Wednesday, November 6, 2024

How I Lost All Respect For My Country In The Space Of Four Hours


                           Electoral votes map at 11:45 ET, writing already on wall

Putin will be charmed to have his puppet back



"A lot of Americans chose to listen to a guy who's loud and angry, often obscene and many times outrageous. But they reason he survived and became a victim during his campaign. So these Americans might think: 'Maybe he's  tough enough and will remember me'" - Mike Barnacle, MSNBC Election Night

"Fear and anger won tonight. George Wallace's 19 percent - in 1968 - has now become the majority in this country. I must try now to find words of encouragement for my daughter, who just voted hours ago, and believed a woman of color could be president." - Jeh Johnson, former Homeland Security Secretary, on Morning Joe

"We have clarity. We know what America is and what it wants. Unlike 2016, it's not a mistake. It's not a rogue element which took over the GOP. It's communicated, planned, and executed campaign to get Putin style Fascism into the White House. And Americans signed off on it. 

 Empires decline slowly, and then quickly, and then all at once. And some sort of dictatorship/Fascism always marks the late stage of any declining empire. Accompanied by public circus and bread and wine (crypto and wine in our case).Americans, who overwhelmingly are disinterested in history, are about to live through real teachable history. Something similar to the Roman empire or Argentina of 1930's."- Washington Post commenter

"The notion that that the voters would ultimately reject dishonesty, vitriol, cruelty, childish name-calling, etc. because "that is not who we are" has been debunked. Apparently it is a lot of who "we" are. It was a quaint notion that went the way of "No man is above the law".- NY Times Commenter


"I think that the people we should be blaming are the ones that:

1. refuse to vote for a woman, and specifically a woman of colour

2. those who voted against women having any reproductive rights at all

3. those who voted for a complete madman and criminal

Yes, the democratic party could have gone through the candidate-selecting process better, and the Harris campaign could have run things differently. However, at the end of the day, it is the people that vote. And it is the people who have these hidden biases and misconceptions. From now on, let's focus on getting through the next four years and finding a sufficient nominee for 2028, without blaming a woman who did her utmost best to spare us four more years of Trump! 'Myra'- NY Times Commenter

"Horrendous damage has been done to the USA and to the world by this result. The reputation of the USA has probably never sunk lower. Meanwhile, one rather suspects that Xi Jinping, Orban, Putin are quietly laughing." - UK Commenter on NY Times

This sad and sorry country had one chance last night to get it right. To prove its sanity and commitment to democracy and flunked the test miserably, by letting Trump and his cabal of shit suckers back into power. Indeed, even by 9:45 M.T. (11:45 E.T.) a NY Times electoral votes map showed the 'writing on the election' wall with three of the critical (blue wall)  swing states leaning Trump: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  I had become so enraged and disappointed by then I had to leave the family room, going back to proof reading the galley for a new book. It was simply too much to tolerate, and to have to admit (again!) to Janice, that the majority of my country men were a pack of  myopic, low IQ morons for whom pocketbook items and an orange Turd's lies  trumped protecting democracy. Instead voting back into power a convicted felon, and twice -impeached traitor.

What happened? I could go off here into a raft of diatribes and digressions but will keep it simple and focused:

1- For whatever reason, insufficient suburban women came out to vote for Harris, perhaps put off by certain Harris ads encouraging them to do a stealth vote for her, i.e. not tell hubby, or lie if he asks. Maybe they believed it was too immoral, or an "intimate"  betrayal according to a number of Trump ads. Bottom line here: Kamala lost some 15% of the female vote compared to 2020, which I again attribute to too many white women voting for the avowed 'pussy grabber'. Go figure.

2-  Too many Hispanic voters turned stupid and failed to see that the cringe-worthy dumping on Puerto Rico - at the Madison Garden Trump rally - was by extension a dumping on them.  The same way that Trump's vile castigating of migrants as "vermin" and also planning to "deport millions of immigrants".  Do they really believe they're " immune" from deportation because of a card? Think again and look at fascist regimes through history! But no, they feel because they are nice and 'legal' they can afford to vote against their fellows striving to be free, but perhaps doing it the wrong way by crossing the border. Bottom line here: Kamala lost some 12% of the Hispanic vote compared to 2020.

3- Too many black (and white) males fell for Trump's stupid come -ons and macho B.S. especially in backing off from casting votes for a female presidential candidate. Obviously ignoring actor Sam Elliot's sturdy case in his ad for Kamala:

Choose Change (youtube.com)

4-  Too many Palestinians in Michigan believed it preferable to either withhold their vote or vote for Trump (who'd already told Bibi Netanyahu to "do whatever he needs to do" to claim Gaza).  They clearly never saw, or if they did - didn't take seriously-  John Oliver's case for casting a vote for Harris, e.g.

John Oliver Calls On Pro-Palestinian Voters To Support Harris | HuffPost Latest News

5- Too many Americans see nothing wrong in a presidential candidate making vile sexist jokes about women, including calling them bitches, c*nts and whores, as well as threatening violence - such as Trump did with Liz Cheney - calling for  "nine rifles" aimed at her face, and threatening Michelle Obama.  As I told Janice, it makes one ashamed to call oneself an American now that so many voters have converted us into a Rogue State.  

True, there were third party bad actors that helped this debacle along, namely a corrupt Supreme Court.  It had the obligation to disqualify the traitor under Section 3 of the 14th amendment, but chose not to - and actually nixed the effort of the Colorado Supreme court to do so.  See:

In Watershed Decision Colorado Supreme Court Merits Kudos For Disqualifying A Traitor From Ballot

Then there was the churlish mainstream media often playing the "both sides" false equivalence card. Demanding endless dazzling answers from Kamala about her policies but letting Trump skate by on his lies and unhinged rhetoric. Add to that cynical billionaires, especially the flaky buffoon Elon Musk, who backed Trump. The latter  violating federal election law by holding $1m lotteries in Pennsylvania and other swing states.

"Oh, oh...but that's not who we are!"

Nope, it's exactly who "we" are.  Especially given Trump - up to now - has also won the popular vote by millions! Having failed the most basic test to opt for civility, decency and moral character over chaos, wretched self-interest, hatred and violence. 

So we now will suffer another four years of this misbegotten orange maggot and his grifting, flouting of laws (thanks to the Supremes)   and escape from all accountability - especially if Dems lose the House too.  All of which will make the previous four years of Trumpdom look like a walk in the park. In a way, I am glad I have metastatic prostate cancer and may not last another two years - even with the (ADT) treatment I'm getting now.

That a people could blindly and willingly vote into power a convicted criminal, and an insurrectionist traitor who already tried to overturn a previous election boggles the sentient mind. It would also have my Revolutionary War ancestors turning over in their graves right about now, wondering what the hell had become of the nascent nation they freed from an English tyrant. Just to have it fall into the maw of a new tyrant.

 That they could freely choose a monster who's openly threatened generals, political opponents and regular citizens with executions while mocking fallen soldiers as "losers" and calling migrants "vermin" - offends every fiber of civil decency. And to put this madman in again, knowing his fondness for tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un  - shows these voters who did it are not so much exposing him (whom we know already), but themselves - as utterly worthless dregs- and yes, garbage.  Who'd use their votes to empower a new tyrant.

They are no different from the brain-fouled "good Germans" who hurled Hitler into power, and rendered the entire world a hell hole for over a decade.

How did I misfire on my forecast yesterday for a massive Harris win? I simply overestimated the intelligence, decency and patriotism of the typical American voter.

A people who sacrifice their democracy for expedience, racial hegemony and their pocketbooks, believing an unhinged derelict autocrat will help them, deserve neither liberty nor security. Also forgetting, as MSNBC's Mike Barnacle noted,  the series of broken promises from Trump in his earlier term, which he washed away with marketing and the help of his propaganda network FOX.

The consequences of this atrocity won't be over for a long, long time, especially as Trump will now be able to stack the courts (including the Supremes) with whomever he wants. But as historian Jon Meacham put it this morning: 

"We now get to see if Trump really meant his words that he will be a dictator on day one and he will go after the enemies within -  or if they were simply bluffs, as his GOP allies and many backers have claimed

Adding: "It's all on them to prove the words were bluffs."  

I for one will not be placing any Vegas bets.

See Also:

by Jaime O’Neill | November 6, 2024 - 6:21am | permalink

Not much to add to this picture or this song on this bleak morning. Sorry.

» article continues...

And:
  • by Robert Becker | April 2, 2024 - 6:07am | permalink

  • The campaign tell: Trumpism wins only by warring against law and order to delegitimize courts

    Grist for Trump’s bad faith mill. Giving the finger to judges and prosecutors, to justified convictions, and to "obstructive," suspect institutions, now defines the central Trumpist pitch. Everything is fodder for this hubris– what matters is manipulating his image flow to serve his perceived self-interest. For reasons certain to puzzle historians, the brashness of Trump’s vulgar, gross unfitness hardly impedes seeming forward motion (even if treading water).

    Second only to the Big Lie contradiction, the gall of seeking the presidency, above all an executor of laws, statutes, court decisions and the Constitution, signals profound Trump unfitness. What sticks out, and what I consider to be his fatal campaign flaw, is a loudmouth mob boss running to control the rule of law, the only apparatus capable of stopping him cold if it ever adjudicates all his indictments.

  • And:
  • by David Badash | May 22, 2024 - 7:02am | permalink

    — from Alternet

    Political experts, historians, and scholars of fascism are sounding the alarm after Donald Trump posted video Monday afternoon that promised a “unified Reich,” once again echoing language used by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

    “Trump’s continued use of Nazi rhetoric is un-American and despicable. Yet too many Americans are brushing off the glaring red flags about what could happen if he returns to the White House,” former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews warned. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

    The video features made-up newspaper headlines claiming a Trump win of the 2024 presidential election. It asks, “What’s Next for America,” and promotes “the creation of a unified Reich.”

  • And:

Excerpt:

With Trump's win, it's time for women to dig those hats out of storage, grab their "resistance" wine glasses, and get back to work. Trump's victory came at the hands of a majority of male voters, while most women once again turned out hoping to stop him. It will be up to women, again, to save America from this glowering fascist menace. 

And:

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Thank Millions Of Energized Women (And The Young) Set To Turf Trump Into The Dustbin Of American History

                                                                                

Kamala's proven she's the only sane candidate - Gen Z,  female voters know it

                       Gen X voters pour out of classes to vote in 2008
                        Gen Z voters can return the favor for Kamala this year.


Millions of American women, now realizing the threat of the SC Dobbs decision to their bodily autonomy, will ensure a Kamala Harris victory when the dust settles after this election. And I am predicting the win will be known by midnight, with a number of non-swing states giving her more than the 270 needed to put the ongoing Trump plague (if not Trumpism) behind us. 

A first harbinger of what lay ahead transpired over the weekend when a poll showed Kamala ahead of Trump by three points in the red state of Iowa. Digging into the data behind the polls, it was found that 63% of Iowa women had now turned to Kamala, recognizing the threat Trump and his gang pose with their anti-abortion plans. 

In the Iowa poll, run by Ms. J. Ann Selzer, more female, younger and college-educated voters were now saying they would vote and they were aligned with groups that tend to support Kamala Harris.

But the female voting tsunami that will be unleashed is not confined to Iowa or to young voters alone. It's across all the states, especially the one where abortion bans are already in place, and across a wide span of female ages.

Perhaps most energized are the college- educated women, for whom the infamous Dobbs decision is particularly odious. It will also have become clear to them that one cannot vote for an abortion amendment - say in Missouri and Florida- and also vote for Trump. No, that is like trying to square a circle given the Trump Project 2025 has a national abortion ban in its sights - no matter what lies Trump spews.  Their full intention is to reinstate the 1873 Comstock law in some form as applies to medicated abortion.

Could Revival Of An 1873 Law Really Make Medicated Abortion Illegal Nationwide Now?

In addition, all these young (and older) women voters are now also highly energized after the orange roach vowed he will "protect them whether they like it or not."  Which gave Kamala an enormous opening to show how Trump really thinks of women  - as nothing more than charms for his own exploitation. As he demonstrated in the Access Hollywood tape.  

Speaking of which, millions of Gen Z potential voters are now onto Trump's despicable treatment of women after having seen (on Tik Tok) the full rancid tape - for the first time. See e.g.

Gen Z hears Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ tape on TikTok for the first time - The Washington Post

As noted therein:

Now, the generation that came of age during the #MeToo era is turning to social media for information about candidates and elections — 39 percent of young adults say they frequently get their news from TikTok, according to Pew Research. This week, many said on the social network they were shocked by the former president’s words and confused why the episode wasn’t a dealbreaker in 2016.

“I don’t think any of my friends had heard it,” said Kate Sullivan, a 21-year-old student in Ohio who heard the tape for the first time on her TikTok For You feed this week. “We all felt equally shocked.”  

People her age have less tolerance for sexual misconduct after growing up amid a series of high-profile harassment and assault cases involving major celebrities, Sullivan said. She immediately felt compelled to share the audio in her own video, with the superimposed text, “Fathers are voting for this man.” The video has been viewed 2.5 million times and was reshared by singer Billie Eilish to her 68 million followers.

Brigid Quinn, a 15-year-old in Georgia, knew that Trump had been accused of making sexist comments, she said. But she had never heard the words he actually said — including the ‘grab them by the pussy’ quote. She “didn’t understand how people thought this was normal.”

Make no mistake, this exposure  - to millions of new voters - will spell the ultimate evacuation of Trump that ought to have transpired in 2016. Except then too many white women - who should have known better - dismissed it as just "locker room talk" as opposed to an open, derelict exhibition of misogyny that ought to have seen Trump vanquished. Don't believe it? Check out one young woman's reaction:

Not even sure how you can look your daughter in the eye and say you’re... | father daughter | TikTok

So I predict, as many others do (e.g. James Carville, Michael Moore), the polls have been misleading us all along with the "tight race" balderdash. In fact, many women - including with Reep husbands- have been concealing their choices from the pollsters - much like Trumper voters did 8 years go.  But they will reveal themselves in this election in  a 300+ electoral vote win for Kamala. The Gen Z voters then will reprise the tidal wave of support that Gen X voters showed for Obama back in 2008. 

And the women of this country will finally ensure its first woman president, after 235 years.


See Also:

by Mimi Kennedy | November 5, 2024 - 7:41am | permalink

When I learned, as an adolescent, that Hitler had been an elected head of state, I was incredulous.

I don't know how I learned this. Not from my parents and not from the nuns who taught me for 12 years of school. I was utterly ignorant about pre- and post-World War II Germany. My father had served in the Pacific. In my neighborhood, as a child, our teams were divided, for far-ranging games of war, between the Americans and the Nazis. Having never heard the word before, let alone seen it written, I imagined the bad guys as K-N-O-T-S-I-E-S, pathetic little balls of snarled string.

In college, with better information than my hometown rah-rah newspaper's, I became an anti-war activist. Ever since the Vietnam War era, I've been challenged with the question, "Would you oppose all wars/ What would you have done about Hitler?" To which my answer became, "Hitler was elected. There were plenty of chances to stop Hitler before six million Jews died and he started that war."

And now I wonder where those chances were, and what I would have done. Because I have learned how Hitler was loved by his people. And I have seen something like it in my country now.

» article continues...

And:

John Oliver Calls On Pro-Palestinian Voters To Support Harris | HuffPost Latest News


And:
by Alex Henderson | November 5, 2024 - 7:19am | permalink

— from Alternet

Of the seven battleground states that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have been paying especially close attention to — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina — Nevada is the only won that Trump didn't win in either 2016 and 2020.

Hillary Clinton carried Nevada by 2 percent in 2016, and now-President Joe Biden won the state by 3 percent in 2020.

Trump's campaign is hoping to flip Nevada, but The Nevada Independent's Jon Ralston, in an op-ed published on November 4, lays out some reasons why he believes Harris — not Trump — will prevail in Nevada in 2024.

Ralston predicts that the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nevada) political operation will come through for Harris.

» article continues...

And:

by Amanda Marcotte | November 1, 2024 - 5:42am | permalink

— from Salon

Much has been made out of the fact that Donald Trump's campaign did nix one "joke" in the now-infamous speech by podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe during the dizzyingly hateful MAGA rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday: calling Vice President Kamala Harris the c-word. As I wrote in the Standing Room Only newsletter, this shows that the campaign knew Hinchcliffe was planning a wildly racist set. I suspect the racism was a sick form of strategy, a continuation of Trump advisor Steve Bannon's infamous "flood the zone" tactics. Note that the Trump campaign only tried to distance themselves from the comments calling Puerto Ricans — who have a heavy voting presence in some swing states — "garbage," but not from the rest of his set or the many other vile things said by other speakers.

The censorship of the c-word likely happened because it's profanity, not because it's misogynistic. We know this because Hinchcliffe's other woman-hating "jokes" were left in, including fantasizing about the murder of pop star Taylor Swift. "I think that Travis Kelce might be the next O.J. Simpson," Hinchcliffe said of Swift's NFL-playing boyfriend. Swift has been the object of violent ire by many MAGA leaders, including billionaire Elon Musk, who issued an unsubtle rape threat after Swift endorsed Harris for president. And that is not out of character for Musk, who has purchased a spot so close to Trump's side it often looks like he's replaced Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. It's Musk who has shown, in the last few days before the election, that misogyny is right up there with racism as the Trump campaign's closing argument.

» article continues...

And:

And:
by Tim Koechlin | November 5, 2024 - 6:22am | permalink

Someone said of Trump a few years back: "He's like a toddler with a gun." My partner Katherine's response: "I see him more as the nation's drunken, abusive spouse, insisting we put the kids in the car and go for a drive with him..." Indeed.

We watch Trump and wonder: How can this be happening? How did this cruel, misogynistic idiot win a presidential election? How, after all of these years of brazenly and transparently being who he is, can he remain a compelling candidate for President of the United States? How can this happen in America?" 

It is, of course, about voter suppression, the growing power of dark money, Fox News’s brilliant, relentless lie machine, the profound limits of the Democratic Party, and the reactionary absurdity of the Electoral College. But it is way more than that. In 2020, 74 million US voters voted for Trump. And, after nearly four years of mind-boggling incompetence and cruelty, and four more years of being an relentlessly and increasingly revolting version of himself, 44% of Americans (including most white Americans) "approve" of Trump.

» article continues...

And:

In ABC Debate Kamala Devastatingly Shows Only One Candidate Is Sane and Fit to Be President.

And:

Commentary: Why no Christian should vote for Donald Trump





Monday, November 4, 2024

Mensa Polyhedral Graph Solutions

 

As noted in the original puzzle post (Oct. 28), a graph is designated Hamiltonian if there is a closed circuit along the edges of the graph that 'hits' each node exactly once. As seen above, a sketch of all the 2D forms for the Platonic solids shows all of the nodes are hit exactly once. Hence all the graphs are Hamiltonian.


A graph is Eulerian if there is a closed circuit that hits each edge exactly once. Only one such 2D graph meets that criterion, the octahedron, as shown in the above sketch.



 Meanwhile each of the 2D graphs above (L-R: tetrahedron, cube, octahedron) can be designated "graceful" given that for each:

A node gets a number from 0 to n, where n is the number of edges, and no node number is repeated.

Each edge has a number equal to the positive difference of the node numbers on either side of it. (e.g. for the cube, 9 - 7 = 2)

No edge number is repeated given edges are numbered 1 through n.

Would Voters Really Turn The 'Goldilocks' Biden Economy Over To Trump's False Promises, Mega-Inflation & Recession? No Way!

 



The WSJ lead editorial from Friday, Nov. 1st (p. A14) was blunt and to the point in its lead paragraph:  

"Americans are tired of spending-fueled inflation, stagnant wage growth and debt."

  In other words, they'd find more mellow financial waters in a 2nd Trump presidency. Of course, this is balderdash and doesn't conform to economic reality but rather the steady drumbeat in the reactionary media to diss anything under the Biden-Harris administration.  As a starting fact check we can go to the WSJ's own Exchange piece from Oct. 26-27, p. B12 with the headline:

'Most Consumers Are Doing Just Fine, Thanks'

With the lead sentence:  "Capital One says its borrowers remain healthy overall, even those with lower incomes or credit scores."

The same piece notes that "while some borrower's incomes haven't kept up with cost increases, generally speaking we've seen strong relative income growth at the lower end of the distribution since 2020."

Ha! So much for the WSJ op-ed baloney about "stagnant wages"

Then there are the robust other factors, as displayed in the top graphs, which show the U.S. economy outperforming all the Eurozone nations.  That includes in GDP, working hours and productivity.  As noted by WSJ economy columnist Greg Ip (Nov. 1, p. A2):

"With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7% over the past year.  It is outrunning every major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate."

Adding: "Most leaders from around the world would trade their economies for the U.S.'s in a heartbeat.  Through the second quarter the U.S. grew 3%; none of the world's next six largest advanced economies grew more than 1 %..

So given this, can anyone explain how 70 % of Americans can still believe the country is "going in the wrong direction", especially on the economy? Well, true, as one TIME essay noted, millions have been "frustrated and disillusioned since the pandemic and shutdowns of 2020."  But they seem to forget that Trump was at the core of all of this, basically because of his lax anti-Covid responses. But I also attribute much of this to the steady drumbeat from the reactionary right media in denigrating the Biden-Harris economic policies.  This despite other objective sources (The Economist, Financial Times etc.) referring to a "Goldilocks economy" , i.e. one that has hit every measure for success, including low unemployment, steady growth - and still avoided recessionary pitfalls.

Still, too many - perhaps from lack of critical thinking skills - believe that Trump would be a better bet on the economy.  This is bizarre given his billionaire bro Elon Musk has already openly admitted future hardship in any new Trump term - because of spending cuts, e.g. quoted in a recent issue of Rolling Stone:

"Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, said that if Donald Trump wins and gives him a role in government, Americans will suffer “hardship” as a result of efforts to address the national debt. He made the comments Friday in a virtual town hall on his website, X. 

When asked about “tackling the nation’s debt,” he mentioned changing the tax code, and then went on to say there would be some financial difficulty imposed on some Americans. “Most importantly, we have to reduce spending to live within our means,” 

I.e. make cuts to Social Security, Medicare and the ACA.  Why would a majority of 'Muricans be so obtuse as to put these imbeciles in power to wreck their lives?  Turning over a Goldilocks economy with the potential to better their lives, for one which features malignant inflation, high unemployment and a serious recession? Also Project 2025 plans which will not only destroy whatever health care they have, but any secure retirement (by scuttling Social Security).

How would that happen anyway? Well, for starters, Trump has promised 20% tariffs across the board and a number of companies have already said they are planning price hikes to cover any loss of their profits, e.g.

Companies ready price hikes to offset Trump’s global tariff plans - The Washington Post

Wherein we read:

"Across the United States, companies that rely on foreign suppliers are preparing to raise prices in response to the massive import tariffs that former president Donald Trump promises if he wins the election Tuesday".

So again, why would so many Americans, given their present  relative comfort, be prepared to trade that in for years of  penury, doing without and inflation about 50 % worse than it is now?   The only reason I can see is that they have been snookered by brainwashing, most likely from watching too much FOX - which many regard as more "entertaining" than MSNBC.

Then there is vast economic ignorance which feeds the brainwashing. This was exposed in a WSJ piece back in April:

What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data

Many Americans believe that the economy and their finances are worse than they really are.

This piece, which incidentally told it straight unlike the WSJ op-ed pages, revealed stark ignorance in the general population including:

- Half of the respondents defined inflation incorrectly, conflating high prices with high inflation. The sobering fact is that once prices rise they seldom go back down to what normal plebes believe to be 'proper' levels, in this case pre-pandemic.  ( The true guide for high inflation is whether the overall year's average rate is higher than the long term average inflation rate.   For example, the U.S. Inflation Rate is currently at 2.7%, compared to 6.04% last year, and 8.3 percent in 2022.)

- By 47% to 41%  more Journal respondents think their retirement accounts and investments "went in the wrong direction" in the past year. A period in which the stock market "roared to record highs, home values held steady or rose, and interest on savings went up."  

-  By more than 2-to-1 (56% to 25%) respondents "said the economy had gotten worse, rather than gotten better over the past two years."   As the WSJ goes on to point out:

"That is difficult to square with the robust employment growth, unemployment near its lowest in a half century, and in gross domestic product (GDP) which actually accelerated last year."

Even more gobsmacking, showing voters' detachment from reality:

"As the saying goes you can't eat gross domestic product, but what you eat is part of GDP and while many people say they are cutting back on groceries and eating out, the data show that collectively they are not."

The Stantcheva study  also showed that while economists associate lower unemployment with higher inflation (natural, given more people working injects more $$ into the economy), the public believes weak growth, high unemployment and high inflation all go together.

In other words, we are dealing with a vast, ignorant populace devoid of familiarity with even basic economics. What the hell has happened to our schools, our education system? It is this enormous economic ignorance, I maintain, in conjunction with media disparaging of the Biden-Harris success- that has distorted voters' perceptions. Including believing that the GOP and Trump are better at the economy when they are not.

Another pithy point made by Stantcheva (ibid.) was that "bad feelings about the country might make people more pessimistic about inflation".  As well as the nation's direction overall.  She insists that "media negativity doesn't necessarily cause pessimism" but perhaps she hasn't been paying attention to the literal dozens of WSJ op-eds about Biden and inflation since 2022. In fact, it's a damned disgrace how many columns have been churned out exaggerating inflation to the WSJ readers, as well as being reinforced on FOX News. 

So it's no wonder too many of our citizens have been brainwashed by the torrent of economic misrepresentations which have turned brains and perceptions to mush.  I still am convinced a majority of sane, rethinking voters will have the last say tomorrow,  over the rash ones prepared to junk their best economic hopes for a Trumpian econ dystopia.

See Also:

by Thom Hartmann | November 2, 2024 - 5:54am | permalink

— from The Hartmann Report

America’s billionaires would love to have a recession, particularly a really severe one.

In a recent “town hall,” billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged what 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists across the country have predicted: If Trump is elected and he and Elon undertake their project to gut government spending, it will provoke a severe recession.

“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

Most Republican voters aren’t taking his embrace of a recession or a short-term depression like George W. Bush brought us seriously.

» article continues...


And:

by Max Richtman | November 4, 2024 - 5:53am | permalink

For seniors and their families, the choice in this election couldn’t be clearer. Before Donald Trump took office, our organization did not endorse candidates for president of the United States. But Trump was such a four-alarm fire for us and our members (older Americans across the country), that we felt a duty to endorse Joe Biden in 2020, breaking with nearly 40 years of precedent. This cycle, we have endorsed Kamala Harris as the candidate who will genuinely protect seniors’ interests, including the two programs in our organization’s name, Social Security and Medicare. We have also endorsed scores of candidates for House and Senate as “champions” for older Americans.

From a policy standpoint, this is a no-brainer. Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, has pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare from Republican proposals to cut both programs—by raising the retirement age, means testing, and reducing COLAs. But she also has endorsed the idea that the wealthy should begin contributing their fair share in payroll taxes, which would go a long way toward safeguarding the financial health of both Social Security and Medicare. With additional revenue flowing in—plus billions of dollars in savings on prescription drugs from the Inflation Reduction Act—we could not only strengthen, but expand, seniors’ earned benefits.

» article continues...

And:

Wisconsin Voters Would Change To Trump Because Of Housing Costs? A Colossally Dumb Move

And:

Donald Trump & GOP "Better For Economy" ? This Delusion Is Belied By The Facts