r/politics • u/ben_watson_jr • May 19 '24

How Can This Country Possibly Be Electing Trump Again? Soft Paywall

https://newrepublic.com/article/181287/can-america-possibly-elect-trump-again
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u/Powerful-Stomach-425 May 19 '24

Inflation is happening all over the world, not just USA.

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u/stackens May 19 '24

And compared to our peers our inflation is actually pretty low

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u/AnohtosAmerikanos California May 19 '24

Indeed, we came through this inflationary period as world beating champions. But nobody will bother to notice this, because it doesn’t really matter to the average consumer. High prices = bad = blame the current government.

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u/polopolo05 May 19 '24

High prices = bad = blame the oligarchy

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u/stylebros May 19 '24

Canada fucked, UK fucked, France rioting, Japan tried negative interest rates, their inflation fucked. USA. 3% and people are freaking out.

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u/Mojothemobile May 19 '24 edited May 19 '24

To be fair the incumbents in all those countries aside from Japan where the LDP will win anyway despite having PMs with 10% approval because Japan just be like that you have incumbents and their parties running far worse than Biden who is still like 50-50 to win if the election was today.   

The Liberals in Canada and the Tories in The UK are heading for electorial oblivion and the next French Gen election might be so anti establishment populist rage you get Le Pen vs Melenchon in the run off.

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u/Effective_Device_185 May 20 '24

Hence a lack of common sense and higher education from many on the right.

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u/themanebeat May 19 '24

And people are significantly richer in the US.

Not just who you think is rich, but by global standards nearly everyone in the US is in the top 1% globally in terms of wealth. Yes, you are a 1%er

Americans are incredibly spoilt and have everything they'll ever need

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u/FunkmasterFo May 19 '24

I'm in South Africa right now on vacation and the cost of food and alcohol is so much cheaper than the States (in the Cape). My wife looked it up at dinner last night and apparently South Africa's top 1% income level starts at around 130k a year.

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u/Telzen Georgia May 19 '24

Fuck off. Americans don't get to spend their money in other countries, they spend it locally. It doesn't matter if the US dollar is crushing some other countries, that doesn't help any of us afford food or housing. And spoiled? Americans? The people living paycheck to paycheck? The people who don't get free Healthcare like most of the other rich countries?

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u/themanebeat May 19 '24 edited May 19 '24

Look at how cheap gas is for your car, or how much your car costs in the first place. Or how little you're taxed. Or how many people there, even poor, have smartphones

Coming from Europe you can easily see that even spending locally Americans earn more, pay less for stuff, live in far bigger houses, and are taxed less.

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u/CarcosaAirways May 19 '24

Spot on. That's not to say America is better than Europe, of course. Europeans may be better off. Stats show they're happier. I'm certainly happier in Europe than when I was in the US. But the social safety net comes at a cost. Everyone pays their fair share in taxes, rich, middle class, and poor. Houses are MUCH smaller on average. They have less cars, and the ones they do have are more expensive and smaller. Gas costs more. Hell, they even use less air conditioning. The wages they earn are lower even after factoring in all the welfare benefits the state provides.

America could realistically have many of those benefits too and still be richer. If Americans were taxed at rates similar to Europeans and got similar benefits, they'd likely still have more money left over and more things (house, car, etc.) to show for it. But anyway, all that to say, Americans are more well off than they realize.

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u/StaticNegative May 19 '24

to be fair, some startes are like foreign countries

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u/ThickGur5353 May 24 '24 edited May 24 '24

Actually no longer true. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate?continent=world

Also Janet Yellen saying inflation was transitory was a very dumb thing to say. And Biden talking about  Bideneconomics ( which he never mentions any more) was also dumb. It gave the strong impression that Biden did not care about the large number of Americans having trouble to pay for food and utilities and rent.

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u/MechanicalGodzilla May 19 '24

This is rarely a convincing argument to most people. If you mention that compared to previous centuries we all live in what is as close to utopia as has ever existed, you’ll similarly be dismissed. People don’t really care about how other peoples are doing, our own situation is far more large in our own minds than any of that.

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u/stackens May 19 '24 edited May 19 '24

Arguments asserting reality that conflict with the average person’s feelings on the matter are rarely convincing generally. Doesn’t mean they aren’t true and worth pointing out though

Also I don’t think it’s analogous to comparing to the distant past. It’s like seeing a fire raging across the street and someone actively protecting your house from it, vs there being no fire, but someone saying there was a fire 50 years ago so be happy there isn’t one now. They are different things

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u/MechanicalGodzilla May 19 '24

It’s hearing about a fire across an ocean, not a neighbor’s house. Which is the point, we aren’t socially or perhaps even biologically capable of caring about threats that distant. For example, climate change. It is a problem we are pushing forward more and more, but the bad effects generally are decades from now and will mostly impact poor countries nearer to the equator. We as a species can’t bring ourselves to care enough to stop it because the largest impacts are too distant

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u/Scooterforsale May 19 '24

That's just the extra kicker

Biden also can barely speak or walk. He's a puppet

By the way I hate trump more. I'm just saying both have giant flaws. What a fucking joke

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u/aretheesepants75 May 19 '24

Why don't they just print more money? Biden wants gas prices sky high because the liberals all drive electric cars, and he is making money off of it. He is letting in all the imagrants in because he wants to make his own army to take our guns away. /s

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u/Global_School4845 May 20 '24

And most of it isn't inflation but corporate greed.

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u/CopeHarders May 19 '24

Price gouging right now isn’t even an inflation thing it’s a corporate greed thing.