Why you should vote for Trump

[Loren Pechtel]

the UHC "solution" is probably jumping from the frying pan to the fire

The fire that is incinerating Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom? Oh, and Canada? If that burns down we're going to certainly catch on fire!

What we have now are the delays and system overloads we are warned about being a side effect of UHC, while also saddled with the expense of supporting a humongous private health insurance industry and an inestimably profitable pharmaceutical conglomerate.
I call bullshit.
I also don't hear people from the above countries complaining like Americans do about their health care systems.

The thing is most people don't have serious medical issues at any given time. Thus they don't see how badly the system performs when it's needed. UHC systems always underfund.

 

[ideologyhunter]

But God help you if don't keep government out of their Medicare!

 

[ZiprHead]

US doctors support universal health care - survey

Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Majority of Healthcare Professionals Back Single-Payer System

Supporters cited better health outcomes and lower costs in countries with single-payer care.

www.medscape.com

As many of the newly elected and newly empowered Democrats in Congress are vowing to push for what they are calling "Medicare for all," a majority of US healthcare professionals recently surveyed said they support a single-payer system, according to a Medscape Medical News reader poll.

Sixty-eight percent said they supported — with 52% strongly supporting — the United States moving to single-payer healthcare, while 21% said they strongly opposed such a move.

 

[Tigers!]

I have been on the receiving end of "progressives" telling so many times that I do not know what my or my families best interests actually are. ... They do not know because they so rarely listen or even care. They are too busy telling non-progressives what is supposedly in their best interests and why they should vote, act in a certain direction.

See, the problem is that Aussies are so complicated. Over here, when someone speaks of "self interest" it is usually interchangeable with "money".

I try to convince my self that we Aussies or more sophisticated and cultured that the Yanks. Not always successfully.

Yes money is often a synonym for self-interest. That seems universal.

 

[Elixir]

I try to convince my self that we Aussies or more sophisticated and cultured that the Yanks.

If you're right about the universality of self interest being interchangeable with money, Americans are just ahead of you in the quest for innumeracy. Because they elected a guy who crashed a record growth streak in our economy, added 7 trillion to our debt and is up for re-election, favored to win - saying he wants to do it again! In the middle of a record recovery. WTF?

 

[Worldtraveller]

the UHC "solution" is probably jumping from the frying pan to the fire

The fire that is incinerating Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom? Oh, and Canada? If that burns down we're going to certainly catch on fire!

What we have now are the delays and system overloads we are warned about being a side effect of UHC, while also saddled with the expense of supporting a humongous private health insurance industry and an inestimably profitable pharmaceutical conglomerate.
I call bullshit.
I also don't hear people from the above countries complaining like Americans do about their health care systems.

The thing is most people don't have serious medical issues at any given time. Thus they don't see how badly the system performs when it's needed. UHC systems always underfund.

As "always"....citation needed.

 

[Elixir]

The thing is most people don't have serious medical issues at any given time. Thus they don't see how badly the system performs when it's needed. UHC systems always underfund.

WUT? That makes ZERO sense Loren.
OUR system is so underfunded (despite spending 2-3x what others pay for the same) that it has taken over four months for my wife to get an analysis that will hopefully eventually lead to a plan to treat a very treatable, debilitating condition.

Most Murkins have same levels of simultaneous illness and injury as most people from most of the countries I listed.

But according to users all over the world, our system is the worst, AND it is inarguably the most expensive BY FAR.
Why do you prefer that? You keep warning of outcomes that don’t occur. You don’t even have American Samoa to come to your rescue.

Your “response” doesn’t even remotely respond to my post; it’s like you made some totally irrelevant shit up and posted it as a placeholder.

 

[scombrid]

A good friend of mine is dying of lung cancer. It took over a year of basic dithering before doctors sent her to Moffit. They gave her steroids, antibiotics, did pointless ineffective needle biopsies, sent her to a cardiologist for shortness of breath... They didn't seriously look for cancer until bright spots started showing up all over the place on images. Of course by then it was massively metastatic. She's a 46 year old never smoker.

They seriously did a needle biopsy and then proceeded to continue to treat for bacterial pneumonia when a needle biopsy was negative. The type of cancer that would occur where that mass was located is notoriously recalcitrant to shedding cells and is almost impossible to diagnose with a needle biopsy. But her doctors kept fucking around.

She has insurance. I and many others are donating a lot of money to her because she wants to attempt treatment. She's already bankrupt. GO USA.

 

[scombrid]

I have to wait ages to de a dermatologist for cancer screening. The wait for a colonoscopy was absurd. The charge I got when the doctor cut two polyps out which magically changed the coloscopy from a screening to a "procedure". The colonoscopy takes like five minutes longer and then a pathologist has to get paid if there are a couple of polyps cut but suddenly I'm on the hook for a big out of pocket in spite of the hundreds of thousands of dollars I've paid to "insurance" companies over my life time without ever making a large claim? GO USA. We are the best.

Plus I can't trust the pathologist or the gastro so I have to get the tests and read them for myself with the help of my Dr. wife.

 

[TSwizzle]

But God help you if don't keep government out of their Medicare!

And yet democrats spend trillions of dollars on "climate change". Priorities, eh?

 

[ZiprHead]

But God help you if don't keep government out of their Medicare!

And yet democrats spend trillions of dollars on "climate change". Priorities, eh?

Republicans priorities are not only to not fund standard healthcare for citizens, but also to eliminate Medicare completely so tax cuts to the wealthy can be enacted. Priorities, eh?

 

[Rhea]

Some of the posts disparage Trump voters, especially rural whites. I do this much too often myself. And, as if in answer to this fault, the article "What Liberals Get Wrong About ‘White Rural Rage’ — Almost Everything' appeared in my news-feed.

Taken as a whole, rural voters are not merely reacting against change — be it demographic or economic. They are actively seeking to preserve a sense of agency over their future and a continuity of their community’s values and social structures. Some might call this conservatism, but I think it is the same thing motivating fears of gentrification in urban areas, or the desire to “keep Portland weird.” Place matters for a whole bunch of people — but especially for rural folks.

Consider the fact, as I discuss in my book, that rural Americans are the most likely to say that if given the chance, they would never want to leave their community, while at the same time they are the most likely to say that children growing up in their specific community will have to leave in order to live productive lives. Could any single policy solve that dilemma?

Instead of a politics that seeks to understand and represent these contradictions, the left wants to simplify ruralness into something it’s not. In the immediate aftermath of 2016, blaming rural people was a way to make sense of the surprise of Trump’s election. This latest obsession with rage is the next chapter, a kind of collective cry of frustration from tired progressives: “We give up!” There is a general tendency among the readers of the New York Times and viewers of MSNBC to think about politics in purely transactional terms: We give you these benefits, you give us your votes. And rural voters, as Waldman is right to note, aren’t living up to that supposed bargain.

But this flies in the face of what research on resentment actually tells us. For many rural residents, the solutions they seek may not always come neatly packaged as government policies, white papers or policy briefs pumped out of a campaign war room. I’ve found that resentments exist because self-reliance and local problem-solving is intrinsic to rural identity, and self-reliance is something by nature resistant to government policies emanating from Washington, D.C.

One of the favorite pastimes of progressives is to brag about Inclusiveness. Perhaps the perspective of rural Americans should be included too.

Well, by comparison to the rural conservative, even if they didn’t include rural conservatives in their inclusiveness, they would still be more incluseive than the rural conservative, by a long margin.

They're not bad people, they're not stupid. But they live in a carefully developed information desert, run by the Right Wing Misinformation Conglomerate which includes the Russian, Chinese, NK, Indonesian and other governments, along with the very Party of their fathers and grandfathers. We are in DEEP trouble.

This.

You are asking a lot of progressives there.

On what issues? Progressives are more than happy to address issues that face rural communities, in my experience.

Yes they are happy to address these things. And say so at the rural level.

Plenty of progressives are rural dwellers themselves,

Indeed we are.

despite what certain country singers would have you believe, and are very much involved in local politics, often at considerable risk to themselves.

Raises hand for multiple flat tires and gun threats.

Is it your idea that progressives, upon hearing a conversation about farming, or water use, or paucity of medical services, or underfunding of rural schools, refuse to engage in discussions of those issues? This has not been my experience, having grown up in a small town myself.

Hell, in what parts of the country are progressives in a position to allow or deny inclusion to anyone? In most American small towns, if a progressive is sitting on the city council or the local water board / grange or what have you, they are the only one there with values even remotely appriximating their own.

Bingo.

They are in no position to tell anyone not to speak, just securing their own right to speak will be a constant challenge.

Amen.

Even in urban regions, it's rare to see a progressive majority within any policymaking body. Liberal, yes, progressive, no. So even if they wanted someone excluded, who's going to listen?

Not that it stops the conservatives from claiming to have no agency, WHILE in a public meeting having agency.

I am best placed to comment about Australia rather than the US but there does appear to be much overlap between our countries. These fora are a good place to meet, discuss and compare POVs.

Australia loaded with many who call themselves "progressives". They are very vocal on our airwaves, media etc.

Very opposite here in rural America.
There are very few airwaves carrying very vocal progressives.

One of their cry's is that many voters are voting against their best interest. It took me quite a while to work out that they mean those who are not as "progressive" (whatever that may mean) as themselves .

Oh, you’d like some examples? What we mean by that is them voting against the things THEY SAY that they are interested in.

Voting against Medicare expansion while on Medicare.
Voting against Obamacare while needing Obamacare.
Voting against additional buses for the school district while their kids have to ride 90 minutes to school
Voting for a politician who wants to lower taxes DURING the fracking boom instead of making the frackers pay full price and using the proceeds to offset spending on highway trucks that will last long after the boom is gone.
Voting for fracking WHILE their neighbors are showing filthy contaminated well water to the board.
Saying they love the cops while voting to eliminate the only cop we’ve got.
Voting to expand the agriculture exemption until it is small enough that people like me who own land for the view get to reduce my taxes like a farmer if I just plant a 20 square foot garden, thereby increasing the farmers’ taxes while giving wealthy landowners a significant tax break.
Voting to elect a partisan, petty, vengeful assessor and then complaining when she doesn’t show up to work for 3 years but draws her paycheck every week.

Is this “most rural people”. Well, all I can say is that they won those votes, so they are at the least “most of the rural voters”.

Their plaintive cry is quite ironic as it is my experience having met, worked, socialised with these self-identified progressives for > 40 years that most of them have absolutely no idea what the self-interest of any non-progressive may be.

We listen to what they say is their self interest, and go with their own volunteered information and how they vote to undermine it.

I say this as I have been on the receiving end of "progressives" telling so many times that I do not know what my or my families best interests actually are. Funnily enough the best judge of my best interests is generally myself rather than another. All it takes is the expression of an opinion that the the progressive considers so ignorant or gauche to be given a serve on how, why you are so wrong and how much better your life would be if only you would listen and obey your superiors.

So many times, eh? Well, I guess I agree that the conservatives here would say they want lower taxes, vote in a way that raises their taxes and still call the progressive an asshole for pointing it out. So possibly that happens to you as well.

They do not know because they so rarely listen or even care. They are too busy telling non-progressives what is supposedly in their best interests and why they should vote, act in a certain direction. I am constantly astounded that the alleged self-interests of the non-progressive align neatly with the interests of the progressives.

Interesting topic here - think about this; humans in general have very similar self interests most of the time, don’t we. Safety, food and shelter security, health care. We disagree on how we think we should get them. But often the data sort of settles the deabte on that score.

On those exceptionally rare ocassions when these progressives deign to talk, or even more rarely actually listen as well, to non-progressives they are rude, condescending, patronising, dismissive, interrupt etc.

And you seem to be claiming that conservatives do not do this?

And the progressives wonder why they are rarely listened to.

Wait, you said above that listening to the other side was the minimum of social obligation. Is that only for the progressives, then?

Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more?

‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

 

[Rhea]

They're not bad people, they're not stupid. But they live in a carefully developed information desert, run by the Right Wing Misinformation Conglomerate which includes the Russian, Chinese, NK, Indonesian and other governments, along with the very Party of their fathers and grandfathers

And let me expand on this for just a moment:

Because it bears noting that the only way they can maintain their carefully developed information desert, is to disdain the opinions of those not in it by being

rude, condescending, patronising, dismissive, interrupt etc.

 

[southernhybrid]

US doctors support universal health care - survey

Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Majority of Healthcare Professionals Back Single-Payer System

Supporters cited better health outcomes and lower costs in countries with single-payer care.

www.medscape.com

As many of the newly elected and newly empowered Democrats in Congress are vowing to push for what they are calling "Medicare for all," a majority of US healthcare professionals recently surveyed said they support a single-payer system, according to a Medscape Medical News reader poll.

Sixty-eight percent said they supported — with 52% strongly supporting — the United States moving to single-payer healthcare, while 21% said they strongly opposed such a move.

I've read similar things, especially that more MDs are in favor of UHC. The number one reason I've read is because corporate health care is working their asses off, making them see an insanely high number of patients in a day, leaving them with very little time to do an adequate job of diagnosing and treating patients. They are tired of dealing with the different insurance companies, that have different co pays, and different reimbursement rates.

Nurses and aides are leaving their jobs due to burn out and being overworked. I'm sure there are many exceptions, but healthcare professionals are tired of what they are dealing with, especially since more and more health care is becoming controlled by large corporations. Plus, even some patients have become abusive toward their care givers.

The doctors who don't want UHC can always work as concierge providers, charging fees to have 24 hour contact with them and leaving billing up to their patients. My favorite NP recently left the practice I'm leaving to work in concierge medicine. I have. no idea why she decided to do that and most of her patients are very upset. The ones I know personally are leaving the practice where she worked.

I don't think the problem is simply in rural areas. In my small city, a lot of specialists are retiring, with nobody to replace them. We used to have two neurologists in town. Both retired without anyone to replace them. I know of a cardiologist who is retiring this year. My orthopedic surgeon is retiring in two years and another one who has been here for decades is or has just retired. There is also a podiatrist who is in the process of closing his practice. My sister in suburban NJ, often has to wait quite a while for appointments. I don't have that problem yet, but if enough doctors/NPs etc. retire, or move, who knows what the future will bring?

I only know 3 Trump supporters personally. One is my bro in law who swears he won't vote for him again, but I'm not sure I believe him. He supported Trump because of the desire for tax breaks. He's fairly wealthy. The man across the street from me is a very dear, kind person who voted for Trump twice and says he won't do it again, but he can't stand Biden either. Is he going to vote third party? He's a non practicing Christian, so I have no idea why he supported Trump, since Trump has done such an excellent job of manipulating conservative Christians. Some Trump supporters are simply life long Republicans who never consider voting for a Democrat. Most are addicted to right wing media. Some never read or watch any news, and have no idea what's going on in politics etc. That would be the third person I know. We worked together for a few months before I retired. She's a very religious persons and a life long Republican, and a fan of Fox. She is poor and depends on SS and Medicare to survive. We don't discuss politics and only contact each other once in awhile, but she told me she was a Republican many years ago. She refused the COVID vaccine and almost died of COVID. I saw she had a big Trump sign in her yard in 2020, that she posted on Facebook. I don't know if she still supports Trump but she is certainly one of the people who has voted against her own best interest in the past. The last time I heard from her, she told me one of her sons was nearly homeless, suffered from several serious chronic health conditions and his only income was about 900 dollars from SSI. She asked me if I knew of any resources to help him. If I did, who does she think is the party that wants to build more housing for the poor, and. help the poor another ways. It's certainly not the party of Trump. He found a room to rent in an urban area.

There are already two Trump 2024 signs in my neighborhood. I don't know the people who live in the homes, but we live in a middle class suburban neighborhood, that is racially diverse with a mix of Christians and at least a few non believers.


I just listened to the idiot John Bolton on MSNBC. He said that Trump was to be feared but Biden was also scary and incompetent. The reasons he gave for criticizing Biden were nuts. He refused to say who he would vote for, but we only have two choices. Grow a pair like Liz Cheney and support Biden, even if you don't agree with him on many things. He claimed that Biden isn't supporting Israel. So, I mean it when I say that Biden's between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Mideast policy. The young, naive who will only vote for someone who supports all that they do, say they won't vote for Biden because he's supporting Israel, despite trying to reason and criticizing Bibi. The former Trumpers and moderates etc. don't like Biden or might vote third party because Biden's not doing enough for Israel. WTF do they expect from one man who has accomplished quite a bit, has faced more serious issues than any president in my lifetime and is blamed for just about everything that happens in the world. Fuck!

 

[Politesse]

The young, naive who will only vote for someone who supports all that they do

In short, completely imaginary young people. Very few people under the age of 50 believes that Washington politicians will ever represent their interests at all, let alone exclusively. Certainly not those of us who survived the Recession. And the only faction in Washington that demands absolute adhrence to a discrete set of doctrines is the Freedom Caucus.

This false equivocation between objrcting to the slaughter in Palestine to "wanting Biden to be perfect" is a handwaving attempt to downplay opposotion to genocide as though it were as trivial an issue as trade policy or abortion rights. It is not.

 

[Tigers!]

Wait, you said above that listening to the other side was the minimum of social obligation. Is that only for the progressives, then?

Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more?

‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

What I wish is that we would all give each other the courtesy of listening with intent. We may not agree but if we could engage in civil, coherent conversation that would be a good start.

A high bar I know and probably wishful thinking.......

Rhea Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more? ‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

I doubt if you are acknowledging that conservatives are treated like shit by progressives.

 

[Swammerdami]

. [I got notified of this post, even though my post isn't actually excerpted]

.

Wait, you said above that listening to the other side was the minimum of social obligation. Is that only for the progressives, then?

Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more?

‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

What I wish is that we would all give each other the courtesy of listening with intent. We may not agree but if we could engage in civil, coherent conversation that would be a good start.

A high bar I know and probably wishful thinking.......

Rhea Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more? ‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

I doubt if you are acknowledging that conservatives are treated like shit by progressives.

"Conservatives are treated like shit by progressives"? I think this depends on what "conservative" means.

A conservative who drops out of the rat-race to raise their kids in an old-fashioned rural environment? Envy and admiration are more like it.

A conservative who thinks tax cuts for the rich will help him financially? We just laugh and ask him where he got his Econ degree.

A conservative who thinks Muslims smell funny? Heck, I noticed different ethnic groups had different smells, at least back when my sense of smell still worked.

A conservative who attends church every Sunday. Whatever works spiritually and morally.

A conservative who thinks blacks should quit complaining and work harder. We all have an Uncle George who visits at Thanksgiving. He tells fun stories as long as nobody winds him up.

BUT those examples are not what "conservative" even means in post-rational Amerika. And the following examples are not outliers: A MAJORITY of Republicans support violence if Dems win election. Once COVID vaccines became available, there was a HUGE divergence between Dem and Repub. death rates (enough to actually affect swing state elections) because, like lambs to the slaughter, Repubs take their cues from Alex Jones, MTG and other liars and morons

Today an American "conservative"

• Hates liberals and all liberal ideas with nasty and vile passion.
• Brags about how many guns they have, and how they've the right to shoot anyone on their property, "first with a center-of-mass shot, then with a head-shot."
• Is so utterly devoid of common-sense as to not understand Donald Trump is a sociopathic con-man.
• Refuses to watch PBS or CNN or other "lame-stream" media. Some have even turned against FoxNews as not right-wing enough.
• Supports armed insurrection in the event the GOP loses an election.
• Believes George Soros or Bill Gates puts nanobot mind-control devices in vaccines.
• Treats scumbags like the cowardly teen-age killer Kyle Rittenhouse as heroes.
• Roots for Vladimir Putin because he's pals with their Leader.
• Believes a rape victim has been gifted by God, and must raise her rapist's child.

Of course these "conservatives" should be treated like shit: They ARE shit.

 

[Elixir]

Of course these "conservatives" should be treated like shit: They ARE shit.

The truth of that statement will be tested when Trump loses.
Again, if they resort to violence I hope it will be SWIFTLY met with overwhelming lethal response. That’s the only thing that is going to keep the gravy seals at home.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Wait, you said above that listening to the other side was the minimum of social obligation. Is that only for the progressives, then?

Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more?

‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

What I wish is that we would all give each other the courtesy of listening with intent. We may not agree but if we could engage in civil, coherent conversation that would be a good start.

A high bar I know and probably wishful thinking.......

Rhea Or are you saying that, after a while of getting treated like shit it’s okay to not listen any more? ‘Cause, if you’re saying that… should conservatives wonder why they are rarely listened to, or, what?

I doubt if you are acknowledging that conservatives are treated like shit by progressives.

"Conservatives" and "treated like shit" and "progressives"

Could you please provide definitions for all three and then examples? And just in case you were curious about being treated like shit.

In the United States, the GOP isn't led by conservatives. They haven't in part since 2016 and in whole around 2024. One of the heads of the RNC (another Trump) is out there saying that the election in 2020 was stolen. The US political situation is a cult for Trump and the rest of us. This isn't a partisan, it is a populism thing. The conservatives pinned their noses and voted for Trump in 2016 not because they supported. They hated him, but McConnell and the likes would be able to appoint judges.

In 2024, some of those conservatives have joined the cult. 70% of Republicans think the election was stolen in 2020 now. It is mind-boggling. We can't discuss tete-a-tete about government, funding programs, etc... The Trump base is angry about CRT, transgenders and bathrooms, the border. Passing budgets is near impossible and we can't even fund Ukrainian support now, it has gotten that bad. The GOP is becoming beholden to what Trump wants, and what Trump wants is what is best for Trump.

 

[southernhybrid]

The young, naive who will only vote for someone who supports all that they do

In short, completely imaginary young people. Very few people under the age of 50 believes that Washington politicians will ever represent their interests at all, let alone exclusively. Certainly not those of us who survived the Recession. And the only faction in Washington that demands absolute adhrence to a discrete set of doctrines is the Freedom Caucus.

This false equivocation between objrcting to the slaughter in Palestine to "wanting Biden to be perfect" is a handwaving attempt to downplay opposotion to genocide as though it were as trivial an issue as trade policy or abortion rights. It is not.

Sorry, but I disagree. I think it's insane to object to Biden, when Trump would probably literally help wipe out Gaza. I've watched enough protests and anger directed at Biden as if he's literally in Gaza killing people. Sorry, but I'm sick of that BS. I protested the Viet Nam War when I was young. All it did was help lower the voting age ( chanting "old enough to die but not old enough to vote" ) and end the draft. Sometimes I wonder if that was a good thing. Without the draft, fewer people seem to care about the wars we get involved in as they aren't personally impacted by them. When the Viet Nam war finally ended, it was more due to the fact that a large percentage of people of all ages were against it and realized it never should have been started. We certainly killed a lot of innocent people in that war, and lost about 58000 of my peers, as well as Iraq, and Afghanistan. War is hell, but what can we expect from a species that is territorial and prone to violence? And, we aren't even directly involved in what's happening in Israel. The weapons that were sent were promised many years ago. I wish we would cut them off, but I understand the complexity of the situation.

My own father suffered from severe PTSD due to combat. He felt tremendous guilt after finding the wallet of a Japanese man who was killed in a battle he was in. He was only 17 when he joined the Marines and spent four years in brutal combat. So, sadly, this is what humans are and my father is an example of what war can do to those who experience it and survive. I hate what's happening in Gaza, but that's no reason for me not to vote for Biden, who is in an extremely difficult position. Do I wish he'd stop supporting Israel? Yes, but I don't expect perfection from any president, but I will support. the one who has done a lot of good things, compared to the one who will cause chaos and is a potential threat to democracy. I don't know if it will last but at least Biden has convinced Bibi not to enter Rafah, for now.

And, btw, we boomers didn't have it easy when we were young either. We may not have had huge student loans, but most of us who attended college did have some. Biden has tried numerous times to forgive student loans, but I'm sure you know that SCOTUS prevented him. In fact, right now, numerous states are trying to prevent his latest attempt to give loan forgiveness to those who need the most help. I have many friends who never went to college, don't support loan forgiveness but are still planning on voting for Biden. They see him as a much better alternative to Trump and they feel as if he's done a lot of good things. He can't end what's going on by Bibi. It's foolish to think he can.

Sometimes I think my parents generation had it better than us. Perhaps it's because they learned to be very frugal after growing up in the Great Depression. Plus, they didn't have cell phones, computers, expensive tv, etc. We lived a very simple life when I was growing up, which allowed people like my parents to save money. Plus, based on my own experiences, I can tell you that it's much easier being poor when you're young, compared to when you're old. I have plenty of poor older friends and acquaintances, who never made much money, including one who is on disability, but they never complain. Some have had to move in with. younger family members to survive. Ok. I'm ranting. Sorry. I just get so sick and tired of being told how much harder the younger generations had it compared to us. We need programs to help people of all generations, but that will never happen as long as we have Republicans in charge or having enough influence to stop expanding social programs.

The young who refuse to vote for Biden are helping Trump win. Plus I've read that more younger people are planning on voting for Trump. WTF!