Too soon to start thinking about 2024?

[Grifman]

Nobody’s really talking about this, but a recession induced by the Fed to reduce inflation would likely mean electoral losses, including the presidency, in 2024:

https://fortune.com/2022/09/22/jerome-p ... nding/amp/

Voters always blame the party in power for economic woes. This has huge implications for 2024. Has the party in power during a recession ever won? We could see a Republican sweep of the House, Senate, and Presidency.

[malchior]

Nobody’s really talking about this, but a recession induced by the Fed to reduce inflation would likely mean electoral losses, including the presidency, in 2024:

https://fortune.com/2022/09/22/jerome-p ... nding/amp/

Voters always blame the party in power for economic woes. This has huge implications for 2024. Has the party in power during a recession ever won? We could see a Republican sweep of the House, Senate, and Presidency.

Reagan won by a landslide after the Volker Fed created a recession by raising interest rates to tamp down inflation. As with anything it comes down to timing. If we see a recession and recovery in 2023 into early 2024 it might not even be a factor. If we're in the middle of a deep recession in 2024 it'll be far more concerning because most Republican victory paths pretty much leads to the end of democracy.

[Grifman]

Nobody’s really talking about this, but a recession induced by the Fed to reduce inflation would likely mean electoral losses, including the presidency, in 2024:

https://fortune.com/2022/09/22/jerome-p ... nding/amp/

Voters always blame the party in power for economic woes. This has huge implications for 2024. Has the party in power during a recession ever won? We could see a Republican sweep of the House, Senate, and Presidency.

Reagan won by a landslide after the Volker Fed created a recession by raising interest rates to tamp down inflation. As with anything it comes down to timing. If we see a recession and recovery in 2023 into early 2024 it might not even be a factor. If we're in the middle of a deep recession in 2024 it'll be far more concerning because most Republican victory paths pretty much leads to the end of democracy.

The recession started under Carter so Reagan didn’t get the blame. While it deepened under Reagan, by the time of the re-election campaign the US economy was growing again.
The US was not in a recession during Reagan’s re-election campaign, GDP growth was over 7% in 1984. I think my point still stands.

[malchior]

Nobody’s really talking about this, but a recession induced by the Fed to reduce inflation would likely mean electoral losses, including the presidency, in 2024:

https://fortune.com/2022/09/22/jerome-p ... nding/amp/

Voters always blame the party in power for economic woes. This has huge implications for 2024. Has the party in power during a recession ever won? We could see a Republican sweep of the House, Senate, and Presidency.

Reagan won by a landslide after the Volker Fed created a recession by raising interest rates to tamp down inflation. As with anything it comes down to timing. If we see a recession and recovery in 2023 into early 2024 it might not even be a factor. If we're in the middle of a deep recession in 2024 it'll be far more concerning because most Republican victory paths pretty much leads to the end of democracy.

The recession started under Carter so Reagan didn’t get the blame. While it deepened under Reagan, by the time of the re-election campaign the US economy was growing again.

To be technical there were two separate recessions. Volcker's first attempt didn't work. They racheted up interest rates higher in 81 under Reagan and began recession 2. There wasn't a return to normal unemployment levels until well into 82.

The US was not in a recession during Reagan’s re-election campaign, GDP growth was over 7% in 1984. I think my point still stands.

Ultimately that's what I was getting at. It's the timing. You can have a recession during your presidency but it likely matters most how people are doing somewhere near the election.

[El Guapo]

Did malchior write this?

[Kraken]

That's excellent.

[Defiant]

That's hilarious.

[LordMortis]

[Grifman]

So it begins:



If he is re-elected, it’s over, especially with a Republican House and Senate. I don’t see the U.S. recovering from a Trump vengeance tour, because that is exactly what it would be. He would not care about policy, it would all be about crushing anyone that opposed him and wrecking every govt institution that he feels wronged him during his first term. The govt would be put in the hands of grifters and synchphants, and it would be gutted.

[Smoove_B]

Don't sell it short - even if he's not elected, if the GOP takes over the House and Senate in 2022 or 2024 it's going to be a Trump vengeance tour "lite", whatever that means. They've made it pretty clear since 2020 that that they are aggrieved and plan on taking it out on everyone not MAGA as soon as they can.

[Pyperkub]

So it begins:



If he is re-elected, it’s over, especially with a Republican House and Senate. I don’t see the U.S. recovering from a Trump vengeance tour, because that is exactly what it would be. He would not care about policy, it would all be about crushing anyone that opposed him and wrecking every govt institution that he feels wronged him during his first term. The govt would be put in the hands of grifters and synchphants, and it would be gutted.

I think the timing of the announcement is, in part, to try to gain some protection against the wheels of Justice slowly grinding...

[Smoove_B]

I think the timing of the announcement is, in part, to try to gain some protection against the wheels of Justice slowly grinding...

Possibly true, but it also changes how he's able to fund-raise and use money. Whatever the decision I'm confident it's rooted in his personal needs rather than the bigger picture.

[Jaymann]

Yet few things will drive Democrats to the voting booth like FOFM*

*Fear of Florida Man

[Pyperkub]

I think the timing of the announcement is, in part, to try to gain some protection against the wheels of Justice slowly grinding...

Possibly true, but it also changes how he's able to fund-raise and use money. Whatever the decision I'm confident it's rooted in his personal needs rather than the bigger picture.

I seem to recall that there are actually fundraising advantages to *not * declaring early WRT to accounting, etc. which is a part of why I see this as the next step in delay tactics.

[Kurth]

So it begins:



If he is re-elected, it’s over, especially with a Republican House and Senate. I don’t see the U.S. recovering from a Trump vengeance tour, because that is exactly what it would be. He would not care about policy, it would all be about crushing anyone that opposed him and wrecking every govt institution that he feels wronged him during his first term. The govt would be put in the hands of grifters and synchphants, and it would be gutted.

If we elect Trump, we've become a modern day Weimar Republic. A democracy cannot elect a leader who has openly tried to overthrow that democracy. He's a traitor to the United States. There's just no other way to spin it. We'd be electing someone to the presidency who has actively worked to destroy this country as a functioning democracy. Game over.

Or, more accurately, I think it's the end of one game and beginning of another.

[malchior]

We just saw Israel do the equivalent. Well sort of because Bibi isn't an idiot. Still things have gone off the rails in many places now. Why many here somehow think we're immune to this is beyond me now.

[Unagi]

Who here thinks we are immune to it ?
Do you have specific people in mind when you say that?

I’d say it feels like many people here think we are not immune to that.

[malchior]

Who here thinks we are immune to it ?
Do you have specific people in mind when you say that?

I’d say it feels like many people here think we are not immune to that.

Americans in general. The type of morons who vote based on the fucking price of gas and such.

[YellowKing]

I think it's less the fact they think we are immune and more the fact they just don't give a damn.

[Smoove_B]

That's what I think it really scary - how disinterested so many people seemingly are with the idea that we're slowly careening into some type of Christofascist dictatorship. The real story after next Tuesday (and 2024) will once again be how many people didn't vote. I just saw some breakdown for Ontario from June of this year and it's the same - the share of non-voters out of the eligible people outnumbered everyone that did vote. My plans to relocate might need to be fine-tuned.

[El Guapo]

We just saw Israel do the equivalent. Well sort of because Bibi isn't an idiot. Still things have gone off the rails in many places now. Why many here somehow think we're immune to this is beyond me now.

At least Netanyahu, while he seems to have abused his powers in a number ways, hasn't tried to overthrow the Israeli government or to overturn his election. But Venezuela did the same thing with Chavez, and we can see how that turned out. The history of electing authoritarians and not getting authoritarianism is not great.

[YellowKing]

Can you imagine 10 years ago telling someone that an armed mob would one day break into the Capitol building over false election fraud claims and try to hang the vice-president, and one political party, as a whole, would publicly condone it? And then Americans, as a whole, would then vote to put that party in power two years later? It really boggles the mind.

[Unagi]

Who here thinks we are immune to it ?
Do you have specific people in mind when you say that?

I’d say it feels like many people here think we are not immune to that.

Americans in general. The type of morons who vote based on the fucking price of gas and such.

Ahhh. Ok. Yeah. I though the “many here” in your sentence was in reference to the OO community.

[Alefroth]

Who here thinks we are immune to it ?
Do you have specific people in mind when you say that?

I’d say it feels like many people here think we are not immune to that.

I'd say we are immunocompromised.

[malchior]

Can you imagine 10 years ago telling someone that an armed mob would one day break into the Capitol building over false election fraud claims and try to hang the vice-president, and one political party, as a whole, would publicly condone it? And then Americans, as a whole, would then vote to put that party in power two years later? It really boggles the mind.

Frankly that isn't too crazy. 10 years ago the tea party was really starting up. It'd have been great for someone from the future to come back and validate some of our fears back then about them. Instead we were treated to people looking down their noses at the overreactors.

Edit: Actually let's dig an old chestnut up.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the impression that we focus on Trump because he's so perfectly symptomatic of so much that's wrong (money, incivility, wingnut extremism) with American political culture. He's the purest embodiment of our present dysfunction.

And there is a fascination that no matter how vile, how impractical he is - he gets a decent amount of support in the base. I don't see anyone rallying around him wholesale but this year has cracked open the Republican psyche and really exposed how mean, ugly, impractical, and nihilistic it is.

And just to show how little progress there has been - this cycle is worse already than 2012 where we saw the post below talking about how polarized everything was. Mann and Ornstein really had their thumb on this and it's arguably gotten even worse (much worse probably) since then.

I didn't think this deserved its own thread, so I invoke the general 2012 election thread instead. (The "FOX News makes me stupid" thread was a contender, too.)

Playing the blame game

There’s a tendency among voters disgusted by the discord in Washington to declare a pox on both parties, blaming them equally for the partisan rancor and gridlock. Because both sides offer up periodic examples of stubbornness and stupidity, it can be difficult for a casual observer to sort out who is most blameworthy.

And that’s why a new book by Thomas Mann, a senior fellow in governance studies at the center-left Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, is an important contribution to understanding today’s politics. Mann and Ornstein are widely respected, even-keeled, non-polemical observers who have studied the ways of Washington for decades, so their observations should carry significant weight with serious people.

And in “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism,” the two conclude that the Republican Party bears most of the responsibility for today’s political dysfunction.

...

“Today’s Republican Party ... has become ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromises; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition, all but declaring war on the government,” they write. They add: “On issues from health reform to climate change to energy production, Republicans in Congress opposed, obstructed and tried to nullify policies proposed by President Obama that many of them had recently embraced, and repeatedly took hostages and made non-negotiable demands in lieu of real give-and-take.”

...

It’s a stark break with the Republicanism of decades past. “Republican Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon and congressional leaders such as Senators Everett Dirksen, Hugh Scott, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole, and Representatives Gerald Ford, John Rhodes, and Bob Michel, pragmatic institutional figures who found ways to work within the system and focused on solving problems, are unimaginable in the present context,” they write.

Well, duh. That ought to clear things up once and for all, eh?

Routine update to document GOP slide into madness.

6 years later - here we are.

[El Guapo]

I do think back to like 2015. I certainly understood then how extreme the Republican Party was, and had no "both sides" type illusions. But even I had no idea how close we were to the brink.

[malchior]

Trump 'big announcement' a week from today. Winter is coming.

[Carpet_pissr]

What could it be??? New Blizzard game?

[Smoove_B]

Well if we can't indict a former president, we certainly can't indict one that is running for re-election!

[Octavious]

Queue the unknown rule of you can't indite a man running for president. I honestly just have to stop paying attention. And wear headphones at work as 99.999 of my office is rabid republicans. I feel like I live in the deep south. Between my job and my town. Ugh

[Octavious]

Damn it SB!

[Isgrimnur]

Eugene V. Debs has entered the chat.

[LordMortis]

Well if we can't indict a former president, we certainly can't indict one that is running for re-election!

Especially not while Congress is trying to do so with an active president because... Look at the Wookie!

[malchior]

Well if we can't indict a former president, we certainly can't indict one that is running for re-election!

The NY Times has a story just for you here!

Spoiler:

He gets away with it. The over analysis here is part of the problem we face. We're so hell-bent on appearing normal that we can't combat abnormal attacks on our system. Our democracy will at least go to the grave WITH IT'S HONOR INTACT! (According to the people who have utterly failed to protect us...but that might be the whisper chat at the authoritarian dinner parties for a little while.)

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has long said that the Justice Department is up to the task of investigating former President Donald J. Trump, whose final weeks in office included his supporters attacking the Capitol as he refused to acknowledge his election loss.

That assertion was part of Mr. Garland’s desire to show that the department could operate above partisanship, acting as neither the weapon nor the enemy of any president or party. The real and perceived political land mines that accompany an investigation into Mr. Trump could be navigated, Mr. Garland suggested, by strictly following the rule of law.

“The rule of law means that the law treats each of us alike,” Mr. Garland has stated. “There is not one rule for friends, another for foes; one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless.”

But Mr. Garland’s hopes are being tested by Mr. Trump’s apparent plan to announce that he will run again for the White House, a step that would transform him from a former president into an electoral opponent of President Biden at a time of extreme political polarization — an environment leading the Justice Department to weigh whether to appoint a special counsel to handle open criminal inquiries related to Mr. Trump.

[Holman]

Well, at least New York dodged having a GOP governor. If DOJ won't indict, is there still some hope that NY will?

[malchior]

Well, at least New York dodged having a GOP governor. If DOJ won't indict, is there still some hope that NY will?

It seems unlikely since Letitia James referred charges out to DOJ. If she had something in NY, I think she would have charged it. She's been relatively aggressive.

[Little Raven]

After last night, I'm not at all sure we WANT Trump charged.

It is now clear that Trump is the best thing that has happened to the Democrats in a long time. We want him around as long as possible. Ideally, we want him heading the ticket in 2024. Failing that, we definitely want him running as third party spoiler.

He doesn't do us any good in jail.

[Carpet_pissr]

It would do my soul good.

[Grifman]

After last night, I'm not at all sure we WANT Trump charged.

It is now clear that Trump is the best thing that has happened to the Democrats in a long time. We want him around as long as possible. Ideally, we want him heading the ticket in 2024. Failing that, we definitely want him running as third party spoiler.

He doesn't do us any good in jail.

On the one hand I agree but on the other hand even the small chance of Trump bring re-elected terrify me.

[malchior]

Trump getting away with it has dire consequences for our national security. Both from the internal threat and the external damage done. He has done a massive amount of damage. The longer he is running around the worse it is. If he runs, just that alone makes us look ridiculous. If he wins, it would be cataclysmic. And we should go with that to give the Democrats an advantage? It's completely immoral, unethical, and it's way too much risk.