Here's What's Going to Happen
This is from a friend of mine and I'm curious as to what the community thinks:
The Republicans now get their golden opportunity to institute their austerity programs (read “breaking the backs of the middle class to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy under the guise of fiscal responsibility”).
The current economic expansion which started in July of 2009 is into its last phases as evidenced by the fat state of lagging economic indicators, most significantly the employment rate (unemployment which peaked at 10% in Oct 2009 is now below %5). The Republicans’ austerity programs will be centered on reducing “entitlements” which make up a huge part of government expenditures. This will have a profound impact on consumer spending which makes up around 70% of the US economy. This reduction in consumer spending will coincide with the natural economic cycle which will be coming full circle within the next 12-18 months at most. (According to the National Bureau of Economic Research the average duration of US economic expansion post-WWII is about five years). In 24-30 months the economy will be in a solid downward trajectory due to the normal economic cycle exacerbated by huge cuts in entitlement spending. In three years the unemployment rate will be back well above 8%.
The economy will be in shambles by the next general election and the blame will lie directly at the feet of the Republican party.
Obamacare will be gutted. It cannot be repealed wholesale because only the financial parts of it that can be killed by passing the Senate through reconciliation will get stripped out leaving many mandates that will now be “unfunded” via government taxes and subsidies. The insurance companies will refuse to continue in the business under these conditions (they were the only reason the health insurance companies allowed Obamacare to pass in the first place). The health insurance business will collapse and we’ll be left with not just 20 Million people losing their health coverage, the numbers will be much, much larger. At that point perhaps we wind up with what would be the only viable solution; Medicare for everyone, just like Bernie proposed.
Health care in America will be in shambles by the next general election and the blame will lie directly at the feet of the Republican party.
The Clinton political machine has been destroyed. Trump’s mandate is paper-thin, having lost the popular vote, and it is all but guaranteed that conservatives will be hoisted upon their own petard (see above). The demographics of the nation continue to trend Progressive. In four years America will be desperately looking for answers and a new direction. It won’t be Bernie, but the table has been set. It’s just going to be awhile before the dinner bell rings. Hunker down.
That is all.
Comments
Because it wasn't their plan.
Pettiness is part of their makeup.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
The 1934 Coup Is Again In Action
All the GOP had to do was make a few small changes in the plan they were going to force onto FDR had the Corporatist Coup succeeded. A figurehead to take all of the heat is all they need. Trump will provide that nicely - and he won't have to give up his golf to do so.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
Trump Is Unearthing Fossilized Dinosaurs Like
Gingrich and Juliani. Just when you thought you'd never again have to hear from these sociopath fucks. They will be back in our faces. Buckle in ladies and gents, turbulence ahead.
And anyone who thinks Trump is going to live up to his populist campaign bullshit, is a bigger fool than I.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
A bunch of old guys? Statistically someones will die.
Is that the floated Cabinet? Or just fever dreams?
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
I think that image was from a BBC article
have since lost the link. I think it was their best guess based on public comments from Trump side but they are candidates, not confirmed choices.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
White white white
male male male
asshole asshole asshole
Beware the bullshit factories.
Obama's admin
Had quite the collection of assholes. Color & gender don't seem to make a difference.
And his head asshole was Rahm Emmanuel. Remember him?
How can I? I'm " fuckin' retarded."
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
"If Rahm Emmanuel is a Democrat, why would anyone want
to be a Democrat"
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Will Trump stand with the people who voted for him?
Trump promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare. Unlike (for example) John Ellis ("Jeb!") Bush who talked about a phase out of Medicare, Trump never used the term "entitlements." So now we shall see if Trump is going to keep his promise or get on board the "austerity" train.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
One thing working in Trumps favor, I think
Is that he is a corrupter himself. I'm not sure, but I don't think he's beholden to any other corrupters, like the Koch Brothers. If he gives Republicans in Congress the same treatment he gave Jeb Bush and other Republicans he can expose the rot and get things passed, like single-payer healthcare, which I believe he once said would be good.
Beware the bullshit factories.
i think the one thing in trump's favor is that (i think)
he doesn't actively despise "the little people".
there's a stark difference between Trump's brand of arrogance and the elitist hubris of the pigs who run the major parties. you can, however delusionally, believe you're smarter than everyone else in the room without believing that this makes everyone else in the room a peasant. the party elites don't merely believe that they know more than the people they seek to govern, they believe that they know better: they have no respect whatsoever for the tastes, values, fears, concerns, and desires of the people. Trump, on the other hand, appears not only to respect, but to share those things.
let me put it this way: Do you think there was ever a moment during the campaign, where in his heart of hearts, he ever contemplated Sanders' supporters with the kind of contempt that HRC and her people did?
Trump is a deeply, deeply flawed human being, and I am desperately unhappy that he is going to be President for the next 4 years, but I'm not going to Hitlerize him either.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
The "little people" make his ratings go up
He might try to turn this into a reality show.
Beware the bullshit factories.
It already is.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Ah yes, the basement dwellers and the deplorables
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
from OPOL:
Yeah, it looks like the Republicans will continue to win until there's a realignment. But let me suggest this: why are we supposed to cower in fear of Republican austerity? Did nobody notice Obama's sequester, or Obama's attempt to get the Grand Bargain passed, or Obama's creation of the Catfood Commission?
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
Exactly! There's little if any difference between austerity
coming from Republicans or Democrats when neoliberalism is the basis of their policies. The electorate saw through this scam. The fight has been totally changed from right vs left to up vs down. I just can't understand why the third parties didn't get a lot more votes. Hell, who knows, maybe they did get a lot more votes.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
Nobody really wants a "third party."
What's necessary is a realignment.
"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama
my partner is on the phone, this second
with a local that ran as a Democrat, and got "exactly the same percentage of votes we get every year (in Arizona)", and is looking for an alternative. He's leaning "Independant" (speakerphone), she is pushing Green.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I made the independent mistake when I moved to AZ
The amount of disgusting mail and phone calls from RWNJs quickly ended the I run .
If this is true, everyone can relax:
Friends you don't have to lift a finger, or think too hard, or commit to truth, or suffer any inconvenience at all in order to evolve and scale the US political process to something other than a "heads-I-win-tails-you-lose" two-party system.
The People, they don't want no stinkin' third party. They hate it when you bring nuance, contour, variety, and big thinking to the political construct. The people don't give two shits about enhanced representation through the formation of natural coalitions across Parties.
Perhaps the American people do not deserve best-practice governing processes. If they deserved nice things, they wouldn't be stuck in the 21st century with an obsolete 18th century constitution. In fact, Americans ought to consider themselves lucky they get TWO parties to choose from.
Amirite?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Possibly more important
http://caucus99percent.com/content/how-could-polls-be-so-wrong
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
No difference!?!?
Are you sure? I heard it hurts much less if it's your friend stabbing you in the back instead of your enemy.
At least Obama got the R's to
At least Obama got the R's to only stab 6" deep instead of the 8" they wanted to do.
Thanks Mr. President!
One Big Difference Now
Obama tried to stick Neoliberal knives in our backs (you forgot his christmas attack on social security). And the Repubs saved us from it ONLY because they didn't want Obama to pass anything, no matter what.
Now Repubs have the Dems to rubber stamp their own Neoliberal crap. And if you don't think asswipes like Shumer won't get them the Dem votes they need, I have a bridge to sell you.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
OPOL!
hadn't seen his diaries/comments before i left dkos months ago; he wasn't well last time he wrote there;
(haven't seen him here either)
would love to know he's alive and well
He is alive and well and very active on FB
under his real name.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
One little thing
this election proved that Trump is not "the most unpopular politician in America" - he's the 2nd.
On to Biden since 1973
There has been no recovery for the 99%
We've been sliding further and further downward. The unemployment figures are "creative," way understating the real case, and INFLATION IN NECESSITIES is through the roof, while wages for the 99% stagnate or decrease.
See my comment about fudged statistics here
http://caucus99percent.com/comment/209932#comment-209932
Social security has stagnated as well.
Actually lessened once the Medicare payments are deducted.
Because they've been "creative" with inflation figures
But not with the increase in Medicare charges.
Millions of people have been hunkering down since the Reagan
years. I'm one of them, and I'm getting damn tired of it.
As far as I'm concerned
The Democratic Party intentionally threw this election. They lined up all the Superdelegates, all the Democrat governors, and all the pundits on msm before the primary. They put their weight behind an incredibly flawed candidate and purposefully destroyed the only electable person in the primary.
To me, every Democrat in office today is a closeted Republican, that needs to be turned out of office.
For the first time in my long (55 years ) voting strictly Demo, I did not vote for one in this election.
Do you hear me Patty Murray?
Do you hear me Jay Insley?
Merkley and Grayson are the only two worth a shit.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
i voted for feingold
he lost, of course, because HRC failed to turn out the African American vote in Milwaukee
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
As she failed to do in the primaries.
As she failed to do in the primaries.
What My Sons Report
As I mentioned recently, my formerly unemployed scions were hired. Both sons are working in clothing retailing, and they already know how much retailers generally are complaining about low sales. Even the food court at the mall they both work at is complaining about low sales, and they have an essentially captive market to draw upon.
New housing where I live in the LA suburbs is all condos and apartments. People here can no longer afford single-family homes. New cars aren't very common, as people replace the old clunker with a less-old clunker rather than a new one. Restaurant chains are complaining about lower sales, and even the NFL is worried about why their pay-per-view offerings aren't as popular as they once were.
People. Are. Broke. Expenditures are now for necessities and not for frivolities. Squeezing the lemon doesn't produce juice to run down the leg. It produces dust.
I have been expecting the medical profession to hit the brick wall after Hillary's bungled 1993-4 monstrosity of a health care plan crashed and burned. Without Obamacare and Medicare, it probably would have by now. But even these stop-gaps are falling apart due to poor planning and shoddy construction. It will soon be that the medical care system in this nation will only cater to the wealthy, for no one else will be able to pay.
Meanwhile, we await the Federal Reserve (the price JP Morgan extorted out the the national government for rescuing the economy in 1907) raising interest rates due to the "higher employment" numbers. Gotta stifle that inflation before the billionaires are again mere millionaires, you know! so what if the impoverished dies on the curb! That is where Obama was to kick them all while serving Wall St.! No wonder contributions to his LIEbury are lagging!
This nation is in a world of hurt. That hurt is only going to grow as things decline, for the greedy take theirs before any reaches the needy.
edited because I have a poorly trained keyboard.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
i keep thinking maybe i'm gonna need to do that
conversion of the garage to living space (with a second storey), with the expectation that one or more of my kids will be living here indefinitely into their adulthoods, and that for this to work without ripping the family to shreds, they'll need a physically distinct space to live in.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
It's a popular response
Many in my neighborhood have been doing that for years, with as many as four families (with additional single adults) living in one house, a room to each family and the singles bunking in the garage. You can tell by the number of vehicles parked in front of the house at night which go away during working hours.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
If I were advising president-elect Trump, here’s what I’d say
I’d tell the president-elect that one of the first things he should do is announce that:
Under his feckless predecessors, certain government statistics have been manipulated for years to disguise the true state of the economy. And, for example, one effect has been to cheat people on Social Security out of a fair cost of living increase. Or, as another example, unemployment has been substantially understated.
So therefore he would be ordering an audit of the agencies, statistics, and indexes involved and be proposing a bill to force the government to return to, and stick with, more straightforward and accurate methods of data collection and calculation.
The new statistics might initially make the economy look a lot worse. But this revelation would come as no surprise to, and might even be popular with, everyone who has already felt things are bad for a long time and who are used to dismissing rosy official assessments as lies.
This switchover to new statistics — in truth, often a return to older, more reliable statistics — might cause one-time disruption to the economy. Politically this could all be blamed on previous administrations for having hidden the truth and distorted the facts. At any rate, the larger, fairer Social Security cost-of-living adjustment that would result would be a boon to millions.
I'll be kind
You have high hopes.
edited to add Frankie's tune.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
At least implicit in the slogan “Make America Great Again”
is an acknowledgement that a lot of things — in my example, the quality and accuracy of government statistics — are not “great” now.
How can progressives best use the turmoil of this national “changing of the guard” as an opportunity? As a chance for radical change? I’m looking for ways to keep bold “Left” ideas front and center in the public discourse, even if it takes putting a red MAGA hat on them . . .
What’s the anti-Trump position? Divided or bipolar, embracing two contradictory messages:
On the one hand, America was never great — it was always racist and oligarchical from its inception.
On the other hand, America and its government were doing great already because of the fine job done by the Obama administration.
Votes to pass medicare/ social security cuts
They may get the necessary votes in the House but not the Senate. Most of the people that put him in office and them back in the majority rely heavily on these and will bitch up a storm on their congress people.
Heidi Foglia
Trump's supporters
Will Be Watching Him and the Congress. Should be very interesting...
The Senate of Repukes and sell out shits like
Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell & & & & ... are gonna stand up to screwing over little people???
ha ha ha ha.
I'm 56, what did I get from my votes for HOPE-0-RAT$ in '92 and '08?
rmm.
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
I bet very little happens
The Repubs used Dems as shields. Doing away with people's medicare or retirement funds will lose them elections.
It will be interesting to see if Trump pushes his congress to pass stuff they would otherwise refuse to do (e.g., fix ACA, cut back on military crap, etc)
And I disagree with the contention that Pence will be the acting prez. I think Trump will use him as an errand boy and make him do admin tasks. But I betcha anything all final decisions will be Trump's. I keep seeing Pence as a list maker and Trump telling him his list sucks, do it over.
I think one of 2 things will happen, the least likely is that Tr
Trump and the GOP, given the keys to the car will pull a Thelma and Louise and drive the car off the cliff destroying the GOP worse than Clinton has destroyed the Democratic party. Far more likely is that Trump will enact a middle class tax cut, increase spending on infrastructure to create jobs and with the TPP DOA, get us out of NAFTA. If he does these things, the odds of Trump being reelected will go up significantly.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/how-could-polls-be-so-wrong
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
Who knows. The thought that Big Dick Don is gonna
just go along with all the repukes who tried to bury him is ... slim? not too likely? laughable?
I'm 56 - I can see my age 62 retirement and medicare going to rackets run by Trump's wife & kids & cronies - NOT the cronies of his enemies, which is ... a long list.
After the gut kicking fucking sell outs by HOPE-0-RAT$ post '92 and '08, after the yuppie scum around Tip O'Neil kissing RayGun's ass to raise MY social security retirement age so Wall Street could steal, after the fucking cowards of the 2001 Congress let the Coke-Frat boy have his welfare for the pigs tax cuts before 9-11, and then rolled over so he invade Oil-Land ...
What is Heil Herr Trump gonna do? Make us all buy black boots from his slave labor factories ????
rmm.
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
Welcome to c99, seabos
Good to see you around these parts!
Please help support caucus99percent!
No, no assumptions about destruction
I can't get behind the belief that the Clinton machine is destroyed. The Clinton machine is part of the third-way faction of the Democratic party, and in no way are they defeated. I am still very concerned that they will continue to attempt to co-opt or marginalize the progressive wing of the party. We must remain vigilant against that, or we will continue to see the same old patterns emerging in each election season.
I suspect that the progressive wing has left the building.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
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