They don't care about income inequality or big business. They are concerned that political correctness and other progressive ideas will make America weak in the face of danger (terrorism). It's not their fault that the party that pretends to care also sucks up to corporations.
To the contrary, I think that Trump supporters absolutely care about income inequality and big business.
They are people whose factories have closed and whose jobs have been outsourced.
Using a third grade vocabulary and hyperbolic absolutism, he tells them that their factories have closed because greedy corporations have moved their jobs to China. They are losing jobs in the U.S. because the Mexicans have come in illegally and taken their jobs.
He is speaking directly to their pain--and proposing solutions that are unworkable, unattainable, or more dangerous than the causes, but believe me, their pain doesn't have anything to do with political correctness and progressive ideas. Give me a break!
But what would happen if he slapped a 50% tariff on all imports? Several things:
- prices on goods would go up significantly. This would hurt lower income people most.
- other countries would retaliate by slapping taxes on our exports.
- the inflationary effect would hurt everyone on fixed incomes--people on Social Security, pensions, veterans' benefits, etc.
- the inflationary effect would depress the stock market.
- The Chinese, who are heavily invested in the United States, would stop investing in the United States. It would be more difficult for the United States to sell its bonds. This could increase the interest rate the U.S. needs to finance its debts--and if you think we have budget deficits right now, you can't imagine what they'd be if we had to pay higher interest rates on them.
I'm not an economist, although I find the subject interesting. Since my husband is retired, we rely on investments and I try to keep up with Wall Street.
Wall Street is most fearful of Trump and Sanders. Why do you think that Wall Street is so fearful of a Trump victory? The stock market has gone down since he has become the presumptive nominee (although troubles in China, the country Trump wants to stick tariffs on, are a partial cause).
The short answer is that Trump proposes a simplistic, unrealistic solution with huge negative repercussions to laid-off factory workers and outsourced workers--and they deserve more than that. They deserve more respect. They deserve someone who doesn't talk down to them and deceive them.
I want to help them, too, but I understand that the real solutions are far more complex. For more information, read Robert Reich's books or check out his informational you-tube videos.
And for what it's worth, I don't think a Romney presidency would have been worse than a Trump presidency. I disliked Romney personally because he made his money closing factories and putting people out of work to manipulate the stock market. I disliked his ideas because tax cuts for the wealthy never "trickles down" to the less wealthy and increases our deficits.
I disliked him because he had no respect for the 47%.
