My Final Thoughts on the Presidential Election of 2024

Probably the two biggest arguments I have seen is that they don't care about his words, they care about his actions. In my opinion, that isn't much better. Also, they claim there were no wars under Trump's administration. I don't think that will be the case this next time.

You really should’ve been an investigative journalist! You handled this debunking most adroitly; pinpointing all the fallacies, falsehoods and pure overriding, roughshod managerial ineptitude.
You’re wonderful @agmoore
Agmoore for president!

Well done and thank you!

This is a brilliant piece of writing, @agmoore. I watched several of the videos, which was quite painful because I have spent 9 years trying to tune him out and feeling a little ill every time I hear that voice. Or see him do his little dance. All that history is there in living color. Great job.

I am trying not to live in fear and trepidation of what's coming. But between the cabinet he's putting together, his plans to tear apart the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and who knows what else, and the fact that all of his bigotry and misogyny have inspired people to come out of the woodwork to treat others with similar disrespect, I will admit that I have trouble sleeping at night.

Rachel Maddow is a voice of reason and does an amazing job of sharing the facts and bringing these things to light. This podcast about the cabinet he's putting together should make anyone shudder.

On a positive note, I think most people did not vote for Trump because of his misdeeds, but in spite of them. They have forgotten what happened during Covid, maybe didn't pay attention to all of the horrible scandals in his administration (see the Rachel Maddow podcast I mentioned above), and maybe even don't believe that he is all that bad based on his threats to use the military against his own citizens... etc.

I think there are two primary factors at play:

1. Just as in the video you shared where Trump says again and again again "It will go away," he repeats everything else he wants to believe and wants his followers to believe too. And it works. He can rewrite history about January 6 just by repeating a different narrative. He can get people to believe that crime went through the roof during the Biden administration, and that it was at the hands of a massive number of criminals coming over the border... just by saying it over and over and over. And this same phenomenon normalizes his nastiness, his ugly rhetoric and his lies. So people become numb and buy what he's selling.
2. Many people simply want more money in their pockets, and they think he can do that for them. They're tired of stretching their dollars and feeling like they can't make ends meet. And they blame the current administration for the inflation that got us here, seeing absolutely no connection to the Covid pandemic and how long it takes to shift an economy back toward "normal" after such an historic and devastating event. Yes, it has been hard, and yes it needs to get better. But the current administration got the economy back on track faster than any other country and was recently proclaimed "the envy of the world".

I get it. I really do. Inflation slowed, but not fast enough. A great GDPR and a soaring stock market simply don't put shoes on children and meat on the table. But it's unfortunately a situation where the guy who made the louder claims about what he's capable of bumped up against a candidate representing the current administration and the pain people feel in the pockets today.

And here are. Emotion speaks louder than facts. Because honestly, for as many times as Trump proclaimed how terrible the economy is, there are just as many fact-filled articles explaining that leading economists disagree with Trump that he can make inflation go away, that Trump's tariff plans will hurt consumers, that Trump's tax plans will increase taxes on 95% of Americans, and the economy does better under Democrats.

Well, my dear, thank you for letting me jump on your blog with my concerns. I agree with everything you've shared. You did a wonderful job collecting facts and stating what's true. I truly hope facts don't cease to matter entirely.

My heart was aching. I felt it coming. I'm comforted in knowing that all things must play out in their own time for other, more significant events to come to pass. It has been written. The Trump era is only a part (puppet I must say) in the bigger scheme of things.

Thanks for sharing this. I certainly appreciate it.

!LADY

Dear @agmoore,
thank you for your post.
Overall I agree. The first term of Trump was not that good.
But I'd like to add nuance to 2 topics.
Economy: there are diverse long and variable lags, both concerning fiscal and monetary decisions as well as regulatory changes. The (absurdly named) inflation reduction act will increase the debt (thus inflation). Both debt and inflation will later be attributed to Trump - though it is caused by Biden. If the economy and the stock market crashes next year, whose responsibility will that be? Trump's? I don't think so. There are diverse cycles (Kuznets cycle, business cycle, secular cycle, ...).
What caused the economic boom during Biden's term? The fact that Biden was/is President? No, it is the result of manifold decisions (by individuals, companies, and government) and coincidences that happened days, months, years ago. What we can say is that the measures during March 2020 (Covid shock) played a (significant) role. Increasing the money supply (by fiscal debt) pushed the economy... and inflation. Covid-related supply chain problems and the Ukraine war also pushed inflation and influenced the economy. The inflation reduction act (which is debt-financed, of course, and which can be attributed to Biden) increased inflation directly, too.
In my opinion, judging a President by the state of the economy during his term is not correct. It's impossible to say, a posteriori, what measure caused what effect and how much exactly.
What we can do is judge political decisions a priori: we can say that increasing debt causes (or rather IS) inflation; enormously increasing regulation is probably going to hamper economic growth and thus the capacity of a society to tackle environment problems.

Wars: Trump was not anti-war nor was his term marked by zero wars. The USA are the global hegemon, the world's policeman. Thus they are always involved in some bigger or smaller conflicts. Trump inherited certain theatres (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc.), mostly by Bush and Obama. Bush engaged in 2 big wars. During Obama's terms the world shattered: Syria fell, Libya fell, Crimea was conquered, Georgia was attacked and carved up, Yemen fell, ... Obama encouraged the terror regime of Iran, he disregarded all of his self-drawn red lines against the butcher Assad. During Biden's time Ukraine was invaded and it is still being ravaged, Israel's civilians were slaughtered by Hamas (funded by Biden via the terrorist organization UNRWA as well as Iran). Terrorist agents such as Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran's regime are waging a genocidal war against Israel, while the Democrats became increasingly anti-Semitic. And we all remember the ugly photos of how Afghanistan fell.
Did something comparable happen in Trump's 4-year term? Why not? I don't know. Perhaps it's coincidence. Perhaps it's Nixon's mad man theory. Perhaps Putin wouldn't dare start a war against a President that seems to be uncalculable?

I wish you a great day,
zuerich

You said a mouthful. Thank you for educating folks. Sadly, for many in the cult that is Trump, they won't care. It is what it is I guess.

There is a bigger picture to politics. Since it is undoubtably a huge apparatus, grown over a long time, it made itself into a juggernaut. It is a filth that attracts profiteers all the time. If you combine political power with media and corporate power, you are having an opinion making machine that directs its audiences to its preferred view. Just ask yourself what has grown big within the century. It's the state, it's the media, it's the corporations. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it.

Despite the enormous sums the state collects through taxes, the state is in deep debt (Germany is no different from the US). So, the remaining wealth is just borrowed money. Who gives them the money if the budget at the end of a fiscal year does not come up clean? If there are huge deficits in the departments? What do you think the money lenders need to receive in return to continuing being 'generous'? Obviously some good deals to have huge return of investments.

Since humans are great resources they can be looked at from that point of view. People exist in billions, they are a fantastic source of income through their wishes and needs. They are extraordinary consumers, both in terms of physical and mental desires. If you have them sick and you find a way to have them sick all over the world, you'll do it as a government because your hands are tied by those who deliver the cash. Who needs healthy people if the much better business model is to have them ill? If you combine it with having them addicted on top, even better.

If I continue to follow such cynic mind to think out a concept which would generate a massive revenue, I would take such knowledge and transfer it into a global event. Not only would I make sure that I spared myself to have high production costs, but to make it as low in investment as it can get. Like thinking of the fact that people get ill at certain times of the year. The best candidate would be Influenca, since it will never stop to occur and has enough multiple symptoms to use and exaggerate them, even paint them as something totally new (loss of taste etc.).
This has the advantage that it'll never stop being experienced by the peoples and so I have my business model for the future. I may give money to some labs to create and mess around with DNA to push transmission, but since I cannot be certain that it works one hundred percent, it's much better to use what works one hundred percent: fear mongering.

Also, I make sure that no liability is written in the contract between me and the corrupt part of the government, that they hand me down a free pass and I can't be sued. Since I do know that not all people will comply and will resist or are indifferent towards a 'deadly disease' I must make sure that those people will be silenced through building up another fear: towards the long arm of the state and the media. They will make sure that those folks will be significantly denigrated, ridiculed, canceled and censored. Within their working spaces and in the media. They serve me as conspiracy theorists. The rest will be done by the peoples themselves, amongst and against each other.

The thing payed out big time, did it not?
The governments were mostly in lockstep. The people accepted distancing and not gathering, and the media had entertainment ready to show those who demonstrated on the streets - the proper candidates for labeling them as we know it. Of course, we had the heroes as well.

Now, if you do not believe that these ridiculously high debts are real, you also may not believe the immense power that comes with it. But you cannot be that naive, can you.

The 'best' job the filthy part of government can do to stay in power, is to get the populace into different camps. To have them as opposing fierce enemies, each and everyone in their echo chamber, campaigning for preferred political candidates. You have those faces all over the screens, day in, day out, so that the watcher builds up a personal relationship with them, and either loves that person or hates it. The emotional identification becomes so high that one cannot fathom the stupidity of the other.

But to believe one second, that as an individual human being one will be saved through a political candidate or through what the filth in government does or does not, we all know, can't be true.

Your piece is in the same way un-balanced as is being publicized from 'the other side', since otherwise you'd have presented both sides of the spectrum. If I would place a bet that you'd find as many questionable and repulsive things about Biden/Harris, I would certainly win if you'd bet against that. Which I do not believe, you would.

You have a personal distaste for Trump. I would not defend him, since he obviously is very good at doing that himself.
I once wrote a fictional story, where I said that one of the models

to explore the future is called "three P's and a W," meaning a possible, probable, and preferred future, plus wildcards, i.e., unexpected, seemingly improbable, but consequential events of both a positive and negative nature.

I would place the figure of Trump as the 'wild card', since he is known to be somewhat unpredictable. As no one can fully predict the positive and negative consequences but pretends in doing so, obviously pays into what one prefers/prefers not.

Now, the uncomfortable thing about the human self is that everyone has a dark side. That side - under fear - wishes for some strong hand to reign. The inner permission is undoubtably there to have coercion put upon ones fellas if they are perceived as ignorant up to evil, and therefore 'actually deserve to be forced to obey'.

Would you dare to say that you never feel this dark side within yourself? I wouldn't. How evil and atrocious one can become, is under circumstances a test, put upon the individual. What I can say is, that I spared myself to having been an active executer towards others during that horrible years.

It is better to build bridges and to endure to have a differing opinion.