Watching the endless replays, clips, snippets, analyses of the Kamala/Trump debate, there are moments of ecstasy, moments of cringe and moments you wanted to throw something at the TV.
Overall, as Colbert accurately noted, Kamala gave Trump a spanking, and not with a rolled up Forbes Magazine.
But the very first question to Kamala, one she had to know was coming, should have been waiting for, is the old, "Are Americans better off now economically than they were four years ago, when you took office?" And this evoked a response from Kamala which provoked a groan you could hear rumbling from all across town, likely all across America: She launched into a fake, phony, no-good very-bad pre-cooked bit about how she was raised in a middle class home with sainted mother figures...oh, pluuueeeze!
Answer the freaking question!
What Jed Bartlet would have said:
"That depends on who you are, of course. There is no one economy in this country. There is the economy for the billionaires, the economy of the middle class, work a day wage earners, the economy for the professionals and the small business owners.
But most of all, it depends on looking backward. When voters ask themselves this question, they have to honestly recall where they were in 2020, as we took office. And remembering is often clothed in the misty shrouds of emotion. Mr. Trump will say it was all beautiful and we were all rich when he was in office.
But if you remember correctly, we inherited a country with low inflation, which had been low long before Mr. Trump took office and maybe got even lower during his term. At one point you could by a gallon of gas for under $3 a gallon, but once you filled your tank, you had nowhere to go--your worksite was closed down, stores and restaurants were shuttered by a pandemic which Mr. Trump denied was even happening, and once he finally was forced to admit it, he said you could cure it by injecting your veins with bleach. We had an economy on its knees, because Mr. Trump refused to believe the science, the public health authorities, local hospitals, because he simply had no idea how to deal with the reality, and so we had trucks parked outside of hospitals to receive the bodies he denied even existed. He had to be rescued from his own mumbo jumbo by Dr. Fauci and the government agencies and universities who worked with industry, which developed vaccines and distributed them in record time.
Then the Biden administration responded with cash to ordinary Americans, some of it wasted in the inevitable boondoggles you get with any emergency program to get aid to those who need it, but we avoided another 1929 type Great Depression, and once we used science to get the economy back on its feet, inflation rose.
Sure it did.
And it hurts people at the grocery store even now, sure it does. And rents are too high, although it's not clear how much any government federal or local can do about that. But now inflation is coming down and people have jobs in record low unemployment, overall.
Throughout all of this, the billionaires have protected themselves with the help of Trump and it's the working folks who have had to ride out the stormy seas. But we provided the lifeboats and if there were some scoundrels who got on board those, well, that's the price we pay for rescuing the greatest number of citizens and for using science and conscience and good will to steer the ship through stormy seas.
So are people better off now after 4 years of Democratic economics? You bet they are.
Not everyone is feeling it yet, and rents are still too high and grocery prices need to come down and while many factory workers are still struggling or out of work, but many more are back to work and more can see they will be soon. The economy, overall is booming, as is the stock market, setting new highs weekly after it rides up and down, but the trend is up. But overall doesn't help everyone and it may not help you. But there are jobs now and higher wages and if you think we are not doing well, well you can vote for the other guy and maybe your memory will be refreshed once he takes office and starts imposing 25% tariffs and then you will see real inflation, and a your wages stagnate and he kills labor unions and social security and Medicare.
Trump always says that China pays his tariffs on Chinese goods - but, of course, that is FALSE (Trump is either a poorly informed fool or a liar - or, perhaps, both). The person importing the goods pays the tariff - and likely passes that increased cost on to the customer buying the product. Hence the cost of imported goods goes up - and the customers pay more (inflation)
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