It's even simpler than that: people saw that the economy was good for a large part of Trump's presidency and it was in a bumpy state during Biden's presidency.
They aren't intelligent enough to realize that correlation != causation. Add to that the whole "Trump is rich and a businessman so he must know what he's doing in terms of financials".
There are multiple financial organisations that did deep calculation on both candidates their policy and Harris' policies were going to be invariably better for the economy, even for the lower working class. But people won't listen to that, they'll just go by gut feel.
Its the logical conclusion to the distrust in the academic & political class that has been building since the early 2010s. Not only in America, in Europe too. A big part of it is that for the first time since the late 80s, many aspects of life are stagnating or declining in the West. So why would people vote for the status quo parties?
Especially for Democrats / left parties in Europe, Maslow's hierarchy of needs works into it: why would you vote for a party that gives laughable DEI issues (blacklist/whitelist > blocklist/allowlist) equal amounts of ink as "let's make sure people can pay their rent."
Sadly the only solution is to care harder, even if it feels horrible to continuously be the bigger man. If you let the bottom part of the electorate wither, they'll drag on us like an anchor and make us all drown.
Do you really think minorities (who are generally of a lower socio-economic status) care more about being called a slur than having a roof over their head and being able to pay their groceries? Or that women care more about the ratio of male-female CEOs and senators rather than if they themselves are getting paid a livable wage?
People like to pretend policy isn't zero sum, but it is. Governments have finite budgets. People have finite attention spans. Thus things must be prioritized. Rent, finances, food, health, these need to be prioritized. Once everyone is doing good on those points, you can move up the pyramid.
People, including women, Latino & Afro Americans voted for Trump specifically because they don't care about these issues. These are non issues for the majority of Americans.
I agree with you that people who are actually starving care much more about having food than being treated as equal citizens.
But lets be real. People are not starving. Homelessness, yes, because the housing market is fucked -- which is not directly the GOP or the Dem's fault, and not something Trump or Harris would be able to "just fix" -- but food is heavily subsidized in the US, though what the poor have access to is mostly processed garbage food which is why they suffer from many more health problems than the wealthier. (This is a huge problem which neither party is addressing.)
What's also interesting is the poorest segment in the US, under $30K, who might be the closest to "starving" (as a euphemism), voted primarily Democrat this election.
Having said all the above, I do agree with you that having a roof over your head is much more important to most people than being treated equally, and that economic equality is the biggest problem in our country.
Unfortunately, Trump doesn't give a shit about economic equality. And the Dems only pay lip service to economic equality. After all, it's a feature, not a bug, of capitalism.
So since Trump isn't going to fix that problem -- in fact will make it worse (judging by his first term), plus the fact that "do we really care about human decency and values so little that we're willing to put a despicable human being -- by all accounts -- as our leader?" I can't stomach that even if Trump was the Second Coming of Christ as his cultist Evangelical followers seem to think.
> And the Dems only pay lip service to economic equality.
This is simply not true. It's not Democrats who keep making income taxes less progressive. It's not Democrats who refuse to pass a refundable child tax credit. It's not Democrats who attack programs like SNAP. It's not Democrats who pass right-to-work laws and bust unions. It's not Democrats who fight student loan forgiveness. It's not Democrats who try to repeal the ACA. It's not Democrats who fight minimum wage increases.
We live in a country where whatever Democrats try to do for the poor, they get attacked for being socialists or communists.
Yes, sometimes Democrats make mistakes. Sometimes they pass bad policy. But Democrats do more than pay lip service. Things we wouldn't have without Democrats: Social Security, Medicare (with an assist from Eisenhower), Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP), ACA, the child tax credit.
They aren't intelligent enough to realize that correlation != causation. Add to that the whole "Trump is rich and a businessman so he must know what he's doing in terms of financials".
There are multiple financial organisations that did deep calculation on both candidates their policy and Harris' policies were going to be invariably better for the economy, even for the lower working class. But people won't listen to that, they'll just go by gut feel.
Its the logical conclusion to the distrust in the academic & political class that has been building since the early 2010s. Not only in America, in Europe too. A big part of it is that for the first time since the late 80s, many aspects of life are stagnating or declining in the West. So why would people vote for the status quo parties?
Especially for Democrats / left parties in Europe, Maslow's hierarchy of needs works into it: why would you vote for a party that gives laughable DEI issues (blacklist/whitelist > blocklist/allowlist) equal amounts of ink as "let's make sure people can pay their rent."
Sadly the only solution is to care harder, even if it feels horrible to continuously be the bigger man. If you let the bottom part of the electorate wither, they'll drag on us like an anchor and make us all drown.