How much is your local "Trump at the Pump Tax?"

ehhhh....people cry and complain about decades of administrations kicking cans down the road so someone else can deal with it.. Someone finally stops kicking the can and the same people complain. Nothing is ever good enough.....everyone wants perfection, but sometimes it's just not gonna happen. Sometimes things just need to happen and let it sort itself out. And here we are, someone is dealing with it, instead of pushing it off on the next guy....it is what it is. personally, I'm paying about a $1.10 a gallon more than pre-bomb. I'm willing to pay a heck of a lot more if needed to keep the hammer hammering.

 

Obama/Biden dealt with it. 47 ruined that for childish reasons. The USA is a continuum of presidents, not one. Now we have problems that may never be fixed, no one trusts a country run like this one is now. Until now the USA was trusted by its allies, now they will think could they elect another madman?

 

Not sure I follow. We didn't find out from our own eyes and ears that Biden was circling the drain until too late because the only 3 people who ran against him in the primary were either clowns or not nationally known, and so nobody paid attention to them, and he steam rolled them without actually showing up. (One of those clowns was RFK Jr.) If Biden had dropped out a year earlier the democratic candidate would have been in a much better position than Kamala Harris found herself when Biden eventually imploded.

But I don't think it would have mattered. The GOP base was by that point fully drinking the kool aid, and they were gobbling up the nonsense and lies that Trump was spouting. Enough of the "undecided" wobbled, and that was that.

Personally I think that candidates for federal offices should be required to take some sort of standardized intelligence/knowledge test, and have a comprehensive physical, the results of both would be publicly available. It would take a constitutional amendment to make it happen. But wouldn't it be nice to not just think "that guy's an idiot" but be able to see a measure of it analytically?

There have been some attempts to figure out the IQ of past presidents. This is a terribly difficult thing to do without actually being able to give a standardized test, but estimates have been made. Interestingly, while some of the Presidents were pretty smart, only a couple actually had very high IQs. Here

The Most Intelligent Presidents in U.S. History

they rate most of the top 27 in the 130 to low 140 range, with just 6 of them estimated at 145 or higher, and only 3 above 150. That study was done before Trump. Still, he was so proud of his academic and other scores that he spent his entire adult life working to erase them, which is hardly consistent with the rest of his personality if any of that data showed him in a favorable light.

 

It’s Easter but it shouldn’t be forgotten 47 didn’t go to any debates for the primary. his hubris alone got him the nomination. he knew they would ask him “what were you doing for over three hours as our Capitol was broken into and ransacked, and Congress had to evacuate, stopping the proceedings?” he has no answer except he wanted to overthrow the election.

 

That can only be because your eyes and ears were closed at the time.
I do not say this unkindly, and speak as a former Never Trumper.

Most people wed their beliefs much more faithfully than they do their spouses - which is exactly the opposite of critical thinking:
(actively analyzing, evaluating information, questioning assumptions!)

I'll give an example that is 'leftie friendly:'
Ron DeSantis.
VERY effective RED administrator in what ought to be a Sapphire BLUE state.
You want to know why he never scaled up?
He had a looooong runway and access to nine figures of panicky "Never Trump" money.
HOWEVER (comma!!!)
The more people knew him, the less they liked him.
HE NEVER won a Presidential Primary.
(sound familiar?)

Speaking of sounding familiar....
The Donkeys do NOT have an empty bench!
If they would have just picked a less cringeworthy VEEP that might have been enough!
I can think of SEVERAL (so called) moderate candidates that would have a more effective POTUS than either of the two choices.

BOTH Parties were held hostage by their fringe extremists last time leaving us with two choices:
Four more years?
or
Four more years.

NOT much of a choice, eh?

Happy Easter.


PS.....
I'll take "capable" over "IQ" any day.

After all.....Elon Musk is pretty smart.

 

Sorry, I couldn't type because I was laughing so hard I was choking.
The problem is that you don't recognize the problem.............it was obvious to everyone else.
Did it not start with his party effectively keeping him hidden for the entire election? You didn't see that as odd?
You weren't able to put 2 and 2 together over a period of years that he had significant problems?
You allowed yourself to be deceived because of your hatred of the opponent.
Your own party set Joe up for failure on that debate. They knew exactly what was going to happen. It was 100% a setup to get Kamala to head the ticket.
Your own party did you dirty, two elections in a row and you don't have a care in the world about it.
Such is life........

 

It wouldn’t have mattered at all, based on the polling amongst
the leaving Biden, Leaving Kamala pro Palestinian voters who are solely responsible for electing Trump.

it’s basically guaranteed Biden would have had more votes than Kamala, but would have still likely lost though it would have been much closer.

the big deal made over Biden’s health in normal years would have never happened and a Biden 2 would have been infinitely better than most of the other options because he was the only candidate that placed extremely competent individuals all around him and below him.

The issue of nobodies running for president has been a perpetual one, it’s rare especially now that nobody watches tv or news that a public figure anyone knows can run without being some sort of celebrity.

we aren’t taught anything about how to choose candidates so the best qualified are ignored as not being celebrities.

If you look closely at the pro Palestinian individuals and the forums they frequentl, AKA those who actually elected Trump,
Their opinion of a woman of color married to a Jew is extraordinarily negative.
the things they say and do in their forums
are at a minimum by their own words heavily leaning in the camp with the mindset of women being unable to handle power let alone the presidency .
That view was being expressed by both men and women , even those claiming to be feminists, in those million strong groups.

If you ask them most all pro Palestinian individuals live and breath middle eastern issues, not caring much about domestic issues
and protest voted against Kamala.

Everything I said has been validated and can be experienced by joining specific forums or discord groups.

the democrats have learned hard that a large portion of their base cannot find their way to electing a woman.

so they either need to placate the extremely divided democratic base who have disparate views in opposition of one another or likely loose.

Most democratic candidates aren’t capable of manhandling the situation we are in operating as if we are in normal times, which won’t work.

For a woman to be electable in our current environment she would have to be 10x better than the other candidates and extremely charismatic similar to Obama

 

It is almost standard practice in modern US politics for a first term President to not engage in the primary for the election that would give them a second term. Doing so is almost all down side (from the candidate's perspective) - plenty of room to make a mistake and hardly any up side. Obama, Clinton, and GW Bush also didn't actively campaign in their equivalent primaries. GHW Bush did campaign in the primary for a second term, and I don't think it hurt him, but he did lose the election. Trump sort of participated, but it was equivalent to standing on a tall cliff and dropping rocks on his opponents. The two parties both complain when the other side's President sits out the Primary, but then do it themselves when they can, so that they can present a "united front". Which is some big BS given that just the man is being elected, we don't have a parliamentary system. Some other countries solve this (elections that are at least partially not competitive) by restricting their President to a single term. Mexico for instance, has a single 6 year term. It doesn't solve everything. The PRI had a de facto monopoly on power from the '30s until their grip finally slipped in 2000.

 

I read a pretty good article about why both parties have moved to the extreme ends, and how it's not gonna change any time soon