Donald Trump has no idea how bad the economy is for working class people who cannot afford to pay for fuel and housing

 Trump struggles to tell the truth about the economy while working class Americans struggle to make ends meet | Editorial echo published in The Philadelphia Inquirer

With his approval ratings hovering at near record lows, Donald Trump took a rare trip to the West Coast to (waste his time and our tax money) trying to convince voters not to trust their own wallets, because the economy is better than ever.🤥

Never mind that since Trump took office last year, Americans have been forced to spend more on food and rent. 

And, that utility prices are soaring while Trump slashed renewable energy alternatives. Or, thanks to his tariffs, that the average price of a new car jumped 10%, while his failed war in Iran boosted gas prices by more than 30%.

To borrow a phrase from the last inept White House occupant who tried to buck up the masses amid a calamity: “Trumpie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

To show hardworking Americans that the billionaire president feels their pain, Trump first attended a GOP fundraiser at a golf resort he owns in Rancho Palos Verdes, an affluent coastal city near Los Angeles, where a round of golf on the weekends can cost 💲800 or more. Tickets to the fundraiser ranged from 💲15,000 to 💲150,000.

From there, Trump headed to a casino in Las Vegas, where he gave a speech on the economy aimed at working families.

Nothing signals economic prosperity like the backdrop of folks mindlessly pumping money into a slot machine, or hoping to dig out of debt with the next roll of the dice — especially coming from a guy who made millions while bankrupting his now-defunct casinos in Atlantic City.

Trump’s Vegas speech was a yawning rehash of rhetoric touting the stock market (when only about half the country owns equities) and tax cuts in his costly Big Beautiful Bill, while mixing in the usual mistruths and dismissing the high prices squeezing many Americans struggling to make ends meet.

“We’re having some fake inflation because of the fuel,” he told the casino crowd. 🤥🙄

But it was in between the two stops where Trump provided a more revealing window into how he really thinks and talks, previewing his economic message in a friendly Fox (Fake❗) News interview rife with non sequiturs, sentence fragments, and illeisms (in other words, removing himself from reality).

“In the economy, Trump is at 42%, I shouldn’t be at, we have the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world for any country,” he said.

Fox (Fake❗) News personality Trace Gallagher pointed out that gas prices were up 30%, and that he recently paid 💲6.27 for a gallon of gas in California.

Even amid the muddle, Trump had a ready response for that: shift the blame. “It’s a little different thing — because they charge taxes on gas. Every time, every time it goes down, they take taxes. I mean, they’ve done a terrible job in California.”

Trump then promised gas prices would soon be under 💲3 a gallon once the three major oil companies — which have been making roughly 💲400 million a day since the Iran war began — lowered prices.

“I think we’re going to have it coming down,” he said. “The oil companies have to start going. You know, they’re making too much money, and they’ve got to start lowering it. But we’re going to be down into the threes and maybe the twos pretty soon, per gallon.”

Gallagher then teed up a softball question so Trump could address the reason he schlepped across the country in the first place: “You’re here to talk about the economy. What’s your big message❓”

“So, tariffs have been incredible. We’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said, ignoring the fact the government has had to refund most of the duties, which the U.S. Supreme Court determined were improperly collected. “I think if there’s anything, I’d say our country is rocking and rolling. We’ve never been this successful.”

Well, one person in America has definitely never been this successful. As a public servant, Trump made more than 💲2 billion last year on a lot of murky deals.

No wonder, then, that by the president’s grading curve, the economy is fine. Just ask him.

“The food, groceries, it’s all coming down. We’ve done a great job,” he said. “I think we should be given an A+ on the economy.”

Voters can submit their own midterm grades on Election Day.

P.S. Is Senator Susan Collins paying attention to the economy❓ IDTS

Fascism and right wing Trumpist extremism

"Fascism is identified most commonly with Benito Mussolini’s Italy. It is also used to describe Hitler’s Germany and Franco’s Spain, among others.  (Fascism is threatening American democracy!)

Maine Writer: In my opinion Trupziism=Fascism.

It is characterized by militarism and nationalism, usually with a strong dictatorial leader benefiting from a cult of personality. Fascist regimes are often prejudiced against marginalized groups. Their leaders reject liberal democracy, tend to emphasize social and economic control and are generally not averse to the use of violence," Nicholas Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times.

"Fascism does not merely condone violence, it is violence," George Will in The Washington Post. 

"The Republican Party has embraced American fascism, an anti-democratic ideology that is unique to the US and is engrained deeper in Americans' collective consciousness and history than most of us have been taught," Linette Lopez in Business Insider

Two opinion echo letters published in the Los Angeles Times: 

To the editor: Nicholas Goldberg defined fascism as “a terrifying totalitarian movement that plunged the world into an era of near-cataclysmic violence.” Isn’t the sordid spectacle of the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)- held in  a disconcerting sign of what our future holds? Thousands of predominantly white Republican Christian nationalists worshiping a golden idol in rhapsodic frenzy was not simply “un-American” — this was the U.S. version of the Nuremberg rallies.

From Melissa Verdugo, Rancho Palos Verdes, California

To the editor: My understanding of fascism, as associated with Mussolini’s regime, was a nationalist economic philosophy where the benefits of government, industrial complex and military were aligned to the detriment of the individual. I believe President Eisenhower was trying to warn us about this in his farewell speech.

Since dictators Mussolini and Hitler were the “face” of fascism, their despicable authoritarian policies, racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism overshadowed the economics and became the connotation for “fascist” — in particular to those born after 1945, who only know of World War II from history books.

Gilbert H. Skopp, Calabasas California