I’ve been refreshing Ford’s investor relations page all morning in hopes that it would reveal the June sales release before publishing The Morning Dump. Ford, unlike many other companies, releases its sales data on a monthly basis, allowing a deeper view of exactly when the tariff-related panic buying started.
“Tariff-related panic buying” isn’t a dig at buyers. Sometimes panic is an entirely rational response to external stimuli, and, in this case, I don’t think the concern is unjustified. My first take from the data? It seems like buying is starting to level off for many automakers — a trend that isn’t going to be seen in Q2 quarterly reports later this week, but there are some outliers.


Politics and cars continue to merge and, overnight, President Trump and his frenemy Elon Musk have turned on one another again, this time with Trump threatening to “DOGE” all of Musk’s businesses. The disagreement is over federal spending, and Musk isn’t alone in trying to play to all sides. One of the House’s most conservative members reportedly reached out quietly to the White House to ask for funding for an EV plant in her own district, while generally being opposed to the idea of green tax credits.
Is there some good news? There’s gotta be some good news. Japan is going to start digging in the ocean for Rare Earths which, if it works, would give automakers a source for them that isn’t centered in China.
Ford Sales Way Up In June, Hyundai And Kia A Little Less So

This comes up every month, but most automakers only report quarterly sales these days, making trends a little harder to track until we get registration data, which lags by a few weeks. This means I have to make some broader assumptions in real time based on the data I can get. By the end of the week we’ll have sales/delivery numbers from all automakers from the quarter, but those numbers will not be particularly helpful.
Why? Because the introduction of confusing, randomly applied tariffs on automakers has caused worried buyers to rush into the market early. These buyers are “pulled forward,” meaning that they bought cars earlier than they would have in the absence of the tariff threat. This means the first half of the year sales, as measured by both deliveries and SAAR (seasonally adjusted selling), will look quite good.
A lot of those transactions will be in April and May, as J.D. Power, for instance, estimated that about 173,000 extra vehicles were sold in just March and April because of buyers who were pulled forward. This is a cloudy June because there were three fewer selling days this year, but last June was the start of the CDK Global cyber attack. I’m going to pretend like that cancels out, because that’s the easiest way to look at the data.
Who is killing it? Ford. The automaker made the decision early on to hold the line on prices in Q2 while also offering more incentives in the form of employee pricing. Ford’s strategy here seems to be to try to grab as much market share as possible at the expense of margin, though a lot of sales are coming from highly profitable trucks (the Bronco continues to be a killer, and my guess is that the Bronco beat the Wrangler this quarter). When Ford posts its Q2 quarterly earnings, it’ll be easier to determine how well Ford balanced expansion with profitability.
At the same time, Ford might be the outlier here.
Kia saw record first-half sales this year, reaching 416,511 vehicles through the end of June. In June? Sales dropped slightly from 65,929 vehicles in June of 2024 to 63,849 vehicles last month. That’s not a lot and could just be a reflection of fewer selling days, but it does point to pull-forward sales being slowed down at the very least. Similarly, Hyundai sales were up a little in June, but the pace has clearly slowed down.
When looking at SAAR estimates for June, the same pattern seems to be holding.
“Automakers and consumer alike continue to digest an uneasy and uncertain environment,” said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “While we saw strong March and April sales levels, June brings a second consecutive month of milder pace for auto demand.”
This is also a warning. Big Q2 numbers from automakers don’t mean much if they fall flat in the second half, which is precisely when tariff costs will start being passed on (probably through lower incentives) to consumers at a faster rate. Even if all the tariffs magically go away, I’m not sure how many buyers are going to be left.
While the market hasn’t fully seen the impact of tariff buying, this all seems to be pointing towards a slow summer.
It Ain’t A Slow Summer In The Musk vs. Trump feud

Remember when President Trump and CEO of Tesla/SpaceX/X/The Boring Company/Frito-Lay (probably) were best friends? Me, neither. Lately, they’ve been going through rounds of saying terrible things about one another online, only to reach some sort of detente. We’re back at the threatening stage. Musk, for his part, is saying he’s going to start a third political party and primary everyone in Congress who supports Trump’s large budget/tax bill if the bill passes.
JUST IN: Elon Musk vows to make sure every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing gov spending but voted for the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill,’ loses their primary in 2026.
“They will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” pic.twitter.com/vIxm5As48O
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 30, 2025
Hmm… that would be exclusively Republicans at this point. Additionally, a third party formed by a right-wing figure tends to harm Republican candidates. How did the President respond?
Well, that’s not great.
There is no EV Mandate, it’s worth mentioning, but Republicans are just better at naming things than Democrats, so people believe things to be true that are, well, not. Specifically, subsidizing electric car sales and production is designed to keep America competitive in the future, not force people to buy electric cars. You could argue that President Biden’s CAFE increases and the CARB waiver amounted to a de facto EV mandate, but that’s not what Musk and President Trump are talking about here.
Either way, Tesla probably wants to keep all the incentives it can get, but Elon Musk has been repeatedly vocal about not wanting any subsidies for Tesla, especially if it means cutting off subsidies for all of his competitors. It’s a view that’s very much pull-up-the-ladder-behind-you.
I don’t know where this ends, but it looks like Republicans in the Senate are likely to pass the bill today and send it back to the House.
South Carolina Republican Wants EV Funds Unfrozen
@nbc Me to my boss when this does numbers ???? Stream #parksandrec on @Peacock #monalisasaperstein #jeanralphio #moneyplease
Perhaps less consistent on electrification and EV subsidies is Representative Nancy Mace, pictured above, a Republican from South Carolina. She is a major supporter of President Trump and someone you might imagine would be against money for plants being swapped over to building electric cars. There are a bunch of Republicans in the House who joined Democrats in opposing cuts to electrification. Was Representative Mace one of those Republicans? She was not, and voted for the House version of the latest budget/tax bill.
So it’s kind of amusing that Representative Mace, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post, quietly asked President Trump to unfreeze funds for her district:
In a two-page letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Mace asked the administration to disburse roughly $285 million for the Mercedes-Benz Vans plant northwest of Charleston, South Carolina, through a grant program approved as part of the Biden administration’s 2022 climate legislation. The grant money is part of a $1.8 billion program for shuttered or at-risk auto plants to manufacture electric vehicles and convert their supply chains.
The Trump administration has moved to withhold funding for former president Joe Biden’s climate programs and is also seeking to repeal hundreds of billions of dollars in federal clean energy incentives as part of the tax bill being debated by the Senate.
A spokesperson for Rep. Mace explains why this isn’t hypocrisy:
“Congresswoman Mace has always raised concerns about reckless federal spending. But once the money is out the door, she’s always fought to bring jobs and investment home to South Carolina. Congresswoman Mace has repeatedly stated South Carolina’s tax dollars matter just as much as anyone else’s,” Long said. “The $285 million grant tied to up to 800 jobs at Mercedez-Benz Vans plant in North Charleston is a major opportunity for South Carolina.”
I love the concept here that reckless spending is bad, but once everyone has agreed to said reckless spending, it would be silly not to take the money.
Japan Wants That Rare Earth Goodness

The ship pictured above is a drilling rig that has the ability to dig so deeply into the ocean area around Japan that it should be able to pull up mud rich with the kind of Rare Earth metals everyone is freaking out about lately.
The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) will station the Chikyu, a deep-sea scientific drilling vessel, 100 to 150 kilometers from the coast of Minami-Torishima Island, a coral atoll about 1,950 km southeast of Tokyo.
A pipe will be lowered 5,500 meters below the ocean’s surface into the seafloor to collect 35 metric tons of mud. If successful, this would be the first time in the world a vessel has recovered rare earths from such depths.
The work, including the placement of the pipe, will likely take about three weeks, with the Chikyu vessel ferrying the mud back to Japan’s mainland. One ton of mud is expected to contain about 2 kilograms of rare earth minerals.
China is currently the biggest source of Rare Earth metals, and that’s causing some headaches for companies caught in a global trade war. If Japan can make this work, it could be a source of commercial rare earths as early as 2028.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
You may have seen this coming. It’s Lana Del Rey doing “Summertime Sadness.”
The Big Question
How much will sales fall in Q3 of this year? Which automaker will thrive and who will sink?
Image: Depositphotos.com
The real big question is what are we measuring when we decide what damage/success tariffs are causing? It can’t be just sales numbers as Carlos maximized sales over profit that didn’t work. Can’t be build numbers as the cost to run 3 shifts throws expensive labor costs. I’d say profit but those numbers are months away if we get them. Frankly if a auto manufacturer plays smart orders material to build cars based on the hardest to get parts or materials and then sets that as a manufacturing goal only order other supplies based on that number, layoff any employees not needed to achieve that goal and run one shift based on the cheapest power available rate.
To maximize profits you want fewer factories running 3 shifts. Auto factories and the tooling in them costs billions of dollars. You do not want that very expensive investment sitting idle 16 hours a day.
I think the most important question is how do you get an entire article written in the duration of one song?
A pop song at that! This isn’t a 33 minute prog rock performance!
Making Mona-Lisa be TMD’s “pictured above” stand-in for Nancy Mace is just exquisite.
No additional notes.
I’m not coming down on either side politically, but my question the last 8 years has and still is “Is this seriously the best we can do?”
Personally, I like Pete……
So do I, and you just came down on a side.
Maybe, I think he’s a democrat? i just appreciate that he’s intelligent and seems to think ALL Americans should benefit from our society, not just rich ones.
And by “coming down” I only meant I’m not shitting on either side….
Yes, and he’s an other-than-straight-white-male. Positively pearl-clutching.
The November 2025 Virginia Governor’s race will be between a Democrat white woman and a Republican black woman. I don’t how the MAGAts are going to cope. The Republican black woman is really reprehensible, that probably helps.
We all do better when we all do better.
I disagree.
We all do better when Billionares do worse.
^^^^ !!!!! ^^^^^ yeah baby!
Well, he sure didn’t do the people of Ohio any favors when he ignored the train spill, or all the Amtrak workers who got fucked on their contract. Or, fix the TSA. Or help upgrade the ATC infrastructure, or any infrastructure, really.
Basically, he was pretty bad at his last job. But, as always, you do you.
Well, if you find the idea that ALL Americans should benefit from society, you definitely came down on a side.
And here’s a hint: that side isn’t building a concentration camp in the Everglades.
Given the difficulties in electing a woman to be president cause ’emotions’ worked as attack messaging, I find Pete would have an even worse time through no fault of his own.
Even though he seems to have a good head on his shoulders and pay attention to issues.
I agree, having a man for the “First Lady (Person?) would be fraught with peril……..and never happen given the current political climate where having anything besides white (or orange?) skin means a trip to the gulag.
What tangent is this
I wouldn’t call mining the ocean “good news”. If you need to tear the earth a new hole to get it, it’s not clean, eco-friendly energy.
Exactly. All the anti-frackers are ironically awfully quiet when it comes to drilling for batteries, lol.
Offshore oil rigs aren’t exactly a win (to be clear, I’m not trying to imply that you think they are.) Would recovery from an inevitable subsea mining error be easier or more complete than recovery from the next Deepwater Horizon spill? Few people want to discuss conservation and more responsible consumption in the developed countries that drive most environmental contamination, either directly or indirectly through demand for imported resources. And as someone who really loves air conditioning and who is just as disgusted by both the idea and the practice of mass transportation as everyone else (I’d drive two cars to work every day if I still had a job, and shouldn’t we have self-flying supersonic cars by now?), I’m certainly not one of ’em.
FTFY.
I still fail to see how Ford, realizing there is a seller’s market, is somehow smart for putting their cars on fire sale. I still think they chased short-term sales at the expense of long-term profitability. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that they’re betting on TACO.
We still haven’t seen the real effects of tariffs yet. Q2 numbers will probably be illuminating as they’ll at least partially be affected. Companies have been warning that there are rough seas ahead and the market doesn’t seem to care, but keep in mind that when the mortgage crisis first started, mortgage bond prices went up because it was an irrational market. This feels very similar. Bad economic things are happening and the market just shrugs and says, “Line go up”.
285m for 800 jobs? 350k PER JOB? That is pretty insane
Good thing each one of those 800 workers are going to be paying taxes on their income. Even if it takes 15 years to get all the money back with interest, it still has a return on investment.
15 years is pretty optimistic, unless those are some extremely high paying jobs. Also, there’s no guarantee the company will stick around long enough to pay back its subsidies. Plenty of examples of companies taking the payout and jumping ship when a better offer comes in.
I think it is a fair estimate. 30% tax on $80k per year for 800 jobs is 14.6 years.
We would have to know corporate income taxes paid as well as property taxes to get a better estimate.
Nobody’s paying 30% tax on 80k/year. The federal rate doesn’t hit 30% until you make almost 200k, and even then nobody pays that much in real terms because everyone has deductions.
I’m deliberately ignoring state and local taxes because this is federal money she’s asking for.
There are valid reasons for the government to invest in things that don’t make sense from a strictly financial perspective. Plenty of things aren’t going to make money but are still a net positive for society. However, given that in this case she clearly doesn’t support the thing she’s asking for money to fund, that doesn’t really apply either.
Economic activity per dollar of government spending is still a useful metric. Tax cuts are like $0.30 per $1 spent which is bad. The point I was trying to make is that a $350k per job spending program has very little cost over a 20 year timeline because taxes get collected. The economic activity is much greater than $1 for every $1 spent.
Those workers also spend the money, which creates more economic activity. Also need to include the federal taxes paid by restaurant, grocery store workers, and other service industry whose jobs exist because the industrial workers are spending money. Tariffs also add another wrinkle because an $80k per year worker could definitely have an effective 30% federal tax rate depending on how much imported stuff they buy. Or higher. Who really knows?
Funny this is right up there with honey I saved us $500.
How?
I bought this $1,000 dress on sale for $500.
A job doesn’t create anything unless it’s a real job creating real value so no government jobs.
Government jobs create paychecks the same as private jobs. That’s the only real value we assign to a job.
The real value creation is making the Mercedes vans right? The firemen who are needed in case the plant catches fire do create value, because the insurance company would charge more for coverage if they were not there.
So by your logic a DOT worker plowing snow creates no value for society but if you replace that government worker with a contractor driving the plow suddenly plowing snow has value?
Odd take on life.
Also you can not fully discount state and local taxes paid. Everyone who works at the new fire station or school pays federal taxes.
You can’t avoid counting some taxes.
You are forgetting the 15.3% in payroll taxes paid on every dollar of “earned” income under $172K per year.
Fair point. I still don’t think this is probably a good investment from a purely monetary perspective, but that does make the math look better, at least.
If you want companies to make products in the USA where it is more expensive to make products – you need to give them an incentive to do so.
Every major country in the world subsidies their industries. If you want to compete you have to play the game.
No once the handouts are done so are the jobs. They won’t be here 5 years from now let alone 15.
There is a good change the Mercedes Sprinter plant will still be there 5 or 15 years from now unless the USA removes the Chicken Tax.
What happens to Jeep if the Bronco takes over as the new Wrangler?
I imagine there’ll be a wee bit of schadenfruede from Jeep’s Stellantis siblings.
If it does, it’ll likely be a temporary circumstance, for a quarter or two. I think it’s a little hyperbolic to suggest that would become a permanent thing. Although Stellantis is offering employee pricing, Ford is as well. Depending on the impact of tariffs on the bottom line/MSRP between the two, and whomever lets their foot off the incentives pedal first will be more telling. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d imagine that this is a temporary situation.
There is no way that such activity would wake up any dormant kaiju. Nope. No way at all.
It’s sad that they picked Pride Month to break up. (Me with a sign that says “I hope they both lose”)
So, Japan is just going to snort up 77,000 lbs of sub-seabed and no one has a problem with that? I understand that in the grand scheme of things that it’s not a whole lot, but it’s not nothing. Hopefully, they pick the right spot and not wake up any, ya know, “things” down there…
side note question: Are there a lot of people on here that actually use tik tok? As in, are there more people on here that use it than don’t? I’m just surprised that MH decided to use it as a media source. No judgments or anything, but no thanks, lol.
I don’t use ANY “social” media. LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, My Space, Instagram. I do watch stuff on YouTube, but that’s just because I’m old(er). My only social footprint is The Autopian comments section and probably some ancient posts on Usenet.
I don’t care for it, but I also can’t stop it. Plus, maybe it’s time we had a good kaiju attack . . . or twelve.
Only social media I have is following animal rescues (mainly sloths) on Instagram. I was on FB a while ago because the people I know colluded to perform a social experiment on me as they pushed me to be on it only to exit themselves and I found myself on there alone with wallpaper people I had shruggingly approved, increasingly dumber threads invading my space (pun intended), and a couple friends who had profiles they had abandoned. Nobody new that I met would ever be on it, so when FB dinged me for some kind of “offensive” post about friggin’ cars that I assume some AI had misinterpreted, I took as that as time to delete it.
I’m less concerned about the obvious Godzilla joke, and more (although only slightly) concerned about them punching a bruise and causing a tsunami/earthquake.
The Japanese are notorious for not being stupid, so it’s probably fine. Probably…
When it comes to foresight on oceanic resource management, their record isn’t quite as good.
I guess 77,000 lbs sounds like a lot, and since this is a proof of concept if it is effective extraction will expand exponentially, but considering “we” pull about 30,600,000,000lbs of oil out of the earth each day I am going to say this is something I will worry about later.
How much will sales fall in Q3 of this year?
Considering how irrational everything is now, I’m guessing sales go up. But only because of something super odd and unexpected like Xi and trump starting a bromance next month, and trump allowing a flood of cheap Chinese cars into the US to retaliate against musk and sink Tesla.
I just realized the next trade talks with China could be as simple as:
Xi: We are making too many cars. How about we build you a GREAT WALL along your border to keep the Mongols out, and you let us import our cars without any barriers?
trump: Done! We have a deal! Where do I sign?
Nancy Mace: You voted yes on this bullshit bill, so fuck you, you GET NOTHING.
You can put on your big girl pants and explain to your constituents why you thought it was a good idea to strip away their healthcare and economic opportunities.
She is a huge, lying, piglet.
I didn’t have “rooting for Elon” on my bingo card today but here we are.
He has the right idea, unfortunately for the wrong reasons.
At this point rooting for Musk is like the US being allies with Russia in WWII. It serves the immediate need of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” but you know it’ll fall apart in the long run.
Musk’s facial hair is much worse than Joe’s glorious moustache though
I was thinking the same, like using the Mafia to secure ports during WWII.
I’m rooting for injuries.
And/or the years of McDonalds, Diet coke and ketamine abuse to finally take their pound of flesh from the respective sides
I wish they would both get up close and personal with a RUD at Starbase.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend all the way here.
Though what platform that a-hole comes up with for a new party may make us wish for the old one. I used to be “Republican-ish” before their collective brains fell out and the Christo-facists stomped on them. Fiscally conservative, to a point that stops well short of “let them starve”, socially wildly progressive. I don’t care if you marry your dog, as long as your dog wants to marry you.
Sorry to say this but welcome to being a mainstream Democrat.
My political views have changed very little over the years, but the parties sure have. I am still very much an Independent at heart, but my views mostly align with those of the Democrats today, so that is who I vote for today, love them or not (and I don’t, in some ways). When you only have two legit choices, you pick the lesser evil most of the time. I would LOVE for the US to have the sort of multi-party politics that most Europeans countries have, but that ship sailed, got lost in the fog, then sunk with the loss of all hands.
As many in other, more enlightened countries have said, and I mostly agree, we don’t have left and right in the US, we have right and Facists at this point. Thankfully, I am wealthy enough to not have to depend on the government much other than providing general stability – and at this point I am not even getting that. Sigh.
Maybe I can get some Elon money to run against Morgan Griffith in Virginia’s 9th district. Total lack of political experience seems to be a positive for his voters.
‘Lost Medicaid? Thank Morgan!’ will likely be a decent campaign in a district where 300k people are likely going to lose coverage.
I confidently expect 2025 US annual light vehicle sales to be lower than 2016’s.
Ford’s holding the line because tariffs are so hard to time.
Does the general public not see the evolution of Trump/Musk and see how much it discredits both of them as basic human beings. People don’t act like this in any other sphere except current politics.
In any rational world prior to about 7-8 years ago, this insanity would be grounds to start talking impeachment for Trump, and ousting Musk for almost all of his roles. This is like watching a third world country, but it’s a first-world stage.
Also, I’m resolute on my purchase of Ford stock about 6 months ago. The 5%-ish dividend is a huge plus, as well. I used to think dividends were only for retirees.
The Buffet formula does tend to work out pretty well for most people.
I think the only solution to trump/musk at this point is a real life celebrity death match. They could make it pay per view to fit into capitalistic values as well.
I’m still waiting for the Elon/Zuck cage match.
Unfortunately, I have known adults who act like them, but they were seen as the idiots and psychopaths they were by most anyone who actually knew them. None of them could have won even a local race. Maybe they could today—poor them, they were born too early! (They loved the victim label.) Oh, wait, they weren’t born into wealth, so never mind.
I know plenty of local and state politicians here in the traditional GOP stronghold of Alabama, and they’re almost all very calm, educated, rational people without any overt hatred or propensity for unhinged tirades. I’ve long held a theory that the higher up you go in politics, the more eccentric you can be — or NEED to be. Otherwise you just blend in.
Looks like the BBB just passed 50-50 with Murkowski’s reluctant vote, and Vance pushed it through. I’m hoping it gets rejected in the House — it’s been artificially rushed, criticized by both sides, cuts a lot of benefits AND increases the deficit on a grand scale. I can’t see how it made it this far.
Cult of personality, that’s how.
Oh man, Japan needs to learn from it’s past, messing with the earth will waken all sorts of Kaiju. Tokyo is doomed!
AughI You beat my comment by 20 minutes!
For the records, I beat you by a minute for the “you beat me to it” reply as well. lol
Beat me by 7 minutes. Damn you microwaveable “stir every two minutes” lunch! Argh.
Housing sales appear to be stalled. In my neck of the woods, there is still a lot of high-tech money. It appears to be going into high-end autos rather than homes. These are just my observations. At this point, I figure it is the uncertainty that has caused the pause.
Shopping cars is no fun right now, but trying to buy a house today? Just about impossible.
Yes. Even though sales are stalled, the price of homes is still astronomical. If my home were to be assessed at its market value, I would have to sell out because I could not afford the property tax (which is about 1.25%).
As someone who generally can’t stand hypocrisy, the “rules for thee, not for me” and pulling up of ladders shamelessly demonstrated by Elon and Rep. Mace absolutely drives me insane, but it seems to have become SOP for so many recently.
It is probably most accurate to say there is no Federal EV mandate.
Yeah the “EV Mandate” might be an exaggeration, but Matt is engaging in sophistry. If states comprising the majority of the US population band together to ban the sale of new gas cars by a certain date…that’s a distinction without a difference.
There is no *explicit* Federal EV mandate. The EPA baked in an assumed EV adoption rate into their 2027-2032 emissions rules, which in the short term OEMs can meet with improvements to engines/vehicles/hybridization, but once you get out to the 2032 end of the timeline it requires a very aggressive fraction of EV’s in the total fleet volume to be able to meet it.
That’s not even getting into the fact that California ARB does have an explicit EV mandate on the books, and that applies* to the CARB opt-in states, too.
*Theoretically – some of the CARB opt-in states are getting cold feet and pledging not to adopt that part of the legislation for their states.
Yeah, and I know Matt hinted at that part of it later in the paragraph, but I think the idea of “EV Mandates” are broadly accurate and nitpicking exact definitions is rather silly when everyone knows what is being discussed.
Agreed. I work in an industry where I need to know the details of the emissions regs, so when people say “there’s no EV mandate” I try to clarify things. It is true that you can’t CTRL+F ‘EV Mandate’ on the Federal Register and find a law titled such, but the assumption that 100% electrification of motor vehicles is the desired and inevitable end-state is baked into the regulations already – but you have to do a lot of reading to find it, unless you already know where to look. Just trying to help those who might be trying to cut through the talking point BS to find the regulatory reality.
More specifically they have a ZEV mandate – which includes plug-in hybrids. Personally I see it getting pushed out just like the HD ZEV percentages did.
As to the Federal rules – the 2025 Camry meets 2032 fuel economy standards today. You only need to sell EVs if you plan to offset a lot of 20 mpg trucks.
I know we try to not get too political here, but the BBB is truly one of the single worst pieces of legislation put in front of congress. As much as I am not a fan of Musk, regardless of whether or not the bill passes, I truly hope he does fund a primary challenge to every single person who votes in favor of the bill, as voting in favor shows nothing but Party over Country.
I’m definitely falling more and more into the politically nihilistic camp since it seems neither party cares about the future of our country, and I’d like to see people who are fighting for positive change bank-rolled in both parties. At this point I’d be thrilled for any functioning, independent thinking adults to be on a ballot, regardless of party.
So, the logic is: BBB is bigly bad, 1 party is ramming it through and the other opposes = both sides are the same.
I didn’t explain my point well, I was using the BBB as a way to show that I’m exhausted with the Red party, however I’m also exhausted by the other side continuing to flounder without a spine as they continue to value seniority over all else. They continue to pile congressmembers and senators who should have been retired for over a decade (or those with terminal diagnoses) into the most high-power committees, show no spine with the candidates they support, and a lack of a cohesive plan for the future. I’m tired in general, and don’t see too many bright spots in either party, although the one with the overall majority in both chambers of congress and the Presidency are obviously going to draw the most ire due to being able to generally steamroll the opposition.
I loathe the Republican Party these days, but I’m deeply disappointed in the Democrats and that’s somehow worse. There’s a time for navel-gazing and a time for action and right now all of us who are out there sweating our ass off at “Hands Off” and “No Kings” rallies are sick of party leadership wringing their hands and dithering about how to proceed when our country is being sold off as scrap to billionaires.
The real fighters on the Democratic side are mostly governors and state attorneys general.
I don’t think the OP is arguing that both parties are the same. One has clearly shown themselves to be just mask-off evil, but neither seem to care that much about where things are headed. The Democrats’ opposition has been uninspired, at best, they’re trying to silence younger, more progressive voices in the party, and they don’t seem to have a clearly-defined plan for what they’ll do if they get back in power.
Please don’t give it a cute name, he already did that. I prefer Trumpocalypse. 🙂
I’m also in the “apart from that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” approach now. I hate Musk a lot, but anyone who fights Trump openly is also a hero in my book, so I’m rooting for this is a weird way.
I never go to Vegas or even watch MMA fights, so this is as crazy as it gets in my world. But my family and I have been making expatriation plans for over a year (EU citizenship by descent) and I’m serious about making the move, if only to get out of the crossfire for a while.
Actually I don’t agree with the notion of not getting too political here. Let’s just call it how we see it. If it’s wrong call it out. Here, trump a racist, facist who’s fooled half this country into voting for him. And now he’s taking every opportunity to test and tear down longtime conventions.
I generally agree that the other side has been weak but you can’t do much when all three branches of government is being controlled by the other side. I suppose my personal preference at the moment is to go with the lesser of two evils.
I would agree very strongly with this, my view of the current republican party is far more negative than my view of the democrats, but I think it’s important to be able to step back and levy criticism to either side. Taking a hard stance of “Well I LOVE my side and your side is pure evil and I will not accept nuance or criticism of that view” is how we got into this mess, and is not conducive to a functional society.
It’s a problem when any representative votes the way they vote because they are afraid for their job due to pressure from above, not from the people they supposedly claim to serve. But if they are that weak then they shouldn’t be in that job in the first place. Put on your big boy/girl pants, resign, and do something more meaningful that might earn you respect from your public, like selling hot dogs on a corner or something. Just be honest and do it well.
Even though I am likely politically opposite of you, as I am with many here, I am in full agreement that both parties are full of people I cannot support.
With the most recent elections I would think the Democrats would see that they support many policies that the public does not agree with. Maybe. Politics is a pendulum that swings back and forth in this country so it could be something else.
But generally you see some sort of acknowledgment in big losses that they need to correct either policy or candidate and I see neither from the Democrats.
The Republicans… I am having a hard time seeing how most Republicans can support them with their purported values. I think they are going to be handed a big loss in the mid-terms next year, as is historically likely, but who knows about any of it right now?
I’d love to see either party move to the center of their positions but I don’t think the two-party, primary system will allow it. We are in a state of perpetually choosing from extremes and I am done for my part. No more choosing the lesser of evils. Why waste my afternoon standing in line to vote against someone I don’t like any more than the one I’m voting for?
Yeah the primary system rewarding extremism and purity tests is the real root of the issue I think.
For all the hate the stereotypical “smoke-filled room at the convention” got, we did get a lot of pretty good leaders out of it in retrospect.
I used to consider myself a Libertarian. I liked having an alternative to vote for when there wasn’t anyone I could hold my nose and pull the lever for. But Libertarians became… not so much a political party as a semi-organized debate club to test who was most pure of philosophy in the party. A party is supposed to help candidates win elections. That’s the job. I came to believe they only existed to collect campaign donations from the disaffected like me so they didn’t have to get real jobs.
The primaries are being set up to make the parties the same. Only extremists vote in the primary so you have to cater to their every whim and only the most pure liberal or conservative wins. And let’s not even start on how campaign laws are set up to prevent another party coming in to disrupt the control of the two-party system.
Indeed. We should go back to that honestly. The even hotter take is we should go back to Senators being appointed by state legislatures. That would disabuse people of the notion that the Senate is meant to represent the people directly (and thus it’s “unfair” that each state gets 2 senators regardless of population). It isn’t – that’s what the House is for.
I agree with this, and I also think we should have multi-member House districts and the Wyoming rule.
Basically anything that can tamp down extremism is a positive in my book.
I like this plan. Eliminate primaries for presidential elections, return to appointed Senators, and radically increase the size of the House.
I’d go for that. If our system is set up for the Fed to take the lion’s share of the tax collected and dole it back out to the states to spend, then state governments should have representation as well (the way it was originally set up).
But the way things are now, I’m not sure we could get any new constitutional amendment passed. You need a 2/3 majority for that and that would require compromise. Compromise is no longer allowed in our current system.
Oh yeah 0% chance we repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. Going back to smoke-filled rooms for candidate selection is theoretically much easier though.
I’m not a person who is saying there won’t be elections. There will be. What I don’t believe will happen is that these people who vote republican will suddenly switch and vote for someone else. I have a hard time after the last 10 years thinking these voters ever stop supporting their own punishment by the people they put in there. They are fully brain poisoned into never admitting their choices are their own problem and not someone else’s.
Don’t get sucked in by the view that the elections are decided solely by the purists (despite my own rhetoric).
There are 20-30% hard core Republicans and 20-30% hard core Democrats. The rest swing one way or another based on a lot of different factors but mostly momentum and what they hear other people saying. There are a lot of people in this country that think they have to vote, don’t pay any attention to what is going on (in the details) and are swayed by public opinion.
For all the people that voted for Trump, probably half of them are voters that will go where the wind blows them. The other half will die with him on whatever hill he wants them to fight on.
He lost no meaningful amount of voters after 2020. I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.
Trump has succeeded because he inspired portions of the population that otherwise don’t care about politics. I’m convinced a significant number voted for him as a joke, personally.
But,his approval numbers have been going down, and I think between the extremely visible gestapo-esque secret police raids on non-criminals coupled with the financial screwing-over that’s about to happen to many millions of people as a result of this bill, he and the Republicans are really going to start bleeding support. If he gets us involved any deeper in some sort of non-war in the Middle East I think the Republicans are absolutely cooked, assuming the Democrats have the motivation to capitalize on this, which I doubt.
No he didn’t lose support. That is because only 4% of voters split tickets. LOTS of people do not vote in the primary and then vote for whoever wins the primary.
Trump won the GOP primary with 17 million votes.
Knowing how selfish and stupid most people are (especially the parasite class of politicians) helps to suppress conspiratorial thoughts, but it’s almost as if the Democrats are intentionally complicit in the destruction of the republic by their baffling levels of incompetence, uselessness, and lack of messaging (when it’s not out of touch). IMO, that makes them even worse morally. I can accept the existence of and understand the workings of monsters—they’re very simple, so there’s not much to understand—it’s those who help them or who are in position to fight them and do not that I hold in highest contempt because the destruction monsters can unleash is proportional to their support/lack of resistance.
Kind of like wheeling out Bill Clinton, not to rip apart the current administration or use his influence to help grow the party, but to express unwavering support for a notorious sex pest for mayor of New York.
There you go! Their success should be a slam dunk, yet here we are, and these completely incompetent political strategists make serious bank. I think even meteorologists are held to higher standards. I’d say I was in the wrong business, but there’s no way I could live with myself doing that kind of work with those kind of people.
Well the party only spent around 50 million dollars looking for the “Liberal Joe Rogan”. Only to have maybe the objectively coolest dude on Earth, just turnout the youth vote in the highest numbers the city has ever seen. They could just like, IDK, ride the dudes coattails. But they just can’t help themselves, and now the Senator is out there spreading fake quotes from the guy. All cause he said things about a certain Nation State, and maybe billionaires shouldn’t exist. Choosing instead the disgraced former governor, that we’re all suppose to magically forget about that. Or maybe the current mayor, who is a sellout to Turkish government of all people. Or maybe the guy most famous for assaulting minority children while wearing a red beret.
At this point, it’s just painful to support the Democratic Party. They would rather lose the baseball game up 8-5 in the ninth, just because their chosen pitcher isn’t going to get the win. Not to gamify it. But the other team will kidnap the umpires entire family if it means they get a fourth out. They’re too busy playing this purity game to mount a serious opposition.
All true. I think establishment Democrats are simply terrified of success, because it means they would have to do their jobs. If they constantly lose, then all they have to do is blast out some fundraising emails once a month and watch the dollars roll in from the NPR crowd. Guys like Mamdani, who are genuinely motivated by creating a better world, scare them to death. Both parties, ultimately, only care about money but at least Republicans are honest about it.
Yes, the BBB is horrible legislation. Cutting benefits for the poor to partly offset tax cuts for the rich and while increasing the yearly federal budget deficit by 30%. However, I hope that Musk’s threat is enough to kill it because his complaint is that the BBB doesn’t cut benefits for the poor enough.
Carmakers seem to lurch back and forth between pursuing market share and then, a few years later, lamenting that pursuing market share cost them profits, so now they’re going to concentrate on profits. What’s the point of pursuing market share, exactly?
I once worked for a consumer products manufacturing company who would do a similar cycle of trying to gain market share, or more accurately create a new market segment to briefly monopolize, and then retract to their bread and butter after overextending themselves in new ventures. It almost seemed bipolar until I realized that the yo-yo effect was just the fickle investors demanding growth and then demanding retrenchment so they didn’t lose market value. I’m not anti-capitalism, but there are definitely moments where blind capitalism is stupid.
It’s all about the shareholders, Baby!
I watched a prominent pharmaceutical company divest their animal healthcare division to “focus on human health”, and then four years later they acquired a company with a robust veterinary portfolio and claimed it would “diversify their product portfolio!”
Somehow, they keep going, even though the actual product discovery is pretty bad, so they acquire and divest instead.
Honestly, I’m not sure how far sales will come down. Anecdotally, I’m seeing an awful lot of YOLO’ing going on around me still? Even more so than usual American YOLO’ing? Even with housing prices a lot of people I know are like “yeah I guess that’s just the way it is now” shed a tear, and put in an offer. Same seems to be going for cars.
I’m not looking forward to 2008: Reloaded.
Whatever happens in the next few months/years, the only thing I feel comfortable saying is it isn’t going to be like 2008.
It might be bad, but would be a different kind of bad.
I’m sure it’s going to be a unique sort of bad? “History doesn’t repeat itself, but often rhymes” or something like that.
I swear I’m not trying to be too cynical, but nothing I’ve seen lately has implied that we’re heading towards an era of abundance and great vibes. I will say, I hope I’m wrong.
The stock market is projecting a lot more optimism than I thought possible at the moment.
I guess we’ll see.
I remember in 2020 the unemployment rate and the DOW were spiking at the same time. The screenshot of that is quite the image.
Remember, like, 10 weeks ago when the S&P was at 4900, and I told people on here to relax about the whining that their retirements were ruined forever? I do, lol.
In general, almost everyone would be better off not looking at their retirement accounts/investments more than say once a quarter.
Do I follow this advice myself? Of course not, although I try my best not to stress over swings 25 years out from retirement.
I agree! But, boy, how many people missed all the neon signs screaming to invest more? So many, lol. I mean, whatever, but yikes.
I did both—swearing and investing more. Military ETFs have been great.
I feel like Wall Street has kind of dissociated from reality at this point.
What is reality in this case?
lol I am not wading into that one
There’s so much more screwed we can get.
We’ve only just begun… to liveeee
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we’re on our wayyyyy
We’ve only just begunnnnnnnnnn
You mean once we start building concentration camps and suppressing our own citizens? Oh wait…
The USA is in stage 5 of the empire cycle. (Decline) The vast majority of empires collapse in revolution or civil war.