Dear Trump Voters (Part 4)

I promise this is the last one.

Wow. I did not see that coming. I probably should have, but I still thought Trump had so many flaws that he was unelectable. You, Trump voters, must not see the flaws that I do. You won. What do you think will happen now?

As a poll worker, I registered many new voters who had never voted before. I could feel a real sense of hope among (at least some of) the new voters. I have to assume some of them voted for Trump and are hopeful that he will fulfill his many promises. If you were a Trump voter, what are you hopeful for?

I do want you to be right. I want my fears to evaporate as the United States rises to “greatness.”

How will we know when America is great again?

Internationally, I think the best-case scenario for a Trump presidency involves peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. Trump might continue to cozy up to Putin and appease his expansionist notions and maybe Putin will be satisfied with a couple of provinces lopped off of Ukraine. Trump’s isolationism may embolden authoritarians like Putin and Orban, but maybe they are not bad guys (just misunderstood?). And (best case) Trump will somehow broker a two-state solution in Palestine that ends the fighting because folks over there are afraid of what he might do.

On the economic front, the best-case scenario is that Trump delivers for the working class. His isolationism, deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, cuts to Social Security, and tariffs will defy history and result in rising wages and falling prices.

On the home front, the best case is Trump will ensure that law enforcement protects all people, and with lower crime, people will feel free and happy. Trump will not only deport undocumented immigrants but he will also deter people from coming to America, and with fewer people to compete for limited jobs and housing, wages will rise for everyone, and housing prices/rent will drop (but not so much that it crashes the housing market).

On the identity front, the best case is that his vision for America allows people to see almost everybody else first as Americans and second (or not at all) as whatever else they identify as. By bringing “American” forward as the primary identity he will allow people to see beyond the divisions, and this will bring people together.

In the best-case scenario, Trump is right about racism. He and his people believe that we live in a post-racial world and when the left talks about systemic racism, it just makes things worse because it distracts from the potential unity people could feel.

Okay. So this is what I will watch for: lower prices, lower taxes, higher wages, peace, unity. Am I missing anything? What else are you hopeful for in Trump 2.0?

If you all are hopeful, I am more than a little scared these days. What am I afraid of?

Do you remember “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” It came out in 1999 and involved a series of questions for more and more money. Contestants had “lifelines.” They could “phone a friend,” and one of the other lifelines was to “ask the audience.” Weirdly, the audience was almost always right. In this election, Trump won the popular vote. This election is like asking the audience. I hope y’all are right.

Can you imagine a situation where the majority of the Millionaire audience could be wrong?

I can.

I think asking the audience worked for Millionaire because in 1999 most of us were living in the same media landscape. That has not been true for quite a while.

Today, if I asked 100 people if global climate change is real and caused by human activity, I might get 51 of them to say it is a hoax. Or if I asked if food and gas prices are controlled by President Biden, a majority might say yes.

If I could not rely on the audience, and a million dollars was on the line, I might try to phone a friend instead. I would have a bunch of trusted friends ready who were experts in their fields.

In my media landscape, the people I read (like Robert Reich, Timothy Snyder, Brooke Gladstone, Heather McGhee, Isabel Wilkerson, Ezra Klein, and Heather Cox Richardson, to name a few) break down each of the seemingly simple issues in a different, more nuanced, way. These are my “friends.”

In my part of Wisconsin, there are tons of lawn signs for Trump still out. In a series of signs, the Trump signs simplify it down. One sign says “Trump: Lower Prices, Harris: Higher Prices” another says “Trump: Less Taxes, Harris Higher Taxes” and the third says “Trump: Less Crime, Harris: More Crime.”

If he actually follows through, Trump’s proposed tariff and immigration policies will likely result in higher prices for everyone in the United States.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods. It allows domestic manufacturers to keep prices high because they don’t have to compete. Robert Reich tracked corporate profits during the COVID inflation surge and he noted that much of the inflation was actually corporate profit-taking. That is exactly what will happen again with a tariff inflation surge — it will be compounded by profit-taking (unless the economy collapses).

The Immigration policies proposed by Trump could drain the USA of workers in food production and housing. What effect will this have on prices? Even in Trump’s best-case scenario, where deporting millions of people drives wages up, that will also drive up prices for food and housing. You can’t have a smaller workforce and lower prices.

Trump’s signs don’t mention climate change at all, but it is already a driving factor in price hikes in many sectors. Food production is intimately related a stable climate. Home insurance costs for everyone are going through the roof and some areas are becoming uninsurable. And, as climate change destabilizes parts of the world due to prolonged droughts, floods, and crop failures, the global economy could hit tipping points that impact the USA. We ignore climate change at our peril.

Regarding crime, my previous post talked about how crime levels track with poverty. Imprisoning more people does make “for-profit” prison owners richer, but it doesn’t deter crime. Trump’s proposed policies under Elon Musk’s “efficiency” mandate involve cutting key parts of the Federal Government’s social safety net. That includes Social Security and Medicaid, Food Stamps, public school funding, public housing, and so on.

Regarding taxes, I can only repeat that tariffs are taxes. They are like an embedded sales tax. Sales taxes are regressive, meaning that they hit working and middle-class people harder than the wealthy. At the same time, Trump is proposing more cuts to taxes for the wealthy. Those tax cuts increase the deficit, without actually improving the economy. “Voodoo” trickle-down economics is a scam, just ask any expert.

Timothy Snyder tells us that authoritarian governments seize power by playing on fears and scapegoating. He has studied the rise of fascism and looked at the conditions that allow established democracies to turn into dictatorships. He is talking about the USA right now.

Heather McGhee has researched how policies that scapegoated and seemed to be targeted at Black people actually ended up hurting all Americans. Her classic example is how many public swimming pools in the American South were closed and filled in during desegregation. This was to prevent Black kids and white kids from swimming in the same pool. So nobody got a public swimming pool. The same effect has happened with public education, public housing, and access to public loans for small businesses. We have come to see “government” as bad and we are poorer for it. All of us.

So I hope you all are right. But ALL of my “friends” who I would phone say otherwise.