Playing the Blame Game

THE STOCK MARKET is up, unemployment is down. Wages are up, inflation is down. And yet, we are told by the experts that surveys indicate that the economy, stupid, is the primary reason for Kamala's defeat at the hands of a convicted felon and his political party of insurrection-approval. As Festus Hagen used to say on "Gunsmoke": "I have my doubtfuls". Three fourths of the American people disapprove of their personal finances, and at fault is the American economy, and thus, American political leadership. Four years ago, only half of us the American people said this, at the end of Trump administration number one. Questioning the experts is not necessarily a matter of far right wing populist revolt. Sometimes it makes sense,especially when expertise is predicated exclusively upon opinions gleaned from Americans. A friend and neighbor of mine, from Guatemala, told me that he has noticed that for Americans, somebody else is always responsible for their hardships and unfortunate circumstances. During the fifty years I have been buying my own groceries, the price increase in food has been constant, relatively steady, and inexorable. No U.S. president has ever, by his lomesome, been held responsible for it. When prices rise, on anything, they rarely if ever go back down, despite Trump's campaign promises. Inflation has always been accepted as a fact of life. As one of my professors in graduate school put it: "they always clipped coins". Grover Cleveland-like, Don the Con J.Trump reenters the White House for a nonconsecutive presidency residency redux. Is it really the econcomy that got him there? Or are we really so infatuated with gangster like Al Capone and Jesse James that we prefer perfidy to virtue? If indeed the Democrats have gotten out of touch with the American working class it was by virtue of advocating for stronger labor unions, higher wages for blue collar workers, and improved working conditions across the board. The federal minimum wage remains a seven bucks and a quarter an hour, since 2009, not because of legislation sponsored by Democrats, one can rest assured. One can hardly imagine a stranger, less predictable way for a politcal party to get out of touch with the working class. If the Republicans party has for the first time ever has gotten itself in touch with the working class, it did so on the backs of resistance to labor unions, opposition to increase of the federal wage and wage increases for hourly blue collar workers, reduced corporate taxes, and tax breaks for billionaires. What a way to endear one's politcal party and economic agenda to the hard workers of America! One senses, if one is objective, that something else is going on. But what? Overwhelmingly, those defecting from decency to Trump are white. That's a start. Increasing numbers of Latin Americans legally in the United States resent the influx of their illegal countrymen. Okay, fine. So they voted for Trump. Why not? He promises to get rid of all eleven million of them, a promise neither he nor anyone else can keep, without creating mass chaos and sinking the American economy. Send several million farm workers and construction workers packing and see what happens to the price of eggs and houses. Why has there been a shift among African-Americans from Democrats to Trump? Well, its only a slight shift, and its black men, not women. We'll have to keep trying to figure that one out. Meanwhile, white men will continue to support Trump, and women of all shades will continue to oppose him, though in insufficient numbers to matter, and we can all comfort ourselves by pretending that racism and misyogyny have nothing to do with it.