Harris Vs Trump 2024 US Presidential election - read the warning in the OP posted 18/09/24

Americas economy by every single metric is in A territory.

The economy generally doesn't mean anything to most people. It's too abstract. What they'll focus on is how far the dollar in their pocket will stretch and they see, like most of the western world, that it doesn't go as far as it used to. Over all, the US is in pretty good shape under Biden and they've a GDP that a lot of western countries would envy. By any objective metric Biden has been a decent President and the Democrats have had a successful administration.

Inflation has hit certain quarters over there hard, however, like it has here, Britain and Europe too. The other day my mate in Berlin was lamenting the fact that prices had gone up for certain stuff and his rent has increased again. It's happening all over. Every time I go to the shops there's been a hike in prices and it's not just a few cent here and there. It's a matter of a Euro or more and in the blink of an eye too. One day an item is a certain price, the next it's a Euro more expensive.

The stupid thing, though, is blaming a President on such things. As if they are solely responsible for the rise in prices that private sector companies engage in. In a country that, supposedly, is all about the "free market", expecting the government to step in a control prices in a downward direction seems a bit weird.

However, if Trump follows through on his idiotic tariff nonsense then the price of cheaper imported goods is set to rise and that'll hit the folk who are worried about how far their dollar stretches the worst.

Turns out it wasn’t

“It’s the economy, stupid”

But

“It’s the perception of the economy by the stupid”

The unemployment rate is actually quite high isn't it? I thought it was lower, given the low level of social welfare for the unemployed over there.

It’s not far from the lowest unemployment ever which happened under Biden

America's true rate of unemployment is ~24%.

Shocked picachu faces on those Muslim Americans and on the far Left who either stayed home or voted Trump/third party “because Gaza”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American unemployment rates for the 1st quarter of 2024 stood at 3.8%. In Q2 is went up to 4%. As of October, it's stood at 4.1%. 2024's rate has been the lowest it's been in around 50 years.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's 24%. That's a depression era rate from the 1930's.

Yup. All those "Genocide Joe" placards really worked a treat didn't they?

Posters claiming that Trump voters are stupid and easily manipulated might like to have a think about certain Democrats, never mind the rest of the population.

I wonder what our friend engineerws will have to say if/when Trump clarifies that that is indeed his position.

No real point in continuing this, it wasn't the point anyway. The point was that Trump won because americans are stupid and stupid americans voted for him. But blaming stupid people for loosing the election means they are even more stupid, they are so stupid they couldn't even convince enough stupid people to vote for them. If anyone is stupid, candidate or voters, it's the losing side.

There are stupid people everywhere, for sure. Letting your stupider supporters (and elected representatives) damage your election prospects is particularly unfortunate though.

The Republicans may have manipulated the stupids on their side so as to get their votes: the Democrats seem to have been manipulated by theirs. So which is the stupider of the two parties then?

"But the problem IMO is a longer term one of choosing to prioritise identity politics - the idea that Biden should step down so as to allow Kamala Harris a few months of being the first woman politician is the sort of madness that has put them in an untenable position."

In fairness, while people are pointing out that it would be kind of funny just because of how hard Trump has pushed his "47" merch etc, nobody is actually seriously suggesting they should do it. It's not a matter of "identity politics" and the Dems would be far worse off if they actually did it because nobody would take them seriously any more; treating the Presidency as the punchline to a joke.

Besides, even those who do want to see the first female President soon, getting it that way means less than not getting it at all.

interesting yeh, the Democratic Party might have to move to center and tell those on far left to either shut up and come along or split off

I'm not so sure calling out genocide in real time should be considered far left, but either way the Democrats are a centre party.

Biden is very much a centrist that leans right and left.

Yeah I mean I know it wasn't an official suggestion, and could even have been a joke, but the humour relies on the way "having a female president" is a box ticking exercise, something to be done regardless of the value of the person as president. It's the very worst sort of identity politics, as i mentioned above, and it is seen as something that today's Democratic party would be quite capable of doing.

That's the problem - not whether they do or not, but that it seems plausible that they might want to.