Trump voters aren’t mad at grocery prices, they’re mad at capitalism
They just don’t know it. Will Democrats be the ones to tell them?
Pundits and analysts have scrambled for an explanation for why Trump won the election last week, and the consensus is clear and unsurprising: Voters are unhappy with the economy under Biden, so they voted against Democrats.
Those of us who’ve been paying attention know that was a stupid move that won’t yield the desired outcome; Biden presided over the most progressive, worker-friendly, consumer-protective administration in half a century, and Harris’s proposals would have likely continued the trend. Analysts have tripped over themselves to be the first and loudest to say Trump’s signature proposals — mass deportation and high tariffs — will hurt the economy, not help it, and leave his disillusioned voters in an even more precarious financial situation.
Democrats are optimistic voters will feel the pain of Trump’s return to power and reject Republicans in the 2026 mid-term elections, maybe even swing back to a Democratic president in 2028. Realists aren’t sure our elections will remain democratic enough to carry out the will of the people after Republican fascists have their way with the system.
Regardless of how quickly we move between parties, though, the root problem won’t be solved. Neither the Republicans’ top-only policies nor the Democrats “middle-out” philosophy will ease Americans’ economic woes, because our economic system won’t allow it.
Capitalism is a system that relies on haves and have nots, so have nots must always be created and maintained to keep the system running. Democrats might be more willing than Republicans to regulate capitalism and erect levees against its worst offenses, but no policies can fully eradicate them without crumbling the system altogether. So, we eliminate human enslavement, but we allow mass incarceration. We outlaw racial discrimination, but we allow economic policies that contribute to segregation. We prohibit employers from discriminating against women, but we don’t institute the support systems that would allow them to participate fully in the workplace. For example.
Democrats might be more willing than Republicans to regulate capitalism and erect levees against its worst offenses, but no policies can fully eradicate them without crumbling the system altogether.
Pundits have been trying to convince us, as they did in 2016, that Trump voters are economically aggrieved, not racist misogynists or transphobic monsters. Some are even trying to appeal to leftists with a call for working-class solidarity to overcome political division.
Fuck that.
Fuck class solidarity with anyone willing to stomp on the throats of people they think they don’t know just to bring down the price of eggs. Fuck reaching across the divide to a voter who watched months of transphobic ads and voted for a Republican because they believed it would lower their taxes. Fuck everyone who knows — and they know! — that Trump said immigrants were eating pets and voted for him because he promised imprisoning and deporting them would mean you get dibs on their job.
Fuck every voter who ignored those sounding the alarm on fascism and voted red because…gas is expensive?!
Yes, people are feeling an economic strain, especially since the chaos of the pandemic. Yes, prices need to come down, wages need to go up, social services need to be bolstered, jobs need to be stabilized and corporations need to be held accountable. We can scream all day long about how Democrats would have done those things better than the MAGA regime will do, because of course they would.
But it doesn’t matter.
Democrats will never be willing to throttle capitalism in America as much as is needed to relieve that economic strain. Americans will keep feeling the pinch of capitalists extracting our labor and resources and giving us less and less in return. And they’ll continue to oscillate between the two parties in hopes of someone somehow fixing the problem.
And they’ll continue to be willing to vote for Republicans even as the party embraces a violent despot, as it leans into a Christian nationalist playbook. They’ll continue to vote for Democrats even when the party is willing to swerve right to avoid looking like losers to billionaires. Because they want to win — or at least not lose the most — under capitalism. Because the only way to win under capitalism is to make sure someone else loses, and the right-wing playbook ensures there is always someone who will lose worse than they will.
(Until, of course, it doesn’t.)
Policies that tweak taxes and wages and benefits and retirement plans will never actually relieve the economic strain Americans are reminded of every four years. Because that strain is built into the system.
Political parties that continue to prop up the system to feel some sense of American exceptionalism — or whatever — will always do so at the expense of the American people, of all people.
This is not a time to lock arms with our neighbors who voted for Trump. That’s over. We gave them eight years and a nonstop barrage of free information to learn what their choice meant. And they chose him again. They chose him because they want more money and an easier life, and they don’t care who has to hurt for them to get it.
We gave them eight years and a nonstop barrage of free information to learn what their choice meant. And they chose him again.
If Democrats are unwilling to take not only an explicit stance against the fascism Trump will usher in but also a radical stance against the capitalist system that demands it, they will never defeat the life force of the MAGA movement. We’ll continue to dance between blatant destruction of our democratic rights and milquetoast attempts to preserve the illusion of them.
In the wake of this election, leftists are facing a choice, too: Will we continue to try to pull the Democratic party to the left and incrementally toward that radical stance? Or will we break free and do our own work on the ground to protect people in this moment from the fascism coming down the pike?
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I keep thinking about the mindset of voters who voted for Trump to ease their financial woes at the expense of women, minorities, and LGBTQ folks. The realization that my own safety ranks lower in the minds of voters than their tax bill makes me sick. And yet, I think this is what capitalism had made of citizenship today. Voters are savvy if they vote to improve their own financial position. Consumer capitalism has reduced notions of freedom and agency to the right to own the latest car model or a popular pair of shoes. It's coke vs Pepsi not democracy vs autocracy in the minds of many. And that's great for white men, but where does that leave the rest of us? To say that voting for Trump is better for my family because it may lower my taxes is to preference my consumer choices in the short term at the expense of our planet and the safety of millions of other humans, and a vote for a climate of fear.
This is the great irony, isn’t it? Trump will only increase the pressures people are feeling, and beat the drum of hatred to scapegoat immigrants and other marginalized groups (including those who are economically marginalized).
I lament the fact that we seem not to have learned the lessons of WWII and most don’t have an interest in studying these political cycles. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this story. But maybe each new generation has to experience it before they wake up to it?
The phrase “forgive them, for they know not what they do” keeps running through my head even though I’m not traditionally religious.
I’m also really curious about the fact that plain old misogyny doesn’t come up a lot in the punditry, when we know that’s a factor as well.