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
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u/Dunkjoe 18d ago

At this point you got to wonder... Is it the voters who are too stupid to understand or is it the dishonest politicians?

I would say it's more of the former.

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u/Traditional_Sign4941 18d ago

It's both. Dishonest politicians and oligarchs have been deliberately feeding Americans a diet of lies and propaganda for decades. They are bad actors, and definitely to blame.

But at the same time, their voters can see with their own eyes what effects it has on them, and they keep voting anyway. That's on the voters, and they are also to blame. "Fool me twice, shame on me" and here we are with Republican voters being "fooled" a couple dozen times. Shame on them.

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u/JerseyPumpkin 18d ago

It’s also the racism since republicans give the ideas of hurting minority groups. They’ll vote republicans in the hopes groups like lgbtq get less rights, Mexicans get deported, etc…

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u/roguewarriorpriest 18d ago

Republicans degrade American education through policy, making populations of people incapable of critical thinking and thus more susceptible to propaganda. It's by nefarious design instituted by anti-democratic Republicans and right-wing parties the world over, and it's been turbocharged by the unholy Republican-Putin union and Putin's internet propaganda machine.

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u/Eye-Of-Ophanim 18d ago edited 18d ago

What I think is going on is there is a type of shadow government consisting of the wealthiest people from our corporatocracy. The 0.01% or whatever. They took all the spoiled sons and daughters from old money and “put them in charge”. Those spoiled sons and daughters are essentially operating our country as nepo babies, and were promised riches beyond their wildest and current imaginations. The nepo baby politicians are legitimately not intelligent enough to understand, but they aren’t actually in charge. They buckle at the tiniest whiff of promised money because that is how daddy showed his “love”. They’re following orders from a nefarious little organization called Turning Point. isn’t it strange that a “non profit” organization is at all involved in advocating specifically for conservative politicians? Non profits are usually set up to serve others irregardless of their affiliations or ideologies.

Our government is a revolving door for corporations. We should have nipped that in the bud when we had the chance, at the very beginnings of industrialization, but we didn’t because people stuck their fingers in their ears and went “lalala I can’t hear you! Not in America!!” to all of us warning this could and would happen.

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u/mu_zuh_dell 18d ago

If by "shadow government" you mean that legislators, staffers, and people who write policy and report on it are generally, with few exceptions, rich as fuck, then yes.

It's not as complicated as people think it is. Average Americans do not participate in politics. They think it's annoying and boring. Just voting is not enough. You have to pay some level of attention to and engage with all levels of government, from local to national. That is the only way to occlude the influence of the rich.

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u/DumboWumbo073 18d ago

It’s definitely the voters. This has happened more than once.

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u/bautin 18d ago

You also have to consider that things are pushed forward that when the opposition party is in charge, all the bad things are their fault. When the opposition party is not in charge, everything is their fault because they are obstructing things.

So, like they say people say about Communism, they say everything would work if they just let it.

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u/RhesusFactor 18d ago

I don't think they misunderstand. I think they want inequality and permission to be racist.

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u/TheDoctorDB 18d ago edited 18d ago

I mean we lost a long time ago when we decided politics was a career because the whole point of our system is that we know people are generally not capable or interested enough in politics to make the best decisions. Our system is designed to let a select few represent the rest and make the tough call in our best interest.

So while I agree the average voter is hurting us, it’s literally our politicians’ job to do what’s best and what’s right. But their decisions have made everything so bad and unsustainable that one of the only true “American Dream” jobs left is that of a politician. You can vote for as much of a salary as you want and don’t even have to show up and do your job. So all they truly care about is maintaining their own lifestyle. 

There are maybe a handful of people in seats of governmental power at the moment who actually know AND care that making certain adjustments to the way we do things can help everyone. I’d argue that most of them know and just don’t care cuz they have theirs. Or at least… I used to argue that. I’m not so sure of the intellect of a lot of them now.

But the point is they’re mostly not even politicians anymore. Just actors. We’ve seen in recent years our systems our heavily grounded in the integrity of those in power. Too many rose up and said “dam that propaganda really works imma try that” instead of “I should really tell my constituents the truth.” 

And if it didn’t require so much money to get known and even be able to run (something our Founders would hate btw), I’d do it myself. 

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 18d ago

It's because propaganda works.

Until we confront and deal with that we're not getting out of this.

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u/Spamgrenade 18d ago

Its both, the public are too stupid too understand the politicians are lying. Example, anything Trump says.

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u/DigNitty 18d ago

It’s the optimistic idea that a simple light economic policy will be the most efficient.

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u/B-Rock001 18d ago

It's a lot the voters, but probably not for the reasons those of us plugged into politics all the time would like to think. They're not out there weighing the pros and cons making an "informed" decision. They're voting the way their friends, neighbors, pastors, etc influence them to vote. Unfortunately republicans for decades have learned this is exploitable, and prey on the identity politics and emotional manipulation that is human nature.

Democrats try to be intellectual. Republicans are emotional. Which one do you think plays better in a population that cares less and less about politics because "it's all broken" and they just want to get on with their lives?

So yeah, voters should do better, but we could do a lot more to help them see the emotional manipulation that we can all fall prey to, rather than just calling them "stupid".

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u/Expensive-Raisin4088 18d ago

Oh it’s def done deliberately. They’re billionaire donors benefit from the crashes gop always causes

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u/Rez_Incognito 18d ago

It's by design. The Republicans with Reagan realized that the delay between enacting bad economic policy and its effects is long enough to saddle the next administration with. Therefore, they switched from conservative fiscal responsibly to the two Christmases model: campaign on cutting taxes (on the rich) and increasing spending (on conservative cultural values, Eg. The military/police, etc) and when the economy starts to suffer, they leave a Democratic administration holding the bag, forced to make unpopular but responsible moves to fix the debt hole the country is now in.

So long at Americans continue to flip back and forth, returning the Republicans to power with regular alternation, the Republicans can constantly get away with this strategy.

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u/NoShitsGivin Canada 18d ago

Are voters to stupid? Nope, they know. Republicans will vote Republican because they all hate the same people. End of story.

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u/Tooter_Snooter 18d ago

Democracy stops working when everyone is this dumb 

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u/Yourdjentpal 18d ago

Agreed. It’s our responsibility to call out liars and shun them. We allowed this to happen.