Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The millions of immigrants talking point doesn’t make sense other than as a talking point.

Trump was President for four years. He had control of the house and senate when he came to power. He didn’t fix immigration. Some of the biggest obstacles to fixing immigration come from interests in his party.

So…why do you think he’ll fix it?

This point might have any intellectual resonance if it was “neither candidate currently running has made the progress I want on immigration” but it’s not a pro Trump point.

Unless you’re a troll.

Is this gaslighting? Because illegal migration fell sharply under Turnip. *Sharply*. And the Democrats fought him tooth and nail the entire time. They opposed every single thing he did to control migration. Remember the children in cages they ranted and screamed about, never mind that it started under Obama?

When Biden took office, illegal migration exploded. Don't you remember the first caravan of 100k illegal migrants marching through Mexico telling the whole world they were going for the border and effectively daring Biden to let them in. And he did. And that sent a message to the world.

But it's hard not to believe that the reason illegal crossings have gotten out of control is because the WH really doesn't care and has no interest in doing anything about it because the policy makers and staffers are firm believers in open borders. Which is why they - do nothing - and sue the border states for actually doing something to control the tide of migration.

Regarding Turnip's popularity, when he was president, he by and large didn't do very much. Cut taxes and made noises about the border and the border wall with some noticeable effects, and did a lot of international diplomacy that, intentional or not, corresponded with a world that had no wars or invasions and yet breakthroughs like the Abrahamic Accords. He was derided for making noises about China and Russia that later turned out to be true (remember when the Germans hysterically blew him off when he told them not to build the Nord Stream pipeline as it would only embolden Putin? Har har). But at home, he left people alone. There was no massive swathes of new bureaucracy, new regulations, new policies, no cancel culture, no judging or shaming or pretending to have the higher moral road. He made fun of the progressive left, but he also left them alone at the same time.

One cannot say that about the Democrats under Biden.

Your version of events under Trump is not even close to accurate. But keep living in your alternate fact based universe. Maybe someday you will come back to Earth prime.

If you turn off your phone, 2016-2020 was not a bad time for our country.

I plan on voting for Trump, if he wins the nomination. I say this after voting for Biden.

So you truly believe that Trump will not take revenge and threaten our democracy? Seriously?

Anonymous wrote:I'm a typical educated and wealthy DC-area striver. Atheist, support women's right to choose, value the diversity of cultures in this world, etc. I wouldn't say no to a tax cut, lol. I'm going to be good whoever gets elected.

We gotta face facts, though. Most of America is not like DC. It's hugely white, under-educated, under-employed people, who have been truly screwed over by progressive policies.

They have to compete with millions upon millions of lower cost illegal migrants flooding across the borders. They have been penalized by the color of their skin when applying to college and jobs. Suicide, depression, opioids, wars they have to fight and die in...it has gotten quite bad.

Once upon a time, democrats valued this massive part of America. Do they still? Can they?

The primary competition is with the outside world, IMO, rather than with low-cost immigrants. Even if our southern border had been lock-tight across the last 50 years, with little or no immigration, I think the decline of our manufacturing sector from 1975 onwards would have occurred anyway due to increased international competition. Of course, we could have muted the flow of imports/exports with high tariffs, but the net effect of this would probably have been negative.

I see no way around the problem of competing with low-cost labor in Asia and Mexico. The antidote for rural America and for the rustbelt is to make sure one's children study hard so that they are capable of fully participating in the 21st century economy, rather than waiting for somebody to make-America-great again. We can't roll back the clock 50 years. We go only go forward. The future belongs to those people with a high level of education.

Anonymous wrote:It never really made sense for democrats to support mass importing of low skilled workers that compete for jobs but then claim to be the party for the working class. We will never get corporations to pay a living wage if there is a permanent underclass of people they can hire and under pay with no consequences. Remember when Bernie was against mass illegal immigration for exactly this reason?

But this is DCUM where people would rather eat nails than admit Trump is the proverbial broken clock that is right two times a day. Instead you will see insults on people's intelligence.

I didn't see Rs pass legislation when they controlled all 3 government entities. It's just a good talking point b/c rich Rs love immigrants.

Anonymous wrote:What have Democrats done to actually help poor people of any race? They allow in millions of migrants to flood the market with cheap labor, have public school teachers focused on everything except teaching marketable skills, push expensive electric vehicles the poor can’t afford, expensive gas, soft-on-criminals policies make the streets & public transit dangerous, push the perception that racism is so bad poor people don’t have a chance without the government’s help…..

Dems support health care (something sorely needed in middle America). How are teachers not teaching marketable skills? What are they supposed to teach? You may not like EVs (and I don't think that is the entire solution) but middle america is feeling the brunt of climate change. States control criminal policy and Dems don't control that in those states. Streets and public transit are local issues. Race?

All you've done is write about your grievances, but most don't apply to state issues.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a typical educated and wealthy DC-area striver. Atheist, support women's right to choose, value the diversity of cultures in this world, etc. I wouldn't say no to a tax cut, lol. I'm going to be good whoever gets elected.

We gotta face facts, though. Most of America is not like DC. It's hugely white, under-educated, under-employed people, who have been truly screwed over by progressive policies.

They have to compete with millions upon millions of lower cost illegal migrants flooding across the borders. They have been penalized by the color of their skin when applying to college and jobs. Suicide, depression, opioids, wars they have to fight and die in...it has gotten quite bad.

Once upon a time, democrats valued this massive part of America. Do they still? Can they?

have you been to the middle of America? Is Wisconsin the middle of America? I am similar to you except that we moved out here for a job opportunity, I'd never been anywhere in fly-over country outside of meetings/conferences in Chicago. The white ppl who never went to college are doing just fine here- labor costs are insanely high, people can get married and have 3 kid families and a mortgage before they hit 30 and I know a lot of white, went to garbage public schools tradespeople/administratove staff who do! Life is good out here- the hordes of brown cheap labor is not here in middle America. The brown labor that is here is expensive - vp/director level and massive amounts of Indian trained doctors b/c no white people who have gone to med school/grad school want to live here. If you are a mediocre, non college educated white person, middle America is your best bet, you are taught handy man/mechanic skills in your high school still, you can finagle those into a task rabbit job, marry your high school sweetheart who is a medical receptionist. both of you can buy a home for a sub 200k mortgage, can get more job training, start having kids and be done with them by your 50s. that life is being lived by so many. You have a farm- there are plenty of people in the small cities who will pay you $700 for a quarter share of pasture raised cattle, so many that you run out of shares and can up the prices, season over season.

ppl think all of the rust belt is a disaster and its not- the drug problems of the cities have spread to the rural areas but for ppl who have it together- there is a very good living to be made, better than on the coasts by far. There is racial resentment due to the wealthy brown labor though, but its not cheap labor that is their competition, its the immigrants who have white collar jobs and hire non-college educated white workers to come fix their homes, plow their driveways, mow their lawns that they resent and that is just racism.

I didn’t vote for Trump in 16 or 20 and probably won’t in 24, but if I’m being honest life was good under the Trump admin. But so was it under Obama.

I remember people crying over the Trump win and just couldn’t wrap my head around it at the time. I think a lot of people just felt bad, but by the numbers, life was pretty good until COVID. And I suspect if trump were to win, my life won’t be much different.

I do lean conservative on the culture war issues though and the Dems have gone a little off the rails there, so I’ve been voting conservative in my locals.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like we have a variant of this thread every two days.

Jeff - please shut this one down and merge into one of the 20 other threads started by Cato interns on this topic.

Most of the conversation feels artificial - like trolls pretending to take two sides.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The millions of immigrants talking point doesn’t make sense other than as a talking point.

Trump was President for four years. He had control of the house and senate when he came to power. He didn’t fix immigration. Some of the biggest obstacles to fixing immigration come from interests in his party.

So…why do you think he’ll fix it?

This point might have any intellectual resonance if it was “neither candidate currently running has made the progress I want on immigration” but it’s not a pro Trump point.

Unless you’re a troll.

Is this gaslighting? Because illegal migration fell sharply under Turnip. *Sharply*. And the Democrats fought him tooth and nail the entire time. They opposed every single thing he did to control migration. Remember the children in cages they ranted and screamed about, never mind that it started under Obama?

When Biden took office, illegal migration exploded. Don't you remember the first caravan of 100k illegal migrants marching through Mexico telling the whole world they were going for the border and effectively daring Biden to let them in. And he did. And that sent a message to the world.

But it's hard not to believe that the reason illegal crossings have gotten out of control is because the WH really doesn't care and has no interest in doing anything about it because the policy makers and staffers are firm believers in open borders. Which is why they - do nothing - and sue the border states for actually doing something to control the tide of migration.

Regarding Turnip's popularity, when he was president, he by and large didn't do very much. Cut taxes and made noises about the border and the border wall with some noticeable effects, and did a lot of international diplomacy that, intentional or not, corresponded with a world that had no wars or invasions and yet breakthroughs like the Abrahamic Accords. He was derided for making noises about China and Russia that later turned out to be true (remember when the Germans hysterically blew him off when he told them not to build the Nord Stream pipeline as it would only embolden Putin? Har har). But at home, he left people alone. There was no massive swathes of new bureaucracy, new regulations, new policies, no cancel culture, no judging or shaming or pretending to have the higher moral road. He made fun of the progressive left, but he also left them alone at the same time.

One cannot say that about the Democrats under Biden.

Your version of events under Trump is not even close to accurate. But keep living in your alternate fact based universe. Maybe someday you will come back to Earth prime.

If you turn off your phone, 2016-2020 was not a bad time for our country.

I plan on voting for Trump, if he wins the nomination. I say this after voting for Biden.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trump’s supporters are not competing with undocumented immigrants. His supporters are the people who employ undocumented immigrants.

This. I live in white flyover country. The immigrants aren’t taking our jobs. There are job openings everywhere with competitive pay and signing bonuses.

+1 OP’s post is full of false premises stated as facts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm reading this book right now When McKinsey Comes to Town. McKinsey's consultants, largely made up on uber elitists from ivy league schools who live on the coasts, have for years been the architects of wealth inequality. McKinsey consultants were the ones who came up with idea that CEOs needed to make 300x the average worker. It was McKinsey consultants who constantly pushed the idea of off shoring and downsizing that have gutted manufacturing and many middle class jobs. McKinsey consultants are also the ones who also worked for the FDA while simultaneously consulting for Purdue to supercharge sales of opioids. And who paid the price and had their families and lives ruined? All of the poor in those areas the disgusting elitists call flyover country. In another example, McKisney also consulted for the Chinese CCP on artificial island building in the South China Sea while working for the US department of defense. And who'll be sent into the meat grinder when there's a conflict in the SCS? All of the poor people and their kids. There are just so many examples in the book - it's so disturbing.

And people wonder why huge swaths of America hate the liberal costal elitists. I mean just look how many McKinsey almuni infect our govt like virus (Pete Buttgeig, Lael Brainard, etc.). Trump has appeal because he isn't from the same swamp producing and employing the likes of McKinsey consultsnts that have been ruining the country for the last 50 years and creating massive wealth inequality. It's largely the elite college educated, urban Democrats who choose to go work for companies like McKinsey, Wall St. etc. that have been gutting their jobs and destroying the livelihood of the middle class.

Are you sure there are not a good share of Republicans there? My bleeding heart liberal friends joined the peace corps or Teach For America . They took public defender jobs or environmental justice positions. Nothing like the corporate enablers you are describing.

Does it matter?

The people messing up the country the most are your ivy league college educated elitists who work for management consulting firms like McKinsey and Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs. In the book, it was something crazy like 40% or something of all Harvard Business Schools grads try to apply for jobs at McKinsey. You cannot tell me all 40% of those applicants are Republican. It's ways the Coastal Elites from 'premiere' universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. gutting our most vulnerable populations because they're chasing the six and seven figure salaries while providing little value to the overall economy.

Just go ahead and read the book. I forgot about other examples, like how McKinsey consultants drove US Steel into the ground and came up management plans for cutting safety and maintenance to the bone. They pursued similar strategies at Disneyland too. And guess what, the predictable happens where multiple people ended up dying due to faulty and poor maintenance and lack of safety. Other examples of costal elitists working for disgusting companies like McKinsey who spearheaded Walmart's strategies of cost cutting to the bone that they imposed on suppliers. It has real impacts like making one sprinkler company that was in business for 80 years or whatever going out of business because they shipped everything to China. The one poor lady working in 'flyover country' at the sprinkler factory had been at her job for like 20 years all the time moving up from a paltry $10 per hour to $15 per hour. She was basically unemployable after losing her job due to her age.

Coastal elites ruining the country are so out of touch with the rest of America. So many swamp rats in DC, NY, etc. coming up with all sorts of ways to line their pockets while coming up with ruination strategies for the middle class. Then they all wonder why millions of silent people across the country outside of their bubbles are so pissed off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm reading this book right now When McKinsey Comes to Town. McKinsey's consultants, largely made up on uber elitists from ivy league schools who live on the coasts, have for years been the architects of wealth inequality. McKinsey consultants were the ones who came up with idea that CEOs needed to make 300x the average worker. It was McKinsey consultants who constantly pushed the idea of off shoring and downsizing that have gutted manufacturing and many middle class jobs. McKinsey consultants are also the ones who also worked for the FDA while simultaneously consulting for Purdue to supercharge sales of opioids. And who paid the price and had their families and lives ruined? All of the poor in those areas the disgusting elitists call flyover country. In another example, McKisney also consulted for the Chinese CCP on artificial island building in the South China Sea while working for the US department of defense. And who'll be sent into the meat grinder when there's a conflict in the SCS? All of the poor people and their kids. There are just so many examples in the book - it's so disturbing.

And people wonder why huge swaths of America hate the liberal costal elitists. I mean just look how many McKinsey almuni infect our govt like virus (Pete Buttgeig, Lael Brainard, etc.). Trump has appeal because he isn't from the same swamp producing and employing the likes of McKinsey consultsnts that have been ruining the country for the last 50 years and creating massive wealth inequality. It's largely the elite college educated, urban Democrats who choose to go work for companies like McKinsey, Wall St. etc. that have been gutting their jobs and destroying the livelihood of the middle class.

Are you sure there are not a good share of Republicans there? My bleeding heart liberal friends joined the peace corps or Teach For America . They took public defender jobs or environmental justice positions. Nothing like the corporate enablers you are describing.

For you and the other PP scoffing at this: do you actually live in a wealthy neighborhood of NYC, SF or the DMV? Do you know a lot of college kids or failing that, the deans or profs at the kinds of schools that produce consultants? Because no, most of the kids hired by the largest consulting cos are not Republicans — not that it matters much.

Everything in the original post is true; for people like me in hardcore blue enclaves who are what Democrats used to be, anti-war and anti-military spending, and for protection of labor, our values are not truly represented in the upper echelons of the party any more. And that does not mean I’m voting for trump nor that I want him to win on any level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the points identified above as evidence they Democratic policies have failed working class Americans can be chalked up to unintended consequence. In other words, the McKinsey guys made bad choices because the problem they solved created another problem. As an aside .. that is their reputation. They fix things and cause different problems that require them to be hired again. It’s why savvy companies shy away from McKinsey and the ilk. But I digress. Of all the democratic policies, the worst is the open border. It is inexplicable. I do not agree that this is the same as it was under prior administrations. The numbers are far larger and we have never used HHS to house migrants and we are doing so now (some say to ensure that DHS can report low numbers).
Biden’s policies did signal an open door and his reaction to the influx has reinforced that. Recently Border Patrol agents cut razor wire put up by Texas. Mayorkas explained that this was done to facilitate processing of migrants. In other words, the razor wire was getting in the migrants way…. Which is exactly why it was put up. So the federal government removed a tool that was put up by texas to stop migrants and the reason given is that we need to let the migrants in. Mayorkas is saying that we want an open border. I don’t understand why Biden and Mayorkas are doing this. It is overburdening schools and services and hospitals. It has me on the edge. I don’t know that will vote for Trump but I cannot vote for Biden. I may just sit this one out.

ok and if Trump actually wins, maybe the border problem will let up some (MAYBE), but every other aspect of American culture and democracy will be ruined and not repairable. Is that worth it? Also, it's so funny that the President (republican or democrats) gets sole blame for immigration. Congress could have done something. Actually, that is the more appropriate body to act on immigration. President's have to work within their authority. In many cases, because Congress won't act, President's attempt action through administrative measures. Those are temporary and can be undone at anytime by a future president or the courts. As you can see, SCOTUS is about to take that away with the Chevron doctrine (thanks to Trump stacking the court). So where will this leave Biden and any other future president. sitting out an election could have consequences too.

If Trump wins the border problem certainly will let up, but not for the right reason. He just makes the country so uninviting that fewer migrants want to come here. But once he's not in office anymore the pendulum will swing the other way. As PP said, it's a temporary solution.

I feel like we have a variant of this thread every two days.

Jeff - please shut this one down and merge into one of the 20 other threads started by Cato interns on this topic.

I don’t get it at all- he is a horrible human. Like I can get behind people liking Mitt Romney or even Bush but Trump? He is horrible and he definitely doesn’t care about middle America

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The millions of immigrants talking point doesn’t make sense other than as a talking point.

Trump was President for four years. He had control of the house and senate when he came to power. He didn’t fix immigration. Some of the biggest obstacles to fixing immigration come from interests in his party.

So…why do you think he’ll fix it?

This point might have any intellectual resonance if it was “neither candidate currently running has made the progress I want on immigration” but it’s not a pro Trump point.

Unless you’re a troll.

Is this gaslighting? Because illegal migration fell sharply under Turnip. *Sharply*. And the Democrats fought him tooth and nail the entire time. They opposed every single thing he did to control migration. Remember the children in cages they ranted and screamed about, never mind that it started under Obama?

When Biden took office, illegal migration exploded. Don't you remember the first caravan of 100k illegal migrants marching through Mexico telling the whole world they were going for the border and effectively daring Biden to let them in. And he did. And that sent a message to the world.

But it's hard not to believe that the reason illegal crossings have gotten out of control is because the WH really doesn't care and has no interest in doing anything about it because the policy makers and staffers are firm believers in open borders. Which is why they - do nothing - and sue the border states for actually doing something to control the tide of migration.

Regarding Turnip's popularity, when he was president, he by and large didn't do very much. Cut taxes and made noises about the border and the border wall with some noticeable effects, and did a lot of international diplomacy that, intentional or not, corresponded with a world that had no wars or invasions and yet breakthroughs like the Abrahamic Accords. He was derided for making noises about China and Russia that later turned out to be true (remember when the Germans hysterically blew him off when he told them not to build the Nord Stream pipeline as it would only embolden Putin? Har har). But at home, he left people alone. There was no massive swathes of new bureaucracy, new regulations, new policies, no cancel culture, no judging or shaming or pretending to have the higher moral road. He made fun of the progressive left, but he also left them alone at the same time.

One cannot say that about the Democrats under Biden.

Your version of events under Trump is not even close to accurate. But keep living in your alternate fact based universe. Maybe someday you will come back to Earth prime.