Finding the equilibrium of the two primary political forces between the left and the right

[Rumpole]

To have more sensible politics, you need more choice.

If a person has only two options to choose from, they'll choose the more sensible option (sometimes). If they have six choices, then the chances are there'll be an even more sensible option.
Often people feel they only have one choice in the US. People decide they hate the other party, there's no one else to choose from, and the Reps and Dems feed off of that, they don't need to get better, they just need to attract the swing voters and usually do so by painting the other side as more crazy.
Doesn't happen so much in Germany or other countries with Proportional Representation.

I think you are referring to the various coalition governments which parliamentary systems afford.

I've given the concept of coalition governance a lot of thought. There are, in fact, numerous choices. There are several parties in America. But no one has ever launched a party outside of the GOP and the DNC that got more than single digits.

You can say we should have more choices, but we do have more choices, and the people just aren't choosing them.

In the USA, the last time I checked, and it was a few years ago ( some of them might be defunct) these are your choices
beyond the Republicans and Democrats.

Libertarian Party
Green Party
Constitution Party
American Solidarity Party
Reform Party
Socialist Party USA
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Prohibition Party
Independent Party
Modern Whig Party
Working Families Party
Peace and Freedom Party

 

[SweetSue92]

Good point. I was thinking of the way "the center" is perceived by those on the ends of the spectrum -- this perfectly positioned spot in which utopia lies. They know that's just not possible, so they use that fact an excuse to not even try.

Any momentum that can be created towards collaboration and innovation is a worthy effort, that's for sure.

Oh please Mac, you who have been nothing but jeering and name-calling anyone who voted for Trump for how long now? Sure, sure, Mr Reasonable. Let's just all get along.

 

[Mac1958]

Oh please Mac, you who have been nothing but jeering and name-calling anyone who voted for Trump for how long now? Sure, sure, Mr Reasonable. Let's just all get along.

Yes, poopsie, this place is indeed my intellectual toilet. Stipulated.

There are too many people like you here for it to have any constructive value.

You're like a little, wet, wormy thing, wiggling around in my mental Petri dish.

Poke, observe, poke, observe, flush. That's it. Sorry.

 

[SweetSue92]

Yes, poopsie, this place is indeed my intellectual toilet. Stipulated.

There are too many people like you here for it to have any constructive value.

You're like a little, wet, wormy thing, wiggling around in my mental Petri dish.

Poke, observe, poke, observe, flush. That's it. Sorry.

I'm much too smart for that, you know it, and I don't fit your paradigm that you attempt to keep forcing me into.

hey Mac the great moderate, how you gonna work together with anyone when you keep calling people names?

 

[LAUGHatLEFTISTS]

I stated in the OP that the principles outline were 'guidelines', because obviously, there are grey areas.

Needs would be those areas in commerce or services that are more successfully served by the government.
Needs are unaffordable desires, where society (democracy) rules that it is just to provide them by the government,
Needs are desires in which government providers cannot function with competition, such as police, military, and fire dept.

wants are affordable desires. Shoes, Cars, and a gazillion other things.

The needs v wants will vary according to ability to pay. The poor will partake in more government provided services than the affluent will, but it is fair that the affluent will purchase finer things.

Most housing would fall under wants. The needs aspect would be housing & rent subsides for those who can't afford normal rates, which, under HUD, falls under 'Section 8'.

Most education is needs, as most people send their kids to a public school and cannot afford a private school. Wants would be those who can afford private schools.

Mail is established in the Constitution. Some argue it's private, but not really. It's a de facto government run enterprize. Per the constitution, those it doesn't explicitly state it in these terms, is a need.

Health also has public and private components. That is the status quo.

Cosmetic surgery is a want.

Fire department is a need.

Police, FBI, etc., is a need.

LIbraries are a need (but not so much, any more, it seems).

Golf courses are a want. Municipal courses are a need, for those who can't afford normal rates. There are other municipal facilities, such as 'plunges' (olympic sized swimming pools) , tennis courts/parks and recreation, etc. Lifeguards at beaches, etc.

As for 'society's obligation'. That is a matter settled by democracy, and democracy only.

And the list goes on.

As for how to pay for it, and how much. How to pay for it -- Given that the upper 50% own 97% of the nation's wealth, they should pay, in a progressive scale, 97% of the taxes, the lower 50%, progressively above 130% of the poverty rate, the remaining 3%. Below that, a negative tax to bring them to 130% of poverty rate.

How much? That's a matter for congressional/presidential budgets. Too complicated to tackle here.

Naturally, in struggling with the right over these values in order to find that 'sweet spot' that equilibrium between the values of the right and left, I'd have to make compromises, as the right would, as well, where we can find that place where we both can live with. But that will only be possible if people quit being uncompromising radicals, and come to their senses.

The right, either willingly but mostly by force, has been compromising with the left for more than sixty years. We’re beginning to see the results.

 

[Mac1958]

I think you are referring to the various coalition governments which parliamentary systems afford.

I've given the concept of coalition governance a lot of thought. There are, in fact, numerous choices. There are several parties in America. But no one has ever launched a party outside of the GOP and the DNC that got more than single digits.

You can say we should have more choices, but we do have more choices, and the people just aren't choosing them.

In the USA, the last time I checked, and it was a few years ago ( some of them might be defunct) these are your choices
beyond the Republicans and Democrats.

Libertarian Party
Green Party
Constitution Party
American Solidarity Party
Reform Party
Socialist Party USA
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Prohibition Party
Independent Party
Modern Whig Party
Working Families Party
Peace and Freedom Party

Our current political "system" (ha) has devolved into a binary, tribal battlefield in which alternatives are blocked out. Until and unless the system is fixed, this continues.

Repairs would have to incremental. Ranked choice voting, non-partisan primaries, modified redistricting commissions, publicly-funded elections and short, strict term limits would almost certainly have to be a part of it, at least in some combination.

The problem is that not enough people really care. People can tell you who the Kardashian girls are banging, but they can't tell you who their Senators are.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

There's a pendulum in politics. Swing too far to the left, it rebounds, and swings too far to the right. and vice versa, in a never ending going from one extreme to the other, and back again only to repeat.

But where does the pendulum rest? Well, an actual pendulum, it rests upon arrival at dead center. I feel this is a great metaphor for the political forces of the right and the left.

But, to reach the center, once we figure out where that center is, I believe we must do it deliberately, as, without deliberation, the pendulum will continue to swing. There is disharmony and disfunction when the pendulum never rests, but that is true more so if it is moving too quickly. The trick is to put it to rest, in the center. It seems that in Russia and China it has swung too far to the right. With Trump, in my view, it was swinging far to the right, but the electorate said NO, and chose Biden. But, we have to be wary of swinging too far to the left, as well. So, let's first define things.

So, the place where the equilibrium of both forces are achieved is in the center, it might be leaning left, it might be leaning right, but the point is, it will be the point of equilibrium, the most inert, and thus the most balanced, harmonious and peaceful point. But is this possible? Or is this just idealistic fantasy? It's worth exploring, I say, in the never ending struggle to find the best path for America, if there is such a thing, it's a worthwhile effort.

Now, this is not to be confused with 'centrism' as a political ideology. I don't really consider myself as a 'centrist'.

America, and all of the western developed nations, aka "western democracies' aka 'liberal democracies' (which doesn't mean liberal in terms of politics, it means liberal in terms of a free society with all that implies as opposed to a closed society, like the USSR or N. Korea), the western world are 'mixed economics' or what might also be called a blend of socialism and capitalism. So what it is is the right balance of socialism and capitalism?

So let me define what I mean by these things. I have no intention in going off into a philosophical tangent about these things, of which many books have been written. Heck, if you printed a PDF of the Wikipedia Entry on 'Socialism' and 'Democratic Socialism', it would occupy 150 or so pages. Clearly, no one liner in a dictionary will convey the scope of what these terms mean. But, I'm not going there, i'm keeping things real simple in this thread--I mean a government run enterprise is a socialistic enterprise, and a privately run enterprise is a capitalistic enterprise. Call them what you want, but for the sake of argument, that is how I'm labeling them here. Most western nations ( if not all of them ) are mixed economies, various ratios of both. You can all them anything, but for the sake of simplicity, I find it easier to call them that.

That's how I am defining them here. Many on the right accuse democrats of being 'socialist' in the hope people will associate this with the totalitarian countries, and thus reject it and vote for Republicans, This is not being truthful, of course, because no Democrat I know favors anything to do with totalitarianism, contrary to what many on the right are asserting (not saying all of you are saying that, but some of you are). But, that's another argument. Debating that aspect is not the intent here.

Now then. I'm going to make some opinionated declarations, based on my empirical observation of history.

Socialism, without capitalism, will collapse.

Capitalism, without socialism, will devour itself.

So the trick is to understand what each does the best, and let each do just that.

Now, if you are a 'neoliberal' (conservative/libertarian) you are going to have a hard time going along with me on this, but suspend your belief, temporarily, until you finish this post, that's all I ask. (Neoliberalism = total unregulated free marketism, where most of the government is privatized, in a nutshell)

It's a public enterprise versus private enterprise thing. I am arbitrarily labeling them as socialism versus capitalism.

A public enterprise works better for what I will call, 'the negative markets'.

What do I mean by that?

These are things we need, and needs are things we absolutely must have, though we may, or may not want them.

Okay, you don't want your house to be on fire, so we need a fire department to deal with it

You don't want someone to steal or rob you or murder you, so we need to have police, sheriff, and FBI to deal with such things.

We don't want foreign countries to attack us, so we need a military to deal with it.

Now, there are a few areas that can be done by both government and private, such as education.

Public education is the guarantee that everyone will be educated, poor or affluent. Private education is not denied for anyone who can pay for it. (Caveat: debating how well these are functioning is not the purpose of this thread)

So, it's mostly things we do not want, but need someone to deal with it, or public service for those who cannot afford the service, but which service is needed for everyone in order to achieve a literate, educated, nourished and healthy citizenry. This could include health care, food and housing, though all of these will have a large private counterpart. This is the 'socialism for needs' (negative markets) aspect.

And, on the other side of the equation, we have what I will call 'the positive markets' these are things we want, such as shoes, clothes, cars, cars washed, carpets cleaned, lawns mowed, toys, goodies, food, boats, jewelry stuff we want and desire for our happiness, etc. Now, please note that if you never have heard of these markets labeled this way, it is because I made it up.

So, public enterprise, negative markets ( mostly), things we need (socialism)
private enterprise, positive markets ( mostly ) things we want. (capitalism)


In short:

Socialism for needs,
Capitalism for wants.

Note that there are shades of grey, and options for one or the other. The concept of 'socialism for needs, and capitalism for wants' is not a rigid concept, adjustments can be made, depending on the wants of the electorate. It is a starting point, a guiding principle, a point of reference for clarity when things get foggy.

One country might favor government run critical and strategic services, such as post, railroad, and banking, healthcare, and another country these privately run, noting that in the vast majority of the 50 or so western countries, the health care model is some variant of universal health care.

And the dynamics of public enterprises are quite different than a private enterprise.

With a private enterprise, you must reward productivity and penalize non-productivity, and you must do this or go out of business.

But, with a nation, a public enterprise, the dynamics are different. If you penalize the poor, and overly reward the rich too much, and penalize the poor too much for too log, whereupon the government becomes oppressive and caters to the rich, you could wind up with masses of people with pitchforks marching on the governing class, you could wind up with revolutions, and the outcomes of revolutions are never good. We demand, much more so, accountability and transparency of our public servants much more so than of our private entrepreneurs. Try doing a FOIA request on a corporation! Now, nothing is perfect, as it is written, the Declaration of Independence did not declare America to be a perfect union, only that we try and be a more perfect union. And yes, there is corruption, but it knows no borders between the public and private, and this is a subject for another thread, I'm dealing with philosophical concepts here.

( Note: there is the grey area of the non -profit corporation, which is a hybrid, but I will not get into this here )

You've never heard these terms (negative and positive markets ) because I just made them up, to illustrate a concept. So, don't hark back and say you've never heard of them. Of course you haven't, I've coined the ideas to illustrate my political philosophy.

So, the idea is, socialism for individual needs and needs of society, and capitalism for individual wants, and wants of society.

So, the idea isn't a centrist philosophy, the idea is the right balance of socialism
( government run enterprises ) and capitalism, ( privately run enterprises, and this includes corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and sole proprietorships, independent contractors), i.e., the idea is NOT to do away with either side of the pendulum, but achieve an equilibrium of both political forces. Finding the sweet spot, is what it is all about ( for me, anyway ) and that is the eternal struggle between the right and left, and there yes yet to be one leader who understands it fully, let alone explain it well to the electorate, so that everyone can agree on it -- if that is all possible.

And for those of you, right or left, who fantasizing about being in a place where the other doesn't exist, forget it, it doesn't exist, it's not reality. The political landscape is a spectrum, and most political parties fall somewhere on the right or left side of the spectrum.

That is the general idea of my political philosophy, and, as such, it is not really a socialist philosophy, because true socialism is the pendulum too far to the left, where it will ultimately fail. All the way to the right is theoretically total anarchy which will, practically speaking, never be anarchy, it will be an plutocracy/oligarchy with a nationalist dictator at it's head (aka 'Fascism or something similar ) because, in a libertarian world, capital flows to fewer and fewer hands, and power controlled by fewer and fewer people. So, this is why I don't agree with conservatives and libertarians who are anti-regulation of any kind. there is such a thing as sensible regulation (true, one could argue that we have to much regulation that isn't sensible, and probably not enough that is, but that is another subject --though I'm certain we can find a lot of agreement there).

This can be true, (authoritarianism/totalitarianism) in a different way, in terms of central control, with communism/socialism and too far to the left, as evidenced by Soviet Russia, Cuba, N Korea, etc. So, when the pendulum swings too far to the left, or right, you have totalitarianism. If conservatives want to argue that right wing totalitarianism isn't as total as left wing totalitarianism, fine, but that is a rather silly argument as both extremes are bad, no matter how you slice it, and I would assume no sensible person on the right advocates it and, as a left of center person, myself, Democrats, liberals (and 'democratic socialists) certainly are not advocating for totalitarian socialism/communism, as many on the right would have us believe. No, I'm not saying everyone on the right accuses liberals and dems as being 'commies' but some are. I also criticize those on the left who accuse those on the right as being fascists. I think we need to calm down, stop shouting and talking past each other, stop telling lies about our opponents, and have a realistic conversation about the subject, which is the point of this thread.

However, in my view, the farthest and safest place away from both extremes is the most inert point, and that is the center, or rather, that point where an equilibrium of both forces can be achieved. Because that is the ONLY place the pendulum can rest.

The trick is, where, exactly, is the center? That is where the real debate is. Where is the sweet spot that both sides can live with? That is the eternal struggle on both sides. This, I'm still trying to figure out.

 

[Mac-7]

Most housing would fall under wants. The needs aspect would be housing & rent subsides for those who can't afford normal rates, which, under HUD, falls under 'Section 8'.

Here is where we differ

I dont think government should be providing wants or needs to individuals

Public services such as the fire dept, roads and bridges, ect should be available to everyone

But government has no business feeding able bodied people who should be feeding themselves

 

[Mac-7]

I've given the concept of coalition governance a lot of thought. There are, in fact, numerous choices. There are several parties in America. But no one has ever launched a party outside of the GOP and the DNC that got more than single digits.

Not so

The Tea Party was suppressed by obama and the Deep State in 2012 but elected Donald Trump in 2016

Yes he ran as a Republican but was in fact a 3rd party outsider

 

[JGalt]

I'd expect nothing less. You could read 'Atlas Shrugged', but you'd probably have to flog yourself to read it. I know I would.

And, by the way, your comment begs the question: Are there any useless things you do give a fuck about?

Of course there are useless things I don't give a fuck about: Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, and Democrats.

 

[Rumpole]

The right, either willingly but mostly by force, has been compromising with the left for more than sixty years. We’re beginning to see the results.

Can you elaborate, be more specific, on the 'mostly by force' aspect of your claim, i.,e cite examples, cases, provide any links to videos, texts, essays, reports, etc, anything to substantiate what appears to me to be an unfounded and inaccurate claim? But you are welcome to convince me of otherwise.

 

[Rumpole]

Our current political "system" (ha) has devolved into a binary, tribal battlefield in which alternatives are blocked out. Until and unless the system is fixed, this continues.

Repairs would have to incremental. Ranked choice voting, non-partisan primaries, modified redistricting commissions, publicly-funded elections and short, strict term limits would almost certainly have to be a part of it, at least in some combination.

The problem is that not enough people really care. People can tell you who the Kardashian girls are banging, but they can't tell you who their Senators are.

Yes, though are valid concerns. However, 'not enough care' it not really clear to me given that some 150 or so million people voted in the 2020 election.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I say that about china having had to interact with Chinese students, who came from china, interviewing them on the Campus as UCSD, and is pretty much what they told me about their country. However, China is far too authoritarian for my blood, and it would the same for Americans.

College Is for Coolies. That's Why Asians Do So Well There.

 

[BluesLegend]

We have no use for Dem trash or the far left.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I'm mostly a shitposter.

I'd Rather Be a Troll Than a Trollop, Like the Authority-Lovers on the Netrix

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Authoritarianism is a separable component of any left to right regime. You could have a libertarian socialist society (in theory) or an authoritarian socialist society (which is usually the case). Authoritarian/libertarian are components of any political system and they are not systems, unto themselves. There is the 'libertarian party' but they are just pretty much radical conservatives who are culturally liberal, more liberal than modern liberals, So, the communism in China doesn't have to be authoritarian, Marxism isn't inherently authoritarian, it's just that the party in control wants it that way. The big problem with communism is that it is a ripe vehicle for the power hungry to impose authoritarianism, which is what usually manifests.

Preppy Progressives


The power-hungry are those whose Daddy's Money makes them believe they are Born to Rule. That is the hidden appeal of Marxism, including to Marx himself.

 

[Rumpole]

Here is where we differ

I dont think government should be providing wants or needs to individuals

Public services such as the fire dept, roads and bridges, ect should be available to everyone

But government has no business feeding able bodied people who should be feeding themselves

I believe I have identified the fundamental philosophical differences in how the right and left approach policy on this subject.

Republicans base policy on how they feel people 'should' behave in the hopes they are incentivized to behave the way they wish they would. This only works for the relatively able-bodied souls who just need a swift kick in the butt to get going, get off their ass, get a job, etc., etc..

For some people, many even, I am entirely sympathetic to that view, but not everyone is in that place. I believe Republicans are blind to this fact and see life in simplicistic, binary terms. Life is far more complex, nuanced that, in actual practice. So....

Democrats base policy on how people actually behave, recognizing that, for some folks, (the programs designed to target just those folks) they are incapable of coping with life, and will never ever behave they way Republican wish they would behave, and to deprive them of life's basic necessities, when they are incapable of providing it for themselves, is, on what we believe should be in accordance with what a 'civilized society' should be, that is a cruel, uncivilized, policy, indeed.

It doesn't mean those programs should not be designed to improve those folks, if it is at all possible, to raise them out of their mire and into productive society, that should always be the objective and built into such programs, but to deny them help, altogether, based on simplistic binary notions of what they think really is, but really isn't, we believe, is cruel.

Now, if anyone's response, from the right, goes something like, 'that's just word salad', without making a modicum of effort to understand what I am saying, they have proven my point, about Republicans. I hope that isn't the case, however, but I suspect it is the case. This is based on years of my engaging with conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, and various combinations of these, on various forums on the internet, going back to the late 90s on Usenet.

Now, I'm not saying there are problems or deficiencies with this approach, I'm not, and I welcome sensible, thoughtful rebuttals.

 

[Rumpole]

Of course there are useless things I don't give a fuck about: Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, and Democrats.

Is there any specific issue you'd like to debate?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Well, if you were a fan of Ayn Rand, you'd be pissed off to know she is a hypocrite.

Inventors Are Atlases, Not Investors

The true analysis of these books is never mentioned in our controlled thoughts. John Galt was a pushover who would have let his bosses get all the profits from his trillion-dollar invention except, in a non-sequitur by the fanatical author, if they used it for moochers. But not only are corporate patents mooching, but his bosses' heirs who got the unearned windfall were mooching off their dead Daddies.

 

[JGalt]

Is there any specific issue you'd like to debate?

Sure, Bubba. How about these issues? Here's a verifiable list of things which have occurred or are taking place during the presidency of Joe Biden. Pick one, and let's debate about it...

• Promised on several occasions that he would "end fossil fuels"

• Later stated “We’re going to need oil for at least another decade”

• Gasoline that rose over two times the price it was in 2018

• Ended Keystone XL pipeline while waiving sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2

• Suspected US involvement in the bombing of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline

• The price of oil jumped up to $130 per barrel

• Drained US Strategic Oil Reserve to the lowest level since 1984

• Begged Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for oil

• Inflation rate rose as high as 9.1%, which was almost 5 times higher than it was in 2019

• A recession

• Dumped billions of dollars down the black hole of "Global Warming"

• U.S. household wealth down $13.5 trillion in 2022 - Second fastest decline on record

• Average middle-class family came up about $6,000 short of purchasing power

• The DOW dropped 6,700 points in only a year

• Stock market lost $9 trillion dollars worth of value in only two years

• Retirement accounts lost $3 trillion dollars

• 30 year fixed mortgages rose by 4.43% in only two years, to 7.75%

• Home prices soared 43% in only two years and housing sales slumped

• Median asking rent prices rose 79.7% in only two years

• Bankrupted landlords by excusing rent payments

• Grocery prices increased by 13.5% in only two years

• The price of electricity rose by 15.8% in only two years

• Hefty tax increases on the lower and middle class

• 84,000 new IRS agents arming and training to be home invaders

• Use of DOJ and FBI to harass political opponents

• A broken election system corrupt with fraud, sometimes taking months to count

• Wholesale mailing of ballots, ballot drop boxes, and illegal ballot harvesting

• Used a complicit media to lie, distort facts, and disseminate disinformation

• Conducting covert raids on American citizens and confiscating personal property

• Supply line disruptions, backorders, items out of stock or unavailable

• Massive backlog of cargo ships at US ports in 2022

• Sporadic shortages on grocery store shelves

• Air transportation disrupted, thousands of flight cancellations in 2022

• FAA system outages that disrupted thousands of flights in 2023

• Food-processing plants mysteriously burning down

• Record prices for eggs and poultry

• Record number of ecological disasters, train derailments, chemical spills, and fires

• Thousands of small businesses destroyed in order to benefit mega-corporations

• Continuing monumental trade deficit with China

• Allowed Communist China to operate "Police Stations" in American cities

• Allowed Chinese spy balloon to cross entire country, spying on military sites

• Used a $400,000 missile to shoot down a $12 hobbyist balloon over Alaska

• More COVID deaths than in 2020

• Vaccine mandates which caused deaths and debilitating health conditions

• Vaccine mandates which caused massive job losses for those who refused compliance

• Continued government funding for Planned Parenthood

• Eliminated Medicaid work requirements

• Increased food stamp giveaways by more than $1 billion a month, without Congress

• A whole generation of kids physically and psychologically damaged by prison-style lockdowns

• Subjecting young girls to creepy boys posing as "transgenders" in girl's locker rooms

• Stealing women's ability to fairly compete by allowing transgender males in women's sports

• Subjecting children to pornographic "Drag shows" and grooming them to be sex objects

• The promotion of transgenderism in schools, resulting in the genital and fertility mutilation
of children and adolescents by unethical medical practices and Big Pharma.

• Mass shootings occurring sometimes three times a week

• An exponentially-spiraling epidemic of violent crime and drugs

• Shutting down private prisons and turning inmates loose

• Fentanyl seizures up 745 percent

• 100,000 fentanyl deaths during Biden's first year of presidency

• 120% increase in opioid deaths in just two years

• Encouraged illegals to "surge" across the border without reason for amnesty

• A neutered Immigration and Customs Enforcement, virtually stopping arrests and deportations

• 4.9 million illegals crossing US border within only two years

• Added non-citizens to the census

• Immigration policies that dispersed COVID, crime, and potential terrorism throughout the US

• 900,000 "gotaways" who eluded apprehension and disappeared into American communities

• Record numbers of illegals dying while crossing the border

• Border Patrol arresting 98 who were on the terror watch list in 2022, 3X the last 5 years combined

• A President who wouldn't visit the border and said he had "More important things going on."

• A dishonorable withdrawal from Afghanistan that cost 13 American soldiers their lives

• $7.12 billion worth of US military equipment and weaponry left to the Taliban

• Hundreds of US citizens and Afghans left behind in Afghanistan after the withdrawal

• People falling out of the wheel wells of aircraft leaving Afghanistan

• A weakened US military more concerned with "political correctness" than creating soldiers

• A weakened US military via destructive anti-white racism and transgender-promoting policies

• Record low enlistment numbers

• A revitalized Russian oil industry, despite US sanctions

• A war in Ukraine that has cost the US billions of dollars and killed thousands

• Increased possibility of nuclear war with Russia

• Traded an America-hating lesbian doper basketball player for a terrorist Russian arms dealer,
while leaving an American Marine in a Russian prison

• North Korea continuing to expand their nuclear enrichment and missile programs

• A stronger Iran increasing their funding for Hamas and Hezbollah

• China became more energy and militarily dominant

• A senile, angry, and incompetent president who fell off of a bicycle, fell up stairs, insulted
half the people in America, labeled people as "terrorists", divided the country, and tried to incite
a civil war.