It is apparent that although support for Donald Trump in the USA is undoubtedly falling, those who were his hard-core supporters are staying loyal. Independent voters and Democrats may not like him, and in the case of the independents, that is a significant shift in sentiment, but the MAGA are, so far, still with him.
The reason is not especially hard to find. The fact is that for the vast majority of people in the US, the impact of what Trump is up to has yet to be seen. If you can ignore the attacks on human rights, the rule of law, the constitution, and the threats to your opponents, as well as universities, judges, and the entire world outside the USA, then so far, Trump has not done a great deal to upset his core support. The MAGA are not worried by those things.
However, everything is subject to a timeline when it comes to the economy. Very soon, the impact of what Trump has been doing is going to hit the American consumer, whichever political interest group they might be categorised into. That is because importers might have done everything they could to rush product into the US before such time as tariffs were imposed, but that game is going to be over soon, and prices are going to have to rise. This will, inevitably, happen. Knowing that, and as the Financial Times notes this morning, the number of shipments of goods from China to the USA is falling dramatically:
Sometime very soon, the US consumer is going to find a shortage of the products that they want to buy, and those that are available are going to be at a higher price. This reality has not hit home as yet. Nor, I suspect, has the impact on exports as yet filtered through to the Midwest farmer, where it is going to be especially hard.
My point is, in essence, a very simple one. It is that economic failure takes a while to deliver. When, however, it happens, people tend to get very upset. I think they will.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Apparently per capita the US buys 37kgs of clothes per year. I struggle to imagine what 37kg looks like (underpants weigh 50gms and a teeshirt around 200 – 400gms). One thing for sure, US citizens will buy far far less. This will impact on demand for: containers (fewer), shipping (less), production (less), cotton (less). Global recession beckons. Is it good for the planet that the USA consumes so much? No. But what will happen to those with no jobs? Hard times are coming.
The transition to a different way of living might be beginning
That figure includes shoes and duvets which is going to get the average weight up a bit.
I don’t doubt it does include “shoes & duvets” etc… Lets see – replaced my indoors Birkenstock of 5 years with new ones this year. Quilts? I may have bought new ones 15 years ago?? The 37kg sounds like fast fashion to me. In fairness this was “clothes” & I’d suggest duvets don’t qualify.
But the world now seems to walk around in coats that look like sleeping bags, wrapped up to preserve the excessive temperatures I guess they keep their houses at, even on days like today. One of those must weigh a ton.
37kg per annum of clothes? Sounds like my wife Mike. Myself, more like 3.7 if I buy any clothes at all.
That’s very brave…. or perhaps your wife doesn’t follow the blog.
Plenty of Republican voters are angry already, going by the town hall meetings. But largely, they consume different media to Democrat voters. It really is that good at dividing them. The recent storms in the US for example, Fox news said that Trump had called out the National Guard, something Biden never did. This is true, because it’s the individual governors responsibility to do so, which they did, not Trump. Fox News won’t report that the states in question are now being denied federal disaster relief funds.
I suspect that any MAGA pain will be borne stoically, expect subsidies galore, because they believe unquestionably in King Donald.
This is my belief. He has persuaded them he is the answer without any real plan of how he is going to fix their problems. So if they believed his rhetoric enough to vote then maybe they still believe what he is telling them. And I’m sure there is a plan to blame someone else once the inevitable hits the fan.
I’ve said repeatedly to people who ask that from June onward will be when the proverbial shite hits the fan. But it won’t just be economic. Rachel Maddow has been documenting cuts to Federal services that will hit particularly hard in MAGA areas. For example, Headstart (a programme for preschool kids on which our Surestart – shut by the Tories – was based) has been gutted but in rural areas is often the only childcare available. The meals in wheels service has also been gutted. And lots of Federally funded schemes in public schools have been closed or severely cut back (the Project 2025 ‘plan’ is that the States will take over all this funding, but will they).
Add to that cuts to the administration of Social Security, which is undermining the service, and ditto Medicaid and Medicare and a perfect storm’s on the way. Oh, yes. Then there’s the unemployment figures, which will shoot up come the end of May and into June. Plus inflation. Happy days for Trump (not).
The question is, does he care? I suspect even his ego may suffer, as he’s already unhappy that Fox News’s own polling shows his popularity taking a nosedive (he was complaining about Murdoch at the weekend). But will they change course.
The white house fact check is a barrel of laughs. The US government tells its supports that entitlement fraud is not part of entitlement spending. And say that the media is making false claims of cuts. Expect the cuts to happen behind close doors through DOGE and a very public display of dismissing GOP budget cuts by the president.
And when it does become apparent that the effects of stupidity have filtered through, there will of course be others to blame.
Thank you, Richard.
A friend and former colleague, also a former Labour Party official until Starmer became leader, returned to Chicago a year ago and reports increasing dismay, including in southern Illinois, which is MAGA and where some of the family live, and suggests waiting for the mid-terms.
As this is the mid-west, it’s a bit polite and discreet, but said at the check out or when selecting fruit and vegetables. However, the tariffs and continuing neoliberalism are biting, with shortages in shops, trucks idle at depots, public services not being delivered.
The upper mid-west shares the great lakes with Canada. Disruption is reported.
Chicago attracts workers from around the country. Colleagues from Oregon and Washington state report some third party candidates mobilising as the Dixiecrats talk about opposing Trump, but will not break with neoliberalism.
Thanks
Surely Trump will move to seize control of the Media. Even Fox News, as Ivan says, is still reporting unfavourable poll results. Trump may consider that his mates’ control of much of the social media is of greater importance. But his vanity will not accept the constant goading by the “lefty” press. The first action of most dictators – Putin, Orban, etc is to shut down the opposition media or turn the newspapers and TV stations into government propaganda machines. Trump is a bit slow by comparison, but it would not be difficult for his wealthy benefactors to buy up the MSM.
Reading both the BBC Article (‘Kicking butt’ or ‘going too fast’? Trump voters reflect on 100 days) and the blog, what really stands out is that Trump’s core supporters are not clinging to him out of blind loyalty — they are actively weighing his actions against their own lived experiences.
The five Trump voters the BBC spoke to can be summarised thus:
Luiz Oliveira, a coffee shop owner from Nevada, applauds Trump’s tough immigration measures but worries about the speed and economic impact of his tariff policies. He says he’ll admit it was a mistake if it backfires.
Amanda Sue Mathis, a Navy veteran, is pleased with Trump’s domestic focus, rollback of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies, and restrictions on gender-affirming care and transgender athletes. She feels Trump is “kicking butt” but remains open to criticizing him if he falters.
Ben Maurer, a Pennsylvania truck driver, supports Trump’s aggressive tariffs despite the market turmoil, believing they will ultimately help American businesses and restore the US’s global strength.
June Carey, a California artist, is surprised by Trump’s aggressiveness but supports his efforts to cut government waste, led controversially by Elon Musk. She’s cautious about the future of social security but overall satisfied so far.
Jeremy Stevens, a Maine car repair shop owner, accepts the economic “temporary pain” from tariffs, confident that Trump’s vision will succeed if given enough time.
The real story isn’t why MAGA supporters aren’t angry yet — it’s that many are setting their own red lines. If Trump crosses them, their support could evaporate much faster than expected.
BBC Article – https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c807d4n0npeo
Thanks
Per Twitter no container ships scheduled to call from China is 29th April on the East Coast and 10th May on the West Coast
Port of Seattle is empty
“The MAGA are not worried by those things.”
Die hard MADAts are only concerned about getting rid of “Woke” and getting rid of immigrants (read People of Color as white Ukrainians and Vietnamese are acceptable). They will sacrifice everything (even their farm subsidies) to achieve these goals.
Noted
Re Bryan R above
I hope they go back to those 5 people in 6months or a years time and reinterview them again especially “Ben Maurer, a Pennsylvania truck driver,”
News today on MSNBC and a couple of podcasters indicating container arrivals already down 70% at US dockyards with predictions of yet further falls to come.
With those kind of falls for truck cargo plus falls in orders for exports of soya beans and grain it wont be long before the job losses in trucking and the rural economy kick in.
The next 12 months is when the pain with no gain comes to the US.
That’s my guess.
Very little, if anything, is going to sway a die-hard MAGA supporter. However, there are quite a few people who had a brain blip on election day and voted for Trump because they didn’t like Biden (despite being told that Biden wasn’t on the ballot!) and/or ‘the Democrats were doing “nothing,”‘etc.
This was a protest vote, and not one based on the core ideology that MAGA embraces. These are the people who are not happy now, and will be less happy as time goes on.
I know two of these people—both of whom supported Democrats in the past—and was shocked when they admitted how they’d voted this time. One of them said he ‘hated’ Trump as a person, but the country needed a change, so he voted for Trump. The other one also hates Trump, but said, ‘It won’t be so bad, but Biden was just awful and did nothing for the people experiencing flooding, and I just couldn’t vote for him again.’
These are the kinds of voters who are experiencing a very nasty wake-up call just now. And they are unlikely to vote Republican again …at least not a Trumpian Republican.
Both of these people are liberal when it comes to social issues, by the way, and certainly don’t hate immigrants, etc. I don’t know what on earth tempted them to vote for a worst option because the alternative wasn’t good enough …but they did. Regret is already high. I school myself not to say ‘I told you so,’ because they already know it.
We await developments.