My sister, flabbergasted that she knew people who actually voted for Trump, implored them to share their reasoning in a "safe space." Reasons as follows: -life begins at conception and Hillary Clinton should not be allowed to select Supreme Court justices - My health insurance sucks and Trump will make it better - America will be better when run as a business. Not gonna lie- Trump's tax plan benefits me greatly. Not as greatly as it benefits, say, the Waltons but frickin' 15% top tax rate on pass-throughs? Dude. Cuts my taxes in half. And an elimination of more than half the deduction for offering benefits to employees? Great. Even more of an excuse to do the wrong thing. I was willing to take the $400/mo hit on my health insurance so that 13 million people could have health insurance. But if they don't want it? Fuck 'em.
I thought I would take perverse pleasure in how badly the Trumpeteers have fucked themselves but every new appointee makes me ill. The Republicans now have carte blanche to strip every chance of hope these people have. I know a guy (who didn't vote) whose meds will go up $1100 if they kill the ACA. I work with racists who all think their 401s are gonna skyrocket now that we have a real BIZNESSMAN in the White House. I live in a state that would happily shoot themselves in the foot just to keep the "good ole days" where negroes and women knew their place. Trump is their man. Nevermind that two minutes of critical thinking of every person that man sees in his golden suite would tell them he doesn't give a shit about their future. When was the last time the Republicans ever pushed an agenda to help these people? Please, I'm really asking. Besides keeping my right to buy assault rifles and force my control over a woman's uterus or save me from the scary minorities? Trump, and more importantly the people pulling Trump's strings are going to screw this country up so badly and the 60 million who voted for him will be the ones to go down in flames, completely ignorant of why.
I find myself withdrawing my empathy. I didn't want this for anyone. I still don't. Millions are going to die early, needlessly. Millions more are going to see their standards of living erode further. Yet they are the ones who want it the most. I went to an auction once. There were some four-year-old projectors there I was interested in. Things were going for crazy prices; I was basically along for the ride at some point. I got to talking to the guy next to me; he said he wanted one of those projectors for his trailer. I told him that the bulbs alone were more than a new projector and even showed him the replacement bulb on Amazon on my new-fangled smartphone. The dude bid the projectors up past their bulb cost, past their working cost, past their new cost, staring at me the entire time. He sure showed me. Wasn't going to let some ponytailed asshole talk him out of a deal! The left has long been too patronizing of the poor right and the poor right has long been too hatefully scornful of the left. I've blown through "patronizing", am breezing through "sympathetic" and have to fight to stay out of "scornful." The Republican Party hasn't given a fuck about the working class since they nominated Taft over Roosevelt.
Yeah and an adjusted married-filing-jointly deduction of $30,000. W.T.F. That's a lot of money, and at least provides less of an incentive for getting a big mortgage (not that the mortgage deduction should ever be an incentive, but people are dumb with math). I have a decent sized mortgage, and a moderately high property tax bill, and I don't even sniff $30,000 in deductions. Simplifies my life quite a bit, actually, in addition to lowering the overall burden. Edit: And his promise to destroy the regulatory state could be good for our business. I have a lot to potentially gain out of a Trump administration. Hate him, but I suppose I'll try to make hay while the sun shines.
The regulatory thing is something I am going to watch very closely under Trump. If he does start deregulating as heavily as he has indicated he wants to, companies will have pretty much free reign to pollute and do all kinds of things that would be bad for their workers, and the public at large. HOWEVER, the public is much better informed about pollution and worker's rights and safe work environments, etc. Plus they have mass-media tools in their pockets. So are the workers and the general public empowered enough to call out the companies that abuse the public trust in a deregulated environment? Hmmm... could be interesting. After all, tanking profits are a MUCH bigger incentive than some dorky sweaty government inspector with tape on his glasses, checking off boxes on a safety inspection form...
Around here its worries about losing guns, frustration that Obamacare limits part time hours to 25 hrs. a week, fear that raising minimum wage will lead to job cuts, frustrations about bank and auto bailouts, concerns about abortions, and concerns about Hillary getting involved in more international issues. When you're willing to put personal perspectives about guns, abortions, and the economy aside, you can kind of see some very real concerns there. Also, for a lot of peoplr, the deciding factor was indeed guns. I honestly think if Democrats softened their stance on gun control and openly advertised that, they'd get more votes.
So, in a completely neutral and non-confrontational way (aka, ignoring our recent sparring matches), let's break this down: Which is a completely made up story from the right. Obama was even asked this at a town hall, and refuted it directly, and there has been zero legislation passed to limit any sort of gun ownership at all. It's all histrionics. (Side note: I had to unsubscribe from the online gun store where I buy my ammo, because they would send out up to TEN EMAILS A WEEK with complete and utter bullshit stories about legislation that was proposed, passed, or being "pushed by Obama", restricting some aspect of gun ownership. I started digging in to the articles, researching the sources, and ALL of them were just total fabrications. Not a shred of truth behind most of them. And yeah, there were some nutty legislators from, like, Malibu, who wrote legislation to ban all guns... but that legislation had ZERO supporters, never made it to the Agenda or onto the House floor for a vote. LOTS of legislators write up wacky things to get headlines. That doesn't mean they can garner 500 votes in the house to pass a bill to the Senate, though. That's Junior High School civics class stuff, right there.) A plan has to be in place for it to be measured. Now that Obamacare is in place, we can tweak the variables to make it work better. But there has to be a baseline. You can't work 1 hour a week and expect full benefits. So maybe 25 hours a week is not the right baseline, but it can be changed. The whole program doesn't need to be scrapped because one or two adjustable variables are currently set at inconvenient numbers. Because it's better to live in destitution, working 40-plus hour weeks, and still being unable to meet basic needs? Honestly, what is the alternative? Personally, taking Unemployment and free job training to get a better paying job that is going to actually pay for my basic living expenses seems like a better idea than just letting employers leech off the rest of the taxpayers by paying below a living wage and having their employees use welfare, food stamps, and public health services to make up for their deficient pay. Everyone has to make a living wage. If they don't, then they are being propped up by the social systems everyone else is paying for. That's corporate welfare, plain and simple. Which saved the jobs and homes of the hundreds of thousands of people that worked for these companies... and were all paid back in full? A bailout is a bridge loan to get you through tough times. It isn't free money. (And, BTW, those bailouts were required because the economy tanked because the Republicans repealed the Glass-Steagall act that kept the banks out of putting their customers' money in sketchy schemes. So when everyone lost their money they stopped buying new cars, thereby creating the need for a bailout in the first place.) It is fine to be for or against the medical procedure of an abortion. But the right paints myriad women's health care issues with a broad brush. Planned Parenthood provided far more heath care, cancer screening, and contraception information and services than abortion services. These clinics provided much of the health care that the poor needed to remain basically healthy, and continuing to be able to work at their minimum wage jobs. Eliminating their only source of health care is - quite literally - throwing the baby out with the bath water. Everyone was concerned about that. There isn't anyone more excited about dropping bombs on brown people than Hillary. However, as Secretary of State she had far more power to do that than any President ever did. And her ability to drop bombs on brown people would have been severely throttled by an Elizabeth Warren-run Senate, backed by Bernie Sanders on the Appropriations Committee. This shows the willful ignorance of a Trump voter. The President appoints over 1900 people on the day they take office. They have always beholden to their Party Leadership (until Trump, of course), and are therefore held on a pretty tight leash. The entire system is set up to balance power so that nobody can jerk the wheel and drive the bus off the road. Until now. With their total domination of the Legislature, the Senate, the White House, and soon the Supreme Court, the most anarchic voices in the Republican party are now free to go off-roading in the family van without even putting Junior in a child safety seat. None of this information is new, original, or insightful. I'm not some great and wise thinker on the topic. I have no unique sources or Deep Throat telling me secrets in dark parking garages. This has all been known for more than a year, and was presented throughout all forms of media (left, right, and center) for the entire time. But people chose to be willfully ignorant, and so they got what they wanted, without understanding what they were asking for. worries about losing guns
frustration that Obamacare limits part time hours to 25 hrs. a week
fear that raising minimum wage will lead to job cuts
frustrations about bank and auto bailouts
concerns about abortions
concerns about Hillary getting involved in more international issues
I'm on lunch. I'm angry (not at you), and I can't fuxking focus. So let me just say this. We agree, mostly. Hell, we probably even vote similarly but the reasons behind our votes are probably very different. I understand exactly what you're saying here. That said, the Republican side is loud, brash, stubborn, and unafraid to play dirty pool. This has all been known for more than a year, and was presented throughout all forms of media (left, right, and center) for the entire time. But people chose to be willfully ignorant, and so they got what they wanted, without understanding what they were asking for. Democrats need to start speaking the fuck up, cause their message isn't getting through.None of this information is new, original, or insightful. I'm not some great and wise thinker on the topic. I have no unique sources or Deep Throat telling me secrets in dark parking garages.