Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

But what would trump have done if he retained the presidency and lost congress? That's also been pretty common over the last few decades if I'm mistaken, a president with one or both sides of Congress is reelected but Congress flips to the opposition party.


He would do nothing because his supporters believe misinformation and worship him.

Prices haven't gone down at all nor will bringing manufacturing to the US do this (likely causing them to go up) but his approval rating is 50%


> He would do nothing because his supporters believe misinformation and worship him.

Interesting, that hasn't been my experience.

I live in a very red part of the country and most people I know are Trump supporters, including some family members have been very MAGA since 2016.

I've been hearing more and more complaints over missed promises: no Epstein files, raising budgets, RFK is starting to water down his promises, no end to the Ukraine or Gaza wars, etc.


He missed effectively every promise from 2016. Why did these people vote for him 2 more times, especially after an attempted coup? Maybe these "complaints" are just an attempt to dodge personal responsibility for having supported a catastrophe.


Sure you can guess at a person's intentions or reasoning, but my experience here is that there weren't many complaints in the first term for whatever reason and now there are.

I couldn't get inside their head to say why. My read on them is largely that the complaints are legitimate frustrations though. This isn't exactly a part of the country where voters are somewhat evenly split and Trump supports would need to save face or smooth over interpersonal friction by giving a nod to the idea that he may not deliver.


He's removing the illegal immigrants and being very aggressive about it.


Hey, you knew a guy (Physics BA) who almost aced the LSAT cold. Do you remember what his score was and how old he was when he took it?


I don't remember his score, but he was probably about 22?


> I've been hearing more and more complaints over missed promises: no Epstein files, raising budgets, RFK is starting to water down his promises, no end to the Ukraine or Gaza wars, etc.

I based my argument on the poll averages as shown below, most are high 40s similar to the past few months. I would think if people were upset about missed promises it would be reflected in these. It's been ~5 months.

You might say people are giving him a chance to implement a plan or that some action would take time therefore they are willing to give a thumbs up for now, hence the polls. The reason I discounted this is because I'm not aware of any plan or current actions by Trump that would reduce prices. The trade wars will either increase prices due to tariffs or increase prices if products are made in the US.*1

I believe you but maybe float a question to your neighbors - "If prices don't come down would you vote Democrat in 2027?"

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump...


Political polls are extremely misleading. Ask someone if they still agree with a decision they already made, they will more often than not find a reason to say yes.

> I believe you but maybe float a question to your neighbors - "If prices don't come down would you vote Democrat in 2027?"

The fact that you're assuming people should align with one party or the other is the problem.

Who gives a shit what letter is next to a candidates name? What matters is what the candidate stands for, what matters to them, and whether you believe they'll stuck to their guns when the political machine that is DC fights back.


> But what would trump have done if he retained the presidency and lost congress?

Trump is blaming Biden for the obvious outcome of Trump's tarrif nonsense. What do you think Trump would have done?


You have to be fair though, politicians always blame someone else and its usually the last person that was in charge.

How often do you hear any one politician claim the glory of a situation that they had nothing to do with? And when was the last time you actually heard a politician own their failing or apologize?


> You have to be fair though, politicians always blame someone else and its usually the last person that was in charge.

I don't think this is a reasonable or informed take. It's quite obvious that the tarrif lunacy is single handedly causing an economic downturn. Trump himself has downplayed the relevance of this downturn with inane comments over how tarrifs would also be painful to the US economy. If you see a politician like Trump claiming both that tarrifs will be painful to the US and that the economic pain caused by Trump's tarrifs is blamed on whoever was there before him, you need to be massively disingenuous or naive to claim that "politicians always blame both sides". There is nothing normal about Trump's actions.


My claim wasn't whether trump is responsible, of course his tariffs are having a very real impact. My point was that one should never expect a politician to admit that, at best they dodge claiming responsibility but more often than not they point at someone else, often the last person in office.

If you'd like to say my claim is uninformed that's fine, but I ask again for examples when a politician directly owned their failure or apologized for it.


> My point was that one should never expect a politician to admit that, (...)

That's the problem with your false dichotomy: Trump already admitted tarrifs create economic problems.

https://fortune.com/2025/02/02/trump-tariffs-americans-some-...

Trump blaming predecessors for the problems created by his tarrifs policy goes way beyond your run-of-the-mill predecessor blaming. Trump is simultaneously warning his tarrifs policy will cause economic damage and that the economic damage created by his policies were caused by someone else.


To be clear, this is the quote that article references.

> “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump said in a social media post. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

That doesn't read to me as Trump claiming responsibility for any pain that we might see, and it isn't an apology. Even better, he ultimately doubles down on the tariffs and claims the end result will be worth any of the pain that he doesn't directly acknowledge he will have caused.


I would suppose that the Democrats would remove the policy regardless of who was in charge.


But they didn’t, so that supposition is bunk


When did they have control of the senate without a BD being the lynchpin?


How?


Vote with Republicans in removing it


But Republicans put it in. The proposed. They were the vast majority of the votes for it. It was signed by Trump. It was their baby.


2020 - Trump goes after tiktok https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/trump-to-...

In 2024 two bills (merged later) went through the Republican controlled House with a bipartisan vote (350+ for) [1] then the Democrat controlled Senate [2] with another bipartisan vote (79-18, attached to an Israeli funding bill) basically following whatTrump wanted.

Late 2024 - Trump then offered to save the service when the Public turned against the ban and used it as a campaign item.

2025 - His supporters were all over Tiktok praising him, including the CEO of Tiktok when he put a pause on the required sale. He's also extended the deadline multiple times now.

----------------------------

Republicans might start using this tactic more now that it's been shown to work. It's similar to the "Fuck the next admin" tax bill that he put in his first term.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-vote-force-byted... [2] https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-congress-bill-1c48466d...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: