On the flip side, folks have repeatedly shown Trump to be susceptible to being manipulated. Famously flipping back and forth on issues based on who had the most recent pleasant conversation with him.

It’s distasteful, but an opportunity that shouldn’t be skipped. Otherwise only the worst people get their turn at manipulating him.

Yes, also, their excuse for why “they’re eating the pets” was worth hearing out even as it was demonstrably false. Because even if it didn’t exactly happen, it is a reasonable perspective on what “those people” would do…

Someone is going to rationalize it by saying "while it was false, it was “directionally true”, just what the leftists would do so it’s worth thinking about.

I continue to think at least his administration, maybe not him specifically, drove prices up in 2025 on purpose.

Imagine midterm campaign ads, bragging about how prices have decreased, and citing annual percentage decrease. Damn near impossible when you are always trying your best to manage affordability but perhaps actually doable if you blow things up the year prior.

If they did somehow cut a partial rebate check from the tariffs right smack in the middle of midterm campaigns, they brag about lower prices and people feel the weight of that bonus in their pocket, even if it was their own money in the first place. Lots of people act like tax refund is some sort of spring bonus instead of repayment of a 0% loan they have to the government.

In short, they are going to win midterms by botching the off year.

I have been predicting that the tariffs will be dropped as we go into midterms. They are going to have so many campaign ads about bringing pruces so far down year over year…

So much easier to make a metric good if you screw it up first.

"This is this person’s view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls,

That’s not ‘barely legal’…

This assumes this is an annual thing and not a one-time stunt.

I think this is a potential component in a ‘2025 sucks to make 2026 look better’.

Imagine that they use part of the tariff revenue over 18 months to issue a check roughly that size right smack dab in the middle of midterm campaign season. Maybe also implementing one of those random tariff pauses, say, 90 days covering the tail end of election season to get prices to maybe come down. If there’s one thing they should have learned is that the average person sincerely loves getting their own money back without interest and views it as a ‘nice bonus’, like they do every April.

So they drive prices up in 2025, then use some of that to ‘stimulus’ the voters as they implement pricing relief…

I think everything is coming together for them to win the midterms. People have already forgotten about USAID and similar, and maybe associate that more with Musk than Trump. People are pissed about the inflation but this would likely erase that concern particularly if they ease up for election season. They endangered people by taking away SNAP, but democrats caved and the Republicans have a chance to make short term healthcare extension and vindicate their ‘democrats caused this by being stubborn’ narrative. Further, since open enrollment closed and it’s “too late”, one thing I heard floated was implementing the subsidy as a cash rebate to those that would have benefited, and just like this refund here, that goes even further than reducing the costs in the minds of the voters. If they want a little boost they can also do things like throw RFK Jr. under the bus and install a vaguely credible person in his position, to illustrate they can improve things.

Well this is pretty much exactly what Republicans needed.

They pitched that they were perfectly willing to be reasonable and the democrats were the crazy ones.

Now they pass an extension, specifying to block the non-existent illegal immigrant gap and say “see, we were ready to take care of the people, but the democrats forced things to be bad, and these few democrats reluctantly came over which just proves they were in the wrong”

Another chunk of what I assume is their strategy: Make 2025 bad in ways to make it easier to make 2026 feel great by comparison.

I feel it’s premature to assume JD would be the GOP candidate. No one particularly likes him, even as some people like trump for whatever reason.

Yeah, I knew someone who voted that way, he voted for Trump and we see how that worked out…

A practice run, to refine their strategy to declare "election I don’t agree with* into insurrection. If it can work, get ready for it to get rolled out like crazy in 2026.

Ask it about Microsoft Teams next

With hookers and blackjack

I’m with you, it seemed still sufficiently performative to be really intended to get his base in on the pressure to go after his personal enemies.

Basically, the Biden administration economy was just along for the wild ride of post pandemic and Russian war nonsense, both the ups and downs.

Generally speaking I don’t believe in the usual “the economy is whatever the president makes if it”, though Trump’s policies are unusually terrible economically, so I guess he’s convinced me that presidents can be mostly responsible for economy, at least a bad one.

Sure, must have nothing at all to do with massive tariffs on food and construction supplies and arresting a lot of the food and construction workers.

No, you see he didn’t verbatim say the words, he learned from watching sketchy mob shows that no one can blame him if he avoids the specifics and just says “the hard way” and that they’ll “find some work to do”.

Grading on a curve, sadly he was much better than a lot of the other right wing personalities.

He at least let them have a mic even in his own forum, which is more than you can say for most right wingers.

he’ll be the oldest president in history upon leaving office.

That assumes he makes it 3 years. I’m not so sure that his health will hold out that long.