For MAGA, when did the US stop being great?

When did the US cease being great,?

When we "managed" to elect DT for the second time.

Looking forward to the mid-term elections.

LIB COPE SQUAD IN THE HIZZZOUSE!!!

MAGA isn’t a timeframe. It’s an idea…a vision.

And there is no correct answer. If I say “before the 1964 Civil Rights Act”, you’re going to call me a racist.

If I say the 1962 Supreme Court decision banning school prayer, you’re going to label me an Evangelical Christian nut job.

If I say the 1969 Stonewall riots, you say I’m homophobic.

If I say the adoption of the Designated Hitter Rule in 1973, you’re call me an out of touch Boomer.

On second thought, I think it was when Taco Bell discontinued the original Enchirito served in the aluminum tray with the 3 black olives.

I can’t tell if this is a genuine question or a bait thread.
But there is even a website out there that blames the early 70s as the start of current woes.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

@motorhead none of those accusations would be unwarranted, nor are they mutually exclusive.

@ilbbaicnl The post-WWII boom America experienced is what I think many racist, evangelical, homophobic boomers year for.

And to be fair, those were good years for Americans. We had just finished bombing our two biggest manufacturing competitors to complete oblivion (and deservedly so I should add). It would take decades for Japan and Germany to recover, and during that recovery and while China was still having revolutions and developing, America manufacturing exports dominated internationally, resulting in a lot of wealth for Americans. You could buy the veritable house with a white picket fence on a factory worker's wage.

Unfortunately, unless we nuke China, All of southeast Asia, and Germany, that kind of prosperous boom-time is not going to return. Our way forward to more prosperity is through sustained innovation, entrepreneurialism, personal liberty and free markets. And unfortunately all those things under threat by our current autocratic oligarchy of a government.

The sad thing is that racist, evangelical, homophobic boomers are going to die thinking that somehow the lack of their own prosperity in the modern world is the fault of immigrants or gay marriage. It's easier to believe simple populist rhetoric than it is to understand complex problems that require complex answers.

It's kind of sad because I remember a time when the Republican party believed in people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That kind of self-determinism is what we need to remain competitive as a nation internationally, but it's gone and been replaced by irrational fear and xenophobia.

hard to pinpoint a specific date... But just for the hell of it I'll say 2,000 years ago.

Or maybe It was when greedy people got their way.

@nicespice what makes it seem like a bait thread to you?

^ Most of your political threads are snarky bait, but I'll bite here.

Even at a young age, I saw Ronald Reagan and the Republican party as the party of American strength and the Democrats as the party of shrinking weakness. After the Cold War, it seems like without an enemy, we lost our way. Bill Clinton had the luxury of the peace dividend, but started the decline of morals in government. Dubya was just a dumbass. Obama was an arrogant dumbass. Trump might be a pig and a cad, but he saw an America that again stood for something. Dementia Joe was just a puppet for the old Obama regime that wanted to focus our foreign policy on global warming, race nonsense, and shoving LGBTQ garbage up the asses of devoutly Christian and Muslim nations. Trump actually wants to celebrate and magnify America. That's a start.

@RonJax2 is actually right that the post-WW2 consensus was not sustainable and for the reasons he discussed, though calling the government that wants to make the federal government _less_ involved in American life an "autocratic oligarchy" is pretty hilarious. Democrats are still the party that sees America as evil and wants to diminish and apologize for it, make our military a social justice experiment, and generally decline a la Europe.

If they really want to make America great the need to recognize the decline began with the end of the draft. We used to have a cross section of Americans in the army, instead we now have a military that is not reflective of the people. We really need a mandatory public service that gives young people a sense of citizenship and belonging to something greater than themselves. Service is a great equalizer and most Americans today don’t know how to be of service to a greater good.

@nicespice the page you linked to has a bunch of graphs, and sometimes it's not clear exactly what's being graphed. The inflation data is different from what I get from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS calculator indicates that inflation from 1971 to 2015 averaged about 4%. The Fed's goal is 2% inflation. The US dropped the gold standard for the US dollar in 1971, and made the dollar a fiat currency. The inflation graph on that page make it look like inflation has been at a steady high rate since 1971. Which isn't true. It was high during the 70s, and it wasn't a problem again until 2021.

This graph shows that the percentage of jobs that are manufacturing jobs has been declining since the 1950s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… . For blue collar workers, a non-manufacturing job usually means lower pay. The loss of a good chance at a factory job hit black men the hardest, and is probably the biggest reason for the riots of the 1960s.

With the inequality thing, IDK. A household that provides 50 hours per week of work to the general economy should be able to afford a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment, with no household member having to commute more than an hour both ways per day. They should be able to save enough to not fall behind on bills when the typical bad breaks happen.
Beyond that, it gets complicated I think. I can't see how anybody being too rich is a problem. It's just a question of, whatever money the gubment really need to keep the wheels of society from coming off, it has to get it from where it is. But, shouldn't take it just because it's bad for somebody to be rich.

If somebody claims to be "baited" when asked why they are using the word "again", sorry, I have to conclude they are not actually trying to make sense. Or "making sense" is a concept that is beyond them. Yes, I snark-bait sometimes, snark back, or ignore it as you prefer, don't snowflake about it.

@PT do you think, when NATO expanded to include former Warsaw Pact countries and former Soviet Republics, that Reagan was too senile to say it was a big mistake? Why is should we care if Russia attacks the Baltic States, but not care if Russia attacks Ukraine?

“A household that provides 50 hours per week of work to the general economy should be able to afford a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment….”


—

Who says they can’t? Here’s what changed. How many are doing the following and think it’s “ normal behavior”.

Stopping at Starbucks every morning for $8 coffee drinks.

Buying a new iPhone for $1000 for every family member year 1-2 years

Ordering DoorDash meals for $100 instead of cooking. Soup beans and cornbread for under $10

Spending $300 per month on cable and streaming instead of putting up an antenna.

Spending $5000 to $6000 on one or two vacations per year

Going to strip clubs.

Lessing / Buying new cars. When is the last time you’ve seen a true beater car. They were common in the 69’s and 70’s

Living in expensive apartments and homes in the suburbs rather than getting a cheap starter home in the city. Oh yeah, those blue cities you voted for are too unsafe.

Maga maggots will say womens suffrage the new deal and the civil rights act killed the US 🤡💩

25. I will agree with you on the draft.

Motorhead. I'm retired and paying my ex spousal support. I retired from truck driving where I was working at least 70 hours average a week.
I brew my own coffee.
My Pixel 6 is now 2 years old and I'll keep using it until the battery goes to crap.
I cook at home.primarily. When I do eat out it's just a hamburger or taco. no fries or drink.
I watch antenna TV for free.
I'm a cheapskate on vacations.
And I've cut way back on strip clubs.
My newest car is 13 years old and my badass Prius now needs a head gasket replacement at 200,000 miles.
My housing expense is under $600 a month and that includes insurance taxes and utilities.
and my house is over 100 years old and no mortgage.
I'm being responsible in many ways but yes I do enjoy the young ladies. especially now since I have a better idea how to get the full experience at less price.

^^^

good for you. You are to be commended for doing things the right way. Perhaps some of the younger generation who are struggling that the OP referenced should follow yiur advice.

I look at the posts from the younger, liberal members here and think: They deserve nothing, let's make sure that is what is left for them.

> I look at the posts from the younger, liberal members here and think: They deserve nothing, let's make sure that is what is left for them.

That's pretty much the way that Trump looks at the country too. He wants to destroy it, hates half the people in it. You nailed it.

It's classic cult thinking. Cults fucking suck man. I wish I could do something to help some of y'all get out, but I'm guess many of you won't notice or care how dangerous this autocrat is until we're in WWIII, inflation is at 10% and there's no more medicare and social security for you to leach off.

@ilb - good question...do you think we should have repeatedly pushed NATO eastward, fostered color revolutions, repeatedly interfered in that part of the world? Make no mistake, Russia is the aggressor here, but for one, since James Monroe we've asserted that the western hemisphere is our backyard and we are not to be interfered with, there. Do we allow a "Putin Doctrine" and a "Xi Doctrine" that they are allowed their spheres of influence too?

It isn't about "do we care" (who gives a fuck where our heart is), it's "what can we do about it?" Unless we're willing to send American/NATO troops into Ukraine, we'd best disregard Zelensky's conception of "victory."

I would also pose this question. Why should we care more if Russia attacks Ukraine than if the _far_ more populous, technologically advanced, and cunning threat of China attacks the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan?

^ because we gave them guarantees and if you really wanted to deter authoritarian regimes from invading sovereign countries we would and should stand by our allies. This is just a bunch of nonsense and propaganda. Siding with Russia and North Korea how disgusting.

More inflammatory language without specifics of acknowledging the facts on the ground.
What exactly have we committed to? Ground troops? That's what it would take.
Man, like Sasha Stone said, I've never seen the left have such a woody for a foreign war...
https://sashastone.substack.co…

^ so much cowardice it’s hard to believe. What is wrong with you, what inflammatory language more nonsense, call me the left you’re just picking a fight, using straw man rhetoric.
This is normal behavior for maga cultists, trying to twist the facts, with loaded rhetorical questions, what exactly have we committed to? Really, who’s asking for boots on the ground. Your idea of peace is an abject surrender to Putin, wake up and smell the borscht, if you want to defend something, make sure you know what you’re doing. It’s obvious you do not.

^ You are the left, gramps, whether or not you admit it.
I'm telling you what we need to win and no one on the left here, including you, can admit.

Put a check mark next to Monday, March 3, 2025...gramps has his TUSCL fight of the day!

^ This applies to you
"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," and it is attributed to Benjamin Franklin,

BTW I suppose Jim DeMattis, H. R. McMaster, are lefties too. You’re pathetic pissy pussy, you’re a real snowflake

^ Pretty rich considering it's the left that wants to give up freedom of speech, the press, bearing arms, all in the name of "safety" or "being nice."

Keep reminiscing about the days when you were tough, gramps. I predict within a post or two you'll bring up your service as if it would give you credibility on this matter.

^You’re fighting with a straw man that you created, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise.
This is your typical response and it’s really tiresome

^ Yeah, gramps, with the "propaganda" and "cowardice." Never heard that one before. Lulz.
Whatever makes you feel young and virile again.

This juvenile tit-4-tat name-calling is as about an adult a response as any of the loser OP's bait-threads warrants.

Funny to hear left-wingers, who want to force people to call a man a woman, would whine about freedom of speech.