From our local public library’s new and featured books section:
And, upstairs in the children’s section:
Given the demographics of this Boston suburb, it may not be the right time to #Resist having working-class Black Americans pay higher taxes so that wealthy white families can have their student loans forgiven…
Trump is gone, right? Will people still want to read books about Trump, books about resisting Trump, books about a former president’s elderly wife who was defeated by Trump, etc.? Once President Harris is in charge, is there still a market for a book about the shortcomings of “White Male America”?
What happens to Trump hatred once Trump himself escapes to Florida and/or, depending on how intensively he is hunted by Democrats and their attorney generals, beyond the borders of the U.S.?
“Dr” Phil:
Have you spent even five minutes contemplating why people might not like Trump? Could it possibly, maybe, potentially be that he was actually a bad person/president/human? Shouldn’t the books reflect that reality? Shouldn’t all of the negative press coverage of him reflect his performance?
Why are books mean to him? Let’s take a look at what he has authored…
https://www.nytimes.com./interactive/2021/01/19/upshot/trump-complete-insult-list.html
(you must view it on a real monitor — not phone — to really appreciate the scope)
I’m glad he was doing such a great job that he had time to tweet out ten of thousands of insults to people.
Mike: Even if people had valid reasons (e.g., he’d caused them some personal harm) to hate Trump 24/7 from 2016 through January 2021, my question still makes sense. Trump has had 50% mindshare among upper-middle-class Bostonians, at least to judge by their Facebook posts and what the librarians have put out to feed them. Can Trump still hold that 50% mindshare or will something else replace hatred of him?
I am curious as to what you are trying to imply with the last paragraph in the blogpost?
Is it that you think Trump has done no wrong or that Trump should just be left alone, no matter what he has done?
Christian: I don’t follow Trump or national politics that closely (due to my belief that state/local politics are much more important to the average person) so I can’t say what Trump has or has not done. I do know that what he has done is irrelevant. At Trump’s level, the U.S. is a “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” jurisdiction.
Phil you claim not to follow Trump “closely” however there are dozens of posts on your blog with ‘Trump’ in the title. Let alone a more exhaustive search.
So you either admit to lying here or posting completely ignorant of your stated topics?
Either way where will Q lead you next?
Anon: I haven’t watched Trump on TV or read his tweets. When I see something about Trump it is because a Facebook friend has posted it.
I’m not an important person so I can’t do anything about world, national, or local events. Therefore, a news article is relevant to me only if one of my friends is thinking about it. And the relevance comes from the mental processes of my friend, not the news per se.
So my posts are about how Americans (at least the ones whom I know here in the Boston area and out in San Francisco) react to Trump, not so much about Trump himself.
(It will be the same with Biden/Harris. What’s most interesting to me is how people react to them as saviors, not whether they are actually going to save the nation (packed with at least 74 million Deplorables, so I don’t see how it would be possible to save). I am also interested in how folks, especially investors, can adapt to what Biden/Harris might do.)
Where will Q lead me next? Into an Aston Martin, I hope, so that I don’t have to borrow my friends’ (I have two friends who live across the street from each other nearby and both have Aston Martins).
Trump and Trump policies did improve lives of many Americans primary to coronavirus epidemics. The rate of improvement was largest in over 30 years but not as large as we wished it were. Trump exerted largely very positive influence on the world stage without getting us into new long-term wars. And he had kept sanctioning Putin up to his last day in the office despite congress that impeached Trump on fake Russia dossier overturned part of his sanctions (would be funny if it were not sad).
Are we talking about the same president? It sure looks rather differently to me from here in Europe.
The GDP growth was on par with Bush and Obama, the jobs did increase but was continuing a trend that started in 2010. That is (for all of the economy) only until the pandemic hit and Trump was unable to talk away that. See for instance https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-contrasting-trump-economy-obama-bush-administrations-republicans-democrats-2020-10?op=1&r=US&IR=T#economic-growth-under-trump-was-barely-above-both-obama-and-bush-before-the-pandemic-wrecked-it-1.
Many of US traditinal allies has been looking at Trump with shock and horror and considered him a destabilizing force. He killed the Iran deal and was unable to put anything in its stead. He did pull out of Syria but threw the kurdish allies under the turkish bus; his stern warning to Turkey was ignored (press reports said that the Turkish primeminister threw Trumps letter into the bin with a laugh) and within days, Turkey started advancing into Syria. He did nothing to solve the conflict in Palestine (except to help Israel all he could).
While he was tough on the Russia gas pipe, he was soft on Russia in many other ways, CNN has a list here: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/17/politics/trump-soft-on-russia/index.html
That Russia interfered with 2016 election has been concluded by FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, the Justice Departement and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
That the Trump presidency would be … different should have been obvious from the start, given how he handled the crowd size issue of his inauguration, see for instance here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/06/donald-trump-inauguration-crowd-size-photos-edited
Anonymous, anti-Trump talking points notwithstanding from same actors who pushed fake Russia dossier,
By 2018 US poverty rate to the lowes1 since 2001.
In 3 years of Trump presidency by 2019, median household income reached its highest level ever of $65,084, an increase of $4,144 or almost 7%. It is not trend continuation – post 2008 – 2009 crisis, in over 7 years of Obama presidency household income by mere a little over $1,000 (1.7%) – stagnation considering increasing new population that starts at near $0 and almost stagflation in consumer basic prices such as milk or daily work commute for example.
By 2019 in 3 years under Trump employment increased by 6.6 million while workforce participation (those who seek employment) rose, reversal from Obama’s workforce decrease. 2019 unemployment rate was 3.5%, lowest in 50 years. Black Americans unemployment and Hispanic Americans unemployment rate was at all time low – 5.4% and 3.9% respectively. Female unemployment lowest since 1954, youth unemployment lowest since 1969. In first 2.5 years of Trump manufacturing jobs rose almost 5% or about 500,000 jobs – best growth in last 30 + years. Big reversal from Obama but not likely to be extended or maintained under Biden.
According to JPM Chase CEO Jamie Dimon back then Trump economy was the most prosperous world have ever seen. You can not say that about Obama or his economic trends.
In foreign policy our valued allies pay more of their share into NATO. Canada, Mexico and USA signed mutual beneficent economic agreement (I am sure Canada has some pipeline disappointments today), Israel achieved diplomatic recognition from much of Arab world before pigs learned how to fly, ISIS was quickly defeated as political and territorial entity with minimal sacrifices and 2 orders of magnitude less of drone assassinations then under Obama and no error drone associations, North Korea mostly stopped ICBM tests over Japan and towards US and Iran stopped its provocations (it already renewing them, Iranian – American was just arrested as a de-facto hostage of the regime). Of course nobody is perfect and I could nit pick but it is all achieved with most if US troops except special services home. Special service are born and strive to fight.
May I also add that Obama meager economic non-gains were past crisis after which economic growth is usually accelerated, but not that time around. It means that majority got poorer when richest got much richer under Obama.
From https://newrepublic.com/article/160338/biden-popular-front-doomed-unravel
Trump didn’t sell out his supporters. In fact, his presidency saw something extraordinary, even if it was all but invisible from the country’s globalized cities: the first egalitarian boom since well back into the twentieth century. In 2019, the last non-Covid year, he presided over an average 3.7 percent unemployment rate and 4.7 percent wage growth among the lowest quartile of earners. All income brackets increased their take. That had happened in the last three Obama years, too. The difference is that in the Obama part of the boom, the income of the top decile rose by 20 percent, with tiny gains for other groups. In the Trump economy, the distribution was different. Net worth of the top 10 percent rose only marginally, while that of all other groups vaulted ahead. In 2019, the share of overall earnings going to the bottom 90 percent of earners rose for the first time in a decade.
The reasons for Trump’s success are not yet clear. They may well have involved his unorthodox policy choices: above all, limiting immigration.
Limiting immigration alone may not result in significant net increase in manufacturing jobs. Lower corporate taxes and resulting corporate capital re-importation might help. I am not necessary against or for lowering immigration per se. It is a complex topic that encapsulates often opposite developments and economics is just a part of it.
> And, upstairs in the children’s section:
Should I read this as you are able to go *inside* your local library? Here in Maskachusetts? This is not the case in my local library. We are only allowed to walk into the front door and wait in line. If there is no room inside, we must wait outside, in the cold, rain or snow.
They shut down again shortly after those photos were taken. Now it is curbside pickup only. The librarians are working themselves to the bone preparing bags. It takes about four days from request to pickup.