A week before the election, my dad was visiting and talked to me about his gut feeling that former President Donald Trump might win. He was clear about his choice to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. “But what are they doing?” he asked me, exasperated.
“They need to level with people about the economy,” he continued. “I know so many people who can’t afford a place to live any more. People do not want to hear, ‘Well, actually the economy is good.’”
Then suddenly he pivoted away from Harris to liberals more generally, and away from the economy into culture.
“You know, another thing: I’m tired of feeling like I’m going to get jumped on for saying something wrong, for using the wrong words,” my dad confided, becoming uncharacteristically emotional. “I don’t want to say things that will offend anyone. I want to be respectful. But I think Trump is reaching a lot of people like me who didn’t learn a special way to talk at college and feel constantly talked down to by people who have.”
At 71 years old, my dad is still working full time, helping to run a delicatessen at a local farmers’ market. He didn’t go to college. Raised Mennonite and socially conservative, he is nonetheless open-minded and curious. When his cousins came out as gay in the 1980s, he accepted them for who they are.
“the economy is the best it’s ever been” for whom? I’m broke, worried about making rent and it’s Christmas season. The only thing I have to give is my usual “humbug” attitude as I worry about how I am going to manage after the holidays.
The economy sucks. Businesses aren’t people. They don’t have to worry about eating. I do. They don’t have to worry about missing a rent payment because they have credit. I don’t have enough. The entire system is rigged and the Democrats keep ignoring us. I hated Harris when she ran for herself but I voted for her because I didn’t want to lose my freedom - but with Dems it’s some other loss of freedom no one talks about or admits exists. We are practically bound to our work, many people us identify as the job we have. “Oh hi Bob, what do you do?” Is boomer code for knowing what kind of respect to give a person. Democrats support losing our identity to the industry that employs us.
Business centric politics is hurting the people who are making the business run.