You should learn to love a lower standard of living, for Trump's sake
By Nathalie Baptiste,
HuffPost
The news sent the stock
market into a tailspin, while business owners warned
that shoppers could start seeing empty store shelves.
But even as the bad news piles up, the Trump administration
has decided to reassure panicked consumers with a chilling talking point:
Poverty is good, actually.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American
dream,” Bessent
said to a crowd of economists.
It turns out this assertion was only the beginning of the
Trump administration’s vision for a new American dream.
From Trump telling reporters that he’s not worried about
empty stores to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying during an interview
that in his version of America, multiple generations will work in the same
factories, it sure seems like the Trump administration is trying to prime
Americans for accepting and even enjoying a drastically lower standard of
living.
It’s a sharp contrast from where Trump was during the 2024 election.
Conventional Republican wisdom at the time said that former
President Joe Biden’s policies had made everything from groceries to cars to
houses more
expensive, and a vote for Trump would bring some much-needed relief. “Make
America Wealthy Again” has been a constant refrain, with Trump even holding
an official
event themed around the idea last month.
But now, Republicans seem to be saying, not only is relief
not coming, but you shouldn’t complain about it either.
Lutnick described
this week in an interview on MSNBC his idea of the American dream:
essentially, multiple generations of your family stuck in the same grueling job
for low pay.
“It’s time to train people not to do the jobs of the past
but to do the great jobs of the future,” Lutnick said about working in a
factory that makes computer chips. “This is the new model, where you work in
these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and
your grandkids work here.”
Wages for those who work in factories have been low and
stagnant for years. According to the Cato Institute think tank, garment workers
in South Carolina are paid as
low as $11 an hour. For workers assembling washing machines, the pay rises
to just $16 to
$17 an hour. The living wage for the state, on the other hand — as
defined by MIT’s calculator as the amount an individual must earn to support
themselves while working full-time — is $22.15 an hour for a single
adult with no children. Many of these jobs often require long hours on your
feet and the ability to lift a certain amount of weight.
Then there’s the notion that not only will you work in a
factory; so will your children and grandchildren. This is in direct contrast to
one of the defining features of the “American dream” that no matter where you
come from, you have a chance of great achievements. The idea that there’s no
chance for upward mobility and that generations will be bound to the same boss
sounds suspiciously like feudalism.
While Trump’s Cabinet members try to put a happy face on a
shrinking economy, the president can’t decide if the economy is great thanks to
him, if he should blame Biden for all the economic chaos, or if the public
should suck it up.
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take
over until January 20th,” he wrote on TruthSocial after the report from the
Commerce Department was released, urging people to be patient because soon
tariffs would kick in. He’s admitting that things aren’t looking great — but
claiming it’s definitely not his fault.
The day before, however, Trump was touting the amazing
economy he created. At a Tuesday evening rally in Michigan, Trump bragged about
all he had accomplished in his first 100 days back in office, baselessly
claiming he brought prices down.
And as for the likely shortage of goods caused by the astronomical tariffs
on China, the United States’ largest trading partner? Well, maybe your kids can
just go without.
“You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be
open,’” Trump said
at a Cabinet meeting after a reporter asked him about empty shelves.
“Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. So maybe the
two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally.”
The Trump administration’s vision for the American dream:
grueling hours in a factory and no toys for your children.
Since Inauguration Day, Trump has been boasting about
ushering in a new Golden Age. But he probably should have been more specific
about who, exactly, would be reaping the benefits.
Trump largely campaigned on economic relief. He constantly
attacked Biden for inflation, repeatedly vowed
to bring prices down on day one, and promised tariffs
would generate revenue for the country (even though economists have
said that is largely not
what his trade policies would do).
There’s a tacit admission in all the rhetoric about children
having to go without toys and insisting that a bright future is the masses
happily working in a factory for their entire lives: We know our policies will
make you poorer and make life harder for millions of working people in America.
We just don’t care.
In an era when every Republican is too afraid to get out of
line and MAGA voters take pride in taunting liberals who are affected by
Trump’s policies, attempting to frame economic woes as some greater good just
might work.
But Trump loyalists aren’t the only people who will suffer
in the new American dream — and they’re already giving Trump bad marks on the
economy, a stunning reversal from his first term. A CNN poll conducted earlier
this month found that 59%
of respondents believe Trump’s policies have made the economy worse. A
Reuters poll had similar findings, with 56%
of Americans polled disapproving of his economic priorities.
While many Democratic voters were skeptical of Trump’s
claims about what he would do as president, there is evidence that voters whose
top concerns were the economy still rallied
behind Trump over Kamala Harris to send him back to the White House.
But now, as ABC’s Terry Moran explained to Trump during
a wide-ranging
interview this week, his own voters may already be suffering from buyers’
remorse. But there’s no indication that the Trump administration plans on
reversing course.
“People are worried, even some people who voted for you
saying, ‘I didn’t sign up for this,’” Moran said. “So how do you answer those
concerns?”
Trump put it plainly. “Well, they did sign up for it,
actually,” he said. “And this is what I campaigned on.”
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