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Thomas Avant is a freelance journalist, government finance professional, and author of the 2020 book “Damaged People: Narcissism and the Foundation of a Dysfunctional American Society.” This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.
Many people are wondering: How is it that, in 2024, voters in the United States elected a twice-impeached convicted felon with multiple indictments in other cases — who incited an insurrection to overthrow the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021 — to lead us again?
The answer is multi-layered, but there’s no doubt that “low-information voters” — those who pay little attention to politics — were courted by Trump even more aggressively this time, and to great effect. Gaslighting, lies and disinformation have been a tactic of the Republican Party for years, but Trump and his team took this to new levels.
Certainly the case can be made that, if low-information voters had truly been voting for a better economy and their own self-interests, they would have cast their ballots for Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. Instead, it was Trump’s messaging that prevailed.
During his first term, Trump presided over the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” This included, in 2018, disbanding the pandemic response unit established by President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic. Housed within the National Security Council, its purpose was to help prevent and mitigate global outbreaks of disease.
Two years later we experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to more than 400,000 deaths during Trump’s administration. Trump’s deregulation agenda, underplaying of the pandemic, unwillingness to implement federal mask and vaccine mandates, and stream of misinformation about the virus further spiraled the economy. That decline prolonged the pandemic and exacerbated an economic downturn that resulted in high inflation and supply chain issues across the globe.
While the Republicans blame President Joe Biden for inflation, supply shortages imposed by the pandemic and exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war are more likely to blame, as is corporate greed. Moreover, 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists have warned that Trump’s promised tariff policies will increase inflation.
The American economy under Biden is, by all economic indicators, actually thriving, with low unemployment, rising wages and steep stock market gains. Low-information voters were played.
The modern Republican Party is largely the party of the wealthy and big business. It aims to reduce corporate income tax and income tax on the highest-earning individuals, passing these costs on to the middle class and downsizing much-needed programs, including Medicare and Social Security.
The national debt increased significantly during Trump’s term in office, as it has under previous Republican presidents. That’s because Republican administrations continue to spend, while lowering revenues by cutting taxes for high-earners and corporations. The national debt under Ronald Reagan rose by more than $1.6 trillion, or 160.8 percent; Trump added $6.7 trillion or 33.1 percent in his four years. Maybe that’s why Republicans no longer talk much about the national debt.
While it will take many years and a massive effort to inform and educate the low-information voter, the Democratic Party must begin now if it is to have any chance of success. The forces of dark money in politics, misinformation and disinformation, conspiracy theories, tribalism, vast ignorance and anti-intellectualism are stacked against us.
One thing is certain: if the Democratic Party doesn’t revamp its messaging strategy, it will continue to suffer at the polls, and the country will continue its downward slide toward authoritarianism and dysfunction. The Democratic establishment must give way to new ideas on how to educate working-class and low-information voters.
