Author | Lightnews

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 11h

It would help their argument if far left candidates could win with any sort of regularity anywhere outside of NY and SF and a few other places.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 12h

Perception is reality.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

I’ve always wondered if the left felt that the culture war issues would benefit them in the long run, in that they assumed cultural norms would keep loosening post 70’s? A serious miscalculation if true.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Gosh you nailed it here far more eloquently than I ever could. I’m consistently making the point in here that there are different ways to talk about issues that resonate with, or antagonize, voters. It’s not what they say, it’s how they are saying it.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Bingo. Hate of those who are different is the most powerful tool in the demagogues tool chest.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Yet somehow, during the 90’s, after all those allegedly awful things, we had 4% GDP growth, balanced budgets, middle class wage growth. Sorry but Reagan is pretty much wholly irrelevant to our politics. It was another era, and neither party is reflective of his politics today.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Sorry but the data is clear. Income growth was far better under Reagan and Clinton than Obama and Bush. And we had a balanced budget that year.

www.brookings.edu/articles/hou...

Household income growth under four American presidents | Brookings

The conventional wisdom about the American economy is that, in spite of the recovery, middle-class Americans are still hurting. A new Brookings paper from the economist Rob Shapiro upends the conventi...

www.brookings.edu

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Again, the 90’s wasn’t a decade without problems or complaints. I’m referring to the balanced budget, annual 4% GDP growth, rising middle class wages relative to prices, etc. Things we haven’t had, since you know, then.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

“Fine” is a relative term that doesn’t mean absence of any problems. I was referring to the annual 4% GDP growth, spiking middle class wages, and a world at peace, as things were in 1999. It wasn’t a world without problems, or without complaining.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Peculiar how it took Trump to marry all that together. It wasn’t for a lack of trying on the part of the Pat Robertson’s, Pat Buchanan’s and Tom Tancredo’s of the world. I guess it was just a movement looking for a personality to coalesce around.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

There’s been a lot of study over who exactly those people were, and how they would’ve voted in 92 or 96 in a two way race, but I think they were MAGA before MAGA. Protectionist, populist, isolationist and nativist in a way that didn’t fit into either party at that moment.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

“Fine” doesn’t mean absence of all problems. But if you wouldn’t trade the economic, global and political climate of the 90’s for the mess we have today, that’s just plain insane.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

I guess you didn’t like an economy that grew at 4% annual, exploding middle class wages and a world relatively at peace.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Voter griping aside, the problems we face today: economic and global instability wise, are largely a result of foolish choices made in the 2000’s. And to be clear: yes many of us voted for that, myself included.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Yes this was my point, but yet, I went back and looked, and somehow ole Ross Perot managed to get nearly 10% of the vote back in 1996.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 13h

Oh, I hope I didn’t give the impression that the populist angst wasn’t a thing back then. We did have Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan. I was referring more to the state of the economy and middle class. Income inequality grew and middle class wage growth stagnated post 2000.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 14h

There might be more to agree on there than you think. Pre-Trump media did have a leftward (but wholly sane slant). But the Overton window shift you cite is real, and where the left is failing the current moment IMO, is allowing the RW to play both sides of the media table.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 14h

And a lot of that isn’t due to any specific policy. It’s the endless list of policy wishes that would seemingly upend voters lives from healthcare to EV’s to beef. Liberalism is one thing. But make it finite, people like their changes in smaller doses.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 14h

And yet, we had a vibrant middle class as recent as 2000.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 14h

Wholly disagree. Everything was fine until 2000. I’ll leave it at that.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 14h

Yes, and that only fuels the “Trump is just another Republican president being persecuted” line that MAGA is only too happy to trot out. This is why is our discourse is a basically giant feedback loop that sane washes and lionizes Trump.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 1d

He had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. That’s a recession, however mild.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 1d

A quibble: he had a slight recession which. Clinton didn’t. And it didn’t feel that way for a couple of reasons: 1.) inflation. AND 2.) I suspect the bigger problem, he wasn’t able to message that the economy was good. The RW created social media vibes were that the economy was awful.

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mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 1d

We haven’t averaged 4% GDP growth since then. Everything was cheap. We balanced the budget. Clinton made government work. No one has been able to come close to matching his record on the big ticket economic and governmental efficiency issues.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social @mikeilikemike.bsky.social · 1d

Several factors. 1.) times were good. This is the easy one. 2.) you had a highly competent and intellectual president who was in charge. 3.) we had just won the cold war and possibilities seem endless. We can’t ignore that the country hasn’t been right since Clinton left.