6mo ago

Donald Trump has gone silent on working class cost of living issues

www.usatoday.com

403 Forbidden

For the past two years, Donald Trump has spread fear about the state of the United States and championed himself as the only man capable of saving the country from itself. Only he could bring down the price of groceries and gas. Only he could fix the broken health care system. Only he could fix the broken immigration system. Only he could end the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

Now that the voters have drunk the Kool-Aid, the jig is up. The grift is over and the prize of the presidency is won. But will the buyers of the golden sneakers have buyer’s remorse? I suspect that for all but the most cult-following MAGA lemmings, the answer to that question is yes.

Despite two years of constant finger-pointing at the Biden administration for rising grocery prices that were actually decreasing during that time, since the election, Trump has gone dead silent on the issue of working class cost of living issues. His only comment on grocery prices was during his interview with Time magazine for his man of the year article in which he admitted that there isn’t much he can do to bring grocery prices back down to the levels of 2019. Economically, the only thing that will do that is a strong recession that no one wants. He has said virtually nothing about the cost of gasoline, in large part because the prices were already falling to four-year lows before the election and have continued to fall since.

…

97 comments

Too bad he can't go silent permanently.
- Another Mangione could help
  
  We need to make Mangione'd a new verb.
  
  TBH I don't think Mangione did any good, but if Ryan Wesley Routh or Thomas Matthew Crooks had landed their shots then we'd be talking.
- He can and he will. He will go away forever one day.
  
  Not soon enough.
  
  And how many people do you think are in line to be the face of the same idealogy? Our society is made by, made for and rewards sociopathy. There is no bright future until we start looking at these issues that start in childhood. Kids are being raised thinking if they bully everyone in their path then they can be the president. How about we start teaching kids that increasing quality of life for future generations so they can flourish and make more advancements is a much better idea than being a massive piece of orange colored shit.
  
  There are ways to hurry that along.
Here is my well reasoned and thoughtful response:
Duh.
- NORM!!!
- With peace and love: All the comments saying this should reconsider next time. Saying “duh” to oppression normalizes oppression.
  The worst most bigoted most bootlicking red-voting person you know is happy chatting about the evil that is H1Bs and how we are annexing Greenland and Panama right now. They need to hear that the person they voted in has dropped his support for helping them through their struggles to feed themselves.
  Generally, we are all saying “duh” to the wrong things. All the top comments here are “duh” while no one yada yada’d the Greenland annexation theatrics.
  Again I am being blunt so no hate to you specifically, you are just the top comment representing a larger pattern.
Despite two years of constant finger-pointing at the Biden administration for rising grocery prices that were actually decreasing during that time
The prices have not been decreasing, the rate of increase has been decreasing. But grocery prices were and are still going up. Source: the article you linked.
- Everything goes up. That's inflation. It's part of a healthy economy.
  You don't want prices to go down. Prices going down is deflation. Money stagnates as businesses and individuals sit on cash because any investment is bound to lose, and stagnating money is devastating to an economy.
  
  You do want prices that were part of a bubble to go back down to sustainable levels, that isn't deflation it's market correction. The bubble created by the pandemic and supply side restrictions isn't natural or part of regular healthy inflation. Excessive inflation is just as bad as stagnant money for an economy, it just looks healthier on the outside until the moment it keels over.
It would be ironic if Trump actually "Made America Great Again" by being the direct cause of his base rising up against him, the billionaire class and the current status quo leading to systemic reform and a more equitable society.
- The problem is that they would probably just put in another, stupider, dictator in his place. Worse, someone who actually knew what they were doing desiring to consolidate power.
  
  JD Vance enacting Article 2, Section 4...
- That didn't happen last time, despite people hoping for it back then too.
  It's a bit of a paradox, but he actually stayed clear of a total crash last time by not doing his job. He used most of his time scamming the system for money by doing everything at his estates, but it's remarkable how little he actually fucked up because he was occupied with those small amount scams. He's not just a bad businessman, he's also incompetent as a scammer.
  I expect the following years to be another golf tour for him, and that's probably the best outcome. Again.
People keep expecting Trump's followers to suddenly wake up and realize they've been scammed when they see what he actually does in office. Most of their support for him is based on obvious lies and they have seen how he really behaved as president. Either they know he's been lying and don't care or they have deluded themselves into ignoring reality altogether. Watching him stab them repeatedly in the back in not going to change their opinions. And if he hurts people they don't like badly enough, they will still consider that a win.
- A lot of the people that voted for Trump are fed “democrats bad” by Fox News, OAN and other far right news outlets that are unabashedly playing on the break-room TV.
- Yeah the "told you so" stuff falls on deaf ears. Trump is an internet troll. His supporters have come to embody that. They are content rolling in their own shit. Anyone is welcome to join.
  There's no reasoning or out trolling trolls. No going low or going high. You're supposed to ignore trolls. Ultimately they are the lone fool rolling in their own shit. The time to do this was in the 2016 campaign. Should have ignored him and elected an establishment Republican. Donald would be shilling steaks or whatever right now.
- Dixon White's future MAGA 2029 videos seem only to be half a joke. For all we know, Queen Elonia just hasn't cracked her egg yet.
I mean, no surprise. All of his policies last time were for the wealthy. But more importantly, all of the things Elan is planning to cut are going to hurt the poor and they didn't say they were going to give any of that money to people, just that they were going to cut the deficit. If running the country like a business, you never cut income, even if you cut expenses. Businesses with monopolies keep the profits from reduced expenses, not pass them on to customers, that would be dumb.
- Who would want the government to be run like a business? Businesses exist for profit. Where's the profit gonna come from? The companies and wealthy elite that invested in the campaign? Fat chance.
  You want the government to be run like a steady NFP. Not a corporate for-profit business.
He spent his entire campaign saying how expensive things were and his plan to fix is was to raise prices on everything. Not sure what they were expecting.
- They'll make it up when the vast majority get those sweet income tax raises.
  
  nah nah, it's ok, they're not in that vast majority, they're sure of it.
If Americans suddenly realize they've been taken for fools, that's why they have their precious 2nd Amendment.
They always bring it up when the issue of gun control comes up for any reason, but they never actually use the 2nd Amendment for what it was original intended, incl. removing dangerous leaders. Trump is the first true, crystal-clear use case.
That must mean most Americans still haven't understood they've been took, or they really dig fascism even at their own expense.
- Hey!!! Whoa!!! That's not fair at all!
  ......you forgot about that guy on the roof in PA who missed by inches.
  
  you forgot about that guy on the roof in PA who missed by inches
  I did not. In fact, I keep wondering why this guy's memory hasn't been elevated to Luigi status. For some really odd reason I can't fathom, he's been forgotten almost immediately after his attempt.
  I guess he'll be remembered when the dark age America is entering finally ends.
  
  Did we ever learn anything about that guy? It seemed like a huge unsolved mystery.
  The media machine didn't wanna stay on that one though, I imagine cause they didn't wanna give people ideas. Another attempt happened a little later but it was even less successful.
- Those same ones who cry 2nd amendment are the ones who got taken.
  Unfortunately, the ones who told these idiots that they were idiots are also the same people who want to "take away their guns" and aren't generally the type to use the 2nd amendment as it was intended. :/
- Lol the point of the second amendment wasn't to fight tyrannical governments. It was to control the slaves and prevent/quell uprisings and runaways. Says it right there in the text. "Security of a free State".
  The biggest advocates for the second amendment, namely Madison, were big time slavers and worked for the plantations interests.
  People seriously buy the whole spiel that the wealthy elite put a "in case of tyranny, break glass" button at the top of the list? I got a bridge to sell y'all.
It’s almost as if it was a siren call to have the plebs vote for him.
"How could we predict he'd betray us like that?" says people who've spent literal decades watching person in question be incredibly dishonest and slef-serving
Of course he has. He has neither a plan nor a chance to deliver here. All he can do is keeping as quiet as possible about it in hope that his MAGA sponge brains forget this was a thing he promised.
- Oh he does have a plan.
  He has project 2025, and when that's done, the ruins left that were once the USA will finally realize that trump (or just populist politics in general) maybe wasn't sucks a good idea
  
  Hopefully the Americans will actually notice who ruined them...
- Yeah, he'll just declare it "fixed" in two months.
Of course. Otherwise his crowd would expect him to fix stuff.
And in 1... 2... 3... 'he's hurting the wrong people'
His only comment on grocery prices was during his interview with Time magazine for his man of the year article in which he admitted that there isn’t much he can do to bring grocery prices back down to the levels of 2019. Economically, the only thing that will do that is a strong recession that no one wants.
This is what folks don't seem to understand: prices only go back to where they were five or six years ago if there's a recession, and a severe one at that. The Fed is trying to get inflation under control, but even if they're successful, that doesn't mean prices will come down, that only means prices won't go up as quickly. Getting inflation under control means prices go up 2% per year instead of 2.5% or 3%. Trump can't change any of this, and many of the policies he says he plans to implement would likely make it more difficult to get inflation down to the Fed's 2% target.
TLDR, shit ain't getting any less expensive unless there's a pretty bad recession, and Trump can't change that.
Demagogue: a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
I think his plan was deflation or something and I don't think it made any sense
- We haven't had a major recession in a while... that could make things cheaper.
  
  is that what would happen?
When government controls prices with direct intervention, that’s socialist policy. Isn't that what the talibangelicals claim to hate?
- Everyone's a socialist when they're waiting in line at a pharmacy. My point is, they have no idea what these words mean.
  
  Because they aren't bidding the price for priority?
- "Democrats have tended, through regulation and other ways, to be more empowering of the federal government and in regulating the economy than the Republicans," Schwartz says, "and this has been called socialism."
  https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/905895428/republicans-blast-democrats-as-socialists-heres-what-socialism-is
  I am well aware of what socialism is. My comment was sarcastic in reference to conservative propaganda that government intervention in anything is socialism while they expect trump to fix whatever economic problem like the price of eggs via government intervention. Y’know. Normal conservative hypocrisy.
- Thank you for assuming I don’t know what socialism actually is.
  "Democrats have tended, through regulation and other ways, to be more empowering of the federal government and in regulating the economy than the Republicans," Schwartz says, "and this has been called socialism."
  https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/905895428/republicans-blast-democrats-as-socialists-heres-what-socialism-is
  Government regulation being called socialism is the wheelhouse of republicans. They’re the ones who have completely F’d up what socialism actually is. My comment was sarcastically pointing that out.
  People overwhelmingly (for US voter participation) voted the person that acknowledged issues even if they knew he was lying.
  Overwhelming is a HUGE stretch.
  Harris claimed to want to fix the economy for everyone.
  Instead they chose a liar over the price of eggs.
  Enjoy they leopards.
Cult is gonna cult.
No shit
MAGAt near me that always had multiple batshit crazy trump flags at his house, and still did, up until his house burned down a few days back. T&P's homie. Karma can be like that.
Truly, this reporting is valid and important. Also, this is so totally predictable that all I can do is sarcastically clutch my pearls.
Awwww..........
What a ridiculous article. Trump's not even in office yet.
And I'm sorry, but groceries have gone up the last 4 years, and idc what any graph tells me, it doesn't matter if I'm still paying the same high amount for groceries. No idea how the data is laid out or what data was included, but reality is what I hand over to buy the food I need to survive. And it's too damn high.
Not a fan of Donald Trump but I’m tired of these headlines that suggest he hasn’t done anything as president… my main reason for this is he is not president yet…. I think we are on a rocky road but come on now stop trying to foreshadow.
We could also have alien visitors from outer space and they think Trump is the leader of humanity which would be much worse 👀
Instead let’s criticize republican congress for already trying to pass legislation exempting Netanyahu for war crimes, or legislation exempting corporations etc the first two bills they’ve voted on
- but I’m tired of these headlines that suggest he hasn’t done anything as president
  Ya let’s conveniently forget about his first term as if it never happened.
  You sure have a short memory.
  
  I suppose you have the answer and it involves Dems leaning towards the right in order to win more voters lol, like Kamala hugging literal war criminal dick cheney during an actual fucking genocide
Almost like every president in living memory
- No.
  He made promises to his tribe. He’s very clear on who he claimed he is working for. He is not in office because he was going to help everyone.
  
  I was referring to the whole "improve the conditions of the working class" messaging that no American president actually follows through with in good faith. Have you really not noticed this?

97 comments