I did some comparisons on different aspects of how America is doing right now compared to how it was doing at this time four years ago.

I put the links to the sources of information here so you can check for yourself.

1) Unemployment, the Deficit and the Debt

So in the past nearly year and seven months of Democrats holding the House and the Senate, we’ve gotten:

- The American Rescue Plan
- The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
- Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022
- The PACT Act
- Chips Bill
- Inflation Reduction Act

All this productivity in terms of important legislation, half of it bipartisan, leads me to a question I’ve never gotten an answer to:

What would the Republicans do I’d they were in control of Congress? Specifically?

Don’t give me meaningless phrases like “stop wokeness.” What specifically would they do?

Ask them. They can’t tell you.

What are their official policies? They don’t have any. They no longer have a party platform.

They’ve had a long time now to complain about everything that the Democrats do and think about what they would do if they take over Congress.

But they haven’t used it. They have nothing. No ideas. No policies. No plans.

Except …

Kevin McCarthy promises that if the GOP takes the House, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, who both spoke at white supremacist conferences this year, will not only get their committee assignments back but will get better ones. He promised.

@MikeSington She is not a victim here.

When you’re trying to break down the last down between a violent mob you’re at the front of and a large number of sheltering elected leaders, when an officer protecting the VIPs points a gun at you, that’s the international sign for “stop!”

* the last door

If you listen to the pundits, you’d think that the @HouseGOP did very well during the 2020 elections.

That’s not quite true.

Here’s what actually happened.

The only state in the country where the GOP had a net gain in House seats since Trump took office in 2017 is Minnesota. The party gained one seat there in 2020.

In the following states, the GOP gained seats in 2020 - but - only gained the same number of seats that it lost in 2018:

Florida
(Lost 2 seats in 2018, gained 2 seats in 2020)

Iowa
(Lost 2 seats in 2018, gained 2 seats in 2020)

New Mexico
(Lost 1 seat in 2018, gained 1 seat in 2020)

Oklahoma
(Lost 1 seat in 2018, gained 1 seat in 2020)

South Carolina
(Lost 1 seat in 2018, gained 1 seat in 2020)

In the following states, the GOP gained some seats in 2020 - but - not as many seats as the number of seats it lost in 2018, leaving a net loss of seats in the Trump era:

California
(Lost 7 seats in 2018, gained back 3 of them in 2020. GOP now holds 11 of CA’s 53 House seats)

Some people in this country are sincerely confused to hear people talk about “white supremacy” in conjunction with politics in America today. At the same time, a lot of people, both openly and in private, have consternation about changing demographics in America.

Let me explain.

In 1870, right after the Civil War, the US Census showed that there were six states in which African Americans made up more than 45% of the state population - South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Georgia. The region we call the “Deep South” plus Florida.

Ten years prior, many of these human beings were considered to be the legal property of other human beings. And then came the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. Suddenly, these former slaves were citizens. And the men could VOTE.

Suddenly, a lot of whites in these southern states had the fear that they were now either in the minority or at least not in a strong plurality. Their former subjects were now recognized as their equals according to the text of the US Constitution.

And they freaked out.

TRUMP'S COUP TIMELINE

* This thread will use military time and EST time zone for any times provided.

November 7, 2020 - The press calls the 2020 presidential election for now President-elect Joe Biden, 4 days after the election.

November 9, 2020

After meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and in violation of standing Department of Justice policy not to interfere in elections, US Attorney General Bill Barr authorizes federal prosecutors to investigate claims of electoral fraud.

Richard Pilger, the head of the DoJ’s Election Crimes Branch, resigns in response to Barr’s memo.

Trump fires Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. In response, Esper says, “Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

Trump immediately names Christopher Miller Acting Secretary of Defense.

Trump follows Esper’s firing with firing the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, and the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, constituting a “near total decapitation of civilian leadership” at the Pentagon.

That new attack piece about Seth Abramson is full of easily debunked false claims. Whenever the mainstream media gets annoyed at an indie pundit like Seth, it just publishes a bunch of bullshit about him, and most people mistakenly believe it. They've done the same thing to me.

The sad part is that when the author of that piece tried to smear a bunch of mainstream media journalists for daring to compare notes with him, they all responded by lying and said they've never compared notes with him. Even though Abramson has proof that they have.

This is the EXACT same strategy that certain mainstream media outlets used against me in 2017-2018. First they lied about me. Then they attacked my mainstream media associates for associating with a "fake news" pundit like me. Then some in the media felt compelled to disown me.

Sadly, it didn't matter that I had overwhelming proof that everything said about me in those attack pieces was false. When you defend yourself, no matter how factually, the average observer merely decides you're being "defensive" and therefore guilty as charged.

Ask yourself why the mainstream media is choosing now to dishonestly attack Abramson. The media's ratings are way down now that Trump is gone. Abramson presumably still has his entire niche audience intact. So the media gets jealous and takes it out on him.

Strongly endorse everything in this @OsitaNwanevu piece. One of the key mistakes I see among Dems, both online & in the real world, is thinking that people believe right-wing nonsense because they are unintelligent or uneducated.

In the area I know best, climate change, it's been found repeatedly that climate denialists & skeptics have, on average, MORE higher education than those who accept the science. They know MORE about climate science. They have, on average, HIGHER verbal intelligence.

What they do is adopt the conclusion that best serves their social tribe and then use their intelligence & education to build a case for it. It's called "motivated reasoning" & everyone is subject to it, very much including the smartest people.