Drlee wrote:Because she energizes the far right, which is the only "base" the republicans have left.
The electorate is bigger than the Republicans. In fact, the largest voting bloc in America now is independent voters like me. AOC energizes Wall Street and Main Street, because she is a socialist and the policies she proposes would likely bankrupt the country. Nancy Pelosi herself opposes AOC. Pelosi's comment that "the US is capitalist and that's just the way it is" reflects the ideological split among the House Democrats right now.
Drlee wrote:They will not speak of issues at all. (Save the wall.)
Trump overcame the establishment on two, or arguably three issues: illegal immigration, trade, and arguably political correctness, the latter of which isn't an official policy. Take trade:
Tariffs of 25% are a game changer for China. In the above video, Winston Sterzel gives the anecdote of how Chinese manufacturers get subsidized shipping to the US. He found this out on his first attempt to drop ship t-shirts to the US from China. A 25% tariff tends to wipe out the "free shipping" effect of Chinese goods. It's not going to be trivial. We will see the effects of this in the next six months. I expect stocks will sell off a bit next week, rally to new highs, and then I expect a stock market downdraft as the China tariffs kick in. I expect no-deal Brexit will spook the markets too. AOC is not going to be a front-and-center news story. She is just window dressing for slow news days. Trump is simply exploiting the fractiousness in the Democratic party, which is not unlike the Tea Party that prevailed over the Republican establishment in 2016. The Democratic establishment is facing similar headwinds.
Drlee wrote:Will Pelosi lose the house? I don't think so. She will hold it by picking off Trumps folks in the courts.
Who do you think she could "pick off" in the courts? Every single house seat is up for re-election every two years. Courts generally don't swing congressional house races.
Drlee wrote:A master stroke will be when Trump is indited{sic} by New York State a few months before the election.
As I said, October surprises are no longer a surprise. The electorate is hip to that drill. They didn't even care about "grab 'em by the pussy" straight from Trump's mouth. Trump declassifying everything is already undermining the opposition. This type of attack would work against Mitt Romney, because Romney would never hit back. Trump is calling it a "coup," which is effectively what it is since they cannot put together a prosecution on the merits.
Drlee wrote:This will force Trump to shut down the government again. And he will have to own it. And the people won't like it.
The press and the establishment don't like it. Most people have no problem with a shutdown. I always cheer a shutdown. It never bothers me a bit. Didn't bother me when Obama did it either.
Drlee wrote:In another master stroke she could go after the billions in aid for farmers to offset the problems with the absurd tariffs. Without that aid, Trump support in farm states is toast. It would have to be very carefully finessed lest she suffer the consequences herself.
The problem with low grain prices has little to do with tariffs and a lot to do with overproduction, and the aid is going to help large agribusinesses with powerful lobbying connections. Like I said, Pelosi is not going to lose her seat, but she may lose the House majority and thereby her speakership.
Drlee wrote:Right now it is a real fine line. I am leaning, no for the moment but that could change.
It is going to look much worse for Trump in about six months. It looked horrible for Reagan in 1983, too. You're old enough to remember. You will be waxing victory by September/October of this year like you did in 2015. It's a long way to November.
Drlee wrote:If they sold the dollars they owned they could slam our economy very hard indeed and even collapse international markets pegged to a dollar with rapidly falling value.
You are picking this up from people who don't understand economics. If the Chinese sell off dollars, it will have a short term effect on the dollar against the Yuan, which would destroy China's ability to export to the United States. It would have a temporary increase in short-term interest rates, which could spark a recession in 18-months time--about average for an inverted yield curve. If they don't do that within the next three months--and I'm betting they won't--it will be too late for them to try to impact Trump that way.
Drlee wrote:Biden beats Trump handily. Warren also has the edge. (Fox News Polls this week show several democratic candidates winning.)
They had Hillary winning too. The psyops have already started on PoFo as well.
Drlee wrote:But Biden is the guy Trump does not want to run against. He is a moderate-leaning conservative and not at all afraid to publicly take Trump to the woodshed.
Trump is not Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney or John McCain. Trump is not bed buddies with his supposed "political opposition." Trump will hit Biden hard. Biden's son set up a hedge fund with no prior experience, and raised a billion dollars from the Chinese on a trip there with his father while daddy was VP. What do you think? Beginner's luck? You like to tag Donald Trump, Jr. Yet, Biden getting a prosecutor investigating his son fired will be well known by election day. The fact that he's beholden to China and sold out blue collar workers with his votes on trade will be front and center.
We also don't know yet if Howard Schultz will jump into the race. That's a pretty significant wild card.
Drlee wrote:And then there are women. They could hand the who shebang to democrats this time.
Women aren't blacks. They don't vote as a bloc. Heck, the governor of Alabama who signed the abortion ban was a woman.
Drlee wrote:They are squandering their power by going off on the me-too tangent.
There is no "they," because they don't vote as a bloc. Black voters squander their power by voting always for the Democrats. With districts gerrymandered for them, they could form their own urban black party and force either the Democrats or Republicans into coalition governments to get what THEY want, rather than just having a seat at the table and settling for scraps. Yet, blacks have never done this in spite of voting as a bloc. For women, this isn't a possibility, because they do not have uniform political views.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden