Having to fall back into unsubstantiated hyperbole like "worst president in history" and "screwing the country" probably doesn't help to win anyone over.
Trump's character flaws, faux status as a successful business mogul, a conservative, a champion of the Republican party, a racist, ... is left to the reader. (A hilariously easy task with some time and Google.)
What I wanted to address was the single issue of China garnering votes for Trump's second term. JFK is famously quoted for this: "...Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,..."[1] America didn't become the world's top economy by being anti-globalist. We manufactered things, we exported things, we embraced international trade. We pioneered the transistor, created silicon valley, and created an environment where enterprising foreign nationals could come with their ambitions and build companies that ultimately would employ Americans, enrich stock holders, and create jobs. But ... now Trump and his administration is slowly closing the US off from immigration of persons and businesses and ideas. How many of the worlds future Fortune 100 companies are in the minds of PHd students or researchers that given this new visa situation will think twice about incorporating in the USA? Just look at the businesses created in the first and second tech booms and ask how many founders were foreigners.
Regarding the foreign reserve currency and Chinese military might. I guess I am more bullish on that not changing anytime soon. The US spends far too much in propping up the military industrial complex that it would take generations of incompetent presidents to ruin that lead. That being said it's very disconerting for Trump to be so cozy with our enemies, to openly praise North Korea (could be a policy of appeasement or just keeping one's enemies closer than his freinds... i dunno) and to give exuberant praise to Putin, etc., and to disregard intel from his own agencies, to badmouth the FBI and the CIA, to bilk the government into paying himself by staying at his own properties, golfing practically his whole presidency, praising white supremacists, ... all of this is forgiven because he's "hard on China". HAH!
To think that President Xi isn't 10 moves ahead is to be truly ignorant.
>Most job losses ever? Or highest deficits ever? Or highest unemployment rate ever?
>Does that win anyone over?
How can you blame Trump for that when the unemployment rate was the lowest in over a decade before 2020, and the job losses / fall in unemployment was due to lockdowns he didn't support? Overall the unemployment rate is much better in Red states, which have weaker or no lockdowns: https://www.aier.org/article/unemployment-far-worse-in-lockd...
Getting the blame is part of being the country’s chief executive. There are two main categories here, economy and health. We are performing worse than Europe on both accounts (higher death toll and higher unemployment rate). Does that tell you we are doing something wrong as a country?
I think it's a bit unfair to blame him for the unemployment rate having gotten so high, but it is fair to blame him for how long it has lasted. If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now. Most jobs could have come back, especially if we had done something like furloughs like the UK did. Instead, it got completely out of control entirely due to his incompetence.
Unemployment being higher in locked down states makes sense. But the flipside of that statistic is that daily deaths in red states are reaching new peaks now while they've flatlined to lows in blue states.
>If he'd shown the tiniest bit of competent leadership through the pandemic, we could have locked down for 2 months, suffered the high unemployment, and then largely gotten back to normalcy(+masks) by now.
Then why haven't the Blue states that have been locked down for months gotten back to normalcy? Like California and New York? Why hasn't Melbourne gotten back to normalcy? Almost nowhere that prevented a first wave by shutting down has managed to avoid a second wave.
A single percentage point difference in unemployment data versus versus thousands of deaths. And comparing dense European countries to rural red states. Your data is devastating to your point.
Blue states can't go back to normalcy since diseased red staters can still travel freely within the country and ruin it all over again. Also because Americans are too stubborn to mask up for the privilege of normalcy.
Places like Australia have gone back to normalcy(+masks) now. Japan can pack a train full of people(+masks).
