Media and Democrats obsessed with Russia. People I meet are focused on the economy and jobs.
Anecdotes about Trump’s economy
I mentioned the other day how a friend, who is a lifelong Democrat and always has been very anti-Trump, expressed complete disgust at the media, particularly the handling of Russia, Media overplaying its anti-Trump hand – statistics and an anecdote about a lifelong Democrat:
The conversation was with someone I’ve known for almost 20 years. He’s a lifelong Rhode Islander and Democrat who has expressed strong hostility to me toward Trump in the past. We speak every couple of months, and I’ve never heard him say a good word about Trump….
He then volunteered how frustrated he was with the media, and how they “won’t let Trump do his job.” He said he still doesn’t like Trump, but was very angry at the media particularly the Russia coverage….
It was just an anecdote, meaningful to me because I know the person and how hard it was for him to offer any defense of Trump. It also suggested to me that the media and Democrat obsession with Russia may be backfiring.
More anecdotes, this time related to the economy.
The Second Quarter economic growth rate was solid. One Quarter could be an anomaly, but at least it was heading in a positive direction. The Hill reported on July 27, 2017:
The U.S. economy expanded during the spring as consumers and businesses picked up their spending.
In the April–June quarter, gross domestic product grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate, up from a revised 1.2 percent pace during the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Friday.
Charles Seville, senior director with Fitch Ratings, said, “One encouraging sign in this report is that the recovery in investment continues, while consumption is still growing steadily.”
Consumer spending, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of the economy, grew at a 2.8 percent pace, up from a 1.9 percent January–March period.
Business investment increased at a 5.2 percent rate, down from 7.2 percent in the first quarter but still one of the highest levels in three years.
That report is supported by two more anecdotes.
First, we’re planning to redo our seawall in Rhode Island. An excavation contractor stopped by a few weeks ago for a site visit to come up with an estimate. He said he was incredibly busy, more so than in years. He does a lot of public works projects and is busy on those projects. But he made a point to tell me that he’s seeing a lot more private money flowing into non-government construction projects, and that’s how he knows it reflects economic strength. He kept saying “something’s happening” out there.
Second, we’re doing some remodeling inside the house. One of the sub-contractors, who we’ve used before, told us that in the few hours he was at our house one morning, he got four calls from people looking to hire him. He’s already solidly booked. His words were, paraphrased, it’s incredible, things are just taking off.
These are just some anecdotes. Might be meaningful, maybe not. I think they are.
I think the media and Democrats are missing what’s happening on the ground. The media and Democrats are focused on Russia, Russia, Russia. The people I come into contact with are focused on the economy, and jobs jobs jobs.
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Hope and Change.
Any news, good or bad, has to fit the NARRATIVE!
Steele’s lawyers revealed in court filings that, in September 2016, Steele briefed reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo! News, The New Yorker and CNN on behalf of Fusion GPS.
So, now we know that The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo! News, The New Yorker and CNN colluded with Fusion GPS to disseminate Russian funded propaganda.
Yes, this article is a perfect example of feeding the narrative – a few anecdotes selectively chosen and pfff – Trump is a winner.
As late as the Clinton Admin, any bump in the economy was credited by conservatives to Reagan. I see the hand of Obama is this mild improvement. I forgot! Trump has done so much to fix healthcare, reform taxes and change trade policy. That must be why!
Two things determine reelection prospects: the economy, stupid, and notable foreign events, like success or failure in war.
That certainly explains Barracula’s second term…
Absolutely NOT.
except the media hid information, manipulated numbers, and tried to convince us all that NOT supporting BO was a terrible 4-letter R-word. Plus, Romney. He didn’t want to fight as dirty as BO, and well, he got stunk.
…so we agree; it isn’t just about the economy and successful prosecution of wars.
Good…!!! That’s a start.
perception of the economy. Perception accounts for a lot. Also, there was a lot of information about the economy and about the War on Terror that was not “allowed” to be general knowledge until after his re-election.
I do not know that we are disagreeing.
Actually it does.
The media and the Obama administration outright lied about the economic numbers (most obviously unemployment) and then quietly ‘corrected’ the numbers months later, and the FED artificially propped up Obama’s economy for basically his entire term.
Most obviously the official unemployment report release 1 month before the election magically broke the 8% unemployment rate and then they quietly did a massive correction after the election.
Huh. So your thesis is that…regardless of the terrible economy and the manifold foreign policy disasters…the only thing that got Barracula re-elected was the PERCEPTION that people had about those.
Because Barracula lied.
Doesn’t that sort of contradict the Prof.’s main theme of this piece he wrote…that people are perceptive enough to know WTF is going on around them?
Because, OF COURSE, Barracula lied. All the freaking time! And there were about 30% of the people who reliably believed him. (You can’t fix stupid.) That does NOT explain his re-election.
Does it? All I’m saying is that the economy and foreign policy are all there is to it is thumpingly simplistic.
And that people are smarter than we sometimes allow. Mushroom Media be damned.
President Obama got reelected because the Republicans put up a pathetic candidate who ran a pathetic campaign. Same reason Trump got elected. Democrats did the same thing.
You can’t deny that despite the media spin during the obama years that the only people perceiving a good economy were in Washington D.C., now our America’s wealthiest town after confiscating the wealth of the nation for a good 20 years or so now.
There was much more going on in 2008 and 2012 than just the economy and foreign adventures holding sway over voters. These were dark times for America.
I agree with your last, dawg. The Obamic Decline was a very dark period for America.
Here are a couple of my perceptions of why Barracula won the second term:
1. Romney was a good candidate who ran a campaign that showed too much diffidence to Obama, civility, and failed to articulate effectively his several excellent policy positions. He was a good man who failed to excite supporters.
2. Obama had irritated the issues of race, gender, and all grievance politics until they were throbbing sores on the body politic. And, like Dollar Bill Clinton, he was a facile liar who had the Mushroom Media solidly behind him.
3. White and other voters were simply not exorcised enough to have their bad experiences with Barracula drive their vote to turn out the historic first black president from office…a very real kind of racial discrimination.
4. While the economy stank, people were still eating, as Limbaugh observed. Sometimes people are fat, dumb and happy with crumbs…or at least prone to take a nape after eating three squares a day. Unlike most of us here, they just were not fired up by the Obamic Decline.
Those are my thoughts.
Still with Hillary.
Still frothing silly lies.
Those Russians are really clever — continuing to prop up their puppet Trump by helping the U.S. economy.
Because reporting on anything other than Russia would actually mean saying good things about Trump and the media has far to much invested in Russia to start telling the truth now.
I think the media and Democrats are missing what’s happening on the ground.
Just me,,, but I think it is far worse. They know very well what is happening on the ground, they don’t miss a trick. They are actively working on how to obfuscate real news. It is deliberate, very deliberate. Not to mention despicable.
If they didn’t know, why would they be making up fake polls, fake headlines and fake narratives? They know it and it scares the hell out of them. If destroying the US economy for the 4% where the economy actually works is a necessary equalizing step for establishing a “flat earth” egalitarian global economy for the other 96%, a rebounding US economy is bad news. It just proves how wrong they are about everything. Maybe it’s time for the narrative to switch to redistributing the wealth of the Masters of the Universe before they redistribute ours.
There you go…!!! I can always rely on you revealing just who you really are, and what you really believe, in between your rah-hah BS in service to your little Yellow Goad.
You aren’t a conservative. You’re just a Collectivist who thinks in terms of redistribution being swell, and a mystical set of enemies you want to punish. You aren’t for small, less powerful government; you’re for taking it away to make your various fantasies come true.
And the turnaround isn’t materializing in places where it should were the NWO socialism actually working:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-29/illinois-had-worst-pesonal-income-growth-us-over-past-decade
This is why Trump won in MI, WI, IN, PA and other blue states. Not good news for the “I’m withe her!” NeverTrumpers either.
Free(er) markets work everywhere they are allowed to, all over the world.
And that whole notion is the opposite of socialism. Think Texas.
One reason T-rump won in the Rust-Belt is that he lies to people a very great deal, and a lot of people are too lazy to exert the rigor of thinking or doing to resolve their problems. T0rump lies effectively. It’s a talent.
If you’re a union steel worker in the dark folds of the Pennsylvania hills who’s too tied to place and union crap to pick up and move to where jobs are, and maybe work in a non-union job, having the Great Goad Cheeto come to your area and sell you the myth that American steel production is coming BACK TO YOU is a very comfortable mutual lie.
It won’t come back, and for a basket of economic reasons, none of which is the NWO or any other form of fantasy.
There is a war for the survival of American sovereignty in progress. We are only still in the game because of Trump and he is the ONLY ONE FIGHTING ON OUR SIDE! And he is storming the beaches against the NWO. Yet you continue to frag your side with your NeverTrump loser nonsense. You aren’t even fighting FOR anything! You don’t even have a viable alternative candidate! We either do continue doing something or follow you and do nothing but hope that we get another chance later. Your constant vulgar insults and lies only serve to show the world that your are an obnoxious kook.
Haven’t you made enough enemies and alienated enough people over the years? PLEASE GO AWAY ALREADY!
“Yet you continue to frag your side with your NeverTrump loser nonsense. You aren’t even fighting FOR anything! You don’t even have a viable alternative candidate!”
You and I are not on a “side”. We share a very few interests, and you pretend a few others. I deplore most of what you ACTUALLY believe.
I don’t have a cultist attachment to a person, no. I DO have a wonderful set of principles that I’ll defend against you just like I’ve defended them all my life. So, what you said is a damned lie. I do have things I fight FOR.
That doesn’t mean I “do nothing”. And you being an enthralled, self-deluded cult follower doesn’t mean you’re doing anything. Especially anything useful.
But you’ll keep lying about me lying (you know I don’t) and my “constant vulgar insults” which are really pretty rare, and attempting your usual shutuppery like the good little ThoughtPolicing goon you are.
And it won’t work. Never has. Never will. But, froth on, Filly.
I LOVE IT…!!!
“We are only still in the game because of Trump and he is the ONLY ONE FIGHTING ON OUR SIDE!”
Well, we know this because T-rump told us “Only I can fix it!”
This is consummate bullshit from a narcissistic snake-oil seller nonpareil, echoed here by a pathetic toady.
T-rump has corrupted fairly conservative guys like Half-Pence and Gingrich into unapologetic Keynesians. Among many other T-rump corruptions of the conservative movement, to include getting a bunch of people to defend the indefensible.
Oh, and he did it allllllll his own sef’.
http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2017/07/30/one-tweet-trump-dismisses-anyone-ever-helped-get-today/
So, let’s retire the stupid, inaccurate, and pejorative “nevertrump” bullshit in favor or #realism. Shall we?
I’ve developed a friendship with an Ann Arbor liberal who works for an environmental investment firm. Our relationship revolves around expensive drinks at a trendy bar and discussing politics. Yes, I actually am able to have a DIALOGUE with a Liberal. He hated Hillary and voted Johnson which was no surprise. Recently though, he said that he regrets not voting for Trump. I’m not kidding. He looks at all of Trump’s policy decisions to date and what the economy is doing and he is fed up by the Democrats’ and media messaging. They no longer speak to him. He also doesn’t relate to their messengers in Waters, Pelosi, Perez, Ellison, Sanders, Shumer, etc. He’s lost a lot of Leftist Dem friends but he has no problem with it.
What the Dems are missing and why they will take a beating in 2018 is that if you can lose an educated, white, environmentally committed, life-long Liberal like this guy, you’re finished. Instead they are in denial and I’m not talking about a lake in Egypt.
If I may offer another improving-economy anecdote, Prof, I had been out of work for over a year by this April, and then I found a listing that I applied for and was hired within two days. After arriving, I was told that the company (we write software for short-term lenders) had basically been undergoing almost explosive growth since November 20th–the day after the election their phones essentially went off the hook with incoming calls from new customers and old ones looking to expand.
I ended up being the first in a wave of six new developers–which doubled their prior staffing.
To be completely honest, I’m not 100% convinced we would have seen this kind of economic reaction had the new president been anyone but Trump. MAYBE Carly, or maybe if Herman Cain had decided to run again, but I think there is such a very broad public perception of Trump as so business-savvy – or, at least, so business-oriented – that people felt free to take those business risks that lead to strong growth. Whether it’s sustainable without more action from DC – by which I mean “actually enacting tax reductions” – is up in the air, but for now I’ll take a country running on optimism.
Here are some truisms…
Business start-ups and expansions have to try to predict uncertainties.
Obama spun off uncertainty like a possessed cotton-candy machine in a Steven King novel.
ANY of the contenders for the GOP nomination were sure to provide greater certainty than we’d ever seen in recent years.
T-rump is LESS likely to provide economic certainly than any of the GOP field, what with his love of BIG GOVERNMENT control of the economy and his Bernie Sanders trade policies.
Oh, dear!
There are some here who dispute my assrtions…!!!
Take a minute, down-thumbers, and elucidate your arguments.
Or you can STFU and admit you got nutin’.
I’m obsessed with Russia too. Mainly, their involvement in Fusion GPS and its connection to operators in the US. Strangely, Democrats don’t seem to want to investigate that.
“The people I come into contact with are focused on the economy, and jobs jobs jobs.”
All, every single one, of my US customers are now on the uptick. 1 year ago it was blah. That translates up and down the line.
You can make any claim you wish as to why this is. We only have one President however. I can say without question that my customers all attribute the business increase to the perception that Trump is American business friendly. It might have happened with other R presidents, but not with all of them.
Love this graphic the Prof put up on the previously related article to this.
https://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/People-vs-Press-Jon-Gabriel-Ricochet.png
The leading Democrats from Obama, Schumer, pelosi and down are also focused on jobs and the economy: How to destroy jobs and destroy the economy.