Matthew Chapman
December 26, 2024
RAW STORY
Social Security Cards and Money (Shutterstock)
Residents of unincorporated New Castle, Pennsylvania, drove a surge in support for Donald Trump in 2024. Now, they're counting on him not to cut their Social Security benefits, The Washington Post reported.
New Castle used to be a booming industrial town, and a century ago it was a bastion of support for Democratic politicians, said the report: "Before Trump won New Castle, the city had last backed a Republican presidential candidate in 1956, when voters narrowly supported Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) over Adlai Stevenson (D), according to Andrei Pagnotta, a resident who has spent years studying the region’s election results. But the city changed dramatically as factories closed and younger residents moved to more vibrant urban areas ... The city’s population of 21,000 is roughly half what it was during its peak in the 1940s."
One resident who plans to switch to the Republican Party and backed Trump despite disagreeing with him on social issues, Lori Mosura, says that she was driven to do so by money being tight. “He is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich,” she said. “I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected, so I think Trump is going to do more to help us.”
Trump is infamous for having run a series of scams on the vulnerable, including a fake university that defrauded people with promises of training to become a real estate tycoon. His nominee to be attorney general is a former Florida law enforcement official who dropped a probe into that case around the same time a group supporting her candidacy accepted a gift from Trump's charitable foundation, since shut down.
As for her message to Trump now, Mosura said: “We helped get you in office; please take care of us. Please don’t cut the things that help the most vulnerable.”
For his part, Trump has repeatedly pledged not to touch Social Security or Medicare. However, his "Department of Government Efficiency" task force headed up by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged to cut more than $2 trillion from the federal budget, and experts have warned there is no possible way to do this without cutting key entitlement programs like Social Security.
Social Security Cards and Money (Shutterstock)
Residents of unincorporated New Castle, Pennsylvania, drove a surge in support for Donald Trump in 2024. Now, they're counting on him not to cut their Social Security benefits, The Washington Post reported.
New Castle used to be a booming industrial town, and a century ago it was a bastion of support for Democratic politicians, said the report: "Before Trump won New Castle, the city had last backed a Republican presidential candidate in 1956, when voters narrowly supported Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) over Adlai Stevenson (D), according to Andrei Pagnotta, a resident who has spent years studying the region’s election results. But the city changed dramatically as factories closed and younger residents moved to more vibrant urban areas ... The city’s population of 21,000 is roughly half what it was during its peak in the 1940s."
One resident who plans to switch to the Republican Party and backed Trump despite disagreeing with him on social issues, Lori Mosura, says that she was driven to do so by money being tight. “He is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich,” she said. “I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected, so I think Trump is going to do more to help us.”
Trump is infamous for having run a series of scams on the vulnerable, including a fake university that defrauded people with promises of training to become a real estate tycoon. His nominee to be attorney general is a former Florida law enforcement official who dropped a probe into that case around the same time a group supporting her candidacy accepted a gift from Trump's charitable foundation, since shut down.
As for her message to Trump now, Mosura said: “We helped get you in office; please take care of us. Please don’t cut the things that help the most vulnerable.”
For his part, Trump has repeatedly pledged not to touch Social Security or Medicare. However, his "Department of Government Efficiency" task force headed up by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged to cut more than $2 trillion from the federal budget, and experts have warned there is no possible way to do this without cutting key entitlement programs like Social Security.
Why CA farmers who backed Trump are 'reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction'
Bodega, California in the Sonoma Valley in 2013 (Wikimedia Commons)
Once a red state, California has been heavily Democratic since the 1990s. Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly lost the 2024 election to President-elect Donald Trump, but she carried California by 20 percent (according to the Associated Press).
Yet some Californians in the agricultural industry backed Trump because of his promise to lift water restrictions.
In an article published the day after Christmas, Politico's Camille von Kaenel reports that California farmers "could soon enjoy bumper crops" but are "reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction": Trump " also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up at least half of the state's agricultural workforce."
READ MORE: Musk supporters outraged after he backs importing 'super talented engineers'
Chris Reardon, vice president of policy advocacy for the California Farm Bureau Federation, told Politico, "To say it would have an impact on California would be an understatement. We just don't know yet."
Von Kaenel notes that Trump's incoming second administration is "likely to undo a Biden-era rule that increased labor protections for temporary farmworkers under the H2-A visa."
Antonio De Loera, communications director for the United Farm Workers, told Politico, "Anything that happens needs to first do right by the workforce that is here, the current workforce that has been feeding us for decades."
De Loera continued, "We will not allow that workforce to be discarded and replaced by expansion of an exploitative gap worker program…. The main thing we're doing across the organization is trying to just reassure workers and empower workers, so that they're not scared by this rhetoric into accepting working conditions that are dangerous."
Read the full Politico article at this link.
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Bodega, California in the Sonoma Valley in 2013 (Wikimedia Commons)
December 26, 2024
ALTERNET
Once a red state, California has been heavily Democratic since the 1990s. Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly lost the 2024 election to President-elect Donald Trump, but she carried California by 20 percent (according to the Associated Press).
Yet some Californians in the agricultural industry backed Trump because of his promise to lift water restrictions.
In an article published the day after Christmas, Politico's Camille von Kaenel reports that California farmers "could soon enjoy bumper crops" but are "reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction": Trump " also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up at least half of the state's agricultural workforce."
READ MORE: Musk supporters outraged after he backs importing 'super talented engineers'
Chris Reardon, vice president of policy advocacy for the California Farm Bureau Federation, told Politico, "To say it would have an impact on California would be an understatement. We just don't know yet."
Von Kaenel notes that Trump's incoming second administration is "likely to undo a Biden-era rule that increased labor protections for temporary farmworkers under the H2-A visa."
Antonio De Loera, communications director for the United Farm Workers, told Politico, "Anything that happens needs to first do right by the workforce that is here, the current workforce that has been feeding us for decades."
De Loera continued, "We will not allow that workforce to be discarded and replaced by expansion of an exploitative gap worker program…. The main thing we're doing across the organization is trying to just reassure workers and empower workers, so that they're not scared by this rhetoric into accepting working conditions that are dangerous."
Read the full Politico article at this link.
Americans 'seem to be catching on' to harsh reality of Trump's campaign pledge: columnist
Erik De La Garza
December 26, 2024
Erik De La Garza
December 26, 2024
RAW STORY
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to McDonalds in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 20, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS
Americans are starting to wise up to the harsh reality that President-elect Donald Trump has no plan – and never did – to cut prices and bury inflation woes, according to a Washington Post columnist.
And that could result in an expensive four years for consumers – many of whom fearing high prices are already stocking up on goods, Catherine Rampell wrote in an opinion piece Thursday for the Post.
“A day late and a dollar short, Americans are realizing that President-elect Donald Trump plans to short them a few dollars. That’s right: Since the election, U.S. consumers have become more likely to say they expect prices to rise next year,” Rampell wrote.
While Trump ran his 2024 campaign on appealing promises to bring everyday prices that have skyrocketed for consumers in recent years down, he acknowledged in a Time magazine interview only after winning that election that he could do no such thing, Rampell reminded readers.
“I’d like to bring them down,” Trump told Time magazine. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”
The only thing surprising about the admission from Trump “is that he said it out loud,” Rampell wrote.
“One thing Trump didn’t acknowledge, however, is how his economic agenda — tariffs, deportations, tax cuts, and kneecapping the Federal Reserve — could worsen the problem that voters hired him to solve,” according to the columnist. “But Americans seem to be catching on anyway.”
Rampell pointed to a University of Michigan nationwide survey that measures consumers about their views on the economy. It found a surge in participants since the election reporting “that now is a good time to purchase big-ticket items, because prices will probably rise.”
“We don’t know for sure what’s driving these shifts in consumer views,” Rampell added. “Most likely, Americans are absorbing news coverage of Trump’s proposed tariffs and their potential to raise prices on food, cars, apparel, appliances and other common household purchases.”
Trump’s threats of mass deportations could also drive up fruit, vegetable and dairy prices, she warned. And, Rampell concluded, Trump could easily worsen increased prices consumers are already facing in the face of other geopolitical and supply-chain issues.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to McDonalds in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 20, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS
Americans are starting to wise up to the harsh reality that President-elect Donald Trump has no plan – and never did – to cut prices and bury inflation woes, according to a Washington Post columnist.
And that could result in an expensive four years for consumers – many of whom fearing high prices are already stocking up on goods, Catherine Rampell wrote in an opinion piece Thursday for the Post.
“A day late and a dollar short, Americans are realizing that President-elect Donald Trump plans to short them a few dollars. That’s right: Since the election, U.S. consumers have become more likely to say they expect prices to rise next year,” Rampell wrote.
While Trump ran his 2024 campaign on appealing promises to bring everyday prices that have skyrocketed for consumers in recent years down, he acknowledged in a Time magazine interview only after winning that election that he could do no such thing, Rampell reminded readers.
“I’d like to bring them down,” Trump told Time magazine. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”
The only thing surprising about the admission from Trump “is that he said it out loud,” Rampell wrote.
“One thing Trump didn’t acknowledge, however, is how his economic agenda — tariffs, deportations, tax cuts, and kneecapping the Federal Reserve — could worsen the problem that voters hired him to solve,” according to the columnist. “But Americans seem to be catching on anyway.”
Rampell pointed to a University of Michigan nationwide survey that measures consumers about their views on the economy. It found a surge in participants since the election reporting “that now is a good time to purchase big-ticket items, because prices will probably rise.”
“We don’t know for sure what’s driving these shifts in consumer views,” Rampell added. “Most likely, Americans are absorbing news coverage of Trump’s proposed tariffs and their potential to raise prices on food, cars, apparel, appliances and other common household purchases.”
Trump’s threats of mass deportations could also drive up fruit, vegetable and dairy prices, she warned. And, Rampell concluded, Trump could easily worsen increased prices consumers are already facing in the face of other geopolitical and supply-chain issues.
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