Prediction: It's going to be a lot of punching down against the weak and defenseless over the next four years. And liberals trying to stop them and his voters cheering him on and the gun crazies gunning for protesters and civil war.
But, back to the post-mortems, get this, once the Dems have faced their wokeness problem, they urgently need, say top political analysts, to be cutting off the "radical left crazy liberal trans-communist pro-illegals" groups supporting them because they go too far with their crazy civil rights claims, forcing new gender pronouns on the public ("Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you"), Drag Queen Story Hours, and invasive threats to private property, stuff like that.
Hopefully, cooler heads prevail in the DNC leadership and basic human rights for all are recognized as essential to the coalitional collective Dem governance ideal and whole party leadership deal. It's crooked billionaires & violent bigots against everybody else, all of us. Long live the resistance!
And now some of what interests me but I don't entirely get about the economics side of this. So the economy was very hard for working families in '21 and '22, the economic record shows. Groceries were going up fast. The price of eggs and steaks doubled. Rents were terrible. Health care unaffordable without Obamacare. Rising interest rates made buying a home or buying a new car unaffordable for the working classes. It's a political rule of democracies: inflationary shocks and rising costs of living for the many always goes against incumbents. It goes that way in democracies all around the world.
Okay, but no matter what the context? I mean, Grump's failed coup on Jan 6, his fake elector scheme, asking Georgia to change the vote count for him, collusion with a hostile foreign dictator who has attacked our last three national elections, extorting our ally, Ukraine, for dirt on Biden, botching badly the public health crisis, stealing and refusing to give up top secret national security documents when he leaves office, you know, a few "abstract" matters of democracy or the rule of law, or just his general above the law Sopranos-like outlaw chic, or how he provokes and urges violence against anybody that opposes him, none of this gave his 77 million voters pause or stirred offsetting considerations to discussions of rents and price of gas and the rising costs of living at the kitchen table?!
Inflation was world wide. It's even common in history with big disruptions to global markets like pandemics and wars. The global economy crashed in 2020 and the shutdown lingered and starting production and trade connections backup wasn't a light switch.
So bad, hard times, but you think Grump will make any of this better? Grump is a great business man, an entertaining hustler, maybe he can bring back the prices of 2017?! I know that sounds dumb but that is the caricature of the Grump voter that's being developed in the media since the election.
He is in fact notorious for stiffing labor and financial fraud is basically his "Art of the Deal" economic model. His trade war with China his first time around cost American consumers. Biden, by contrast, was backing labor unions and reducing the costs of health care, and Harris committed to more of the same and additionally fighting price gouging and taxing the rich and making it easier to buy a home, but your cranky aunt figures Grump was easier on the pocketbook?!
Anyway, I hope Grump takes seriously as a matter of pride his voters belief that he will lower prices and reduce the basic costs of living for them. I'm dubious but with Musk's special Tech Bro billionaire arrogance he just might think he can beat the economy and try to stabilize prices and interest rates for regular people.
I hope they do because there is no way they deport millions of workers or impose a 20% tariff on all Chinese imports or lop off whole departments of government or fire millions of civil servants without devastating the economy. Big parts of agriculture and the building trades would face tremendous inflationary pressures. As I said, we already know the previous trade war with China cost American consumers. This one will cost them much more. Unemployed civil servants, unemployed anybody, depresses the consumer demand that sustains the economy. Their three year plan of shock therapy austerity and recovery is wildly punitive and unrealistic and if their Project 2025 plans are fulfilled will almost certainly blow up the economy. Maybe they can scale down their plans to a size and pace that isn't so disruptive economically, although I can't see Grump or Musk being very good judges of this question.
I'm sure they'll get friendly pricing from Big Oil, we're already hearing about this prospect, and some slack from the corporate price gougers in '21 and '22. That'll help with the partisan polling perspective on the economy. But it can't stop the shock therapy devastation of mass deportations or trade war tariffs or a big rise in unemployment and exploding poverty.
And when/if the public does turn on their economic record they won't take it well, no better than a global pandemic. We know this. This is why currently my cosplay optimism is a hope Grump and Musk actually do take their promise to stop inflation and reduce the basic costs of living for the working classes seriously. They know how to win public support they bluster proudly. No sweat. Because if they really want to stop inflation and reduce the cost of living for workers they can't do the other crazy fascist, isolationist, violent stuff they have planned, or much less of it anyway.
David Wallace-Wells is too damn centrist but at least he reports stuff and doesn't sound like he's on the corporate payroll. I still get his columns by email but can't seem to access them at the NY Times. But if you can get to it his "Thirteen things to keep in mind when talking about the election" is a good summary of the last two weeks of Dem handwringing.
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