No, sorry, but you don’t get to say that four years later.
The economy got trashed in his last year… but remember how the sparse economic relief that were carried through the democratic congress got completely wiped out as soon as Biden took office? When the democrats took away the child tax credit childhood poverty doubled overnight. And you may say the cause of the inflation was Trump’s mismanagement (And it wasn’t. The supply chain breakdown would have happened no matter who was in office.) what was the democratic response? Fucking Chicago school.
What’s happening is the US empire is not so slowly rotting and material conditions are deteriorating. That’s independent of what party is in power. But both parties are wedded to capital. And voters are hopping from one foot to the other while standing on that hot skillet trying to find relief. You’re not going to find it without overthrowing capitalism. This is the barbarism we were warning you about.
And it wasn’t. The supply chain breakdown would have happened no matter who was in office
if i remember correctly, COVID brought our inflation up to roughly 6%. then the Ukrainian war took it the rest of way where it peaked near 9% (over 10% in my home state)
these things would have happened anyway, although choosing to prolong the Ukrainian war as long as possible most definitely increased inflation. people think we only gave 2 or 3 hundred billion, but realistically the American public has paid more than a trillion in the invisible tax that is inflation. hundreds of thousands of layoffs because of higher interest rates are also connected to this
Let’s not forget that a large part of the inflation, and especially on food and housing, was driven by pure greed and opportunism from the capitalists that control those basic necessities. And that’s something that could have been prevented with tools that capital permitted under Ronald Fucking Reagan.
it’s an eternal battle. every once in a while we pass legislation to try and reign in corporate power. like for example the anti trust act in the early 1900s
the issue is that public attention is temporary. eventually we move on to the next crisis and people forget. grow complacent.
corporate interest, however, is eternal. it’s persistent and never gives up. it keeps pushing, infallibly, in order to weaken the structures meant to reign in their power. whether by legislation/policy (AT&T and friends unilaterally killing Net Neutrality some years back, Disney signing into law expansion of copyright, etc) or through more subtle methods (buying politicians and getting people into positions of power that have no intention of enforcing the laws)
this is inevitably what happens with every democracy. eventually the vigilance fails and the structures of power are hijacked by opportunists.
although having said all that, I don’t think greed had much to do with the inflation we saw. Sure, some companies took advantage and raised prices more than they needed to just to inflate that extra juicy profit margin.
but realistically we’re headed to war and war means massive government spending which means inflation
That’s the advantage of the 2 party system. There is no other way out except revolution. In most European countries there is still an irrational but valid hope for regular reform through regular political means. Those countries are fated to linger on like this a little longer.
