Why do Republicans now think it’s okay to pay more for everything?
By Oliver Willis, Daily Kos Staff
This was untrue. In fact, economic data showed that conditions
improved in most categories under Biden. Unemployment rates improved,
especially in contrast to the economic downturn that occurred under Trump’s
mishandling of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Regardless, Trump promised to fix
all of the purported problems—like soaring egg prices—on “Day 1” of his
presidency.
That didn’t happen and
in recent weeks, economic conditions have worsened. Trump’s actions since he
was sworn in on Jan. 20, from slashing the
federal workforce via Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency
to his haphazard and widely
derided tariff announcements, have led to rising fears of
an economic slowdown and possible recession.
The major stock indices fell for multiple days in a row in response to
Trump’s unpredictable actions. But despite his extensive history of
pointing to the market as validation or repudiation of economic action, Trump now says the
markets are merely experiencing a “period of transition.”
And Trump’s not the only one who is shrugging his shoulders.
His fellow Republican
elected officials are downplaying recession fears and making excuses for
Trump’s erratic tariff actions. Pro-Trump conservative media outlets like Fox
News are all-in as well. On a recent episode of
her prime-time show, host Laura Ingraham told viewers to “ignore” news of the
market melting down.
Why is this happening? Because Trump said so and the right’s
guiding principle since he was elected in 2016 is simple: Do as he says.
The party that howled when former President Barack Obama bailed out the auto industry was quiet in 2020, when Trump bailed out farmers suffering as a result of his trade war with China. When the jobs market was rocked during Trump’s first term, the same Republicans who spent nearly a decade chastising Obama for slow job growth didn’t have much to say.
More recently, after falsely accusing Biden of politicizing
the justice system, Trump installed a
weird acolyte who authored Trump fan fiction as the head of the FBI—with near-unanimous support from
GOP senators.
The Republican Party is now in thrall to Trump’s cult of
personality and has abandoned the few tenuous principles that
conservatives once prioritized.
Essentially, if Trump tells his supporters that the Earth is
flat, they will turn on a dime and repeat the falsehood. Outlets like Fox News soon
amplify the lie and build an echo chamber between themselves, Republican
leaders, and Trump, repeating nonsense until it becomes a shared reality.
The Trump cult is so far gone that Republican voters are now cheering as
their own relatives and friends are fired from their federal jobs at the
capricious behest of his co-President Musk. But those same MAGA-philes didn’t
even blink when the president turned the White House into a
car lot and encouraged people to buy his buddy Elon’s $80,000
Teslas.
The mass delusion has now convinced many of those same
supporters that they just have to tolerate rising prices for
staple products, even though they likely would’ve rioted against paying more than $9 for a dozen eggs under
a Democratic president.
For decades, conservatives have obliviously voted
against their own interests when supporting candidates who cut
social services and enact tax policies that hurt red state residents more than
the rest of America. But under Trump, voting against their interests has become
a point of pride—because as long as they please their cult leader, all is well.
