It hasn't been his "opening arguments." He's been consistent & realistic time & time again, at each State of the Union especially.

And my god, like, I don't see any help for this nation coming from other nations. Tax the rich, defend our social safety nets, control Healthcare costs, fund the IRS... can we keep this Republic, please? Why are so many clamoring to tear it down?

> Why are so many clamoring to tear it down?

It stopped working for many people. Not many people can afford rent or a house anymore. We just got done fighting 2 long wars that we didn't win, mostly for the benefit of warmongers, who cashed out like bandits; others involved were scarred, maimed, mentally anguished, or outright killed. Good jobs are difficult to come by if you don't have a college degree. And who would want a degree with the ruinous undischargable debt it comes with? The ever more expensive food and water seems laced with poison or trace amounts of drugs, and when it causes people to get sick, few can afford healthcare.

Would you want to tear that system down?

No, because I believe problems can be iterated on and solutions can be found if people participate in the process.

Tearing a system down and replacing it has a significantly higher cost.

> Tearing a system down and replacing it has a significantly higher cost.

Worked out pretty well for Britan's relationship with the EU /s

Participate in the process how? There is no time off, no sick leave, no protections for people who say something their boss doesn't like. People can't even get time off to vote, and all the local polling places are being closed.

The busses are being shut down. Mail in voting is being suppressed. Strict voter identification is being enforced. Residency requirements, black laws, and drug laws prevent the homeless and destitute from voting. District maps have been drawn to disenfranchise opponents.

The game has been rigged. That's what they want to tear down.

There's been so many ills in this thread & it's all so very very Tea Partyist, that the way to win is to get people to not believe in government & the way to get people to not believe in government is to be an awful awful government that cancels services, is unbearably cruel to people, that broadly disenfranchised as hard as it can.

It's sad to see the loyal opposition fall into such disloyal treachery. Now we have radical extremists in power & welcomed in to a major party, I he voice for a sizable chunk of America. And actively working to undo the Union.

Errr. What?

You're right that people have been roundly disenfranchised and are just desperate. There's little time to paritipate.

And they're fed a constant source of Fox News & ever accelerating worse terror mongering telling them to despair, making them think everything not deep red is aflame & terrible Sodomistic horror.

But there are real hopeful politics out there they could at least consider voting for. That have a track record of trying to help more than the plutocrats, that try to build a better social support system. But still, people keep voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces party. They get jazzed up by the extremely wealthy astroturfed anti-government Tea Party campaigns. And these campaigns just get more and more believable the better and better the red powers get at obstructing & blocking healthy governance. That's the freedom of the Freedom Caucus, that's the Tea Party.

Wait one. The perception that people on the "right" love FOX is a ruse. I assure anyone here they don't. They hate Fox with a passion. There is also no left or right. It is one party. All the sham fighting is a soap opera. I've been around long enough to get screwed by BOTH sides even handed. It does not matter. There is however a way to win; Find your own personal freedom. Once you do that none of this matters much. If you want to wear a mask then do it. If you don't then don't . Same for vaccines and whatever else. It's not easy however finding your own freedom. Hard ass work. Really hard but it can be done. Most are not willing to put in the work so they revert to blaming it one side or the other. NO. It is your own fault. Freedom is not free. Took me a while to learn this fact. End of the day no party is going to do anything for you but get your vote then hoodwink you.

> Good jobs are difficult to come by if you don't have a college degree.

what awful logic. this is exactly what's wrong with america. we've been taught this exact sentiment and it will be our demise. so, what if every college closed tomorrow? my god, how would we get jobs?!

i had a friend who started mowing lawns in high school, after he got his driver's license. i genuinely looked down on him because he mowed laws to make a living. what kind of career is that?! i knew i was superior for going to college...

the result? he owns a multi-million dollar landscaping firm, employing dozens of people, drives a fully-loaded company vehicle (which is replaced every 2 years), and he makes GOBS of money loving what he does.

the lesson here is that you actually don't NEED a college degree, but we sure as hell have been programmed to think otherwise. too many kids are forced into college, take on massive amounts of debt, when they were better off going into gasp the trades!

>> Good jobs are difficult to come by if you don't have a college degree.

> what awful logic…[anecdote]…the lesson here is that you actually don't NEED a college degree…

Do you see the straw man you erected?

GP never once claimed that a college degree was “needed”, only that lacking one made life more difficult. An effective counter-argument against that would certainly consist of more than a single anecdote.

> he owns a multi-million dollar landscaping firm, employing dozens of people

That's fantastic for your friend, but the vast majority of people don't want to be entrepreneurs. Can those dozens of employees under him (presumably without degrees) support a family, a mortgage, healthcare, AND save for the future on that one income?

> too many kids are forced into college, take on massive amounts of debt, when they were better off going into gasp the trades!

The school-to-college funnel is a flaw in the system, but it's too late for many who already have the debt.

Those who want to tear it down almost always assume that what replaces it will somehow magically be better. Instead, it's almost always worse.

xibalba said it better than me at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29244364

Biden's big advantage is that he's not scary to the floating voters that would rather vote for Trump than a woman or a non-white man.

He's basically impervious to the crazy lies that Fox etc. will spread about any other candidate.

What's the last big John McCain, "No mam, he's a decent family man" moment we had?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/25/17782572/j...

Just feels like the floor has fallen out utterly on any desire to believe in civics or civilness in a huge part of this country.

It's a shift to partisan totalism.

If you look at the policies of the Biden admin, almost all of their bills caused capital outflows of red areas, professions and demographics and into blue areas, professions, and demographics.

The new logic of american politics is to not bother courting those who wont vote for you and instead seek to minimize their raw numbers(population), vote impact (dilution), wealth (jobs), and recruitment (deplatforming).

The "culture war" is built on two fundamentally opposed, zero-sum worldviews and they're starting to realize that.

I don't think that's true at all & I would greatly welcome some collected evidence to change my mind. I did some of my own searching to try to fimd evidence & haven't turned up anything.

Looking at intra-state policies shows a mice & cruelty within Red states, to defund & desupport public institutions. Texas ending professorial tenure there-by effectively ending the state's public colleges viability, the bitter long resistance to Obamacare & public pools, poor support for public transit, hostile & useless unemployment insurance programs; I dunno it just seems like the states that are red have extremist anti-human policies.

That doesn't affect your statement that the national level has seen outflows from red states. I don't know of any evidence that that is the case. I think it's somewhat common & known knowledge that red states tend to receive radically disproportionate shares of federal funding in general. Some of this is just logistics, that red states are less populated generally, and require more support to maintain services like roads, power, etc cetera.

I think a lot of people want everyone in America to succeed. A lot of people want inclusive America, that succeeds & tries & works together to better the economic, spiritual, & libertous nature of our nation. I don't think the zero sum view represents both sides at all. Progressive agenda is not to take. It's to help those in need. But that hand keeps being snipped at & chewed on, by the red states needing the most assistance often. States unwilling to try to govern.

Most of your reply is commentary, and I will ignore it as it is immaterial.

I'm not going to bat for blue team or red team here, I'm pointing out that we've (likely) entered an inevitable slide into the tactics of totalism. Unity is getting harder, more people have a solidified allegiance and conversions are becoming less common even among independents. When you lose the ability to sway a shrinking middle ground your tactics adapt accordingly.

This aside, you are asking for proof of capital outflow from red demos and into blue demos under the Biden admin. I can provide that here:

[0 - breakdown of federal 2020 budget by sector] https://www.investopedia.com/comparing-the-economic-plans-of...

[1 - breakdown of professional catagories by political allignment] https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/most-partisan...

Observe how the sectors that will receive the vast majority of new blue spending (green energy, local news, unions, government workers, regs agencies, et.c) support team blue.

Observe how the sectors most targeted with new taxes (natural resource extraction, corporate news, finance, etc.) are red supporters.

Observe how welfare spending is concentrated/directed to urban environments who vote blue.

Observe how new ballot harvesting regulations offer structural advantage to dense areas (cities) and cities vote blue.

I'm not saying It's good, it will lead to war eventually, but it is the most effective strategy when the likelihood of 'winning people over' drops. It's power politics.

I'll take the Abyss, peace out!

No need, friend, we're already there.