Trump wins presidency for second time

The response should have been :

"You're right, prices are too high, and wages too low. Especially housing prices, and wages for young men without a college degree.

It's in part the consequences of some things we did.

Here are our proposals to make prices go down, or make wages go up:

Proposal 1: ...."

My deep belief is that the hard part, and the reason Democrats did not do that, is not in the difficulty to find solution.

The hardest part is that it meant recognizing they were, at least in part, responsible for the problem.

The second hardest part was recognizing that the problem was hurting a category of people that's "outside of the tribe".

So, faced with a complex problem, they decided to deny the problem existed altogether, focussed on something else (not necessarily unworthy issues, but, simply, not the one at hand.)

"Ventre affamé n'a point d'oreille."

The silver lining is that:

- either the Republicans somehow manage to get prices down or wages up

- or the next election will swing the other way.

It's still, after all, no matter what, "the economy, stupid" - just, the real economy, no the the fake financial one.

Also, it's striking that one of the problems on which the Democratic Party focussed did win in the ballot : if I read it correctly, in most of the places where women's reproductive rights were on the ballots, the position of the Democratic Party prevailed.

Why they decided to be myopic, and assumed that they had to defend the rights of women _or_ the rights of workers, and could not do both, is a bit beyond me.

It feels like democrats were talking to women, LGTB people, and some elites.

They completely forgot about the other half of the electorate, and when reminded of their existence and issues, they considered the other stuff more important. This result shouldn't surprise anyone.

You do realize the high inflation is due to actions Trump made....

In part, maybe. And at the very end of the list of proposal, after you've explained how you're going to fix the problem, you can, if you have time to spare, defend that you were not entirely responsible for the whole of the problem.

But, realize that any time you spend defending yourself is not spent explaining how you're going to fix the problem. It may be unfair, and that's one of the nicest aspect of democracy : given that people in power keep changing, at some point they don't feel bound to the choices made by previous governments, even of their own party, and can spend time trying to fix problems.

No chance of doing so if you start by arguing.

Also, some of the problems are _hard_.

> In part, maybe. And at the very end of the list of proposal, (...)

Not in part.

And now you voted on the guy whose only concrete economic policy is to massively drive up inflation by imposing tariffs.

I've read conflicting opinions about the effect of Trump trade wars (pre COVID), how the pandemic was handled pre Biden, and how the pandemic was handled post Biden, on inflation.

I much doubt economits would seriously put 100% of the blame on any particular side.

Hence the "in part". Which, I repeat, is a way to acknowledge the complexity, and move on to the interesting question : whether it's your fault or not, what are you going to do to _fix the problem_.

Next election is in two years, and I suspect neither housing prices nor groceries are going to fall any time soon - so policy proposals are not going to waste.