It Is the Economy
Inflation hurts, and so do your other Luxury Beliefs
One of the guests on Bill Maher's Real Time program right after the election tried to tell him that inflation and the impact of the economy on lower-income people had been a significant factor in the election. He couldn't get it. He insisted the economy was excellent, inflation was slowing, and the stock market kept hitting new highs.
Before I proceed, I need to clarify a term. I will talk about the "average American," but when I do that, I talk about people with a median income. The median income number is lower than the average income. In the real world, a few billionaires lift the average for many people without changing the median value. You can find the median income for any county using a Census Bureau website here. Figures range widely from under $30,000 to over $150,000. One can imagine the impact of inflation is somewhat inversely related to income.
Dave Ramsay has a weekday radio program offering strict and sober advice to keep people from getting into debt and helping them work out of it. I've encountered his show and listen occasionally. My mother practiced much of what Ramsay advises.
The problem now is caused by our leaders solving their problems and serving their causes by making other people pay. Drastic increases in the cost of essentials destroy budgets. When your income is a thousand dollars a week, and your basic costs go up a thousand dollars a month, there is no contingency in the budget to deal with that.
Democratic officials at all levels are going for "net zero" CO2, which increases the cost of everything that uses energy. But everything uses energy. Food production needs energy for plowing and everything else. Carbon fuels are used to dig for the materials to build solar panels, windmills, and EV batteries. Fuel is needed for trucks to bring food to the local stores. Also, everyone along the way must pay extra to the truckers, which adds to what grocers pay them and charge us.
Those with high five-figure or six-figure median incomes see these changes as a number in their credit card statements and checkbook balances. They might even notice it at the grocery store or our favorite restaurant, but it doesn't change their lifestyle. They vote on other issues.
But when you're missing meals or dropping education
plans, it is all you think about. I mean all. A woman who has just returned from a trip to the store and is seeing purple over the prices doesn't give a damn about "standing up to her husband" or voting for the first woman or anything other than being able to put food on the table. Her husband has the same concerns. They vote the same way.
That is why women in median-income families "deserted" the Democratic party. The party cared more about net zero and the environment than it did about them, and they returned the favor.
Hispanics, Blacks, and working-class whites share a blue collar. Traditionally, industrial labor union leaders opposed open borders to keep down the labor supply and keep wages up. Only Trump speaks for these people now. Even if the immigrants are good people, they harm workers on the lower end by driving down wages.
When Trump talks about "Murderers and Rapists," he is not saying that every immigrant is evil. If any of them are, vetting must be tightened. There are enough cases of violence committed by people who shouldn't be here to cause a voting bloc sufficient to help Trump. Foreign gangs have taken over small towns and sections of bigger cities.
Voters justly believe the government's job is to "provide for the common defense," and open borders meet the desires of a few and endanger the many.
Immigrants of all types who waited and came here legally are frustrated when their relatives keep having their entry delayed by the volume of illegal entries. They want that flow to stop so their relatives can enter legally. That desire adds to the Trump vote among new citizen immigrants.
Trump received more than 40 percent of the Jewish vote in some places. This is not surprising given his support for Israel in his first term and the inconstant support of the current administration.
In the end, the inability, or refusal, of the Democrats and their media allies to understand the reality of the damage caused by net zero, inflation, and immigration made Trump's victory inevitable. The elites convinced themselves they had all the winning cards because the flip side of the cards only hurt people they never talked to and didn't care about.
Those affected people had been grumbling for years, and they shouted on November 5, 2024.