Comment by BrenBarn
4 months ago
This is how I'm starting to view many of these things. It's just that the metrics we use to evaluate the economy are getting out of sync. For instance, if "consumer sentiment is at Great Recession levels", why do we need some other indicator to accept that there's a problem? Isn't that a bad thing on its own?
"Bad" is a judgment call. Trump approval ratings haven't dipped that far, so Congressional Republicans won't dare abandon him and there's not much political will for change.
It might change if we get into millions of foreclosures like the great recession and the pain really hits home. From what I can tell right now they're in wartime mode where they just need to buckle down until Trump wins and makes other countries pay for tariffs or something.
Trump only started at 49% approval rating and is currently at 40%. If you consider this as not having "dipped that far", it can only be because it was never high to begin with, although I think an 18% difference is significant.
The economy is great for oligarchs, especially those close to Trump. Congressional politicians generally serve the same masters. Regular Americans do not feature into the equation. We will not as long as the same people are in power. Regular Americans are, of course, feeling it. One spot is at the supermarkets. Food prices are up month to month and particularly year over year (moreso than the historical average).
https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ra...
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/su...
Look, I like liberals, but they're way too blind about living in the same house with Nazis. Immigration is Trump's best polling issue for a reason. https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
Trump won the popular vote. I'd love to just blame a couple oligarchs, but there are a LOT of very normal-looking Americans who really like what is going on with ICE and China. And they're willing to pay higher prices for it.
It's a red state zero-sum mentality, eg they don't want healthcare just because some black/female/trans person might benefit. Yes that's why they're so poor. Yes it applies to food prices. No they won't ever change. Yes they're trying to turn the whole country into one big red state or even a mafia state like Russia. In the long run (10-20 years) I'd say it's 80-20 they'll succeed.
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