Trump Administration Meltdown Thread...

[Ryan]

Nope, iPhones.

[P.D.X.]

More left-leaning might lose their coverage but I'd assume more right-leaning would die from that loss because they're older, no?

And more obese.

[Ryan]

It always seems to me like old republicans still buy pretty much whatever the hell they want. Probably because they paid off their $4,000 mortgage in 1973.

[Nonlinear FC]

Vote officially delayed.

[Joe K]

It always seems to me like old republicans still buy pretty much whatever the hell they want. Probably because they paid off their $4,000 mortgage in 1973.

Also, GOP legislators aren't stupid and I'd imagine whatever cuts actually made it into a final bill would likely be targeted more at the younger poor than at the elderly. Stereotypes aside, if you view the AHCA as a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, it'd likely hurt Clinton voters a lot more than Trump voters.

[A_B]

It always seems to me like old republicans still buy pretty much whatever the hell they want. Probably because they paid off their $4,000 mortgage in 1973.

Also, GOP legislators aren't stupid and I'd imagine whatever cuts actually made it into a final bill would likely be targeted more at the younger poor than at the elderly. Stereotypes aside, if you view the AHCA as a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, it'd likely hurt Clinton voters a lot more than Trump voters.

I think you're underestimating the sheer number of poor Trump voters.

[Nonlinear FC]

Yeah, there's a massive difference between "working class whites didn't whisk Trump into the WH" and "there aren't 10s of millions of poor, white Trump voters."

The article Joe linked to doesn't say they were a non-factor.

[Joe K]

It always seems to me like old republicans still buy pretty much whatever the hell they want. Probably because they paid off their $4,000 mortgage in 1973.

Also, GOP legislators aren't stupid and I'd imagine whatever cuts actually made it into a final bill would likely be targeted more at the younger poor than at the elderly. Stereotypes aside, if you view the AHCA as a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, it'd likely hurt Clinton voters a lot more than Trump voters.

I think you're underestimating the sheer number of poor Trump voters.

I'm dead certain it's significantly less than the sheer number of poor Clinton voters. There may be a lot of poor Trump supporters in more rural areas, but the urban poor votes overwhelmingly Democratic.

[Joe K]

Yeah, there's a massive difference between "working class whites didn't whisk Trump into the WH" and "millions of Trump voters are poor whites."

The article Joe linked to doesn't say they were a non-factor.

Right, but what about the millions of poor *non-white* voters? What percentage of those votes did Trump get? I'd guess a lot less than the share of working class white voters who backed HRC. And all those voters would get hit awfully hard by the AHCA too.

ETA: Per Wiki, Clinton beat Trump 53% to 41% among voters with family income under $30K and beat him 51% to 42% among voters with income between $30K and $50K.

[EnochRoot]

I wonder how much the enactment of the proposed health care plan would erode the Trump/Republican voting base by either hurting people or just removing them from the voting pool.

It would actually have the opposite effect. While Trump did worse with educated white voters (and better with working class white voters) than a typical Republican, his supporters as a whole are more affluent and have higher average incomes than the national average -- and therefore are less likely to be directly hurt by this. So the notion that Trump voters will disproportionately bear the brunt of any policies harming lower income individuals is just not true.

The below article does a good job of debunking some of the misconceptions about where Trump's support comes from:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washin ... king-class

And for every article you can post that suggests a more nuanced view as to why Trump is in the White House?

I refer you back to what Google's been telling us for quite some time:

This country's racist as fuck.

[Joe K]

I wonder how much the enactment of the proposed health care plan would erode the Trump/Republican voting base by either hurting people or just removing them from the voting pool.

It would actually have the opposite effect. While Trump did worse with educated white voters (and better with working class white voters) than a typical Republican, his supporters as a whole are more affluent and have higher average incomes than the national average -- and therefore are less likely to be directly hurt by this. So the notion that Trump voters will disproportionately bear the brunt of any policies harming lower income individuals is just not true.

The below article does a good job of debunking some of the misconceptions about where Trump's support comes from:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washin ... king-class

And for every article you can post that suggests a more nuanced view as to why Trump is in the White House?

I refer you back to what Google's been telling us for quite some time:

This country's racist as fuck.

My point wasn't about why Trump won, it was that the notion that his voters are disproportionately poor is wrong. I don't disagree at all that race was and is a big factor in his success.

[A_B]

My bad guys, I don't always make it far enough upthread and I missed that whole article. Carry on.

[mister d]

Is social security + pension included as regular income for the purposes of those demographic breakdowns?

[Joe K]

Is social security + pension included as regular income for the purposes of those demographic breakdowns?

Not sure. The demographic breakdowns I saw gave Trump a significant edge with old voters but it actually wasn't as pronounced as I would've guessed.

[DSafetyGuy]

I wonder how much the enactment of the proposed health care plan would erode the Trump/Republican voting base by either hurting people or just removing them from the voting pool.

You say that far more tactfully than I do.

I spent too much time figuring out how exactly I wanted to write it, coming from a place where my original thought was likely very similar to yours.

[Pruitt]

You assume he gets paid.

Ha!!!

This asshat is Jay Sekulow, who has been one of the leading figures in the Christian Right movement for the past 25 years. He argued a number of major 1st Amendment and religious freedom cases in front of the Supreme Court, and won many of them. He did a lot of work pushing the boundaries for protesters at abortion clinics, and IIRC, he won a S.Ct. case forcing clinics to allow a space for protesters to scream at women going into Planned Parenthood. Because when you are getting treatment for cervical cancer, you need a group of assholes screaming "whore" at you, condemning you to hell, while shoving high resolution blown up pictures of bloody fetuses in your face.

He is a slimy weasel in the Ted Cruz mold, only Sekulow always seemed like an idiot, whereas Cruz is a genius who intentionally mischaracterizes the Constitution and case law. I haven't seen Cuomo's interview yet, but Chris Wallace absolutely destroyed Sekulow on Sunday. Sekulow went in circles saying there was no investigation of Trump, then blasting the absurdity of the investigation into Trump. Wallace wasn't having it.

Sekulow's Slimy Charities

CASE has no public website and only a dozen employees, at least half of them Sekulows. Yet it commands a budget of more than $53 million, according to its most recent tax filings — an amount that rivals annual fundraising for PETA or the Anti-Defamation League.

All legal most likely. But this is the type of slime that argues for Chrsitian values?

[Johnnie]

This is blowing up the internet today:



Wonder why he's attracted to her...



I'm surprised she doesn't work for Fox, honestly.

[testuser2]

The Trump voters I know fit into two main camps(all white). In our area of appalachia there are no minorities. The college educated well-off traditional repubs or the Blue collar small business owners/workers. Both groups think it will lower their taxes. That second group in the small businesses are going to get hammered by TrumpCare. They have no idea what it really means and mainly thinks it's better because it "fixes" what that black guy did.

[Steve of phpBB]

I wonder how much the enactment of the proposed health care plan would erode the Trump/Republican voting base by either hurting people or just removing them from the voting pool.

It would actually have the opposite effect. While Trump did worse with educated white voters (and better with working class white voters) than a typical Republican, his supporters as a whole are more affluent and have higher average incomes than the national average -- and therefore are less likely to be directly hurt by this. So the notion that Trump voters will disproportionately bear the brunt of any policies harming lower income individuals is just not true.

The below article does a good job of debunking some of the misconceptions about where Trump's support comes from:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washin ... king-class

And for every article you can post that suggests a more nuanced view as to why Trump is in the White House?

I refer you back to what Google's been telling us for quite some time:

This country's racist as fuck.

My point wasn't about why Trump won, it was that the notion that his voters are disproportionately poor is wrong. I don't disagree at all that race was and is a big factor in his success.

His voters may not be disproportionately poor - but was it the lower-income white folks switching from Dem to Republican and gave Trump the margin (80K votes in 3 states) to win the election? I'd expect a lot of richer white people to vote Trump, because they don't want to pay taxes and therefore are Republicans.

[Joe K]

I wonder how much the enactment of the proposed health care plan would erode the Trump/Republican voting base by either hurting people or just removing them from the voting pool.

It would actually have the opposite effect. While Trump did worse with educated white voters (and better with working class white voters) than a typical Republican, his supporters as a whole are more affluent and have higher average incomes than the national average -- and therefore are less likely to be directly hurt by this. So the notion that Trump voters will disproportionately bear the brunt of any policies harming lower income individuals is just not true.

The below article does a good job of debunking some of the misconceptions about where Trump's support comes from:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washin ... king-class

And for every article you can post that suggests a more nuanced view as to why Trump is in the White House?

I refer you back to what Google's been telling us for quite some time:

This country's racist as fuck.

My point wasn't about why Trump won, it was that the notion that his voters are disproportionately poor is wrong. I don't disagree at all that race was and is a big factor in his success.

His voters may not be disproportionately poor - but was it the lower-income white folks switching from Dem to Republican and gave Trump the margin (80K votes in 3 states) to win the election? I'd expect a lot of richer white people to vote Trump, because they don't want to pay taxes and therefore are Republicans.

It's true that lower-income white voters were the most likely to switch from voting for Obama in 2008/2012 to voting for Trump in 2016. So in that respect they gave him the margin. But the original comment was about if the AHCA "removing voters from the voter pool" -- i.e., causing lots of poor uninsured people to die -- would destroy Trump's Electoral chances. And my response is that such an effect would help Trump and the GOP, because most low-income voters vote Democratic and voted for Clinton.

There's a tendency to want to blame the poor and uneducated for Trump's electoral success when in fact, that's just not fair or accurate. The lower one's income is, the more likely it is that they backed Clinton. Rather than blaming the stereotypical Wal-mart shopper in Ohio, we should think about why so many affluent Republicans were willing to jeopardize the stability of this country and planet by voting for an unqualified sociopath.

[Johnnie]

Because greed.

I want to know what the cut off is for "affluent" and what that population's number looks like compared to "not affluent." I'm curious if the poor that voted for trump outnumber the rich that did.

[Joe K]

Because greed.

I want to know what the cut off is for "affluent" and what that population's number looks like compared to "not affluent." I'm curious if the poor that voted for trump outnumber the rich that did.

Admittedly, "affluent" is a subjective term. But the data I've seen is that 36% of voters had household incomes below $50K, 31% had household incomes between $50-100K, and 34% had household incomes above $100K. Trump decisively lost to Clinton (by about 10%) among voters with incomes under $50K and and narrowly beat her (by 2-3%) among voters in both the $50K-$100K and $100K+ income groups. So based on this, I think it's pretty unfair to blame low-income voters for his win. I'm not sure how much of the economic voting trends are due to racial demographics, but either way, the most vulnerable Americans who would be hit hardest by the AHCA are more likely to have been Clinton voters than Trump voters. So I think the "you're getting what you deserve" sentiment I've seen elsewhere (not on this site) is pretty perverse.

[Rush2112]

the most vulnerable Americans who would be hit hardest by the AHCA are more likely to have been Clinton voters than Trump voters. So I think the "you're getting what you deserve" sentiment I've seen elsewhere (not on this site) is pretty perverse.

I know plenty of people in the rural areas that scoffed at ObamaCare because it supposedly was costing them untold thousands to have coverage. They're in for a rude awakening if any of these GOP plans were to pass yet they voted for Trump because he promised to repeal it. These are those people in the 50 to 100K+ range and they certainly will be getting what they deserve.

[brian]

Of all the people I have sympathy for should some health-related calamity befall them I assure you Trump voters are pretty damn far down the list.

[DSafetyGuy]

I don't know if my post about "losing voters" should be strictly limited to the lower classes with the lifetime limits and pre-existing condition stuff.

[Brontoburglar]

may you all not bleed when you get a face lift

[Ryan]

He loves to talk about women bleeding, huh

[rass]

From wherever.

[Johnnie]

Back when The Learning Channel actually taught people things, I'd watch surgeries because it was fascinating to me. The only one that ever grossed me out was the facelift. I had to turn it off. Watching a skin mask get rearranged nearly made me dizzy and start puking.

This has nothing to do with the insult hurled towards Mika. I just figured I'd share.

[Pruitt]

Back when The Learning Channel actually taught people things, I'd watch surgeries because it was fascinating to me. The only one that ever grossed me out was the facelift. I had to turn it off. Watching a skin mask get rearranged nearly made me dizzy and start puking.

This has nothing to do with the insult hurled towards Mika. I just figured I'd share.

a)

At the White House, the president’s deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on national television that Americans “deserve something better” from the country’s media.

b)

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wrote on Twitter, “Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America.”

c) I remember that show - think it was called "The Operation." I watched it a few times, and I remember the face lift episode. Sickening to watch. But the one that got me was the episode when they had to break and then twist a guy's leg to fix some problem. Still have nightmares.

d) Trump's approval rating is at 36%. I say that not to indicate that people are already exhausted by him, but to point out that one in three people still approve of him.

[P.D.X.]

d) Trump's approval rating is at 36%. I say that not to indicate that people are already exhausted by him, but to point out that one in three people still approve of him.

A ham sandwich could get that much approval in this country.

[Pruitt]

[EnochRoot]

I mean, I guess we're all free to rationalize his compliment any which way we choose, but I think we all know smarminess when we see it. At best, even when he tries to be nice, the history of the words that have inched past his own teeth come crashing down upon his efforts to be viewed as a good guy (and ultimately exposes the current president of the United States to be the fraud he always feared he'd be viewed as). At worst, he's objectifying a woman because that's not something he'd ever say to a man of equal stature.

[DaveInSeattle]

It's almost like making a racist, misogynist moron President wasn't the best choice.

[Pruitt]

It's almost like making a racist, misogynist moron President wasn't the best choice.

But she had emails...

[brian]

If only there had been some kind of a clue that he was an unhinged lunatic.

[The Sybian]

If only there had been some kind of a clue that he was an unhinged lunatic.

But that was just Primary Campaign Donald. He will become Presidential once he gets the nomination. Or once he wins the election. Or once he takes office...

Just to play Devil's Advocate, because I really don't give a fuck, but why is it such a horrendous thing for people to make fun of a female politician's appearance, but it's OK to constantly rip Trump's physical appearance? Or call Mitch McConnell a turtle because he looks exactly like a cartoon turtle?

[Johnnie]

Because the patriarchy has been ruling since forever. So #feminism dictates that you can make fun of white men but heaven help you if you say something back.

That's kind how the cards are stacked. I really don't care one way or another, as a straight white male my existence pisses some people off, so weeeeeeeee! You mean I'll get paid more per hour and live rent free in your head? Sounds like the best Amazon Prime deal ever.

/trollrant

[mister d]

I mean ... that's kinda the right answer?

[Ham Sandwich]

d) Trump's approval rating is at 36%. I say that not to indicate that people are already exhausted by him, but to point out that one in three people still approve of him.

A ham sandwich could get that much approval in this country.

36%? The only way Ham Sandwich gets that low is if I come with a heaping dose of Food Poisoning!

Ham Sandwich in 2020! I'm not just for lunch anymore!

Oh, and with his wee little mitts, Trump can only have mini-Ham Sandwiches! Made on dinner rolls!