When did trickle-down stupidity become a thing?

I think I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that’s trickling down to half of America is stupidity. I was once of the opinion that I should have compassion and empathy for those who were hoodwinked by Trump in 2016. I understood their frustration, and while I saw it as a racist response to a black man having been in the White House for eight years, I could see how a reality TV guy who portrayed himself to be wealthy despite 6 bankruptcies, could convince people it was a leadership asset to NOT be a politician. In reality, he was just an old obese guy with bad hair and an orange face. He was just a fantasist, pathological liar, an expert at spending other people’s money. Tragically, it was no obstacle to being elected president of the alleged most powerful nation on earth.

His first term was not the birth of populism in politics; that has been with us since time began, but it was the first time a global leader would leverage technology that was to change politics forever. Trump is no academic; indeed, he has long struggled to string together a coherent sentence. What he has become, however, is the poster boy for unregulated free market capitalism, an economic street fighter. The combination of this malignant narcissistic greed and the absence of a moral compass has brought us to where we are. It has proved to be devastating to society as a whole, except for him and a chosen few.

He’s the first leader in my lifetime to be judged by voters, not on what he’s actually done, but rather on the fairytale he presents himself as having done. It’s nothing short of remarkable that around 70 million people initially bought the lies he sold in 2016, then in 2024 were again convinced by the same liar whose incompetent handling of the COVID pandemic led to the unnecessary death of an estimated 250,000 Americans.

Political scientists for generations to come will study how he convinced American voters that he inherited an economy on its knees, despite economists worldwide praising Biden for the fastest post-pandemic recovery among all developed nations. It remains an indisputable FACT that the Biden administration left behind half-century low in unemployment, inflation reduced from close to 10% to 2.9%, and record job and wage growth. That’s before we discuss new manufacturing growth.

The fatal mistake Joe Biden made when resurrecting an economy left on life support by Trump, was that he unwittingly rebuilt it for the shareholder class, reasserting corporate control over wealth. He didn’t break the corrosive cycle; he perpetuated it, as many Democratic presidents before him had. To his credit, I genuinely don’t believe he did this intentionally, and I do accept he genuinely thought he could create a fairer America. He did NOT give tax cuts to the rich; instead, he invested in infrastructure and intended to reduce the burden of student debt. He was committed to creating tech and green energy jobs and was on track to deliver on both objectives.

The mistake he made, aside from the fatal error of reneging on his promise to be a one-term president and to build a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders, was to underestimate the power of social media and the right-wing messaging monster. It was as if Democratic strategists had forgotten how Trump had won the 2016 election, with the Benghazi inquisition and the weaponisation of Hillary’s ‘deplorables’ unforced error, along with executing a culture war narrative.

Fast forward to 2024, and some of us were on the front lines of the threat, making every effort to document it.

There’s more than enough blame to go around, much of which I have written about at length, but much as I hate to admit it, Trump’s normalisation of the lie coupled with Project 2025 exposes the Democratic Party as the amateurs they were and remain to this day. There’s no argument that the economy Biden handed to Trump was, for all its flaws, a sound foundation on which to move America forward and deliver prosperity for all. Every piece of data supports this assertion. It was not the economy that dealt the fatal blow to Democrats; it was their inability to make the case that, given four more years, they could deliver the transformative change that would bring relief to those still suffering.

Instead, they arrogantly told those fighting to put food on the table that they were imagining it, because the American economy was the fastest-growing in the world. Technically, that statement was correct, but that means NOTHING if you can’t afford to feed your kids and pay the bills. What had happened was that Biden created the environment for the economy to come roaring back, largely by putting money in the hands of those at the bottom and the middle while lifting 50% of children out of poverty. It WAS the right move; there’s no question of that.

What he did was to give those at the bottom and the middle a taste of how life should be; he effectively auditioned what American society should look like. The fiscal stress burden was lifted as he created a temporary illusion of reducing the wealth gap by putting money in the hands of those who had struggled just as much before COVID. The problem was that it was TEMPORARY, and once that fiscal crack was removed, the economic withdrawal symptoms took hold because Republicans had other plans for the money that had given them a glimpse of what was possible.

Share

The second unintended consequence of getting money to those who needed it was that they spent it in the economy, and the have-yachts cashed in with price gouging, which in turn pushed up inflation. It’s now been established that up to 53% of the rise in inflation during the Biden administration was manufactured by corporate America, which engaged in a price-gouging bonanza that led to record profits. This then provided Trump with ammunition to weaponise the same inflation his donors had manufactured. It was the perfect political crime, and Trump was the sole beneficiary.

Once the COVID support disappeared, millions of voters who had felt good about what Biden had done to help them felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under them, and it had. Meanwhile, the shareholder class that had benefited from the money handed to hard-pressed Americans was buying up stocks and benefiting from the economic recovery as never before. It was genius; corporate America had colluded with Republicans to use Biden’s commitment to building from the bottom and the middle out against him. Democrats had inadvertently handed Trump a loaded gun to shoot them in the face, and it handed Trump the election on a plate. He just had to do what he does best: tell lies to the millions who had now had their fiscal comfort blanket removed. All he had to say, was that he would fix the affordability crisis they were now experiencing because Biden had failed them. The rest is history.

Now let’s look at what happened after the election. At the outset of his administration, Biden effectively redistributed wealth temporarily. Using the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, he, for example:

• Provided $1,400 direct recovery payments to most individual middle- and lower-income Americans.

• Child Tax Credit: Temporarily expanded the Child Tax Credit, significantly reducing child poverty rates in 2021.

• Unemployment Support: Provided temporary federal boosts to weekly unemployment benefits.

If you want a more detailed summary of the intentions Biden had for his administration, it’s worth reading Biden’s own account on the American Presidency Project website. As I’ve said on many occasions, he was a good and honourable man with good intentions. While I will never forgive him for his hubristic and calamitous attempt to run for a second term, especially given his known serious health condition, that doesn’t change how I feel about what he DID achieve, and I believe in credit where credit is due.

When looking at what Trump has subsequently done, it’s important to consider the numbers behind Biden’s investment in people, NOT corporations. The American Rescue Plan was unquestionably a ‘people first’ project. The consequences, however, were ultimately self-defeating. The working class had no alternative but to spend money to survive. Capitalism kicked in, leading to price exploitation by corporations to hoover up COVID relief and generate profits. Meanwhile, those in the upper-middle class who benefited from the same relief either saved the money or invested it in stocks, widening the wealth gap once again.

The bottom line is, there was an injection of $2 trillion into the economy, much of which Republicans vehemently opposed, ultimately blaming it for out-of-control inflation, despite 53% of it being driven by their own donors. The claim was that the government was handing out money to Americans like candy. If, for one moment, we accept this accusation as valid, someone needs to explain to me why, as soon as they took office, they decided to hand DOUBLE the amount of relief given to American families in the American Rescue Plan to the rich in the form of tax cuts. Make that make sense, because if you can, I’m all ears.

I just need to wrap some context around this to emphasise my point. NO tax cuts for the rich have EVER, and I really do mean EVER, delivered a return on investment. There is NO example NOT ONE- where a Republican tax cut has paid for itself. Especially when you have to borrow money to deliver them. We are living in a world of economic insanity when, in truth, America is bankrupt, but the stock market continues to believe in some sort of bizarre fantasy that eventually it will all come out in the wash. IT WON’T. At some point, the horrific reality will hit home, and then God help us all.

Biden handed out $2 trillion for a short period, which proved that it is possible for people to live in a fairer society. It was short-lived because the rich had decided that they wanted that money in tax breaks. The Billionaire Social Welfare Bill handed over $4 trillion to the top 10% over the next decade; if you add to that the estimated $1 trillion each year that same group will save by evading taxes, that’s a $14 trillion gift to those at the top, all while millions of kids are being denied food assistance and millions can no longer afford healthcare.

Jesus, why do I feel like I’m constantly bashing my head against a brick wall trying to help turkeys who are marching to vote for Thanksgiving? It’s the very definition of trickle-down stupidity. If you tax wealth above $400,000 at 2% in the US, you don’t need the American Rescue Plan, and people could live without fear of perpetual economic anxiety, wondering where the next meal is coming from or whether they might not be able to afford a medical emergency. What’s more, the rich would see their wealth reduced by just 1%. Read this:

Time to make tax fair again

·

Aug 5

As we discussed yesterday, you can’t effect change without power, and if there is one thing I’ve learned in the last year, the apex predators in the economic food chain have managed to hit the sweet spot when it comes to living on the edge of revolution. The old adage that people won’t take notice until they hurt enough is absolutely true in the US at t…

If you detect I’m angry AGAIN, you’d be right. The next obvious question is, why does it matter to me? I’m not an American. Firstly, you don’t have to be an American to care; secondly, here in the UK we’re importing the exact same right-wing cancer that is now eating us from the inside out too. What better place to fight the cancer than at its source?

For those who might doubt my commitment to this fight, I invite you to watch the two short films I created below. I know some of my readers will have seen these before, but we have many new readers here now. This first film was created in 2020. Yes, I was still in this fight back then.

This was created a year ago:

And just in case you thought I might not be up to speed on the Oligarchy:

None of these was created yesterday. If you tell me that I don’t understand US politics after watching these films, then I give in; I’m not your guy, and the work I do is useless. To the rest, I would say that Truth Matters and your support is mission-critical to this fight.

We have to find better, more emotionally connective ways to make the case for a better world, and I’m constantly on the hunt for more effective ways to do so, but I can’t do it on my own.

For those who want to support my work but can’t commit to a paid subscription, you can now make a one-off donation by clicking on the image below. By donating, you help to cover the cost of research resources and keep this independent reporting free for all.