Republished under their terms:
Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified. 'Kos' and 'Daily Kos' are registered trademarks of Kos Media, LLC.
The lie that won’t die is that Republicans are better for the economy than Democrats. By every measure possible, that is just not correct. Republicans break shit, Democrats fix it, and voters reward them by ushering Republicans back in power. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now, the stock market is not “the economy,” and even boom times have seen economic decline for a significant percentage of people in the United States, particularly in its decaying rural regions. But the market is a proxy for strong economic performance, however inequitable it might be distributed.
At that very least, there’s no scenario in which we have economic development without a strong market. If companies are to create jobs, there has to be a strong market—or investors, in anticipation—pumping money into that job growth. Just take a look at Wall Street’s 10 worst crashes:
1) March 12, 2020
Republican Donald Trump was president, and the emergence of a deadly pandemic and ensuing shutdowns signaled a period of economic uncertainty. Rather than calm jittery markets, Trump suggested that people inject bleach (April 24, 2020) to cure COVID-19. The markets had every reason to panic. Too bad they didn’t remember those lessons in 2024.
2) Nov. 20, 2008
Republican George W. Bush was president when the subprime mortgage crisis took down the global economy. Years of Wall Street deregulation—cheered on by Republicans—created the conditions for this mess.
3) April 4, 2025
Trump is president again, and here we are in a completely self-created and enabled crisis because Wall Street didn’t learn from the lessons of 2020, and their greed overrode all evidence that Trump is a disaster to not just our democracy but to global order. Congratulations, assholes. You voted for this.
4) Nov. 6, 2008
Bush done f’d stuff up.
5) October 15, 2008
Same as #2 and #4, courtesy of Bush and his merry cabal of deregulators.
6) October 7, 2008
Same same.
7) March 9, 2020
Trump again.
8-10) October 9, 10, and 22, 2008
Bush really made a mess of things, which makes it particularly maddening that people walked away thinking that Republicans knew anything about running an economy. Eight years of manufactured scandals against Democratic President Barack Obama really did a number in the United States, ushering in the age of Trump.
It’s quite obvious that, once Trump’s tariffs have fully left their mark, 2025 will occupy far more than just one spot on this list.
Other notable crashes?
Black Friday in October 1929, with Republican Herbert Hoover as president.
Post-9/11 market crash, with Bush as president.
Black Monday on October 19, 1987, with Republican President Ronald Reagan.
It’s a Republican. Every. Single. Time.
I had a chat with someone recently who said "I'm right-leaning, but I'm starting to miss Biden..." and I asked:
"Why are you right-leaning?"
And it's like they short-circuited right in front of me.
Normally, they hit me back with misguided claims that Republicans are good for the economy, or that they are fiscal conservatives, or something about Russia or China-- but we are both tax accountants and we understand very intimately how fucked the US economy really is, while coping with the reality that our retirement savings are pretty much gone and unlikely to recover.
Sometimes, they'll say something about immigration. However, some of our best team members self-deported due to the threat of forceful deportation on their families, so things are really bad at our public accounting firm and getting worse as people burn out from the increased work loads.
Or on occasion, they'll spout some platitudes about the US Constitution, Veterans, or All-American values, but obviously Republicans do not give a fuck about any of that.
So finally they splutter:
".. traditions are important to me."
And I'm like, "What kind of traditions?"
And they say:
"... Easter and Christmas."
In my opinion, people that consider themselves right-leaning simply like to complain and complain and complain about things they do not bother to educate themselves about, while fully expecting everyone else to look out for them when they are actively sabotaging every effort made to improve our nation.
That person is stupid. Like, profoundly. They cannot escape their self constructed cage of emotions.
I'm so tired of emotionally stunted, intellectually incurious, fools ruining the world for everyone.
Unfortunately it really isn’t that profound. It exists everywhere and thinking you’re immune to being ruled by it is usually the first step in it proliferating
The first sentence doesn't seem to have to do with the second sentence. And imo the first one is wrong too.
The amount of stupid it takes to even get the needle leaning to the right just by .00001% is pretty profound. It does exist everywhere, but that doesn't lessen the sheer amount of it. Conservatives kinda define themselves by their stupidity. It's their brand. They don't call it that, of course.