The “affordability hoax” connects directly to the gradient I’ve been documenting: some people are people, some people are variables.
Trump’s “we make a lot of money when oil prices go up” isn’t gaffe, it’s revealed preference. Oligarchical extraction class (oil executives, defense contractors, Kushner Gulf deals) profit from chaos. American consumers are variables to be managed through lies. — Remember when Trump said he loves the uneducated, yeah, exactly.
Extraction as strategy.
The sequencing shows priority: gut consumer protections while launching war that spikes gas prices. Then claim high prices are good because “we” (oligarchs) profit.
Protect hierarchy, not people. Same logic that got us civilian casualty offices gutted before bombing Iranian schools.
Oil $100/barrel benefits Russia (Trump won’t criticize Putin), hurts Americans (gas $3.70), enriches connected class. Not failure of policy, successful extraction wearing governance as costume.
The hoax wasn’t promising affordability. The hoax is pretending government exists to serve anyone outside the protected tier.
Liked you comment: "Oil $100/barrel benefits Russia (Trump won’t criticize Putin), hurts Americans (gas $3.70), enriches connected class. Not failure of policy, successful extraction wearing governance as costume." You named the problem, but still missed the bigger picture. Putin and Russia have paid Trump's bills for decades. I lived in Russia when Putin assumed power, heck I even gave him a powerpoint presentation when he was the Vice Mayor of St. Petersburg and only a few years before he and his KGB buddies took control of Russia - politics, finances, military, and so on. Yes, this benefits Russia - just like almost everything else Trump does.
And it benefits Russia in another way as well. I think that the Iran war is a distraction to deplete our stores of ammunition and to try to draw Europe in as well to distract and deplete and delay their ability to support Ukraine. America appears to be a client state of Russia. Putin must be rejoicing in his success in corrupting our country. Have we ever fallen hard. Sickening.
If we manage to survive all this and get a real government again we can't afford to have any mercy for the people who enabled him OR the ones who voted for him.
Thanks for writing and I completely agree. It is not until gas reaches $6 a gallon that some Americans will give up the Trump hoax and start to deal with reality. Warm Wishes, Elizabeth
This constant lying has somehow become - “Oh, it’s just Trump being Trump” - acceptable … like (thanks to Trump) rape, fraud, racism, misogyny, and the massacre of the English language.
Dang, even if someone was only half paying attention during the movie Ferris Bueller…
Economics Teacher (played by Ben Stein): “In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.”
Another time when the oligarchs (and republicans) drove us into a depression.
As long as he, his complicit family, and wealthy friends and supporters are raking in money at our expense he feels that everything is wonderful- the only way that he will admit that the economy is not stable would be if all of the above began to feel the same pain that we do. He insults all of us who work hard to support our families and are frightened by the ways in which his bullying of other countries are affecting our financial stability.
You know the guy who lied to get on Forbes 400 list and had John Barron, VP of Finance, call Forbes....you know he (and John Barron) are dying to scream from the rooftops about how rich he is now. Didn't he once tell his crowd "I'm really rich..." ? It's killing him that he can't brag about how much richer he is since returning to the WH.
And for the extremely wealthy, it often seems as though they are never fulfilled with their financial bounty, never able to say that they have more money than they will ever need, never look around them at the tremendous need and take steps to eradicate that need. I am not saying that all who are wealthy have this attitude but the Trump family sure does!
Every single Democratic campaign (for every office) should take these sneering soundbites at working people and play them on an endless loop between now and the November elections.
Trump “thinks the electorate is too stupid to notice his lies” and, unfortunately, he seems to be right. Of course, it doesn’t help the people he is hurting that they are so busy trying to make ends meet, they don’t have time to be fully informed and if they had a bit of time to be so, they turn to corporate (=oligarch)-owned propaganda media.
Who would have ever thought that a born wealthy, Billionaire Real Estate / con-man / Former Casino owner, Resorts owner / Most Friendly to two dictators / Lies all the time / Broke every oath, vow, contract, treaty he ever signed or inherited / habitually does not pay his contractors or lawyers / is most well known for firing people / Prime political positions were based on a conspiracy theory about Obama's birthplace and how dangerously violent immigrants are... would not be most concerned with the well being of 'regular folk' or keeping his promises to them?
ALL of this was well known in 2016. Since then Trump has repeatedly proven how corrupt and incompetent he is time and again, but hey, he at least figured out that by catering to the most hate filled people in our nation, their greediest impulses, telling people what they most want to hear, and boldly lying about his opponents accusing them of everything possible... that he could get elected. Twice. Even after staging an insurrection to stay in power.
I sincerely hope the people, those 'swing voters' who like to make their mind up about each candidate based on their current feelings about their personal financial situation... Ignoring all past events or things done that take time to have an effect... might have gotten a wake up call that that particular strategy for choosing a President might not have been the best way of going about it.
Yes, so much better to have picked a 'strong viril' (very old, sexist) man over an extremely competent old man who was able to answer questions with complete sentences and without insults, or (god forbid) a Black Woman.
Sorry, but choices have consequences, and that includes choices where you don't put much effort into making the choices. Sometimes, just sometimes... when we make a bad choice, we can accept that it was a bad choice and maybe, just maybe learn to look for different ways to make better choices in the future.
After the fall of Trumpism, no matter how long it takes, we need to hold the equivalent of the Nuremburg trials for the cruel and criminal thugs who are destroying America.
The “affordability hoax” connects directly to the gradient I’ve been documenting: some people are people, some people are variables.
Trump’s “we make a lot of money when oil prices go up” isn’t gaffe, it’s revealed preference. Oligarchical extraction class (oil executives, defense contractors, Kushner Gulf deals) profit from chaos. American consumers are variables to be managed through lies. — Remember when Trump said he loves the uneducated, yeah, exactly.
Extraction as strategy.
The sequencing shows priority: gut consumer protections while launching war that spikes gas prices. Then claim high prices are good because “we” (oligarchs) profit.
Protect hierarchy, not people. Same logic that got us civilian casualty offices gutted before bombing Iranian schools.
Oil $100/barrel benefits Russia (Trump won’t criticize Putin), hurts Americans (gas $3.70), enriches connected class. Not failure of policy, successful extraction wearing governance as costume.
The hoax wasn’t promising affordability. The hoax is pretending government exists to serve anyone outside the protected tier.
—Johan
Liked you comment: "Oil $100/barrel benefits Russia (Trump won’t criticize Putin), hurts Americans (gas $3.70), enriches connected class. Not failure of policy, successful extraction wearing governance as costume." You named the problem, but still missed the bigger picture. Putin and Russia have paid Trump's bills for decades. I lived in Russia when Putin assumed power, heck I even gave him a powerpoint presentation when he was the Vice Mayor of St. Petersburg and only a few years before he and his KGB buddies took control of Russia - politics, finances, military, and so on. Yes, this benefits Russia - just like almost everything else Trump does.
And it benefits Russia in another way as well. I think that the Iran war is a distraction to deplete our stores of ammunition and to try to draw Europe in as well to distract and deplete and delay their ability to support Ukraine. America appears to be a client state of Russia. Putin must be rejoicing in his success in corrupting our country. Have we ever fallen hard. Sickening.
If we manage to survive all this and get a real government again we can't afford to have any mercy for the people who enabled him OR the ones who voted for him.
I couldn't agree more. The compromises made after our Revolutionary and Civil Wars have come back to bite us. I say "no quarter" for the traitors!
Thanks for writing and I completely agree. It is not until gas reaches $6 a gallon that some Americans will give up the Trump hoax and start to deal with reality. Warm Wishes, Elizabeth
This constant lying has somehow become - “Oh, it’s just Trump being Trump” - acceptable … like (thanks to Trump) rape, fraud, racism, misogyny, and the massacre of the English language.
Dang, even if someone was only half paying attention during the movie Ferris Bueller…
Economics Teacher (played by Ben Stein): “In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.”
Another time when the oligarchs (and republicans) drove us into a depression.
As long as he, his complicit family, and wealthy friends and supporters are raking in money at our expense he feels that everything is wonderful- the only way that he will admit that the economy is not stable would be if all of the above began to feel the same pain that we do. He insults all of us who work hard to support our families and are frightened by the ways in which his bullying of other countries are affecting our financial stability.
You know the guy who lied to get on Forbes 400 list and had John Barron, VP of Finance, call Forbes....you know he (and John Barron) are dying to scream from the rooftops about how rich he is now. Didn't he once tell his crowd "I'm really rich..." ? It's killing him that he can't brag about how much richer he is since returning to the WH.
And for the extremely wealthy, it often seems as though they are never fulfilled with their financial bounty, never able to say that they have more money than they will ever need, never look around them at the tremendous need and take steps to eradicate that need. I am not saying that all who are wealthy have this attitude but the Trump family sure does!
Every single Democratic campaign (for every office) should take these sneering soundbites at working people and play them on an endless loop between now and the November elections.
At least I learned a new word today.
Wastrel. "A wasteful or good-for-nothing person."
So many precise examples come to mind.
Trump “thinks the electorate is too stupid to notice his lies” and, unfortunately, he seems to be right. Of course, it doesn’t help the people he is hurting that they are so busy trying to make ends meet, they don’t have time to be fully informed and if they had a bit of time to be so, they turn to corporate (=oligarch)-owned propaganda media.
Who would have ever thought that a born wealthy, Billionaire Real Estate / con-man / Former Casino owner, Resorts owner / Most Friendly to two dictators / Lies all the time / Broke every oath, vow, contract, treaty he ever signed or inherited / habitually does not pay his contractors or lawyers / is most well known for firing people / Prime political positions were based on a conspiracy theory about Obama's birthplace and how dangerously violent immigrants are... would not be most concerned with the well being of 'regular folk' or keeping his promises to them?
ALL of this was well known in 2016. Since then Trump has repeatedly proven how corrupt and incompetent he is time and again, but hey, he at least figured out that by catering to the most hate filled people in our nation, their greediest impulses, telling people what they most want to hear, and boldly lying about his opponents accusing them of everything possible... that he could get elected. Twice. Even after staging an insurrection to stay in power.
I sincerely hope the people, those 'swing voters' who like to make their mind up about each candidate based on their current feelings about their personal financial situation... Ignoring all past events or things done that take time to have an effect... might have gotten a wake up call that that particular strategy for choosing a President might not have been the best way of going about it.
Yes, so much better to have picked a 'strong viril' (very old, sexist) man over an extremely competent old man who was able to answer questions with complete sentences and without insults, or (god forbid) a Black Woman.
Sorry, but choices have consequences, and that includes choices where you don't put much effort into making the choices. Sometimes, just sometimes... when we make a bad choice, we can accept that it was a bad choice and maybe, just maybe learn to look for different ways to make better choices in the future.
After the fall of Trumpism, no matter how long it takes, we need to hold the equivalent of the Nuremburg trials for the cruel and criminal thugs who are destroying America.
Is that 40% stupid, ignorant, mean-spirited OR all of the above? They certainly are rabid.