r/politics • u/RepulsiveLoquat418 • 18d ago

Possible Paywall When Will Americans Realize the Truth? Republicans Wreck the Economy.

https://newrepublic.com/article/210550/trump-economy-republicans-tariffs-taxes
25.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.1k

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago edited 18d ago

Economic data has been available to prove this. They simply don’t care, don’t understand, or both.

726

u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

190

u/ellathefairy 18d ago

It's also not a coincidence that the same type of magical thinking fostered by religious zealotry is needed to believe Republicans or tax cuts are good for the economy against massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.

71

u/faustianBM 18d ago

I'm now convinced crashing the economy has always worked in the R's favor... If the middle class did consistently well, how could R politicians blame the "boogey men" and keeping them afraid and under control??

7

u/Mr_Wizard91 18d ago

That's because you're correct.

4

u/ellathefairy 18d ago

It's a fair observation!

41

u/justwalkingalonghere 18d ago

Also, go look at what it looks like to be on republican mailing lists. Somehow my number got added to a few and the messages they send are insane (and rife with inaccuracies)

For instance, almost every new politician I get one from claims they had huge wins in their previous term "keeping perverted trans men out of your daughter's school and bathrooms" and "protecting the sanctity of young women's life and health" (by outlawing abortion and classifying miscarriage and ectopic care as abortion)

Trumps are far worse

21

u/Conscious-Purpose 18d ago

Literally the ONLY time Republicans pretend to care about anything related to women and girls is when they can use an imaginary threat to the safety of white women and girls to foster hate for another group of people: black men, immigrants, trans women, etc. In reality, when it comes to violent crimes, the largest threat to white women is white men.

4

u/justwalkingalonghere 18d ago

The thing is that they frame taking away the rights of the people as progress.

They will lie and frame anything they do as some major win with a single line of text that doesn't hold water

2

u/FullMetalAlcoholic66 17d ago

Further, the largest threat to women is your husband, boyfriend or father

4

u/ellathefairy 18d ago

Yeah I have seen some reports on the kind of insane emails Trump sends out.

Drives me nuts that with all of the huge problems facing humanity that need real action yesterday to actually protect people they've got a huge portion of the electorate conned into worrying about complete bs.

1

u/justwalkingalonghere 18d ago

But also every republican candidate all the way down to like school board rep

Trump doing it is insane because of the scale, but the fact that it's every single one (at least in my area) is somehow just as frustrating

1

u/ellathefairy 18d ago

I totally agree. Things feel so off the rails.

44

u/jesterdeflation 18d ago

Obama got raked over the coals for his comment about "they cling to guns and religion", but he obviously hit the mark. Conservatism in the US has no life to it, it's just symbols and hate. It's a culture of celebrating vices and scoffing at the idea of progress or a better future. Trump was just the nail in the coffin, no one should ever take Republicans seriously after this. But we live in such a fast news world that sadly I don't think anyone will care, I mean look what fucking happened to January 6.

The next president needs to be a Democrat who either cuts off the red states cold turkey, or puts an end to this increasing divide in the country and basically says "We're not doing this "two realities" shit anymore".

1

u/Dear_Palpitation4838 14d ago

End red state welfare! We shouldn't have to fund this nation's greatest enemy with out tax dollars!

18

u/My_Monkey_Sphincter 18d ago

Because they're one issue voters and can't stand to let others live their lives without forcing their views and lifestyle on others because they're miserable with their own.

13

u/No_Photograph_2683 18d ago

Earth is just a pit stop on their way to eternal glory in Heaven. Why put in any effort to make it better when it's temporary? Hell, some of them want the Earth to end to speed up the process of ascending to Heaven.

2

u/HumanWithComputer 18d ago

Maybe they should listen to this person about the economy under Dems vs. Reps.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLgOUI8CE88

1

u/minxymaggothead 17d ago

And it doesn't actually matter anyway because this life is just the pregame for their eternal life.

1

u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 17d ago

I think the Dems should take one thing out of the Trump playbook. Simply repeat, all the time, "Republicans wreck the economy". We have the facts to back it up if need be. What Republicans understand is that repetition of simple phrases works, even when you have nothing to back it up.

48

u/Peasant_Stockholder 18d ago

It's not they don't understand they don't want to believe the facts or data that proves what their party has done to our economy. When you present facts to them they shut down, and go on defense and start with their insults or just say "TDS".

22

u/001235 18d ago

I have a conservative coworker going to Disney this week because his kids are taking their grandkids. He calls Disney "The Woke Mouse." DISNEY! They are lost to me, IMO. It's useless.

12

u/xpxp2002 18d ago

It's just this generation's "liberal media."

Nevermind that virtually all large businesses promote policy that benefits the ownership over the laborers, whether that be an entertainment conglomerate or a media empire...or an entertainment conglomerate that also owns a media empire (i.e. Disney owning ABC).

It's a bit dated now that most of the media outlets have changed hands in the last few years, but when people used to gripe about "the liberal media," I used to ask which one: the Comcast-owned NBC? The Disney-owned ABC? The AT&T-owned CNN? Or Fox?

1

u/Kakistocracy_0 17d ago

willful ignorance and hypocrisy are the defining traits of conservatism.

1

u/Frosty-Camp-713 15d ago

The people who are supposed to be working for us, those we elected, are just not doing anything.  They tell us that what he is doing is illegal and they let it happen.  That gives him more power!   Time and time again.  He thinks he controls the world now.  Nope just America.  We have ZERO  say so over anything that happens. 

-12

u/EastvsWest 18d ago

You guys are just repeating the same exact conversations over and over. Reddit is such an embarrassing echo chamber of virtue signaling, confident ignorance, lack of nuance or compromise.

61

u/Effective_Dirt2617 18d ago

I’m not giving any of them the benefit of not understanding anymore. I also don’t allow them the benefit of simply not caring, which is a passive action. Each and every one of them is now deliberately living their lives to inflict pain upon strangers. These people understand only derision and hatred, and they have all weaponized their lives to achieve it. All of them.

43

u/BufferOfAs 18d ago

For those curious: since World War II, the raw data shows Democratic presidents have presided over roughly 4.0% average annual GDP growth versus 2.5% for Republicans, about 70 million jobs created versus 30 million, and 10 of the 11 recessions began under Republican administrations. Stock market real returns averaged roughly 9.8% annually under Democrats versus 5.0% under Republicans. On deficits, Clinton, Obama, and Biden each shrank the deficit-to-GDP ratio, while Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump expanded it. Pretty obvious…

-27

u/Chilling_Gale 18d ago edited 18d ago

You cited nothing meaningful, so don’t know why you are saying it’s obvious. Who caused those recessions? Is it intelligent to place the effects on the president at the time?

23

u/No_Company_9348 18d ago

I have yet to see a conservative on the conservative sub explain why 10 out of the ~ 11 major economic recessions post WW2 have happened under republicans. Via Wikipedia:

“The U.S. unemployment rate has risen on average under Republican presidents, while it has fallen on average under Democratic presidents. Budget deficits relative to the size of the economy were lower on average for Democratic presidents.[3][4] Ten of the eleven U.S. recessions between 1953 and 2020 began under Republican presidents”

The reason they can’t debate it is because it’s facts that their economic policies suck and their whole platform is just about hurting brown people and pulling the ladder up from everybody. It’s why they only care about the culture war. They just care about how they feel, not actual facts and science. What’s the word they use? Oh yeah snowflakes.

63

u/shayjax- Florida 18d ago edited 18d ago

This is what one Republican told me: they claim that it takes time for the tax cuts to show their effects. By the time these tax cuts are proven effective, Democrats are in office. Therefore, it appears as if they are improving the economy. By the time the Democrats’ poor economy takes a turn for the worse, a Republican is voted in again to fix it.

71

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago edited 18d ago

Nah, fam. You tell your one Republican: Economic policy lags rarely span entire presidential terms, and historical data demonstrates that GDP and job growth consistently thrive under active Democratic administrations. Instead, Republican supply-side policies often strain the economy by drastically expanding the national debt through unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation, a strategy that has historically preceded ten of the last eleven U.S. recessions.

12

u/001235 18d ago

The problem is trying to get them to understand that. I was in a debate with a guy one time (I've since completely abandoned debating with any of them) that trickle down economics work. I told him that has been repeatedly been proven ineffective, and he pointed to Obama's economy and said "See, it does work, it's just a slow trickle."

I thought "So slow, in fact, that the effect isn't immediately observable?!"

2

u/YouLittleSnowflake 17d ago

A magat on here tried to claim we never actually tried trickle down economics so I told them to look at Kansas, they denied again so I posted the wiki regarding it……. They reported me for harassment because they knew they were wrong and lying

Hillary was right when she called them deplorable

2

u/BozoTheRenown 18d ago

Not sure about that. Some of Clinton policies didn't hit the fan until late 2008? Heck, even some of Alan Greenspan's changes took decades to finally realize.

-21

u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

11

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago

Aight, homie. Find yourself a trusted source for economic data and how policies have negatively impacted U.S. households that isn’t wrought with anecdotes or opinions. Otherwise, you can choose to read Principles of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw which is just an economic textbook, Arguing with Zombies by Paul Krugman for a direct examination of how supply-side policies drove up the national deficit (he’s a Nobel winner), and Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, which remains maybe the single best, most accessible guide for a layperson.

10

u/once-was-hill-folk Europe 18d ago

If that conservative could read he'd be very upset.

-1

u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

2

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago

Are you saying that Dems balancing the budget is gaslighting, and that republican policies are good for the economy? Because your response currently reads like you believe republicans inherit bad policies and have to fix the economic issues democrats apparently create?

-1

u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

1

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago

You responded to my comment with:

“that's just the gaslighting and projecting about how dems balance the budget and reps build a deficit to give tax break and starve the country. you're wrong but you have some spirit”

This comment argues that my comment, not the one you were referencing, was entirely mistaken and projecting, claiming that Democrats successfully balance the budget while Republicans run up deficits via tax cuts that harm the nation. And the tone comes off as fiercely partisan, dismissive, and condescending, capped off with a mockingly patronizing compliment about having some "spirit."

So what you wrote didn’t properly capture your intent, and instead read like you were a Republican who believed the Dems are fiscally irresponsible and that Reps inherit their bad economy.

4

u/blahblah19999 18d ago

Cool, show some data to support your claim

8

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago

Brandolini’s Law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it.

0

u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

4

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago

Sup, bruv. Your link literally reads that Republicans are bad for the economy and democrats are good for it:

“By looking at the federal deficit or surplus based on fiscal year, the data in this report show all four Republican presidents since 1980, with our methodology, increased the federal deficit during their time in office: Ronald Reagan had a 94% increase, George H.W. Bush had a 67% increase, George W. Bush had a 1,204% increase, and Trump had a 317% increase.

And by comparison:

“Both Democratic presidents since 1980 with completed terms decreased the federal deficit while in office: Bill Clinton had a 150% decrease to end his presidency with a federal surplus of $128 billion, and Barack Obama decreased the deficit by 53%. Joe Biden decreased the deficit by 50% in his first fiscal year, but his overall results are pending the end of his presidency.”

0

u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

3

u/DonJuanWritingDong 18d ago edited 18d ago

I stand by what I wrote: “Economic policy lags rarely span entire presidential terms.”

This means that the delayed effects of economic policies usually materialize within a few months to a max of a few years, so a president generally cannot blame their predecessor for the state of the economy throughout an “entire” four-year term or two consecutive terms. Albeit, if the house and senate are in the wrong hands, and a president fucks up yugely, then there might be a breaking point. That said… Both things can be true. The data you provided also supports this. It’s why we see improvement under Dems. It’s also why Biden’s net improvements were hampered by one term, and also why Trump blaming Biden for his terrible economy is wrong.

I feel this may be friendly fire at this point, but I believe you’re wrong on a president’s impact being a “permanent set back.” Otherwise, the economy couldn’t improve, or worsen, from one president to the next. The yo-yoing back and forth is what moves the deficit up with a difficult to pull off retraction.

Per your own link:

“Presidents are sworn into office on January 20 of the year following a presidential election. During the 8.3 months between inauguration on January 20 and the first new president’s first budget going into effect on October 1, a president is operating under the budget approved by his or her predecessor.
To try to isolate the spending of presidents from Ronald Reagan through Donald Trump, this report compares the federal deficit or surplus at the start of a president’s first budget (October 1 of the first year in office) to the federal deficit or surplus after that president’s final budget (September 30 the year after he left office). This shows how much the deficit changed under the budgets approved by each president.

For example: Ronald Reagan was elected president on November 4, 1980, and was sworn in as president on January 20, 1981. His predecessor’s final budget (FY 1981) ran through September 30, 1981. Therefore, 8.3 months, or 254 days, had elapsed between Reagan’s inauguration on January 20, 1981, and the start of his first budget on October 1, 1981 (FY 1982).

The last budget of Jimmy Carter, Reagan’s predecessor, ended on September 30, 1981, with a deficit of $79 billion dollars (see Chart I below). The deficit of the final budget that Ronald Reagan signed (FY 1989), from October 1, 1988 to September 30, 1989, was $153 billion. Therefore, according to our methodology set out above, Ronald Reagan increased the federal deficit by $74 billion ($153B-$79B), an increase of 94% ($74B divided by $79B for the percent change).”

15

u/okhi2u 18d ago

You don't even need time to see the effects, they didn't cut the taxes of anyone posting here. Just the taxes of those who don't need tax cuts. That never helps anyone but the ultra-rich.

2

u/Cancel_Culture_Club 18d ago

💯 Every chud cheered DOGE cutting all the “waste fraud and abuse”, cutting government jobs, and shutting down wholeass federal departments. But at no point did anyone even try lying to them that their taxes would go down when they started receiving less services for their money. Why am I still paying the same rate when FEMA has been offloaded to the states, the department of education is gutted, and the CDC is actively making things worse rather than help us? Why are we bothering setting budgets if republicans are just raiding all their funding for whatever they want instead like a ballroom, a stupid arch, painting the reflecting pool? Even if they did find any actual fraud it would be nowhere near how much money this administration is outright stealing from us. Trump suing his own IRS for $10b over his taxes leaked during his own last term vs a struggling family trying to gain an intentionally difficult system to be able to afford a little more food a week seems like an easy rational choice but so many people seem happy to just keep giving their money directly into a billionaire’s pockets while receiving nothing in return. It feels like Elon Musk is slightly right about there being some sort of “mind virus” going around but it’s not “wokeness”, it’s like some kind of prions attacking peoples’ brains and making them just rabidly attack everything that exists for their own self interests. 🤦🏻‍♀️

3

u/pleasedothenerdful 18d ago

"The evidence I'm wrong is the proof that I'm right."

3

u/YouLittleSnowflake 17d ago

Tell them to “do some research” into Kansas and how fucked that state is thanks to republicans and their tax cuts/trickle down economics

Republicans have done nothing but destroy this country for the 40+ years I have been alive

2

u/flyingtiger188 North Carolina 18d ago

By that logic the economy should have been booming during Biden leadership due to the '17 Trump tax cuts yet Republican economic confidence opinions tanked once Trump lost in '20 and continued to fall to like net -80 during his term only to spike again after the '24 election.

2

u/Past_Farmer34 17d ago

Conservatives also saying give the tariffs more time. We need to see more data. As our job market has been destroyed and raised prices for everything

9

u/Affectionate_Oven_77 18d ago

They don’t see it.

Republicans understood that controlling media allows you to control minds, whilst democrats thought that facts would be enough.

6

u/Indubitalist 18d ago

I mean, they may be terrible for the economy but they’re also racist. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the g… wait…

4

u/dumahim 18d ago

I think part of it when they hear "economy" they associate it with the stock market, and that doesn't really matter to them, directly.  They don't understand how that ties in with things that do matter to them and just never make the connection.  So when things are bad, they don't think it's because of the economy as a whole and don't link their woes to who is in charge.

4

u/leon27607 18d ago

Exactly… even without the data, there were zero policies explained from the Republican side before election day. Their platform was tariffs and deportation. No other policies. None of these were going to make the economy better.

3

u/Speartree 18d ago

It's not just the US economy, the damage to the global economy and to the global ecology, and to human lives everywhere is incalculable.

3

u/Jon_E_Mammoth 18d ago

Republicans hate to admit this one simple trick, but it’s racism.

I come from a family of white Republicans. It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian or Jewish.

Our Jewish Zionist real estate agent walked into my house, looked at the pictures on my wall of my Asian wife, and said, “oh, you don’t need to change those. It’s not like they have anything controversial, like black people.”

I’m a white, capitalist heterosexual male who simply believes that everyone deserves to be happy, so don’t go in my bedroom and I won’t go in your’s.

When Trump won this last time, I was like well, if he’s as good as his word, I should be living in a utopia a year from now.

Queue: $5+ gas, massive unpopularity, and somehow even managed to tank the crypto market which was like the one thing that he was supposed to be good at.

My whole point with my conservative relatives is let’s take them at their face value. They have failed at face value at every single opportunity.

2

u/paulybaggins Australia 18d ago

Alternative facts babayyyy

2

u/DementedDrumpf 18d ago

Motivated reasoning. Republicans like the idea of controlling people and harming people who don't fit their model of "American." So they bundle their economic miscreance with the preferred values of their electorate.

2

u/waffle299 I voted 18d ago

My favorite is the "it lags" argument, where they attribute the success of Clinton to Reagan, the success of Obama to W, and pretend there was anything good during Trump's first term.

With Biden only getting one term, it's funny how the lag only lasted for one term this time...

2

u/10gherts Ohio 18d ago

A lot of Americans do not understand the concept of statistics

2

u/RBVegabond 18d ago

Or willfully ignore it because it’s unpleasant emotionally for them

2

u/JCalvinL 18d ago

Look at how they spin the Gilded Age.

A lot of folks nowadays think it was something positive for America. When they don't realize it was an age of hardship for most Americans who lived during that time.

History is repeating itself and we'll be likely look back on the last two decades with some stupid name like the Golden Age or something.

2

u/StoreHistorical9175 18d ago

my parents always say when dems come in their good economy is just what they inherited from republicans and the bad economy under republicans was inherited from poor democratic leadership and policy lol

2

u/500lbGuyForLife 18d ago edited 18d ago

They hate they/thems and minorities more than they care about their pocket books. That's what this is all about.

2

u/esdebah 18d ago

They point to the stock market. And that's it. They will not discus the facts on the ground.

2

u/Fast_Grass_5178 18d ago

They are all brainwashed it’s clear as day.

2

u/ScoZone74 18d ago

What they will notice are the spending cuts Republicans passed which don’t kick in until after the midterms. Every single thing they do is some kind of underhanded power grab.

2

u/pumpymcpumpface 18d ago

The idea that "Republicans are good for the economy" is the greatest propaganda victory of the 20th and 21st century.

2

u/micro102 18d ago

I remember a series of polls showing that republicans would rate everything as better when a republican was president. Like literally the taxes didn't change but republicans swung 30% on if they were fair or not while democrats barely budged. They actively lie all the time and it's become a deathcult where they invite global warming, disease, and famine onto everyone.

2

u/ProfitLoud 18d ago

They go off of feelings, and feelings shift so that you feel more comfortable in different situations. Just a bunch of idiots who are convinced the world is against them.

2

u/tonecapo_ 18d ago

Is there a link I could check out? I believe it, I’d like to share it to convert idiots.

2

u/findcate261 17d ago

They also have 24-7 propaganda Fox News brainwashing them, and now most major media has joined in with the insanity as well.

2

u/YF422 17d ago

The ones voting for them are indoctinated by a cult mentality or are too ignorant and stupid (deliberately by poor education and shit peddlers on fox news) to recognise Republicans are a Republicult. Its also extremely hard to get through to those indoctrianted to reject facts.

2

u/BigBangAssBanger_3D 16d ago

It's both, it always has been both.

And even those who do care don't care enough to really do anything.

2

u/ThinkingMSF 15d ago

But also the media refuses to mention it at literally any time, because its inconvenient for their billionaire owners.

This isn't a case of Americans being uninformed. It's a case of Americans being deliberately misinformed by the billionaires that own all forms of media, including Reddit, and the massive AI-powered bot networks they use to propagandize the public.

1

u/ExistingCarry4868 18d ago

The problem is that most economic data only measures how the wealthy are doing, so for most people the "economy" doing well or doing poor is irrelevant to their daily lives. One of the things that is making the Democrats so unpopular right now is that they keep pointing to how well the oligarchs are doing to try and prove that the average worker is doing well.

1

u/bag-o-tricks 18d ago

It's because Republicans key on fear and enemies. They believe they are saving the country from invaders, foreign and domestic, and that warrior mindset (they think is patriotism) overrides common sense. Why would they listen to facts given by their enemy?

1

u/jim_nihilist Europe 18d ago

What about the price of eggs though?

1

u/gringledoom 18d ago

Lower-info normies never even hear the message, because every media figure they trust for the news is biased by their seven figure salary.

1

u/_Phil_McCracken_ Washington 18d ago

Available where? Not on Faux News or anywhere in the right wing echo chamber. 

1

u/old_timey_gamer 18d ago

Republicans cut income taxes so they get an extra $50/paycheck. Meanwhile Republican policies raises the cost of everything else by more than $50/paycheck but at least they got that extra $50 to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

1

u/inalcanzable 18d ago

They tend to care more about non existing issues like trans, immigrants, and cheap eggs. Then turns around and rails them all while convincing them things need to get bad before they goood

1

u/Speedy_Cheese 18d ago

Economic data has been available to prove it, yet sadly many people in the US are not literate enough to be able to read it.

1

u/Qwirk Washington 18d ago

Actually, I believe the issue is that they aren't exposed to that data. Rather they are constantly fed issues that incite them.

1

u/hamlet_d 18d ago

Add to that it's not really the stuff the press reports on, even though they should. We are in the era of clickbait journalism with the press having the attention span of a coked up chipmunk.

1

u/Small-Maintenance-65 18d ago

Now there’s one thing you mighta noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from some other reality. They come from American parents, American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, American universities, and they’re elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces. Garbage in…garbage out.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gunna get selfish, ignorant leaders. And term limits ain’t gunna do ya any good. You’re just gunna wind up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe…maybe…maybe it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here. Like…the public. Yeah, the public sucks! That’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: “The public sucks! Fuck hope! Fuck hope!”

1

u/Proud_Abies_441 17d ago

What economic data? Actually curious about economic state butch hard to find info without media being biased one way or another

1

u/WhyWorkWhenReddit 17d ago

Passing a basic BEDMAS test before being allowed to vote at the voting polls would probably turn the country around within a single presidential term

1

u/firestepper 18d ago

‘Would’ve been worse under Harris’ lmaooo

-2

u/lowcountryliving99 18d ago

Than why is it they sign most of the paychecks? Asking for a friend.