“Bread went from $3 [in 2020] to $6.50,” said Jack Dozier (YC ‘27), a sophomore from central Virginia. “Same store, same location.” Dozier identifies the kind of inflation nearly every American voter can relate to. Economic data feels abstract. The price of bread is concrete.
This fact formed the center of President Donald Trump’s pitch. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Trump, channeling Ronald Reagan, boomed at rallies across the country. Kamala Harris, by contrast, repeatedly cited prominent economists and businesspeople. “Sixteen Nobel laureates have described his economic plan as something that would increase inflation and by the middle of next year would invite a recession,” she chided Trump at their only general election debate. Harris did not ask voters how they felt. She told them what experts thought. Trump, on the other hand, cultivated the people’s concerns by putting forth plans that were straightforward and ubiquitous, dovetailing voter experiences.
Trump’s campaign rode people’s anger over post-Covid inflation all the way to the White House. Yet Trump promised a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports along with a universal tariff of 10-20% on all other imports. “That’s a sales tax on what you’re importing… the customers who buy the good are having to pay that tax,” visiting Yale Economics Professor Robert W. Dimand explained. Although on paper, these policies promise jobs and lower prices, they counter their purpose of reducing the price of goods. “Goods will be produced at higher costs domestically and this [will not] even reduce the trade deficit,” Dimand continued. So, President Trump’s campaign pilloried Democrats on inflation, yet its signature economic policies—massive tariffs and an attempt to reshore consumer goods manufacturing—were highly inflationary. Kamala Harris pointed this out repeatedly. She was backed up by ostensibly non-partisan experts in the media and academia. Democrats were, ultimately, unable to harness this contradiction to their advantage.
Rather than being influenced by economists or academic philosophers, the most successful politicians reflect the public’s mood. They hold a mirror to society, channeling anger, joy, hope, or fear. Politicians only take advice from experts when it will foster more support. “They are following their instincts, and they’re also wishing to say what the electorate already believes and therefore wants to hear,” Dimand explains. If the public holds inconsistent beliefs, politicians have no incentive to challenge them. Another example of politicians reflecting the beliefs of the people–––however contradictory those beliefs may be–––can be seen in Donald Trump’s messaging around immigration. Inflation is a concept that is difficult for people to attack because it’s not physical, however, Trump has presented immigrants as the palpable form of inflation. In Trump’s rhetoric, immigrants steal jobs, commit crimes, and mooch off of the government. Yet mass deportations of immigrants, a key Trump campaign promise, would almost certainly increase food prices, despite the campaign’s expressed concern about inflation. “Unemployment rates in the United States are at about close to a 50-year low. That’s why there are all these job vacancies for migrants, immigrants to take,” said Dimand. If farmworkers are deported, American agriculture will rapidly face a massive labor shortage, and food prices will increase due to the sustained demand and low supply.
“If immigrants were forced to leave, there [would not] be much milk to drink in the United States, because it’s an industry that’s dependent on immigrants taking jobs that domestic workers [do not take] because birth rates in the United States and elsewhere have fallen dramatically,” Dimand continued. “We [have] an aging population. There [is not] a large enough cohort of people of working age to take all the available jobs.” None of these facts proved to be politically salient. Americans felt pain, and Trump told them he saw that pain and even provided them with someone to blame for problems in America: crime, the rise in prices, and unemployment. These feelings used to be socially unacceptable, so even if someone’s feelings on the matter were strong, they would muffle it. However, Trump told people that their feelings were legitimate and placed them at the core of his campaign, fueling discriminative sentiments. Democrats, by contrast, sought to explain why Republican views were wrong.
“Almost everybody except economists [says that] exports are good, imports are bad, and that their trade deficits are terrible things, and trade surpluses are good,” said Dimand. Donald Trump harnessed this fact—instead of trying to explain David Ricardo’s work on the mutual benefits of free trade to the American people, he told them they were right.
“Having clear economic policy like President-elect Trump has, [wins] campaigns. Unfortunately, social issues, which previously would have won a candidate a campaign have now been replaced by economic issues. [It’s] a difficult trade-off,” said Dozier. Many Democrats relied on voters that prioritized human rights and environmental efforts, but the economy was a more compelling issue for a majority of voters.
“[While] a lot of people prioritize clean energy, foreign policy, whatever it may be, what you will see most and what you will see every day on the small scale, will be changes in the [prices of] bread at the grocery store, eggs, milk…daily essentials,” said Dozier. Even if incomes are adjusted to combat inflation, the rising food prices dominate decisions at the ballot box. “[As a consumer], what you see first and foremost is that [the] cost of life is going up, and that’s something that is concerning to a lot of voters,” said Dozier. Driven by Trump’s extreme but established economic plan, people may have voted for him in hopes of price reductions. This is a real-life model of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: economic stability over human rights, physiological needs over safety needs. Economic stability has become a physiological need.
Economists’ analyses just do not cut through with voters. “Even when there are economists who are widely read and influential, say on the Left, someone like Paul Krugman in the New York Times or on the Right say Robert Barro writing in The Wall Street Journal, they are largely read by people who already agree with them and know what opinion they are going to have,” Dimand said. People’s perception on the economy largely depends on politicians and their claims, especially to those who are less educated. “Trump delighted in taking positions that would earn him an F in most economics courses,” The New York Times magazine opined in an article post-election.
“Voters do care about the economy, but they do not care about what economists say about it, they care about [if] they seem to be prosperous compared to [how they were] a few years ago,” explained Dimand. People will continue to seek sources that support their already established ideals. “More complicated or sophisticated economic analysis seems to be used by people, mostly to support opinions they already had,” Dimand continued. This is why Trump’s approach to economics is effective. He reflects what people feel. Trump makes no attempt to disabuse his supporters of their feelings; people trust his process even if it involves unethical decision-making.
People seek confirmation and understanding from their politicians, not a lecture. Because of this, Trump is a very supported individual regardless of his extremist policies. However, everything comes with a cost. His presence in politics will further weaken the economy and threaten American social progress. “We need to think about why he’s winning and beat him in his own game by providing more humane and socially-just policies, and especially economically progressive policies to sap his support,” said Samuel Moyn, a professor at Yale Law.
Moyn is frustrated by the misapplication of Biden-era results to Trump “wins.” “Biden didn’t create inflation and Trump wasn’t responsible for the ‘good old days’ of 2017, 2018, before the pandemic,” said Moyn.
Americans seek to be heard, so when a President comes in and promises that he will eliminate the financial burden of inflation, people will be tempted to believe it without vindication. In retail, the customer is always right. Among successful politicians, the voter is always right; if a politician is lecturing the electorate, they are losing. Politicians are supposed to be representatives of the people. Listening to a successful politician, accordingly, is like talking to oneself in the mirror. If Americans took their cues from experts, maybe their politicians would start to reflect experts’ views. Maybe politicians’ economic policies would be internally coherent.