I have many feelings...

I must confess: "undecided" voters who praise Donald Trump just utterly deplete me

I got forwarded this video of Black “undecided voters” from Georgia being interviewed by The Daily Mail’s James Johnson, who is the co-founder of a polling firm called J.L. Partners. And just for clarity, here is how his bio on the JL Partners website reads:

James Johnson is a New York City-based political adviser and pollster, having previously served as the Senior Opinion Research and Strategy Adviser to the British Prime Minister, Theresa May. In that capacity he conducted opinion research and private polling, and presented recommendations to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, as well as the rest of Whitehall and the Conservative Party. James now leads J.L. Partners USA LLC full-time, and is a frequent commentator on US political and commercial developments.

Just so we understand that we are talking about a conservative who professionally advises conservatives running for office. So just from the start, I have questions, including about how the members of this focus group was selected, and whether any of them are registered Republicans who came in not “undecided” at all, but already decided for Donald Trump.

That said, I think it’s worth unpacking what was said in this focus group, because it encompasses many of the things that deeply trouble me about an ongoing trend in our country’s politics, including among some Black Americans. First, here’s the clip:

Where to begin…

First, let’s get to this deeply embedded belief that “we had more money under Trump.” If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times and it is an article belief that has become deeply embedded within certain segments of the Black community.

And in fairness, everyone experiences these political eras in their own way. I wouldn’t presume to dismiss people’s personal experience if they genuinely recall feeling more financially sound when Trump was president. However, given Trump’s actual record as president, that assertion simply makes no sense to me.

In order to believe that that the economy was better under Trump than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — which it literally isn’t — you have to believe that during a global recession (that came on top of a weakening global and U.S. economy a full year before the COVID pandemic, exacerbated by Trump’s tariffs, which raised the price of literally everything and triggered massive spending on farm subsidies to make U.S. farmers whole and the resulting inflation … you somehow had more money, even if you weren’t rich. This despite Trump’s almost criminal mismanagement of the worst pandemic since the "Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918 — resulting in the literal shutdown of the U.S. and global economy, with unemployment spiking to above 14 percent and thousands of American businesses literally disappearing. I’m sorry, please tell me how anyone who isn’t a billionaire “had more money in their pockets” during Trump’s administration.

Where did this money come from?

Are you about to say “the stimmy???” Ok this is where I start to throw things. Sorry to burst the bubble of your cherished memories of an era in which north of a million fellow Americans died unnecessarily because their president lied to them repeatedly and hid the fact that he knew the COVID virus was airborne but he wanted to play it down because it was an election year. While essential workers were risking death in meatpacking plants and behind the counter in the few retail stores that were open, and the rest of us were locked in our basement hoarding masks and toilet paper, afraid to go near our elders lest we cough on them and kill them and folks were struggling to teach their kids “the new mat” at home, Trump was actively fighting the CARES Act. When he finally got on board, he wound up delaying the stimmy payments by months so he could force his name onto the Treasury Department checks above the line where only the Treasury Secretary’s name usually goes. It was, I’ve got to admit, a savvy political move by the ever theatrical Trump, designed to make people like so many we’ve all encoutered, give him the credit that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats actually deserve.

What Trump didn’t want to take credit responsibility for is the mass death under his watch, which left the U.S. with the highest COVID death count in the world.

Number of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths worldwide as of May 2, 2023, by country and territory

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Sorry to all the dead pastors who convened church because the Orange Godhead told them it was cool. A lot of their parishioners died too, and a lot of kids. But you know … all good, yeah? To say nothing of all those right wing podcasters who refused to get vaccinated and met their maker. Rest in power Diamond, or is it Silk? Trump couldn’t remember which was which at the funeral so why should you or I, right fam???

The bottom line is that by every available statistic, plus basic freaking logic, YOU MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT HAVE MORE MONEY UNDER TRUMP unless you were already a billionaire. Meanwhile, Americans suffered tremendously during the Trump years and more than a million are dead and gone because of Trump.

And yet, this myth that ordinary people were better off under his failed leadership persists.

Perhaps I’m being ungenerous. There’s plenty. of anecdotal evidence that whilst sitting home cashing those ‘stimmy” checks, many low-income Americans of all races FELT richer. Particularly when coupled with the other policies passed during the pandemic by Pelosi and the Democrats: the expanded child tax credit, which while it was in place lifted millions of families with children out of poverty. Lots of people who lost their jobs during the pandemic even took the opportunity with their day jobs canceled to reinvent themselves during COVID, starting businesses or earning money on TikTok or IG. Weird as it sounds, for many Americans, the pandemic was the best of times AND the worst of times.

Which is why so many people, including some Black folks, remember the “Trump era” fondly. As crazy as that sounds.

But here’s the thing: the economic benefits I just described, and the core belief that trodding off in the driven snow, heat, hail or rain, or in the midst of an airborne, deadly virus to get on the wheel and work for low pay and no benefits is not a reasonable way for non-rich people to live? Those are standard Democratic beliefs and policies, not Trump or Republican beliefs or policies. Which is why House and Senate Republicans fought the $2,000 stimulus checks to the end of 2020. And it’s why continued stimmy checks were proposed by the Biden Harris administration literally on Inauguration Day, 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan that was passed by the Pelosi House and the newly minted Democratic majority Senate, thanks to the two brand new Georgia Senators and signed into law by President Biden that March. And here what you need to know about that:

The final vote was 50-49, with all Democrats voting in favor of the bill and all Republicans voting against it. The passage of the bill was met with cheers and applause from Democrats, celebrating the passage of one of Mr. Biden's key priorities. Vice President Kamala Harris did not need to visit the Capitol to break any ties, as GOP Senator Dan Sullivan left due to a family emergency on Friday.

In other words, Democrats gave you those stimmy checks and it is they who continued them.

And VP Harris had to break at least 30 Senate ties to get policies through to help ordinary Americans, when Republicans stood like a wall Mexico didn’t pay for and tried to block them. She broke so many ties as vice president, she set a record.

And when Republicans got control of the House back, they promptly went back to badgering Americans to get back to work, with some Republicans even saying out loud that maybe if Americans were made to be hungry, that would incentivize them to get off their lazy asses and work. And just this spring, Senate Republicans blocked the continuation and expansion of that child tax credit. JD Vance: Mr. “Get on your back and have babies, or I’ll smear you as a childless cat lady” didn’t even bother to show up to vote.

Republicans oppose giving poor kids free school lunch, for God’s sake. What makes you think they, or their master gives two hearty shits about non-rich Black people? And what makes anyone think that if placed back in office as our King, Trump would start spontaneously issuing stimulus checks, even if the Constitution didn’t explicitly say only the House of Representatives can initiate spending? On what basis would those checks be issued? COVID is now endemic, not a pandemic. There is no fiscal emergency necessitating a stimulus, since we are in more than a recovery — the U.S. economy is the strongest economy in the world, under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Make it make sense!

The idea that anyone, particularly any Black or Brown person, was better off under an insanely hateful and divisive president who was responsible for historic mass death, who banned and smeared Muslims, slimed Black countries, unleashed the police with zero federal accountability, and eventually tried to overthrow the government using a racist mob that slung the n-word at Black Capitol Police Officers is frankly insane.

I guess, again to be generous, the people saying these things are isolating themselves from everything else that happened during the Trump years and just reminiscing about their “pockets.” And also dismissing the dangers of a literal fascist theocracy on the vain hope that Donald Trump will send them a check again. (This time for no reason at all.)

That would be frustrating enough. But then you throw in the women on the panel who questioned whether the sitting vice president of the United States is quite ready, or tough enough to lead. One panelist even said Kamala Harris could not hold a candle to Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama. Now, I might give it to you that Secretary Clinton was, despite being a former first lady, one of the most qualified people ever to run for president, between her roles as a United States Senator and Secretary of State. And Michelle Obama is a literal human phenomenon and rightfully perhaps the single most admired woman in America, but having never held public office, on what basis are these folks presuming she would perform better as president than the woman CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE SECOND MOST POWERFUL ELECTED OFFICIAL IN THE U.S.???

OK now my head hurts…

Another point brought up by one of the women on the panel is that Trump just seems to know what he’s doing, probably because he is “business minded.” This gets to perhaps my biggest pet peeve about how Americans writ large, not just Black Americans — most Americans — view politics: this idea that “America should be run like a business,” so businessmen just naturally make good presidents.

Really? Ok let’s go through the history of “businessman presidents.” In the 20th and 21st Century there have been TIME Magazine? Your witness:

Surprisingly, four presidents who had successful business careers — Hoover, both Bushes and Carter — “had the four worst records in terms of gross domestic product performance,” Robert S. McElvaine, history professor at Milsaps College in Jackson, Miss., has argued in the Washington Post “The only president since Hoover with business experience under whom the economy did well was the one who was unsuccessful in business: Harry Truman, whose haberdashery shop went bankrupt after two years.”

If history tells us anything, then Trump will have a lot of work to do.

Warren Harding (1921-23): conservative newspaper publisher in Ohio for 39 years before becoming president — As president he weakened the economy by slashing taxes on big business and the wealthy. The Teapot Dome bribery scandal happened during his presidency and he was one of the three Republican presidents (Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover) presiding in the lead-up to the Great Depression. Score: NOT SUCCESSFUL.

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933): Mining magnate and Stanford geology major who worked as a mining engineer and opened his own mining consulting business. His fortune came from owning Burmese silver mines and publishing a leading textbook on mining engineering. As president, he let Wall Street run wild, cut taxes on big business and presided over the Great Depression. Score: NOT SUCCESSFUL.

Harry S. Truman (1945-1953): Mining and oil investor and failed haberdasher. From TIME:

In 1916, he invested in a lead and zinc mine in Commerce, Okla., “hoping to cash in on a rise in metal prices caused by the war,” a PBS American Experience doc notes. He also invested in oil wells in the state. And from 1919 to 1922, the Democrat and Missouri native sold men’s clothing in Kansas City. None of the businesses were successful.

Truman’s presidency, however? He completed the victory in World War II started by his predecessor FDR (using a war crime: nuking Nagasaki and Hiroshima) and inherited FDR’s economic boom. Failed businessman, but score for his presidency? SUCCESSFUL.

Jimmy Carter (1976-1980): Peanut farmer. Carter inherited his family’s 2,500-acre Georgia peanut farm after his father died in 1954. Per TIME: “After a drought rendered the crop useless, TIME reported in 1971, Carter ‘stepped up’ his father’s ‘practice of buying local farmers‘ peanuts, then selling in bulk to the big processors,’ which led Carter Warehouse to gross $800,000 annually by 1971, up from a mere $184 when Carter started.” As president, Carter cut his financial ties to the peanut farm (because he actually is a good, decent man.) But he faced an economy stalled by slow growth and inflation. He secured an historic peace deal between Israel and Egypt, but on the economy, his one-term presidency was deemed: NOT SUCCESSFUL.

George H.W. Bush (elected 1988): Oilman. From TIME: “The Republican got into the oil business as a salesperson for Dresser Industries and then co-founded Bush-Overbey Oil Development Co. and Zapata Petroleum Corp. in the 1950, and made about a million dollars selling his holdings in 1966, as TIME and LIFE reported back then.” As president, he inherited Reagan’s tax hikes for the rich-induced recession, and responded by raising taxes — a sin for which he was not re-elected. His one-term presidency is considered: NOT SUCCESSFUL.

George W. Bush (2000-2008): Oilman and managing partner of the Texas Rangers. Following in his father’s footsteps, he founded an oil company called Arbusto (Spanish for “Bush”) in 1977 and merged it with an oil-drilling company called Spectrum in 1984. Sadly, Arbusto went “el busto” so he’s considered a failed oilman. Still, he made enough money to buy the Texas Rangers MLB team with a group of investors in 1989 and per TIME, “led the campaign to build the baseball team a new stadium, which increased the value of his holdings so much that when ‘his group sold the Rangers in 1998, Bush’s initial $500,000 investment paid him almost $15 million.’” As president though, he presided over a war in Iraq based on lies and a massive tax cut for the rich and big business that tipped the U.S. into The Great Recession which President Obama had to dig us out of. Ruling: NOT SUCCESSFUL.

Donald Trump (1917-1921) - Failed real estate developer whose businesses went bankrupt six times, got a job on NBC’s The Apprentice which made him famous enough to become president anyway, New York AG Tish James had to shut down his his fake charity and his fake university that scammed thousands of people, and his real estate development company was found liable for fraud and tax evasion and currently owes the State of New York a half-billion-dollar judgement and his current venture, Truth Social, is tanking on the stock market. But hey, now he’s also selling NFTs and crypto, suckers! As president he apparently took a cash bribe from Egypt, milked the presidency for cash and presided over a recession caused by his own failed response to the COVID pandemic. Ruling: NOT SUCCESSFUL.

Also how can he be a good businessman when he doesn’t even know what a tariff is???

Bottom line:

America has rarely placed a businessman in the White House. Most of our previous presidents have been longtime politicians, lawyers or military generals. Donald Trump actually was America’s historical experiment in what happens when you run America like a business and put a businessman (let alone one who has taken his own businesses into bankruptcy a half dozen times, in power.

And ask any historian. The experiment was a dismal failure. Your favorite businessman president is ranked dead last among every other president the U.S. has ever had.

So please, share with me your evidence that America should be run like Trump Inc or any business. And then please, let me know how much you love your job, your boss, and the company you work for and how desperately you want all of America to be run just like it.

I’ll wait.

And I’ll be extremely annoyed the whole time.