r/neoliberal • u/abrookerunsthroughit Association of Southeast Asian Nations • 1d ago
Research Paper Six Tips for Talking About Trump's Failing Economy
https://www.thirdway.org/talking-points/six-tips-for-talking-about-trumps-failing-economy178
u/FocusReasonable944 NATO 1d ago edited 1d ago
Build a coalition of hobbyists. Virtually every hobby relies heavily on imported products, even though they're a smaller portion of total consumer spending. Warhammer figurines more expensive? Trump. Nintendo Switch costing more? Trump tax. Korean lipstick costing more? Believe it or not, Trump.
Trump is deliberately building a coalition of "weird Americans" ripe for the plucking of Democrats, if they merely show up to claim them.
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u/Kasquede NATO 1d ago
“GAMERS RISE UP” but as an actual initiative with beneficial consequences, inshallah
Warhammer? More expensive?!? UNACCEPTABLE! WE FIGHT FOR THE LADY, FOR BRETONNIA!!
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u/Wolf6120 Constitutional Liberarchism 1d ago
"I give my body, heart and soul, to the Lady whom I seek.
No plea for help shall find me wanting. No obstacle will stand before me. No evil will taint the lands bequeathed unto me.
When the clarion call is sounded, I will ride out and fight in the name of Liege and Lady.
That which is sacrament, I shall preserve. That which is sublime, I will protect. That which threatens, I will destroy, for my holy wrath will know no bounds.
Honour is all.
Chivalry is all.
Rejoice, for we, the Knights of Bretonnia... will be your shield.
- Me casting my vote for a Dem candidate in a local schoolboard elections because Warhammer minis have gone from costing [whatever insanely overpriced amount Games workshop normally asks for them] to costing [whatever insanely overpriced amount Games workshop normally asks for them] + 35% UK Tariffs
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u/BlueString94 John Keynes 1d ago
I feel like Nintendo players already vote democrat. If only the new PlayStation were releasing this year.
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u/bleachinjection John Brown 1d ago
I lurk several fishing subs and the fistfights going on about this are fairly intense. "Buy that new reel now before tariffs!" "NAW THAT WON'T BE A THING" rinse and repeat. But I'd wager that as hobbies go fishing is probably like R+10ish and the community is absolutely shook.
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u/Maximilianne John Rawls 1d ago
The Japanese will be looking with curiosity seeing a bunch of white dudes lining up at the local megabass store in japan
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u/FilteringAccount123 Thomas Paine 1d ago
Yeah I follow a subreddit for handheld gaming that has a big following of cheap devices from China like Retroid, and the comments range from "well the price of these going up is going to be the least of my concerns" to "[removed]" lol
Say what you will about Temu, but if you need a small number of random screws for a specific project, you can get it for literally a tenth of what it costs on Amazon.
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u/Hugh-Manatee NATO 1d ago
Honestly Dems could have always reached numerous eclectic voters or really non voters who aren’t super politically engaged but it’s mostly only because they don’t connect the dots between gross, angry politics and their normal life
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u/hibikir_40k Scott Sumner 1d ago
Warhammer comes from the UK, so in comparison they will still be buyable. Half the tariff as if the factory was in Germany.
It's boardgames, which are almost always made in china if they have any plastic pieces, who are going to get wrecked under the current situation. Imagine you set up a kickstarter thinking that you could deliver games for $50, and it's now you promised those prices, but lose a bunch of money per copy.
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u/BombshellExpose NATO flair is best flair 1d ago
This is absolutely spot on. The aquarium community is going nuts because literally every aquarium product is imported, particularly from China and other Asian countries.
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u/arist0geiton Montesquieu 1d ago
Asians fucking love fish keeping hobbies and all water hobbies. I recently got interested in growing lotuses in micro containers and that hobby is all Chinese / Vietnamese
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u/Inamanlyfashion Richard Posner 1d ago
The cocktail community is very aware of the effect of tariffs.
The hobby relies on imported bottles for which there are no good substitutes, and everyone knows it.
See: everyone desperately trying to find green chartreuse for the last three years. Now imagine that but with basic shit like tequila.
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u/battywombat21 🇺🇦 Слава Україні! 🇺🇦 1d ago
Literally hobby community is vunerable to this. Gun prices are probably going to shoot up because of this.
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u/ThisElder_Millennial NATO 17h ago
The PC gamers are PISSED, from what I've seen. Fwiw, I really wish I'd have put more time and effort into finding a new GPU last year.
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u/BigDaddyCoolDeisel 1d ago
I love this. Dems need their own "talking points distribution network" like the right has.
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u/MURICCA 1d ago
I mean sure, eventually. But people have to keep in mind that the stuff the right has works the way it does because it's been around for decades.
Gotta start somewhere of course.
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u/Best-Chapter5260 1d ago
It also works because the Republican mind is reductionist to a fault, so pithy and short bullet point talking points work for them.
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u/Cave-Bunny Henry George 1d ago
Kind of hate this article. But I have been telling everyone in my life that the restaurant I work at had to take avocados off the menu on Wednesday
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u/iusedtobekewl Jerome Powell 1d ago edited 1d ago
“You see, at first when someone says, let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while, it works, but only for a short time.
“What eventually occurs is first homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs.
“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fears of trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens; markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.
“The memory of all this occurring back in the 30s made me determined, when I came to Washington, to spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity. Now, it hasn’t always been easy; there are those in Congress, just as there were back in the 30s, who want to go for the quick political advantage – who risk America’s prosperity – for the sake of short term appeal to some special interest groups who forget that more than five million American jobs are directly tied to the foreign export business, and additional millions are tied to imports.
“But those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused, is deep and searing. And today, many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period, called the Smoot-Hawley tariff, greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.”
US President Ronald Reagan, April 25, 1987
I posted this in the discussion thread today as well as a few places, but I think it is relevant here. The link leads to a video of Reagan saying this himself.
I have been circulating this to some of my republican and MAGA family members, and I would encourage others to do so as well. So far, silence has been their answer, but what Reagan is saying here is exactly what this subreddit believes. The difference is republicans are more receptive to hearing it from Reagan than us, and let’s face it; they’re not gonna read any of the books we tell them to, but they might watch a short video.
As an aside, this video has reminded me exactly how far the GOP has fallen. Reagan sounds more intelligent than 99% of republicans right now, and this is especially true when contrasted with Trump himself.
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u/battywombat21 🇺🇦 Слава Україні! 🇺🇦 1d ago
I worry this is too wordy for the modern median voter.
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u/iusedtobekewl Jerome Powell 1d ago
Well that’s exactly what the video is for lol
Their attention spans are too shot to read, but they can watch a short clip.
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u/Foucault_Please_No Emma Lazarus 1d ago
Tip 7: Call the Republicans red communists who hate freedom and who hate America.
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u/jorkin_peanits Immanuel Kant 1d ago
I love how this is like an article on how to explain important stuff to children
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u/No-Kiwi-1868 NATO 1d ago
Well how else will you get the attention of the median voter with the attention span of a fruit fly??
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1d ago
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u/dubyahhh Salt Miner Emeritus 1d ago
Rule I: Civility
Refrain from name-calling, hostility and behaviour that otherwise derails the quality of the conversation.
If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
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u/boardatwork1111 NATO 1d ago
We need stickers like these when prices start to rise