Why neither my wife nor I will vote for Trump or Biden

[Jon]

How did our constitutional republic ( we`re not a democracy ) ever devolve to the point where we would be in a position to have to choose between a cognitively declining octogenarian and a narcissistic egomaniac ? That said, I personally believe that Joe Biden as a candidate in November is in no way a certainty.
" Well Mr. Franklin, what have you given us ? "
" A republic, madam, if you can keep it ."

we are a Constitutional Republican built on Democratic Principles, I hate this argument so much

 

[NationalTitles18]

we are a Constitutional Republican built on Democratic Principles, I hate this argument so much

Yep.

We are not a pure/direct democracy.

We are still a democracy.

Accurate characterizations of our democracy include:

A liberal democracy

A constitutional democracy

A participatory democracy

A representative democracy

An elite democracy

If one uses the term republic to describe the US system of government then one must acknowledge that the people are represented in that government by people they elect.

That is also known as a representative democracy.

So saying our republic is not a democracy is factually inaccurate and misleading.

 

[Tideflyer]

we are a Constitutional Republican built on Democratic Principles, I hate this argument so much

That is correct. No argument. I just find it amusing how many people call our form of government a " democracy " with apparently no knowledge or thought of the other.

 

[NationalTitles18]

That is correct. No argument. I just find it amusing how many people call our form of government a " democracy " with apparently no knowledge or thought of the other.

Well, saying it isn't a democracy is just flat out incorrect unless the descriptor "direct" or a similar modifier is added.

But it's a straw man as no one I am aware of claimed it is a direct democracy.

 

[Bodhisattva]

You are placing too much trust in trump.

Nah. I don't trust Trump (or most any other politician) any further than I can spit.

 

[Bodhisattva]

I agree with Judge Ludwig that Trump is a clear and present danger to the US. Underestimate Trump at your own risk...

Silence is approval.

Who is silent? I and many others have stated loudly and consistently that we don't like either clown. I'm willing to have my mind changed. Per the OP, why should I vote for Biden considering all the applied retardation his policies demonstrate? I have never and will never vote for Trump. Why should I vote for Biden?

 

[Jon]

Who is silent? I and many others have stated loudly and consistently that we don't like either clown. I'm willing to have my mind changed. Per the OP, why should I vote for Biden considering all the applied retardation his policies demonstrate? I have never and will never vote for Trump. Why should I vote for Biden?

one clown has stated that he intends to be a dictator and never leave office

the other is old but has over performed based on any expectation I had

 

[JDCrimson]

See the post above...

Who is silent? I and many others have stated loudly and consistently that we don't like either clown. I'm willing to have my mind changed. Per the OP, why should I vote for Biden considering all the applied retardation his policies demonstrate? I have never and will never vote for Trump. Why should I vote for Biden?

 

[Bamaro]

Unfortunately our federal elections are not structured for 3rd party canidates to be much of anything but spoilers that allow the weeker of the other two to slip in.

 

[92tide]

Unfortunately our federal elections are not structured for 3rd party canidates to be much of anything but spoilers that allow the weeker of the other two to slip in.

but it does give one an opportunity to repeatedly tell folks how above the political fray they are while telling democrats what they should really be doing

 

[Tideflyer]

Well, saying it isn't a democracy is just flat out incorrect unless the descriptor "direct" or a similar modifier is added.

But it's a straw man as no one I am aware of claimed it is a direct democracy.
[/QUO

350 million people, and these two are the best we can do?

Indeed.... the national conundrum. I never in a million years would have thought our political landscape would or could deteriorate to the extent that it has. The Chinese and Russians must be ecstatic. I don`t even want to think about how many foreign agents have crossed our southern border seeking " asylum ".

 

[crimsonaudio]

Unfortunately our federal elections are not structured for 3rd party canidates to be much of anything but spoilers that allow the weeker of the other two to slip in.

I'd wager most posters here are like me, living in states that are going red or blue no matter what.

You might not like it, but the individual votes of posters here living in deep red or deep blue states literally don't matter.

 

[NationalTitles18]

the individual votes of posters here living in deep red or deep blue states literally don't matter.

I understand your point, but at what point does that, en masse, become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I also get the frustration of that.

It's just a thought.

 

[Tideflyer]

one clown has stated that he intends to be a dictator and never leave office

the other is old but has over performed based on any expectation I had

Well, in Biden`s case, if job approval polls are any indication, somebody must be falling down on the job when it comes to convincing the American people that he`s " over performed ". I admittedly don`t know what the very latest figures are, but I would submit that there`s never been a pending presidential election in which a higher percentage of the electorate wishes that both likely nominees would just go away. Certainly in my lifetime there`s been nothing like it.

 

[Bamaro]

I'd wager most posters here are like me, living in states that are going red or blue no matter what.

You might not like it, but the individual votes of posters here living in deep red or deep blue states literally don't matter.

I agree. Thats why the electoral college has outlived any usefulness that it may have once had. We need complete electoral reform.

 

[Jon]

Well, in Biden`s case, if job approval polls are any indication, somebody must be falling down on the job when it comes to convincing the American people that he`s " over performed ". I admittedly don`t know what the very latest figures are, but I would submit that there`s never been a pending presidential election in which a higher percentage of the electorate wishes that both likely nominees would just go away. Certainly in my lifetime there`s been nothing like it.

you're pretty young I guess, I'd argue Hillary versus Trump was far worse

 

[crimsonaudio]

you're pretty young I guess, I'd argue Hillary versus Trump was far worse

I don't know, there were people passionately supporting Hillary - it's hard to find anyone passionately supporting Biden (save that he's not Trump).

Only Carter had lower approval ratings than Biden after his third year.

 

[AWRTR]

Not voting for Trump is easy. He’s a cancer. We don’t want cancer. The end.

So, for a member of Team Donkey, not wanting Trump means you must like Biden. Heh. It’s also very easy to eliminate the chance we’d vote for Biden based on his lacking mental ability. It’s been demonstrated for a long time, but the last couple of days have been a spectacular exhibition of futility. You can’t explain his gaffes away – as some are wanting to do – that the dude just stutters. Biden’s claim he has recently met with two long-dead foreign leaders is not stuttering. His conflation of Egypt with Mexico is not stuttering. The tribalists are going to make laughable excuses for everything, of course, and they are contorting their logic like they are playing Twister while having sand in their panties.

But, even if we wanted to ignore the mental decline and excuse it all away and have blind faith that Biden’s team would carry out policy, why would his policies win our votes?

I have issues in general with anyone who looks to the government to solve our problems. I’ve witnessed firsthand for 15 years the stupidity and colossal waste. You have to be clueless to want this. It’s a no sale for me. Specifically, I will point out to one recent Monument of Dumb to demonstrate how I derive at my disgust for Old Joe.

My Mom made her living from rental properties in Alabama. She has dementia, and while moving her closer to me, I also spent a year taking over the management of her properties and dealing with tenants who took advantage of my Mom. They simply stopped paying rent. With a new manager, the deadbeats either left on their own or were eventually forced out through the courts. The units were repaired and new tenants moved in. This took months.

My wife and I also have rental properties in St. Augustine.

Then comes the federal eviction moratorium. The idea was that people who lost their jobs due COVID could not be evicted. And in exchange the government (taxpayer) would pay the landlord the rent. Well, that’s not constitutional, but the Constitution only matters when it’s convenient, right? And the left loves tenants and loathes landlords. So, it was a celebrated bit of policy. I knew this was federal overreach, but whatever as long as I would get paid by someone. My Mom’s properties were long paid off (although it took about $300,000 for all the repairs from the first batch of deadbeats), but my wife and I had mortgages on 9 of the 10 residential rentals we just bought months earlier. (We aggressively pay off mortgages, but we had just bought these properties and had only paid off one so far.)

The eviction moratorium shows the typical gulf between how the plan is sold to the public versus how it is implemented. A tenant is supposed to prove they lost their job due to COVID, and then the government would take over and pay the rent. Not a complicated two-step process. But, the government is retarded.

In practice, it worked like this: Tenant hears about a way to live rent-free. They go file the form with the government. Relief is granted without question. They are golden. Does the tenant have to actually prove they lost their job? No. No checking is ever done. How do I know this? Because nearly all of my Mom’s tenants and several of my tenants did this and got rent relief and none had lost their jobs. The government never checks anything (at least not in real time. Maybe years later). It’s so easy to game a government program. The people gaming the system are idiots, but they are smarter than government policymakers.

But I got the rent, right? No. The two-step process is uncoupled. None of the tenants did the second step of filling out paperwork so that the property owner could get paid. They were not required to do so. And filing out a form takes effort, and it's not for their benefit. So, why bother? Not linking these two events is … retarded. See a theme?

But at least I don’t have to pay the 9 mortgages while all this is going on, right? Incorrect. If you were expecting non-retarded government policy, you would be foolish.

So, this unconstitutional, massively destructive policy lasted about a year until the Supreme Court struck it down. The cost to me and my family was in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars that can never be recouped. Tenants that could pay rent were encouraged not to by this administration. The unintended consequences are obvious to predict even to one of minimal intelligence. But, to the people making public policy, having minimal intelligence is a bar too high. Or maybe they don’t care. They got to check the concern box, and their fan boys applauded.

One policy. One stupid policy. Look at all the damage it caused. And people want government to have more control over our lives? Pathetic!

My wife has her own reasons apart from getting ripped off by Biden’s stupidity on the eviction moratorium. When Lan went back to school to study anesthesiology, she had to take out over $180,000 in student loans. Once she was done with school, we planned out how to pay off this debt. IIRC she had nine different loans of various amounts. We did not consolidate the loans and planned to aggressively attack the debt smallest to largest. Lan took her signing bonus and immediately knocked out a couple of loans. (She did not buy a car or fancy clothes or designer handbags.) She diverted $1000 per paycheck into a bank account dedicated only to her loans. After three years, she had eliminated more than half of her debt.

Then came the pause in student loan payments. For three years. As any intelligent and responsible person would, Lan continued to set aside $1000/paycheck. I’m sure everyone else did this as well, right? They wouldn’t take the three-year windfall and spend that money on crap, right?

A few months ago, after three years, payments finally resumed. Since Lan had continued to set money aside during this time, she could pay everything off. I asked Lan if she wanted to wait until after the election to pay off her loans. Maybe a Biden victory would lead to some of her loans being forgiven. We both laughed at that notion. Lan is too responsible and too successful to get student loan relief. And it is a point of pride for her to pay her own way. (Paying one's own bills is offensive to the Left.) She electronically wrote a check for $83,000. Done! She is now debt free.

So, why does she not care for Biden? Because, on this issue, he (and the Dems) caters to society’s whiners and underachievers. She can’t stand that mentality. Seeing her money given to society’s losers makes her very angry. (She works very hard for her money. As do I. And the federal government taxes us at a marginal rate of 37%. Thieves!) There are now a large portion of people who still refuse to start repaying their loans because there is no penalty for being a slacker. IIRC, no interest will accumulate, and this won’t go on a credit report. So, why be responsible? The government encourages you not to be.

Lan (and her siblings and their friends) is simply not in the target demographic of the Democrat Party. And neither am I.

So, no, we will not vote for Biden. He’s too much of a sack of crap to earn our votes. As is Trump. Both sides.

I think we just became best friends.

 

[AWRTR]

ETA: I do agree with you that one should consider the entirety of government bureaucracy. It's only the top layer that changes with each election. But, that just reinforces my POV. I have not liked any main party candidate in over 30 years. And the last 15 years I've worked in the federal government, mostly inside the Beltway. I've seen how the sausage is made. And that's how a poorly thought out unconstitutional idea (eviction moratorium) from Biden (or whoever) gets turned into a policy that encourages the worst behavior in tenants and rips off property owners. A lot of people lost their rental properties because they still had to pay mortgages. And then they lost their homes due to lack of rental income. It was obvious to see what would happen. But, that's government policy. Stupid in its conception; retarded in its execution.

ETA, part 2: Just got this notice from the GAO about the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It found that in FY22, the VA could not determine if it effectively spent money on service contracts totaling $42,700,000,000. It didn't say how much money in supply contracts, construction contracts, etc. were wasted. That's from one from one type of purchasing in one corner of government over one fiscal year. That's a lot of highly concentrated stupid. Extrapolate that over all government. More than a trillion dollars of waste every year? Doesn't matter who the president is. Government is stupid.

And Biden would raise my taxes if he could.

I've spent my life voting for the man or woman I despised less. I'm so sick of it.

 

[AWRTR]

we are a Constitutional Republican built on Democratic Principles, I hate this argument so much

A Constitutional Republic is always based on democratic principles if it is actually a Constitutional Republic and not just called that for fun.