Mr. Federally Indicted Mattoid, it is the "Orange Blob" who advocates for more trade schools, more apprenticeships for the 75% of unschooled American children. It is far better that we don't pee our tax dollars down ratholes bailing out students of leftwing university indoctrination camps.

Donald J. Trump is the advocate for blue-collar workers, the forgotten man, sk**led engineers, carpenters and craftsmen. Trump is honest, Biden takes bribes from the Ukraine, Russia and China.

Trump is a builder, not a spoiled brat destroyer, a stinking little kid that has never passed an 8th grade math course and now makes his living as an arrogant Government SANCTIONED PICKPOCKET yelling "tax the rich".

The "Orange Blob" has my v**e.

So when you say "explain", do you want me to explain basic economics? I ask because the assumption that you can blame two presidents out of the last 16 years can only be made in complete ignorance of how the economy works.

I noticed you haven't actually specified what they did to "hit" the middle-class and that you're careful to blame only the Democrats and not the one Republican. Clearly, you are parroting right-wing propaganda without the slightest clue about how things really work.

I'm going to explain anyway, not that you will understand or even want to, but because you're not the only one reading this thread (which means I don't care if you don't read this).

1. Middle-class doesn't mean anything... Working class does:
I'm going to use the word "working-class" instead of "middle-class" because the later term is intentionally vague so as to obscure the division between the classes that actually do exist... The wealthy class and the working class. The wealthy class contains the people that have enough money to where they never actually have to work and the working class is everyone else.

So now instead of guessing between arbitrary income levels to decide if you're in the middle-class, you can ask yourself a very simple question... Do you have to work for a living? If you answer yes, you are in the working-class. This is important to understand because all of the economic policies are designed to help one class or the other.

2. The working-class has been in constant decline since 1972 almost entirely due to the free market
The working class is "hit" all the time, usually as a result of economic developments that have nothing to do with the government. I would guess that 90% of the decline of the working class is due to corporate decisions, not government decisions.

If you are locked into right-wing media as many of you are, then you are not allowed to know this. The reason why is that the government is one of the few institutions to which the working class can turn for help and conservative leaders don't want that to happen, so they are trying to convince you turn your backs on the government. The only other place for workers to turn is the labor union and we know how conservatives feel about that. It's the same thing.

So now I should explain why the right is so opposed to the worker having any place to turn when corporations turn the screws of exploitation. You probably won't like this...

3. The American tradition that conservatives defend without understanding is to screw the worker.
As you might know... the conservative right is interested in preserving traditional systems. The problem for the worker is that the American tradition has ALWAYS been based on the exploitation of workers. There is a strong argument that the American Revolution itself was a fight to preserve s***ery since abolitionism was already rampant in Britain and in 1775 their parliament was passing legislation to ban the s***e trade.

So what I am saying here is that the status quo that conservatives continue to defend has ALWAYS been detrimental to the working class from day one. It was in fact the government, that finally banned s***ery in 1865. But that didn't stop corporations from keeping children out of school and in coal mines or in spanking rooms. It didn't stop corporations from forcing workers into 16 hour shifts for company scrip that could only be used in company stores, effectively controlling the workers entire economic existence wile also preventing them from seeking a better situation elsewhere... One example of s***ery without chains.

4. Every policy protecting the American worker from abuse comes from progressive legislation.
Every single step away from s***ery and abuse was a battle fought against the corporation by the government. Child Labor Laws, the 8-hour day, the minimum wage, the right to take a vacation, safety regulations and most importantly the right to bargain collectively. These were all pushed through the government by liberals in the face of opposition by conservatives who started off as a class of politically astute corporatists but eventually included working class people, fooled into fighting against their own interests.

OK, so here's what happened (generally speaking)...

By the 1950s, American industry had become globally dominate. The corporations were making record-breaking profits and because of progressive policies, the American worker was getting a decent share of it. Conservatives today often pine for those days, without realizing that without the progressive element, the American worker would still be getting squat.

5. The real culprit... resource peaks and capitalism.
But by the time the 1970's rolled in, something happened that no one was counting on. Resource peaks. The first thing we should understand about industrial capitalism is that it's basically a conversion of resources into profit. This leads to the second thing we should understand... that the cheaper the resources are, the greater the profit will be.

When the cost of acquiring resources exceeds the profit that can be made from the enterprise, that is considered the resource peak. The most famous one is the oil peak of 1972. It was then that big oil started to realize they can make higher profits from buying cheaper oil from OPEC than to spend the money on the deeper drills needed to reach the remaining oil on American land.

But oil wasn't the only resource with a peak. Labor was too. By the 1970's American labor was way more expensive than foreign labor and so corporations started to look for ways to export jobs to foreign labor markets.

As a result of these resource peaks, the American worker has been under a constant threat of decline, mostly coming from corporations seeking better profits by excluding or minimizing the more expensive American resources (human and otherwise) and this trend will most likely continue into the future as long as the market remains free.

6. The tiny role of a president.
So what role does a president play in all this? A tiny one. As I said the working-class decline is an inevitable result of a free market responding to the dynamics of capitalism seeking cheaper resources and it would be unconstitutional for the government to interfere with that.

Even then, the president doesn't have the power to legislate so for that minor influence we have to look at Congress first... You mention hits to the middle class under Obama... Obama's 8 years were affected by a Senate that was controlled by Republicans for 6 of those years.

7. Conclusion.
So if you're trying to pin the blame for hits to the middle-class on a president you really need to get a little more policy-specific. And considering the 50-year, free-market trend that's driving the decline, it nothing less than absurd to blame one president, wait 4 years then blame the next one just because the two you are blaming are Democrats.

Is Rep Donalds encouraging Republican v**ers to "Bank the V**e" as early as possible by using mail-in b****ts?

Even as v****g by mail has become increasingly important to winning e******ns, it remains a target of Republican derision. Now, the Republican establishment claims to want to reverse this, but former President Donald Trump continues sabotaging them at every turn. Is former President T*****r Trump really the right candidate to head up the GOP ticket? In the past, Trump slammed mail-in v****g while signing his mail-in b****t.

To adequately describe how much you cultural Marxist Democrarts have promoted evil and discord in America is to liken it to trying to drink from the powerful flow of a 6" firehouse. Everthing you touch becomes corrupt. You destroy not build. You bring death, never life. You pervert, never righteous or virtue. You lie and are highly allergic to any application of objective T***h. You're giddy about destroying traditional American morals, values, faith, the nuclear family and patriotic love of America. In short, you are domestic enemies.

They aren't claiming he used campaign funds, they are saying he made an unreported contribution to his campaign; that the hush money was for campaign purposes and not to protect his family.

Money paid by politicians to silence liars has never before been labels by law enforcement as campaign contributions just as all those who obstructed government proceedings with sit ins, pulling fire alarms and other interfering forms of protest have never been charged with obstruction of gov proceedings. Even the use of RICO laws against protestors is a novel (contrived) use of the law to rid one's self of political rivals is as well.

That's the Russian propaganda line,which they've been working on for months.

From the BBC, which is a lot closer geographically than we.

"How pro-Russian 'yacht' propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid
By Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Mike Wendling
BBC Verify and BBC News
20 December 2023"

"Despite the false claim, the disinformation plot was successful. It took off online and was echoed by members of the US Congress making crucial decisions about military spending.

It was an incredible assertion - using two advisers as proxies, Mr Zelensky paid $75m (£59m) for two yachts.

But not only has the Ukrainian government flatly denied the story, the two ships in question have not even been sold."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67766964