As the campaigns lure "undecided" or targeted demographic groups, there are irrational honey lures that need a reality check. If you are smitten his glittering persona, he is not the friend you think he is. If you think he is good for the economy, especially consumers and ordinary Americans on a budget, he is not your friend. If you are a woman, he is especially not your friend. He will instead treat you as a "threat from within" if you do not show loyalty to him or object to his suppressive, harmful policies.
If you are taken by Trump's machismo, weigh this. Trump has a lifetime of racism and racial discrimination, and what he is promising to do if elected is to benefit his core supporters and to suppress those who are not, especially if you are an immigrant or have ancestors of any color. In his past is calling tiki torch neo nazis some fine people, housing discrimination, making it hard for minority groups to vote using various methods, a birtherism crusade against Obama and his ranting against the innocent Central Park Five, voter suppression including inconveniencing access to ballot drop off locations in certain zip codes, and putting up administrative barriers, or intimidating those voting in person.. If his supporters have their way, as their Project 2025 blueprint goes, all affirmative action and anti-discrimination rules will be ended administratively (not by law or Congressional action). If you raise a voice against discrimination, you will be faced with Trump's promised use of the Department of Justice to cause you or your group money and time at best by facing criminal prosecution as you defend your civil rights. A few such prosecutions can serve to frighten even those not in a leadership position. Participate in a demonstration to protest Trump's executive orders? Expect him to call in the active army to put it down. He is promising that. If you have immigrant members of your family who may not have documentation of legal status, expect them.to use the active army to hunt those without documents, and place them in detention camps. 6.4 families are facing that vulnerability of having those in family both with legal status and not. If you choose to protest his policies, Trump will have your demonstrations ended by using active military to stop it. He has also whipped up into a froth with lies about the danger of all immigrants who are black or brown or are Muslim. With friends like Trump, who needs enemies.
If you are a consumer on a budget, he has no plan to fight price gouging or fraud and he will cost your family money with his tariff scheme and raising prescription drug prices and harm your accesss to health care. He himself has been convicted of fraud or forced to refund the money or his Trump University scheme to falsify business records to cheat banks and taxpayers, judged by jurors of his peers. His charitable foundations have been shut down because his family was using the money for personal benefit. He does have a plan to raise the cost of all imported goods across the board by imposing high tariffs on them to generate more money. He also will continue the huge tax breaks to the rich and reverse forcing big pharma's prescription drug price costs. He has no plans to deal with high rent and price gouging by big corporations who control the housing markets. Obamacare is in jeopardy with his unspecified but suspected "concept," which would seriously harm those with pre-existing conditions with measures that have failed in the past. He refuses to be more specific because of the unpopularity of what he and his backers want. He spent his time trying to destroy Obamacare, not save it, FYI. If you are a student, it is the mantra of MAGA to not give you any relief from student debt.
You are fooling yourselves into thinking that Trump had a great economy to which all will magicallyreturn and prices will go back upon his re-election. The great economy under Trump was an illusion. In the first two years, it was due to the handoff left by Obama's successful economy that he did not change. In the last two years of his term, thanks mainly to COVID, we have had the worst economic and job losses since the Great Depression, which was his handoff to Biden. Biden has managed to stop inflation, provide record job figures, and wage increases to compensate for the inflation that followed in the recovery from COVID-19's devastating effect on the supply chain and pent-up demand. By most indicators, we are back to the growth and economic figures before COVID struck. Gas at the pump prices are only slightly above what they were before the Ukraine conflict caused shortages. Interest rates are on their way down since inflation is close to the goal of 2% per year. We never had the post-COVID recession that was predicted.
If you are a woman, Trump says he will let the states decide after appointing "pro-life" Supreme Court justices who carried out his wish to overturn Roe v Wade. He can keep his extreme right-wing happy without signing a federal abortion ban into law or depending on Congress to pass one. Discrimination against women will revert to the 1960s status. A government now controls the reproductive lives of a third of Americans. If Project 2025 is his blueprint, his appointees will be able to extend access to birth control or deny other rights women have fought for since the 1970s. His appointees will be able to do that in all states regardless of their local wishes by administrative means and rules without going to Congress or having Trump sign anything into law. In addition, affirmative action will also not be enforced via Project 2025. Discrimination against women will revert to the 1960s status.
