Trumps Presidency 2025

[mtutiger]

10 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

Excuse me, but what gives Cruella DeVil here the right to judge anyone who went and served this country?

[romad1]

1 minute ago, mtutiger said:

Excuse me, but what gives Cruella DeVil here the right to judge anyone who went and served this country?

why she never drank coffee through a sock!

[Mr.TaterSalad]

7 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Where I've landed on NAFTA and free trade is that while it may not have been the best outcome at the time, and certainly more needs to be done to ameliorate the damage to the communities that it impacted, it *did* create jobs and change the nature of this economy. And actions like the ones Trump is pursuing (and Golden is apparently cool with), misguided as they are, will create a lot of short term collateral damage.

And we need to be honest about that....

If we'd be willing to have an honest conversation about capitalism and it's modern failures this would help a lot more too. Capitalism in its current form is an unsustainable business model. You can't have less than 1% of people own 30% of wealth and obtain over 40% of all new wealth generated. I'm not going to acknowledge the benefits of NAFTA until we start to talk about things that reign in and regulate modern capitalisms excesses. NAFTA was apart of those modern capitalist excesses. NAFTA did what corporations wanted it to do. It provided for a new, cheaper labor force in Mexico.

We need to be discussing major reforms like like workplace democratization, electing corporate executives by a vote of the companies workers, allowing workers a vote/say in major decisions that impact a business, ending at will employment (or at least make firing an employee harder), maximum compensation regulations, and more.

Edited Tuesday at 06:56 PM by Mr.TaterSalad

[CMRivdogs]

23 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I think we'd be better off without NAFTA or the UMSCA. The free market in general has been a failure with the levels of inequity and outsourcing of labor it has allowed. I do believe that trading with underdeveloped and impoverished economies has done an immense amount of damage to workers in America. One estimate I read from Economic Policiy Institute, which is a union-funded think tank, said NAFTA cost us over 700,000 jobs. Many of the jobs good paying, manufacturing jobs that non-college educated people came out of high school and worked in. Democrats should not ever be the party defending trade deals like NAFTA or promoting new ones like the TPP. Golden is right to rail on NAFTA.

But even before things like NAFTA and such we saw movement in manufacturing that hurt the "Little Guy"

I'm old enough to remember when the steel companies moved out of Western Pennsylvania to the Mid West. That uprooted a lot of folks who ended up following the jobs, others were forced to readapt, if possible. Also many towns were devastated. It took Pittsburgh decades to remake itself into a banking and somewhat medical community. Smaller cities like my original hometown of McKeesport never recovered. That was the 60s.

70s, 80s and 90s saw the movement of the auto industry from the Rust Belt to Southern non union states. Changes in the railroad industry did a number to many cities like my first adopted home of Roanoke, Va when N&W merged with Southern RR. Roanoke has never fully recovered but there is a thriving medical community there now.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Got bit by the double post bug

Edited Tuesday at 07:12 PM by CMRivdogs

[Motown Bombers]

NAFTA became a talking point for leftists because Hilary's husband was president when it happened. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

3 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

NAFTA became a talking point for leftists because Hilary's husband was president when it happened. 

It was a talking point for leftists in the early 1990s because they saw the global order in America shifting away from the legacy of trade unions and the social welfare state to a lite-version of Reaganomics under Clinton. Bernie Sanders, leader of the left movement, spent much of the 90s railing on NAFTA and being proven right about the job loss.

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

It was a talking point for leftists in the early 1990s because they saw the global order in America shifting away from the legacy of trade unions and the social welfare state to a lite-version of Reaganomics under Clinton. Bernie Sanders, leader of the left movement, spent much of the 90s railing on NAFTA and being proven right about the job loss.

Nobody outside of Vermont had ever heard of Bernie Sanders until 2016. 

[Sports_Freak]

1 minute ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

It was a talking point for leftists in the early 1990s because they saw the global order in America shifting away from the legacy of trade unions and the social welfare state to a lite-version of Reaganomics under Clinton. Bernie Sanders, leader of the left movement, spent much of the 90s railing on NAFTA and being proven right about the job loss.

Wasn't NAFTA renegotiated by....Trump in his 1st term? And now he wants to start a trade war with our neighbors? 

[Motown Bombers]

The majority of house dems voted against NAFTA. Don't act like Bernie Sanders was some visionary. 

[Motown Bombers]

Just now, Sports_Freak said:

Wasn't NAFTA renegotiated by....Trump in his 1st term? And now he wants to start a trade war with our neighbors? 

Yes. This trade deal with Canada that trump is so bad is what he negotiated with Canada. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

8 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

But even before things like NAFTA and such we saw movement in manufacturing that hurt the "Little Guy"

I'm old enough to remember when the steel companies moved out of Western Pennsylvania to the Mid West. That uprooted a lot of folks who ended up following the jobs, others were forced to readapt, if possible. Also many towns were devastated. It took Pittsburgh decades to remake itself into a banking and somewhat medical community. Smaller cities like my original hometown of McKeesport never recovered. That was the 60s.

70s, 80s and 90s saw the movement of the auto industry from the Rust Belt to Southern non union states. Changes in the railroad industry did a number to many cities like my first adopted home of Roanoke, Va when N&W merged with Southern RR. Roanoke has never fully recovered but there is a thriving medical community there now.

 

We did see these things you reference above. But we saw an acceleration of job loss with NAFTA too. Again, the Economic Policy Institute has published multiple studies on NAFTA and they've estimated up to or beyond 700,000 jobs lost due to NAFTA.

Regarding the movement of the auto industry down south, this is why we need to get rid of Right-to-Work (For Less) laws and make every manufacturing job a union job. And in a place like Pittsburgh, how many people were devastated for decades while its local economy transformed from primarily being dependent on manufacturing to where it is at today.

Truth be told, every worker, in any job, white collar or blue collar, should be represented by a union. If the corporate executives get bargaining power, legal representation during contractual negotiations, and a work contract to secure their wages and benefits, so to should the worker.

[Motown Bombers]

My dad worked at Ford and the best years of his career were during Clinton. He had more overtime than he could handle. His plant closed after he retired. It closed because automation replaced manual labor, not because its being done by Mexicans. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:31 PM by Motown Bombers

[Motown Bombers]

I also thought this election made it pretty clear that people want cheap stuff and are not willing to pay more in exchange for higher paying jobs. 

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I think the view of the economy has shifted. I think capitalism, whatever Adam Smith intended it to be, has been bastardized and become an exploitative game for the rich. How can I make the most money possible while paying the fewest people, the very least amount possible? Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and on are more representative of modern capitalism and its exploits than your average small business owner or business.

What is ironically funny about all this is that Marx has never been in less favor yet a good chunk of his analysis that capitalism has deep inherent problems in terms of creating any kind of just society is today being proved spot on in the US like no time since the 1930's. He solution was as wrong as his analysis was right, so now we don't pay any attention to the analysis either, but all you have to do is look and see it coming to fruition. If you look at it in terms of a mathematical or mechanical system, capitalism inherently drives to the extremes. The greater the capital amassed, the more profitably that capital can be deployed, so there is an inevitable wealth concentration effect that leads to either a fascist oligarchy or a robber baron pseudo democracy. It's such a fundamental misunderstanding that's been foisted on Americans by the conservative movement. The WSJ matra - "Free people, free markets" couldn't have it more wrong. The necessary role of the government in a free society is not, as the right would have you believe, to facilitate capitalism, but is in fact the exact opposite. In a free capitalist state the government must regulate that capitalism into some kind of reasonable social equilibrium by taxation, provision of public goods, and defense of consumer and worker rights. It role is exactly the opposite of facilitating unfettered 'free' markets.

Related to this, the (ex?)conservative Peter Wehner had an NYT column this week where he talked to a well known evangelical philosopher, who when asked how the US evangelical right wing is getting it wrong, said that the evangelical church is so hung up seeing the government as the guarantor of liberty, this it has forgotten that the Bible taught that the most important role of government is provision of Justice. Whether you are religious or not I think that is spot on also.

Edited Tuesday at 07:43 PM by gehringer_2

[romad1]

a lot of people were sold a lot of jive this election.  

[Mr.TaterSalad]

5 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The majority of house dems voted against NAFTA. Don't act like Bernie Sanders was some visionary. 

And they were all right to do so. The difference is Sanders was the only no vote on NAFTA to have a shot at being President. Looking through the roll call vote he may have been the only Democrat/Independent to vote no on NAFTA that ended up running for President. Jay Inslee ran for President but he voted yes. NAFTA was a flop for manufacturing heavy states. Sure, places bounced back a bit like Detroit or transformed like Pittsburgh did, but it took two decades for that to happen and some people suffered greatly in the meantime. As well, some place never recovered from NAFTA's devastation on manufacturing. I want to be the party of people like Shawn Fain and the UAW or Jared Golden or Sherrod Brown where we hammer bad trade deals like NAFTA and bring non-college educated voters back into the fold.

[CMRivdogs]

Post COVID we heard a lot of "nobody wants to work anymore" but when asked if they would be willing to work for what fast food and hotel workers made, no one was willing to say they'd do it.

[romad1]

Experts: Auto industry can tolerate Trump tariffs for just a few weeks

the actual article says....

Quote

The auto industry can withstand only a few weeks of President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico until costs to automakers and suppliers rise astronomically, resulting in higher consumer prices and risking massive job losses, experts said Tuesday.

 

[CMRivdogs]

The Republican candidate was/is very willing to go after the people who he claimed took the jobs. Yet they never mention the employers who were willing to hire those people.

It does take two to tango

[mtutiger]

Wow

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

And they were all right to do so. The difference is Sanders was the only no vote on NAFTA to have a shot at being President. Looking through the roll call vote he may have been the only Democrat/Independent to vote no on NAFTA that ended up running for President. Jay Inslee ran for President but he voted yes. NAFTA was a flop for manufacturing heavy states. Sure, places bounced back a bit like Detroit or transformed like Pittsburgh did, but it took two decades for that to happen and some people suffered greatly in the meantime. As well, some place never recovered from NAFTA's devastation on manufacturing. I want to be the party of people like Shawn Fain and the UAW or Jared Golden or Sherrod Brown where we hammer bad trade deals like NAFTA and bring non-college educated voters back into the fold.

LMAO, no one in 1993 thought Bernie Sanders, mayor of Burlington Vermont and one term congressman would have a shot at being president. Joe Biden voted for NAFTA and not only became president, but crushed Bernie Sanders and won all the Midwest swing states. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Well you have to do something to win back non-college educated voters in midwest and southern states and defending NAFTA isn't going to be it. The reason that there was a Bernie/Trump voter in 2016 was because of issues like NAFTA. Sherrod Brown hung on as long as he did in Ohio because he went around the state assailing and speaking out against free trade and he stood up for workers rights at every turn. If Sherrod Brown decided to be a pimp for free trade like some of his Democratic colleagues became and sold out workers he'd have lost a lot sooner in Ohio. I think Jared Golden recognizes the same thing in Maine.

Edited Tuesday at 07:49 PM by Mr.TaterSalad

[CMRivdogs]

It's going to hurt these folks, but I saw very few Harris signs adorning their properties. You get what you voted for

 

[Sports_Freak]

20 minutes ago, romad1 said:

a lot of people were sold a lot of jive this election.  

All of the Vance interviews I saw was him saying we won't look back, only forward. But then Vance jumped all over Zelensky for going to a rally in Pennsylvania and saying he supported Kamala. Yeah, looking backwards. Maybe we should look back at Vance's remarks about Trump. He hated him and said he would rather vote 3rd party in 2016 rather than vote for The Donald.

Edit; added video, audio.

Edited Tuesday at 07:56 PM by Sports_Freak