Hours before the CNN presidential cage match, is it still about the economy, stupid?
This election––and perhaps the fate of America and the world–-hinges on whether Trump can keep his rightful anger in check. If he can, he has a shot. If he can't, we're toast.
Walgreens’ stock tanked today, down 25% at midday trading. Its CEO, Tim Wentworth, said the quiet part out loud: Americans are getting hammered by Bidenflation. He told CNBC, "We assumed ... in the second half that the consumer would get somewhat stronger…. That is not the case.… The consumer is absolutely stunned by the absolute prices of things.”
Democrats’ war on cops and refusal to prosecute misdemeanor theft—er, “shrink”—has only amplified retail inflation. It's no surprise that Wentworth plans to cut up to 25% of Walgreens stores, hurting the inner-city cohort Democrats claim to help.
According to Gallup, inflation remains the top concern of voters, followed closely by crime, homelessness, and the broken border, not the right to infanticide or that old, tired, anti-Semitic chestnut: “Trump is Hitler.” With his $7.3. trillion budget for 2025, including $4.9 trillion in new taxes, Joe Biden will purloin even more of your money to buy off votes from people you’ve never met. The President’s fiscal orgy will cause the U.S. debt to increase from today’s $34.5 trillion to $52.7 trillion by 2034. At the current rate, Medicare and Social Security trust funds will face automatic cuts when they deplete their cash reserves in 2031 and 2034, respectively.
The Federal Reserve has had to hike rates at the fastest rate in four decades to keep pace with the President’s drunken spending on forever wars, unfair student loan forgiveness, work-disincentivizing COVID relief long past when it was needed, and green new boondoggles like the deceitfully named Inflation Reduction Act. In the three years since Biden allocated $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, SEVEN have been built. In the three years since Biden allocated over $40 billion for broadband access, not one person has been served. A key culprit? Impossible Woke criteria that require contractors to hire felons—er, the “justice-impaired.”
Concurrently, the high interest rates needed to counter Biden’s profligacy have put homeownership out of reach for most Americans, as even the well-off have been forced to shop down at discount retailer Walmart. Higher wages aren’t helping because they are not keeping up with inflation.
It seems that the only persons making a net profit in Joe Biden’s America are those paid high-six-figure sums to police racist sexist Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates and a tiny cohort of investors building intergenerational wealth in AI-connected names––such as Nvidia, Palantir, and Super Micro Computer––that most Americans have never heard of nor have time nor inclination to study. With unemployment again rising, even as inflation remains sticky, a dark double economic tsunami is poised to hit American voters.
You can’t hide these realities––you see them every time you buy gas or milk––though paid Biden dissemblers in media, search, and social media will do their best to change the subject as their gag-happy lawfare pals prevent the other guy from fully defending himself or his record. For all his character flaws, Donald John Trump delivered historically low inflation, record-high labor participation, a safe border, record-fast COVID relief, and a world at relative peace. In a typical year, free of mass psychological derangement, and with such an abysmal record from the incumbent President, the election would not even be close.
But Trump’s a mean tweeter who correctly, if aggressively, called out Biden’s 2020 election interference scheme that got 51 CIA spooks to lie about Hunter’s laptop, ensuring Biden’s win. Polls showed that had Americans known the truth about Hunter's laptop--that it was real, not “Russian disinformation,” and contained damaging intel implicating Joe and Hunter in various crimes, including influence-peddling while Joe was Vice President--20% of Biden voters would not have voted for the President. Biden’s election interference was far more salutary, material, and deeply treasonous than anything Trump covered up with Stormy Daniels. But that won’t matter.
For today’s weak-kneed voter, feelings are facts. Perception is reality. And as Al Gore showed back in 2000, comportment matters, no matter how right you are on the issues.
Good luck, America. May you get the President you deserve.