If you ask the Republicans how it’s going financially for the average American you’ll get the usual song and dance that the Democrats have run the economy into the ground and that everyone is hurting due to the ‘budget deficit.’ The BUDGET DEFICIT! The horror! Both Gallup and the Pew Research Center found just 1 in 5 rated the economy as either excellent or good.
Last Friday’s November jobs report showed that nearly 200,000 jobs were added, and the unemployment rate has fallen below 4% for 22 MONTHS IN A ROW. And gas prices have once again dipped below $3/gallon.
According to the National Retail Federation (yes, there is such a thing) a record 200.4 million consumers shopped over the five-day holiday weekend from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, surpassing last year’s record of 196.7 million. And a record $38 billion was spent, up 8% from last year.
I will say that the American people’s appetite for credit card spending might be contributing to these massive numbers but people still seem OK to line up at Starbucks everyday to spend over $5 on their mochas and $10 for a Double-Double combo at In-N-Out Burger. It doesn’t appear that box stores like Target, Home Depot, or Lowe’s are hurting, either.
And yet, according to MSNBC, when pollsters ask people how they think the economy is doing, they don’t just express concern. They say the economy is terrible, and a full 75% of Republicans said the economy is “getting worse.” Are these the same people with giant houses and $75,000 oversized pickup trucks?
According to an Emerson College poll, 44% of younger voters find the economy to be the most important issue facing the United States. Voters under 30 were also asked what concerns them most in an open-ended response. The top words mentioned were ‘inflation’ (94 mentions), ‘economy’ (71 mentions), and ‘money’ (49 mentions); the words ‘worried’ or ‘concerned’ were mentioned 67 times.
Even more troubling is that President Biden trails former President Donald Trump, 43% to 47%, with 9% of voters undecided. Granted, Biden has slipped in the polls due to the situation in Israel (I’m not thrilled with that situation, either) but it’s not enough to toss my vote to the autocratic pussy-grabber. Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said “The financial concerns and emotional strain among younger voters regarding the cost of living are influencing their perception of President Biden’s leadership. Some are losing confidence, not necessarily shifting to Trump, but exploring third-party options,” which translates to a vote for the orangemanthug.
On Saturday, a new Wall Street Journal poll shows that President Biden’s political standing is at its weakest point of his presidency with voters giving him his lowest job-performance marks and favoring Donald Trump for the first time in a head-to-head test of the likely 2024 presidential matchup. For instance, Aimee Kozlowski, 53 years old, of Goffstown, N.H., a Republican who plans to vote for the former president, said her competitive gymnastics facility has been hurt as parents look to cut costs because of inflation. “Things were thriving under Trump. This country is a business and it needs to be run by a businessman.” The article goes on to say Biden’s party also carries a tarnished image. While voters view both parties unfavorably, negative views of the Democratic Party outweigh positive ones by 18 percentage points, compared with a 13-point gap for Republicans. Republicans have opened a 5-point lead on which party voters would back in congressional races next year. The parties had been essentially tied in August.
I’ll leave you with some humor from Lee Papa’s writing. He filled out the Project 2025 questionnaire for the conservative 2025 Presidential Transition Project Talent Database. As he said in his post, "Fuck it," I thought. I'll fill out their little bullshit questionnaire. And so I did. I gave my address as the same as Trump Tower, and then I got to work on the essay part.
And now…