Are you better off now than 4 years ago? Some think that her inability to answer this question to the satisfaction of Trump-supporting Americans is what ultimately cost Kamala Harris the presidency. I don’t believe that she didn’t have a satisfactory answer, but rather that she was being cautious in her rhetoric, as politicians, (except, apparently, Donald Trump) are most likely coached to be. Simply saying, “No,” would have thrown unfair shade at President Biden, who inherited a terrible mess upon taking office in 2021 and did, what I would still argue was a phenomenal job of putting out the dumpster fire that was raging and start, and slowly and methodically, putting things back together. A simple, “Yes” from VP Harris, however, would have been interpreted by right-wing pundits as being evidence that Harris is a California “elitist” who is out of touch with everyday Americans.
My take, however, is that the calamities that we face as a nation, has not so much to do with the perceived foibles or failings of our leaders, but rather the unbelievable shortness of our own memories and the willingness of the MAGA faithful to “believe the unbelievable” in this era of what former Trump White House aide, Kelly Ann Conway termed as “alternative facts.”
Take COVID-19, for example. According to the COVID Tracking Project (The COVID Tracking Project, 2021), the first COVID deaths began to appear in the U.S. in February of 2020. They started slowly, a total of two deaths on the first day, then a total of five, and the following day, eight.
On March 25, 2020 the BBC (for those who believe that American media only reports “fake news”) reported that then President Trump announced at a news conference that the country would be able to reopen by Easter Sunday (Coronavirus: Trump Hopes US Will Shake Off Pandemic by Easter, 2020). On March 25, 2020, there had been a total of 1,058 deaths and 241 on March 25 alone. By Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020, the total deaths had climbed to 23,885 with nearly 1700 deaths per day and rising (The COVID Tracking Project, 2021).
Local and national news outlets across the country reported how cities were scrambling during to order refrigerated trucks to serve as temporary morgues. Family members were unable to be with their dying loved ones and according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control, numerous healthcare professionals were suffering mental health crises (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2023) resulting from overwork and fears for their own safety at having to work without adequate personal protective equipment.
By the time Trump finally left office on January 20, 2021, spending more time spreading election denialism and inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021, the confirmed COVID deaths were up to nearly 400,000 with 3500 to 4000 deaths occurring daily. However, by the end of President Biden’s first three months in office, the daily death rate had fallen tremendously, down to just 842, the lowest one-day death rate since November 20, 2020. (The COVID Tracking Project, 2021).
Despite the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic having occurred during Mr. Trump’s watch, Americans somehow “forgot” how terrible things had been, and that in terms of the health and safety of our families and friends, we are infinitely better off than we were four years ago.
What about employment rates? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate at the end of President Obama’s second term in 2016 was 9.4% overall (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). By the end of Trump’s term in 2020, the percentage of unemployed Americans had jumped to 15.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). According to a news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics published on December 6, 2024, the unemployment rate for November 2024 was down to 4.2%. (US Department of Labor, 2024).
During Trump’s 2024 campaign he repeatedly claimed that illegal border crossings as well as crime were up under the Biden administration, despite fact-checking reports by the Marshall Project, a non-profit criminal justice organization, which disputes these, along with about 12,000 other false claims made by the former President (The Marshall Project, 2024). Donald Trump painted a picture of massive hordes of illegal immigrants overwhelming agents at the border, engaging in epic levels of crime, and threatening to replace hard-working American citizens in the labor market and other aspects of American society. However, the statistics don’t seem to bear this out. According to Census Bureau data and data compiled by the US Department of Homeland Security, there has been very little fluctuation in the unauthorized immigrant population, which has ranged from a low of 10.5 million in 2005 to a high of 12 million during the first half of 2015. (US Department of Homeland Security, n.d.)
Trump’s claim that increasing crime rates are caused by undocumented immigrants is also patently false. In fact, the American Immigration Council found that the opposite was true. In comparing crime and demographic data, it found “that as the immigrant share of the population grew, the crime rate declined.” (American Immigration Council, 2024). According to the Council’s 2024 report, in 1980 when 6.2% of the United States was foreign-born, there were 581 violent crimes per 100,000 people in the U.S. By 2022, although the percentage of foreign-born residents had increased to 13.9% of the U.S. population, the number of violent crimes had decreased to 381 per 100,000. While there will always be a small number of outlying cases such as the murders of Laken Riley and Lizbeth Medina by undocumented immigrants, these anecdotal cases should be no more a reflection of the so-called violent tendencies of undocumented immigrants than the murders committed by Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer be used as testaments to the inherently violent nature of white American men.
One of the most prominent reasons that many Americans cited for “holding their noses and voting for Trump” was inflation. This is one area where I would admit that on the surface, changes in the inflation rate don’t appear to be that favorable under President Biden. According to Coin News Media’s US inflation calculator, U.S. inflation was 2.1% at the end of the Obama administration but began to increase dramatically in April 2021 to 4.2% just at the end of Biden’s first 100 days. Inflation continued to climb on Biden’s watch, peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 before starting to decrease again, reaching 2.7% by the end of November 2024 (CoinNews Media Group Company).
This turn of events was unfortunate for Biden for two reasons. First, inflation hadn’t been that high since it climbed to 9.3% in January of 1979 and continued to rise until it peaked at 14.4% in May of 1980. Since no one born after 1961 would have been eligible to vote in the 1980 election, the fact that the “high inflation” under Biden’s term is not the worst that the U.S. has experienced by far would be lost on most of today’s voters. Also, despite the fact that the crushing double-digit inflation of the 1970s is what sealed Jimmy Carter’s fate as a one-term president, even that is not the worst the country has seen. In 1920, for example, the inflation rate peaked at 23.7% (CoinNews Media Group Company)!
The second reason, however, is that the average voter doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of economics and how it works, especially the law of supply and demand, even though it is fairly simple. Price is affected by the relationship between the supply of and the demand for products. One of the iconic symbols of the COVID pandemic was toilet paper. Before COVID, the supply of toilet paper was high and the demand for it was relatively low. Since toilet paper was easy to get, people wouldn’t be willing to pay a high price for it. But, with COVID and the shut down of manufacturing (and panic-buying by consumers) the supply of toilet paper started to decrease. Because toilet paper was now harder to get, people would be willing to pay a higher price for it. This scenario applied to a lot of products, not just toilet paper. Factories shut down so product supply went down, forcing buyers to compete for the reduced supplies with their ability or willingness to pay higher prices.
By April of 2021, COVID infections were on the decline and people were anxious to get out of their homes, to travel, go shopping, and to start having parties and big family dinners again. However, manufacturers were slower to get back up to full capacity. Therefore, high demand coupled with low supply for everything from food, electronics, airline tickets, and gasoline resulted in inflation. What Americans don’t seem to understand, however, is that the President has nothing to do with this. He can’t wave a magic wand and make factories churn out goods faster. In fact, it could be argued that it is the American people themselves who are to blame for high inflation. If we had had enough self-discipline to avoid purchasing products that were in short supply until production returned to pre-pandemic levels, the inflation wouldn’t have been so bad. (I’m looking at you, toilet paper hoarders!)
I don’t know what the answer is, although I’m quite concerned about the future of our country if we continue down the path of “forgetful gullibility.” I’m realistic enough to know that trying to convince the average “low-information voter” to study history or to read lengthy essays such as this one simply isn’t going to happen.
I do remember spending countless hours playing SimCity™ back in the day. With so many of us glued to our devices, maybe an updated, multi-player version of the game, with a storyline based on real history and where the success or failure of a player would depend on his or her awareness of that history and the ability to avoid the mistakes of the past. I don’t know if it’s a viable idea or not, but it has to be better than picking fights with Canada, Mexico, and Panama or dismantling the Department of Education.
quietlyradical 