Why did 74M of us vote for Trump and many/most/all still support him? Aside from the nerds who read you, Paul, Heather and Noah the “sans culottes” have no interest in tariffs, etc, etc.
The Culture Wars drive Trump and unaligned voters. Misogyny, not so implied racism, GayPhobia, Trans, Abortion and pro Israel ultra Christians waiting to be elevated to wherever.
Maybe Calhoun was right, nullification, maybe NY, CA, and a dozen or so other states should secede, take our dollars and brains with us.
According to post-election polls swing voters went for Trump because they believed that our economy was bad or even in a recession. The economy was, in fact, #1 in the world with the best job market in over 50 years, inflation returning to normal levels, and wages rising faster than inflation with the greater gains going to the lowest income workers. Contrary to the media’s narrative those voters weren’t making that judgment based on “vibes” caused by personal experience. A majority of those voters told pollsters that despite the “bad economy” they were personally doing well as was the area in which they lived.
Those “vibes” came from a mainstream media that had refused to acknowledge good economic news. They buried positive news. For example on the day last June that the World Bank announced that they were increasing their forecast for global growth because the US economy was so strong it was powering that growth
I was gobsmacked to find almost no coverage of that announcement in major mainstream media outlets. The WaPo buried the story in the business pages. The Others were were too busy obsessing over the price of age to highlight that story.
Now that it has become blatantly obvious that Trump is wrecking our economy polls show that a solid majority of Americans are no longer supporting him. Trump is now raging at Faux News for reporting on their poll’s “fake numbers”.
"Trump’s tariffs and mass deportation program will accelerate the depletion of the trust fund and risk cuts to Social Security benefits .... "
Are there any reliable estimates of how much benefit the trust fund currently derives from deportable individuals contributing to it, but not drawing upon it?
"What have those suffering from affordability constraints gotten instead from the Trump administration? Retribution on perceived enemies, including countries who “rip us off” by selling us things we willingly buy, a bunch of Democrats in handcuffs, troops on the ground in LA, purges at the Kennedy Center, attacks on universities and wokeness, and so on."
All of these are distractions that are drilled into the minds of the people that follow him to create anger which literally shuts off reasoning and critical thinking. Without critical thinking there is no way to get them to understand how bad his "policies" are for them. Maybe affordability would be a strong enough "hook" to break the spell.
Many US people leaning MAGA are working, commuting, coming home tired. They put on their moving wall-paper aka television and see why things are bad, or at least not as good as they could be. It used to be the commies, then it was the Muslims, now it is the migrants. A show-man comes on the screen and promises to take care of it all. He will thus bring more prosperous times! Who is he? A successful real estate tycoon, someone who knows where money is to be made. He did it for himself and if you vote him Prez he will do it for all of you.
I blame the Dems. They catered too much to a select layer of the population, those with a more education. Why were they not more upfront about the big issue of immigration? Under Prez Obama about three Million migrants were deported. More than Trump-1 managed. Rules for legal immigrants, work-bound, for sure were not improved in the last twenty years - proof of efforts to dissuade them from coming.
The Dems in 2016 tried to force a much-disliked woman - Hillary Clinton - onto the voters (and she still won the popular vote). This time they put Kamala Harris forward at the last moment. The USofA was/is not ready for a female president. Had the Dems put Pritzker, Newsom, or another guy with some serious chops on the ticket, timely, he most likely would now be Prez.
Two other issues USers "suffer" from. A fear someone else will have a bit more and you help paying for it. And the wait for the superhero who will right what has gone askew. Both of these play a part when it comes to elections.
I remember that, with the generalized pandemic payments plus the greatly enhanced unemployment benefits and child payments, that grocers and others cynically raised their prices, arguably beyond what supply chain issues would warrant. Many corporations made out like bandits and working people suffered (hence we now have Donald Trump). How do we impact this viscous cycle? How do we increase wages to the livable level without triggering inflation which curtails the benefit of said wage increases?
The problem with warning of a future crisis is that a significant portion of our citizenry doesn’t plan… FOR ANYTHING. They assume that the present will go on forever. Then lo and behold, life bites them in the ass. Please don’t stop sounding the warning. Those of us who do plan, value the information. But transformative? We can but hope. But if pressed to make a bet on it, I’d take the under. Sadly.
Why did 74M of us vote for Trump and many/most/all still support him? Aside from the nerds who read you, Paul, Heather and Noah the “sans culottes” have no interest in tariffs, etc, etc.
The Culture Wars drive Trump and unaligned voters. Misogyny, not so implied racism, GayPhobia, Trans, Abortion and pro Israel ultra Christians waiting to be elevated to wherever.
Maybe Calhoun was right, nullification, maybe NY, CA, and a dozen or so other states should secede, take our dollars and brains with us.
According to post-election polls swing voters went for Trump because they believed that our economy was bad or even in a recession. The economy was, in fact, #1 in the world with the best job market in over 50 years, inflation returning to normal levels, and wages rising faster than inflation with the greater gains going to the lowest income workers. Contrary to the media’s narrative those voters weren’t making that judgment based on “vibes” caused by personal experience. A majority of those voters told pollsters that despite the “bad economy” they were personally doing well as was the area in which they lived.
Those “vibes” came from a mainstream media that had refused to acknowledge good economic news. They buried positive news. For example on the day last June that the World Bank announced that they were increasing their forecast for global growth because the US economy was so strong it was powering that growth
I was gobsmacked to find almost no coverage of that announcement in major mainstream media outlets. The WaPo buried the story in the business pages. The Others were were too busy obsessing over the price of age to highlight that story.
https://criticalread.substack.com/p/i-blame-the-media
Economist Dean Baker wrote about the outright falsehoods the media told the public about the economy:
“ Yes, the Media Lied About the Pre-Election Economy”
https://deanbaker22.substack.com/p/yes-the-media-lied-about-the-pre?utm_source=%2Finbox%2Fsaved&utm_medium=reader2
From media critic Dan Froomkin
“I Blame the Media”
https://criticalread.substack.com/p/i-blame-the-media
Now that it has become blatantly obvious that Trump is wrecking our economy polls show that a solid majority of Americans are no longer supporting him. Trump is now raging at Faux News for reporting on their poll’s “fake numbers”.
"Trump’s tariffs and mass deportation program will accelerate the depletion of the trust fund and risk cuts to Social Security benefits .... "
Are there any reliable estimates of how much benefit the trust fund currently derives from deportable individuals contributing to it, but not drawing upon it?
"What have those suffering from affordability constraints gotten instead from the Trump administration? Retribution on perceived enemies, including countries who “rip us off” by selling us things we willingly buy, a bunch of Democrats in handcuffs, troops on the ground in LA, purges at the Kennedy Center, attacks on universities and wokeness, and so on."
All of these are distractions that are drilled into the minds of the people that follow him to create anger which literally shuts off reasoning and critical thinking. Without critical thinking there is no way to get them to understand how bad his "policies" are for them. Maybe affordability would be a strong enough "hook" to break the spell.
Many US people leaning MAGA are working, commuting, coming home tired. They put on their moving wall-paper aka television and see why things are bad, or at least not as good as they could be. It used to be the commies, then it was the Muslims, now it is the migrants. A show-man comes on the screen and promises to take care of it all. He will thus bring more prosperous times! Who is he? A successful real estate tycoon, someone who knows where money is to be made. He did it for himself and if you vote him Prez he will do it for all of you.
I blame the Dems. They catered too much to a select layer of the population, those with a more education. Why were they not more upfront about the big issue of immigration? Under Prez Obama about three Million migrants were deported. More than Trump-1 managed. Rules for legal immigrants, work-bound, for sure were not improved in the last twenty years - proof of efforts to dissuade them from coming.
The Dems in 2016 tried to force a much-disliked woman - Hillary Clinton - onto the voters (and she still won the popular vote). This time they put Kamala Harris forward at the last moment. The USofA was/is not ready for a female president. Had the Dems put Pritzker, Newsom, or another guy with some serious chops on the ticket, timely, he most likely would now be Prez.
Two other issues USers "suffer" from. A fear someone else will have a bit more and you help paying for it. And the wait for the superhero who will right what has gone askew. Both of these play a part when it comes to elections.
Just my two cents.
I remember that, with the generalized pandemic payments plus the greatly enhanced unemployment benefits and child payments, that grocers and others cynically raised their prices, arguably beyond what supply chain issues would warrant. Many corporations made out like bandits and working people suffered (hence we now have Donald Trump). How do we impact this viscous cycle? How do we increase wages to the livable level without triggering inflation which curtails the benefit of said wage increases?
The problem with warning of a future crisis is that a significant portion of our citizenry doesn’t plan… FOR ANYTHING. They assume that the present will go on forever. Then lo and behold, life bites them in the ass. Please don’t stop sounding the warning. Those of us who do plan, value the information. But transformative? We can but hope. But if pressed to make a bet on it, I’d take the under. Sadly.