The Second Trump Presidency

Living in a rural state, I find this one to be the most intriguing. I will be interested to see what happens when Trump's rhetoric runs into the real world. How will his rural base react to not having enough workers come harvest time, or having to pay much higher wages.I will also be curious to see what happens when Trump learns who actually pays tariffs.

Assuming Trump does know: This opens a Pandora's box of different conclusions. Did he lie about how tariffs work because he never thought he would actually win? Does he plan on continuing the lie and put tariffs in place? Did he never have any intention of putting tariffs on all imports, but just said it to win votes?Assuming Trump doesn't know: Whiskey tango foxtrot.Added in edit:
Trump claimed we could replace income tax with tariffs. Just to put some numbers on this:2023 revenue from income tax = 2.18 T
2023 imported goods = 3.83 Taverage tariff needed = 57%

I get what you are saying, but that is never how mandates have been defined in the past. If you don't vote then you are tacitly handing your decision to those who do vote. It's the democratic version of the wedding phrase, "Speak now or forever hold your peace."Trump has as much of a mandate as any prior president who was elected by the same majority of popular votes. It sickens me to say that, but it's the truth.

I think you have the cart before the horse. College educated whites tend to vote more for Democrats right now. It wasn't always like this:

quote:

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George H.W. Bush won just 45 percent of Whites without a college degree who voted for one of the two major parties in 1992; Donald Trump won 65 percent in 2020. But Bush won college-educated Whites by four points while Trump lost them by 15 in the two-party vote share.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/...-electorate-diploma-divide

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Much has changed in the last 30 years since HW Bush served his first and only term. If I were to guess about these shifts in the electorate I think some of it has to do with how quickly our society has changed (e.g. gay marriage, increasing minority populations). College educated whites will tend to be more accepting of people who are outside of the norm (i.e. white and straight), and I think that is part of the explanation. The word spoken out loud is "illegal immigration", but I think it is more about an increase in minority populations and the threatening of white privilege for many Trump voters. As to why Trump got more of the Latino vote than in years past, I think that ties into culture war stuff due to higher religiosity in the Latino population.I don't see either party wanting to shrink government. What I think needs to happen is that Trump and the Republicans are given all the rope they want. Democrats should largely get out of their way and let them do what they want. It is only then that we can start to get back on the path towards sanity once people see what Republican policies are actually like. For example, our economy would absolutely collapse if we deported all of the illegal migrants.

Tariffs will shift much more of the tax burden onto the poor and middle class because more of their income goes towards goods that will be under tariffs. Sales tax is like that too.Tariffs will also make the US less competitive in the long term. If US businesses are not forced to compete with exports then they won't innovate to lower costs. An argument can be made for protecting specific industries (e.g. car manufacturing, unfair government subsidies), but not a blanket tariff. Why would we need a tariff on bananas when we don't even grow bananas?

Those confirmation hearings could be our first glimpse into the Republican caucus within the Senate. Are there any Republicans willing to go against Trump? Will Mitch McConnel throw a wrench in the works since he isn't running in the next election? Should be interesting.

I don't know about all the Republicans. The report leaked yesterday, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was leaked by a Republican. Senate Republicans had already hinted that they weren't going to confirm him. I also wonder if Kevin McCarthy was involved, a last stab in the back and turn of the knife.

That's what I would do if I planned on leaking it later, especially if I wanted to save other Republicans from the discomfort of voting against Trump.

MAGA isn't Republican. It's something different, a mix of Democratic populism and isolationism. This is why you have seen so many traditional Republicans leave the party over the last 8 years. It's his loose grip on reality that worries me the most. He believes whatever people tell him, thinks reality changes to fit his beliefs, and doesn't care to learn new things. He's also easily manipulated by flattery.The one power he does have is being a salesman.

Trump's not even in office yet, and he's already trying to shut the government down. Preview of things to come. Musk has already floated requests for removing regulations that are inconvenient for his businesses. It's just straight up grift. This also tells us exactly what Musk will do with his position, benefit himself by going after government agencies that have caused his companies grief. Musk is a walking, talking government ethics violation.

Transparency forced by the Trump Administration??? What???A constant flow of misinformation is not transparency. Hell, Trump can't even be transparent about who pays tariffs (it's the American importer, by the way).

Harris actually understands how health insurance works.I once heard someone ask Trump what a deductible was. He thought a health insurance deductible was the amount of money a health insurance company paid before the customer had to pay anything. IOW, he thought health insurance deductibles worked in the exact opposite way that they actually work.Trump was born a multi-millionaire, and he is incurious as to what it means to not be a millionaire. He has no idea what it is like to even be middle class. Harris at least understood that part.

They were designed to convict someone who broke the law.

That's just stupid. We are going to twist Canada's arm by taxing Americans?

I'm kind of curious about that myself. What percentage of Trump voters really do think US tariffs on Chinese goods will be paid by China? Given what I have heard, probably more than half. Probably a good illustration of why Trump keeps lying . . . it works.