this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
367 points (98.9% liked)

politics

29801 readers
1983 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Will 2026 finally be the year when a critical mass of Americans wakes up and realizes that Republicans always screw up the economy?

Donald Trump inherited an economy from Joe Biden that was perhaps not firing on all cylinders but was in pretty good shape all the same.

For the third straight time, a Democratic president handed a Republican president an economy that was at the least pretty good, and at most (Bill Clinton) really humming along very nicely. And, for the third straight time, the Republican has made things worse. Which also means that Democratic presidents have to clean up messes left by their GOP predecessors.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world 1 points 23 minutes ago

Not saying it was all Clinton, but Bush inherited a great economy, which he nuked by deregulating Wall Street.

Obama inherited that, did all the best to right the ship.

The orange kid-fucker tried taking credit for the state of the economy within months, and got laughed at. his shitty policies and robbing the nation let the economy slip but his complete bumblefuck of COVID lead to another crash

Biden inherited that, did whatever he could but the reds lead by that ancient fuck mitch outright said they would block any and all meaningful legislation just to make him look bad.

orange rapist somehow sleezed his way back in and is now on a blatant power grab, openly embezzling money, and the economy is 1 bad day away from a total collapse...which I am almost expecting.

Why don't right leaning people see this? Because anyone over 40 joyously watches focks nooz, oann and all those other blatant propaganda outlets while the rest listen to blowrogan and other right-winger propaganda podcasts (usually dark-funded by Russia, Israel, etc).

[–] Furbag@pawb.social 2 points 42 minutes ago

I've been waiting 20+ years for Republicans to wake up. They will never wake up. So many uncrossable lines have been crossed and yet they still maintain their momentum and people fall over themselves to vote for them in elections.

The problem is twofold:

  1. Most people are chronically unaware or ignorant of who represents them. Even terminally online political junkies often don't do any research into the candidates they vote for, and they don't follow up on whether or not their campaign promises were fulfilled. They lock in and vote R all the way down the ballot. To be completely fair™ and balanced™ - Democrats are also guilty of this and will happily vote for the D all the way down the ballot which is how we end up with progressive candidates running 3rd party in primaries losing to DINO incumbents.

  2. There is too much disconnect between which parties in government are responsible for which policies. Many people believe the president has far more power than they actually do. In reality, outside of executive orders and appointing SCOTUS judges, the largest political impact a president has is to be a veto on legs. Congress are the ones who truly hold the power, but because you are represented by one U.S. house representative for your district and two senators for your state, it's easy for people to think that their vote for those seats, win or lose, has little impact in shaping national policy. But even when their party has a majority (albeit slim), Republicans rarely draft any kind of legislation that is aimed to help their constituents or fulfill their campaign promises. People never check their reps voting records to see that they barely show up for their jobs, and that when they do, it's usually to cast a deciding vote against something that would help their constituents tremendously if passed. It all circles back around to people not bothering to do research or follow up with their votes in any way.

Voting to a lot of people is a team sport, and if their team is winning then all is right with the world. The bad things are happening because the others caused it, or are preventing it from being fixed. It can never be because they made a bad decision and voted in someone terrible into office. It's always someone else's fault. If good things are happening, it's because they made the right decision all along and they are succeeding in spite of opposition - no need to even bother checking if the guy who represents you voted in favor of the good thing or not!

[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Just read an article that says fox news has about 3x more viewership than CNN or NBC and the article was stating that CNN was up 11%.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Conservatism heavily relies on lifestyle marketing. You're not voting for promises, but for a lifestyle.

[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

And licence to hate

[–] Azal@pawb.social 21 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

"Will 2026 finally be the year when a critical mass of Americans wakes up and realizes that Republicans always screw up the economy?"

I live in a red state.

LOL. LMAO even.

They WILL vote against their interests as long as the R is next to the name.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Leftists are just too ethical to trick them like Sinema or Fettermam (even though progressive policy is extremely popular when you don't say it's progressive).

I imagine the GOP would actually do something about it though, unlike the Democrats

[–] Azal@pawb.social 1 points 15 minutes ago

I imagine the GOP would actually do something about it though

My state has a supermajority Republicans for the last ten or so years. The cities police are under control over the state instead of the cities themselves. Crime has risen... but they still parrot that "liberal cities are crime infested" (feature not a bug), we can vote on bills through a petition process, they're trying to kneecap that, while the past few bills pass overwhelmingly progressive parts but the Republican supermajority either reintroduces the bill with confusing language to overturn it, overturns it directly while saying "People didn't know what they were voting for", or just outright ignores it (We put into our constitution for medicaid expansion. They've not implemented it in over five years, just ignoring it). We're now a flyover state that is about to get rid of income tax and increase sales tax, despite the two major population centers are right on the border for other states.

Yet our idiots that live here keep voting for these assholes.

[–] Todd_cross@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 hours ago

It's not Republicans it's just the RINOs! /s

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 3 points 7 hours ago

And, for the third straight time, the Republican has made things worse.

this completely misunderstands their popularity in the first place.

They're alright with that along as its worse to brown people, gays, trans etc who after all are causing all this /,s

that the rich hucksters make away with the bank is a price they're prepared to pay as they put a maga hat on face full of shitty teeth because they can't afford decent dental care.

[–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago

“When will Romans learn the truth? Caesar is…”

“When will Russians learn the truth? The Aristocracy is…”

“When will Germans learn the truth? The nazi party is…”

Going by history, the answer is, if ever, at the end.

[–] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

The problem is the majority of Americans are still not very involved in Politics at all. They might vote, they might watch the news sometimes, but they don't follow it daily or look into politicians or political events.

[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

The majority of Americans are stupid and apathetic

A significant minority are hateful and vicious

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 38 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

They won't.

Many of them are stupid. Many are poorly informed.

But many of them are operating with stupid axioms. They would rather suffer and die personally if it meant those people got it worse.

If you offered free health care, guns, and hamburgers to everyone but it meant that black people got it too, a lot of Americans would say no

The Confederacy should have been burned to the ground, its leaders and supporters hanged and their bodies left to rot in the sun.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

The Confederacy should have been burned to the ground, its leaders and supporters hanged and their bodies left to rot in the sun.

huzzah

[–] falynns@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

Amen. Instead they were coddled, allowed to put up statues (of their loss lmao), and left to fester.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Azal@pawb.social 2 points 10 hours ago

The Confederacy should have been burned to the ground, its leaders and supporters hanged and their bodies left to rot in the sun.

I come from the south, I know my heritage has a confederate officer in it.

John Brown did nothing wrong.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 points 13 hours ago

In the future, that last statement may finally come true.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

They've been doing that since the 60s, right?

[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

You're making the mistake of believing them when they use "good economic management" as the reason behind their vote

It's a lie

They don't really care about the economy.

"The Economy" is lofty, worthy, and who could argue against someone who is for a stronger economy?

They will vote republican because republicans don't just allow their hate and ignorance, they tell them that they are righteous for it

Not one of them could tell you what GDP means, or how fiscal policy affects inflation, but they can tell you exactly who is on the long list of people they hate and fear

[–] Soulphite@reddthat.com 18 points 16 hours ago

The fact that they'd rather have a convicted felon pedophile in office promising to detain/deprive other humans of basic needs and deport them from the country with no due process for the heinous crime of being here illegally, over a woman... speaks volumes.

Racism/misogyny/bigotry are top priority.

[–] sartalon@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago

I still can't decide if the Republican leadership is so hellbent on grift, that they don't care about the overall economic effects, or they really are just that stupid.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

2002f for me

[–] Iusedtobeanalien@lemmy.world 11 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Biden had the post COVID and global inflation crises to deal with, every nation suffered the same, some more than others, the US less than most. He didn't do too bad.

Trump doesn't give a rats ass about the economy, his entire purpose was to enrich himself and his friends.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 76 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Republicans dont care about the economy, they care about their wallets. They will keep voting for any red tie that makes them pay one penny less in April and call anyone who disagrees foolish.

I can't stand these people and im fuckin drowning in them

[–] Gigasser@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

What will likely happen is that when we finally get a Democrat in next election, all the bad shit Trump caused will just be blamed on the Democrats who just got into office.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Literally happened when Trump arranged for the military to pull out of Iraq...during the next president's term. I don't remember if it happened after he lost the election or not, but Biden got blamed for how the pullout with no time to prepare went, anyway...

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 hours ago

That was Afghanistan, but that's exactly what happened. If I remember correctly trump committed to the pullout after the election. Literally causing incalculable suffering just to spite his opponent

[–] Steve@startrek.website 16 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

All the ones I’ve met that still support the current government only care about hurting queers.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 31 points 20 hours ago (21 children)

I think even if this was on billboards and schools started to teach this basic fact, it would take decades for it to finally sink in.

I cannot tell you how many "non political" people tend to believe it, too. I could see dumbass cult members parroting nonsense talking points about how magical Republicans are on the economy, but the fact that people that barely pay attention believe it is just exhausting.

Far too many idiots think: "the government should be run like a business, and Republicans bend over the hardest for business, therefore we should put a Republican in as a President-as-CEO, preferably someone also from the world of business".

It's all so very fucking stupid, starting with the very premise...

load more comments (21 replies)
[–] devolution@lemmy.world 11 points 17 hours ago

They won't.

load more comments
view more: next ›