Political Memes

Hey, remember what I said about groupthink and just repeating the assumptions and then hoping people will absorb them? This is textbook what I meant.

Trump is vastly better at campaigns

Half-empty campaign rallies and people leaving before the end are a hallmark of Trump's campaign rallies. I would assert that it's because he just stands up saying literally any unhinged, weird, angry garbage for literally hours and it gets tiresome after a while.

I have seen one story of people leaving before the end of Biden's speech, and that was because of a delberate protest for his genocide-enabling foreign policy, and then it turned out not to be true anyway.

Trump's also gutted the RNC because he needed all the money to pay his legal bills. It remains to be seen exactly how bad the impacts will be on his and everyone else's ability to run a campaign, but it seems unlikely that it'll leave in place a powerhouse. Eight years ago, some of Trump's natural skill at understanding TV audiences made his skill as a campaigner a lot more real than today; at this point I would say that most of Trump's broad support from conservatives is because a complicit conservative media lies for him like a North Korean news anchor, and not because of anything he's doing.

Trump is also really good at inspiring his base, half of Biden's party doesn't even want him

Trump has 75% of the popular vote in the primary; Biden has 85% (in the midst of historic reasons not to vote for him in the primary and an organized effort specifically not to vote for him, even from staunch Democrats). Also -- 30% of Republican primary voters in a few different state polls said that they wouldn't commit to voting for Trump if he won the nomination. That's a huge deal, and very unusual, with only one real explanation (unlike the differences in primary numbers, which obviously aren't a really apples to apples comparison).

Trump gets to point to a generally good economy for his term until states shut down for covid

Can we please summon to this comment some of those people who jump on every story which covers good things about Biden's economy, to start talking about how good economic numbers don't always translate to a better economy for actual humans?

Biden's strengthened unions, bounced back smoothly from Covid better than literally every other first world country, and boosted pay for low-wage earners even in the face of historic inflation. Trump started mini-trade wars with Canada and China, directly went to factories and coal mines and promised he would bring the jobs back and then weeks later the literal exact same places were closed, and gave away half a trillion dollars via direct Covid-aid fraud (that is literally the number -- not like forgiven PPP loans, which were also massive, but simple rampant theft).

Biden gets to downplay a cumulative 20% inflation during his term.

Quick question, what was cumulative wage growth during Biden's term? Average or median or 10th percentile; you pick.