To the Democrats who didn't see Kamala's loss and Trump's win coming...

Okay, I'm going to try to explain.

There's a thing called Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The idea is that you have to satisfy each need before you can start working on satisfying the next one.

1) food, shelter and rest

2) physical safety

3) love, belonging and acceptance

4) respect, recognition and status

5) creativity and achieving one's full potential

Most Americans exist on tier 3. Their physical and safety needs are mostly met, and they have friends and family who care about them.

What happens when consumer prices go up more than 20% on average? And that's not even how bad it is. If you're working class, you were already spending most of your money on essentials--food, energy, housing, and the transportation necessary earn the money to pay for them.

People in that position don't buy a lot of nonessentials because they can't afford them. Luxuries aren't up that much--between 5 and 15%. So how can prices overall be up more than 20% on average?

Well, groceries are up more than 25% since 2020. Meals out? Up 30%. Housing? Up 50% for renters, 90% for homebuyers. Electricity? Up 35-40%. Gasoline? Up 50%.

Those are tier 1 needs, the bare necessities. The things people can't put off or do without. And those prices went up the most. 

So what do you do when you can't satisfy your tier 1 needs on your income? You put them on a credit card. You take out a payday loan. If you're lucky enough to own a home, you take out a secured line of credit. Or you move back in with your parents.

On top of that, in order to cool the runaway inflation caused by Biden's overspending (all from wasteful bills Kamala cast the tie-breaking vote for), the Fed raised interest rates. So the interest you're paying on your ballooning debt is now triple the rate it was in 2020.

During Biden's single term, people in the bottom 50% were set back a decade or more. Millennials saw the prospect of home ownership shrink into a blurry dot on the horizon. Gen Z? Most can't even afford a shitty studio apartment with hotplate and a prison-style toilet/sink combo.

And the kicker is that from 2017 to 2019, things were great for everyone.

People think back to Trump's term, and what do they remember? The median household's real annual spending power increased by $7000.

His tax cuts (according to IRS data) disproportionately benefitted the working and middle classes. Real wages for everyone were on the rise, faster for the working and middle classes than the top 20%. Income inequality was decreasing. Inflation was low, interest rates were low, unemployment was low. 

And the thing about the bottom 50% is that they're 50%. Literally half the country. And when Biden got elected, they got SCREWED.

Since 1984, Gallup has done a poll every September when an incumbent president is running for reelection. They ask Americans, "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" This is the iconic question Reagan asked Americans that is widely credited for winning him the 1980 election.

In 1984, Reagan won reelection in a 49 state landslide. Even though fewer than 50% of Americans answered "yes" to Gallup's question. Since then, the trend has been that if an incumbent received more than 40% yes, they'd win. Less than 40% yes, they'd lose. But whatever the case, not a single incumbent president who ended up winning ever broke through the 50% ceiling. Not Reagan, not Clinton, not GW Bush, not Obama.

Until September 2020. When 56% of Americans said they were better off than four years prior. 

So you had all these working and middle class people who were getting ahead, making gains. Savings were at a 40 year high. Home sales were at their highest since the 2007/08 recession. Even COVID and BLM's "summer of love" weren't enough to curb people's optimism about their own circumstances and futures. The pandemic was a blip, and would soon be over (or so they thought). The riots would die down, they always do.

The ONLY reason Biden won in 2020 was because the mainstream media convinced voters that they were better off than they were four years before not BECAUSE of Trump, but DESPITE him.

Now that all the gains they made under Trump have evaporated (and then some) under Biden, people have been looking back and reevaluating.

Things were good back then. The guy they were told would trigger WWIII started no new wars, made ISIS irrelevant, and brokered peace deals between Israel and Muslim majority countries. He even got North and South Korea talking. BLM and COVID notwithstanding, life was just... better.

And now these people have been knocked down a rung or two on Maslow's hierarchy, and they want a chance to start climbing again. It's not never too late to start over from nothing, but it is if you don't have opportunities.

Meanwhile, who's telling them to vote for Kamala?

Rich celebrities. The billionaire donor class.

Overeducated elites who think personal pronouns are more important than the price of ramen, and who make their money lecturing white people about how they're racist by default.

People who want to mandate EVs, and blame the people who can only afford 20 year old clunkers for destroying the planet.

People who think transgender surgeries for prison inmates are a good use of taxpayer funds, and that abortion, not opportunity, is the best solution to poverty.

People who protest that if illegals are deported, who's going to clean their toilets and pick their cotton for 2/3 of minimum wage?

People who get paid millions to gaslight voters on TV that the economy's great, Bidenomics is working! Look at these record jobs numbers, just ignore that they're all either part time (second or even third) jobs, or taxpayer funded positions, while the private sector has been hemorrhaging quality full time jobs for at least two years.

All of whom exist comfortably on tiers 4 and 5. None of whom have to worry about getting mugged by a Venezuelan gang member on their way home from the fucking food bank. None of whom have to take public transit. None of whom have to interact with the plebes, let alone the cracked out, mentally ill homeless and violent criminal gangs.

And all of whom have been telling the people on the bottom 3 tiers not to believe their lying eyes. Forget how good it was four years ago and ignore how bad it is now, because OUR statistics are telling the truth. It's YOUR bank balance and lived experience that's lying. 

And hey! The stock market is doing great! I know you don't actually own any stocks, but the rich are getting richer like cha-ching! Don't you want the economy to flourish?

Also, if we don't make your life even harder for the next 20 or 30 years, then in a hundred years, the world is going to end because of climate change. So turn down the thermostat and eat your bug burger, peasant. We all have to make sacrifices to save the planet. Anyway, I have to go. My private jet is waiting to take off so I can go collect my $100,000 speaking fee at WEF about how we have to reduce emissions, and my wagyu rib eye with truffle demi-glace is getting cold.

And don't forget, if you don't vote for Kamala, you're racist, sexist and fascist. Beyonce and every other rich asshole on the Diddy list told us so. After all, Kamala was raised in a middle class family. That's gotta count for something, amirite?

I have NEVER in my life seen a more out of touch elite class. And that's up against some pretty stiff competition. We're talking Marie Antoinette on steroids.

And even worse, your candidate was a dud. Board certified, first ballot, hall of fame dud. Nasally voice. Irritating laugh. And an empty head would be better than the bullshit she has in hers.

$25,000 in down payment assistance for first time homebuyers? Congratulations, you just increased the price of homes by... let me check... huh. What do you know? $25,000. Who could have foreseen this, other than everyone?

She'll give black men $20,000 in free money to start "businesses", and legalize weed. That'll get those darkies on board.

I know the world is falling apart. The Taliban have retaken Afghanistan on my watch. China is more asshole than ever, and in fact, they've taken over Bagram Air Base and are currently maintaining and reverse engineering the $80 billion in military equipment Joe Biden and I left behind in Afghanistan. But what are you gonna do, right? Let's just all unburden ourselves from what has been, and then we can see what else I can fuck up from here on out.

When Biden went to Saudi Arabia to beg Mohammad bin Saud to increase oil production to bring down gas prices before the midterms, he was given the middle eastern middle finger. So he drained half the National Strategic Petroleum Reserve to solve his midterm election emergency.

Why NOT green light Nord Stream 2, and then publicly invite Ukraine to join NATO when there are hundreds of thousands of Russian troops assembled on the Ukraine border? Let Putin complete the project. Let him think he's going to have a massive war chest. And then cross his last red line, stomp on his last nerve. Because the only thing better than starting a regime change war is luring and goading the other guy into starting it, amirite?

October 7? That had NOTHING to do with Biden/Harris not enforcing the existing sanctions against the country that funded that attack. Oh, wait. It kinda did.

The globe is in turmoil. We're on the verge of a potential nuclear escalation. Real household spending power in the US has declined. For the median household, it's declined by $11,000 a year since 2016--which means the $7000 gained under Trump, plus another $4000, was erased by Biden/Harris.

And you know? She just wouldn't change a thing. There is not a thing that comes to mind that she'd have done differently.

Also, don't let anyone take your joy from you. Be a joyful warrior, like Kamala, unburdened by what has been. Like the last four years of crushing inflation, record consumer debt, global conflict and stagnant wages. Forget all of that. A vote for Kamala is a vote for joy.

And what's the response from the Democrats? "Trump was convicted of 34 felonies! He's an adjudicated rapist! An INSURRECTIONIST! He defrauded banks! He's the reincarnation of Hitler!"

You can say that all you want, it doesn't change what people on the ground experienced when Trump was in office, compared to what they experienced under Joe and Kamala.

Call the poor selfish for prioritizing feeding and sheltering their kids over funding a proxy war in Ukraine. Call them selfish for voting for the candidate that MIGHT make it possible for them to own a home one day. Call them selfish for just not being that into the significance of the passage of time and what it means for climate change.

"But don't you care about the sea levels100 years from now?!"

"Bitch, I'm just trying to keep my family's head above water until the end of the month."

Congratulations, Democrats. You lost the little guy. You lost the average Joe and the average Jane. And instead of looking in he mirror, you're reflexively making excuses and casting blame on everyone but yourselves.

It's the mainstream media! It's social media! It's the ignorant, uneducated, unwashed, low IQ, rube voters! It's the podcasters! It's misinformation! It's Elon Musk! It's the "right wing radicalization funnel!"

No. It was just you. You suck. Your policies suck. The consequences of your policies suck. America gave you four years, and you made everything suck. LITERALLY everything. Domestically, internationally, socially, economically. It all sucks. And what doesn't suck yet, because lag is a thing when it comes to certain industries, is about to start sucking like nobody's business in 3...2...

You want to piss on my leg, go ahead. You can tell me it's raining all you want. 

Just don't expect me to agree that pronouns are more important than food and rent. Or that Joy Reid and Whoopi Goldberg are oppressed. Or that a cackling midwit who can't coherently answer a direct question is capable of running the most powerful nation on earth. Or that thinking she isn't makes me sexist and racist. Or that it's selfish for working people to want their kids to be able to own a home someday. Or that the globe is actually MORE stable since Biden took office. Or that Kamala can totally fix all the catastrophically bad decisions Biden made that totally weren't bad at all even though they've led us to the brink of WWIII.

Especially when she can't think of a single thing she'd have done differently.

The fact that despite the insanity of the last four years, 73m+ Americans still voted for her? That would be disappointing if it wasn't so horrific.

Election night, I had nightmares. I finally got up at 4AM (MT), but I couldn't look. So I started scrolling through my emails. And there it was. NY Times notification: "Trump Storms Back".

I didn't celebrate. I didn't do a victory dance or spike a football. I didn't stand up and cheer. I didn't glory in the anticipated flood of liberal tears. 

I just felt relief.

Will Trump be able to repair everything in four years? Probably not. The rot and corruption of decades runs too deep, and the reckless, feckless decisions of the the last four years have done too much damage for it to be fixed by flipping a switch.

But at least America is pointed in the right direction.

And to the Democrats who are still trying to figure out how this could have happened, I will tell you this: Never underestimate the power of Maslow's hierarchy. When you focus on luxury issues at the expense of the bottom 50%, the bottom 50% WILL send you a message. 

Just be happy it was delivered peacefully by ballot. Other out-of-touch regimes have learned that lesson the hard way.