Category Archives: conservatives and liberals

Why Might Americans Vote the Extremist Party?

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October 30, 2022  — Americans will go to the polls November 8.  It appears probable that they will give the Republican party majority control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate as well.  The same for Secretaries of State and other statewide offices.  The consequences could be enormous. Especially worrying is the future of US electoral democracy, if the result is further distortions of voter eligibility rules, congressional redistricting, the electoral college, and other structural features.  How could such an outcome of the mid-term elections be explained, seeing as how the Republican party is now dominated by its extremist MAGA faction? read more

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Protectionism is Nothing New for Republicans

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June 16, 2018 — Critics of President Trump’s aggressive trade policy have mostly gotten it right.  His tariffs cause economic damage at home – raising the cost of living for American consumers, hurting industry, and taking foreign sales away from farmers and other exporters.   Moreover the threats have been deployed erratically across trading partners and across time in ways that seem calculated to discourage cooperation with the US and rather to isolate the hitherto leader of the free world from even its closest allies. read more

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Does the Economy Really Do Better Under Democratic Presidents?

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(June 27, 2016) Hillary Clinton has been saying that the US economy does much better when a Democrat is president than when a Republican is.  When the press goes to fact-check the claim, they can be forgiven for having  a presumption that it can’t be 100 per cent true.  After all, if it were completely true, then wouldn’t we all already know it?

Well, there is no other way to say this: The claim is 100 per cent true.

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