This is not what they voted for
A lot of people bet that Trump would help them.
The truth is he's coming after them with a vengeance and they need to know that.
It's a race. Trump & Co are screwing their MAGA_True_Believers © as badly as any other Americans - probably worse, considering that MAGA_True_Believers © tend to be less affluent. But for the moment, those MAGA_True_Believers © refuse to believe that Trump & Co would ever betray them.
So the question is, will those MAGA_True_Believers © awaken ("become "woke") in time to save us all, or will they be sheep all the way to the slaughterhouse?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I’ve seen data suggesting that a consequential number of people voted for Trump, not out of major MAGA loyalties, but because they didn’t like the prices they were paying and recalled lower prices and interest rates in his term vs. Biden’s. Of course, a million other forces were at work, including immigration, anti-incumbency, and much more. But I don’t think it was unreasonable for such a voter, one who doesn’t follow politics closely, to say, "I’ll take a chance with the weird orange guy. I recall paying less for eggs last time he was president.”
We can argue all day with this guy and gal about the cost to democracy of such a shallowly drawn choice, the structural damage to democratic institutions, human rights, international relations, and a level of graft and self-dealing beyond anything we’ve seen before. But I don’t think we’ll get very far. And our signal will be massively jammed by misinformation campaigns.
What seems to me to be more important is to elevate that they’re not getting what they voted for. To the contrary, they’re getting higher prices due to the tariffs—a regressive sales tax which disproportionately hits lower-income people—and service cuts in health care and food support, both of which are equivalent to less income for affected households.
From today’s WSJ :
“The magnitude and speed at which these prices are coming to us is somewhat unprecedented in history,” Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in an interview…Walmart is already raising some prices as its suppliers pass through higher costs. For example, tariffs drove up the price of bananas, one of the most frequently purchased items at Walmart, to 54 cents a pound, up from 50 cents, he said.
Earlier this week, the U.S. agreed to temporarily lower tariffs on Chinese imports to 30% from 145%. A 30% tariff on Chinese goods is better than 145%, but still means a meaningful price increase for most consumers , Rainey said.
As you know if you read my CPI take, we haven’t seen much of this yet in the official data. But I’ll be pretty surprised if that doesn’t change in forthcoming reports.
Thanks to Brendan Duke and the hard-working folks at CBPP , we can observe the combined distributional impact of tariffs and upward-tilting tax cuts. The top 1% walks away with $45K in ‘27, while the bottom 20% takes a $100 hit.
But this figure is incomplete as it does not (yet…I think they’re working on it) include the impact of the historically large cuts in health coverage and nutritional support the House Republicans are using to offset the cost of the tax cuts. In that sense, the numbers for the bottom 2-3 quintiles are biased up, for sure. SNAP in particular is fungible for dollars. That’s an income cut, full stop.
And as Hannah Katch and I recently argued , most adults on Medicaid who can work, do work. Take away their coverage because of red-tape-work-requirements, and they’re more likely to be unable to sustain work, as revealed by many of the state-level experiences we review.
At this point it looks like at least 13 million Americans will lose health insurance because of cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and 3 million will lose food assistance because of cuts to SNAP funding.
That’s what Trump and his Congressional allies are up to. That’s what we’re getting, regardless of what people thought they voted for. Again, I understand those who threw the dice the way they did. But they crapped out, and it’s about to cost them a lot. The least we can do is make sure that's clear to them.
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Is that even possible ?
Don't ask stupid questions! OF COURSE!
MAGA_True_Believers© can understand anything. True or not.
didn't know theirs knew another, just like mine, cause i can tit for their tat, as i'm shore youre glad ive kept you abreast of the 2% intolerance that i'll be milked for, no bu;ll
I think Trump is a high functioning crazy person who specializes in corruption, cruelty and stupidity.
America IS an exceptional nation. No other first world country would put up with this.