[fastball]

Again, none of those things have become noticeably worse under the current presidential administration than any other in the last couple decades, except as related to COVID, which again, is skewing every nation on earth's stats, not just the US. Have you looked at the COVID / unemployment / life expectancy stats for other countries?

For everything else, are we looking at the same stats?

Deficit: higher under Obama than it was under Bush / has been under Trump.

Incarceration rates: continuing to decrease during Trump's term.

Education: yeah, America's is pretty terrible. But that's been a trend for a long time, Trump has nothing to do with it.

The news is making you think things are worse than they actually are. Take a break from it.

[nine_zeros]

Please don't cherry pick select stats and your graph reading needs some brushing up.

The fact that current administration is doing NOT-A-THING to improve anything should be reason enough to vote him out.

But the fact that he has made education worse, deficits larger, demonstrated incompetent handling of crisis, escalated race relations back to civil wars era, actively encouraging voter suppression just makes me wonder what really makes those supporters so ignorant. Maybe blind faith is more powerful than one believes.

(And all I talked about was only done in 1 year, I could go back and each year was bad).

We have turned into some third world country where injustice, incompetence and corruption are routine and people just turn a blind eye.

And I have loved ones who have been affected from this administrations policies. It must be easy to say everything you said when it doesn't directly affect you. But we are all real people who are getting impacted with this hateful incompetence.

[fastball]

I didn't cherry pick stats. I pointed out that a number of them are being affected by a GLOBAL PANDEMIC which the rest of the world is currently suffering from too. The ones that have any hope of being separated from that I talked about. If we want to talk about those other stats relative to how the rest of the world is doing on them, I'm happy to do that too. But anything else is unbelievably disingenuous.

My graph reading needs brushing up? Do you know which years Obama was president? Are you reading the same graph (the one you linked) that I am? The deficit was larger in Obama's presidency in multiple years than it has been at any time in Trump's.

What policies have affected your loved ones? I'd love to talk about them.

How did Trump make education worse? Explicitly please.

How has Trump encourage voter suppression?

In Trump's presidency, there was the lowest black unemployment rate there has ever been. How exactly is it his fault that "race relations" are in the toilet? Did he shoot unarmed black men? Did he applaud it? Has his repeated denouncement of White Supremacy[1] not been good enough for you? The fact that you think race relations are EVEN CLOSE to what they were in the fucking Civil War era makes this the dumbest conversation I've had on the internet this month.

Seriously, stop reading the news, it's rotting your brain.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAfw4bmtxrE

[nine_zeros]

Wow, I can't help you if you still have those questions. I would encourage you to google those exact questions up.

Let me help you with one specific item. Deficits https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://...

Just Google stuff up and stop being a willing fool. The GOP and Trump will eat this country and spit it on your children.

[fastball]

Wut? I'm mildly concerned I might be taking crazy pills.

Literally look at the graph you posted. The deficit was higher in every year of Obama's first term than any year of Trump's first term. You realize you want the bars to be smaller, right?

I take it back; keep reading the news. At this point I'm not sure much can be done for you.

[nine_zeros]

Thanks for confirming your lack of education. Obama's slope was trending down. It's going up in Trumps. Like I said in my original post, I don't like the direction of this country. And if you removed the blinders in your eyes, you would see it too. But I can see you prefer to be a willing fool.

[fastball]

Oof that projection. What follows is a conversation between nine_zeros and his boss.

---

Boss: nine_zeros, I told you that your budget was $100k per quarter, but over the past 4 quarters you've managed to spend $500k per quarter! We don't have that kind of money!

Nine_zeros: I know, I know, but it's fine, don't worry! My trend line is going down so there is nothing to be concerned about.

Boss: That doesn't matter NZ! You've already gone $1.6M over budget! Your trend line going down doesn't change the fact that you've already spent that money, money which we don't have.

Nine_zeros: It's all the difference in the world. Just look at Stevens, boss. His trend line is going up while mine is going down, that's so much worse than me.

Boss: Except he was only spending $200k in his first quarter and has only just now gotten up to $400k! You were spending more than that every quarter. It doesn't matter if his trend is upward and yours is down if you've spent way more money. It will take him many more quarters to get to what you spent in your first! It's easy to have a downward trend when you spend an unbelievable amount of money in your first quarter, anyone can do that.

Nine_zeros: Wake up sheeple! Pull the wool out of your eyes! Stop being such a fool!

> nine_zeros is fired

Fin.

---

Look, I agree that this country is headed in the wrong direction. But it's clearly not Trump's fault, you've just been led to believe that by the news media. This country has been waning in some areas for decades now. At the same time, some things have been getting better. Crime is way down from where it was 30 years ago, for example. You wouldn't get that from watching the news, but you will from reading the stats. The news isn't gonna tell you that though. If everything gets better, what will they have to report on? They make all their money on outrage at the moment. They don't want things to get better, because then they'll be out of a job.

But yes, there are all sorts of things that need to be fixed. Trump, however, is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Orange man bad is a misdirection that an unfortunate number of Americans have swallowed – hook, line, and sinker. Things aren't gonna get better under Biden. He's been in Washington for 40 years. Hell, he helped cause some of the problems you mentioned (cough incarceration of blacks cough). He'll just lull far too many Americans back into a sense of complacency by offering a much higher level of decorum than Trump, while at the same time continuing to allow things to fall apart in the background.

If you want to fix this country, stop being such a partisan and calling everyone who disagrees with you a "willing fool".