We liked the way things were four years ago,

Apparently I am the one who has been living in an alternative reality for the past eight years.

All the headlines today are about how the democrats screwed up. What I have not seen discussed is how in the everlivingingfuck any person could possibly vote for Trump. There was nothing good about his presidency. By all measures, he was one of the worst presidents in American history (while Biden was one of the best in modern times).

We all, myself included, need an education about what the president does and how they can impact kitchen table economics. I mean, I find it hard to grasp that people would vote for Trump just because the cost of bread is up while ignoring the pages of lies, indictments, convictions, rapes, bankruptcies, coup attempts, impeachments, not to mention hate speech. I hope people still don’t have the belief that the US president has any substantial impact on gas prices. The economic efforts of the Biden administration have fixed everything that Trump screwed up.

I still don’t think people know what inflation is. And while we all have the world’s information in our pockets, no-one cares enough to look it up. Inflation goes up because the demand for goods is higher than the supply - meaning either we were buying too much crap and/or there were environmental variables decreasing supply. Inflation happened because of the government stimulus checks, supply chain issues, and disease spread across livestock - it’s a feature, not a bug. I get that all they care about is their grocery store bill but a basic understanding of economic policy would go a really long way. The Democratic policies, past and proposed, put consumer (and livestock) protections in place to prevent or minimize price gouging and monopolies and supply chain disruptions. The Republicans fight these bills because it would cut profits for corporations. Voting for a Republican is a vote for less regulation - it’s the regulations that keep prices down. Unfortunately, government moves slow AF so a lot of times these regulations don’t have an impact until the next president’s term.

By all accounts, Trump is going to drain our wallets. I am terrified. I haven’t had a raise in over ten years. I don’t really have a skill set that can transfer well to other companies. I’m a renter with an amazing landlord (relatively cheap rent) but I was hoping to buy a house sometime in my lifetime. What Trump has proposed is going to substantially raise the prices of good and services. The Republican agenda is to strip the country of public services and make them private enterprises - raising the cost of living for everyone. I really don’t know what I’m going to do for the next four years.

It’s not the faulty of Democrats. It’s the fault of the media and capitalism. It’s the fault of crumbling journalism as people choose hot take emotional rage bait over educating themselves to understand why we are where we are. It’s the fault of the DNC and RNC being too powerful and their fight against reasonable elections such as RCV or STAR voting. It’s the fault of corporations controlling congress. The conspiracy that no one wants to acknowledge is that we’re moving towards a country that is privately owned by a handful of billionaires.