Summary
Trump admitted it will be difficult to lower consumer prices, despite campaign promises to reduce grocery, energy, and overall inflation costs.
Trump told Time that achieving price reductions is rare without major economic downturns.
During the campaign, Trump blamed rising costs on Democratic leadership and proposed tariffs as a solution, but economists warn tariffs could raise prices further.
Inflation, a key voter concern, played a significant role in Trump’s election victory, though he has yet to outline a clear plan to deliver on his economic pledges.
I’ve repeated this before, but here’s the truth:
They did not vote for him for the “economy”. Or for “America First”. Or for “Farmers”, “unions”, etc.
They voted for him for racism and bigotry against the LGBTQ+ community. That’s the only campaign promise they’re 100% sure he’s going to follow through on. Attacking immigrants and making their life a living hell.
Any other reason they gave is a dog whistle for their support of his absolutely transparent bigotry on display every moment his mouth is open.
We need to stop assuming his voters actually care about the same things we do, or even the things they publicly say. They care about him upholding their racist and bigoted views.
That’s it.
They do care about bigotry, for sure. But I wholeheartedly reject the notion that they don’t care about the economy. The majority of America has suffered catastrophic financial losses over the last 4 years. The democratic platform did not honestly do a very convincing job of showing that they can or will remedy that. And they see everything from a reactionary right wing news source that lies to them.
The proof is in the past week. It’s in the bipartisan celebration of the public execution of a mass murderer. Seriously, the conservative right is floundering trying to condemn the slaying while their whole base celebrates it openly. Working class conservatives still suffer medical debt, they still suffer cost of living increases, they still suffer from wage theft and pay stagnation. The way to appeal to those people wasn’t to reach out to Republicans it was to reach out to them directly. It was to come forward with a radical plan to change the ways society sucks for all working class people.
The bigotry is unacceptable. I’m a trans woman, I agree. I’m an anarchist. I’m about as opposite politically as I could be from far right reactionary conservatives. The way to actually garner mass appeal among the working class is to actually do things that appeal to the working class. Establishment democrats categorically failed to do that, time and again. This recent health insurance dialog clearly shows that people want change. But instead of advocating for change, the establishment advocated for itself. Instead of combating transphobic and xenophobic narratives they just said the token progressive things expected of them. Why didn’t Harris come out and say that focus on trans people and illegal immigrants is meant to draw attention away from the billionaires and capitalists who are profiting off of mass worker exploitation? She couldn’t do that. She is as beholden to those billionaires and capitalists as MAGA is.
Like it’s time to acknowledge that most transphobic members of the working class don’t even understand what trans people are. They are outraged solely because the right wing propaganda tells them to be. The way forward isn’t ostracization and more partisanship, but actual dialog focusing on the things that affect them and us negatively. It’s far easier to demonstrate to them that they’ve been fed propaganda about trans people, when we can show them things they already know are true (like health insurance is bullshit) and then point out the propaganda they’re being fed on that. We have common enemies. Class unity should be our goal. Not to appeal to Republican pundits and politicians and law makers, but to appeal to the well-being of all working class people. To be actually progressive, to be the actual left and to push for real radical positive change.
I wholeheartedly reject the notion that they don’t care about the economy.
To add more proof to this, according to the Pew Research Center, the economy made up a massive swath of the top issue for voters in this last election.
Have you seen the absolute ruins of our public education system, defunded over and over to cut sociopath’s taxes for half a century?
This isnt just “these people are awful” these people were made by unchained capitalists.
They act like tribal animals fearing and hating the other because educating someone is the same as civilizing someone.
We don’t do that here for most. Our public ed has become little more than laborer daycare.
We can barely even manage it being laborer daycare, since our defunded public schools can’t pay shit, choosing to become a teacher in public ed is choosing a life of scraping by and trying to educate classrooms of 30+ children by yourself, of being punished for trying to help society for a living.
Meanwhile, those with enough time not working to complain on behalf of their children are given charter escape hatches that the owners profit off of despite claiming charters are “non-profit” through for profit, publicly traded charter management corporations, and even charters tend to have a conservative “helping society bad” bias in their curriculum. You should hear some of the shit my local “Challenger schools” advertises, students being interviewed saying they learned they should seek friends who can help themselves today. Yikes.
Then the owner’s children are educated, at private schools, where they are taught that owners don’t empathize or concern themselves with the plight of the livestock.
Never wonder why the citizens of prosocial nation’s impression of average Americans is that we are complete ignoramuses. It’s not an accident. It’s intended. A bone dead stupid laborer is a compliant, easily manipulated laborer.
I get what you’re going for, but there are plenty of people that did vote for him for the economy and the like. There are plenty I’m sure that voted because of anti-lgbt issues without a doubt. But casting this blanket statement of “they all” like every single trump voter went to the polls and said “Gee I’d love healthcare, but those gays are a real problem” is dangerous rhetoric. This “us vs them” mentality is what makes things so difficult and divisive in the first place.
You’re not going to win people over to your point of view if you lump every single person who doesn’t already agree with you under the “racist bigot” umbrella.
Is there hate in their ranks? Sure. Do I think everyone who put trump on their vote card hates LGBT people and anyone not matching their race? No.
I get being upset but they won the election. And if we sit here going “We don’t want you anyway bigot!” They’re gonna win again. It’s just not a healthy mentality to have in a dialogue.
Edit: also not really what the article was about. People did vote for him cause he said he’d lower prices and fix the economy, and he is failing to do that. This is an opportunity to point out his lies and welcome people to a different viewpoint, not slam the door in their face.
For some, I would agree. But I’d also say that’s an insane over generalisation and these kind of comments are the same shit. People with no serious education on a topic, spewing ‘stats’ and making sweeping statements.
I mean I heard someone say yesterday that gas was under a dollar when Trump was President and he was going to bring the price back down to that. Had no concept of why gas prices plummeted for a second there.
People forget how prices have gone. And you can show anything you want with gas because it is manipulated. Gas prices right now are lower than what they were in 2008. And inflation has risen by 46.5% from 2008-2024.
Gas price listings for people curious:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/leafhandler.ashx?f=m&n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg
So before Obama became president gas was on the rise, went to 3.30 when he got sworn in and stopped inflating at ~4.12 that July. When he left office in February 2017, at $2.44 a gallon.
So inflation from 2009 to 2017 should have been 14.3%. And gas went down about 26% under Obama.
Now either that means Republicans love Obama, or gas prices didn’t matter to them as much as they say
They voted for him because they associated Kamela and Biden with “The Woke!”, that’s it.
That and just poor reporting from the Media, the Centerists never saw that Center-Outreach nor any of Biden’s accomplishments… I didn’t even know Kamela ate dinner with the Cheneys on a hunting trip as part of the “Look how center we are!” till after the Green Lantern himself John Stewart poiinting it out while reminding everyone that Kamela was never woke.
They just saw “BIDEN’S LETTING EM IN THROUGH THE BORDER, oh and Trump uhh… prefers white chocolate I guess?”
The Media treated Trump with kid gloves and ignored anything positive Biden did.
Now I’m seeing the Media try to say “Luigi Bad, Trans Bad, CEOs Good!”
Fuck them, Trump was right, they are the enemy of the people. Not because they refused to kiss Trump’s ass, but because they’re the best player on his team.
I know urban people who voted for Trump. They don’t care about white supremacy, Palestine, or even Trump himself. They want lower grocery bills, lower interest on their credit cards, no taxes on overtime, and not be forced to pay child support. These are actual answers I got from work.
Lol, they voted for the guy working to make it so companies don’t even have to pay overtime.
This is super clickbait. What’s Trump’s actual quote?
I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will.
That doesn’t scream “backtracks on promise to me”. Actually, if anything, he’s saying that he’d still like to do it and he thinks they will. I mean, the other thing is he hasn’t even taken over, so we can’t really say he’s failed at anything. Look, I don’t like the guy very much either, but let’s save our outrage when he’s actually fucked up. Headlines like this is when some lazy editor just needs to crank a story out there.
If I asked someone if they like ice cream and they say “I’d like to get it. It’s hard not to have it, but I think I will”, the headline shouldn’t be “LOCAL MAN HATES ICE CREAM”. Fuck off lazy journalists and wake me up when something actually happens.
Is that an AI generated hand holding an umbrella?
This is what he said:
I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will.
That’s nothing. This article is based on nothing.
I mean, he’s the president elect. If you look at the following sentences he thinks energy and supply chain will fix the problem.
The issue is neither of those is going to come down enough to lower prices, and even more poignant is that he is not proposing any plan or strategy to enable those to fix pricing.
Inflation and grocery prices aren’t new issues and if he doesn’t have a plan now he isn’t going to come up with one (lest we be reminded how his Healthcare plans have evolved over 8+ years).
That motherfucker really does say a lot to always say so little. That’s a nonsensical statement
