1 Comment

It's shocking how uninformed most voters are. Yes, some people are struggling financially, but I know a lot of people who are very secure financially and nevertheless believe that we are in a recession "worse than the Great Depression." When I heard a staunch Democrat say that at my book club meeting, I said, "You can't be serious. The Great Depression was much worse than you seem to realize." She was serious. Her evidence? A TikTok video about how much a MacDonald's meal costs now.

This is what some people have been calling the "vibes-cession." That is, people just have a bad vibe about the economy, regardless of what is actually going on.

At the same time, they are driving new cars, some of them quite large; gas is incredibly cheap given climate change and the inevitable end of fossil fuels; to me as a farmer, even food seems cheap, given what it takes to produce it. Community college is free in our state. People can get affordable health insurance now. Clothes are so cheap it's ridiculous, and people buy way too many of them. Most people have way too much stuff, so the garage now has to be bigger than the house. Working class people are going on cruises and vacationing at Cancun and in Jamaica. (And so they skip a week of classes at community college!)

Why exactly are people complaining?! Ok, rents are high in some of the most desirable cities. You might have to move to a less cool place, like my town, and make it cooler.

People have forgotten what real economic struggle was like, because the people who experienced it during the Great Depression are dead now. My dad was a child during the Depression, and while his family didn't suffer greatly, the anxiety is visible on their faces in family photographs. My dad was a workaholic. He admitted to me that he thought if he stopped working for even a day, something terrible would happen. He was scarred by the Great Depression even though he was not an adult during it.

I think people have just become conditioned to be mad about...something. And it has to be some way in which they personally are being victimized. My neighbor is so angry that he has discharged hundreds of rounds of ammo a few hundred yards from my house over the last week. Poor him: he apparently ran out of ammo and couldn't shoot yesterday. He probably thinks he can't buy more ammo because we're in a recession worse than the Great Depression.

Let's be honest: these Americans who love Trump may SAY they're voting for him because he'll improve the "terrible" economy, but what they really think is: He's more entertaining. Most people don't vote for a person because that nominee seems like a competent manager. Competent managers are boring. They vote for somebody in the same way that they choose what to stream: something outrageous and funny is better than something sober, practical, and informative.

Spoke too soon. The gun nut evidently found some change in the sofa cushions because he's back at it again. He took two days off.

Expand full comment