| Jaicee said: Y'know, as someone with but a humble high school diploma myself, I take exception to all this belittling of the merely average human being. Most people on this forum may have a bachelor's degree (or whatever your country's equivalent is called), but most people in general don't and I really don't think my comparative lack of formal education makes me dumber than you. It just suggests that I'm from a poorer background. It also doesn't make protectionism an "utterly insane idea". Harris's economic policy ideas poll far better than Trump's as a whole, including the proposed tax breaks for child care and first-time home buyers and introducing price caps on both medicines and groceries, but there's also a reason why imposing a 10% tariff on all imported goods ranks among Trump's more popular policy proposals, faring the best among the poorest Americans and underwater only among those making over $100,000 a year. Why do you think Rust Belt Democratic Senators like Pennsylvania's Bob Casey and Ohio's Sherrod Brown are certifiable protectionists? Are they "utterly insane" or are they more attuned to the concerns of working people about the hollowing out of manufacturing through the outsourcing of local work to foreign countries with weaker labor protections like China and Mexico? Harris's affirmative opposition to protectionist policies (or what she calls a "national sales tax") might land her some support from billionaires and neocon Republicans, but it's also likely part of why she seems to be losing the Rust Belt. It ranks among the things I disagree with her on the most. Seriously, here's how Casey is running for re-election right now. Let's get back to that mindset. The Trump people I know aren't ideological fascists or typically especially mean people, it might be added. If you can get them talking about anything other than politics, their better angels will often prevail. They just buy his shit is all. They really believe the last election was stolen and that they're the real defenders of democracy here, that the various trials and convictions against him are a form of politically motivated persecution, all this sorta thing. |
They believe this not because there are real facts to back up their case, but because they want to. The next question though is "Why do they want to?" You are correct that having a college degree or not does not determine whether you are intelligent when it comes to politics. It should also be noted that a college degree merely means that at one point in your life you were eager to learn and achieve something, but that doesn't meant that you are still in that state of mind 10, 20, 30 years later. Those who stop to improve themself will eventually cease to qualify as intelligent regardless of the education they once had, because things continually evolve and things change. So it does not matter if you only got through high school, because what counts is who you are today.
The topic of protectionism is a good example. The Biden administration has upheld some tariffs as far as I know, because targeted tariffs do help Americans, particularly those aimed as China because the Chinese government subsidizes Chinese companies in an attempt to wrestle markets away from American (and European) companies. However, tariffs across the board as proposed by Trump do not help. Certain goods aren't manufactured in the USA at all, so all a tariff does is make more expensive for the American consumer, therefore rising the cost of living. Other goods, like cars, are manufactured in the USA, but not all parts of them; so if you put a tariff on the parts that need to be imported, you are making all cars that are assembled in the USA more expensive. So anyone who supports Trump's policy on tariffs is stupid until they make the decision to educate themself on the topic; because if you support Trump because of his tariffs, you are supporting rising costs of living for yourself and no matter how you want to slice it, that is stupid and especially stupid if you don't have much money to begin with.
People can end up being poor because of factors that are out of their control, that's reality. But it's also true that people can remain poor because of their own bad decisions. It does not surprise me that the poorest Americans are not financially literate enough to understand how tariffs work, and that they as group happen to be the most in support of a policy that will hurt themselves the most. But information on tariffs is out there and it's available for free, so all it takes is a little bit of time and effort to read up on it.
You know that Harris has said that she wouldn't have done any thing different to how Biden has done them in the past few years. Biden has kept tariffs on China among others, so does it make sense in your mind that Harris is against tariffs across the board? Or is the topic of tariffs actually a question of how they are being applied?
Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.
