2024 - the MAGA Presidency and Revenge Tour

[Victoria Raverna]

I think there's a much simpler explanation than personal finances. Electric cars are associated with "being green" which is associated with "global warming" which is a liberal hoax. To approve of electric cars is tantamount to wearing a Greenpeace shirt and hugging a tree.

But then they now love Elon Musk.

[Blackhawk]

I think it's kinda a no-brainer why any relatively impoverished area may have no interest in electric vehicles (because they are absolutely way more expensive) and also want the price of gas to be very low.

Isn't that obvious?

Not to mention blue-collar jobs that involve any transportation, delivery, etm.

You can't buy used (i.e. cheaper, older) EVs until you're selling new EVs regularly and for several years. Price are quite volatile and will be for some time. You've got to start somewhere. They'll get their cheap used EV market eventually.

It'll be interesting to see how the used market develops. I'm a "buy and drive into the ground" kind of guy, so I anticipate having my EVs at least 15 years unless I just come in to a ton of money and don't care anymore. I don't think 20 would be unreasonable for the two that are just used for around the town driving. But I also acknowledge there are people who just roll equity from one car to the next as long as their payments don't change, so I might be an outlier.

Good luck getting a used EV that's more than a decade old that still has a reasonable battery capacity unless you personally knew the previous owner. A new battery can cost more than an older used car.

[Holman]

I think there's a much simpler explanation than personal finances. Electric cars are associated with "being green" which is associated with "global warming" which is a liberal hoax. To approve of electric cars is tantamount to wearing a Greenpeace shirt and hugging a tree.

The future of human existence is in doubt because conservatives decided the natural environment is a Hippie issue.

[Blackhawk]

I think there's a much simpler explanation than personal finances. Electric cars are associated with "being green" which is associated with "global warming" which is a liberal hoax. To approve of electric cars is tantamount to wearing a Greenpeace shirt and hugging a tree.

As with everything, it's a mistake to assume that there is a single cause. If they were cheaper, had a viable used market, and the infrastructure to support was present in areas where politics were a factor, then a lot fewer people would be hiding behind the "liberal hoax" excuse. It's sour grapes - it's easy to dismiss something as worthless when you couldn't have had it to begin with. Like everything else, there are a multitude of factors, all overlapping and propping each other up.

[Carpet_pissr]

I think there's a much simpler explanation than personal finances. Electric cars are associated with "being green" which is associated with "global warming" which is a liberal hoax. To approve of electric cars is tantamount to wearing a Greenpeace shirt and hugging a tree.

But then they now love Elon Musk.

I swear this is the reason one of my son's friend's Dad (whom I know decently well) got a Tesla 6-8 months ago. He's SUPER conservative, and I think if Elon had not shown...whatever his colors are via the Xshitter Xshenanigans, he would not have a Tesla today. I know him well enough to ask him why he waited so long to buy one, and I THINK he would actually tell me if it was something along the lines of "well, honestly, CP, I really like the way that Elon thinks/talks/behaves etc."

[LordMortis]

I think it's kinda a no-brainer why any relatively impoverished area may have no interest in electric vehicles (because they are absolutely way more expensive) and also want the price of gas to be very low.

Isn't that obvious?

Not to mention blue-collar jobs that involve any transportation, delivery, etm.

You can't buy used (i.e. cheaper, older) EVs until you're selling new EVs regularly and for several years. Price are quite volatile and will be for some time. You've got to start somewhere. They'll get their cheap used EV market eventually.

It'll be interesting to see how the used market develops. I'm a "buy and drive into the ground" kind of guy, so I anticipate having my EVs at least 15 years unless I just come in to a ton of money and don't care anymore. I don't think 20 would be unreasonable for the two that are just used for around the town driving. But I also acknowledge there are people who just roll equity from one car to the next as long as their payments don't change, so I might be an outlier.

Good luck getting a used EV that's more than a decade old that still has a reasonable battery capacity unless you personally knew the previous owner. A new battery can cost more than an older used car.

This remains to be seen and it's something I am trying to watch but failing. The core deposit, as it were, on a sending an old battery for all the re-s should be huge, shouldn't it and that should take a big chunk out of the cost of replacing. But then labor... So I'm all with all of the EV adopters, quite frankly going back they were hybrid adopters.

I know I also drive cars until they are too expensive to maintain, so the battery question is huge for me, knowing that I own phones long enough to replace batteries that cost more than I could sell a phone for (Replaced the battery on my iPhone 7 earlier this year, which goes through a charge fast even with its new battery)

The right to repair with TESLAs specifically would be a concern for me as they are not exactly eager to allow after market work and the idea of infinite lease on my car doesn't sit with my sensibility, even as all your possessions are belong to as a service seems to be the world we live in and I have to remind myself I am the olds.

[stessier]

I think it's kinda a no-brainer why any relatively impoverished area may have no interest in electric vehicles (because they are absolutely way more expensive) and also want the price of gas to be very low.

Isn't that obvious?

Not to mention blue-collar jobs that involve any transportation, delivery, etm.

You can't buy used (i.e. cheaper, older) EVs until you're selling new EVs regularly and for several years. Price are quite volatile and will be for some time. You've got to start somewhere. They'll get their cheap used EV market eventually.

It'll be interesting to see how the used market develops. I'm a "buy and drive into the ground" kind of guy, so I anticipate having my EVs at least 15 years unless I just come in to a ton of money and don't care anymore. I don't think 20 would be unreasonable for the two that are just used for around the town driving. But I also acknowledge there are people who just roll equity from one car to the next as long as their payments don't change, so I might be an outlier.

Good luck getting a used EV that's more than a decade old that still has a reasonable battery capacity unless you personally knew the previous owner. A new battery can cost more than an older used car.

I'm not sure what this comment is aimed at.

Also, what do you define as a reasonable battery capacity? New my car gets around 260 miles. In ten years, I'm betting it will be no worse than 80% of that... Which is still 200-ish miles. That is still 4x my daily commute.

Say I'm being crazy optimistic and it's only 50% - that's still 2x my commute. There is no reason these things can't be viable for a very long time.

[Carpet_pissr]

WRT the hybrid battery issue, it’s also something I was concerned about before I bought mine almost two years ago.

Then around that same time, I bought a 07 Toyota Camry hybrid from my sister for my kids to drive and wreck and get hit in the school parking lot. 150K miles on it and the battery has never been replaced. I’m very sure the capacity is greatly decreased, but still getting low to mid 30’s in terms of gas mileage, soooo ??

An example of one doesn’t mean much, but it was enough to calm my fears of buying a new hybrid.

In theory these batteries last 5-8 years and cost from $2500-$5000 to replace.

[LordMortis]

From the google selected anecdotes, I'm surprised at how well charging holds

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tesla+b ... on+10+year

And kbb suggests,

A Tesla Model S or Model X will retain 88% of its battery capacity at the 200,000-mile mark, the company says. At that point, Tesla believes, its cars are likely to be scrapped.

I'm suitably impressed.

[Grifman]

I’m not certain what EV’s have to do with a trump second term, so let’s try to get back on topic with this. Trump plans detention camps and mass deportations if elected:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/p ... genda.html

[Blackhawk]

I think it's kinda a no-brainer why any relatively impoverished area may have no interest in electric vehicles (because they are absolutely way more expensive) and also want the price of gas to be very low.

Isn't that obvious?

Not to mention blue-collar jobs that involve any transportation, delivery, etm.

You can't buy used (i.e. cheaper, older) EVs until you're selling new EVs regularly and for several years. Price are quite volatile and will be for some time. You've got to start somewhere. They'll get their cheap used EV market eventually.

It'll be interesting to see how the used market develops. I'm a "buy and drive into the ground" kind of guy, so I anticipate having my EVs at least 15 years unless I just come in to a ton of money and don't care anymore. I don't think 20 would be unreasonable for the two that are just used for around the town driving. But I also acknowledge there are people who just roll equity from one car to the next as long as their payments don't change, so I might be an outlier.

Good luck getting a used EV that's more than a decade old that still has a reasonable battery capacity unless you personally knew the previous owner. A new battery can cost more than an older used car.

I'm not sure what this comment is aimed at.

Also, what do you define as a reasonable battery capacity? New my car gets around 260 miles. In ten years, I'm betting it will be no worse than 80% of that... Which is still 200-ish miles. That is still 4x my daily commute.

Say I'm being crazy optimistic and it's only 50% - that's still 2x my commute. There is no reason these things can't be viable for a very long time.

It was a concern I'd seen brought up a number of times when I looked into it a few years ago. If the user is careful with his battery and charging, the battery could keep most of its capacity, but if the user is... unkind to the battery (I have no idea what this means in practice), the battery could be down to 60% or less after 10-15 years (which is the age at which the EV market for poor people 'kicks in'.)

Like I said earlier, I'm not an EV expert. I'm not even EV-knowledgeable. I have no idea if this remains true. But I do know that it was a major concern in regards to the used EV market at one time.

[Brian]

This is all sounding rather familiar....

The story shows what might happen to Christianity in the United States with mass communications, applied psychology, and a hysterical populace...

...set in a future theocratic American society, ruled by the latest in a series of fundamentalist Christian "Prophets." The First Prophet was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher turned President (elected in 2012), then dictator (no elections were held in 2016 or later).

[Smoove_B]

I was waiting for a non-paywalled article so here:

Former President Donald Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up people living in the United States without legal permission on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.

The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.

...

He plans to scour the country for immigrants living here without legal permission and deport people by the millions per year.

To help speed mass deportations, Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due-process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.

To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.

...

To make the process of finding and deporting immigrants already living inside the country without legal permission “radically more quick and efficient,” he said, the Trump team would bring in “the right kinds of attorneys and the right kinds of policy thinkers” willing to carry out such ideas.

And because of the magnitude of arrests and deportations being contemplated, they plan to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progress and they wait to be flown to other countries.

Miller said the new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border.” He said the military would construct them under the authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security. While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to other facilities for migrants that have been built near the border.

JFC that's his campaign and people are still supporting him. Like this...is mind-blowing:

Trump has also said he would invoke an archaic law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to expel suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process. That law allows for summary deportation of people from countries with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.”

The Supreme Court has upheld past uses of that law in wartime. But its text seems to require a link to the actions of a foreign government, so it is not clear whether the justices will allow a president to stretch it to encompass drug cartel activity.

So very unclear how the Supreme Court would handle this. Let's hope we don't find out.

[Victoria Raverna]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

[LordMortis]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

Hiring out for home repair, lawn maintenance, hotel workers, and back of the house restaurant support around here would take a huge hit. People don't want to work those jobs, even when they pay a living wage (albeit a low living wage in most cases when it comes to immigrant workers) and we are not a large populace of illegal immigrants around here.

[Isgrimnur]

Georgia, 2012

The dirty secret that everybody knew was that most of the state’s agricultural workers were immigrants, many of them illegal. Some lived in the state; others migrated with the harvest from southern Florida up to New York and back. Some of the former have moved away, while many of the latter are bypassing Georgia. Without them, according to a University of Georgia study, farmers were about 40 percent short of the number of workers they needed to harvest last year’s crop.

[Smoove_B]

The economy is important (that much has been made clear over the last ~3 years) but:

...because of the magnitude of arrests and deportations being contemplated, they plan to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progress and they wait to be flown to other countries.

I unable to go beyond the open communication of what's coming.

[Kraken]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

Absolutely, yes. In recent years 95% of US population growth has depended on immigration. Our fertility rate is way, way below replacement. If he could really pull off what he's threatening to do, population would begin to decline.

[GreenGoo]

Good luck getting a used EV that's more than a decade old that still has a reasonable battery capacity unless you personally knew the previous owner. A new battery can cost more than an older used car.

I won't disagree on the basic premise, but as mentioned "reasonable" means different things to different people, and battery range is constantly increasing. 10 years from now, will new EVs have the same starting range as new EVs today? Doesn't seem likely. I'm not a huge fan of "science will save us from ourselves in the future" response to everything, but I think in this case it is likely.

[Blackhawk]

Good luck getting a used EV that's more than a decade old that still has a reasonable battery capacity unless you personally knew the previous owner. A new battery can cost more than an older used car.

I won't disagree on the basic premise, but as mentioned "reasonable" means different things to different people, and battery range is constantly increasing. 10 years from now, will new EVs have the same starting range as new EVs today? Doesn't seem likely. I'm not a huge fan of "science will save us from ourselves in the future" response to everything, but I think in this case it is likely.

I certainly hope so. I'd love to have a car that I don't have to feel guilty for driving - although I have a feeling that by the time they're available in my price range, the only one I'll be trying out is a hearse.

[Smoove_B]

While the masses imagine a future powered by batteries, another article came out today regarding the Revenge Tour (tm):

Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents.

The screening for ready-to-serve loyalists has already begun, driven in part by artificial intelligence from tech giant Oracle, contracted for the project.

Social media histories are already being plumbed.

...

If Trump were to win, thousands of Trump-first loyalists would be ready for legal, judicial, defense, regulatory and domestic policy jobs. His inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls "Agenda 47."

The people leading these efforts aren't figures like Rudy Giuliani. They're smart, experienced people, many with very unconventional and elastic views of presidential power and traditional rule of law.

...

Behind the scenes: The government-in-waiting is being orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation's well-funded Project 2025, which already has published a 920-page policy book from 400+ contributors. Think of it as a transition team set in motion years in advance.

Heritage president Kevin Roberts tells us his apparatus is "orders of magnitude" bigger than anything ever assembled for a party out of power.

And we still have ~50% of the voting public that supports this. I genuinely hope a year from now I'm not posting "JFC how is this happening...again?"

[malchior]

I don't think 50% of the voting public supports it. They don't know it's happening and they don't know what it means. That's the media criticism in a nutshell. The mainstream outlets need to stop talking about horse race bullshit and soft-selling authoritarianism and start plainly speaking about the planning going on in a consumable way (lots of more pieces like Axios just did).

This also requires the Democrats to start talking about it non-stop. It's like they're presently afraid to give Trump oxygen by talking about his threat. We're past that stage. It is a 5-alarm fire and they need to start responding.

The Republicans long ago figured out the hapless media will megaphone pretty much anything they say. You'd think Democrats would have figured out by now that they could do the same and maybe spell out what the Republicans are actually doing? Crazy, I know.

[Smoove_B]

I don't think 50% of the voting public supports it.

I'm not sure (and I know this is a different conversation) about that. Yes, it's too early for polls and sure, part of this is because the media is failing to report his comfortable slide into fascism, but my general impressions are that he's still overwhelmingly going to be the GOP nominee - because it's now a cult.

[UsulofDoom]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

Hiring out for home repair, lawn maintenance, hotel workers, and back of the house restaurant support around here would take a huge hit. People don't want to work those jobs, even when they pay a living wage (albeit a low living wage in most cases when it comes to immigrant workers) and we are not a large populace of illegal immigrants around here.

That would only affect the 10% that use those services. The rest of us mow are own lawns and shovel our drive ways and go to Lows and Home Depot for home repairs. Who do you think buys push mowers. We can't afford Hotels and restaurants since we have inflation tax.


2021 Average Annual Wages
Group Avg. Wages
Top 0.1% of Earners $3,312,693
Top 1% of Earners $819,324
Top 5% of Earners $335,891
Top 10% of Earners $167,639

[UsulofDoom]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

Hiring out for home repair, lawn maintenance, hotel workers, and back of the house restaurant support around here would take a huge hit. People don't want to work those jobs, even when they pay a living wage (albeit a low living wage in most cases when it comes to immigrant workers) and we are not a large populace of illegal immigrants around here.

That would only affect the 10% that use those services. The rest of us mow are own lawns and shovel our drive ways and go to Lows and Home Depot for home repairs. Who do you think buys push mowers and snow shovels. We can't afford Hotels and restaurants since we have inflation tax.


2021 Average Annual Wages
Group Avg. Wages
Top 0.1% of Earners $3,312,693
Top 1% of Earners $819,324
Top 5% of Earners $335,891
Top 10% of Earners $167,639

[LawBeefaroni]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

Hiring out for home repair, lawn maintenance, hotel workers, and back of the house restaurant support around here would take a huge hit. People don't want to work those jobs, even when they pay a living wage (albeit a low living wage in most cases when it comes to immigrant workers) and we are not a large populace of illegal immigrants around here.

That would only affect the 10% that use those services. The rest of us mow are own lawns and shovel our drive ways and go to Lows and Home Depot for home repairs. Who do you think buys push mowers. We can't afford Hotels and restaurants since we have inflation tax.


2021 Average Annual Wages
Group Avg. Wages
Top 0.1% of Earners $3,312,693
Top 1% of Earners $819,324
Top 5% of Earners $335,891
Top 10% of Earners $167,639

Only the top 10% go to restaurants and hotels? I find that incredibly hard to believe.


As for "inflation tax", the production lost by immigrants' absence in the work force will only increase inflation.

[malchior]

I don't think 50% of the voting public supports it.

I'm not sure (and I know this is a different conversation) about that. Yes, it's too early for polls and sure, part of this is because the media is failing to report his comfortable slide into fascism, but my general impressions are that he's still overwhelmingly going to be the GOP nominee - because it's now a cult.

Yeah. He will be the GOP nominee barring his death. That's for sure at this point. Every effort has to be made to make people understand what we are up against and what the consequences of returning someone as unfit for power as Trump is. That we're even discussing this is a consequence of a system in the deepest of crises and people are to pull up the phrase I used long ago - sleep walking into something very dark. He is talking about rounding up migrants and putting them in camps! I don't know how this is possible.

[LordMortis]

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants is going to tank the economy, right?

Hiring out for home repair, lawn maintenance, hotel workers, and back of the house restaurant support around here would take a huge hit. People don't want to work those jobs, even when they pay a living wage (albeit a low living wage in most cases when it comes to immigrant workers) and we are not a large populace of illegal immigrants around here.

That would only affect the 10% that use those services. The rest of us mow are own lawns and shovel our drive ways and go to Lows and Home Depot for home repairs. Who do you think buys push mowers. We can't afford Hotels and restaurants since we have inflation tax.


2021 Average Annual Wages
Group Avg. Wages
Top 0.1% of Earners $3,312,693
Top 1% of Earners $819,324
Top 5% of Earners $335,891
Top 10% of Earners $167,639

Wow top 10% has gone up. Last I remember just making $100k made you top 10%. Also, I'm surprised at the number of people in my lower middle class neighborhood who have lawn services for their 70 year old homes on postage stamp lots. And none of them roof (us?) their own houses, as example, even as the expense of roofing is .

That said, I getcha. I haven't been in a hotel in years and try to do house maintenance myself or with familial help whenever I can and eating out is a rarity. But then, I watch my pennies like few people do.

[malchior]

As for "inflation tax", the production lost by immigrants' absence in the work force will only increase inflation.

Frankly the measures would cause an immediate economic depression approximating the great depression and inflation would be a dream scenario. We'd almost certainly be locked in a deflationary cycle. That's economist talk for - we'd be fucked.

[Smoove_B]

Frankly the measures would cause an immediate economic depression approximating the great depression and inflation would be a dream scenario. We'd almost certainly be locked in a deflationary cycle. That's economist talk for - we'd be fucked.

...but we'd have Made America Great Again by going back to the 1950s when there weren't any immigrants stealing all the jobs and simultaneously collecting unemployment benefits from real Americans*.

*this is what they truly believe

[malchior]

We'd also start starving which would be fun. We can't pick our crops with the available "legal" labor force. In other words, some of this stuff is still just talk but they are openly talking like this which means they will set their sights on *someone* to satisfy their deplorable base.

[LordMortis]

Frankly the measures would cause an immediate economic depression approximating the great depression and inflation would be a dream scenario. We'd almost certainly be locked in a deflationary cycle. That's economist talk for - we'd be fucked.

...but we'd have Made America Great Again by going back to the 1950s when there weren't any immigrants stealing all the jobs and simultaneously collecting unemployment benefits from real Americans*.

*this is what they truly believe

Well, that's the problem. The illegals are taking all of our benefits and I still can't a Big Mac in a timely fashion because no one wants to work fast food for $15. What we really need is to ease up on child labor, so we can bring inflation down and kick out immigrants. 10 years old in the summer months? Why aren't the fields working on getting to the grocer? You can pay them $3 an hour. They're even small and flexible enough to crawl in a combine when if it get jammed.

[Octavious]

My 2 weeks new neighbors just hoisted up a gigantic Fuck Biden flag. There's only 1 other political flag in the entire town and this is the worst one. I'm pretty sure the town has no rules on what flags you can fly so I'll just have to feel unsafe every time I come home now. So I have that going for me. We were thinking of selling in the next year and that will make it so much easier I'm sure.

[El Guapo]

My 2 weeks new neighbors just hoisted up a gigantic Fuck Biden flag. There's only 1 other political flag in the entire town and this is the worst one. I'm pretty sure the town has no rules on what flags you can fly so I'll just have to feel unsafe every time I come home now. So I have that going for me. We were thinking of selling in the next year and that will make it so much easier I'm sure.

Aren't there public profanity rules?

[Smoove_B]

Aren't there public profanity rules?

Would love to see his neighbor become THE case law for freedom.

[Octavious]

My 2 weeks new neighbors just hoisted up a gigantic Fuck Biden flag. There's only 1 other political flag in the entire town and this is the worst one. I'm pretty sure the town has no rules on what flags you can fly so I'll just have to feel unsafe every time I come home now. So I have that going for me. We were thinking of selling in the next year and that will make it so much easier I'm sure.

Aren't there public profanity rules?

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't one. But I sure as heck don't want to stir up the crazypants assholes myself. This is a town that voted 70% Trump so I'm not exactly going to have very many people on my side.

[Smoove_B]

If only you knew someone nearby that had...connections. Maybe it'll just disappear one night. It would be a shame.

[Octavious]

I haven't seen it yet myself, but my wife is super upset. If it was just a Trump flag whatever I know most of the people in the town are Trumpers... But a gigantic Fuck Biden flag? Seriously just die. I tried looking up the town rules and so far I only see that you can't do that in a retail establishment.

[El Guapo]

My 2 weeks new neighbors just hoisted up a gigantic Fuck Biden flag. There's only 1 other political flag in the entire town and this is the worst one. I'm pretty sure the town has no rules on what flags you can fly so I'll just have to feel unsafe every time I come home now. So I have that going for me. We were thinking of selling in the next year and that will make it so much easier I'm sure.

Aren't there public profanity rules?

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't one. But I sure as heck don't want to stir up the crazypants assholes myself. This is a town that voted 70% Trump so I'm not exactly going to have very many people on my side.

I was thinking more in the nature of an anonymous complaint.

By the way, my upstairs neighbors are moving next summer. Don't have to worry a lot about "Fuck Biden" signs in Boston, let me tell you.

[Octavious]

Well my client base for selling a house would be cut drastically if he keeps that nonsense up there. So that's awesome. It was legit the one thing I was super worried about and it happened. A loud Trumper.