A politician who tells it like it is? A guy you could, God forbid, have a beer with? A veteran even, but with working class cred and a love of video games. A total unknown on the national level, but beloved by his constituents... You couldn't order a more perfect veep off a menu. It's almost surreal
What's even better is that this is really him. Not a character, not adapting to the political race.
Minnesotans are sad to lose him as governor, but he'll be great as VP and definitely qualified to step in if something happened to Harris.
If it helps save democracy, its a sacrifice we're willing to wait. Our bisexual, indigenous lieutenant governor will be fine as his replacement.
Wait. He plays videogames?! I'm gonna pokemon-go to the polls next month!
He did a WoW stream recently that blew up in the news
Apparently it was another streamer playing WoW with half the stream as a campaign speech, but broadcast on Kamala’s Twitch channel. Still cool, but it wasn’t him playing.
Couldn't you have just fucking killed me instead
I wanna have a beer with Walsh and share a joint with Sanders.
Or maybe visa versa. Idk either way sounds like a good time
Trump absolutely obliterated profits from manufacturing with the steel tariffs. That's the whole reason that I'm struggling really hard right now. It forced me to order even lower quality steel because as the buyer, you're the one paying the markups. It isn't the affected country. This forced me to really put my limited metallurgical knowledge to the test because I had to ship critical components that wouldn't fail to the best of my ability. I had to adjust everything from tool paths to cutting times because they both affect the integrity of the material. I already had to charge way more for the parts I make because I'm not in India or China making $2/hr. I really hate to say it, but American made steel is just too expensive and I can get it from Japan for maybe 3/4 the price. China is even cheaper with nearly the same quality. And, no, I don't order it directly shipped. There are distributors.
I've been screaming at colleagues for years now that Trump has absolutely no clue about real world manufacturing or how it works. He wants to destroy NAFTA, which would absolutely destroy the supply chain I rely on for non-metallic (mostly glass-filled plastics) materials. I make a fair amount of G-10 and G-11 fiberglass parts for nuclear power - from GE, to Hitachi, WestingHouse, to (oddly) Mitsubishi. Want to talk about how nuclear is expensive already? Yeah, go ahead and erase NAFTA. It would go from improbable and financially impractical to absolutely impossible. Get an order from some local business to make some parts? You have to charge at least an estimate of $70/hour just for labor and machine time. With the tariffs, I've had to bump that to about $90/hour.
However, because the costs for me have gone up so much I've had to go from making money to paying to live. I have the skill, equipment, and knowledge to run a machine shop by myself. That orange fuck set it up that if I didn't already have well-established long term contracts, I'd be in a ditch after selling my dog for a month's worth of food. Trump knowing manufacturing, or how it impacts the manufacturers? Get the fuck out.
Sincerely, A trans woman that has been in manufacturing her whole life.
Source: Being a 20+ year career machinist.
Those tariffs did exactly what they were supposed to do. Push smaller competitors out of the market and allow price increases from the bigger companies. Even with those tariffs the price from China was still much cheaper, all he did was ramp up inflation. Literally no one won.
Same thing for the meat processing/packing laws in Denver, meant specifically to drive out a small bit very high quality farm in favor of a massive industrial one. It doesn't lower prices or increase quality (raises prices and lowers quality overall), it's just meant to drive out the competition.
The whole manufacturing sector is suffering. I don't see how any blue collar worker in any state can't recognize that. People just wanted deer season open so they could forget for a couple of months.
I wonder how much this whole cost of living crisis is due to the Trump tariffs vs how much was due to COVID? COVID seems to have provided a convenient cover that distracted the world and probably exacerbated the issue, but I wonder had COVID not happened would it have been more apparent how bad the Trump tariffs were for the economy? To my knowledge though, I don’t know that those tariffs ever really went away.
The thing about economic policies is that it takes longer than 4 years for the effects to really be felt. Every time you hear some campaign ad about how bad the economy is, it is almost guaranteed to be fall out from the previous administration. That isn't even taking into account that presidents tend to have very little actual sway over budgets and spending. Every year, the president submits a budget, and every year congress shuts it down. This cycle has happened for 200 years.
This is what I really don't get.
Like, sure, Trump's tax plan looks better for the middle class at the surface level....but that's just talking about income tax. Tariffs are taxes, too, and his tariff plan will mean significantly more dollars spent on taxes for the middle class. The net paycheck will be a little higher, but the cost increases will eat that up and much, much more.
And that's just one avenue. I'd shutter to think what will happen to the overall value of the dollar, the growing wealth disparity, the real estate market (it's nearly impossible for first time buyers as it is, but rent is exorbitant too, and a lot of it is because of sweet deals for mega landlords like Trump himself) and the costs of healthcare under Trump's "plans"
Fuck dude....my family makes 3x the local household median and we still can't save money for shit. It goes nearly as fast as it comes. We live in a modest house, we've got one (used) car payment, and fortunately no credit card debt. We buy used clothes and store-brand food. Don't go out to eat or takeout. But its still tough as hell.
I'm legitimately unsure if anyone voting for him actually understand how Tariffs work
It seems the real problem with tariffs is the rapidity of them. If the US wants to encourage more manufacturing at home, fine. But as you note, just applying them suddenly is ruinous. I would think a much better approach would be that any new tariff must be slowly ramped up over a decade. Or maybe a hard rule that any individual tariff can't change by more than 2 percentage points a year. This way tariffs could still be a policy tool that can be raised and lowered based on national interest, but they would change slowly enough that industry could actually adapt.
Give ‘em a break.
Manufacturing stuff is hard, alright? You have to get off the couch and stuff
get off the couch
You think Vance is worried about getting anyone other than himself off?
"It's not gay if it's a la-Z-boy."
I fucking love waltz. I'm fairly positive on Kamala, but I absolutely love waltz. He may be my favorite politician atm.
JD Vance has never been in a factory job, or in anything other then his couch
I’m not even sure you can technically say he was “in” a couch.
#tinydickproblems
Spread the news, JD "couch fucker" Vance has a microdick
That's not true, his job was shutting down factories.
I'm, unfortunately, reminded me of this bit from the original Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series (which preceded even the books):
In today’s modern Galaxy there is, of course, very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and, in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed, and totally unf [bleep!] ked-up personality. So, for instance, when in a recent national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another, and the fact that no one had made any food for awhile and the king seemed to have died, and that most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy had now arrived at what he called, “One whole juju-flop situation,” everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilisation had just collapsed overnight. But though even words like “juju-flop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one - where they don’t know what it means. That word is “Belgium” and it is only ever used by loose-tongued people like Zaphod Beeblebrox in situations of dire provocation. Such as…
Also...
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Which reminds me of Boris Johnson's choice of vocabulary, somehow reducing the impact and perception of the ignorance, cruelty and incompetence of what is being said
And people start to see why he consistently won positions in Minnesota!
Remember when he celebrated the groundbreaking foxconn boondoggle where land was taken from a small town and given to foxconn who created less jobs than the property taxes of the people who lived there prior would have created?
Donald Trump and JD Vance can’t cook… all they know is mcdonald’s , charge they phone, twerk, be racist, eat hot chip & lie
Honestly, the VPs in this election are better candidates than the presidential candidates. Even if I hate JD.
JD is scary cause he seems boring but he actually has super shady beliefs. And he's a much easier puppet to control then Trump
And he's LITERALLY, as in every sense of the word, a puppet. Peter Thiel bought him like a slave straight out of college, and inserted his hand right up his ass. It's been there ever since.
I know what you mean but JD Vance might be one of the worst VP picks ever, that's gotta bring down the average. Sarah Palin is the only comparable in my lifetime.
I genuinely don’t get how we live in the same timeline where Micheal Dukakis being so committed to his position against the death penalty (like during his debate, he said he wouldn’t advocate for it if someone raped and killed his wife) - was considered a weakness. JD has no commitment to anything and there are multiple musical remixes of him talking about how much he doesn’t like his running mate.
We executed the Rosenberg's for far less than what has occurred in the last 20 years.
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