This is what I mean about dodging accountability. You don't "inherit" an economy. Have you ever looked at the economics before and after many presidents, and not just the current ones? It has always been in a gradual decline, its just hyper focus on the moment that takes it out of proportion. At the end of the day, it is just numbers too. Ofc the pandemic tanked the economy. WTF did you expect to happen when you close all the stores? It wasn't Trump's fault. What does the average American feel about the economy? The president can stop price gouging (because its illegal to begin with), which has been going on under the Biden administration unchecked and they did nothing to stop it.
Tariffs only are a tax to the foreign nations, not the American people. Trump made it obvious, that if you build a factory on USA soil, that you won't have tariffs. Its way easier to build a factory in USA, than to try to import. That is his aim, which doubles as bringing jobs to USA as much as it saves that foreign nation money on avoiding tariffs. Its a win win situation for USA, so why are you against it? Companies will be forced to adapt, so why bend to their will?
And no, countless judges chose not to look into the election, as it was controversial. Huge difference than there was no evidence of fraud. No one with any common sense didn't think there was fuckery in 2020. If you think it was negligible, you are ignorant about the technological backdoors, bribery, fraud and bad actors involved that have come out even after the election and admitted to their crimes. Mail in voting, needs to stop. Its been proven time and time again, that only the most corrupt dictators in the world employ them and it compromises voter integrity.
Voter suppression is a boogie man that needs to stop. Its "negligible" in all the ways you think fraud is. Voter ID needs to be implemented, so we can catch up to every other developed nation in the world. The only people against voter ID, have either been brainwashed or they want it to cheat. There is zero argument to be had here other than the racist assumption that black people can't get ID. Despite the fact they easily get ID to buy booze and drive a car.
The long decline narrative as it relates to the US is correct, although only correct in so far as the development of the US economy is about as complete as it possibly could be, if you look at the nations which are really growing now, China, India, even Ireland when they were talking up the "Celtic Tiger", those were all economies which were under developed to begin with.
Attributing economic decline to the pandemic is stupid, yes, it did call a halt to many of the typical mass transactions, ie the malls were shut, but for a long time the economies of the world have been restructuring to serve, exclusively, the top 1%, its neo-liberalism, look it up, there were even published memos from top US companies such as CitiBank, I think, in which they said they would only need to or plan to serve the 1% going forward and there was no point trying to expand their service to anyone else as it didnt bring the revenue to justify it.
Now, with that in mind, its just possible, like with a lot of other things, such as international travel, that the pandemic allowed for the testing of models and statistics for a world with a much smaller population of people, with a much curtailed marketplace (or the transfer of the marketplace online). I'm definitely not stoking any of the conspiracy theories about the great reset, the malthusian dreams of old money etc. Its just the logical outcome of elitism and the concentration of the wealth in a smaller and smaller population. A type of fuedalism is just the direction of travel for neo-liberalism.
Any short term, and it would be short term, benefit derived from tariffs will be offset in the longer term by the damage done to markets, monkey wrenching your competition only maintains you as a market leader for so long before the precipice of a market without competition, without even an approximation real competition, sets in. Its not as simple as "the factory is going to be in the US now" but I can see how that type of message catches on and spreads quickly. Its also the basis of autarky. "We dont need nobody" thinking of the sort that produced /produces isolationism, exceptionalism, national chauvinism. All of which arent just unpleasant or ill mannered cultural facets but have social and economic impacts on the same scale as those identified in the "calculation debates" which spelt the end of communist central plan authoritarianism as plausible idea.
So far as the idea of voter fraud goes, I dont think there was any voter fraud at the time of the last election, I think that Trump and his supporters really, really need there to have been something to explain their defeat at that time, also to feed their narrative of being engaged in an epic struggle with collossal, shady secret forces. Strip that out, strip out all of the QANON fantasies and James Bondish stories and what have you left to either the Trump personality cult or right wing politics? Not a lot. It would be like watching American wrestling with the trash talk and commentary striped out, and I do think that "politics" in the US has more to do with that sort of "reality TV" now than ever it did, its a complete infotainment phenomenon now with politicians performing like monkeys or feeding already pretty sick egos.
Which is why voter suppression is a serious issue, liberal democracies are SERIOUSLY limited in nature, they always have been but they are looking more an more like some sort of Chinese democracy with each passing day. Elections are a seriously limited exercise of democracy. Political Elections of assemblies, parliaments, senates or similar gatherings of a professional / dynastic cast of politicians are seriously so.
Can you think of any other instances, most parts of the ostensibly modern, liberal, democratic world in which you cast a vote and forfeit your sovereignty in quite the same way? Its definitely not the exercise in self-government and personal responsibility for the public sphere / public life it once was conceived as, voting for right wing predators or left wing paternalism isnt going to change that either.
Best case scenario the forfeiting of / seceding of responsibility to experts carries on a pace and is reflected increasingly in all other spheres of life too, which will be terrible, worst case scenario the world becomes a giant game of risk played by a bunch of gangsters with the masses marching willingly into the meat grinders until someone nukes someone else and its all done.
Its been building for years and became very visible when the militias started to trot out the "USA is not a democracy, USA is a republic", as though any of the original advocates of either saw any kind of a distinction between those things. I kid you not that the founding fathers of the US had considered economic reforms to do with land ownership and redistribution of incomes which put all modern New Deal and Post-New Deal "welfare" in the shade, all to prevent a "plutocracy" or elitism such as that in "old europe and Britain" emerging in their backyard. And that was at time of an acknowledged voter suppression when women, enslaved people, the native population, indentured labour, the young etc. were all excluded.
