Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he isn’t buying all that Democratic “joy” on display at this past week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago during a Sunday appearance with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.
During their conversation, Tapper brought up the “disciplined” and “well-produced” DNC this week that, as the journalist put it, “conveyed patriotism and unity.” Graham didn’t see it that way.
“Well, I didn’t see what you saw,” Graham told Tapper with a laugh. “If you’re a Republican, you saw a hate fest. You saw a hate fest full of insults.”
“Americans are not joyful when they go to the gas station and fill up their car,” he continued. “They’re not joyful when they make their mortgage payment. They’re not joyful when they go to the grocery store. People are hurting, and this whole joy love fest doesn’t exist in the real world.”
To bolster his claim, Graham pointed to the gas prices, the state of the border, and inflation during Donald Trump’s presidency when “the world was not on fire.”
He's either lying or what he said gives us a look into his shitty perspective of the world. Either way such a miserable and pathetic existence.
I mean, he's not wrong. (And I say that as someone who despises him.)
Most people don't find skyrocketing rent, gas, electricity, and grocery costs to be particularly joyful. Democrats know this, which is why they're making the election more about memes than the record of Joe Biden as president.
Call me when Kamala finds the fortitude to put an actual platform on her website.
Also, this is an open forum, you have no claim of allowable membership on a public thread.
Edit
I also wouldn't consider telling someone when they are allowed to speak a very progressive behavior, especially if you think I'm from a marginalized group
Kamala is a centrist. Biden is a centrist. But, that moniker's only a thing because Democratic voters don't want to have to call themselves conservatives.
I want roe v Wade and then some. It's for topics like that that I vote democrat, as it's the currently available, most progressive option (centrist as it is). Gimme an option like Bernie, AoC or full power walz and I'd vote for that. More progressive the better, but it's got to be viable. Right now that means wearing the democratic hat.
If things like roe are centrist, call me whatever you want.
If Roe's your issue, I'd be even less inclined to vote Democrat.
All they did was promise to do something about it, raise money, and then did absolutely nothing. (And if you're curious, the cost of your bodily autonomy was $80,000,000.) Meanwhile Idaho has gotten away with criminalizing it and every other conservative state will follow.
And considering they had Congress and the presidency, their inaction is indefensible.
Separately replying to unmarked edit: they did not have a supermajority, do not control state politics, and the judges bringing these things about are on lifetime appointments, seated during trump
I'm not single issue because I'm not a silly goose, that was just an example.
All I know is Republicans would pour concrete on the currently shallow grave of roe.
Democrats aren't getting an A+ from me but as I said their the closest in the direction the country needs to go.
If you review WHY conservative states have been able to do that you'd understand what happened.
It's because judges were put in place during republican majorities, and they obviously rule in favor of those republican policies.
More republicans mean more republican judges means more concrete on republican ideals.
Democrats have failed on a lot, but that failure represents effort. Imperfect, flawed effort, but the alternative is whole hearted enjoyment in destroying the things I'm interested in. Like roe for example.
Edit
Reminder there are only 2 viable options.
One tries to bring forward bluer, lefter policy (relatively, not absolutely) and one seeks to being forward a Christian fascist ethnostate.
And you're telling me NOT to vote for the imperfect team blue?
Democrats have failed on a lot, but that failure represents effort
I disagree. It denotes broken promises and zero effort, which is why I feel compelled to remind everyone of how crummy a president Joe Biden was, and particularly for women. Kamala doesn't even have a platform on her website. All she wants to do is repeat memes ("Joy" and "Weird"), which doesn't help anyone.
They've made hundreds of billions we don't actually have appear out of thin air overnight for other countries' wars, but if you want a living wage or bodily autonomy it means absolutely nothing to them beyond their ability to fundraise off of promising to act.
Silly Goose
I appreciate that I'm not the only one who uses this term, though. :)
I acknowledge what broken promises look like. I contend most of them are just failures... In battle. There's no indication the promises were made in bad faith, but heads up, politics is an uncontrolled system. In many cases good intentions lead to loss. All the more reason to clear the path.
Sorry don't want to go ring around the Rosie with you. Much of the worst happening is thanks to judge appointments made by trump. That's my final view of it. I acknowledge yours.
Lastly I return to my other core point:
I have 2 viable options:
Team blue: Fucked up a lot and has a lot to prove, but at least attempts blue topics in theory.
Team red: fucking stoked with the changes you mentioned, locked and loaded for more.
And you tell me not to take team blue in this specific constrained system with only 2 outcomes?
I'm looking for your link to Trump's plan for those issues. What's his solution? Banning immigrants? A costly wall? Tax breaks for the rich again? Let another million die from a pandemic? Argue about crowd sizes? Maybe blowing up a hurricane?
Seriously, though, I assume this is what you're referring to where he's going to solve those problems:
President Donald J. Trump passed record-setting tax relief for the middle class, doubled the child tax credit, and slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration had ever done before. Real wages quickly increased as a result, and median household income reached the highest level in the history of our country, while poverty reached a record low. President Trump created nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones to revitalize neglected communities. President Trump produced a booming economic recovery, and record low unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and women. Joe Biden is the destroyer of America’s jobs and continues to fuel runaway inflation with reckless big government spending. President Trump’s vision for America’s economic revival is lower taxes, bigger paychecks, and more jobs for American workers.
I see no plan, aside from some very vague promises and an attack on a guy who isn't even running.
I'm not sure why you're arguing with me about it. I don't like Trump either, but feel free to argue if it makes you feel better about supporting another conservative.
Quick reminder of this conversation: You suggested I check his website for his platform, so I did, and found that there's only "I did this" and some vague promises that do not specify any sort of actual plan. You seem to think that's arguing, but I'm trying to explain that there's actually no useful information there.
Basically, it's no better than Kamala's and arguably even worse because he's making promises we all know he's not going to keep (Kamala makes no promises that I saw). And he still thinks he's running against Biden.
There's literally a page that says 'Platform' on it. I don't know how to help you find what's right there in the navigation.
I only know because I was quite surprised to see that someone running for president didn't even have the wherewithal to make their positions public, but the literal fascist did.
I'd love to have an honest candidate for once, but it apparently won't be happening in 2024. And I need more than good memes to make me want to vote for someone with Harris' record.
You seem to be intentionally misunderstanding which side actually has a plan or policy meant to help anyone other than the rich. Trump doesn't know or care what the policy plans behind 2025 are, but as long as he gets his but in the seat that can keep himself out of jail and make people keep paying attention he'll sign whatever the actual handlers come up with
You seem to be intentionally misunderstanding which side actually has a plan or policy
I'm not misunderstanding anything. I can look at the last 40 years of federal legislating and see who benefits, regardless of the promises made.
What I don't understand is how you can sit through yourself being impoverished by surging rent, 1.5x to 2.5x grocery costs, spikes in gas prices and electricity, and wages that have decreased with inflation, and then tell me I should be joyful about a Harris presidency. Biden has been such a monumental failure that he and Harris both are too scared to post policy proposals on their websites.
They just want us focused on their memes about 'joy' and Republicans being 'weird'.
That's how things work in the US. The candidates make speeches and the wealthy benefit. The rest of us have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and work 2-3 jobs.
And I know the same happens if Trump is elected. It's just particularly sad that the literal fascist isn't too scared to post his proposals and the supposed liberals are. (But if elected they'll rule as conservatives.)