2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Syt]

Graves of soldiers? 

[DGuller]

What's he doing hanging around with losers?

[garbon]

What's he doing hanging around with losers?

Don't worry.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4851481-trump-arlington-cemetery-incident/

The Trump campaign is blaming an Arlington National Cemetery official for a reported confrontation during the former president's visit there Monday to mark the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The incident, first reported by NPR, stemmed from the presence of a photographer with former President Trump's camp and broader concerns about election-related activities in a military cemetery.

Arlington National Cemetery confirmed an incident took place and a report was filed but provided no other details.

"Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes or in direct support of a partisan political candidate's campaign," the cemetery said in a statement. "Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed."

NPR, citing an anonymous source, reported a cemetery official tried to stop Trump staffers from filming and photographing in an area of the cemetery where soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried, known as Section 60. The source told NPR that Trump staffers pushed the official aside when they tried to stop campaign officials from entering the area.

Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's communications director, denied there was any physical altercation "as described."

"The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony," Cheung said in a statement.

...

[Valmy]

I am kind of surprised to see the sudden concern with nuts and bolts specifics on technocratic campaign plans. I expect to see each candidates technocratic proposals being compared side by side with feedback on how effective each plan will be at its expected goals.

However I just want to say that even if any of their plans do get passed it will be some watered down compromise version of it, under the circumstances the vague idea that the Democrats would like the rich to pay more taxes and Republicans want them to pay less taxes seems sufficient.

As far as the price gouging issue is concerned, it seems to me that the economy is increasingly under the control of monopolies and cartels of just a few companies and under those circumstances we probably do need to regulate their ability to control prices if we are determined to let that circumstance continue, which we seem to. I am old fashioned and would prefer we break up these monopolies and cartels and let competition and so forth take care of the prices but for whatever reason that seems to be unfeasible these days.

What form that will take will ultimately be written by DC lobbyists before Congress passes anything so I am less interested in what Harris would do if she was a dictator but in the fact that she would like to do something about it.

[Barrister]

Has anyone seen anything on her price gouging proposal that lays out specifics?  I.e. that says what price gouging is.

Listening to a Jonah Goldberg podcast - he was very much against the idea or price controls (while conceding it was probably smart politics) but said that as much as he looked into Harris' specific proposals there was hardly anything there.

[The Minsky Moment]

Discussion on MSNBC of Harris' proposal to tax unrealized gains for individuals with 100 million plus.

Has anyone seen anything on her price gouging proposal that lays out specifics?  I.e. that says what price gouging is.

The "Harris tax proposals" are really the tax provisions in the official Biden 2025 OMB budget proposal, which Harris says she supports.  I don't believe she has proposed anything separate.

AFAIK there is no specifics on the price gouging proposal. However, its description, the "first federal price gouging plan" along with comments by allies, would suggest it would just be a federal version of many state level laws already on the books.  These allow the state governor to act in cases of emergencies to step in to block "unconscionable" price increases. These laws are rarely invoked and don't do that much.

Since inflation has nothing to do with either "price gouging" nor Joe Biden's inflation cooties, it is safe to say that neither campaign has an inflation policy.  However, the Wall Street "Trump Trade" involves pricing in expectations for higher bond yields, indicating that the smart money thinks that a Trump Presidency will be more inflationary.

[DGuller]

My concern with bad policy by Democrats is that it helps Republicans.  Yes, it's unfair that Republicans are immune to the effects of their own bad policies while Democrats pay the price for them, but it's not about fairness, it's about keeping GOP out of power until they go through exorcism.

[grumbler]

My concern with bad policy by Democrats is that it helps Republicans.  Yes, it's unfair that Republicans are immune to the effects of their own bad policies while Democrats pay the price for them, but it's not about fairness, it's about keeping GOP out of power until they go through exorcism.

But what is "bad policy" depends on what you wish the policy to accomplish.  A policy that looks bad to an economist might look great to a voter, and economists don't elect presidents.

I absolutely disagree that "Republicans are immune to the effects of their own bad policies."  As Pete Buttigieg pointed out, "the biggest scandal of the election cycle now is that the Republicans wrote down their policies."  Project 2025 is an albatross around Trump's neck.

[DGuller]

A policy that looks bad to an economist will most likely eventually look bad to voters, directly or indirectly.  Price controls may sound great to voters, but shortages don't, and shortages are what results from price controls on entities that aren't actually monopolies.

[Valmy]

A policy that looks bad to an economist will most likely eventually look bad to voters, directly or indirectly.  Price controls may sound great to voters, but shortages don't, and shortages are what results from price controls on entities that aren't actually monopolies.

Yes. The only context price controls make sense are in a monopoly or cartel controlled sectors.

Anyway all we have is a vague commitment to prevent price gouging in some vague way. Which politically might be fine.

[Barrister]

I absolutely disagree that "Republicans are immune to the effects of their own bad policies."  As Pete Buttigieg pointed out, "the biggest scandal of the election cycle now is that the Republicans wrote down their policies."  Project 2025 is an albatross around Trump's neck.

A lot of anti-anti-Trump types try to boil down opposition to Trump as "well you don't like his mean tweets".

Umm, no.  That's not really it at all.  I could live with his mean tweets and weird, rambling speeches just fine.

It's that I'm opposed to his policies of abandoning Ukraine, abandoning NATO, trying to stay in power through a coup, raising tariffs, etc.

I could live with him banging a porn star and paying her off.  Raping E Jean Carroll - no that's probably disqualifying, but maybe I'd even overlook that if he was going to follow a standard Reaganite policy agenda.

(you know, with my all-important non-citizen non-vote)

[Sheilbh]

I absolutely disagree that "Republicans are immune to the effects of their own bad policies."  As Pete Buttigieg pointed out, "the biggest scandal of the election cycle now is that the Republicans wrote down their policies."  Project 2025 is an albatross around Trump's neck.

Which is why he's basically disowned it. Wild that 8 years into the Trump experience and they still haven't learned that he hates being managed.

[Gups]

I absolutely disagree that "Republicans are immune to the effects of their own bad policies."  As Pete Buttigieg pointed out, "the biggest scandal of the election cycle now is that the Republicans wrote down their policies."  Project 2025 is an albatross around Trump's neck.

A lot of anti-anti-Trump types try to boil down opposition to Trump as "well you don't like his mean tweets".

Umm, no.  That's not really it at all.  I could live with his mean tweets and weird, rambling speeches just fine.

It's that I'm opposed to his policies of abandoning Ukraine, abandoning NATO, trying to stay in power through a coup, raising tariffs, etc.

I could live with him banging a porn star and paying her off.  Raping E Jean Carroll - no that's probably disqualifying, but maybe I'd even overlook that if he was going to follow a standard Reaganite policy agenda.

(you know, with my all-important non-citizen non-vote)

Hmm. For me, it's because he's a fucking nutter.

[grumbler]

A lot of anti-anti-Trump types try to boil down opposition to Trump as "well you don't like his mean tweets".

Umm, no.  That's not really it at all.  I could live with his mean tweets and weird, rambling speeches just fine.

It's that I'm opposed to his policies of abandoning Ukraine, abandoning NATO, trying to stay in power through a coup, raising tariffs, etc.

I could live with him banging a porn star and paying her off.  Raping E Jean Carroll - no that's probably disqualifying, but maybe I'd even overlook that if he was going to follow a standard Reaganite policy agenda.

(you know, with my all-important non-citizen non-vote)

I'm rather gobsmacked at the extent to which you would excuse a complete lack of ethics if the candidate would "follow a standard Reaganite policy agenda" (which turned out to be kinda crap anyway).

[Barrister]

Hmm. For me, it's because he's a fucking nutter.

But the thing is - his being a complete nutter is what leads him to his insane policies.

I'm rather gobsmacked at the extent to which you would excuse a complete lack of ethics if the candidate would "follow a standard Reaganite policy agenda" (which turned out to be kinda crap anyway).

Sadly, isn't that pretty common in politics though?

I'm going to bring up a couple of Canadian examples, because I know how much everyone (well, Sheilbh) loves Canadian politics.

Our Prime Minister back during WWII was WL Mackenzie King.  He was kind of nutty - he was constantly using psychic mediums to talk to his dead mother (and his dead dog).  He was still pretty popular and did a competent job of taking Canada through WWII.  His nutty beliefs were just an oddity.

Or let's take current PM Justin Trudeau.  He shows a distinct lack of ethics, from seeing no problem taking lavish vacations at the expense of wealth "friends", to trying to interfere with ongoing criminal investigations of wealthy donors, to, well, blackface.  Yet to a lot of Canadians they didn't see a problem in any of that and he's been re-elected twice.


So look - I'm imagining a purely fictional Donald Trump here - one who is "nutty", one who is wildly corrupt and lacking in personal ethics, yet someone is pursuing policy objectives indistinguishable from a John McCain or Paul Ryan.  I don't think such a person is possible - in particular Trump's corruption is almost certainly what leads him to take such a pro-Russian foreign policy, or his complete incoherence on policy which leads him to want to want to raise tariffs, or his love of "power" leads him to want to use the justice system to go after his political enemies.

But my primary objections to Trump aren't because he says incoherent things in his speeches, or that he wildly cheats on his taxes, or whatever.  It's that his policies would be ruinous to the US.

And in that - I thought I was agreeing with you (and disagreeing with DG) - Trump's policies DO hurt him.