Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
The Democrats, universities, and media have their faults and have been too woke, but the lies, bullshit, propaganda, and poor error-correction instincts of Trump, RFK Jr, Tucker Carlson, and others is not a better alternative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txjr4IdCao8
They’re ALL WRONG on why Trump beat Kamala
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLFlB0v9AyM
“According to the exit poll, 35 percent of voters nationally rated the “state of democracy” as the most important factor to their vote. Eighty-one percent of these people voted for Harris and just 17 percent for Trump. But the economy was the next-most-influential issue. Among these voters, Trump led 79 percent to 20 percent. In the end, abortion did not rate as highly as Democrats might have hoped; only 14 percent rated it as their biggest concern.
It’s possible that inflation contributed to the growing divide between high-income voters and low-income voters. According to the exit poll, Democrats increased their vote share by 9 points among voters living in households that make more than $100,000 dollars a year. Among households making less, which account for about 60 percent of voters, Republicans gained 12 points on margin.”
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“In addition to economic headwinds and deteriorating margins with their base, it looks like Democrats also simply had bad turnout. So far, around 137 million ballots have been counted for the 2024 presidential race. Predictions of final turnout are hovering somewhere in the neighborhood 152 million votes. That would be a decrease from the 158 million who voted in 2020 and would be equivalent to about 61 percent of eligible voters. That would be a decline from 66 percent in 2020.”
https://abcnews.go.com/538/donald-trump-won-presidency/story?id=115556511
Harris played it like she was protecting a lead, but it appears she never really had one.
Biden quitting late, removed the possibility of a real primary to get the best candidate, and left Harris with little time to run a campaign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7RtPQvJfl4
“Black voters — men and women — have been the bedrock of the Democratic Party, and in recent years, Latinos and young voters have joined them.
All three groups still preferred Democrat Kamala Harris. But preliminary data from AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide, suggested that Trump made significant gains.
Voters under age 30 represent a fraction of the total electorate, but about half of them supported Harris. That’s compared to the roughly 6 in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Slightly more than 4 in 10 young voters went for Trump, up from about one-third in 2020.
At the same time, Black and Latino voters appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago, according to AP VoteCast.
About 8 in 10 Black voters backed Harris, down from the roughly 9 in 10 who backed Biden. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Trump’s support among those groups appeared to rise slightly compared to 2020. Collectively, those small gains yielded an outsize outcome.”
…
“about half of Trump voters said inflation was the biggest issue factoring into their election decisions. About as many said that of the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to AP VoteCast.
He papered over the fact that the economy by many conventional metrics is robust — inflation is largely in check and wages are up — while border crossings have dropped dramatically. He talked right past the facts and through relentless repetition convinced voters.
He also sold them on the promise of the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history, although he has not explained how such an operation would work. And he is threatening to impose massive tariffs on key products from China and other American adversaries, which economists warn could dramatically boost prices for average Americans.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-presidential-election-takeaways-d0e4677f4cd53b4d2d8d18d674be5bf4
“In June, former President Trump traveled to Las Vegas where he unexpectedly revealed a new tax idea: no taxes on tips. Why was Trump suddenly so keen on eliminating taxes on tipped earnings? Because he was trying to win the electorally important state of Nevada, which is home to a large number of Las Vegas-area service workers who rely heavily on tips for income.
This wasn’t a policy that fit into some broader framework or comprehensive theory of how taxes should work. It was an idea, floated in the middle of a rambling speech, targeting a specific, electorally important group, and offering them a benefit through the tax code.
Trump didn’t even try to pretend otherwise. At the June rally, he announced the plan, saying, “for those hotel workers and people that get tips you’re going to be very happy because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips people (are) making.”
There’s a word for this: pandering. And it has defined many policy proposals from both the Trump and Harris campaigns this year.”
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“Pandering is hardly new in politics or policy. Politicians have long sought to win constituencies and placate voters with narrowly targeted policies designed to address specific concerns. All politicians pander to some extent.
But in the past, pandering has at least sometimes been a voter outreach tool for politicians with bigger ambitions and clearer visions they intend to pursue. In 2024, there’s hardly anything else in play. The campaign agendas are barely more than marketing one-sheets: half-baked promises to sell to voters with the details to come later. The pandering is the point. ”
https://reason.com/2024/10/29/this-election-has-been-defined-by-presidential-policy-pandering/
“When asked why Harris has not distinguished herself by opposing these measures, Lincicome notes that supporting tariffs is just part of the “conventional wisdom in Washington today” even if polls may not completely support this assertion. “The view among the political experts is that elections are won or lost in a few places with a few votes,” and those critical “voters like tariffs.”
Given the IMF’s projections, bipartisan support for tariffs could lead to increased costs and slower economic growth for Americans regardless of who wins in November. ”
…
“former President Donald Trump floated a specific 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods alongside a 10 percent across-the-board tariff, which he recently increased to 20 percent. “It’s just what he thinks galvanized an audience,” Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and Stiefel Trade Policy Center at the Cato Institute, tells Reason. “Let’s face it, none of this has any rigorous econometric modeling behind it, so it could be as simple as he thinks 20 percent sounds better.”
“Taking the candidates at their word, you would have to say that Trump’s tariffs would be orders of magnitude worse than what Kamala Harris might do, or say she will do,” Lincicome adds.”
https://reason.com/2024/10/29/increase-in-tariffs-would-trigger-global-economic-decline-study-finds/
Final Thoughts on the 2024 Presidential Election: A Conversation with Mark Cuban (Episode #390)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqSB7EmMENs
“I think you actually see this in the bit of daylight that emerged between her and the White House early in Biden’s term. I warned in March 2021 that Biden wasn’t thinking clearly about the asylum situation. His administration didn’t want a ton of asylum-seekers to show up at the border, but was also unwilling to actually say that or align their policies clearly with the goal of preventing it. The person who was willing to say it was Kamala Harris, who got saddled with the quasi-impossible task of ending the root causes of migration via diplomatic engagement with Central America, but who managed to fly to Guatemala and actually say the thing — “do not come” — that should have been the administration’s top to bottom message.
The Groups and media leftists yelled at her, the Biden administration didn’t back her up, and now, three years later, her biggest political vulnerability is still her association with Biden’s efforts to appease the Groups. The good news on the substance of immigration policy is that Biden eventually changed course, and now crossings are lower than they were at the end of Trump’s term.
Harris has also clearly said that she wants to sign the border security bill that Trump quashed for his own personal political game. Immigration groups originally revolted, not so much at the substance of the bill (which is good!) but at the idea of doing anything on border security detached from a path to citizenship for the long-resident undocumented. Biden belatedly shifted Democrats off this bit of Groups-think by linking the border security measures to aid for Ukraine. But Harris is now advocating for border security in a freestanding way.
I personally would love to see comprehensive immigration reform, but it’s clear that the construct ran aground some time ago. And Harris has been steering, from the get-go, toward a more sensible approach that involves considering individual immigration policy changes on the merits. Back in 2019, she co-sponsored a skilled migration bill with Mike Lee at a time when the idea of doing this detached from comprehensive reform was anathema to The Groups.”
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“I sincerely understand why people with very right-wing policy views might decide they want to overlook Trump’s well-known flaws and roll the dice on the possibility that he does something catastrophic. But if you’re a normal person with some mixed feelings about the parties, I think you will be dramatically happier with the results that come from President Harris negotiating with congressional Republicans over exactly which tax breaks should be extended rather than a re-empowered Trump backed by a 6-3 Supreme Court and supportive majorities in Congress.”
https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-positive-case-for-kamala-harris
“Trump fans applauded when he said he’ll eliminate taxes on tips. Then Harris proposed that, too. Her audience applauded. Trump then proposed not taxing overtime. More applause.
But narrow tax exemptions are bad policy.
In my new video, economist Allison Schrager explains how they create nasty, unintended consequences.
“No one likes tipping,” says Schrager, “but all of a sudden, you’ll have to pay tips for everything.…More people will be paid in tips.””
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“Trump’s proposal to eliminate tax on overtime would reduce hiring.
“Employers may hire fewer people so they can give more overtime to employees they have already,” says Schrager.”
…
“rent control is destructive. “Sounds really good,” says Schrager. “But all it means is that people are less inclined to rent to you.”
“Why would you enter a market where it seems like the government is actively trying to hurt you?” Adds Mercatus Center economist Salim Furth. “You’re providing an essential service, something human beings need to live, and the government views you as a hostile outsider. I wouldn’t want to bring any service into a market like that.”
Argentina’s new libertarian president just scrapped rent controls. The supply of rental apartments doubled, and prices declined by 40 percent! That’s good policy.
But Harris proposes the opposite!”
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“Trump’s (and Joe Biden’s) tariffs don’t just punish China, they reduce choice and raise prices in America.
“Free trade is good!” says Schrager. “It brings lower prices, making our own industries more dynamic, raising our income.”
“But trade does take away some Americans’ jobs,” I point out.
“But it creates a lot of other new jobs,” she replies.
It sure does. More and better jobs than those lost through trade.”
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“She proposes giving “first-time homebuyers” $25,000. Again, her fans applaud.
Schrager explains, “free” money from government doesn’t increase the supply of homes. When every buyer has $25,000 more, “they just bid up prices even higher!””
https://reason.com/2024/10/16/donald-trump-and-kamala-harris-keep-making-economically-illiterate-promises/