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Looks like the GOP has taken the White House, the Senate, and may still hold on to the House of Representatives

I am strangely at peace with how decisive it is.  I hope he's able to do all of the things he said he would.  I'd rather it be this way than to have won the popular vote and then trying to spend the next 4 years beating him back.

People chose this.  He has a mandate.  Do it all.

Oh yeah, transitioning from a democracy to a dictatorship should be really interesting to watch...

I thought it would be closer. I've never been a Trump fan. I didn't even watch The Apprentice. I'm actually more bummed amendment 3 & 4 failed here in Florida.

I'm not.   I own two liquor stores.  One in Orange City and one in Deland.

I hope he actually implements his economic policies, the tariffs will cause a depression and all the idiots that voted for him can get what they deserve.

I can’t wait for measles and other infectious diseases to tear through grade schools after RFK2 guts public health.

I think the tariffs will work for what he wants to use them for.  It's a way for him to get the business community to bow to him.  He can hit tariffs on industries or locations that don't give him what he wants.  It's a bargaining tool.  We will have a society of oligarchs.  There will be a handful of wealthy people who have enormous influence over industry and media.  Their loyalty to Trump will have to be unwavering.  In trade, Trump will clear the way for them to amass more wealth and power.  The average American will still think they're in a democracy.

It's the Russia model.


Putting the biggest moron in charge of every department isn't an oversight.  It's the point.  Trumpism doesn't want functioning departments of government.  That's why he puts someone who doesn't believe in public education to head the education department (Betsy Duvos).  He put an oil stooge (Rick Perry) as the secretary of energy.  He had that one dude who had experience with horses run FEMA, which ended in a terrible response and Trump throwing paper towels.  RFK is anti-vax and wants to take fluoride out of the water system.  Maybe he'll get some flat-earthers to run NASA.  The whole idea is to make it so government can't work effectively, then to reduce their influence.

Holy shit, these crosstabs (https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/):

Latino voters in 2024: Trump +13 (compared to 2020)
Latino men: Trump +18(!)
Latino women: Trump +7

That's your election right there.

Trump slightly lost support among white people and his abysmal support among black people held steady.  So for the last four years, I've basically been doing the 1960s equivalent of advocating for civil rights to a bunch of black people who absolutely love Jim Crow and think it should go even further.

My bad, y'all!  Let me step out of the way.  The will of the people be done.

I saw a stat where the Democrats under Harris had around 20 million votes less than they did the last election under Biden.

That's total abandonment for you right there - even if they didn't vote for Trump or anyone else, it's a total failure of a campaign.

I think it's bigger than Harris/Biden, but certainly a central part of it.  IMO for the last decade the Democrats have ignored rural America and have ignored the needs of the middle class; which were once a large part of the Democratic Party.  All you have to do is look at the Democratic strongholds, which are the metropolitan cities, outside of the cities the Democrats get killed.  Last night they were saying Harris was getting 2% less female voters; in addition to Trump increasing votes from Hispanic voters (as compared to 2020) he also increased votes from black voters.

I feel bad for Harris as she felt she couldn't come out and say how she disagreed with some of Biden's actions because she didn't want to offend the man that did so much for her.  In the end it seemed her campaign was run like a "prevent defense" at the end of an NFL game, I believe the Democrats thought they could just edge a victory on the anti-Trump rhetoric like they did four years ago, which was the opposite of what the public wanted.

But back to my original point I think the victories in Senate and House races showed that it was about the Democratic party in general, and not just about Harris/Trump.

As Tip O'Neil said back in the 1980's "All politics is Local". and citizens are not happy about the everyday costs of living, no matter what some politician in Washington says about it not being bad.

This is not at all about Democrats.  America wanted Trump.

The difference was clear.  He ran a campaign of in-your-face demagoguery, criminality, lying, division, misogyny and racism.   People chose it because that's what they wanted.  It was a feature.  They like his cruelty.

There may be some universe where had the Democrats run a full cycle, run a white man, pivoted left instead of center, went on Joe Rogan more, blah blah blah and squeaked out a victory.  Maybe.  But even if they squeaked it out 52-48, the rot was still there and it was still deep.

Trump should've been rejected by his party in 2016, but they were unable.
He should've been rejected by the media, but they were in on it, because they loved the ratings.
He should've been taken out from the Russia stuff, but the "moderate Republicans" thought he learned his lesson.
He should've been taken out by his own party after Jan 6th, but Mitch McConnel chose not to pursue it.
He should've been taken out by the courts, but they failed.
He should've been taken out by the wealthy donors and businesses, but they didn't act.
He should've been taken out by the power that the Democrats had, but Merrick Garland wanted to appear hands-off and impartial, so he didn't see trial for 4 years.
The last line of defense was the American voting public.

They chose him.  No excuses.

America failed in its job to stop fascism.  They saw it and they chose it.  They knew what Trump was.  Many of them (and you) said it.  Yet they told themselves whatever they had to in order to permit themselves to vote for it anyway.

Now we will fall into fascism and not even realize because it's going to be the frog boiling in the pot.  He will use tariffs as leverage to get businesses and organizations to support him or at least limit criticism of him -- media, unions, corporations are all compromised.  It doesn't take much.  Your union is causing a stir in Pennsylvania?  It's a shame that I am planning a tariff on imported steel that you use.  Your TV channel has a late night host spouting off against me every night?  We'll just take a look at some potential FCC violations.  It's just gonna be little things where businesses don't fight back because it's more profitable to just not deal with it.  You're already seeing it.

We will be a system of oligarchs where the wealthy and powerful get more wealthy and more powerful by protecting him while he protects them.

I hope those of you that know me know that I'm not prone to hyperbole, but I believe we have witnessed the death of American democracy.  We will still call it democracy, like Russia does, but it will be a corpse dressed up like Uncle Sam.

Not here to gloat but to point out the obvious. You have made this place an echo chamber and crucify anyone with a different opinion. For your own sanity ... please get outside of your personal echo chambers and experience the real world.  Hell ... even Eminem is friends with Kid Rock.

If Trump really was a racist, mesogenic, homophobic, dictator that wanted to take away women's rights he wouldn't have won like he did. Just because corporate sponsored MSM says so does not make it true and the results show that many people have awoken to the false attacks. The more they lie the easier it is to see the connection to the money. College campuses are even becoming republican friendly again as the truth comes out. Inner cities are seeing through the BS. His numbers went up pretty much everywhere ...  even Miami-Dade voted for Trump.

I've said it before but I still don't like a lot about the guy ...  but am looking forward to seeing the next 4 years. He's going to have the most diverse cabinet in our lifetime. Who knows ... maybe the Dolphins will win a playoff game in that time?  

And that's the point of disagreement: you seem to think he won in spite of his racist, misogynistic, transphobic, fascist rhetoric, while Dave and I believe he won precisely because of it.

There is a large portion of this country that vigorously agrees with door-to-door deportation squads.  I'm done trying to stand in the way.

I'll tell you what, Democrats have got to stop choosing women to run, it's a losing formula I'm convinced now. That's twice now he's run against women and won and he lost the only time he ran against a man. I'm convinced that's the difference. There are those that absolutely will NOT vote for a woman under any circumstances. That was my fear when Kamala was picked to replace Biden.

See my above comment.

I doubt we will see another female nominee in our lifetime.

Respectfully I disagree.  Yes there are a very large contingent of people that just wanted Trump, BUT the reason he won is because the Democrats are doing a shitty job.  As the old saying goes "It's the economy stupid" (I don't mean your stupid).

Harris just wasn't a good candidate and came off as shady and the numbers reflect that. The left didn't even try to find a suitable replacement for Biden. It's interesting that the left always complained about the electoral college and wanted to switch to the popular vote and Trump blew her out of the water in both. I don't know how many times I've heard that "The Republicans will never win the popular vote again." The fact is that the vast majority of people (left & right) are mostly concerned about the economy and financial markets. I sure as hell won't complain about my investment accounts going up $38k in the last 3 days.

I really don't think it would have affected business for you. If anyone was going to go California sober they can just get a medical card easily.

The hell it wouldn't have.   A lot of bar and liquor store owners fought tooth and nail against this.  You want a buzz, grab a beer or a frozen drink.   Still want weed?   Go see your doctor and pay the $75 to get a medical card.

I live in new england, weed is legal recreationally .. hell there's 3 dispensaries within 3 miles of my house, bars are doing just fine .. drinking and smoking aren't mutually exclusive.  People will fight to keep the status quo because change is scary .. that's all that there is here.

I have not been super vocal about local politics in my life -- I've been under GOP supermajority here for decades, but whatever -- not my preference that some company is dumping sugar water and fucking up the coast and the economy there, but I'll deal.  But in about the last 10 years, they have bungled the shit out this State.  We are severely fucked up right now.  Home prices, corporations buying houses and renting for crazy prices, insurance -- this is real stuff. My friends literally cannot live here.  There's no path to purchase property unless you're already filthy rich.  It's a rent spiral.

There is no legislation attempting to address any of this.

History could judge this as the worst election since March 5, 1933.

Trump is more erratic than he was 8 years ago.  All the sane people who tempered him last time won't be serving in his administration this time.  With control of both house and Senate and free reign from the s. Ct it will be much worse this time.

I don’t think we have another election period, at least one that isn’t some Putin-esque farce

Much worse what?

Offhand, I think he means "much worse than hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly dead, a collapsed economy, and a violent mob seizing the seat of the federal government."

Same in NYS, weed has had no effect on bars and liquor stores.

It's foolish to think that 1 person could be responsible for those things happening. I've lived through 10 presidents with Trump being the 11th and one thing that I've learned is that any particular POTUS doesn't affect my day to day personal life to any great extent. Life goes on...

Have to admit, I chuckled a bit when I read this. As a freelance writer for 15+ years with the largest organization in support of marijuana legalization (NORML, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), I think you're fighting a losing battle. Marijuana is soon to be removed from Schedule 1 of the CSA, and then it will be as mainstream as having a beer.

And, yeah...I have my medical card in 3 different states. I just don't have to use it any more, as it is recreationally legal in my state, and the dispensary is a short 2-block walk away.

I wasn't in NYC in September 2001, so my day-to-day personal life wasn't affected.  Nevertheless, the events that followed seemed relevant in the 2004 and 2008 elections.

One can make the argument that the choice of president isn't really that important, but I don't think that argument is really compatible with claims that "the border crisis has exploded since Biden took office" (http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=26803.msg378261;topicseen#msg378261) or "Biden fucked up the Afghanistan pullout and got our people killed" (http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=26853.msg379935;topicseen#msg379935) or "Biden's inflation crisis is here." (http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=26787.msg378075#msg378075)

In fact, it seems like the only time the "It doesn't really even matter who the president is, things would still be the same anyway" rationale is offered is when it's time to make excuses for another one of Trump's failures (http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=26161.msg366685#msg366685).

Life goes on now, just like it did every other time. Just like it will continue to. America decided what they wanted and it wasn't even close to being competitive. Your party picked the wrong candidate.

You gotta love free marketers needing government intervention in the market place to protect your business.

It was more than the candidate; the Democrats have the wrong platform and have been heading down the wrong path for a decade.

Interesting;  When Trump announces his appointments google sees a spike in the search, "Can I change my vote?:

That is interesting, more and more Democrats want to back Trump.

Trump's premise is very similar to Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign.

Trump 2024- "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Clinton 1992- "It's the economy, stupid"

The state of the economy will always be the number one issue in an election.

Four years ago the economy was in free fall and tens of thousands of people were dying weekly. Trump had a net job loss.


If he implements his tariffs and deports 20m people it will start a depression, and I for one hope every single one of his supporters loses everything they havez

I knew you were going to go there.   You seem to forget 2016-2019, nor do you recognize that COVID was the proverbial black swan and there were going to be problems regardless of who was in office.  That was way better than the last four years of substantial inflation.

And paying your bills and putting food on the table matters more than the stock market.  Like Clinton said in 1992, "Its the economy, stupid"

It still is

You don't get to not blame Trump for the economy hit from COVID, but then blame Biden for the inflation from coming back from COVID.

Actually, you can.  Because I seriously doubt prices would've skyrocketed the way they have.   Not to mention that had he won, the Dems would be celebrating the end of him and possibly have their candidate in office come January.

no you can't

Prices did skyrocket in 2020.  Remember the supply chain issues?

You simply dismiss all the inflation that happened under Trump as "COVID."

Which ignores that prices were rising anyway due to steel tariffs.

Fact is Biden managed the best Covid recovery of any industrial nation and was blamed for it because the public is incapable of understanding inflation and the corporate media did nothing but talk about high prices for four years.

They’ll all get what they deserve though if the Senate actually lets Trump get his insane tariffs.

Just wait until the high prices hit lol

I am notoriously bad at predicting Trump actions, but I don't think he'll do these across the board tariffs.  He'll create a bunch of bluster, use it as a threat to punish or reward companies here, but then he'll kinda declare victory on it and he'll lose interest.  It's not like his voters care about the actual policy.  It'll be "the wall" all over again.  He'll do some bits and bobs that's only moderately ineffective, say that he did it, and then move on to something else.

I have a feeling the senate will reel him in because enforcement of the tariffs he promises would lead to sky high prices and economic collapse.

Trump uses tariffs for negotiating purposes so many of those threats will never happen. Those that do will likely quickly be removed. Much of what he says is theatre to bring people to the table ... which it has already done.  People can dislike the guy for many reasons but he is very good at negotiations. 

I guess Democrats should adopt this innovative negotiation tactic of "We will completely destroy our own economy" in order to... um, bring people to the table, whatever that means.

Destroying the economy has already been accomplished by the Dems.   Now it's on Trump to fix it.   
Nice try.  Prices did not skyrocket in 2020 due to supply chain issues.  That didn't start happening until late spring 2021, after Biden took office.

If you're gonna point to inflation as to why this economy is a mess, get the dates right.

It doesn't work that way and I'm sure you know that ... or maybe it's me who is missing it? In 2017 I get the nervousness but not today. What exactly were you not able to afford during Trump's last term? I mean, even Biden not only kept them in place but raised them in some instances.

So inflation didn't happen? The price of goods didn't go up ?

Not until Covid happened. I know you're going to say that doesn't matter but I'm not going to argue that silly argument. The Covid era was unlike anything modern history has ever seen.

What I'm going to say is that you put a tariff on a country and the rise in costs doesn't immediately happen. There are a million different factors leading up to that, including off the top of my head:

- the length of the supply chain
- how much already purchased product is sitting in warehouses
- items already purchased leading up to the tariffs waiting for fulfillment

Once companies exhaust supplies of a product, then tariffs will kick in. This is going to depend on a whole bunch of things.

Tariffs will drive prices up. Not in 2025 probably, but by 2027 at the very latest you'll feel the results.

Unless of course companies knowing the tariff boogeyman is out there decide to increase prices in anticipation of tariffs just to squeeze more profit into a quarterly filing. (which they will do)

In theory what you say is true, but if the cost of a barrel of crude oil goes up $5 tonight, then the pump price at my local station will increase tomorrow morning.  They aren't waiting the 60 days or more for that actual fuel to reach their tanks.  Businesses will raise the prices now and pocket the extra profits.

Fau ... going back to my original post. It is already working without even being in place.

Trump has been speaking with the President of Mexico and after speaking with Trump the President of Mexico insisted there was now "no possibility of a tariff war" between Mexico and the US.

Trudeau spent yesterday at Mar-a-Lago basically begging Trump not to do it as it would destroy Canada. Trump responded that if Canada couldn't survive without robbing Americans of over 100 billion a year that maybe Canada should become the 51st state. 

Gravedigging this because so far Trump's tariffs have gotten us negotiations with Venezuela and Mexico. His threat to take over Panama has caused the Panamanians to void the contract with China. In a game of Chicken Trump rarely blinks first and it seems that's how he likes to bring negotiations into his favor. Canada will be the next to give in.

The funny thing with Canada is that Trudeau's most popular move by far has been to threaten retaliatory tariffs against the US and specifically red state products.  At this point they'd be dumb to fold, it would be incredibly unpopular. They're booing the american anthem in hockey and basketball games now.

Trump is doing his best to accelerate inflation.  Took Biden two years to get Trump's spiraling inflation under control and now Trump is making sure we have record inflation.

The Art Of The Deal:

(http://viperbeam.com/forum/trump-negotiations.png)

The Most Stable Genius

CF, I thought you'd be mad about Trump's decision to increase gun control along the border (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/3/trump-sheinbaum-announce-one-month-pause-in-threatened-mexico-tariffs) as part of that agreement with Mexico, but I guess that you just assume he's lying (like you do any time he promises to do something you don't like).

No reason to try and find a reason for me to not like Trump. Sadly I have learned to take the good with the bad. Those posts are from Trumps last time in office and they aren't currently enforcing that.

I'm really pissed at Trump for what's going on in Florida. Trulieve, who his Chief of Staff is a lobbyist for, is trying to run this state and Trump is allowing it to happen. She also hates DeSantis because he fired her.The Florida Legislature passed a bill removing authority to remove illegals from DeSantis and put it in the hands of the Commissioner of Agriculture who is in bed with them as well.  It gives amnesty to illegals so much that protesting illegals are thanking them for fighting DeSantis. Big Sugar and Trulieve need illegals to pay low wages and benefits and Trump has not only been silent, but has continued to support those running for office who are backing this bill. Fortunately DeSantis has been fighting it and the people are letting them have it. So much that they have refused to send it to him because he wants to publicly veto it. They are trying to make DeSantis a lame duck so he doesn't replace Trump croney Rick Scott next election cycle.

Didn't florida pass a fairly strict immigration thing a few years back. It caused a bunch of migrants to leave the state and not work in agriculture or construction in florida. The thing that i remember from that was a republican house member or two telling migrants that they shouldn't leave florida ..they were only doing it for votes.

If Trump is successful in deporting all the undocumented workers in the USA the US economy will collapse.

It really wasn't too big of a deal although everyone acted like construction would come to a halt in Florida. It required employers to check their employees' immigration status through E-Verify by those hired after the law went into effect in July 2023. If found illegal the worker must be fired. It also made fines for people hiring illegals although we all know illegals who work in construction under other people's social security number. I just had FDOT do onsite interviews and found a couple working for a sod company.

DeSantis' new law would give authority to Sheriffs to arrest and work directly with ICE. The law the legislature recently passed would make everyone have to get permission every time from the Commissioner of Agriculture before they could arrest, detain, or work with ICE. It also has basically a catch and release clause. In Florida the AG Commish is either Democrat or Republican with ties to the big corporations. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson would be put in charge of immigration after he already exempted himself from e-verify to confirm his employees' legal work eligibility.  

I know, right? I mean  ...  who will pick the cotton if we release the slaves? Hahaha ... same old Democrats.

This is a fair criticism, however, it's not really rooted in the heart of the argument.

The argument against slavery is that it is a fundamental wrong.  So, while true that the economy for everyone else will suffer if we free the slaves, it is a cost worth paying.
The argument for kicking out the immigrants itself isn't based in right/wrong, but it's based on economics.  It's possible, if not likely, that it will have the opposite effect of what it hopes to achieve.

Immigration is a net positive to America.  I agree that it needs to be better controlled/paced/monitored, etc.  But we need it, but for skilled and unskilled labor if we want to maintain our status quo.

I just want them to do some shit about housing here.  Why don't they do any kind of legislation at all?  They have all the levers of power in the State -- just pass a few bills to try to quell the issue.

Deporting half the people who built houses is the plan to solve the housing shortage.

There is a solution to having so many undocumented workers.  Make it easier to get a work visa.  Still have the same folks in the country they will be documented

There's no such thing as unskilled labor

No it won't.   Everyone says the undocumented workers do jobs that no one else is willing to do.   Give those jobs to prison inmates and the problem is solved. 

I tend to disagree.  I understand your sentiment, but colloquially, I'm referring to labor that is general in nature and doesn't require experience or formal training.

The convenient part of this plan is we already have a blueprint for how to handle inmates who aren't working hard enough!  You put a correctional officer in the field with a whip.  And for the particularly unruly inmate-worker, you just throw them in a box with no water for a day and they'll straighten up.  America has literally centuries of experience in how to handle insufficiently productive forced labor.

And if this new workforce ever starts to run low, all we have to do is criminalize "vagrancy" and suddenly we have thousands upon thousands of homeless people in our inmate labor pool.  Fortunately, there's an existing blueprint (https://daily.jstor.org/the-hidden-subtext-of-vagrancy/) for this strategy, too.

No.  If they don't work hard enough, they don't get credit for that day towards their sentence.   Kinda like if you don't do your job INSIDE THE PRISON, you don't get credit for that time served.   Besides, if you pay them a decent wage, they'll have enough money on their books when they get out to get a decent start on finding a place to live, then get a better job.   Not to mention that they'll be so tired by the end of the day, they won't have enough strength left to buttfuck or shank each other.

I'm curious as to what you think can be done to help the housing market as I really don't know how they can. Are you thinking interest rates, government down payments or if they should add more government housing for low income people? I have 27 year old kids so I know the hardships of buying a house these days but I honestly have no answers. I just hope the feds lower rates enough to help. 

Lol ... I'm pretty sure illegals aren't buying up the houses. Rentals, maybe but not houses. One of the crews I'm very familiar with has them staying with family.

As for the solution ... it has always been my understanding that once we secure the border we will look to increase way to get in legally. Serve in military for 4 years, job sponsors or whatnot. Politicians on both sides have blown that off because they said no way to enforce it if they did. Ok .... maybe not Democrats today but prior to Obama that was their stance too.

He said building, not buying.

I'm sure this will happen right after all the increased Republican support for childcare, pre-K, etc. once abortion has been banned.

More to the point: as long as a single illegal immigrant remains in this country, the border will not be "secure."

Here's another agreement (https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-honduras-mexico-immigration-border-patrols-917c0fea87c0a807b371da207d34c8cc) during the Biden Adminstration, where Mexico pledges to "maintain" 10,000 troops at the border without being issued a threat to detonate North America's economy.

But hey, at least Trump did force Canada to spend $1.3B on border security!
Oh, wait, they agreed to that with the Biden Administration, back in December. (https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2024/12/the-government-of-canadas-border-plan-significant-investments-to-strengthen-border-security-and-our-immigration-system.html)

Art of the Deal!

There is no way you don't get your info from MSNBC and CNN. I swear those are their exact talking points. ... almost verbatim. Apparently no one cares about details as long as you can argue semantics that really have no meaning in the current situation.

is your argument that Spider is using facts from news sources as facts?

With regards to canada and mexico i think Trump's role is exactly the same as indiana jones' role in raiders of the lost ark. Remove him from the movie entirely and you get the exact same result.

I see through this but it's gonna work.

Manufacture crisis --> avoid crisis by pulling back whatever crazy stance you started with, while claiming victory (this gets everyone upset and arguing, like this thread) --> meanwhile, grift and sell America, undermine systems, gain power


You're seeing it now with the crazy stance he has on Gaza.  He isn't going to do that stuff.  He'll do some performative thing that makes everyone mad, claim he fixed it or averted a tragedy (everyone will be up in arms and we'll all argue about it).  Meanwhile, he'll be tearing down democracy and enriching himself through legal bribery.

I'm trying to only pay attention to what he does and not what he says he's gonna do, but I admit -- it's really hard.  I'm like a moth to the flame.

For the record, the sources I just linked were:

1) Associated Press
2) the Canadian government

I guess not every outlet has the kind of journalistic integrity found at the Daily Mail!

That's how I take Trump. I truly believe this was his way of trying to get the Arab countries off their butts to rectify the situation. There is no way Israel can live with them getting attacked constantly and it doesn't work out well for the Palestinians either.


Kind of funny to see how much money we were paying both Politico and the Associated Press. Both have a very big left wing slant while claiming to be neutral.

 

Same result? He just kicked men/boys out of women's sports after already kicking the Chinese out of Panama. He is securing the border, returning illegals, and engaging cartels, and his DOGE committee is exposing billions of dollars of fraud from divisions no one even knew about. Regardless of how you feel about Trump there is no denying there isn't another person out there who gets as much done as fast as he has. He puts people in place to get things done.

Not to mention he's putting people in the FDA that are exposing the fact that food companies are adding more and more additives/preservatives to their product that weren't there in the 70s and 80s, and it's causing a lot more problems with child behaviors.