The Economy?

 

Remember James Carville’s Clinton era campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid”?

Well, as Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does”. None of us are immune from saying and doing stupid things. But many of us seem to enjoy the liberating feeling of being stupid and not knowing it. Enter the Dunning Kruger Effect, named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger. They described the cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a given area of expertise overestimate their abilities.

This applies to our politics more than ever. What many voters think they know is far less than what they actually know. Everyone who took Trump at his word unwittingly embraced this effect. But Trump’s true believers aren’t the only ones suffering from this quirk of cognition. Enough swing voters also fell into the effect. They didn’t bother to educate themselves about Trump’s crime spree and propensity to be a pathological liar. They likely spent less time thinking about how to vote as I did while writing this little essay.

I’m going to argue that believing falsehoods and ignorance of vital information affected the election more than anything else. So naturally the economy has become the media punditry’s explanation for Trump’s win over Kamala Harris. After all, there was a serious rise of inflation. The fact that it was brought down didn’t get the same attention.

Pro-Trump and corpo-media did an excellent job of blaming Biden for post-pandemic supply chain issues that aggravated global inflation, while the Democrats did a poor job in messaging its causes. The economy is strong, manufacturing is up, and unemployment is low, but we are still stuck with the higher prices elevated by global inflation and corporate greed. 

Yes, inflation was a factor, but I reject that simple excuse as the most significant influence.

The reality is Republicans are better at propaganda. They have their own mendacious media empire to catapult the propaganda. Hell, they’ve even had Russia in their corner since Trump came along. The most powerful weapon to destabilize the US was dropped into Putin’s lap.

True to the authoritarian playbook, Republicans and the far-Right mastered scapegoating and the blame game. Democrats were weak in both their own defense and offense, as in framing their opposition as a threat to democracy, decency, the rule of law, and the truth.

Democrats should have run footage of J6 and Trump’s praise for his thugs 24/7 throughout all of October. They didn’t. They failed to exploit the far Right’s greatest flaw.

Merrick Garland’s painfully slow initiative in investigating Trump’s crimes took its toll. The final nail in justice’s coffin was hammered in by Trump’s authoritarian and corrupt partisan allies on the Supreme Court.  “Presidential immunity” was never a thing in the history of the republic, until the derelict Court decided to reject our ideal of equal justice under law and openly enable Trump’s criminal behavior. How the hell did these NOT have profound significance in the election?

I suggest there are several more factors that had far more influence than the economy. Apathy, ignorance, emotional manipulation, and the intellectually lazy and incurious low information voters all took a toll.

It’s the disinformation, stupid.

Trump’s endless stream of lies was amplified by both corporate media and his sycophantic propagandists. Mike Flynn’s Q-Anon domestic psy-ops fed his gullible marks massive troves of lies and wacky conspiracy theories like “Pizza-gate”. Youtube pushed this disinformation exponentially.

It’s the hate, stupid.

Trump’s rallies were nothing but extended Orwellian “Two Minute Hate” rallies, inciting constant anger, and fueling groundless scapegoating and blame in the minds of his gullible true believers. The free press was called the “enemy of the people” while Democrats and judges holding him accountable were labeled “the enemy within”.

It’s corporate media’s “horse race” normalization and “sanewashing” of a criminal, stupid.

Age was a critical issue with Biden, but magically not for Trump. Trump’s obvious criminal behavior and resulting indictments were basically ignored after his circus of lies and outrageous rhetoric became the next day’s headlines.

It’s social media, stupid.

Twitter, facebook gossip, and Trump’s so-called “Truth Social” became primary sources of disinformation for duped buffoons who “did their own research”.

Exhibit A: “They’re eating the dogs in Springfield!”, howled the man who sent an angry mob to storm and desecrate the Capitol, terrorize Congress, and beat cops bloody to overturn a fair election he lost.

 Exhibit B: Many Trump voters didn't understand the consequences of their support for Trump until it was too late. Google searches for "How to change my vote" and "Will tariffs cause inflation" spiked after Trump won. Searches for "Did Joe Biden drop out" popped up on Election Day!

In short, “It’s the stupidity, stupid”.