In the aftermath of Trump’s victory in November, there has been a lot of anguished analyses by Democrats and pundits as to the reasons why Kamala Harris and the Democrats did not win. These have ranged from taking comfort in the fact that although they lost the Senate, they did not lose ground in the House of Representatives to pointing out that Trump’s margin of victory in the popular vote was not that large (about 1.5%). There have been suggestions that Harris’s loss was due to young people not voting in large enough numbers, that the Hispanic vote did not support Democrats as much as they have done in the past, to women voters not turning out in sufficient numbers to compensate for losses elsewhere. These kinds of analyses have suggested that tactical changes in the campaign, such as tailoring messages more towards the groups that dropped away, may have made the difference.
These analyses rarely tend to be definitive in their conclusions and to a large extent I have not paid too much attention to them. I have been trying to understand a more basic question.
There is no question that on objective grounds Trump is terrible both as a person and as a president. I am not going to make the case for that assertion, seeing it as self-evident. His awfulness has increased with time and yet his vote totals have also increased. What has concerned me is that Trump received over 77.2 million votes in November, more than the 74.2 million he got in 2020 and much more than the 63.0 million he got in 2016. His vote as a percentage of the total population has also gone up, from 19.3% in 2016 to 22.1% in 2020, to 22.6% in 2024. This quite extraordinary.
An argument that is often proffered is that Trump supporters are low-information voters who have been fooled by him. I am not persuaded by this. One could argue that his win in 2016 was due to this factor and was a kind of fluke, that he was then an unknown quantity that voters who wanted change were willing to take a chance on as opposed to the known and familiar Hillary Clinton, whom they saw as a continuation of politics as usual.
But he is now a very well-known quantity and what we know is not good. I think even many of his supporters know that he is an awful person, that he lies incessantly, and yet large numbers of them were willing to overlook his many faults, both personal and political, and put him back into office by even larger numbers than before. This is the proverbial elephant in the room that needs to be addressed, not so much the slight shifts in voting patterns by this or that subgroup.
Do I have a definitive answer as to why this happened? No. I have been trying without success to understand it and what I have is at best a guess.
I started with the assumption that the people who voted for Trump were not doing so because they were stupid or duped, at least not entirely. That kind of explanation is often too facile and self-serving, because it absolves one’s own side from any deep criticism. I also dismissed tactical issues like the ones described above. I think that Trump voters were consciously and deliberately voting for him because he represented something that they agreed with and wanted. But what was that something?
My vague thoughts on this became crystallized by what seems like an unrelated event and that was the widespread gleeful reaction to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson that I discussed yesterday. It. struck me as revealing a deep anger against the private profit-seeking health insurance companies that make a metaphorical killing by denying as much care as they can, thus resulting in actual deaths and suffering and even financial ruin for those at the receiving end. But I think that reaction represents more than anger at the health insurance system alone but is a more widespread and inchoate rage.
There seems to be. sense among people that the ‘system’ (not clearly defined) is against ordinary people (themselves) and that they are being cheated somehow of what is rightfully theirs. I think Trump was able to connect with these people because he was always venting his own grievances, claiming that he was the victim of the ‘deep state’ and that it was unfairly rigged against him. In his case, this was palpably false. He has been the beneficiary of privilege his entire life starting from birth and that has continued all the way to the present. All the breaks have gone his way.
But when people hear him saying that the system is rigged against them and that they are losing out as a result, that seems to have struck a chord. In macroeconomic terms, Americans are doing quite well. Unemployment is low, inflation is down, real wages are growing faster than inflation, the stock market is booming, and the per capita GDP is healthy. An average American is doing well compared to people in most other countries.
But that American is not comparing his lot with that of a peasant farmer in Sudan and being thankful for all that they have got. Especially in affluent countries, people are often subject to what I call ‘neighbor envy’ simply because the standard of living is generally high. You can see around you people who seem to have nicer houses, more luxurious cars, go on more expensive vacations, and so on, and think that the reason that you have not got those things is because somehow the system is rigged against you. So when Trump says that the system is completely broken and needs to be torn down, enough people think that he is speaking for them so they vote for him, even though the only grievances he cares about are those that affect him personally. By contrast, Harris and the Democrats seem to be speaking for those who think the system is generally fine but needs to be improved at the margins.
Of course, when Trump says that the system is rigged, he is careful not to identify accurately who exactly is doing the rigging and benefitting from it. Bernie Sanders makes the same critique that the system is rigged against ordinary people but his target is the capitalist system itself that has enabled obscene levels of wealth inequality. By contrast, Trump points the finger at government agencies and policies that seek to improve the lot of the poor and at marginalized groups such as immigrants, and at foreign countries. He does not attack the capitalist system that is what is really rigged against ordinary people and has enabled corporations and wealthy people to make huge amounts of money at the expense of everyone else. Indeed, his picks to staff his new administration, especially when it comes to those that impact the financial world, seem to consist largely of people from that same group of exploiters and you can be sure that they will dismantle all the regulations that put at least some curbs on their unbridled greed. Meanwhile, he has appointed kooks and fire-breathing rabid extremists to those positions that will deal with social issues, thus making sure that those will dominate the headlines while the real work of making the rich richer will go on behind all the scenes.
I think the public’s anger against a system that they think is rigged against them, as was manifested by the celebration of the killing of the UnitedHeathcare CEO, is justified. But they are the victims of a sleight-of-hand. Their attention will be diverted away from those policies that benefit the wealthy and harm ordinary people towards those policies that seek to roll back all of the advances in economic fairness and social justice that have been won with great difficulty over the past few decades, by being falsely persuaded that it was those policies that were keeping them back. Thus they will support the deportation of immigrants, tariffs, and scientific protections provided by the various agencies, even though none of those things will benefit them, and in fact will harm them.
Will there come a time when people will realize that they have been conned? I don’t think that will happen for some time for the simple reason that most Americans are doing quite well, at least economically, and so a slow decline won’t register for some time. It will take a serious downturn in people’s personal fortunes, perhaps caused by a recession or even a depression, to make them realize that they have been had.
As I’ve said previously, people do not vote based on macroeconomic indicators. They vote based on their everyday experiences of the economy, and those macroeconomic indicators are not particularly salient to most people’s daily lives. Let’s take those things you’ve enumerated one at a time… (I’m going to mix the order up to knock off the easiest ones first.)
-- Per capita GDP is healthy
Nobody other than economics wonks cares in the least about per capita GDP, and even economics wonks don’t care about it that much. It’s a completely abstract measure of absolutely no relevance to anybody’s daily life.
-- Unemployment is low
Sure. The problem is less that lots of people are unemployed than that lots of people are employed in really terrible, badly paid jobs.
-- The stock market is booming
Yes, it is, and that’s great news if you’re part of the 1% of the population who owns 50% stocks owned (by value) in the US, but much less relevant for most people. Yes, 62% of American adults own stocks in one form or another, but most people don’t own very much, and what they do hold is mostly in retirement accounts. I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to suggest that the value of someone’s IRA is not a particularly salient to them on a day-to-day basis, especially if they’re young.
(For a breakdown of the value of stocks held by different wealth brackets, see here. The bottom 50% own hardly anything.)
-- Inflation is down
Yes, it’s down -- from levels that haven’t been seen since 1981. Of course, inflation is a measure of the rate of increase, so even though it’s down, that doesn’t mean things are getting cheaper, it just means that they’re getting more expensive less quickly. People are still smarting from a couple of years of inflation levels that nobody under the age of 60 has ever seen before in their adult lives.
-- Real wages are growing faster than inflation
Two points here… Firstly, this is a comparison of two aggregates, each of which conceals a lot of variation. I suspect people on low wages are probably generally getting lower pay rises on a percentage basis (and obviously even the same percentage increase would be a smaller amount), and they experience significantly higher inflation (the phenomenon known as “cheapflation“.)
Secondly, wages are probably less salient than inflation -- even somebody with good financial literacy is probably going to have to break out a spreadsheet in order to decide if their wages are keeping up with (average) inflation, but pretty much everybody is looking at their groceries and their receipt in horror every single time they go to the store.
Sure, but that’s not what people compare themselves to. The problem is that the median American is doing really pretty badly compared to the mean American, because all of the relevant statistics have ridiculously skewed distributions. And the more you tell real people with real problems about how the imaginary statistical mean American is doing just fine, actually, the more salt you’re rubbing into that particular wound. Telling people they should be happy because the aggregate macroeconomic indicators are good just proves to them that you’re out of touch.
Then, of course, there are other statistics available, some of which tell a different story… For example, US households are more indebted than ever before. How does that sit with the narrative that “Americans are doing quite well”? Some Americans are doing quite well, sure. Others… not so much.
Mano & Dunc, you both brought up great points, and this is something I’ve been thinking about. I live in a middle-class community, in what was built as starter homes in the 1980s. There are a few single-parent households in my community. What I’m seeing around me is just massive overconsumption that seems to put lie to the fact that people are struggling. That is, the same neighbors who whine about the cost of eggs are not only getting their 8-year-old a $1600 iPhone, but also have their front yard decorated in about $5k of blow-up animated Christmas displays/blinking, flashing lights, and own an $80k crew-cab, no-bed pickup (this is the suburbs and nobody here works in a job that needs a pickup) and a $60k SUV and get food delivered at least once a day.
Are they really struggling to afford eggs, or are they overconsuming on other things? Are they really struggling to afford eggs, or are they being told they are, so they believe it?
Trump got lucky as if anyone else other than Biden and
Kamala Harris contested for the democrat party he would have lost.
Hilary and Kamala both lost to Trump
As another data point, to complement both Dunc and Katydid, my company last year didn’t give raises until the start of the first quarter and may not provide any wage increase in 2025. This is a large automotive supplier with >40,000 US employees.
From Dunc’s comment, the median American has been doing worse since 2012, and some data suggests the median American has been doing worse for over 30 years. That’s an entire generation of a workforce seeing it get harder and harder to make ends meet. An entire generation which feels that life was easier when they started working than at the end of their career.
My wife is looking for work again, and most of the jobs she can find are paying $12/hour. It’s not really worth working for those wages when I’m making decent money. And I’m making enough so we can weather another year of no wage increase, but I know a number of couples each working two $12/hour jobs just to get groceries or make a payment on a used car. They have no buffer. Luckily there are a lot of $12/hour jobs so when they get laid off from one they can quickly find another.
While to Katydid’s point, even if a family is relatively affluent wages are not keeping up with inflation. When a family is used to overconsuming, just cutting back can feel painful even if they have plenty of margin.
Yes. There is a lot of anger out there. Trump is tapping into that anger with a narrative which resonates with voters, even if his administration will continue policies which will hurt the people who voted for him, and the rest of the world. The democrats fell into the republican trap of being told they were not making enough policy statements. The democrats fell into that trap when they pushed policy proposals without a good narrative. The democrats also seemed afraid of losing their mega-donors. There are policy positions which would have resonated with the voting public, and would have a good narrative. But the democrats seemed afraid, or unwilling, to adopt them. Proposals such as raising the minimum wage, promising to effectively punish corporations which cause harm, and further reforms on the health care industry. People who are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, who are working multiple jobs, who know that the only way to pay for any medical treatment is to set up a go-fund-me and rely on the kindness of strangers, do not care about investments in green energy. They do not care about forgiving the student debt of a stranger (and they know that getting debt forgiveness for themselves is nice but only a temporary solution to a long-term problem). They want a living wage, health care at a price they can afford, and a guarantee from the government that they will not be required to work until they die. If the democrats want to win votes, they need to run on that narrative. Saying a specific policy will increase the possibility of those things happening, does not work! Of course, it would even be nicer if they delivered.
I think I had a somewhat similar take but with a less kind face on it. I feel like there’s a not insignificant percentage of Trump voters who just chose to be entertained. They didn’t believe anything that was said by either side but at least the nutty orange man might amuse them.
Looking from the outside (I don’t live in the US), I got the impression that after the initial enthusiasm faded, the Harris campaign kinda reverted to Biden’s strategy:
“Trump is a danger to democracy!”
Which he is! But…
That’s clearly not something that resonates with a lot of voters (see polls while Biden was in the race). Trump named a lot of issues that Americans are struggling with. Housing, jobs, cost of living… these are issues that traditional left-wing parties (I’m of the opinion that the US has a right wing party, and a party so far off to the right it fell off the edge of the map…) hold dear. Since Trump at least *named* those issues, even though his solutions were obvious lies or completely nonsensical, people voted for him in the hope he might actually try to do something about them.
Good remarks from everyone, especially those pointing out that many, many people are not doing well at all and this may be the decisive factor in DT’s victory, but that’s not all that I see, not even the main part.
I take no pleasure in saying this, but I really am of the opinion that toxic DT won because, plainly said, many voters are irredeemably stupid.
Hardly something exclusive to US voters of course, not at all, but in this particular case:
-- stupid because they chose someone obviously incompetent on every axis and this was frickin’ evident from day one,
-- stupid because, after being immiserated by the plutocrats, they put one of them on top thinking he’ll take care of them,
-- stupid because even if they want the US to be led as a commercial enterprise (which is a stupid idea in itself), they picked a lousy businessman as its leader,
-- stupid because anger is not a justification, when hard times come down one needs to keep all their wits about them and not be a raging ape, that’s obvious and a survival imperative,
-- stupid because, if they wanted to express a protest vote, how come this protest always goes in a hard-right direction? I call this sympathy towards fascism which is plenty stupid,
-- stupid because they knew, very well knew what an all-round bastard he is: mentally unstable, an Alzheimer sufferer and yet they went for him anyway.
One could go on all day, but something must never be forgotten: being stupid is never free, it can exact a very high price and in this case it will be high indeed for many.
I am sorry for those who will suffer and can only hope that DT and his gang of idiots, being notoriously work-shy, won’t inflict too much damage.
A good chunk of the problem lies in the news industry.
To comment on @robert79 above… Harris did talk about the economy and the price of groceries. She even explicitly went out and stated things that were going to be done to fix the problem, in the form of fines for ‘profiteering’ on the companies that had been raising prices due to supply issues during the pandemic and then didn’t lower the prices when the supply issues cleared up, keeping the extra as profit.
Unfortunately very few of the major news outlets were reporting on it well, which means that unless you were paying attention to politics, you probably didn’t hear about it.
To top that off… for the most part, the ‘swing voters’ are the people who don’t pay attention to politics. The ‘vibes’ voters who only pay attention when it becomes important. What the blog Lawyers, Guns & Money calls the ‘Ariana Grande’ voters (because one of the bloggers there was commenting on how while he could name every song from some bands that were big when he was growing up, he only vaguely knew of Ariana Grande as a singer and couldn’t name most of her songs, and he figured a lot of voters were like that). So the people who decide the elections are the people who literally don’t pay attention to politics until the election comes up and it’s shoved in their faces, and then they go out and vote with no real research because they don’t care (even though they should). And thus they often vote for the person with the most name recognition, and if the media has been treating everything Trump says as newsworthy because he shouts a lot and everything Harris says as boring because she’s calm and knows what she’s talking about…
To add a cap to that, add in the fact that really, the swing voters are based on the ones that actually bother voting. The U.S. has an absolutely horribly low percentage of eligible voters actually voting. And the first-past-the-post system doesn’t help there either.
(Honestly, this last in particular is a place where I fervently wish my home country of Canada was any better.)
@flex, so to summarize, your wife is turning down a $25k/year job and the payout come Social Security time. So, you are not splitting an egg 5 ways for supper.
My point was that people who make the most noise about paying 33 cents for an egg seem happy to splurge $1600 for a new iPhone for their 8-year-old, who then watches idiots online who insist that 9-year-old girls need $300 designer perfume…and get it. People decide they want an animatronic display in their front yard lit up like downtown Tokyo…then they whine that their electric bill is too high. It’s not that people are cutting back on their lifestyles at all--it’s that so many are making such stupid consumer choices and then whining that they can’t afford the basics.
Anecdotally , i think this time a lot of higher information(!?) voters also voted for Trump because they do not like things that are happening and the Dems have to be punished or Trump will counter whats happening. Among the things I hear.
1. Dems are soft on crime e.g. San Francisco crimes are supposedly because SF passed some law that says people who commit theft < some amount will not be arrested -- probably something they heard on Fox news. Also crime and lawlessness is up in CA and thugs roam and numerous home invasions --
2. Dems are anti business and Lina Khan is preventing legitimate mergers and acquisitions (This is usually among people in tech in reasonably high positions that stand to gain a lot) -- why these people support monopolies is not exactly clear to me
3. There is an unstated but heavily implied position that Kamala is unqualified and not very smart
4. Dems refuse to do anything about the homeless
5. the woke-trans business is getting out of hand. A school cant even inform parents!
6. What actual racist policy did Trump pass?What fascist policy did Trump actually pass?
7. We dont mind the immigrants but we shouldnt have to pay for them! Dem policies transfer our tax money to usually illegal immigrants .
8. Trump is tough on China -- without this America is going to fall behind
9. Inflation and prices of day to day items. Absolutely unaffordable homes, sky high rents
9. Taxes
10 Jobs
No amount of reasoning works to convince people of the counter point though. I guess a lot of people are soon going to get what they deserve. unfortunately those who dont will also be collateral damage.
@Katydid,
I got your point. You apparently didn’t get mine.
As I originally wrote, my family will be fine. It may be aggravating to me that I’m not going to get a raise this year, but I can still adapt my expenses to meet my income. However, the decision of our company to not give raises will put at least one of my reports further in debt. Not because he is extravagantly spending his money on an iPhone for his kid, but because his grocery bills will continue to climb without any additional income (and all indications are that food prices will continue to rise). He can’t even work additional hours because he’s on salary (and likely to be working 50+ hour weeks anyway) and not eligible for overtime. My report is still in better shape than other friends of mine; read on.
We are friends with one couple in their 30’s who work three $12/hour jobs between the two of them and they are barely making enough money to meet their expenses. Not because they are buying junk, but because their labor brings in an an after-tax income of about $55K/yr, and between rent ($17K/yr for a not very big apartment ($1400/mo)), car payments ($9K/yr on two used cars($350/mo/car)), food ($10K/yr or $825/mo (which is $200 less than I’m currently spending)), utilities ($4K/yr (electricity, gas, phone, internet and again less than I’m paying)), medical insurance ($6K/yr for crappy insurance for 2 people (based on the ACA exchanges)), petrol ($3K/yr (2 cars, 40 miles/day, 20MPG, 200 working days, $3.5/gallon)), they don’t have much left. About $6K/yr for clothes, shoes, furniture, car repairs, vacations, recreation, appliance replacements, etc. They are trying to save up enough money for a down-payment on a house, which would start them on the road to equity. But right now they are living hand to mouth and trying to save their tips. Could they cut back on some of those expenses? Probably, but not much. None of those expenses are luxuries. Note: The median after-tax household income in Michigan in 2024 is expected to be about $52K, so my friends are making slightly above the Michigan median after-tax household income.
Would medical insurance reform net them a lot more discretionary income? No. But it would certainly eliminate the worry that a single medical problem would put them in debt for the rest of their lives.
Your point is that there are people who are angry who shouldn’t be. They are privileged assholes. I get that, and it’s a fair point. Although if the reason they have to cut back on their wasteful lifestyle is because some CEO wants to collect a larger pile, there is a certain justification to their anger. This is true even if their lifestyle has a lot of waste in it.
My point is that there are people who are angry who have some very good reasons to be angry.
There ate many reasons.
A BIG reason is, media do not want to alienate MAGA viewers/readers by calling out blatant lies.
Because media are not in the “information” business. They are in the “making $$$” business.
Corporate TV media are not going to risk bonuses for the CEOs by providing deep insights into corruption, not when the members of the board sympathise with GOP anyway.
The TV companies get rich during election campaigns, the rest of society pays the price. Remember the hundreds of thousands who died during COVID? The CEOs have already forgotten them.
@ 11 flex
Thanks for sharing that. I don’t remember ever bookmarking a comment before, but I bookmarked yours.
Okay, flex, I get your point, and thank you for explaining it so clearly. One quibble: 3, $25k/year jobs is $75k, but the math is irrelevant to your point. Conceding that CEOs are way overpaid (not arguing that particular point).
Yeah, the people whining about the cost of eggs when their 8-year-old has a phone whose cost would buy eggs for a year are deluded. They’ve been brainwashed that the economy is bad and not noticing their $80k pickup truck and all the other trappings of mindless overconsumption, such as the DoorDash meal whose cost is 20 times more than the frittata they could make with those eggs they say they can’t afford.
Where I live, minimum wage is $15/hr and as you noted, Help Wanted signs are everywhere. Experience in any particular job earns you more than that, and someone with a degree can expect to start around $60k. You can get a decent 2-bedroom apartment in a safe neighborhood for about $2k/month--my youngest just bought a townhouse this year after splitting an apartment with a friend for several years and is missing the amenities at the apartment (pool, weight room, game room, theater room, staffed office where packages can be delivered for safekeeping, etc.) and the mortgage is higher than the $1200-ish a month that the rent/utilities/internet cost. The trade-off is a 5-minute commute to work and the ability to build equity.
But you know what? Living has always been expensive since St. Ronnie Raygun. When I went to in-state university, tuition was $1800/semester--the first time students had to pay tuition. Sound great? Minimum wage (about all an 18-year-old could expect to make) was $2.23, so to pay a semester’s tuition alone was 900 hours of work (a bit more than 56 hours/week, but nobody could keep up that pace and still focus on school). My first apartment--in a pre-WWII slum with a mini-fridge, hotplate, and hot-and-cold running cockroaches and mice but no hot water was $450/month before the additional utilities (which was basically just the lights because the heat never worked and there was no air conditioning). The figure for rent should be 30% of your income? HA! There were 6 of us in that 2-bedroom apartment and we were barely making rent. The first attempted break-in happened while we were still moving in. (Dude, we’re standing RIGHT HERE!)
Still, I do agree with your point about CEOs and I probably didn’t make that clear earlier. And I’m sorry the picture in Michigan is so bleak. Yet, your wife doesn’t work. Sounds like her income would cover the rent with some leftover for discretionary spending.
Crossposted from Pharyngula:
An interesting Grauniad article on Luigi Mangioni’s politics: all over the place in left/right or science/anti-science terms, but the writer claims he exemplifies a widespread “anti-system” orientation.
katydid, it’s worth noting that a ‘$12/hr job’ does NOT mean $25k a year. those jobs tend not to be full-time.
flex @11
Even for used cars it is extraordinary to me that they are only getting 20mpg, I drive a 2002 estate car and still get more than that, it’s telling me 58mpg at the moment, but I don’t believe it’s that good. Never the less 20mpg is pathetic for a regular car and has been in Europe for decades, I recall a friend raving about her new car doing 38mpg some time in the 00s and my car (the same estate I have now) was doing 42mpg despite being a bigger car, and that was correct according to my calculations as well as the cars.
I agree that there are many current as well as historical reasons for this victory.
As an outsider, I will say that it makes little difference for the rest of the world because American foreign policy never improves, as it has been set in stone from day one. The difference is merely in the style. For international leaders having to deal with this distasteful character is simply offensive and a waste of precious time. Nonetheless, this man will be disastrous for the people of your country, and no doubt will create havoc everywhere else.
As an outsider I will say that hearing Americans lament the loss of or damage to the American democracy is puzzling: are you sure you had it? Let me explain: Having to choose between two parties only, not allowing the representation of other parties or independents, is no choice at all. Your electoral system seems to be designed to prevent inclusion and fairness. It is incomprehensible that while the right to vote would be so easily denied, a criminal with numberless offences is allowed to run for president.
Even more incomprehensible that you have given your president powers enjoyed only by the worst kind of monarch or equivalent absolute dictator. Absolutely shocking that a president has the power to pardon himself, members of his family and friends, and any other useful criminals! And, if that weren’t enough, that he has the power to appoint federal judges! In other words, a ‘better’ president will not suffice, it’s the system that needs drastic changes.
I sincerely wish you good luck. And to all of us. Hoping we don’t blow up the whole planet. If only certain individuals would realize that we are still very far away from terraforming Mars…
Last comment, but I think it’s worth pointing out that $72K pre-tax income is about $55K post-tax income in Michigan.
Salary $72,000
Federal Income Tax -- $8,608
State Income Tax -- $3,060
Social Security -- $4,464
Medicare -- $1,044
The money available for people to live on is post-tax income. There are any number of tax calculators available on-line to perform that calculation. If we lived in California, an extra $1000 would be lost to taxes, and some municipalities charge additional taxes not in the above calculation.
For renters property taxes are included in the rent, a homeowner will see additional taxes from property taxes. I just got my Winter Tax bill, and I see I’m paying ~12mils. In Michigan the taxable value of a property is half the assessed value. So for a person who purchased a $200,000 house, the tax value is $100,000 and so a 12mil tax on that is (100,000 * 0.012) = $1200. Their Summer Tax bill is roughly double that, so another $2400 gone, or $3600/yr taken away from the income they would have to live on. To be fair though, there are still a lot of $100,000 condos in the area, so if my friends to save enough to purchase a place, they may be only paying $1800/yr in property taxes (but also probably $200/month, $2400/yr in Condo Association fees). It all adds up to having less far money available to spend than gross income would imply.
For those outside the USA, an effective tax rate of 23% on the income of someone just scraping buy may seem exorbitant, but ya-know, American Exceptionalism. The ruling class thinks higher taxes on the poor will make them work harder.
As for fuel economy in the USA, it is crap:
Fuel economy in the USA (2021 data) --
Average car -- 24.4 MPG (from another source: city ~27MPG , highway ~21MPG)
Average light truck\van (SUV) -- 17.8 MPG (to get an accurate picture of the city/highway spilt greater granularity is needed. Some 4-cylinder pick-ups get as much as 28MPG average, while the large V8 pickups may only get 14MPG on average. SUVs see a similar range depending on engine size and vehicle weight.)
There are two additional factors which hit the poor in the USA as far as fuel economy. First, used cars tend to get a little lower MPG, it usually drops by 2-3 MPG. Second, because of the demand among new car buyers for SUVs, people who purchase used cars have a smaller selection of small vehicles and a larger selection of used SUVs. A different friend was in a car accident two months ago and needed a vehicle within a couple days because she needed to get back to work (no work, no pay). She ended up with a small SUV because it was the cheapest vehicle on the used car lot. She went to a dealer rather than looking through used-car ads because she needed a car immediately, wanted at least a small warranty on the car (there are some weak lemon laws in Michigan), and needed to pay over time as she didn’t have the savings to purchase even a cheap used car outright.
Some may be wondering how I know these people. It’s through my wife. My wife has been working these $12/hr jobs (three in the past five years IIRC). I’m not all that sociable and I dislike my job. My personal interests of literature, history, and economics does not match the interests of my co-workers. I’m told the Detroit Lions are doing quite well this year and there is a good deal of talk about it at my office, along with hunting, the performance of their 401(k)’s, and automobiles. But I’m good at my job and it pays well. My interests don’t make me better than my co-workers, many of them are harder workers and better at their job than I am, but I can see that when I bring up the politics of 12th century Spain they are as bored as I am when they talk about who the Tigers have signed for pitcher.
But one thing I am is a gamer, and I have been all my life. So is my wife. When she meets a co-worker at one of the $12/hr jobs she has who might enjoy gaming she sounds them out and some of them have joined us for the light gaming parties which we occasionally host. We keep things focused on gaming, so while there are a range of people of different ages and different incomes (all working class to middle class) there is little discussion of politics or hardships. My wife and I do our best to make it a comfortable place for people to relax. It’s all very informal. Nevertheless, as a host I regularly get into conversations about the troubles in their lives. They know we can’t do anything to help them, other than listen, and they don’t seem to want more than just my ear. I also take what they say with a grain of salt, troubles loom large for those who have them. But it does give me a better feel for how people from the working class to the middle class are managing (knowing that I’m dealing with a small samples size, which is another reason to be careful with the information). Occasionally they are willing to share details of their incomes and expenses. (My wife tells me it’s because of my friendly-chops that people are so open with me, but I think that it’s because I look both interested and harmless. Both of which are true.)
When I got my MBA a couple decades ago (I promise I’ve never used the knowledge I gained in my MBA courses for evil), one of the courses I took was Organizational Behavior. There was actually a lot of good information in that class, but one bit which has stuck with me is that Americans, in a general way, have the tendency to move a lot. And their moves (which may be in the same small region) correspond to their perception of their status in society. Since most people who are in the middle of their career are expecting further advancement, they tend to move to subdivisions which are slightly above their comfortable pay level. Which leads to two things. 1) Increased personal debt as they are both paying slightly more than they really can afford on their houses, and spending to keep their furniture/decor up to the level they think their neighbors have. 2) Being surrounded by people who are at the same level of income, which creates the idea that everyone they know makes about the same level and that level is middle-class. This is why we get some idiots making the claim that earning $300,000/year pre-tax is middle-class level; all their neighbors are in that range. They live in silos, not seeing that there are lots of people earning <$75k/year pre-tax with no opportunities to be promoted to a higher income. They have no conception of what that really means. They may have experienced a few years early in their career where they were making little money, but they expected to advance in their professions and reach a higher level of income. And they did. The point where they plateau is the point which they, understandably, think everyone is capable of reaching. The brother-in-law who is only making $120K/yr pre-tax is seen as a failure in their eyes, even if the brother-in-law says they are doing fine.
Part of why all this happens is because we are social creatures with a lot of baboon behaviors. The fallen angel vs. rising ape is a false dichotomy. We are social primates who have the capability to overcome our instinctual desire to create hierarchies of power, but most people don't even recognize that they are creating/supporting one. Part of it is the blindness, often unintentional but sometime deliberate, to what the structure of our society does to other human beings. I don't have any good answer, but I haven't given up hope that we can do better.
Well, as usual, this comment got away from me. It's probably good that it's my third comment in this thread, and I have a good reason to shut up and let others speak. It's probably also good that I pontificate rather than in front of the people at our gaming parties. You'all can stop reading at any time and move on to more interesting topics. If I was this prolix in public I would get glazed stares until my wife gently led me away.
It would be more accurate to say that Trump-supporting media owners have colluded with each other to create propaganda media networks that force out even mildly opposing views. These propaganda networks, along with Trump himself, have fooled Trump supporters.
Also:
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/the-one-big-reason-why-dems-are-losing