Toby Buckle offers (to my way of thinking) stellar analysis of what's going on politically as large numbers of Americans, our media, and corporate leaders jump with alacrity on the Trump bandwagon: it's not the old "economic anxiety" canard.

officerripley

So true; there were a lot of big fancy homes in the fanciest neighborhoods in my town with Trump signs in their yards.

eberhofer

@wdlindsy people voted for Trump for a number of reasons, many of which are evil. Totally agree on that. Same for Maga. Mostly evil.

The issue is a different one: these evil votes aren't sufficient to win an election by themselves. To win an election, they had to win other votes and suppress turnout for Harris.

The real question is: how did they win/suppress those votes?

Economic anxiety is driven less by "objective" wealth but by wealth difference and by outlook.

For wealth difference: the income and wealth gap have grown further even through the Biden years. That may not be his fault, but neither did he or Kamala Harris address it, or at least not forcefully enough in the campaign.

For the outlook: health care and housing are huge issues (United Healthcare illustrates this) and polls showed people trusted Trump more on the economy than Harris. Sad, because Harris had better policies but didn't get through with her message.

Dizzy

@wdlindsy America is finished; time to look to others to protect democracy.

William Lindsey :toad:

@BubblegumYeti We'll see, won't we?

William Lindsey :toad:

@eberhofer The claim that I hear repeatedly about economic anxiety driving anti-Democratic votes is not about the huge and growing disparity between the wealth of the very few and all the rest of us.

It's about the perception — the reported perception — of people that they are doing badly economically. When, in fact, many of those reporting this are doing reasonably well economically.

Blaming the Democrats for creating that problem when Republican policies hugely favor the super-rich: bizarre.

William Lindsey :toad:

@officerripley One of the richest families in my state lives a block up the street from me. That family is super-excited to see Trump back in the White House, as are all the friends of that family.

William Lindsey :toad:

@lupus_blackfur I agree.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Kraemer_HB Except that both in 2016 and 2024, polling results show that people in that economic bracket voted for the Democratic candidate in larger numbers than for Trump. Trump's real support is in the affluent and in economic elites.

William Lindsey :toad:

@StrangeNoises @Lazarou Yes, you're right.

William Lindsey :toad:

@patrascan You're welcome. I wouldn't have found it except that David Kurtz excerpted it in the past day or so in his morning column at the TPM site.

William Lindsey :toad:

@susankayequinn I agree!

William Lindsey :toad:

@Greengordon Well-stated and exactly right, it seems to me.

William Lindsey :toad:

@tyggna I'm sorry you find Toby Buckle's commentary disturbing.

I myself like being disturbed — by the truth.

William Lindsey :toad:

@peachfront Thank you.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Paxil Yes.

William Lindsey :toad:

@ikanreed I highly recommend Toby Buckle's article — in its entirety — to which you're responding when you say that I'm missing something.

Matthias Krämer

@wdlindsy I'm not sure if economic elites are enough to get near 50% of the votes. The German "petite bourgeoisie" was not poor, back then. But inflation destroyed their savings, so they felt threatened in their status. Additionally, they felt Germany lost its status as great power after WW1, and that's an important part of discourse in America right now. I was shocked that more voters thought Trumps foreign policy would be better for the US.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Kraemer_HB I think Hitler would not have been so much in the public eye and would not have become a messianic figure for some Germans if Germany's elites — business and military leaders, media owners, university professors, churchmen — had not pushed him into the limelight. They bear ulimate responsibility for creating the monster that was Hitler. They thought they could control the monster. They were sadly mistaken.

eberhofer

@wdlindsy I totally agree with you, of course, that it's mostly Republicans driving the increasing gap.

But this isn't about blame but about winning an election.

In other words, the above is an argument Harris should have made to voters during the campaign.

She might have done it but it definitely wasn't understood. And that left a wide group of voters up for grabs, who are not MAGA, but supported Trump or didn't support Harris.

Just to clarify: I'm not saying that was the one thing that decided the election.

Matthias Krämer

@wdlindsy That's an important lesson for today. Messianic figures get created by elites. Only elites can consistently say "Oh, look at this guy, isn't that interesting?" and influence others, even when they themselves don't find this guy adequate. That's the same between Trump and Hitler, too, I think: Real elites, the high society, sneer at them as dumb low lives. But even they focus their attention on such figures. And maybe that is even an involuntary effect. Even Dem elites focused Trump.