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.
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.
This article is very good and I believe that it is objectively correct in its callouts. I am, however, of the growing opinion that we really need to focus much more on the actual source of the problem: all the folks that continue to make POTUS and crew's existence possible. Without them, this may have been a very different tale.
In the spirit of that strategy, I took some liberties (please forgive me) editing your last few sentences:
"Roughly 40% of Americans will continue to claim prices are falling when they aren’t, because they don’t care whether prices are falling and are too myopic, self-centered and selfish to admit that they are lying to themselves. They will also occasionally rejoice in prices are up while doing everything they can to support policies that fleece and harm themselves."
"Roughly 40% of Americans are by and for the oligarchs — not least for the oil companies for whom war, death, and suffering have provided a windfall."
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.
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.
At least I learned a new word today.
Wastrel. "A wasteful or good-for-nothing person."
So many precise examples come to mind.
This article is very good and I believe that it is objectively correct in its callouts. I am, however, of the growing opinion that we really need to focus much more on the actual source of the problem: all the folks that continue to make POTUS and crew's existence possible. Without them, this may have been a very different tale.
In the spirit of that strategy, I took some liberties (please forgive me) editing your last few sentences:
"Roughly 40% of Americans will continue to claim prices are falling when they aren’t, because they don’t care whether prices are falling and are too myopic, self-centered and selfish to admit that they are lying to themselves. They will also occasionally rejoice in prices are up while doing everything they can to support policies that fleece and harm themselves."
"Roughly 40% of Americans are by and for the oligarchs — not least for the oil companies for whom war, death, and suffering have provided a windfall."
Peace be with you,
Mersh