The Economy That Rewards the Lie
According to 2024 exit polls, the economy was the top issue for Trump voters.
This, after four years of record GDP growth, falling inflation, wage gains outpacing prices, and the lowest unemployment in half a century.
So why did tens of millions vote for the man who tanked it the first time?
We’ve entered a stage of American decline where perception is monetized and reality is detached.
The right no longer needs economic success. It needs economic resentment. The worse things feel, the more urgent the promise of rescue sounds.
And the left? Can’t stop talking about illegal aliens being deported. Is it an issue? Sure. Is it bigger than 340 million people suffering for decades to come? No.
Both sides mistook the public’s economic concern for a policy problem. It’s not. It’s a meaning problem. One side fills the void with myth. The other leaves it empty by being out of touch.
In Trump’s first term, tariffs sabotaged U.S. manufacturing, wage growth slowed, farmers needed bailouts, corporate debt ballooned, and wealth concentrated further upward. The tax cuts didn’t trickle (because they never do), and deficits exploded.
But it didn’t matter, because the brand held.
Trump wasn’t selling prosperity. He was selling vengeance for factories closed, towns emptied, and dignity lost. A fictional past was easier to package than a complex present. And the economic story didn’t need to be true. It only needed to feel stolen.
Fox News built the narrative. YouTube’s algorithm pumped it into suburbia. “Everything’s worse” became the only acceptable baseline, even when nothing was. Remember the nonsensical term invented to describe it? Vibecession.
Biden inherited a shutdown economy and reopened it into the strongest recovery in the world. But no one likes a steward. They like a savior, especially one who tells them their pain is not their fault and their anger is righteous.
“She is for they/them. I am for you.”
Now the savior is back. And the numbers are catching up.
In just six months:
GDP growth has halved.
Layoffs have already surpassed all of 2024.
Manufacturing jobs are leaving again.
Inflation is climbing.
Farm bankruptcies are up.
Tourism is down.
Unemployment is rising.
Job creation has cratered.
The U.S. credit rating was downgraded.
Consumer sentiment is collapsing.
Trump’s response? Fire the official who published the numbers. Punish the data.
The GOP no longer needs to manage the economy. It just needs to control the story. The real economy, which affects real people, is now expendable. What matters is the spectacle.
Voters who wanted economic relief voted for its fastest dismantling. And the party that promised discipline delivered chaos, as usual.
But here’s the deeper contradiction: they don’t need to lie well. They just need to lie first.
Because once perception sets in, facts become a form of betrayal.
Watch what happens when a political movement stops caring about outcomes and starts pricing in failure.
Every institution that takes the truth seriously, such as the Labor Department, the CBO, and the Fed, becomes an obstacle.
You don’t need acronyms when you need to manage disbelief.