The morning after the election, a social media pundit expressed amazement that Democrat Kamala Harris had lost, noting that America is enjoying “an objectively strong economy.”
My husband and I socialize with a group of people who are Trump supporters, even though we are not. We noted that despite their grousing about prices, they all have the latest vehicles. We drive 17 and 10 year old vans. Oh, did I mention that most are retired. I came to the conclusion that those who complain about the economy do not choose to modify their behavior to meet the moment. We found ways to cut expenses and still maintain a decent standard of living.
We also drive 20 year old cars and live below our means.
We also notice that our current "Influencer" driven culture lacks the ability or desire to economize to meet the moment. Rather, they expect the economy to meet their expectations for all their tiktok/Insta desires! The Democrats didn't deliver on that, so out they go!
This is a dramatic cultural shift. What more can we offer than bringing inflation back to a rate near 2% so that the interest rate can come down?
I don't understand how Americans can use their credit cards with abandon and then complain that their bills are too high. Interest, honey. They want your money.
It's about our economy which is dominated by business interest, who have one goal: increase profit. They have jettisoned social and environmental well being as any part of their responsibility.
Interesting that voters even in deep red states like Alabama and Missouri pass propositions to raise the minimum wage, by big majorities, yet where is there a candidate, especially a Democrat, who runs on raising the minimum wage?
Also, the top 1% got !0% of the wealth produced in the 1950s and 1960s but got 59% of the wealth produced between 1980 to 2013. This shows our economy and tax system are failing the majority of our citizens.
Exactly! What is amazing to me is the bewilderment of the D faithful of the upper middle class professional and administrative elite.
They didn't notice that the D party dumped the New Deal and abandoned labor. They didn't notice that the Ds did FOR the suffering unemployed Rust Belt workers what they did TO the Wall St. vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! Nor did they notice how much of the working class lost pensions and houses.
They believe the MSM views of the working class majority, like the NYT So they explain away what happened as ignorance, prejudice, or some such. Which may be self-soothing, but it is not true. Nor is it a very smart way to win us back.
Read my long post with the details of history, economics, and class prejudice.
The nightmare prospect of "Don the Con " running this country is a reality that reasonable people must accept and...learn from if we are to rise from these ashes.
The resistance to his inevitable excess will begin but in order to be successful we must stand for meaningful ideas.
All this talk about "it's the economy, stupid" is mistaking the forest for the trees." The Trumpified Republican Party was running a grifter, narcissist, pathological liar, kleptocrat, aspiring autocrat and insurrectionist, whose previous term as president had been a catastrophe, including the nearly half million deaths he was responsible for from his politicizing the pandemic. If Mitch McConnell had chosen country over party, he would have led the Senate in convicting Trump so that he could not run again. The Supreme Court, if it had ruled according to the clear language of the 14th amendment, would have disqualified him from seeking office again. If Merrick Garland had moved immediately to prosecute Trump for his crimes, we might well not be in this terrible place. But once the Republican Party and their disinformation media empire went into action, 24/7 , together with the absurd ruling of the Supreme Court in Trump vs. the U.S., Trump could have acted as outrageously as his fascist instincts moved him and it would not have moved the needle toward Harris, who was already offering far more of an economic program than the plutocratic tax cut and the Hawley-Smoot level tariffs that Trump was peddling.
What is Trump offering? Doom, gloom and chaos ... the economy is strong and as other Biden bills take effect, it will grow even more. Who will take credit as he did after Obama handed him a solid economy? Who is responsible? Corporate, that's who, not the Biden administration ,is at fault. Corporate greed!!!
Thanks, Jim. Your words certainly fit - in "spades" - here in Iowa, where tariffs hit very hard the last time Trump invoked them, and will hit hard again in the midst of a now-declining ag industry. Dems never addressed that (or very many other very addressable farm-state issues). In my unprofessional opinion, that decline is linked directly to what you've talked about often - BIG AG. Thanks to that to a large degree, John Deere has laid off hundreds of workers, e.g.
There has been a lot of talk about why Trump won the election. However, there is one aspect that has not been mentioned. All the lies were clear and fact-checkers were plentiful, if one takes a few moments to read them and rationally think about them. For example:
People say the economy is bad, and complain that prices are too high, etc. Trump says he is going to raise tariffs on all foreign goods and place a 60% tariff on goods from China. That means even things made in this country that have parts manufactured overseas will cost more. And people cheered when he said he is going to place huge tariffs on imported goods? Duh??
Trump said he will mass deport 11 million people, and a lot of hispanics voted for him? I wonder what they will say when they and/or their relatives wind up in deportation camps and get sent to a country that many have never been to? Duh?? I have great sympathy for the citizen children left behind.
If Trump deports all the migrants that work in the fields to pick produce (strawberries, lettuce, carrots, apples, peaches, etc. there will be no one to pick the produce and it will rot in the fields and the stores will not have the produce for Trump voters to buy. And people complain about high food prices?? Duh?? How about no food?
And what of all the white women who voted for Trump? What if they get pregnant and have a problem and have to die (as some already have) because Republicans ban abortions? Duh?? I have no sympathy for white women who have reproductive issues(if they voted for Trump).
Internationally, if people don’t want the US to support the Ukraine with money and weapons, Russia may win Ukraine property now and the fighting will stop. But, in 5 years Russia will be knocking on other doors and then we might have to send troops. Wouldn’t it be better to support someone else fighting Russia now and contain Russia now? Duh??
We just voted a three time (at least) adulterer, twice impeached, convicted felon and perpetual grifter, to the highest office in the land, and the Supreme Court has given him carte blanch to do what he wants with impunity. Six of his previous cabinet members were referred to DOJ for criminal prosecution,,,, but none were prosecuted, thanks to Trump. And we expect what now? Duh??
There are many other examples. But, the facts are available, the arguments are clear. Voters need to think about the overall picture and not just what affects them personally and not believe everything a candidate says. It is considered impolite to call anyone stupid. But I can’t think of a better description for anyone who voted for Trump. The only common, rational answer for why people voted for Trump is, they are gullible and stupid!
Oh my. The perfect argument for us, the majority working class, to support an elitist D party. If you're interested in the real reasons as to what happened, read my long comment. Lessons in history, economics, and class prejudice.
I am writing to the current Presidency of the United States of America, imploring them to use the power vested in them to move forward on HB6747 and pass legislation that will give us renewable energy resources development and and protect our homeland and Federal land from the devastation that is Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural gas by rejecting Senator Manchin's Permitting Reform Act of 2024
"Milquetoast" is a nice word for whimpy assed democrats (they don't even deserve a capital letter). It was like watching them standing on the tracks waiting for the train to annihilate them! And they let us down again!
"The problem is that “objective economic data” often deceives. For example, consider economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s sad tale of the six-foot-tall statistician who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of two feet."
I worked in radar signal analysis in the 1970s. Radar signatures could be a bit iffy. For example, if the radar indicated something like a church steeple, they would send an aircraft over the target to see if it really was a church steeple or a rocket about to be launched.
This is called 'ground truth'. I think we all need some of that right now.
My wife's a statistician. She keeps her two feet planted on solid ground.
I live in a rural farming community. Almost all (not everyone) the farmers around me have much bigger houses, way more expensive houses, have more vehicles, four wheelers, fish houses, cabins, campers, receive farm subsidies, hit the local bar frequently, and many many voted for Trump - who the last time imposed tariffs, hurt them badly and they howled to high heaven and were then bailed out by Trump with tax payers dollars of the average folk - many of whom voted for Trump, because the wealthiest billionaires got all those tax breaks (and are about to get even more) who didn't have to and won't have to help in anyway fix the economic damage Trump did and is about to do more of.............
Wouldn't this be a good time to re-evaluate the Electoral College and the two party system to include and united people? Come up with a more progressive party plan, with Libertarians and Greens and Mountain Party. What the money wars are about is the wasteland of the corporate economic structure, unbridled greed coming in for the kill. Cool the Earth plant a tree
I live in Washington State, where agriculture is an important part of the economy. Many people who live east of the Cascade Mountains vote for R's, including members of my extended family. Not all of them 'like Trump,' but they still manage -- how I'm not sure -- to support R's and what's left of that party. I think the president-elect's proposed policies will be detrimental to the agricultural sector of this state, which will affect all of us.
I don't like saying this, but it seems to me that R's have done a better job of recognizing that the state of the 'overall economy' matters much less, if at all, to most people in this country when the prices of the basics, such as food and rent and clothes for their children and other things are high and going higher. R's exploited that -- and to their advantage. At the same time, I am very worried for LGTB+ people, women and people of color and others whom the incoming administration will 'target' in their proposed policies. We who want a country that works for all of us, not just the few of us at the expense of the rest of us, have work to do. Let's rest and think and be ready to do it!
I agree with Ms. Loftis about "milquetoast" (shouldn't it be milk-toast?) being the perfect word for the present substance of the Democratic Party. Ah, but wait! Kamala Harris could have chewed her way through Donald Trump, the economy, standing by Joe Biden, the border and everything else if she hadn't been restrained by the milk-toasted campaign managers. Why she didn't rebel and do it the way she could have is a mystery to me. In any case, there are so many things to blame, starting with an enormously misinformed segment of the population, and perhaps ending with many Americans' simple love of comfort above all else.
My husband and I socialize with a group of people who are Trump supporters, even though we are not. We noted that despite their grousing about prices, they all have the latest vehicles. We drive 17 and 10 year old vans. Oh, did I mention that most are retired. I came to the conclusion that those who complain about the economy do not choose to modify their behavior to meet the moment. We found ways to cut expenses and still maintain a decent standard of living.
We also drive 20 year old cars and live below our means.
We also notice that our current "Influencer" driven culture lacks the ability or desire to economize to meet the moment. Rather, they expect the economy to meet their expectations for all their tiktok/Insta desires! The Democrats didn't deliver on that, so out they go!
This is a dramatic cultural shift. What more can we offer than bringing inflation back to a rate near 2% so that the interest rate can come down?
Bull. No president has control over prices, but especially when support from the senate and congress is required. .
I don't understand how Americans can use their credit cards with abandon and then complain that their bills are too high. Interest, honey. They want your money.
It's about our economy which is dominated by business interest, who have one goal: increase profit. They have jettisoned social and environmental well being as any part of their responsibility.
Interesting that voters even in deep red states like Alabama and Missouri pass propositions to raise the minimum wage, by big majorities, yet where is there a candidate, especially a Democrat, who runs on raising the minimum wage?
Also, the top 1% got !0% of the wealth produced in the 1950s and 1960s but got 59% of the wealth produced between 1980 to 2013. This shows our economy and tax system are failing the majority of our citizens.
Overturn Citizens United of 2010!
Exactly! What is amazing to me is the bewilderment of the D faithful of the upper middle class professional and administrative elite.
They didn't notice that the D party dumped the New Deal and abandoned labor. They didn't notice that the Ds did FOR the suffering unemployed Rust Belt workers what they did TO the Wall St. vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! Nor did they notice how much of the working class lost pensions and houses.
They believe the MSM views of the working class majority, like the NYT So they explain away what happened as ignorance, prejudice, or some such. Which may be self-soothing, but it is not true. Nor is it a very smart way to win us back.
Read my long post with the details of history, economics, and class prejudice.
Sad but true.
The nightmare prospect of "Don the Con " running this country is a reality that reasonable people must accept and...learn from if we are to rise from these ashes.
The resistance to his inevitable excess will begin but in order to be successful we must stand for meaningful ideas.
he was appointed by Putin to DESTROY the US and he is doing his job well.
All this talk about "it's the economy, stupid" is mistaking the forest for the trees." The Trumpified Republican Party was running a grifter, narcissist, pathological liar, kleptocrat, aspiring autocrat and insurrectionist, whose previous term as president had been a catastrophe, including the nearly half million deaths he was responsible for from his politicizing the pandemic. If Mitch McConnell had chosen country over party, he would have led the Senate in convicting Trump so that he could not run again. The Supreme Court, if it had ruled according to the clear language of the 14th amendment, would have disqualified him from seeking office again. If Merrick Garland had moved immediately to prosecute Trump for his crimes, we might well not be in this terrible place. But once the Republican Party and their disinformation media empire went into action, 24/7 , together with the absurd ruling of the Supreme Court in Trump vs. the U.S., Trump could have acted as outrageously as his fascist instincts moved him and it would not have moved the needle toward Harris, who was already offering far more of an economic program than the plutocratic tax cut and the Hawley-Smoot level tariffs that Trump was peddling.
REC
What is Trump offering? Doom, gloom and chaos ... the economy is strong and as other Biden bills take effect, it will grow even more. Who will take credit as he did after Obama handed him a solid economy? Who is responsible? Corporate, that's who, not the Biden administration ,is at fault. Corporate greed!!!
Thanks, Jim. Your words certainly fit - in "spades" - here in Iowa, where tariffs hit very hard the last time Trump invoked them, and will hit hard again in the midst of a now-declining ag industry. Dems never addressed that (or very many other very addressable farm-state issues). In my unprofessional opinion, that decline is linked directly to what you've talked about often - BIG AG. Thanks to that to a large degree, John Deere has laid off hundreds of workers, e.g.
There has been a lot of talk about why Trump won the election. However, there is one aspect that has not been mentioned. All the lies were clear and fact-checkers were plentiful, if one takes a few moments to read them and rationally think about them. For example:
People say the economy is bad, and complain that prices are too high, etc. Trump says he is going to raise tariffs on all foreign goods and place a 60% tariff on goods from China. That means even things made in this country that have parts manufactured overseas will cost more. And people cheered when he said he is going to place huge tariffs on imported goods? Duh??
Trump said he will mass deport 11 million people, and a lot of hispanics voted for him? I wonder what they will say when they and/or their relatives wind up in deportation camps and get sent to a country that many have never been to? Duh?? I have great sympathy for the citizen children left behind.
If Trump deports all the migrants that work in the fields to pick produce (strawberries, lettuce, carrots, apples, peaches, etc. there will be no one to pick the produce and it will rot in the fields and the stores will not have the produce for Trump voters to buy. And people complain about high food prices?? Duh?? How about no food?
And what of all the white women who voted for Trump? What if they get pregnant and have a problem and have to die (as some already have) because Republicans ban abortions? Duh?? I have no sympathy for white women who have reproductive issues(if they voted for Trump).
Internationally, if people don’t want the US to support the Ukraine with money and weapons, Russia may win Ukraine property now and the fighting will stop. But, in 5 years Russia will be knocking on other doors and then we might have to send troops. Wouldn’t it be better to support someone else fighting Russia now and contain Russia now? Duh??
We just voted a three time (at least) adulterer, twice impeached, convicted felon and perpetual grifter, to the highest office in the land, and the Supreme Court has given him carte blanch to do what he wants with impunity. Six of his previous cabinet members were referred to DOJ for criminal prosecution,,,, but none were prosecuted, thanks to Trump. And we expect what now? Duh??
There are many other examples. But, the facts are available, the arguments are clear. Voters need to think about the overall picture and not just what affects them personally and not believe everything a candidate says. It is considered impolite to call anyone stupid. But I can’t think of a better description for anyone who voted for Trump. The only common, rational answer for why people voted for Trump is, they are gullible and stupid!
Oh my. The perfect argument for us, the majority working class, to support an elitist D party. If you're interested in the real reasons as to what happened, read my long comment. Lessons in history, economics, and class prejudice.
I never knew the President can go to every store and lower prices. This was not taught in school.
I am writing to the current Presidency of the United States of America, imploring them to use the power vested in them to move forward on HB6747 and pass legislation that will give us renewable energy resources development and and protect our homeland and Federal land from the devastation that is Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural gas by rejecting Senator Manchin's Permitting Reform Act of 2024
"Milquetoast" is a nice word for whimpy assed democrats (they don't even deserve a capital letter). It was like watching them standing on the tracks waiting for the train to annihilate them! And they let us down again!
"The problem is that “objective economic data” often deceives. For example, consider economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s sad tale of the six-foot-tall statistician who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of two feet."
I worked in radar signal analysis in the 1970s. Radar signatures could be a bit iffy. For example, if the radar indicated something like a church steeple, they would send an aircraft over the target to see if it really was a church steeple or a rocket about to be launched.
This is called 'ground truth'. I think we all need some of that right now.
My wife's a statistician. She keeps her two feet planted on solid ground.
I live in a rural farming community. Almost all (not everyone) the farmers around me have much bigger houses, way more expensive houses, have more vehicles, four wheelers, fish houses, cabins, campers, receive farm subsidies, hit the local bar frequently, and many many voted for Trump - who the last time imposed tariffs, hurt them badly and they howled to high heaven and were then bailed out by Trump with tax payers dollars of the average folk - many of whom voted for Trump, because the wealthiest billionaires got all those tax breaks (and are about to get even more) who didn't have to and won't have to help in anyway fix the economic damage Trump did and is about to do more of.............
So,Jim, what practical steps must a President take to lower consumer prices? Please list them.
Wouldn't this be a good time to re-evaluate the Electoral College and the two party system to include and united people? Come up with a more progressive party plan, with Libertarians and Greens and Mountain Party. What the money wars are about is the wasteland of the corporate economic structure, unbridled greed coming in for the kill. Cool the Earth plant a tree
I live in Washington State, where agriculture is an important part of the economy. Many people who live east of the Cascade Mountains vote for R's, including members of my extended family. Not all of them 'like Trump,' but they still manage -- how I'm not sure -- to support R's and what's left of that party. I think the president-elect's proposed policies will be detrimental to the agricultural sector of this state, which will affect all of us.
I don't like saying this, but it seems to me that R's have done a better job of recognizing that the state of the 'overall economy' matters much less, if at all, to most people in this country when the prices of the basics, such as food and rent and clothes for their children and other things are high and going higher. R's exploited that -- and to their advantage. At the same time, I am very worried for LGTB+ people, women and people of color and others whom the incoming administration will 'target' in their proposed policies. We who want a country that works for all of us, not just the few of us at the expense of the rest of us, have work to do. Let's rest and think and be ready to do it!
I agree with Ms. Loftis about "milquetoast" (shouldn't it be milk-toast?) being the perfect word for the present substance of the Democratic Party. Ah, but wait! Kamala Harris could have chewed her way through Donald Trump, the economy, standing by Joe Biden, the border and everything else if she hadn't been restrained by the milk-toasted campaign managers. Why she didn't rebel and do it the way she could have is a mystery to me. In any case, there are so many things to blame, starting with an enormously misinformed segment of the population, and perhaps ending with many Americans' simple love of comfort above all else.