I just don't understand how, if their problem is rent is too high and inflation doesn't apply to wages, they vote for Trump. He has made money his whole life by jacking up rent prices and paying people as little as he's legally allowed to (or less than that).

Think of it like a riot. What does smashing windows have to do with anything? Yet one follows the other.

Don’t confuse talking points with the underlying reality. Trump supporters existed when inflation was basically non existent. His support is really independent of the economic situation.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in this time. He barely beat one of the least popular candidates in decades and then got crushed the next election cycle. Opposition candidates tend to do well when the economy is doing poorly, but he’s got a lot of baggage and the poles are dead even right now.

The camps rhetoric is new. If anything that's further evidence that it's caused by the times rather than the personalities.

When support stays constant despite changing rhetoric it’s not about the rhetoric.

> Trump supporters resonate with that rhetoric because the rent is too high, groceries are too expensive, and inflation doesn't seem to apply to wages.

And so they vote for the party that is against rent controls, against expanding food stamps, and against raising the minimum wage?

Make it make sense.

See my response to a sibling comment:

"Think of it like a riot. What does smashing windows have to do with anything? Yet one follows the other."

Very few people have any idea about the causes of their suffering.

And Trump (and his sycophants) seek to take advantage of this feeling. Using the age old approach of blaming "the other" and seeking not any real improvement in conditions, but a consolidation of power in their hands.

Well, then, maybe they should consider solutions for solving those problems rather than yelling "big government"/etc at every opportunity and further eroding the protections the previous generations put in place to keep things like this from happening.

AKA, a lot of this is the result of generations of poor education, an education system that is strongly biased propaganda based on provably wrong economic models that tell k-12th graders that the best and only choice is the one where the free market runs roughshod over anyone who can't afford the rent, etc because that's simply "capitalism" and all the other choices are worse.

Maybe? But how is Trump or the Republican Party planning to address any of these?

Remember, Trump successfully pressured the Fed to lower interest rates while the economy was strong. Think that contributed a bit to the inflation we've been dealing with?

Are they recommending corporate tax increases? New marginal tax brackets? No? Did they add tax loopholes for private jets and yachts while they were last in power? You bet!

No, what they're doing instead is trying to scapegoat things like "woke" college students and immigrants.