Comments

2

America's going to die like she was born. Being a haven for the wealthy white who profit from the financial and physical exploitation of those they oppress.

I wish blue states could truly find a way to withold our tax revenue from the cousin fuckers crying socialism all the time. If they don't want to live in a liberal society then they don't need liberal dollars.

3

Yep. Last night the question that I kept coming back to was “how will I mentally/emotionally survive the next four years?” Permanent outrage since 2016 has done nothing but tire me. Permanent outrage (and protests and and and) at the local level has not gained any traction or even produced any leaders to address racialized policing (brutality) and economic disparity (homelessness). All I can do is love my family, volunteer at my school and in my community, surround myself with levelheaded, compassionate people and go about my life. Reading online screeds, articles, social media is merely banging my head against a wall and now I have a headache.

4

bagging on rural America does two things jack and shit, we really gonna close our borders to the midwest? what do you do when they withhold the food supply for the whole country? America is blinded by social politics, not a damn thing is going to change in Seattle if Trump wins. I do agree that the middle America would benefit from a Biden pres more, but they will always vote GOP because that's who they are. The dems are broken and the far left I think sunk this election for them if Trump ends up winning, antifa propaganda looks like it worked for the right. Good job Portland! You get crack and smack and four more years of the don.

6

@2: Then I wish rural produce, meat and poultry, never gets to your kitchen.

7

Whatever illusions I had were shattered 20 years ago when they handed down Bush v Gore.

The Constitution was structured to give extra weight to rural populations in order to protect slavery from free labor and its votes. While the slavery has been gone for a long time, the Constitution is still with us. Its a lousy design for government and nothing lasts forever so it won't.

8

@6:

It'll get there, because Rural 'Murka desperately needs Urban America's $$$$. They need it to keep their roads driveable, their schools and hospitals open, and their utilities operating. Without it, they face an inexorable decline into a permanent state of third-world economic strife, as Big Ag will continue to gobble up whatever is left of their small, family-run farms turning Middle America into one giant corporate share-cropping machine.

9

Regardless of the outcome, this KKKountry is as fucked as Yugoslavia in the 90s.
Democrats won the debates, raised the most money, and turned out the most votes, and it still doesn't matter.

Republinazis don't even have a platform or any plan for the next four years, yet they'll be able to puke up enough obstruction and destruction in the Senate to block any effort to save us. Sociopathic racist hatred is the only force in this nation that's real.

After four years of total chaos, countless lies, amoral cruelty, grotesque insanity, abject stupidity, and open kleptocracy, capped off by economic collapse, massive homicidal police brutality and a pandemic that's killed over 230,000 of us and rising, enough voters surveyed the desperate wreckage and shrieked "FOUR MORE YEARS--PREZINAZI ANTICHRIST KILL US ALL!!!"

America is a death cult that's turned to self-annihilation in our national murder-suicide, and COVID-19 will grant their wish and turn the red states into the dead states.

10

https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/2020/11/02/arguing-with-trump-supporters-associative-thinking/#comments

11

@8: Yes, urban needs rural, and rural needs urban. My comment, @6, deliberately illustrates the absurdity of @2 in this childish squabble.

12

Rurals and farmers still listen to the radio, and they are easily insulated on the AM frequencies.

14

Hey, I grew up out in the sticks. "Anything that don't make the corn grow taller is bullshit." That mentality. But factory farm acreage now exceeds family farms, so they hicks are just as much corporate drones as the city hipsters. And small towns are NOT was you see on the Hallmark Channel: charming shopping districts with no fewer than three wedding planners in a town of 2,000. Late Capitalism is the same out there as it is in the city. What is different is the level of melanin the average epidermis. Its always about that.

15

@6 food can be imported. I can grow shit. I can hunt. Without constant bailouts to factory farms in the heartland. Why should people who claim to hate welfare keep receiving it?

16

@11 What, you imagine we'd just build a wall on the border? Of course there'd be trade. They can sell us agricultural products, and we'll sell them cultural products. We'd just let them live out their libertarian fantasies of low taxes, low services, and low standard of living. And we could go be a reasonable social democracy like most developed countries.

17

@6 You can thank stores that get seasonal produce from other countries, including Mexico, South and Central America, New Zealand, Japan, and Canada, and for the migrant workers that get paid jack squat to put that on the table working for the farmers getting their way of life destroyed under Trump's trade policies, jack.

18

"i don’t want my kids inheriting a world run by flag waving facebook tin pot dictators, utterly bereft of moral authority,
while they watch 200 mile winds pick up and blow their lives away like the Wizard of Oz, having internalized this force fed sense of powerlessness. just sayin"

https://mobile.twitter.com/thomyorke/status/1323942008889745408

19

The one silver lining of Covid is that it may start to blur the line between rural and urban. In the past urban centers dominated because that is where business was located and people chose to live around them so they could participate in those economies. Covid has completely blown that up now with more flexible work remote policies and a trend to decentralize offices. Given choices there will no doubt be those who choose to leave the urban centers and move into the rural areas and in turn those who live in rural areas will be able to participate in these job markets without having to move to the city. What will be fascinating to watch is if people voting habits change as they move from urban to rural. I would wager people vote for their own self interest so as urban centers lesson in importance the issues that tend to drive progressive politics will also be less influential.

21

Vertical farming can't come fast enough.

22

Red America needs the blue states economic output much more than the blue states need the wares from the Red states. California, depending on the exchange rates, has the 5th or 6th largest GDP in the world. Without it the US drops below China. CA produces a third of all domestically consumed vegetables two thirds of all domestically consumed fruits and vegetables.

Without consumption of the highly populated areas the red states would have no market. Without the blue states tax revenue there would be no military funding at this scale and the US wouldn’t be able to fund other parts of the government.

23

@10. Moreover:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1158569576168402945

26

@20 Professor_Hiztory: I read a pre-election article (Sunday, November 1, 2020, Section A, page 1, The Seattle Times) about a rabid pro-Trump supporter in Mount Vernon, who operates a 2,000 acre dairy farm with 1,300 cows (undoubtedly BigAg). I also read an article in The New Yorker magazine concerning the possibility of swaying dairy farmers in Wisconsin---a majority of small farms bankrupted by the crushing economic severity of Trump's China tariffs and almost entirely wiped out by BigAg----to support Biden (the message in Wisconsin was, to small dairy farmers by the GOP: 'get big or get out'). The Skagit County dairy farmer pictured in The Seattle Times article looked the epitome of a typical MAGA Trumpist---a scowling, balding white male in his 40's willing to lose everything, while blindsided by Republican lies, corruption, and gross incompetence---and blaming his losses on the Democrats.

@24 blip: I certainly hope so!

27

@17: That is true. It is also true we consume domestic dairy, meat and produce as well.

The antipathy towards rural America is really a depressing blemish on modern liberalism.

28

@25 blip: Thank you for the election update regarding Wisconsin and Nevada. I'm glad to hear that Wisconsin's dairy farmers succeeded in swaying rural voters to support Biden (read How Suffering Farmers May Determine Trump's Fate, August 17, 2020, The New Yorker magazine, by Dan Kaufman).

29

@17 Garb Garbler: I feel so humbly fortunate to have membership with the local Community Food Co-op, with an abundance of organic produce, meat, eggs, butter, seafood, gluten-free foods, and environmentally friendly household products just down the street from where I live--and right on my bus route. Many people are not as lucky----particularly in the Midwestern and Southern U.S. states.

31

I grew up in a dinky town (in CT but in the redneck east not in the hoity toity west) so my prejudices against retrograde rural America are pretty well founded. That said, there aren't enough rural people left in this country to swing elections, unless by 'rural' you are including all the homogenous whitebread exurbs. I'm pretty sure Trump's enduring popularity mostly comes down to this: you cannot go wrong in this godforsaken land by flattering the proudly, flagrantly ignorant. You do this by perpetually denigrating expertise, hoity toity urban elitists, science, education, basic facts, civility, and celebrating selfishness, instant gratification, tribalism and greed. What the deplorable hordes want to hear over and over is that it is not only OK that you are rude, crude, racist, dumb as fuck and appallingly ignorant, this is something to be proud of. I've said this before: with Trump and his merry band of miscreants really this country got the government it richly deserves. The ugly American. The perfect representative for this banana republic on the world stage. If he loses, much like with Obama's improbable victory, it will be an aberration, and a short-lived one.

32

This shared personal experience is meaningful. I have considered apathy.

35

@30: "The antipathy towards urban & suburban america is a blemish on modern conservatism."

It's fun to play rhetorical teeter-totter, but there's no such antipathy, save a few growls at city tourists being cheap in quaint country inns and gift shops.

36

born and raised in Seattle, i think its laughable that we can look at our city and think that our shit doesnt stink just as much as any rural town in America. Have fun stepping over that junkie to get a $8 cup of coffee. Seattle should give every meth head in a tent $500 and a bus ticket to Portland asap

39

@37. To be fair, it was funny the first (maybe second) time.

41

@40 I've heard this several times: the right is all about 'diversity'. Just look at the electoral map. All the vast red patches (of mostly empty prairie and desert). Why, they have a very diverse coalition! You have white gun nuts, white religious nuts, white racists and white rich people. How can you get any more diverse?

42

I will never get over that half of this country has watched Trump's behavior over the last 7 years and still voted for him. White supremacist ideology is more important than anything, apparently. All tens of thousands of lies, derogatory commentary about all non-whites, all women, and all people who did not vote for him, al of the criminal activity, prosecuted and convicted co-conspirators, incitement of white supremacist violence, bilking of taxpayer dollars to the tune of TRILLIONS, total and complete destruction of the economy, the country's health and well being (hundreds of thousands dead and counting), and the end of our international standing and STILL people support this man. White supremacists clearly prefer total and complete catastrophic loss and destruction of this country rather than to change, evolve, and accept a brand new world.

43

PS I live in rural America. I am white and female (and disabled) and I have voted since I turned 18 and I have never, ever voted for a Republican. We do exist out here and it may not seem like it, but our numbers are growing.

44

"This period of relative enlightenment lasted for 40 years. Since the 1980s, however, the US has progressed only rightward. Some may say that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were leftist presidents, but they never really reversed or checked the national irrational because, at heart, they were still servants of the state, and this state placed the market, which profits from rural stupidity, at the center of its concerns. "

Not really. Both Clinton and Obama were centrists. Not moderates, but centrists. Both made a big deal out of working with the other side. Centrists are fine, as long as the political center is reasonable (Ike was a very good centrist). The problem is, Reagan took the country so far to the right that being a centrist means governing to the right of Ike or Nixon (even if the president is a Democrat). Someone like Romney (a centrist) would have governed a lot like Reagan (just as George H. W Bush did).

The other problem is Congress. The House is Democratic now, but since the 80s, it has flipped back and forth. In the period you mentioned, it was largely Democratic. The Senate has flipped back and forth, and the Republicans in the Senate have moved far to the right. ObamaCare was originally proposed by Nixon. When Obama proposed it, not a single Republican voted for it, even though Obama (centrist) would have bent over backwards to get a few Republican Senators to vote for it.

This continues. The Democrats will not win back the Senate. It is quite possible that Biden's agenda is the most progressive since LBJ, but it won't go anywhere in a Republican Senate.

It is easy to blame rural America, but rural America is tiny. Suburban America is huge. It is also split. There are those who consider themselves urban, but simply can't afford to live in the city. Then there are those that consider themselves country. Those are the folks that used to vote Democratic, but don't any more. That's the thing. The political period that lead to so many great accomplishments -- including the greatest middle class in the world, ever -- was an unholy alliance between liberal northerners, and rednecks from the south. That all collapsed in 1968, one of the few years that can compete with 2020 for worst ever. The left has never been able to win back the (non-Latino) white vote, especially the Christian white vote outside the city. Not sure if they ever will. The only hope is long term demographics, as the country will become less white and less Christian.

45

Shit, I lived in Podunk South Texas for like 8 years of my life on a fucking farm and I'm the goddamn Batman.

47

Maybe if rural districts won't feed the cities out of a sense of fellowship and good will, they can be persuaded to accept American dollars.

53

https://youtu.be/j4SRsGn14PI?t=30

Recount deez nutz

55

@ 46,

“We’ve always been at war with EASTasia!!!
Or is it EURasia!!! Or BOTH!!!

“Keep firing, assholes!”

56

@35 "It's fun to play rhetorical teeter-totter, but there's no such antipathy, save a few growls at city tourists being cheap in quaint country inns and gift shops."

Really? Why is it then that you can pick any random Republican candidate in Eastern Washington and a prime piece of their campaign is that they want to protect [insert town here] from Seattle values? Or that any number of conservatives here shit all over Seattle at any opportunity? If that's not antipathy, I'd hate to see them angry.

57

@ 51,

You cannot negotiate and compromise with people that’re psychotic, actively spread lies, and want you dead.

And the things we want, like higher wages, greater infrastructure spending, education, sick/vacation time, internet access, and universal healthcare would help them too, and they scream SOSHALIZM!!!

It’s ludicrous that so-called “bipartisanship” is only demanded of Democrats, especially considering what they really mean is appeasement and capitulation, neither of which works when dealing with fascists.

58

@54 And technically speaking, liberals buy the meat, produce etc. that they get from rural areas. The rural libertarians demand government handouts are their right.

60

@59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j6xm7e5bJo

BYAAAAAAHHHHH

61

Thank God for Nebraska's Second District.

62

Wow. Looks like I am gonna buy another bowl of popcorn. If I am reading this correctly, lefty progressives can only look at themselves in the mirror. Or maybe you should all burn down your own homes for all the good it will do you, again.

63

Black dude have lived in rural and urban areas. News flash stupid and smart people in both regions. The electoral college amplifies the rural stupidity and hides the urban jackasses. I'd guess vast majority of people are center-left or center-right and thus it doesn't take much fear uncertainty and doubt to sway them to the dark side. BLM and riots scared the shit out of white suburban people and some urban. I know, I saw their post on FB and even tried to talk them down of the crazy ledge.. I'm guessing many latinos, Kanye blacks, and catholics quietly pulled the trigger for Trump and/or down ballot repubs because they by nature are psychologically tormented into embracing conservative social values. People dont vote with their heads they vote with their flawed instincts., Cognitive dissonance is rampant and growing, at a time we need clear eyed solutions. We in for a tough FUUUUUUck.ing sled.. who ever wins.....

64

"An evil enemy will burn it's nation to the ground...... to rule over the ashes. "- Sun Tzu

66

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/11/4/we-now-know-what-america-is/

More relevant to Charles's actual post

68

@67. They are sick of lockdowns, and social media propaganda, as well as various other amplified racial and factional tensions meant to destabilize NATO through subversion and xenophobia. QAnon et al is global. Speaking of lockdowns, here we go agaiiiiiin.

70

@27:

No, it's not. They've brought this upon themselves - literally they are reaping what they have sown.

I come from several generations of farmers and loggers on my mother's side: I was born in a small town on the Oregon coast well-known to purveyors of cheesy comestibles, and 60 years ago, while they were staunchly Republican - those that bothered to involve themselves in national politics, which frankly, many didn't - but at a time when being a mainstream Conservative meant being slightly to the right-of-center. It's only been since Nixon's "Southern Strategy" of the late 1960's when the GOP began openly pandering to racists and religious zealots that conservatism has grown to embrace the ugly mantle that now hangs around it's ideological neck, and all of us as citizens of this nation are worse off as a result. Rather than being "blemish on moral liberalism" it is the logical, inevitable response to the extreme moral conservatism that has subsumed the Right in the intervening decades.

So, you can blame the Left until the cows come home, but it won't alter the fact that we didn't start this devolution of our political process or that we owe a damned thing to the perpetuators of it who to this very day continue to wage war against us, against our very existence, while simultaneously demanding hand-outs from us they would patently refuse to bestow were the situation reversed.

71

@33:

That's because what you call "diversity of thought" generally turns out to be not so much "thought" at all and mostly "belief" based on little more than superstition, ignorance and fear of some nebulous, ill-defined "other". I know far too many conservatives who cannot cogently articulate WHY they believe what they believe or even HOW they came to believe it, and who perpetually fall back on a lame tautology: "It's my OPINION! I believe it, because I BELIEVE it", as if that were somehow sufficient to justify their unabashed bigotry, ignorance, and rancor.

72

And if you look at election maps in Weimar Germany, the rural areas are precisely where the Nazis cleaned up electorally.

73

@70 This is exactly correct, though I think your telling maybe gives too much agency to Nixon. The opportunity was created by the civil rights legislation of the mid 1960s which disrupted the Democratic Party's coalition. The deal had always been that Southern Conservatives, in the Dem party for historical reasons, would tolerate the New Deal so long as the party didn't mess with Jim Crow. Once Jim Crow was messed with, there was nothing to keep them in the party so they migrated to the Republicans.

The key point is that up to mid 20th century there were conservative and liberal factions in both parties, with a lot of overlap. This resulted in a lot of "bipartisanship" and very weak party control over caucuses in Congress. But now they are aligned and the right most democrat is to the left of the leftmost Republican.

Institutions as constituted cannot withstand these conditions. And so our government is headed for a series of crises. Until we create a new constitution, there is no escape.

74

Professor you need to chill out, you say the rural people hate the cities when you're here spewing how vile the rural areas are. You are the exact opposite of the right wing nuts that are tearing this country apart. Grow up and live a little you might see how ridiculous you come across.

75

@70: I said 'modern' not moral. Nevertheless, in the final analysis you're grasping onto malleable, stereotypical characterizations as an excuse for your historical grudges as opposed to working towards bringing people together that includes your adversaries - which is the blemish on modern liberalism.

80

@78: Discussion of compromise on trade or agricultural polices would be applicable examples, but I love your spinning up an enumeration of the fringes to try and make a point.

81

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/election-results-and-news-11-04-20/h_54d10c051b4ae1406826ce70bddc3d7e

"The mood is darkening as Trump is bleeding GOP support close to White House says."

And here I'd always assumed the fat fuck bled ketchup. Hey-oooooooohhhh!!!

82

@75:

There's a difference between "working together" and appeasement. Liberals are ALWAYS trying to "cross the aisle"; bipartisanship has been one of the foundations of liberal ideology since, like, forever. But you can only do that so many times only to have your hand repeatedly slapped before you come to the inevitable conclusion that your adversaries are not only completely disinterested in working together, they actually perceive it as a weakness on your part which they seek to exploit against you at every convenient opportunity. So, if you want compromise from us next time around, let's see a little from YOU first.

83

@75:

There's a difference between "working together" and appeasement. Bipartisanship has been a cornerstone of liberal political ideology since, like, forever. But you can only reach out your hand and have it slapped back so many times before you come to the inevitable conclusion that your adversary is not only completely disinterested in working with you, they actually perceive it as a weakness to be exploited against you at every opportunity.

So, if you want to see us - once again - compromise, YOU need to show some good-faith willingness to reciprocate, otherwise go fuck yourself and the "take a step towards me" horse you rode in on.

84

@8: the thing is, none of the things Urban America says or does are an attack on or a threat to what is being called "Rural America"- what we're actually talking about here is "white evanglical 'Rural America'", as opposed to the large sectors of the population of the actual Rural America that are Black, or Latina/x/o, and in some cases are LGBTQ. The resentment what we are calling "Rural America" here is totally unjustified. It's not as though they're being persecuted simply because the rest of us-the majority of us- aren't unquestioningly deferential to their assumptions of patriarchal righteousness. Rural America is simply one part of this country. It doesn't pay more taxes or work any harder or live any more morally than any of the rest of us. And it isn't entitled to any greater deference than any other part of the country is.

85

I'm wondering if those who are harping on Biden losing the Latino vote in south Florida realize that very likely a majority of these people do not consider themselves to be 'people of color'. They are white people (or at least consider themselves white) who fled the revolution in Cuba (or are the descendants of those people). Probably quite a few are Venezuelans who were well off enough to get out of that country (probably also mostly white). These 'Latinos' can be just as racist and right-wing as your average rural white southerner, and whatever 'concerns' of theirs that Biden was not sufficiently addressing are very likely not that dissimilar from those of your average rural white southerner.

86

Charles STOP depressing me but I get what you are saying. I am just wanting optimism.

The US has a giant hole to dig itself out of once again. It never seems to get things right, it was never great. Just a big ugly mess of a country all the time with a shit load of $$$ to cover up all the shit.
Always corrupt and always digging itself out of a giant corrupt pile of human poop!

there has to be a positive in your years of (ongoing) mess. There has to be some hope that the gullible and fearful can be turned around to understand they actually hold the whole world at ransom with their fear based decision to vote for a guy displaying dictator ideologies all the while playing the flawed US version of democracy based upon a massively flawed constitution, voting system and legal system, to his benefit (aided by vampires staff in the white house that actually do all the thinking for that idiot).

Other countrys have better democracies. The US is not so great and never was, just has $$$ some amazingly talented people and a massive ignorant population (as you point out) which speaks louder than democracy because of fear.

A mass amount of US citizens are afraid of many things that a rational person would intelligently discuss, not get so bent out of shape over and solve. Praying upon fear is always, lazy, successful and easy but I like the hard work of being progressive not regressive.

OK I might have had a tasty cocktail while writing this. Or two!

88

Hi, Charles: appreciate the thought experiment-- and the parallel with Zimbabwe and the States is certainly a workable comparison. Trump has not meant anything to me. never has/ never will. The mental masturbation is an exercise of futility. As George Carlin has aptly put it .. as a species we are fucked-- any fantasy into the opposite is just silly-- we'd all be just be happy acknowledging the fact we are all are fucked and just live the day with appreciation... for the people around us and for what our silly fucked lives give us the opportunity to enjoy-- limited in our mental limits.

89

...but what's to be done about the Senate and Mitch McConnell?

91

@90- I basically agree with you for once - the tax drain from Blue to Red states is inevitable. Just as the tax drain from W Washington to E Washington is inevitable. Silly to characterize net recipients as parasites, we all have a vested interest in these types of wealth transfers. I want good roads, schools, health-care facilities and jobs in Republican-controlled precincts.
If Blue America wants to starve Red America of decent education and health-care it insures there will be another Trump - he is the apotheosis of sick & stupid.

92

@42 & @43 xina: Bless you for being so consistently spot on. So well said.

@90: Don't you have some Remedial 5th grade Math homework to catch up on?

93

@89: Agreed. sigh

@91 kallipugos (re @90): Okay. After another read I, too, am for once marginally in agreement with jackkay. You have made some good points.

94

@75

Why is it also not a blemish on modern conservatism? When have conservatives tried to bring people together or work with their adversaries? Why isn't the responsibility of conservatives and Trump supporters to try and "reach across the aisle" to heal this divide? Why is it always on liberals to do this?

Do you recall what happened the last time a Democratic president tried to "compromise"?

95

@94: Point well taken.

98

Auntie didn't actually read @90 until she realized an kallipugos had a favorable reaction to it. Her desperate attempt to save face is amusing.

99

I think what's missed in this conversation is that President Trump outperformed with the very groups Democrats spent 4 years telling us all hated him for his racist, white supremacist statements.

Based on exit polls, some 26 percent of his votes came from nonwhite Americans, the highest percentage for a Republican since 1960. His national support stands at 32%-35% of the Latino vote, the very people he referred to as "a bunch of drug dealers and rapists."

Trump doubled his support with Black women, moving from 4% in 2016 to 8%, while upping his support among Black men from 13% to 18%.

These are still small numbers, but far better than any Republican has done since Eisenhower.

Trump’s numbers with the LGBTQ community were a stunner also, jumping from 14% to 28%. In September, a dating app for queer men called Hornet ran a survey that showed 45% support for Trump among gay men.

Trump even improved his standing among white women.
https://www.essence.com/news/politics/55-percent-white-women-trump-election-2020/

President Trump will likely lose this election through the kind of unparalleled corruption and incompetence that has defined his entire career. I've always felt the dems over estimated President Trump, who to me was never more than a low level grifter, in over his head from the beginning who won in 2016 by promising the world to everyone and delivering on very little, but the exit polls make if clear that an increasing number of marginalized and working class families the Dems once considered their domain are increasingly moving to the Republican Party.

The momentum and demographic behind President Trump scares the hell out of me because the next President Trump will not be the moron he was. If the Dems think they can beat the next, more qualified President Trump with the false narrative they are creating about why he is losing, we are all in a lot of trouble.

As for the "richer" blue states, not only have they given us greater wealth and tax revenue, but they have also given us the Goldmen Sachs and enormous tax paid bank bailouts over the past 40 years as well as being at the heart of the 2008 melt down. For their part, most of our soldiers doing the fighting and dying have come from the very poor areas many look down on. I am against war and American Imperialism, but it is not lost on me who is being asked to do all the fighting and dying for this country. From a geopolitical strategic standpoint, the center of the US provides the vast majority of the oil, crops and minerals that allow us bargaining power with out friends and enemies overseas. Our oil reserve represent a far greater strategic threat to Russia than the high tax revenue of our greatest cities.

American strategic imperatives are tied to both our successful cities and coasts as well as our interior. It's a mistake to dismiss either.

100

And let us not forget to thank the rioters and "protestors" whose antics were widely broadcast on TV for doing their part to frighten the isolated voters into voting for Trump. The images on TV served to convince the "rural" voters of, for instance, Bothell into thinking downtown Seattle was overrun with the irrational violent "Left" who wanted to banish the police. So they voted for "law and order Trump". The Proud Boys and BLM/Antifa are the far-from-center extremists on each side whom the media held up as representatives of each side. Most of us are in the middle, wishing to hell the tantrums on both sides would just fucking stop. So thanks, violent "protestors" for breaking into businesses, looting and establishing that ridiculous "chaz" and (I'm terribly afraid) getting the orange SOB reelected. I hope not, I really do.

101

@90: We had a method by which Blue states and/or counties could keep tax revenues at home. The State And Local Tax deduction. Trump capped that at $10,000. Lets see Biden undo that cap.

On the other hand, make it a credit. If dollar for dollar, taxes I pay locally stay in my neighborhood, I'll be a lot less upset about paying those local taxes.

102

@98: Rainy, your comments are usually so consistently laughable I'm flat out surprised that in @90 you actually had a point for once. See what occasionally happens when you cut your processed sugar intake?


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