau/. How many lies do you put up with in a relationship? Not many. The American people heard too many lies and manipulations during covid.. and the rest of the Bide presidency.
"Scranton Joe" was a delusion. He was a convenient screen for The Groups to hide behind while they were actually running the show. And he was never that moderate in the first place. The Democratic Establishment was willing to make that deal to avoid Elizabeth Warren who was much too populist for their taste. I don't think they anticipated how much The Groups were going to run amok and damage the brand. Warren remains the key player if there is to be populist fusion though she needs to dial down the partisanship and focus on policy. She did say the other day that she would work with Trump on "unrigging" the economy. In the past, she has worked with Vance and Hawley on these issues. I suggest that smiting the banksters would be a good place to start. They are currently sucking up to Trump but he has a long memory.
Yeah, she needs to stop that. But who else. Bernie is too old. AOC even crazier. I would rather have the other faction that runs this place but they need to decide they can't coexist with The Groups and help MAGA finish off the GOPe. At this point, they think they can recapture the Democratic Party.
Warren can't stop screeching. She has been been screeching for as long as she has been a prominent female politician on the left. She acts like she's losing her shit.
I can read 10x faster than anyone can talk. I maximize my information intake that way but sometimes watching provides useful information. I mainly use it for various chores though.
If Joe Biden had gone left on the min wage or trade or protecting the jobs of American workers via immigration and tariffs I'd of been ok with it. I'm a lefty, lifelong. I support kids too, heck I still am supporting kids via tuition. The weird social things I can ignore, weird people don't bother me.
Today I'm headed out to the job site, yesterday there was no one there but the concrete guys. I don't know them well, and I'm not aware of their immigration status, but I can make assumptions. Last time I was at that job I only saw landscapers and I know them, mostly all of them of the unauthorized sort. I like the workers themselves, great guys. Unlike most Americans I can get along in Spanish, I pick up languages easy. What I don't like are the politicians who have so bent the rules and ignored the laws that as soon as Biden opened the border I lost more work all the time. Now with interest rates, the work is pretty much gone.
It seems to me that it is not simply what was done but the mode of what was done. Done in Lefty Everything Bagelism and not centrist pragmatic.
The example of the IRA. Investment in Renewable Energy infrastructure and general infrastructure upgrades to the US electric grid - integration and modernisation of a grid that frankly is a 1960s era dated and fragmented, inefficient mess. Modernising it is a win-win (win for RE as it enables scale and scale is good to drive down prices, and driving down energy prices is a working class and general economy win. And at-scale - utility scale, gigawatt installations not kilowatts on rooftops- solar and wind are price beaters if they can connect...
This is very economically sensible and something that can be sold in a very moderate fashion as well as executed that way - with very sensible efficiency returns and efficiency of course is good for economic growth.
HOWEVER - the Biden administration kept taking Lefty Enviro NGO approach that is as, or more concerned about penalising polluting capitalism and attacking evil oil and gas barons (like shooting down doing a compromise with Manchin re regulatory streamlining) than cliamte. Restrictive mandates - purist focus on pure EVs, restricting gas liscences, neglecting the real issues of permitting times (look at the pathetic roll out of charging stations, or the cancellations in RE due to delays and cost escalation.
This is a real pity, as its a case where content could easily have been market-oriented moderate but ended up being weighted down by the Progressive purity pony shows.
Ruy is correct on the immigration issue and the trans issue; he's way off on the economic and crime issues, though.
If Biden's policies made inflation worse, we should see the U.S. performing worse on the inflation metric relative to other policy regimes across the major economies. We do *not* see that--the U.S. not only has one of the lowest rates of inflation in the G20, and the best labor market and best rates of growth in the G20 from 2020-2024, it has a vastly lower rate of inflation than countries like Belgium, which implemented economic policies that were essentially the exact opposite of Biden's. Summers's thesis was actually *disproven* by the Biden economic agenda.
Concerning crime, crime rates peaked in 2020, at the outset of Biden's term, and were far lower by the end of it. They plummeted in 2023 and 2024. The annual violent crime rate was indeed higher in *2019* than it was by 2023 and 2024.
Regarding oil, the U.S. literally broke records in terms of oil production all throughout Biden's term and in 2023, to quote the EIA, "Crude oil production in the United States, including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023, breaking the previous U.S. and global record of 12.3 million b/d, set in 2019." (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545#)
Meanwhile, the CHIPS Act is literally the only legislation in the past 20 years that induced a manufacturing powerhouse of the most important commodity on the planet--respectively, Taiwan and semiconductors--to explicitly agree to build factories in the U.S. Nothing passed under Trump or Obama can boast of the same success when it comes to re-shoring.
The more interesting and overlooked story of the Biden era is the gap between reality and public perception. It has widened significantly since 2020--and if it continues, what an administration actually does, and what benefits it brings people, will become of less and less of consequence to how it is viewed. And that is quite an alarming and dangerous possibility. I have my theories as to why; but I would like to see Ruy and the folks at TLP apply their considerable talents to performing their own analysis.
There is no way that infusing almost 2 trillion dollars into the US economy (as was done with Biden’s American Rescue Plan) didn’t contribute to US inflation, especially given the temporal relationship between the two. No “rescue” was even needed since the economy was recovering, but Biden (or more likely his handlers) couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to buy votes.
Crime statistics are tricky and can be misleading. The FBI recently revised the 2021-2022 violent crime rate from a 2.1% fall to a 4.5% rise. Also factor in some large cities (Democrat run) not reporting crime statistics or downgrading felonies to misdemeanors. People know when crime is up in their neighborhood regardless of what Democrats and their allies in the press claim.
Re energy policy, oil production was up DESPITE Biden’s policies rather than because of them. He stymied drilling on federal land, blocked pipeline projects, and spoke out against the fossil fuel industry. He funneled payoffs to “green” companies (read Democrat donors) through federal spending.
Biden is the worst President I have seen in 50 years of voting.
***"There is no way that infusing almost 2 trillion dollars into the US economy (as was done with Biden’s American Rescue Plan) didn’t contribute to US inflation, especially given the temporal relationship between the two. No “rescue” was even needed since the economy was recovering, but Biden (or more likely his handlers) couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to buy votes."***
On the contrary, there are several ways one could explain how it would have the opposite effect--most concretely if the spending provides boosts to the US's labor market, its rate of economic growth, and its labor productivity; the former two remained the strongest in the world throughout Biden's term, and the latter rose from 2021 onward. All of that would tend to strengthen the dollar, which puts downward pressure on prices; the dollar hit a 20-year high under Biden, and it arguably blunted the full force of the global post-COVID inflationary wave. That is a speculative story, too--but it is supported by the numbers, and in any case, whether one believes it or not does not change the fact that the US was, on a comparative basis, quite economically successful from 2020-2024 relative to the rest of the world.
***"Crime statistics are tricky and can be misleading. The FBI recently revised the 2021-2022 violent crime rate from a 2.1% fall to a 4.5% rise. Also factor in some large cities (Democrat run) not reporting crime statistics or downgrading felonies to misdemeanors. People know when crime is up in their neighborhood regardless of what Democrats and their allies in the press claim."***
Or, people increasingly get all their news from social media--ever more so since the COVID lockdowns--rather than local media, and the former algorithmically augments fear and paranoia-inducing narratives and suppresses moderate ones. Then these narratives get supercharged by the increasingly powerful Sinclair-run media ecosystem. That is how you get people in Wisconsin--where the illegal immigrant population is miniscule--believing they're being invaded by a wave of migrants and putting it as "issue #1" on opinion surveys; and that is how you get average people thinking their cities are being overrun as crime is falling. Given the evidence that social media has overtaken traditional media, and its documented psychological effects, I would say that is a more more plausible story than "there is a mass engineering of the crime stats going on."
But, if you wish, let's take the numbers after the adjustments made by the FBI. You'll note that the Bureau did *not* revise the significant decrease in crime that happened in 2021, 2023 and 2024. (Nor the big jump from 2019 to 2020)
***"Re energy policy, oil production was up DESPITE Biden’s policies rather than because of them. He stymied drilling on federal land, blocked pipeline projects, and spoke out against the fossil fuel industry. He funneled payoffs to “green” companies (read Democrat donors) through federal spending"***
Or, Biden had a smart energy policy that increased production in one hand while taking action to placate the Green Lobby in the other. Both stories are speculative, and on equal epistemological footing--the only story that isn't speculative is the one about how oil production under Biden's tenure outpaced production under his predecessor.
Re inflation: You can summon as many complicated economic scenarios as you like, but the simple fact is that dumping almost 2 trillion dollars into a recovering economy with a constrained supply chain is going to promote inflation. I don’t think many economists would argue with that.
Crime: So by your account half the voters in the US are just victims of bad information when they think that crime is up. I guess all those retailers who recently put easily shoplifted items in locked cases are also ill informed. And those people in San Francisco who recalled their Democrat DA? Also victims of social media-driven hysteria, I guess.
Energy: Please give me one Biden policy that promoted fossil fuel exploration or production. You will have no problem finding plenty of Biden policies that did the opposite. The oil companies produced more oil because world economies were coming back on-line after Covid and demand was way up. Biden couldn’t obstruct drilling on private and state land and that is where the vast majority of US oil production comes from. What Biden did do was tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve prior to the 2022 midterm election in order to reduce gasoline prices that voters were angry about. This reserve is supposed to be for national emergencies and not for political expediency. Biden inherited an SPR level of 638 million barrels from Trump in 2020, but is leaving office with the SPR at 394 million barrels because he failed to replenish it. That’s Biden’s energy legacy in a nutshell.
Ruy Texeira is in his safe space dinging Biden's immigration policy. He is becoming very repetitive. He needs a new project like explaining the incoherence of Trump's proposed immigration and trade policies.
David Leonhardt differs about Biden's legacy. He believes much will endure in the Democratic Party. He moved the Democratic Party away from trade liberalization. He pursued an industrial policy to build up sectors important to national security and future prosperity. He was more aggressive about restraining corporate power, cracking down on “junk fees” and regulating drug prices.
Donald Trump is the American voters' consistent response to the excesses and consistent shortcomings of the Obama presidency, the Hillary Clinton candidacy, the Biden presidency and, most recently, the Kamala Harris candidacy.
Any chance Democrats, and notably the Party's emergent, rabidly progressive Left wing, will get the message? Before this century is out?
Common sense as always. Dovere's book, "Battle for the Soul," confirms much of Bidens prog tilt.
However, in all honesty we need to acknowledge that even in 2020 Biden's mind was gone. He had early dementia then, and his government was run by different prog cabals with him knowing little of what was going on. That doesn't excuse his hideous, extreme, and even quasi-fascist actions, but it means he didn't know they were taking place.
Absolutely agree. I’m a physician and Biden’s cognitive impairment was obvious to me in 2019. The Democrats have lied about this for four years and maintained an unelected shadow government. This should be the political scandal of the century (along with Hunter’s multimillion dollar influence peddling operation aided by Joe), but due to a compliant press and a corrupt DOJ these things have never been fully revealed.
Biden was never a moderate, but a vessel for Dems who truly believed "demographics are destiny". Obama's wins and CA's single party rule, gave birth to the Dem fantasy, with the right voters, the entire US, could be CA. The largest, permanent Progressive enclave, in the world. If only Texas voters, more closely mimicked the Obama coalition, the Progressive party, need never end. The simplistic theory, took on a religious fervor, after Trump's first win.
The shortest route to permanent Blue WH rule, is turning Texas Blue. Without Texas' 40 electoral votes, Reps would never again hold the WH. Dems assumed flooding Texas with migrants would endear them with Hispanic Americans, and, eventually, produce millions of new Dem voters, when mass amnesty was granted or a new generation of grateful Dems was born.
And the plan almost worked. The US Press ignored the millions of mostly impoverished and sparsely educated new arrivals, for years. Texans were drowning in a sea of humanity with no place for them to sleep, eat or receive healthcare, when Abbott and DeSantis relocated a tiny fraction to Blue States.
Dems never foresaw how a taste of their own medicine might affect Blue States, and independent voters. Nor did they anticipate how Hispanic Americans would react to millions of migrants overwhelming their schools and hospitals, while driving up the cost of affordable housing and driving down Blue Collar, and low skilled wages. Violent crime, committed by migrants, could no longer be hidden, when Laken Riley was murdered. Inflation, crime and insane social policies, made bad immigration policy, worse for Dems.
If 2024, becomes a repeat of 1980 and Dems wander the political wilderness for a decade and a half, or longer, they should understand, what began their journey, and how it was not remotely moderate.
Our hosts here were the originators of the demographics are destiny theory but they have recanted.
I am a huge fan of your publication. I have learned a lot from you. You have changed my politics and I am sharing your insights with my friends and family and encouraging them to read you. I know looking back and learning from these mistakes is crucial. I also hope that you and your colleagues in the center will soon help us understand how to move forward. For example: I would appreciate reporting from inside the DNC. Is anybody, anybody, thinking about these things? If so, who and how can we support that person? Also, you've talked so persuasively about finding and supporting working-class candidates. How can we support the ones who are in office (if they are not our representatives) and find more? Maybe an Emily's List or incubator for aspiring MGPs or Fettermans? Let's find candidates and policies that express your vision and work on them even as we continue to learn from our mistakes.
Thank you, Helen. That's very kind! Good ideas, we'll try to look into some of your questions.
Thank you! I know I and people in my network are actively looking for a home where we can contribute in some way -- our time, our skills and to a greater and lesser degree, depending the person's income, our money. There are staunch Democrats with money who want to focus on pocketbook issues and are hungry for substantive policy discussions.
Until there is a political home for common-sense, effective and efficient government, Ds and Rs should check out and support the members of their party belonging to the House Problem Solvers Caucus.
Biden was never really a moderate. He is, at heart, a McGovern Democrat. More importantly, Biden is a bully. Think Biff from "Back to the Future." When he's not in power, he's obsequious, always getting in front of where the Party is moving. But give him money and power, he will use it to the hilt. The best example isn't domestic policy but the withdrawal from Afghanistan. As Vice President, Biden always advocated withdrawal, but President Obama disagreed. Once Biden became President, he was going to withdraw, no matter the cost. If you look at the history of his approval ratings, the cost was his Presidency.
Did withdrawal and signing a deal with the Taliban hurt Trump?
Reflexively, as sure as the sun rises every day, someone will deflect to Trump when the subject is Biden's incompetency. The Afghanistan withdrawal was an epic failure, 13 of our soldiers lost their lives, and yet no one lost their job. Biden was 'proud' of the way it went down. To this day he won't admit to what everyone in America saw with their own eyes.
When Biden was on the campaign trail, he never told me he was going to destroy women's civil rights as we know it. He tried to change a historic, civil rights law for women with the dept. of education.(Title IX) He also tried to compel speech. That's straight out of Mao's little red book. Just imagine if Trump did that. They call him a dictator, for it is an action of a dictator. I voted for Joe and Kamala, and then watched them lose their minds in real time, and then go on a destruction spree, destroying our country and rights as we know it. I HATED Donald Trump, but slowly saw how brainwashed I had been, with the grotesque lies of the propaganda media and the democrats repeating them. I love Trump now, God bless him. The American people saved him from the clutches of the Democrats, and he saved us from their totalitarian hell. We have a symbiotic relationship, and at its core is LOVE. MAGA people are beautiful. I will never forget how they stayed to protect Trump, when bullets were flying. The Democrats destroy their leaders, republicans stand by them. Thank you Joe, Kamala, Gavin etc. for turning me RED. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
If Joe Biden is the best (or even one of the best) leaders that Democrats can come up with, your Party is in a lot worse shape than you realize. Based on his 50 years+/- in political life it is obvious that he lacks any moral compass, he lacks a rational governing philosophy, he surrounds himself with yes people and he is dishonest. He is a liar, mean spirited and inherently bigoted. Laying his short comings solely as adopting too much of a Progressive bent really is somewhat delusional. The man is every bit the threat to democracy that he and most of your Party accuse Trump of being. While your critique of the Progressive agenda is spot on, you have missed the boat on leadership when you don't call out Biden and his ilk for their total lack of any leadership dimensions.
Wish I could triple like this post. When it comes to Biden and his sycophants in the press my new favorite word is hagiography.
I had a career as a civil engineer, but unlike most others in the construction industry (including labor unions) understood that many public works projects that were “desirable” were not cost-effective, and if implemented at all should have been deferred to a time of high unemployment and low government debt. As this article explains, Biden’s policies were the opposite of that and supported by most Democratic politicians. Stimulus payments to people unemployed by the pandemic were appropriate but went too far and would have been more affordable if the national debt had not been so high initially.
Helping people out of work was appropriate, but both parties took it way too far. People who never lost a single paycheck were handed multiple govt checks, as were retirees, who be definition, did not miss work income. The same for those with vast assets, but little income.
A friend in La Jolla lunches with an elderly friend of her late Mother, a few times a year. The wealthy widow, resides, alone, in a multimillion dollar beach "cottage", large enough for 3 families. At a Covid lunch, the widow insisted on the check, explaining Biden would not stop sending her money, so the least she could do, was buy lunch, before the rest of the check, went to the Food Bank.
My friend could not stop herself from asking, why such a wealthy, retired person would be sent a Covid check. The widow explained due to CA's high state income tax, and her age, her income is purposefully deferred, as much as possible, until after her death. Most of her friends are in the same boat, and also received Covid checks, because the checks were only income limited, not asset tested.
Given Biden’s obvious cognitive impairment as early as the 2019 campaign, I don’t think he was the driving force behind many of the actions taken by his administration. With the glaring exception of the reckless and poorly executed retreat from Afghanistan (which Biden seemed to have been thinking about for years), most of his supposed efforts seemed to have been cooked up by committees of radical leftists from the Sanders/Warren camp. I’m 68 years old and I think that Biden is by far the worst President that we have had in my lifetime.
The Spectator has an article today about Justin Trudeau: "Farewell to the Last of the Lockdown Tyrants." https://thespectator.com/topic/farewell-last-lockdown-tyrants-justin-trudeau/. How many lies do you put up with in a relationship? Not many. The American people heard too many lies and manipulations during covid.. and the rest of the Bide presidency.
"Scranton Joe" was a delusion. He was a convenient screen for The Groups to hide behind while they were actually running the show. And he was never that moderate in the first place. The Democratic Establishment was willing to make that deal to avoid Elizabeth Warren who was much too populist for their taste. I don't think they anticipated how much The Groups were going to run amok and damage the brand. Warren remains the key player if there is to be populist fusion though she needs to dial down the partisanship and focus on policy. She did say the other day that she would work with Trump on "unrigging" the economy. In the past, she has worked with Vance and Hawley on these issues. I suggest that smiting the banksters would be a good place to start. They are currently sucking up to Trump but he has a long memory.
She looked like an unhinged screeching hyena at the Senate hearings. No thanks.
Yeah, she needs to stop that. But who else. Bernie is too old. AOC even crazier. I would rather have the other faction that runs this place but they need to decide they can't coexist with The Groups and help MAGA finish off the GOPe. At this point, they think they can recapture the Democratic Party.
Warren can't stop screeching. She has been been screeching for as long as she has been a prominent female politician on the left. She acts like she's losing her shit.
That I didn't know that is a drawback of me doing writing and ignoring video.
I support your choice of activities. I don't watch much video anymore either.
I can read 10x faster than anyone can talk. I maximize my information intake that way but sometimes watching provides useful information. I mainly use it for various chores though.
If Joe Biden had gone left on the min wage or trade or protecting the jobs of American workers via immigration and tariffs I'd of been ok with it. I'm a lefty, lifelong. I support kids too, heck I still am supporting kids via tuition. The weird social things I can ignore, weird people don't bother me.
Today I'm headed out to the job site, yesterday there was no one there but the concrete guys. I don't know them well, and I'm not aware of their immigration status, but I can make assumptions. Last time I was at that job I only saw landscapers and I know them, mostly all of them of the unauthorized sort. I like the workers themselves, great guys. Unlike most Americans I can get along in Spanish, I pick up languages easy. What I don't like are the politicians who have so bent the rules and ignored the laws that as soon as Biden opened the border I lost more work all the time. Now with interest rates, the work is pretty much gone.
It seems to me that it is not simply what was done but the mode of what was done. Done in Lefty Everything Bagelism and not centrist pragmatic.
The example of the IRA. Investment in Renewable Energy infrastructure and general infrastructure upgrades to the US electric grid - integration and modernisation of a grid that frankly is a 1960s era dated and fragmented, inefficient mess. Modernising it is a win-win (win for RE as it enables scale and scale is good to drive down prices, and driving down energy prices is a working class and general economy win. And at-scale - utility scale, gigawatt installations not kilowatts on rooftops- solar and wind are price beaters if they can connect...
This is very economically sensible and something that can be sold in a very moderate fashion as well as executed that way - with very sensible efficiency returns and efficiency of course is good for economic growth.
HOWEVER - the Biden administration kept taking Lefty Enviro NGO approach that is as, or more concerned about penalising polluting capitalism and attacking evil oil and gas barons (like shooting down doing a compromise with Manchin re regulatory streamlining) than cliamte. Restrictive mandates - purist focus on pure EVs, restricting gas liscences, neglecting the real issues of permitting times (look at the pathetic roll out of charging stations, or the cancellations in RE due to delays and cost escalation.
This is a real pity, as its a case where content could easily have been market-oriented moderate but ended up being weighted down by the Progressive purity pony shows.
Ruy is correct on the immigration issue and the trans issue; he's way off on the economic and crime issues, though.
If Biden's policies made inflation worse, we should see the U.S. performing worse on the inflation metric relative to other policy regimes across the major economies. We do *not* see that--the U.S. not only has one of the lowest rates of inflation in the G20, and the best labor market and best rates of growth in the G20 from 2020-2024, it has a vastly lower rate of inflation than countries like Belgium, which implemented economic policies that were essentially the exact opposite of Biden's. Summers's thesis was actually *disproven* by the Biden economic agenda.
Concerning crime, crime rates peaked in 2020, at the outset of Biden's term, and were far lower by the end of it. They plummeted in 2023 and 2024. The annual violent crime rate was indeed higher in *2019* than it was by 2023 and 2024.
Regarding oil, the U.S. literally broke records in terms of oil production all throughout Biden's term and in 2023, to quote the EIA, "Crude oil production in the United States, including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023, breaking the previous U.S. and global record of 12.3 million b/d, set in 2019." (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545#)
Meanwhile, the CHIPS Act is literally the only legislation in the past 20 years that induced a manufacturing powerhouse of the most important commodity on the planet--respectively, Taiwan and semiconductors--to explicitly agree to build factories in the U.S. Nothing passed under Trump or Obama can boast of the same success when it comes to re-shoring.
The more interesting and overlooked story of the Biden era is the gap between reality and public perception. It has widened significantly since 2020--and if it continues, what an administration actually does, and what benefits it brings people, will become of less and less of consequence to how it is viewed. And that is quite an alarming and dangerous possibility. I have my theories as to why; but I would like to see Ruy and the folks at TLP apply their considerable talents to performing their own analysis.
There is no way that infusing almost 2 trillion dollars into the US economy (as was done with Biden’s American Rescue Plan) didn’t contribute to US inflation, especially given the temporal relationship between the two. No “rescue” was even needed since the economy was recovering, but Biden (or more likely his handlers) couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to buy votes.
Crime statistics are tricky and can be misleading. The FBI recently revised the 2021-2022 violent crime rate from a 2.1% fall to a 4.5% rise. Also factor in some large cities (Democrat run) not reporting crime statistics or downgrading felonies to misdemeanors. People know when crime is up in their neighborhood regardless of what Democrats and their allies in the press claim.
Re energy policy, oil production was up DESPITE Biden’s policies rather than because of them. He stymied drilling on federal land, blocked pipeline projects, and spoke out against the fossil fuel industry. He funneled payoffs to “green” companies (read Democrat donors) through federal spending.
Biden is the worst President I have seen in 50 years of voting.
***"There is no way that infusing almost 2 trillion dollars into the US economy (as was done with Biden’s American Rescue Plan) didn’t contribute to US inflation, especially given the temporal relationship between the two. No “rescue” was even needed since the economy was recovering, but Biden (or more likely his handlers) couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to buy votes."***
On the contrary, there are several ways one could explain how it would have the opposite effect--most concretely if the spending provides boosts to the US's labor market, its rate of economic growth, and its labor productivity; the former two remained the strongest in the world throughout Biden's term, and the latter rose from 2021 onward. All of that would tend to strengthen the dollar, which puts downward pressure on prices; the dollar hit a 20-year high under Biden, and it arguably blunted the full force of the global post-COVID inflationary wave. That is a speculative story, too--but it is supported by the numbers, and in any case, whether one believes it or not does not change the fact that the US was, on a comparative basis, quite economically successful from 2020-2024 relative to the rest of the world.
***"Crime statistics are tricky and can be misleading. The FBI recently revised the 2021-2022 violent crime rate from a 2.1% fall to a 4.5% rise. Also factor in some large cities (Democrat run) not reporting crime statistics or downgrading felonies to misdemeanors. People know when crime is up in their neighborhood regardless of what Democrats and their allies in the press claim."***
Or, people increasingly get all their news from social media--ever more so since the COVID lockdowns--rather than local media, and the former algorithmically augments fear and paranoia-inducing narratives and suppresses moderate ones. Then these narratives get supercharged by the increasingly powerful Sinclair-run media ecosystem. That is how you get people in Wisconsin--where the illegal immigrant population is miniscule--believing they're being invaded by a wave of migrants and putting it as "issue #1" on opinion surveys; and that is how you get average people thinking their cities are being overrun as crime is falling. Given the evidence that social media has overtaken traditional media, and its documented psychological effects, I would say that is a more more plausible story than "there is a mass engineering of the crime stats going on."
But, if you wish, let's take the numbers after the adjustments made by the FBI. You'll note that the Bureau did *not* revise the significant decrease in crime that happened in 2021, 2023 and 2024. (Nor the big jump from 2019 to 2020)
***"Re energy policy, oil production was up DESPITE Biden’s policies rather than because of them. He stymied drilling on federal land, blocked pipeline projects, and spoke out against the fossil fuel industry. He funneled payoffs to “green” companies (read Democrat donors) through federal spending"***
Or, Biden had a smart energy policy that increased production in one hand while taking action to placate the Green Lobby in the other. Both stories are speculative, and on equal epistemological footing--the only story that isn't speculative is the one about how oil production under Biden's tenure outpaced production under his predecessor.
Okay. I’ll play.
Re inflation: You can summon as many complicated economic scenarios as you like, but the simple fact is that dumping almost 2 trillion dollars into a recovering economy with a constrained supply chain is going to promote inflation. I don’t think many economists would argue with that.
Crime: So by your account half the voters in the US are just victims of bad information when they think that crime is up. I guess all those retailers who recently put easily shoplifted items in locked cases are also ill informed. And those people in San Francisco who recalled their Democrat DA? Also victims of social media-driven hysteria, I guess.
Energy: Please give me one Biden policy that promoted fossil fuel exploration or production. You will have no problem finding plenty of Biden policies that did the opposite. The oil companies produced more oil because world economies were coming back on-line after Covid and demand was way up. Biden couldn’t obstruct drilling on private and state land and that is where the vast majority of US oil production comes from. What Biden did do was tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve prior to the 2022 midterm election in order to reduce gasoline prices that voters were angry about. This reserve is supposed to be for national emergencies and not for political expediency. Biden inherited an SPR level of 638 million barrels from Trump in 2020, but is leaving office with the SPR at 394 million barrels because he failed to replenish it. That’s Biden’s energy legacy in a nutshell.
Being the cleanest dirty shirt is not a win.
Ruy Texeira is in his safe space dinging Biden's immigration policy. He is becoming very repetitive. He needs a new project like explaining the incoherence of Trump's proposed immigration and trade policies.
He can “ding” Trump as soon as Trump does something as stupid as effectively legalizing illegal immigration.
David Leonhardt differs about Biden's legacy. He believes much will endure in the Democratic Party. He moved the Democratic Party away from trade liberalization. He pursued an industrial policy to build up sectors important to national security and future prosperity. He was more aggressive about restraining corporate power, cracking down on “junk fees” and regulating drug prices.