The wealth gap is certainly an issue. Typically, Americans are more prosperous under Democratic presidents and while that may be true on paper in select areas, it’s apparent that most people are still hurting. On paper, Biden has been a remarkable president and has saved Americans billions if not trillions. Saving money is different than putting money in their pockets though. To say, yeah - but it could have been so much worse, means nothing to most people.
A study by the liberal Institute of Taxation and Public Policy predicts Mr. Biden’s plan would increase by more than $100,000 a year what someone in the top 1% of earners pays Uncle Sam. President Obama in 2013 raised taxes on that same group by $83,000. President Trump in 2017 cut their taxes by about $50,000 a year.
The top 1% of Americans earn about 20% of all income in the U.S., but they pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes. The Biden plan will put even more of the tax burden on the wealthy. “It’s time for corporate America and the wealthiest 1% of Americans to just begin to pay their fair share,” he said Wednesday in his speech to Congress.
And wages are up compared to inflation for the past year. But eventhough inflation is still at a comfortable-ish sub 4%, the future looks questionable. www.statista.com/…/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
But to the greater point, when people are struggling to put food on the table and upgrade appliances or save for the future, they’re going to get stressed. They’re going to become afraid and they’re going to search for answers - even if those answers are wrong, it’s what they want to hear. Keeping this wage gap wide, keeping the middle class down, gives politicians power.
That certainly seems reasonable and maybe you’re right.
For similar reasons, people are (rightfully) protesting Biden due to his policies with Gaza. I know that in the presidential primary in my (super blue/Democrat) county last month, 10% of the votes cast by Democrats (16,216) were write-ins and 90% of those (14,625) were for non-people (“uncommitted”, etc). As it turns out, practically the same number of people cast protest votes as votes for Trump (14,740). Biden still got 144,000 votes so losing 14,000 to Trump isn’t so much of a concern. My greater concern is about how easily people are being manipulated - across the board, across the world - and how people are losing sight on the possible crumbling of the country they live in. Not to mention only 20% of my county even bothered to vote.
Totally unrelated… actually, maybe not totally, this conversation has me going back and checking on some voting records. The 2020 election was the highest voter turnout in Philadelphia for 25 years. It was also the highest turnout in the United States for a century. So when Trumpers claim ‘the election was rigged because Trump got more votes than any other president. How is it possible for Biden to get more votes than him?’, they’re ignoring the verifiable facts that the election had a record high turn out. It’s been all downhill since they’ve been denying these election results.
Hopefully I’m just overwhelmed with the news cycle but it seems like people really don’t care much about intellectualism. This country has been on an anti-intellectualism path for a decade or more. If people don’t care to know stuff, how can we progress?
This group has been told over and over that what they believe is factually untrue. You can point at the sky and explain it’s blue and offer the scientific explanation for it being blue yet they will claim that it’s red with no evidence at all (just that the pillow guy says so). This used to be a fringe group and I totally get that a small segment of the population has particular perspectives but the fact that it’s becoming common place is just mind bending. I don’t understand how people can be shown facts and continue to lie to themselves. How hurt can you be? How prevalent is mental instability? What could we possibly do to make people feel better and give a crap about themselves and their communities?
That means not just voting but talking with people around you, volunteering and donating
Honestly, I give up. If you’ve already decided you’re voting for Trump, you do not exist in the same reality as me. There is absolutely zero redeeming quality about the person or his politics. He literally does not care about the United States, the Constitution, or the people voting for him. A vote for Trump isn’t a vote for president, it’s a vote for a cult leader. I’m not equipped to fix what’s broken in your head.
The part where he said his trial was rigged was where I got really worried.
He is taking every possible opportunity to dismantle the foundation of this country for his own self interests and his “lock her up” cult followers are eating it up. They believe him over the facts, precedents, science, and laws. They believe these universal truths are “rigged”.
Meanwhile, his own appointed judge is presiding over another of his cases who may actually be interfering with it.
I’m pretty open to taking a step back and looking at things from both sides. Your political affiliation doesn’t explicitly mean you’re impervious to propaganda or brainwashing. Although, it’s apparent one group is more weak minded and unbothered by the larger scope of their actions. I find these people to be immoral and self-righteous and disgusting and I’m embarrassed as an American to be associated with them. It’s not easy to be comfortable with strangers out in public these days.
I genuinely believe most of us mostly want the same things. Corporations and politicians have divided us and created the polarization for their benefit. We have to even the playing field. We need Ranked Choice Voting. We need to fund elections exclusively with tax payer dollars.
So, the silver lining I’m hoping for is that after this inevitable civil war, we can make elections truly democratic.
The following excerpts are unrelated to each other but, as a “movement”, I can’t help but see them as a bunch of drooling imbeciles who lack basic comprehension of facts and reality. Though I’m sure there’s a handful of intelligent people who’ve somehow succumbed to brainwashing.
I mean, this first one would indicate they’re ramping up to protect us from Trump. Their reality is not about patriotism but delusion and cultism.
When the government tries to steal the election again and they think we’ll just sit and take it
Huffman and Demere are also key players in the pro-Confederate movement known as “Heritage, not Hate.”
many of their posts convey a general sense of urgency about the need to prepare for “war” or to “stand up” against many supposed enemies, including drag queens, immigrants, pro-Palestine college students, communists—and the US government.
Gun rights organizations and anti-government groups have typically argued that paramilitary activity is constitutionally protected by the Second Amendment’s language about “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”
But constitutional experts hold that it is not protected. After the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, a team with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) sought to examine the legality of the kind of brazen paramilitary activity on display that weekend. They found that all 50 states had some kind of laws on the books, but were rarely enforced.
The team also found that the historical context of “militia” did not mean a private paramilitary group that was answerable only to themselves, but an armed group that predated the National Guard, was first established in the colonies in the 1600s and was meant to be deployed at the behest of the governor. Additionally, McCord told The Trace in an interview two years ago, Supreme Court decisions in 1886 and 2008 found that the Second Amendment did not prohibit states from banning private paramilitary groups.
“Our legislation makes the obvious but essential clarification that these domestic extremists’ paramilitary operations are in no way protected by our Constitution,” Rep Raskin said in a statement regarding Thursday’s bill.
They’re arguing whether Trump can be prosecuted for attempting to overthrow an election or whether (assuming he wins the next election) Trump gets to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”.
If there’s ample evidence you broke a law, you should be prosecuted and held accountable. The alternative is “turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country”. If Trump thinks he can go after Biden for something no one has brought any evidence to suggest he has done (for how many years?), go for it. Evidently at least a third of this country is stupid enough to believe anything that comes out of this idiot’s mouth and believe the President of the United States should be at all concerned with anyone breaking the law.
I really do appreciate the Supreme Court’s attention to history and their responsibility to future generations of this country. But fuck, this is stupid. This country is stupid.
I’m guessing they have a typo in their graphic where the tenth cheapest drink is more than the most expensive. …dailymail.co.uk/…/83780847-13320199-image-a-7_17… I wonder how many other errors there are in their reporting.