Polling and focus group data show voters across parties feel crushed by rising costs, even as Trump dismisses affordability concerns as a “hoax” that contradicts Americans’ lived reality.
They’ve caused so much damage already it will take decades to recover - the longer they’re in power, the worse it will get. We’re deep in the hole now, and who knows how long it will take to get those criminals out of power.
IF we survive it. With The Dictator's gestapo everywhere.........well....remember what happened in Germany in the 1930's. (Dump is doing the same thing here--and very successfully.) Look what that led to. There must the a way to get rid of him. Well, we know there is, but his republiCRAPS puppets are too chicken to do it.
Christmas seems lackluster. I am glad that his actions are making us refocus. We know the true joy is our families and friends. It's forcing us to live more simply. The joy we will all experience once this empty person is out of the White House, along with each and every one of his appointed members. Preferably we can experience the joy of seeing all of them in prison.
A looming “war” on the horizon isn’t helping anyone.
This strongman fantasy of helpless citizens needing a “daddy figure” to save them is a really bad policy train heading towards a collapsed bridge (public support). Their ineptitude plus greedy, lawless behavior is heading towards a public drubbing they so deserve.
That chart is an eye-opener. Even relatively middle-class families are cutting back. It's not just those that live in tight circumstances.
No matter who I'm talking to, everyone I know is saying, "I'm cutting back on gifts," "Don't spend much on me -- it's okay!" as well as "I'm scared about how I'll manage next year." These are people making anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 a year. It's also retirees (like me) with SS, pension and a current job.
Republicans are clearly sucking the life out of the middle class.
For anyone who knows something of Project 2025 (which Dictator Trump apparently doesn't! Yeah, right!), they are already aware that the middle class is due to be eviscerated as part of the process of creating a two-tier American system: The Slaves - and the Überwealthy!
If you'd rather read George Orwell's "1984", you'll get an idea of how this nightmare scenario rolls out under Trump - but with 21st-century technology leading the way!
They trialed this with Pinochet and a super majority uber wealthy class that has veto authority over spending policies.
They are all seditious ideologues hell bent on dismantling our Constitutional foundations. There is no clearer “domestic enemy” working to overthrow from within the established - by Constitution - our government. 100% in violation to the oath they took to defend it.
I taught "1984" to 11th graders for years. I hated it, every year. But it's not a book you forget, and now is a great time to read it. Add it to Project 2025, and it's a roadmap.
There is something seriously wrong with republicans that they can’t seem to grasp this concept. It’s like they’ve stuck their fingers in their ears, shouting, nahananah, you can’t tell me anything. Well, I’m fine with that. It will hurry their demise.
Trump got away with gaslighting everyone who watched the January 6th insurrection live on TV. We know what we saw. But he convinced 51% of the electorate that, it was a bunch of tourists or antifa or a false flag operation or whatever. They voted for him in November 2024. But now, they have less money but bigger bills. The spell has broken.
It was not a fair and honest election. Putin, Musk and local bosses absolutely rigged the vote. The statistical anomalies are very obvious. I hope we can ensure a fair election next time. I worry about that.
Here in Canada it’s not all poutine and maple martinis either…after working in a professional career for 30 years, I have been worried (we are talking 4am worried) about whether I can be creative enough to find away to pay my bills each month.
That’s a retired professional. I can only imagine the angst among those less fortunate or able, or just starting out.
We, up north, are fortunate to have a financiallly adept, warmly intelligent, continentally connected, leader whose actions give rise to not just hope but beneficial strategies and YET affordability is keeping us awake at night too!
Frankly, we care about you (the fine Americans who’ve been our neighbours and friends for as long as we’ve been here). We are worried. About ourselves yes, but also about you, the Ukraine, the whole world.
Good people are the magic that makes solutions - miracles if you like - small acts that change a history - kind words that lift a life. Thank God for good people in outrageous times. Thank you - for everything you do to restore decency, rule of law, education, and social responsibility, each day. We are in this together on all borders, in all nations.
Today I bought enough veg for a salad for 4 people, 1 inexpensive box of pasta, 1 store brand of diced tomatoes, and 4 small zucchini. It cost $21. Something is a hoax for sure.
The thing that's saving us is I spent the last year working on my shelf stable pantry. Since I grew up in the Great White North, I have a few skills. But fresh produce is still a thing.
What a great edition from someone in the know!!!! And I hope encouragement for all or us to work harder to get the word out to all those feeling crushed by what the trump administration, including the GOP Congress has done. I encourage anyone who is able to attend local town halls or any kind of community meetings, even PTA meetings to gently tell their neighbors who have been trump supporters there is indeed a better way. We have to do this without insulting them but with facts and compassion and understanding. Faith based organizations that are indeed based on the faith in the word of Jesus can go a long way to helping by following the lead of Pope Leo and calling out the trump administration and GOP for the cruelty they embrace...you don't have to name names, but simply say what Pope Leo said....seems if you believe in what Jesus (and the old Testament) said about welcoming the stranger, you can't support the actions of the current administration. Likewise, if you support Jesus when he said feed the hungry, you can't support elected officials who choose to stop food programs that provide food for the hungry, including children and elderly. Now is the time for all of us to work harder in what ever ways we can.
What more can you say! THE CON is Trump! The SNAKE is Trump! The TOTAL BS rhetoric about GROCERIES, and you as an AMERICAN🇺🇲 can make it, with LESS! as he GRABS MORE! is Trump EATING UP anything, and everything he can get his SPOTTED diseased HANDS ON! even the children's FOOD! and saying it's HOAX!
The reason only 29% of Republicans think the country is going in the wrong direction is because the other 71% can't or won't admit they are the ones who created this problem.
Democrats need to message better. Pound this message home. Inflation 2021 -7.0 /2022 6.5 / 2023 4.4 / 2024 2.9 / 2025 3.0. Coming out of the Covid Pandemic the Biden administration did the equivalent of a soft landing in a fully loaded Boeing 747 with only one of four engines running and that engine was on fire.....
"We are living in a new Gilded Age. The first, from roughly 1870 to 1890, was marked by dramatic inequality: Wealthy monopolists like bank tycoons and railroad barons saw their fortunes boom as the country industrialized, while the poor, particularly in the post-Reconstruction South, continued to suffer. A cast of corrupt men controlled the flow of capital and political power, shaping the country around their will. Thus it was not a golden age, but a gilded one—a veneer of prosperity hiding the real economic and social rot below.
If you stop looking at averages and check the wealth of who’s actually spending, you can better understand the economic realities for the majority of Americans: There’s one line steadily going up, and another going down. That’s why some call ours a “K-shaped” economy—two lines headed in opposite directions. Others call it a plutonomy, a portmanteau of “plutocrat” and “economy,” signaling the disproportional power of the ultra-wealthy over our entire financial system. There’s another reason that this wealth and spending inequality matters: It makes things more expensive for everyone.
The middle class is taught, through carefully designed marketing and social media, to identify more with the rich than the poor. This class misalignment keeps them striving for the upward mobility our economic mythology promises them, even though so many are just one medical emergency or car crash away from poverty. “The people in the middle aren’t resentful of the lifestyles of the rich,” [Robert] Frank [a professor … at Cornell] said. “They want to see pictures and footage of mansions and yachts. They think, usually incorrectly, they’ll be rich someday.”
Those of us who are “too poor to afford life, but too high-income to get help,” as Elizabeth Pancotti … at Groundwork Collaborative, put it, are caught between a plutonomy that pushes prices higher and a lower class that, under the Trump administration, is rapidly having the social safety net pulled out from under them. “You really get squeezed by both sides by this phenomenon of prices going up as things get luxurious, and you don’t get any help from the bottom,” she said. “And I think that window is expanding as our social safety net shrinks as the wealthy get even richer.”"
Source: Selling the Poor on Spending Like They’re Rich - How plutonomy, premiumization, and social media squeeze the middle class, by Emma Janssen, 1-Dec-25, The American Prospect, https://tinyurl.com/bd7ncrya
America will be much better once this regime is long gone to prison.
They’ve caused so much damage already it will take decades to recover - the longer they’re in power, the worse it will get. We’re deep in the hole now, and who knows how long it will take to get those criminals out of power.
Amen 🙌🏽🤙🏽🙌🏽
IF we survive it. With The Dictator's gestapo everywhere.........well....remember what happened in Germany in the 1930's. (Dump is doing the same thing here--and very successfully.) Look what that led to. There must the a way to get rid of him. Well, we know there is, but his republiCRAPS puppets are too chicken to do it.
more gaslighting.
That’s all Trump does!
Christmas seems lackluster. I am glad that his actions are making us refocus. We know the true joy is our families and friends. It's forcing us to live more simply. The joy we will all experience once this empty person is out of the White House, along with each and every one of his appointed members. Preferably we can experience the joy of seeing all of them in prison.
A looming “war” on the horizon isn’t helping anyone.
This strongman fantasy of helpless citizens needing a “daddy figure” to save them is a really bad policy train heading towards a collapsed bridge (public support). Their ineptitude plus greedy, lawless behavior is heading towards a public drubbing they so deserve.
That chart is an eye-opener. Even relatively middle-class families are cutting back. It's not just those that live in tight circumstances.
No matter who I'm talking to, everyone I know is saying, "I'm cutting back on gifts," "Don't spend much on me -- it's okay!" as well as "I'm scared about how I'll manage next year." These are people making anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 a year. It's also retirees (like me) with SS, pension and a current job.
Republicans are clearly sucking the life out of the middle class.
Got it in one!
For anyone who knows something of Project 2025 (which Dictator Trump apparently doesn't! Yeah, right!), they are already aware that the middle class is due to be eviscerated as part of the process of creating a two-tier American system: The Slaves - and the Überwealthy!
If you'd rather read George Orwell's "1984", you'll get an idea of how this nightmare scenario rolls out under Trump - but with 21st-century technology leading the way!
Good luck, America! You're going to need it!
They trialed this with Pinochet and a super majority uber wealthy class that has veto authority over spending policies.
They are all seditious ideologues hell bent on dismantling our Constitutional foundations. There is no clearer “domestic enemy” working to overthrow from within the established - by Constitution - our government. 100% in violation to the oath they took to defend it.
I taught "1984" to 11th graders for years. I hated it, every year. But it's not a book you forget, and now is a great time to read it. Add it to Project 2025, and it's a roadmap.
There is something seriously wrong with republicans that they can’t seem to grasp this concept. It’s like they’ve stuck their fingers in their ears, shouting, nahananah, you can’t tell me anything. Well, I’m fine with that. It will hurry their demise.
Trump got away with gaslighting everyone who watched the January 6th insurrection live on TV. We know what we saw. But he convinced 51% of the electorate that, it was a bunch of tourists or antifa or a false flag operation or whatever. They voted for him in November 2024. But now, they have less money but bigger bills. The spell has broken.
It was not a fair and honest election. Putin, Musk and local bosses absolutely rigged the vote. The statistical anomalies are very obvious. I hope we can ensure a fair election next time. I worry about that.
Arne, you are 100% correct!! Can’t understand why the Dems didn’t demand a recount!!
Magots are souless bottomfeeders.......Donut Boys spell will never be broken.......They will drink the Orange Kool-Aid when the time comes.
Here in Canada it’s not all poutine and maple martinis either…after working in a professional career for 30 years, I have been worried (we are talking 4am worried) about whether I can be creative enough to find away to pay my bills each month.
That’s a retired professional. I can only imagine the angst among those less fortunate or able, or just starting out.
We, up north, are fortunate to have a financiallly adept, warmly intelligent, continentally connected, leader whose actions give rise to not just hope but beneficial strategies and YET affordability is keeping us awake at night too!
Frankly, we care about you (the fine Americans who’ve been our neighbours and friends for as long as we’ve been here). We are worried. About ourselves yes, but also about you, the Ukraine, the whole world.
Good people are the magic that makes solutions - miracles if you like - small acts that change a history - kind words that lift a life. Thank God for good people in outrageous times. Thank you - for everything you do to restore decency, rule of law, education, and social responsibility, each day. We are in this together on all borders, in all nations.
Very nice post and much appreciated, neighbor! Blessings to you. And heaven help us all.
PM Carney is doing the best job ever...Donut Boy wants to take us over!!!! Let that sink in.
Cankles and his henchmen want to destroy democracy........let that sink in. Playing in the sandbox days are over.
PM Carney is on the right track and we need to continue on the track to expand our markets to the free world.
Thank you! Spend a week + on V.I for over 30 yrs. We love our northern neighbors! And so so sorry about the dickwad et al in Washington D.C.🇨🇦🇺🇸👍🇨🇦🇺🇸
Today I bought enough veg for a salad for 4 people, 1 inexpensive box of pasta, 1 store brand of diced tomatoes, and 4 small zucchini. It cost $21. Something is a hoax for sure.
I paid three dollars for a head of iceberg lettuce. It's out of season, I know, but this is California and we have lettuce all year long. Shocking.
The thing that's saving us is I spent the last year working on my shelf stable pantry. Since I grew up in the Great White North, I have a few skills. But fresh produce is still a thing.
What a great edition from someone in the know!!!! And I hope encouragement for all or us to work harder to get the word out to all those feeling crushed by what the trump administration, including the GOP Congress has done. I encourage anyone who is able to attend local town halls or any kind of community meetings, even PTA meetings to gently tell their neighbors who have been trump supporters there is indeed a better way. We have to do this without insulting them but with facts and compassion and understanding. Faith based organizations that are indeed based on the faith in the word of Jesus can go a long way to helping by following the lead of Pope Leo and calling out the trump administration and GOP for the cruelty they embrace...you don't have to name names, but simply say what Pope Leo said....seems if you believe in what Jesus (and the old Testament) said about welcoming the stranger, you can't support the actions of the current administration. Likewise, if you support Jesus when he said feed the hungry, you can't support elected officials who choose to stop food programs that provide food for the hungry, including children and elderly. Now is the time for all of us to work harder in what ever ways we can.
What more can you say! THE CON is Trump! The SNAKE is Trump! The TOTAL BS rhetoric about GROCERIES, and you as an AMERICAN🇺🇲 can make it, with LESS! as he GRABS MORE! is Trump EATING UP anything, and everything he can get his SPOTTED diseased HANDS ON! even the children's FOOD! and saying it's HOAX!
Just went to buy wrapping paper and it was $ 13.00 for a ten foot roll...! I walked away...no paper.!
Remember when we used to use the comic section of the paper for wrapping gifts. Can use paper sacks cut up or cloth to wrap 🤔
Same old stuff just a different day from him
Trump: Still promoting the classic Nazi textbook propaganda of lies and deception.
Project 2025 is alive and well. Even if Trump, quote: "doesn't know anything about it"!
The reason only 29% of Republicans think the country is going in the wrong direction is because the other 71% can't or won't admit they are the ones who created this problem.
Democrats need to message better. Pound this message home. Inflation 2021 -7.0 /2022 6.5 / 2023 4.4 / 2024 2.9 / 2025 3.0. Coming out of the Covid Pandemic the Biden administration did the equivalent of a soft landing in a fully loaded Boeing 747 with only one of four engines running and that engine was on fire.....
“Selling the Poor on Spending Like They’re Rich”
"We are living in a new Gilded Age. The first, from roughly 1870 to 1890, was marked by dramatic inequality: Wealthy monopolists like bank tycoons and railroad barons saw their fortunes boom as the country industrialized, while the poor, particularly in the post-Reconstruction South, continued to suffer. A cast of corrupt men controlled the flow of capital and political power, shaping the country around their will. Thus it was not a golden age, but a gilded one—a veneer of prosperity hiding the real economic and social rot below.
If you stop looking at averages and check the wealth of who’s actually spending, you can better understand the economic realities for the majority of Americans: There’s one line steadily going up, and another going down. That’s why some call ours a “K-shaped” economy—two lines headed in opposite directions. Others call it a plutonomy, a portmanteau of “plutocrat” and “economy,” signaling the disproportional power of the ultra-wealthy over our entire financial system. There’s another reason that this wealth and spending inequality matters: It makes things more expensive for everyone.
The middle class is taught, through carefully designed marketing and social media, to identify more with the rich than the poor. This class misalignment keeps them striving for the upward mobility our economic mythology promises them, even though so many are just one medical emergency or car crash away from poverty. “The people in the middle aren’t resentful of the lifestyles of the rich,” [Robert] Frank [a professor … at Cornell] said. “They want to see pictures and footage of mansions and yachts. They think, usually incorrectly, they’ll be rich someday.”
Those of us who are “too poor to afford life, but too high-income to get help,” as Elizabeth Pancotti … at Groundwork Collaborative, put it, are caught between a plutonomy that pushes prices higher and a lower class that, under the Trump administration, is rapidly having the social safety net pulled out from under them. “You really get squeezed by both sides by this phenomenon of prices going up as things get luxurious, and you don’t get any help from the bottom,” she said. “And I think that window is expanding as our social safety net shrinks as the wealthy get even richer.”"
Source: Selling the Poor on Spending Like They’re Rich - How plutonomy, premiumization, and social media squeeze the middle class, by Emma Janssen, 1-Dec-25, The American Prospect, https://tinyurl.com/bd7ncrya