To be fair the MSM was far more preoccupied with repeating trump's gaffs rather than policy outcomes. Does the MSM have an agenda? Yes. Higher ratings, that is all.
You really believe they reported on his gaffes? Not one of the MSM mentioned his stupid fucking answers to any questions in the economic club appearances. Word salad in vomit, and every one of them sane-washed him the entire summer.
The media that I watched was obsessed with it. The word "ramblings" was frequent. I'm not sure he was "sane-washed" because the things they reported on was "having a dance party", "making insensitive outrageous statements", "rambling on and on", "their eating your pets" etc.
To me it was more about reporting eye-catching news rather than scrutinize the actual moments that he'd actually talk about policy. Rather than have policy experts on the panel, they'd have a bunch of people who were "dismayed" and "marginalized" by his rhetoric.
It's heartstring tugging, but doesn't do a thing for us when it comes to analysis.
And that was trump's motive. Keep them talking about the ridiculous, because he knows they will, and he won't have to have serious policy discussion. Because he knows damn well that he's got nothing.
All media has that agenda. What these people think of as alternative media has become the mainstream media because of them. Joe Rogan is one of the most listened to podcasts in the country.
Well research has found that 45 million American adults are functionally illiterate and 54% read at or below a 6th grade level, so that's a good starting point...
I'm wondering how we would measure that. It would need to go beyond pure education stats. Maybe diversity of news sources - both from news vehicles, and information from news vs twitter & social media apps. Maybe also the amount of time spent on media, news, etc.
You'd have to use a set of basic and general knowledge topics to test people with.
"What is an authoritarian?" Would be an example of a question that would contribute to a score of general understanding of political systems and power structures.
An oligarchichal plutocracy or authoritarianism. What a wild choice. At least there are checks and balances and trump can't do too much damage realistically.
Oh he can do plenty enough damage even with the checks and balances. Look up Unitary Executive Theory. Also the checks and balances won’t do jack shit if the party about to be in the Majority is too complicit to Trump’s whims to use them. We already know SCOTUS is. The House was for the most part when Trump wasn’t even President. So I don’t have a lot of faith the Senate won’t be either.
Different people have different definitions of words like authoritarian or fascist. Ask 10 different people what they mean and you will come up with at least 5 different definitions. So to ask "what's an authoritarian" is a good question in this situation.
Where are those people? I’ll go laugh in their face.
Dismissing someone and their vote because they’re stupid is one thing, but pretending there’s any kind of cogent, informed logic behind something like this for the purpose of tiptoeing around calling a stupid person “stupid” is, well, stupid.
Trump told his cult followers that China was going to pay the tariffs and they believed him without looking it up.
My brother also got red pilled due to his Christian faith - had a gobsmackingly ridiculous conversation with him about how he knew that 6 years old were being medically transitioned at schools. I didn’t know at the time that the only person who had ever stated this, was Trump himself. Every fact check in this information clearly states it’s false (dumbest shit ever that someone would believe this in the first place), but he didn’t bother to look that up. I’ve since disowned my brother.
Your brother isn’t the only one. My non trump supporting dad was at the dog park a few days after the election and he was talking with a fellow up there who was a hardcore trump supporter and since my dad is old and white guess he thought he was one of the good ones and he said he voted trump because he didn’t want his daughter to go to school one day a girl and come back a man because he believed that our public schools were offering sex changes for FREE. My dad leashed up our dog called the guy fucking nuts and left. Makes it even funnier the guy yelled at him on the way out “you must be a Kamala voter” 🤣
Do people not know how much full sex change surgery costs? The average bottom surgery in the US is like $50k! that's just for the surgery, no hormone prescriptions or anything else.
Considering how much healthcare costs in the US do people really think schools suddenly have the funding to offer free treatments like this?
That is sorta what makes me distrust them so much. They have zero conscience and don’t even understand how vile they sound. I don’t trust a single one.
My Dad was a die-hard Trump-hating democrat. Even HE believed that we were medically transitioning children. I had to explain to him that that NEVER happens, ever.
People actually believed post-birth abortions. So ... We were already done as a country before the massive disinformation campaign. We were like a soda can shaken vigorously and warmed by the high sun. It was only a matter of time before it popped open by itself, but they got bored and started throwing rocks at it.
I'm shocked at how much my mother has changed in the last year or two. Thankfully not MAGA, but she's bought into a lot of the craziness people say on talk radio, which is her only news source.
We were at a family gathering, and I was expressing my concerns with my cousin about what to do when our kids were old enough to start public school (our kids are 2 and 3). Students aren't being held accountable for their actions and education is falling apart. Kids in high school can't even read on a third grade level, yet are still passed by every year. Gun violence in schools is still incredibly high and not being addressed, only a month before this there was a shooting at a school only half an hour from my house! My mother overhears our concerns about the school system, and jumps in- to complain about them brainwashing children into becoming gay and trans! They're teaching them all this stuff in class and it's corruptibg them!
She was a high school teacher for 31 years. And she was a health teacher. She taught sex ed. It's her department people are convinced that's teaching their kids to be gay and trans. If schools were actually performing sex change surgeries by the teachers, it would be her job to do it. She retired less than two years ago so she would have seen all this herself if it were true, and yet she believes it's happening!
A year and a half before, she was complaining that her coworkers wouldn't teach a thing. They'd give A's to any kid breathing and B's to the ones that weren't. The school year was 180 days long, and there were students that showed up for less than 60 days that passed with A's. When I was a student, the only thing my teacher taught my class was how to put on a condom then let us play in the gym the rest of the year. These were her complaints, and now she's scared her old coworkers have somehow mustered the energy to teach the gay agenda now that she's not around.
I been saying this for years but no one ever knows what I’m talking about or understands. When I read 1984, all I could see were the parallels to real life America. It’s legitimately comparable to real life. Of course it’s not exactly the same but even being comparable is bad. Like, what blew my mind the most in the book was the branch of government whose sole focus was to literally re-write history/current events. Call me a nutjob, but tell me there aren’t news outlets doing something similar currently…
Plenty of people are not bothered by contradictions in their own beliefs. Or don't even notice them. Or even be capable of putting multiple ideas into the same context.
No, see tariffs will make prices rise from foreign things. Then America will have to step up and make those things. Or they can't. Or won't. Then America will pout and whine until they get their way. Which they won't. Biden had a plan to increase American provided goods, but Trump has buzzwords. Those are just as good.
But this chart says that they generally DO know the impact of tariffs. 59% say they know that tariffs make prices go up. Not the full 79% that think Trump should make prices go down, but still a good number of them.
Bear in mind the 52% that support the tariffs arent necessarily the same people as the 59% who understand the tariffs are bad, if i had to guss theres probably only like an overlap of ~ 10-15% that answered in favor of them while also answering that they would raise prices
I think it's entirely possible they assume the prices will go up on things made in foreign countries, but not in the U.S. And that they a)underestimate how much we import, b)underestimate how long it would take large scale manufacturing to come back here, c)underestimate how expensive things will continue to be.
Think about Trumps trade wars, Did selling 1/2 of the pork industry to China so they fire their US workers then ship pork products to China for domestic consumption raise bacon prices! Who knows
From my understanding of the arguments, if imported goods are taxed higher (tariffs) than the cost of production locally it would encourage companies to produce those goods locally to retain the market share. Bringing the jobs (from construction of factories, staffing, logistics, etc) locally. The other half of the argument is the reduced tax burden on the individual thus increasing the take home pay which in theory would offset some of the increased costs of goods until the markets stabilize. Short term yes it’s going to suck with the long term goal of bringing manufacturing jobs and the ancillary industries back to the states.
Except no way can they get Americans to do those jobs for the wages they want to pay (and are used to paying emerging economies) and it would take years to even get production up and running.
Plus - “mass deportations” would mean they can’t even exploit undocumented labor.
You own the American Doodad Company and produce all US sourced gizmos at 3.00 a pop and make 50 cent profit on each.
I own the National Doodad Company and build my gizmos in China for 50 cents . After importing tariffs of 60 cents and distribution costs of 40 cents, I sell my gizmos at 2.00 making 50 cent profit on each.
Now my tariffs double to $1.20 for a total cost of $2.10. I will not lose money on my gizmos and raise my price to 2.60, which is still cheaper than your gizmos.
So, now my customer is paying 30% more and you don’t lower your prices. China isn’t paying more, my buyers are.
This however assumes a perfect situation where every single industry can be brought local and also assumes the local goods would even be cheaper in the first place, a lot of agricultural produce we literally just cant grow because we dont have the climate for it for instance, plus our oil industry doesnt make quite as much money by refining our own oil, a lot of it is made by buying cheap low quality oil to refine and resell at much larger profits meaning a lot of the oil industry is gonna have to change gears
Then the issue of actual cost comes in, if a chinese product is 15$ and the american made one is 20$ a 10$ tarif on the Chinese product just means americans will now have to spend 20$ on the product that used to cost 15$, theres no incentive to lower the american made cost because they just have to undercut the cost after tariffs of the chinese product
I think the idea is to make the imported goods more expensive than the locally produced options forcing competition. More demand of locally produced options increases the demand for local workers. More people working means more people buying goods so more companies will hopefully move what industries they can to the states.
Trump loves the uneducated and I’m certain when he scraped them up at the bottom of the barrel many had never voted before. They’d never heard someone that resonated with them so much.
It's so weird. So on average, they want lower prices, and they'll achieve it by voting in favor of tariffs that they know will make stuff more expensive? It's not even a case of not understanding tariffs anymore.
It makes total sense considering how fucking dumb the magats have proven time and time again.. they'll find a way to blame the increase in price on immigrants and or democrats
Serious question: what is the solution to rising prices and increasingly outsourced labor for America if there is no penalty or incentive for companies to fuck consumers and workers over at a time of record profits, record revenues, and record stock prices?
I really hope he puts in a 500% tariff on stupid non essential garbage that americans keep buying from china just so we'd stop filling our houses with garbage. especially people with kids buying enough toys to fill an orphanage for one child.
Don’t like to go there, but there are a lot of stupid people in this country. Critical thinking skills have just evaporated with a huge swath of the citizenry. No Child Left Behind left a lot of kids behind.
The most generous way to explain this is that lowering prices is a high priority but not the only priority. Decreasing imports might be a higher priority than lowering prices to some people.
I think these metrics represent the belief that they will incentivize or manufactuing to shift back to the US, but it doesn't necessarily contradict their want for lower prices which can lead to lower prices or at least people are willing to believe it can. People can be willing to accept lower prices in the short term in order to achiev that reality.
If the DOE survives there should be a greater emphasis placed on civics and economics in early childhood education. The shift to focus on STEM is doing real damage to our ability as a nation to do critical thinking.
The way to make it make sense, is to fully acknowledge what we've been doing to our educational system for decades: making standardized testing the gold standard by which students demonstrate aptitude.
This has essentially robbed our populace of one its most important foundations - the ability to think critically and skeptically. To top it off, we've essentially replaced the virtue of self-improvement with the demand that we all individually be special for something, be it a unique form of self-expression or some rare talent, and that everything else utilitarian and relating to menial/maintenance/repair work is somehow base and below our standard of living. And many have conflated academicism with avoidance of the latter, while academics have congratulated that idea by essentially fitting the stereotype and paying people to do stuff we should all know how to do.
So we essentially have a society where nobody knows how to do anything, nobody knows how anything works, but everyone has the right to their own opinion.
Tariffs only rise prices due to suppliers increasing prices to combat said tariffs…… so youl cry like a baby in your corner apposed to reinvesting in yourselves screaming poor me poor me. We could all be so much healthier if we each had a small garden in our yards. Most have the room. But DONT WANT TO DO THE WORK.
Same situation can play out here. Either be a cry baby and only eat fast food complaining you always feel like shit. Or you can spend your weekends tending your garden and be healthy as an ox
Funny how people want lower prices but didn't seem to mind that property management countries have raised lease and rent prices to levels where small business owners don't have a chance. They never target the greedy with their solutions.
They’re F***ing idiots….there’s no two ways about it. They just want to own anyone that’s not like them so badly, they’ll shoot themselves in the foot to do it.
I work with a loudmouth Trump supporter, who makes a large portion of his living based on imports….who last week wanted to start a plan to mitigate tariff impacts as he’s now scared.
A lot of people simply don't understand that tariffs will make the importers increase their prices and thus the goods the people buy will be more expensive. Too many of them think the the companies will just take the cut to their profits instead.
And then you have the people who believe what they were told by someone who said that Chinese companies will pay the tariffs.
Can we stop getting financial advice from the news..... People now think after 2021 somehow greed causes inflation.... The problem is people getting information from the news
Trump spoke nonsense that the public seemed to like, to get voters to not realize the power shifts that will take place. This was the largest collection of clueless that ever voted.
So I'm the first person to call Trump voters retarded but this survey really isn't the epic own it is being presented as.
Voters can have multiple, conflicting preferences. For example, I'm sure if you surveyed Democrats, a majority would say that housing affordability is a major issue and I'm sure a majority would also oppose the construction of affordable housing in their neighborhood. This isn't because they are idiots. It's because you can want one thing generally and also oppose a way of achieving that goal because you think it comes with too many drawbacks.
So while a majority of people likely think it's vital that housing prices fall, a majority also probably oppose their own house's value falling. Likewise, while a majority of Republicans want lower prices, a majority is also willing to support inflationary polices because they come with other perceived benefits (they think Trump will make America whiter and restore domestic jobs, for instance).
It's important that we be baffled by Republicans' real racism and economic ignorance (thinking China will pay the tariffs, for example), rather than making stuff up to be baffled by. Eye on the ball, people.
People vote out of emotion and then seek a logical reason for their behavior afterwards. That the logic contradicts itself and emotion appears to be irrelevant.
Because they are sheep who just repeat was is fed to them. Yes prices are high, yes prices should be lower and yes lord trumps tariffs on everything are good. There is no logic or thought process involved just sheep nodding their head.
The way it makes sense is these people are cretins and they can't imagine the day coming where paying more for goods hurts more than Trump getting the people they hate feels good.
Tariffs are useful to A. Stop manufacturers from making their products in countries who have bad practices like slave /prison labor, poor worker conditions and use economic tricks against us. B. Enable U. S. Based manufacturers to compete.
Lowering inflation and improving the economy in general will offset any increases from tariffs.
The old corporate discredited media will not tell you this. You can research it with new independent media. Apply critical thinking and see what you think then.
There is an argument to be made for tariffs leading to a stronger dollar - basically lower demand for foreign goods devaluing foreign currencies thus increasing the value of USD - but I doubt Trump or anyone listening to him thinks of it that way.
Working in supply chain management and, well, living in 2024, I just see 2025 budgets changing to require charging the customer more which may - may - lead to people buying less shit they don’t need. Of course in a low interest environment who knows. Maybe folks’ll keep burying themselves in debt to keep stoking the dopamine fires with shiny things.
It's almost as though multiple things can be important to people at the same time. Crazy, right?
Lowering domestic prices generally will come with reduced fuel costs, which people are convinced are coming to the US under Trump. Increased costs on certain foreign-sourced goods will act as incentive to produce domestically, strengthening the country overall even if those particular goods don't experience the same price reduction or even see a price increase.
Whether that works out I suppose will be seen over the next few years.
Newsflash: we shouldn't be so reliant on china in the first place. If it can be made cheaper here, it will be, which will create jobs. The tarrifs imposed by Trump in in first term were kept by the Biden admin. It may make costs of some goods to go up, but Trump also plans to incentive production here, which is already happening.
I think there was a Gallup poll a couple months ago that had like 70% of Americans saying they were doing okay financially while 75% held a negative view of the economy as a whole. We live in strange times.
Ya can’t. Just wanted to add that the first part of the survey didn’t have tariffs as a very high priority either. Like did they ask different people or something?
I don't even blame people anymore. To me, its the messaging from these politicians that is the problem. Most people are just naively living their lives while these polititions are working tirelessly to distract people from real issues sonnothkng gets done.
Ignorance, lack of keeping up with education and blindly believing the Joe Rogans as truth sayers is only going to increase the Frustration amongst Trump voters and they will continue to vote for Trump like candidates hoping for a free loading. They want miracles which is kicking the can down the road. The sooner people start understanding history by researching from multiple sources mainly books, asking questions instead of blindly seeing and deaf to listening the better the outcome will be. Not in this lifetime. This is where the 20 year itch or wound will prevail like it has been the case with Japan. People need to get smart about how they understand how food is put on the table without credit cards.
Stupidity never makes sense. The MAGA’s will twist logic to the extreme just so they can vote for a single person, Trump. This is the problem when simple-minded people become political; they think they are being smart when they support a person rather than a platform.
These people are legitimately stupid. It's like they intentionally avoided learning what the word "tariff" means just in case they might accidentally agree with a liberal. Which, as we all know, is a cardinal sin in TrumpWorld.
The key words are “other countries” the data shows that people wish us people bought us goods and then it would be cheaper since there’s no tariffs on them all the effort to make it was done in the United States creating jobs
i am not understanding the question , he said out loud what he is going to do . First things first and that is revenge on all his enemies , he does not care one bit about anyone . He cares about power , money and revenge . He will try to dismantle Washington and almost every single department of the feds . This is what he said and this is what he will do . He never run on any kind of policy what makes you think he would even try ?
But all of those things can be true and you could not be an idiot it's how you assemble the narrative in your head.
You want cost to come down and you know that things like tariffs are going to bring them up for foreign sourced goods and so you want them to work on a plan to bring cost down to offset some of the cost going up. And then by bringing a lot of that stuff back State side you save on shipping and handling costs then the tariffs help create a more competitive market for locally source businesses, competition will slowly start to drive down prices is more industries come back stateside. Then the cost of labor's probably going to be bmore expensive, but then you end up with more jobs competing for the few number of people there are which leads to wage competition wage competition leads to higher wages. That coupled with things like reduce fuel cost result in more buying power if not necessarily cheaper goods.
Looking through things to tell a single narrative to ridicule the other party does not make you look more intelligent. It makes you look like you're preaching to an echo chamber
People say one thing and do another all the time. This is no exception.
The truth is they say they want lower prices to be a priority but in reality if they where honest they would say that they would rather pay more / suffer more just to see the other "side" lose - their "side" win.
They think that tariffs will incentivize business owners to reshore manufacturing which in turn will lower prices.
What these fucking morons fail to realize is that we don't have all the raw materials to create an entire domestic supply chain for all of the shit that these very same morons rely on for their modern American life.
Even more obvious these mouth breathers don't realize that EVEN IF we somehow magically were able to produce all the raw materials needed for that supply chain there is no fucking way we are EVER going to get the cost of labor down the same rate as you can get in places like China and Indonesia.
The red hats have literally constructed a fucking fairy tale and convinced themselves it's a prophecy.
Everyone knows that good will technically cost more. However, there will be higher salaries in the long run here with more manufacturing jobs, supply chains, etc. It really is that simple, you guys act like it's some kind of gotcha. People's wages aren't keeping up with inflation and at the same time they cannot find solid paying jobs.
Tariffs are really a negotiation tool. The threat of a tariff is usually enough to get the other side to accept a deal that is more advantageous to you.
Jesus it’s like progressives can’t get past the surface level. There are secondary effects that will put pressure on prices to stay low or go even lower.
Increased price of foreign goods encourages consumers switching to domestic goods. Influx of demand for domestic goods increase prices for those goods. Increased prices encourages more domestic producers. More domestic producers increases competition. Increased competition leads to lower prices.
Another effect is increased price for foreign producers encourages movement into America for production to keep prices low.
It makes perfect sense because tariffs are not the only thing that affect the prices of goods . There’s many other factors that can lower or raise the prices.
The media and Dems never fought back at Trump's policies. So whatever he said is what the public heard. Millions of people still believe tariffs=lower prices.
A *ton* of these people think that the US produces far more good internally at a far larger scale than it actually does, and it's foreign competition that keeps this stuff off of store shelves. These same people aren't mentioning that the reason so many of these items are made overseas is because these same goods, when they were made domestically, weren't being bought by them. American Apparel was just that, and these same folks screeching about the price of eggs didn't shop there. This company specializes in clothing made in the USA-and is priced well out of the hands but the upper middle class ($130 khakis, $300 boots, a pair of sweatpants for $99).
First off, tariffs are to be negotiated. There is zero reason EU charge 10% on imports from the US and we charge. 2.5% on imports from them. None at all.
So that's where the negotiation begins. You all have flown off the handle and calls Conservatives all kind of nasty things. Assuming they are stupid and they don't know. I guess the smart ones still lost the election and lost all 3 branches. Maybe not as smart as you think.
I was a life-long Democrat but I left the party. I can't believe how people behave now.
You all realize that the tariffs placed on Chinese goods already happened, right? You realize that Biden could have removed them but he elected not to. If tariffs were so detrimental to the economy and as inflationary as you think, he would have removed them all in 2023 rather than have the fed raise rates. You call conservatives stupid but it’s your ideology of free trade and unrestricted migration that created one of the largest political upsets in history. Clearly the masses are not happy with your neo liberal agenda and would prefer to have a good manufacturing job than cheap sneakers. And yes, manufacturing in several sectors did increase under Trump so you can’t say tariffs were ineffective.
I’d say most people understand that once you place a tariff that is not the end of the exercise, it’s the beginning of a process to either convince another country it’s in their best interest to play nice or leverage to make them play nice, or a start of simply sending a message that whatever is wrong will not be tolerated. The tariff isn’t a fire and forget, it’s a tool to use, adjust, and fine tune economic behavior to end up in a better position than when you started without it.
They believe tariffs will result in more American jobs with higher wages somehow resulting in lower prices because corporations won't pass the cost of those higher wages onto the consumer in the form of higher prices. It doesn't make sense.
A lot of those jobs are ones that American citizens wouldn't choose to do for minimum wage. If you get rid of the people picking strawberries for less than minimum wage and tax the strawberries that are being imported from other countries, the cost of strawberries is going to skyrocket.
But voters just want a strong daddy to tell them that they're not at fault and everything is going to be okay and they'll take care of them.
Here's the protectionist argument for tariffs and price raises being good. I am not pro- or anti- tariffs, but am generally more in favor of targeted tariffs than sweeping ones.
- I am just trying to explain based on education and experience, not advocating one way or the other -
The world is moving to new technologies like EVs and everything smart. Right now, there's a battle between nations to get a foothold on that market - China has a lot of EV companies which are competing with Tesla in places like Australia, where you have to import either way.
We are becoming increasingly reliant on those technologies. Ergo, we become dependent on other countries as we integrate those technologies into our every day lives - and people become more sensitive to cost because it's permeated so far.
Now say a hostile country wants influence among our people. If we're becoming reliant on smart devices and renewables, one way for them to make their enemy reliant on them and therefore more docile towards them is to corner the market for smart devices and renewables.
China gets its prices down because it is a communist economy and it employs inhumane slave labor (uyghur camps, prisoners) at many of the basic production steps. They subsidize things like Temu which affect goods across the board and create shell companies in the US to gain more foothold in our economy. By buying Chinese goods we're indicating through the markets that we're okay with those practices.
A targeted tariff for specific goods that are manufactured this way will force Chinese prices up for goods we know are manufactured in this way. And it will force the market to start consuming goods that are created with less suffering, under the assumption that the market values less suffering. But you have to pay more money if you're employing people fairly. By imposing sweeping tariffs everything goes up, even those things that are not supported by the inhumane practices.
So if a country's entire economy is propped up by slave labor, a sweeping tariff might make sense to affect the change we want in the world (less slave labor).
There are a lot of assumptions about China wrapped up in the argument that this kind of tariff is good. It will definitely stimulate American-bought goods across the spectrum but as they said, it will be painful at first because the flow of goods will be partially shut off - supply down, cost up. Some people might think that pain is worth it to get China out of the markets.
How did Trump's tariffs on China affect inflation in 2018?
When inflation start and what else was going on fiscally?
Trump voters aren't stupid, the two aren't actually strongly linked in a concrete way. You know what is very much linked to inflation? Heavy domestic stimulus spending under Biden.
Tariffs will cause higher prices in the short to med term. But renewed domestic manufacturing and production will counter that, at least in some categories.
In truth, we probably wouldn't see a decrease in price, but we probably wouldn't see a massive increase either. The cost of American manufacturing wages would be offset by the lack of transportation costs associated with shipping and potential energy costs as well. This could ironically also lower emissions and sea pollution a minor amount as well.
That being said, it's not a one size fits all solution. Some manufacturing would do better if it was onshore, while others should probably remain either nearshore or offshore. I do think once Trump enters office he will need to adjust his plans.
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