Ever since Trump won the 2024 election, the elites and the left have been entirely clueless WHY the Orange Man was brought back into office. It must be due to sexism that Kamala Harris lost! There can be NO other explanation!
In fact, the political grief from the left about Trump’s victory was so strong that even the shrinks needed to see shrinks. Therefore it goes without saying that anything and everything Trump does triggers a meltdown and a barrage of finger-pointing: “See? SEE? We TOLD you he would ruin the country!”
But the manufactured hysteria is not having the intended effect of scaring away Trump supporters. That’s because leftists refuse to understand how Flyover Country works. We’ve known for years how both politicians and the media are largely clueless about what boots-on-the-ground Americans face on a daily basis. Complaints about these elites residing in echo chambers or issuing directions from ivory towers are nothing new.
When the opinions of ordinary Americans are solicited, those opinions are either rejected, scorned, disdained, minimized, criticizes, or otherwise dismissed – unless, of course, that opinion agrees with what the elites are hearing in their progressive echo chamber, in which case it’s offered as proof that the elites are doing the right thing. Keep this in mind for a few minutes.
Online, I’ve been seeing a lot of panic, fretting and dire predictions concerning Trump’s tariffs, particularly with regard to Chinese imports. To be honest, I haven’t been following details of the issue overly closely. Why? Because our household has been busy bracing ourselves for impact. We don’t know what the fallout will be, how prices or availability will be affected, or whether shortages will cause hardships. We don’t know.
Lest you think I’m writing this from a position of lofty security, you should know I’ve joined the ranks of laid-off citizens. I lost my job in mid-February, an action that dropped our income by two-thirds. We’re doing fine because we spent years whittling down our cost of living and cultivating sidebar revenue streams, so we’re able to make do on the remaining one-third of our income. So yeah, we’re living the reality of boots-on-the-ground life in Flyover Country.
Faced with shortages, price increases and hardship from the tariffs, the media and leftists politicians fully expected the American people to rise up in fury and turn on the president they elected. They cited endless, carefully curated polls as proof of this assumption.
Then one conservative columnist named David Marcus decided to do something most leftist won’t condescend to do: He talked to the working men and women of America to learn their views on Trump’s tariffs. Keep in mind the people he spoke to are some of the people potentially most heavily impacted by these tariffs.
“[T]the Democrats and even some Republicans have cited polls that show Americans think this policy will hurt them economically, and so surely they must be souring on Trump,” he started. “The past few days I have traveled around West Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky, and I could not find a single Trump voter who regretted their choice over tariffs. Not one.”
What he found is a stubborn, resilient population willing to bear the brunt of the up-front pain of the tariffs if it means long-term benefits. One couple said, “We need change, and that can hurt at first. Trump needs time to make that change.”
This attitude is apparently baffling the elites, who expected Middle America to crumple up and beg the left to save them: “Last week, pollster Frank Luntz expressed his surprise this way: ‘I’ve never seen this before. Because usually, when you’re hurt economically, that changes your perspective and your politics. Not with these people. They’re staying firm.’”
Here’s what is eluding the mainstream media, academia, politicians and other ivory-tower elites: Trump voters – which constitute nearly all small-town and rural areas of the nation – are fed up with the status quo. Residing as we do in rural Idaho, smack in the middle of Flyover Country, I can attest this attitude is widespread and not restricted to a few outliers. “Those in power or with loud voices in D.C. and Gotham still haven’t fully come to terms with the Trump phenomenon,” notes Marcus.
While the Rosie O’Donnells of the world are busy blasting anything and everything Trump does as evil and Nazi-esque, Middle America is taking a broader wait-and-see attitude. The president is still pushing an America-first agenda.
“Trump’s supporters are not going to run to the hills because the stock market gets bouncy or Barbie dolls get a few bucks pricier, because they clearly see Trump’s upside,” wrote Marcus. “It may be remarkable that despite the entirety of the liberal media and even a decent chunk of the conservative media railing against tariffs. Trump’s voters still trust him on the issue. But it should not come as a surprise.”
Despite the struggles, despite the uncertainty, it seems working-class Trump voters still feel hopeful that things will work out to America’s benefit in the end.
“Do these working Americans know that Trump’s policies might fail?” asks Marcus. “Sure, they aren’t stupid. They get the risk. But they didn’t vote to spruce up the status quo, they voted to destroy it, and that is why some economic discomfort will not scare them away from Donald Trump.”
Yet concerns linger. China is in a world of hurt at the moment from the tariffs, with some predicting the nation will plunge into a full-fledged economic depression. Beijing will have trouble backing down from its standoff with the United States, according to Martin Capital CEO Rod Martin (mentioned in the Epoch Times), because Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping “has clearly created his whole persona around being the leader who can stand up to America.”
It is this uncertainty over Xi’s reaction that has me most concerned. He wields – or thinks he wields – an iron grip over his people, and those people are now protesting as tens of millions lose their jobs and livelihoods. Backed into a corner, Xi might do something insane, like lobbing an EMP over America in retaliation.
So the jury is still out with regard to the tariff fallout, but supporters are willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. At least the man is DOING something to correct the decades-long drift away from American manufacturing. It remains to be seen whether the long-term gain will justify the short-term pain.