Robert, one of the many things I admire about you is your consistency. You apply your principles and beliefs no matter which way the chips fall, even if it means calling BS when the BS is coming from the liberal/left. Your comments on alleged election fraud are a case in point. You are absolutely correct in all respects, which I take to …
Robert, one of the many things I admire about you is your consistency. You apply your principles and beliefs no matter which way the chips fall, even if it means calling BS when the BS is coming from the liberal/left. Your comments on alleged election fraud are a case in point. You are absolutely correct in all respects, which I take to mean that (i) there was no election fraud and (ii) claiming that there was fraud does nothing but undermine the sanctity and standing of our election system to the detriment of everyone. That's all fine as far as it goes, but I question whether it goes far enough.
We are left with a situation in which elections that are won by MAGA approved candidates are fair and free of fraud while elections which are won by candidates disfavored by MAGA are inherently fraudulent and corrupt. This goes to the central problem of our time and place: When facts are optional, it is impossible to have a marketplace of ideas which in turn means that it is impossible to have a government in which faith and trust are a given. I don't have the imagination necessary to untie this brutal knot but applying traditional analyses to untraditional problems is not it.
Today's Letter from Professor Richardson is similar. She goes to great lengths to "prove" that Elon and Vivek's moronic op-ed in the WSJ is factually, legally and constitutionally wrong. To which I say "so what?" It matters a lot more that the WSJ prints an op-ed that is incorrectly based on the assertion that Trump has a "mandate" than whether the EV plan is actually constitutional. It matters more that simply calling their program by its name, the "Department of Government Efficiency" inherently gives credibility to a, what shall we call it?, concept?, that is neither a Department nor about government "efficiency." It is about dismantling the government, not making it more "efficient" and its champions don't even try to hide the fact. How can Professor Richardson's erudite and correct arguments compete with that kind of doublespeak and lies?
We need a plan and an approach that attacks the fact-free environment, not one that either attempts to fight back with traditional methods or which is based on the idea that we can create our "own" social media environment that is somehow better than theirs and so will triumph in the end. I don't have that plan but I know that what we're doing right now meets the classic definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result).
Well said and I agree. Here's my plan (besides finding and supporting Dem candidates for '26. Disinformation will be exposed when the economy crashes. People who are hungry, sick and poor won't tolerate tyrants. Once the pain is severe enough, for enough people, the revolution begins. My suggestion is we have 18 mths to make that happen so we can flip the house and senate in '26. Think ahead. Buy anything you may need in the next 2 years now. That includes autos, appliances, tvs, household goods, food, meds.. etc. That will help Biden's economy go out strong. Then come Jan 6th, STOP SPENDING with big corps and Maga businesses. We need to SAVE money like we are going to lose jobs, and take cuts to other services plus see tax and rate hikes. Because we will. If and when people stop spending the economy will go down the tubes. The sooner the better for a quick turn around.
I doubt that all of us on Robert Hubbell's wonderful community -- even adding Simon Rosenberg's and others' -- are numerous enough and rich enough to crash the economy and, even we were, do we really want to defend democracy by making more poor people suffer? Obviously, people are free to do what they think best with their money and denying your money where possible to hateful folks on the right (look at Trumps donors for a start, including the Walton family) makes sense to me. And I'll try to front load major purchases to get under Biden. But Trump's tariffs; the cost of rounding up 10 million illegal immigrants (Trump's numbers) -- that's about 100 times the number of Japanese-Americans "interred" in prison camps in World War II; the continual cost of climate disasters; and the cost of doing business when millions of tax-paying immigrant are rounded up at the meat packing plants, RV factories (Northern Indiana and Michigan), trucking firms, and small and large manufacturing outfits in "Red" states: and who knows what military adventures Trump may get us into, etc. will do more to "tank the economy" than your or my purchases. Trump's policies will do the job some of you want to engineer. And when it happens, he and his cohort will blame the victims. Remember, folks, we had all kinds of data that the economy is better under Democrats, and we had the lived misery of Trump's horrible management of COVID-19 to throw in his face and it didn't work. Even if I could pull the switch, I am not ready to "crash the economy," which would hurt Black and brown citizens and women and young people the most just to give Trump a political blow that would likely not register with the millions of people who voted for him or his gang anyway. The Republicans who voted against every economic benefit of the Biden administration and want to crash the ACA are the first to line up at the bridge opening or brag about how they are protecting health care.
One of the early post-election mysteries is the very strong performance of the stock market. As far as I can read them, all the economic indicators are that Trump will tank the economy with or without our collective purchase decisions.
If you care about the price of retail goods, tariffs will make "Biden's inflation" seem like the good old days. Domestic companies, freed from all antitrust and consumer protections will gleefully raise their prices to just under tariff-adjusted import prices.
Retaliation by foreign countries, whether by the imposition of tariffs of their own or by other actions antithetical to actual US interests will be a wild card but will not be a positive development.
Gas prices are ALREADY under $3.00 and it's not clear how much lower they can go (and when and how did gas prices stop being an election issue???)
The loss of low priced labor in key industries will send prices even higher and could even result in the scarcity of some goods. Because, you know, there are millions of "real" Americans just lining up and chomping at the bit to do those jobs at those wages.
Eliminating even, say, 10% of federal jobs may well cause a recession by itself and will surely decimate some smaller "company towns" where the Feds are among the largest employers.
Tax cuts for the rich will balloon the deficit and will not be offset by increased economic activity *because as has been proven over and over again supply side economics doesn't work*.
Should it come to pass, messing with the healthcare system will not only be disastrous for the health of the country but will inevitably cause higher prices and/or lower supply of medical goods and services.
Yep, fun times ahead. I think I'll stop now before I head out to build a survivalist shelter.
Robert, one of the many things I admire about you is your consistency. You apply your principles and beliefs no matter which way the chips fall, even if it means calling BS when the BS is coming from the liberal/left. Your comments on alleged election fraud are a case in point. You are absolutely correct in all respects, which I take to mean that (i) there was no election fraud and (ii) claiming that there was fraud does nothing but undermine the sanctity and standing of our election system to the detriment of everyone. That's all fine as far as it goes, but I question whether it goes far enough.
We are left with a situation in which elections that are won by MAGA approved candidates are fair and free of fraud while elections which are won by candidates disfavored by MAGA are inherently fraudulent and corrupt. This goes to the central problem of our time and place: When facts are optional, it is impossible to have a marketplace of ideas which in turn means that it is impossible to have a government in which faith and trust are a given. I don't have the imagination necessary to untie this brutal knot but applying traditional analyses to untraditional problems is not it.
Today's Letter from Professor Richardson is similar. She goes to great lengths to "prove" that Elon and Vivek's moronic op-ed in the WSJ is factually, legally and constitutionally wrong. To which I say "so what?" It matters a lot more that the WSJ prints an op-ed that is incorrectly based on the assertion that Trump has a "mandate" than whether the EV plan is actually constitutional. It matters more that simply calling their program by its name, the "Department of Government Efficiency" inherently gives credibility to a, what shall we call it?, concept?, that is neither a Department nor about government "efficiency." It is about dismantling the government, not making it more "efficient" and its champions don't even try to hide the fact. How can Professor Richardson's erudite and correct arguments compete with that kind of doublespeak and lies?
We need a plan and an approach that attacks the fact-free environment, not one that either attempts to fight back with traditional methods or which is based on the idea that we can create our "own" social media environment that is somehow better than theirs and so will triumph in the end. I don't have that plan but I know that what we're doing right now meets the classic definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result).
Well said and I agree. Here's my plan (besides finding and supporting Dem candidates for '26. Disinformation will be exposed when the economy crashes. People who are hungry, sick and poor won't tolerate tyrants. Once the pain is severe enough, for enough people, the revolution begins. My suggestion is we have 18 mths to make that happen so we can flip the house and senate in '26. Think ahead. Buy anything you may need in the next 2 years now. That includes autos, appliances, tvs, household goods, food, meds.. etc. That will help Biden's economy go out strong. Then come Jan 6th, STOP SPENDING with big corps and Maga businesses. We need to SAVE money like we are going to lose jobs, and take cuts to other services plus see tax and rate hikes. Because we will. If and when people stop spending the economy will go down the tubes. The sooner the better for a quick turn around.
I doubt that all of us on Robert Hubbell's wonderful community -- even adding Simon Rosenberg's and others' -- are numerous enough and rich enough to crash the economy and, even we were, do we really want to defend democracy by making more poor people suffer? Obviously, people are free to do what they think best with their money and denying your money where possible to hateful folks on the right (look at Trumps donors for a start, including the Walton family) makes sense to me. And I'll try to front load major purchases to get under Biden. But Trump's tariffs; the cost of rounding up 10 million illegal immigrants (Trump's numbers) -- that's about 100 times the number of Japanese-Americans "interred" in prison camps in World War II; the continual cost of climate disasters; and the cost of doing business when millions of tax-paying immigrant are rounded up at the meat packing plants, RV factories (Northern Indiana and Michigan), trucking firms, and small and large manufacturing outfits in "Red" states: and who knows what military adventures Trump may get us into, etc. will do more to "tank the economy" than your or my purchases. Trump's policies will do the job some of you want to engineer. And when it happens, he and his cohort will blame the victims. Remember, folks, we had all kinds of data that the economy is better under Democrats, and we had the lived misery of Trump's horrible management of COVID-19 to throw in his face and it didn't work. Even if I could pull the switch, I am not ready to "crash the economy," which would hurt Black and brown citizens and women and young people the most just to give Trump a political blow that would likely not register with the millions of people who voted for him or his gang anyway. The Republicans who voted against every economic benefit of the Biden administration and want to crash the ACA are the first to line up at the bridge opening or brag about how they are protecting health care.
One of the early post-election mysteries is the very strong performance of the stock market. As far as I can read them, all the economic indicators are that Trump will tank the economy with or without our collective purchase decisions.
If you care about the price of retail goods, tariffs will make "Biden's inflation" seem like the good old days. Domestic companies, freed from all antitrust and consumer protections will gleefully raise their prices to just under tariff-adjusted import prices.
Retaliation by foreign countries, whether by the imposition of tariffs of their own or by other actions antithetical to actual US interests will be a wild card but will not be a positive development.
Gas prices are ALREADY under $3.00 and it's not clear how much lower they can go (and when and how did gas prices stop being an election issue???)
The loss of low priced labor in key industries will send prices even higher and could even result in the scarcity of some goods. Because, you know, there are millions of "real" Americans just lining up and chomping at the bit to do those jobs at those wages.
Eliminating even, say, 10% of federal jobs may well cause a recession by itself and will surely decimate some smaller "company towns" where the Feds are among the largest employers.
Tax cuts for the rich will balloon the deficit and will not be offset by increased economic activity *because as has been proven over and over again supply side economics doesn't work*.
Should it come to pass, messing with the healthcare system will not only be disastrous for the health of the country but will inevitably cause higher prices and/or lower supply of medical goods and services.
Yep, fun times ahead. I think I'll stop now before I head out to build a survivalist shelter.