During the United States’ 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump hammered President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris mercilessly on the economy — especially inflation, which he blamed the Biden Administration for. And his messaging worked: Trump, who won the popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent (according to the Cook Political Report), returned to the White House for a second term on Monday, January 20, 2025.
Rich Logis — the former Republican and ex-Trump supporter who founded the group Leaving MAGA — examines that economic angst in an think piece published by Salon on January 26. And he argues that many Trump supporters suffer from “an all-enveloping misunderstanding of American capitalism.”
“One delusional mythology about American capitalism that has been instilled in We the People is that we somehow have a guaranteed right to prosperity,” Logis writes. “This imaginary right has been deployed by politicians who are afraid of educating their constituents about how our model of commerce actually works…. With due respect to the many Americans who voted for Donald Trump, their overwhelming sense of entitlement dwarfs that of the hard-working immigrants who cut their grass, scrub pots and pans in the restaurants they frequent, and care for their kids and elderly loved ones.”
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Logis adds, “Too many Americans have come to believe they are owed financial comfort and material abundance, not to mention eggs and gasoline at predictable prices…. Welcome to capitalism, a system whose proponents always cite unequal outcomes as a reason for extolling it.”
Logis argues that “many millions” of Americans “are better off” because of former President Joe Biden’s administration, which “oversaw the recovery of millions of jobs lost during the COVID pandemic and the creation of millions more.”
The former MAGA Republican recalls that back in 2016, Trump’s “populist campaign resonated with” him. But he has since rejected the MAGA movement.
“Welcome to the ‘laws’ of supply and demand, which all of us must navigate on a daily basis,” Logis emphasizes. “If you don’t know or don’t remember these details, ask yourself why you don’t. If you’re a Trump voter, then ask yourself whether you might have voted differently in November had you been aware…. What do Trump voters, and especially true believers in the MAGA community, of which I was once a full member, think capitalism is?”
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Rich Logis’ full article for Salon is available at this link.
