Election Fallout: Is Inflation Radicalizing Our Politics?
Summary
Market Outlook: Hosts dispute the "golden age" narrative, citing the worst layoffs since 2003, a weak ADP report (~40k jobs), and private data showing job losses in manufacturing and retail.
Consumer Stress: New York Fed data shows rising delinquencies on credit cards, auto loans, and student loans, while first-time homebuyer share hits record lows, signaling acute pressure on younger households.
Housing Affordability: Discussion argues mortgage rates are only part of the problem; underlying home prices vs. incomes, zoning, and supply constraints are core drivers of the crisis.
Tariffs and Trade Policy: Extensive critique that tariffs raise input costs for small businesses and consumers; Supreme Court skepticism may curb executive tariff powers, but the administration may seek workarounds, keeping protectionism risks elevated.
Monetary Policy: Emphasis that the Federal Reserve and monetary regime are central to cycles, inflation, asset price inflation, and inequality; ignoring this leads to flawed policy analysis.
Policy Volatility: Both parties seen lacking credible affordability solutions; rising chances of institutional norm breakdowns (e.g., filibuster), implying higher policy uncertainty.
Companies/Tickers: No specific public companies or sectors were pitched; references to ADP jobs data and Intel subsidies were incidental and not investment recommendations.
Transcript
[music] Welcome back to the Power and Market podcast. I'm Ryan McMakin, editor-inchief at the Mises Institute. And with me today are two of our contributing editors. We've got Tho Bishop and we've got Connor O'Keefe. And uh hopefully you've seen some of their content, their articles at mises.org. That's mises.org. If you haven't been to the website lately, check it out. you'll see uh a lot of uh the sort of topics we discuss here uh but written in a far more precise way because this is our by far most casual content here on the Power Market podcast where we're just going to talk about some topics that are related to what we usually uh talk about at mises.org or in more detail, but there was an election on Tuesday, so it seems like we should probably mention that and see if it has any implications for the state of the economy and how people view the economy and economic theory and that sort of thing. So, though can you just give us a rundown on what the elections were? These were all local elections for the most part. Uh, well, local in the in the sense of they were state elections or even more local than that. And you know, I I I get the sense you probably know better than me about what the outcomes were of these uh in in beyond just a couple places that I was paying attention to. So, yeah. What happened on Tuesday? >> Oh, yeah. I might have had some gambling props on some of these races. Um I'm not going to tell the audience how I did there. Uh but, uh yeah, the big three were uh obviously the New York City mayor's race that had a lot of attention with Mr. Mandani uh taking that um with over 50% of the vote which is notable because of the concerns there about you know oh well you know if only the Republican got out Cuomo would have you know won and saved us from socialism or whatever the narrative was about that. Um the Virginia race was interesting one definitely Virginia moving firmly towards the the left becoming a a very blue state after uh Ynan had uh won that governorship four years ago. Um the most yeah I don't think any of this is particularly surprising. The one outcome that was a little surprising um and and perhaps horrifying was Jay Jones who was the candidate that had very public bloodlust over killing children um you know became attorney general of the state of Virginia. There was some hope in Republican circles that New Jersey uh was going to elect a Republican governor. Uh that loss with Mickey Cheryl winning that race there. Um, and then there was another notable uh election in California dealing with authorizing the state to redo their congressional districts as we have this massive escalation standoff over the midterms and congressional representation there. Um, and and obviously none of this should be all that surprising, right? You know, these are traditionally blue states anyway. These are states that Trump lost. um you know the Quuomo surprise you know had lost you know was was not you was surprising back in the primary not this um and the Jay Jones one was the one that I I think the betting odds were in favor of the uh incumbent attorney general there but when you combine like the government shutdown in particular with a state like Virginia um that already has been trending to the left for a variety of reasons um in terms of demographics and things like that um again not surprising that you know within the midst of a government shutdown you have massive massive turnout there. Um, so this is being buil by the media as sort of a massive repudiation for Trump, right? It's being sold as like blue tsunami. That's a little bit of hyperbolic there. Um, talking. In fact, in like New Jersey, the uh the Republican candidate there outperformed his previous years like 100,000 votes, which is typically historically uh would be pretty strong as a as a trend, but it was just a massive massive turnout for Democrats there. So we're definitely seeing um you know Trump as a activist energizing force within the left which is what we saw last time around. Um but I I think there's definitely though what I see is is definitely a heightened awareness of you know economic concerns playing a role here that a lot of this which was always kind of silly this notion that you know the Trump 2024 coalition was going to create this unbeatable force. Um you know particularly considering these are state elections. these are not, you know, national presidential aspirations and some of the the changes there um in terms of, you know, voting migration patterns and things like that. So, none of this should have been a big surprise outside of, you know, there's perhaps an element there where we're seeing, I think, you know, a a a Democrat party that doesn't care about the the violent rhetoric component to it, which, you know, typically is a political norm. So, that norm following what does Mandani is the face of the Democratic party, right? What does that mean um in the future there? um and the congressional aspect which will have some sort of national importance um come the midterms. But again, I don't think it's a particularly surprising outcome. But there are some interesting stories here and it does feel like the mood, the narrative mood afterwards, even within kind of heavy Republican, you know, MAGA sort of circles there. Definitely, I think a heightened awareness that, you know, maybe this is not quite such a golden age after all right now. >> Yeah. Well, thanks for mentioning the phrase golden age. Uh they apparently we're in one according to the administration. Uh I I mean the gaslighting is amazing where you had Bessant was on one of the Sunday news shows I I think it was and talking about how the economy is amazing, job growth is just insanely good and we're living through a golden age. And then yesterday Trump go has some sort of press conference where he's talking about how America's never been strong before and we're living through America's golden age. Now, at the same time, first of all, Besson's comment about how great job growth is is straight up BS. Like, uh, he was delivering those remarks days after huge, huge numbers were coming down in terms of layoffs, tens of thousands from a variety of different companies. And then we saw today uh some uh some new data that had tabulated the full year so far and showing that it's the worst year since 2003 in terms of layoffs. So, we're back to like the rec the the very lackluster days following the dot bust. If you were in the job market in 2003, you remember 2003 was not a good time. And some of that stuff doesn't show up on paper after the fact. You look and you see, oh, the economy recovered in 2003 or in 2011 and stuff, but if you actually lived through that stuff, you know that that period shortly after recessions, you still had friends who were losing their jobs in those time periods. And that finding a job was extremely difficult. I was looking for jobs in 2003. If the current job situation is anything like it was in 2003, my condolences to people who are currently looking for jobs because it is a bad situation. And so then of course now since we don't have the BLS job data, we're looking at that's that stuff. We're looking at private stuff now. ADP showed very lackluster gain of about 40,000 jobs. These are tiny numbers. Um and then a different job survey uh this morning came out uh a private uh firm showing that there had actually been job losses. Now unlike the ADP report this other one uh included uh government jobs and those showed actual losses but even without those the government was losing um or the economy was losing manufacturing jobs and losing retail jobs. And a Trump has been telling us for years that we're going to get this manufacturing jobs roaring back, which he still claims in his speeches. And and retail has been one of the few places where he could easily get a job for a lot of people. And that's not even true anymore. And so what's the situation out there with jobs? Uh it's uh it's not looking so good. But I should note by the way that the second report, so the two private reports we're looking at is the ADP report and the Rellio Labs report which which came out today. So looking at that, looking at employment, um the New York Fed came out with a new report uh I believe on Monday or maybe Friday, looking at uh debt and looking at credit card debt and delinquencies on all that. And so delinquencies on automobile loans, on credit cards, these are all up near 15-year highs, at least a 10-year highs, uh basically the worst uh in many cases since the Great Recession. And so why are those numbers going up at the same time? So people are missing payments on their loans. The one thing that didn't look so bad was mortgage uh debt because people they're going to they're going to miss their payments on their credit cards and their cards and their and on their automobiles and and uh on student loans which also has surged in terms of delinquency. All that's looking very bad. Uh and then we find out from the realtors association uh that the firsttime home buyers as a share of all buyers is at the lowest it's ever been as long as the realtors have been keeping track of it. So, uh, young people are getting absolutely pummeled in this economy. Uh, unless you're already owning a bunch of stocks and real estate, those people are doing great. So, if you're a billionaire totally out of touch like Bessant and Trump, maybe you do think honestly that we're in a golden age. If you're a person who doesn't already own three houses, if you don't already have a massive stock portfolio, you are getting worked over by this economy. And I suspect that has something to do with the Mandami victory. Uh because as far as I could tell, now Mandami is clearly the one I followed the closest that race. I paid a little bit attention to Virginia because they elected a literal CIA agent in Abigail Spanberger. Uh that's the Democratic party for you. And uh so I mean that's alarming for sure what's going on down there. But the political dynamic I think was the most interesting in New York in terms of just how hard Mandami hit the uh economic um populist angle on that where look, hey guys, I know everything's unaffordable. I know your life is hard. I know things are expensive. I know you can't afford your rent. I'm going to help you solve all those problems. Now, the solutions he gaves were terrible, economically illiterate. Um but of course, what was the alternative given by the Republicans? more government spending and more taxes in the form of tariffs to make everything more expensive. Oh, and by the way, print trillions more dollars so guys on Wall Street get even richer. That seemed to be the Republican platform. So, I mean, if those are your two choices, hey, why not vote for the guy who's at least going to give you some free stuff. Uh, so that seems to be the the rationale there. So, Connor, what do you think? I mean, uh, I'm only looking at the stuff from afar. I know you actually have relatives in the tri-state area, that sort of thing. Um, maybe you know more about what's happening on the ground there, but I mean, was this really a victory for economic populism? Was was that what got people motivated uh to turn out and vote on this? Was it really was it the economy stupid to use the old uh Bill Clinton phrase? >> I think so. And I think in that area, it's just exaggerated. things are more expensive in that part of the country than they are most other places. But it's just a general trend that has been around for a while. I think it's it was probably the central component in the 2024 election too. It was inflation. Inflation just wrecked the Biden administration and you know Kamla that whole campaign trying to run on the status quo and the population just rejected it. Um and Trump of course ran in part saying he's going to stop inflation and that just hasn't happened. um it it's still above the Fed's uh target, but if you just kind of uh put all the economic data aside, a lot of it is just vibes or things that aren't as easy to calculate um and these elections are good windows into how people are actually feeling. And it's very clear uh from this result, especially in New York City, that the affordability crisis, as people are calling it, is still a central issue, if not the central issue. And that's something I think is important for uh especially those of us who are obsessively following following this stuff all the time to remember is that the the most important component here is what issue matters to the politically apathetic people. It's not really about what people are fighting about on Twitter or the people that are in this world. It's about the people that don't really follow this but that come out to vote when these elections come up. And it just seems obvious that affordability is still the big thing. It's kind of the the thing that's defined the time period we are in right now post pandemic and this this these election results just seem to to back that up. Well, I think it's interesting because obviously again as as you alluded to, you know, the tariff component with Trump has been you like to to me like my base analysis of it is that you know that the tariff argument was big in 2016 when the focal point of that election was reshoring, right? Right? Obviously, we haven't seen the sort of manufacturing gains and yada yada yada that you with Trump trade war 1.0 and all that sort of stuff. But but regardless of the actual outcomes of those policies, right? It was kind of easy to sell the story, right? You know, it's it's it's the rust belt that had you seen all the jobs flee overseas. We're going to increase tariffs. You know, we're we're going to go after China and they're going to come back and this is going to booster the economy thing. But like that was 2016. 2024 was about inflation. Like that was the number one thing after every we everything we saw after co after we saw Biden inflation the r of radical spending things and all that sort of stuff and and inflation was the number one issue politically for the first time in quite some time right as bad as a 2% inflation rate is as bad as the Fed is normally right it became the number one kitchen table issue for everyone and so the priorities of Trump 2.0 I know has been back to 2016, right? It's it's been tariff, tariff, tariff. And I know Connor, you've got an interesting article uh today this week about the the legal component to it and the Supreme Court, which will be very very interesting um to see how that all plays out. Um maybe we can get get a little bit more into that. But but that focus completely ignores the affordability issue. And the problem the larger problem is there is no political solution to this, right? At at the local level, you're going to get I think you're going to see more mandamism, right, from the left. I think you're going to see this next generation of uh you Democrat socialist candidates. I think we saw another one in um in Minnesota, right? Um there there's another interesting component in New York where um I know with in the primary u uh you know economically those New Yorkers without a college degree were in the Cuomo camp whereas Mandani performed particularly well with both college educated and also like kind new arrivals to New York City. So there is a little bit of an interesting class generational component that has not fully bought into right the the Mandani brand of politics or at least in it in the primary. I haven't you see how gone into the details of this week's election there. So there is a little bit of that that component as well but we're going to see a lot of that at the local level. State level stuff you know right now the big battle is trying to get state funds to replace uh SNAP funds with um you know with with the government shutdown going on. But at the local level, there is no there is no push for anything outside of of loose rhetoric about affordability. There's nothing about cutting spending the way that it plays in inflation. There's no there's no attempt to have a fix for Obamacare, which is one of the biggest issues out there right now, and healthcare premiums and things like that. There is no political solution. And so, it's going to be interesting to see how does this period of inflation, right, since we're we're when when again, as we talked about last week, the Fed has completely given up on it. you know, I I think there's a very real possibility that we're going to see increased radicalism. Um, and I don't mean that in a scare away, right, like the way you get it on, you know, CNN or or in Fox News, but a a sign near a a significant breakaway from traditional ideologies because the political apparatus that we have right now has absolutely no solution um on the affordability issue, particularly in the short term. Um, you know, maybe some deregulation here, right? some of the stuff that Trump was even okay with the first time around. Maybe some of that, you know, pays off in certain sort of industries in the future like gas prices, whatever. But in terms of kitchen table, you know, right now sort of issues, there's no political solution to this. And that's going to have a lasting, I think, impact not only broadly in politics, but particularly for Gen Z and and you know, that millennial generation that recognizes they're getting screwed right now. >> Well, the word radical is I was just going to say the word radical is not a slur here at the Meis Institute. I mean, center left, center right here, >> right? I mean, the worst thing you could be is center left or center right. That's who's been running the country to the ground for the last 70 years or more. Uh, so, so yeah, it's going to be more radical rhetoric, but from the wrong side, unfortunately. And I mean, we've got to counter that. And and that's the problem is they're going to be um really pushing this idea that capitalism is what caused the fix we're in. That there was oh too much too much freedom, too much lack of regulation, um not enough government spending. I don't even know how they're going to even make that claim. Uh but but that seems to be I think where we're headed is that just too much of this conventional neoliberal sort of economics and that's why we are where we are. We need a bunch of radical solutions to that. >> Yeah, it's it's this Trump era age of austerity, Ryan. >> Yeah, right. Blame. >> They're just cutting government to the bone and and thanks Doge for for cutting all that those wonderful programs away when in reality, right, nothing's been cut except for some tiny little garbage around the edges, >> nine billion or something, >> right? I mean, and but not that that matters. Not that these people have any they're not keeping up with fiscal policy, so it doesn't doesn't even matter. I mean, but on the issue of tariffs though, Connor, I wanted to I think we could should take a like a little bit uh a little side route, little side adventure here kind of and look at your column that you wrote on this, right? I mean, where is the tariff issue going to end up? It's it's obviously not going to save the economy. It's obviously not going to save people's jobs, uh create this flowering of the economy. Uh but it looks like based on your article that he may be forced by the courts to just give up on it and then what I mean where do you think the whole tariff is going? >> I don't think it's going anywhere. I think that the dynamic will be u and and based on what the justices were saying yesterday over recording this on Thursday. It looks like they're they're pretty skeptical of the administration's arguments. But I think that at the end of the day, they if they strike it down, the administration's just going to try some other way of justifying all this and it'll just turn into this dynamic where for the rest of the term they're trying to scrape together tariffs, maybe the court keeps um you know getting in the way of that and then they kind of frame this as this battle. But I I don't really expect them to just roll over it and give up completely. But I I wanted to write that article because it's kind of an interesting dynamic where the specific problem that the court has with the law that the administration is citing to justify their liberation day uh tariffs is that he's essentially making a huge Trump is making a huge jump in the language that it says that he's you know has the power to put regulations on imports and he's saying okay that that that also includes like tariffs, taxes, duties, whatever. And what's what's interesting about it is the court and in large part the specific justices that Trump put on the court have kind of built up this this doctrine over the last few years of saying like no if if the executive uh the White House or executive agencies are going to take authority over something. It has to be very clearly laid out in the legislation that comes from Congress. And that that was how they really uh stymied a lot of Biden's more blatant kind of power grabs. And so you have this dynamic where Trump sort of help helped build up this court that is knocking all this stuff down and then Trump comes in and tries it himself. And so now the court that he kind of helped build up is potentially uh it's a problem for him now. And I just thought that was kind of an interesting dynamic that I that I wanted to touch on. But no, I don't think that um if these specific uh tariffs get swatted down by the court that um that we're we're not going to that tariffs are going to go away uh yeah for the next few years. Well, I I saw one uh particular anecdote from that. I think Gorsuch was asking um you know, the the representation from the Trump administration about whether or not the Trump administration's interpretation of emergency powers would allow for you know, a [clears throat] future president declare a environmental emergency and you know, massively increase taxes on, you know, gasoline powered cars and you know, all you gas stoves, which was, you know, a big big culture war issue a couple years ago and things like that. And and I think that the position of the Trump administration was basically well yeah um and so I could very easily seeing that like don't don't think that's gonna be a particularly persuasive argument uh for Justice Gorsuch there. I mean it does seem like there might be some indications like uh I like the fentanyl crisis might be like a different sort of thing that they use which obviously has been been used to justify I mean not only you know bombing boats but you know Canada and China and that sort of stuff. So I I kind I do think there'll be some sort of uh um of of growth and and maneuvering no matter how the court um goes as as you suggested. But but the other side of it though is you are there you know the first time around you had a lot of debate within the Trump administration on the validity of tariffs in the first place. You definitely had the pro you know the Peter Navaro types that were were making the intellectual case within the with within the administration. you had a lot of more, you know, normie mainstream um, you know, in this case, you not the worst thing, but like certainly not our people, um, making the the the status quo sort of arguments on trade. I don't know how many of those people are represented or how how much, you know, any sort of defense is represented within the current administration. But if there is with the greater if with the increased political perception particularly after these elections, you know, is it one of those situations where the Trump administration kind of realizes, hey, look, maybe this is not the button we should be pushing. We can we can saber rattle. We can complain about it. We can say we're trying to make America great again and these justices are stopping it. What can we do, though? And and allow that to be an easing off ramp with this. If there is now a perceived recognition that this is a political liability, that affordability is the number one issue, uh that that's probably perhaps wor wishful thinking, but I think that's a political calculation that might alter how the administration sees things now relative to where it would have been like two weeks, you two months ago where, you know, the the perception was at least, you know, that there's still a lot of credibility left on the the economic argument, if you will. Well, if conservatives already lost the economic argument on this, right? Because we all know how this goes. The economy gets worse and worse and then the claim is that um we need more government regulation, more government spending to fix it. That uh and then you even get Republicans up there like George W. Bush saying, "Well, I have to um I have to stop what what is it? I can't. I have to save capitalism from itself by raising taxes, by printing money, by buying up private companies, all of this stuff. And obviously Trump lives that every day. His whole platform is saving capitalism from itself by tariffing the hell out of people by buying up private companies like with the Intel thing, which is just bonkers industrial policy sort of stuff. And then of course all like the Trump lovers come out of the woodwork. They're like, "Quit overreacting. It's no big deal. You only bought like a few billion. It doesn't matter." And and so then it just sets the stage for then the next intervention. And I I can't think of a single thing about this administration that that involves rhetoric along the lines of we just want to leave you alone. We just want to lower taxes. They talk about lowering taxes, but there that's clearly not a priority in the administration. since especially since they're raising taxes on anybody who needs foreign goods to actually manufacture things or deliver services in this country. Small business people are getting worked over uh because they have to pay more for uh for the the materials they need to do stuff. They we pretend like tariffs are all just finished imported goods like toys and sweaters and stuff, but that's not the reality of it. their parts that go into to things that we're trying to build and they just want to slap extra extra cost on all of that stuff. So, there's no talk about relief for the small businessman. There's no talk uh or priority about lower taxes. Nothing about we're way past talking about deregulation anymore. So, I mean, I just can't find anything beyond like, you know, hanging out with billionaires and giving them free money. That seems to be what's going on in this administration. Well, well, there is one point where they talk about, you know, direct subsidies to farmers to offset the cost of terrorists, which, you know, [laughter] like, you know, there is that out there a little bit, which hey, you know, one intervention to leading to another. >> He's going to subsidize farmers and then he's going to import Argentinian beef to save uh his buddy in Argentina and then I guess he'll give more subsidies to the cattle ranchers after screwing them over with more Argentine beef. I mean, it's central planning at its best. I I think Mises has an article on that topic. Um but uh but I mean it's interesting like the one like the uh it's it is kind of interesting and I'm sure it'll come up next April, right? Like something that that does resemble like a working class focused tax cut was like the no tip no tax on tips aspect of the big beautiful bill, right? So that that'll come up a little bit in the future. Um but but yeah, I I think that there there is a a one thing I think is going to be interesting in terms of longer term ramifications. um is that you know for for one like it is worth noting and and Bob Murphy has a has a had a a talk that touched on this right um at the supporter summit where he he he identified how like if if your concern was the is is offshoring and and and trade deficits right if you're concerned with trade deficits he pointed it back to you know our favorite year of the you know American history 1971 and the impact of of the change in monetary policy leading to a lot of the things that the Trump administration or Trump people right broadly complain about. Um but there is to be said about like you know one of the biggest problems that the intellectual defense of capitalism has is that all the major DC institutions dedicated to that effort were always and and and largely still are sycopantic blinded towards the wonders of the Federal Reserve. Right? If you if you ignore the socialization of monetary policy and and the the way that is a complete tool of everything the state is doing, then you're just arguing on the sidelines of these other issues, then you're still going to get massive massive consequences that disproportionately hurt the working class. That's what helped fuel the populist tides that Trump was able to write in on. What I do think is interesting though now is that particularly with Trump 2.0, I know there was a very flamboyant, a very public, a very explicit breakaway um not only with Trump and his campaign rhetoric, but with in this broader intellectual environment of, you know, we're we're embracing a new age of economics, right? We we are we are dismissing these libertarians that have had an outsized influence on economic policy. We're coming in with our new tools and we're going to do stuff the the new way, the real way, what what made America great in the first place, right? Um which is, you know, uh you know, marketism, industrial policy, things like that. And if if and when um and and as it is already failing then it will be interesting to see the re-evaluation of economic policy on the right that you know was default the you know AEI you know sort of brand of uh you know capitalism which is really just you know largely whatever big businesses want. We we now had a little taste of American compass or Cass, you know, neo Hamiltonian, you know, progressive cultural conservative progressivism, right? Um, and now does that lead to an opportunity for something, again, using our favorite word of the day, more radical in a a better position closer to us? I think that's going to be um, you know, going to be an interesting challenge there because if when if and when this fails, there's going to need to be a desire for for new answers. are going to be seeking for new answers if for no other reason than again we're seeing that just how potent inflation and affordability is as a political issue. >> Absolutely. And I think that the core of the problem for all of this, it all comes back to the fact that people think that the status quo is capitalism, that it is free markets, and that, you know, they'll accept that like, okay, we kind of moved away from lazy affair back during the progressive era. But the thinking is that Reagan came in and brought us back to completely unfettered capitalism. I just gave a talk at Cornerstone University on this exact uh this exact topic last week cuz I think I think this is this needs to be our priorities. Tearing down this idea that economic freedom is what is defining you know how the system is working right now and because at the end of the day it's all just a branding choice. They brand all of this as capitalism and as lazair so that when all these economic crises inevitably happen because they always happen the immediate reflex of the population is to conclude that the only reason we're having these crisis is because we the American population have too much economic freedom and so it just ratchets on along and that's how we get into the the mess we are. And you're right though, it's like it is concerning that a lot of a fair amount of people on the right have concluded that okay, well, if this is capitalism, we're against that and what's the only real alternative to that? It's economic leftism. It's been disturbing to see how much this kind of economic leftism, economic progressivism has caught on on parts of the right, but it's understandable based on how um how convinced everybody is that capitalism is, you know, what we have right now and and and we need to move away from it. But I I think for our sort of tribe, our faction within this this broader movement, it needs to be our priority to show people that that is not the case. So that when this inevitably does fall apart, when the next crisis happen, people start to question the kind of the reflex that they've been primed to have. >> Yeah. And we've had many discussions about this over the years is we've just got to keep showing over and over again a the role of the central bank because if your theory of business cycles and the impoverishment of the ordinary man doesn't include the central bank, it's just a worthless analysis because you're missing like the biggest driver of fiscal and monetary policy and overall uh economic policy for the past at least at least 50 years, certainly since 1971, right? And really since probably since the Fed was created in the teens, when you look at just how much of a driver's been for uh financing uh the the huge deficits, for monetizing the debt, for shrinking the ability of the common man to save and invest, and just pushing up asset prices for people who are already rich. I mean that is just the major overwhelming uh factor at work and has been for decades now but you'll just hear constantly people talking about how oh the real problem is too much deregulation or something like that just it's totally irrelevant that is not the major driving factor and so we've been saying that over and over again of course because we know what's going to happen we know that as soon as unemployment goes way up uh there people are going to be blaming capitalism for that and also I've been around long enough to know that actually when the economy does poorly, we get a lot more web traffic at mises.org because people start searching for alternative explanations of why the economy is terrible. They're trying to understand how economic cycles work. And clearly the guys who go on TV and talk about the usual with the usual dumb explanations that they've been saying for decades and oh well why didn't you foresee this happening? Why can't you explain the current cycle? And then they have no answer. uh it'll all just be fixed by more government spending, more debt. Uh the Fed will fix everything with more money printing. And then and then people like, well, this seems like BS. So then they start searching and then they end up in mises.org. But of course, yeah, our traffic's going up a lot. There's a lot more interest. Um but they've already just been so conditioned toward thinking the mainstream thinking on economic policy that we just got a lot of work to do. Well, and this shows I think most explicitly in one of the biggest issues at a generational component, a cultural component. Um, you know, it's the embodiment of everything is the unaffordability of of housing right now. Um, you know, again, I there was a data that came out how I think that the the average age of your home buyer, first-time home buyer right now is 40. Um, you know, that's up like five, seven years from, you know, not that long ago and then, you know, back in the day it was like, you know, 25, whatever. Um, and and housing is the embodiment of of all of this. And obviously and and the problem is is that like you know everyone focuses on mortgage rates, right? It's like oh well you know it's because we it's because the Fed radically jacked up interest rates and that's why we you know we went from two you know 2.75% mortgages to 6 and a half% mortgages and like that's what's broken the entire system. And and for one like the implicit thing is like oh well the solution is just let's just have you two and a half% interest rates and that's going to solve the affordability issue. It's like oh yeah there's there's nothing wrong that can come with that right? It's not like there was there's other forces that end up coresponding with that 2 and a.5% mortgage rate. It's not like that's what drove everything else off the cliff. Um the same the same conditions there. Um but but you they're focusing on the financing side of housing, ignoring the fact that you know the average underlying house cost has you is is has almost doubled relative to income levels. And like if you don't deal with that underlying issue and and there's there's a lot you know there's not a single silver bullet I wish there was right to be say oh if we only abolish you know this thing or we we change this one regulation there's there's a lot you know in terms of zoning regulation and and various aspects that leads to lumber and also you know it's a it's a complicated process the markets are complicated things houses are you know part of a very complex chain of of uh uh you know division of labor and whatever but but until you address these underlying issues simply talking about how we better finance these assets that are just being priced out at their core relative to wages that are disproportionately being affected right now with younger generations. Um yeah, there is no answer. And again, and and what has been the Republican response to this? The one person who's been fantastic on this is Marjorie Taylor Green calling out like again the government shutdown's biggest issue is Obamacare. Obamacare is a Democrat issue, right? But we can't have any sort of meaningful conversation about healthcare reform because there's absolutely no intellectual curiosity to solve any these sort of things. And it's like what do you expect to happen? What what do you expect the outcome of this for for any political coalition? And and the only good thing the Republicans have going for it um and which I don't think is fully baked in with these off-year elections which are all about energy and turnout and whatever the the one good thing that Republicans have going for them is that Democrats have no credibility on these issues either, right? Like nobody's going to say, "Oh, I I'm upset about inflation. Therefore, I'm going to put in the political party that was just in charge, you know, and imply they're going to solve this thing." The only thing that's we have a race to the bottom right now in terms of credibility on the number one issue which is affordability. >> Well, Tom Woods had uh a good talk on this at Mises University this year talking about gee, why have Republicans lost interest in economics, right? It's because they've just come around to all they care about is gaining power and exercising it. And primarily their interest is the culture war. Um but now they're recognized that you can't win all your elections on culture wars. uh they have nothing to say about economics. They've abandoned the idea that leaving people alone to simply uh earn a living on their own is a good thing. They don't even say that anymore. They don't even say, "Oh, we just want to leave you alone so you can support your family. We would just want to help you earn more, keep more of your hard work." No, they're out. They're talking about tax increases and how that's going to make America more competitive. Oh, and then they're absolutely obsessed with China. We have to meddle more in your life every day in every way so that we can fight China. So, you know, screw you and your cost of living. We It's all about China and it's all about higher tariffs. And I mean, it's just an incoherent worthless message and that's all they got. So, of course, if some Dem comes to you and promises to give you free bus tickets and a lower cost of living, that doesn't sound so bad by comparison. So, I it's not like I even blame a lot of those people. >> Well, they're not even properly obsessed with China. Like, if you have Yeah, that position. That's why they're tariffing India and if they make it like they don't even have that to really sell as like a cohesive sort of narrative based on what they're actually doing there. >> Yeah. If they are concerned about China, they're really lousy at it because they're just making enemies of China's natural enemies. Uh so we're pushing people toward China like with Russia, right? We're we've been pushing Russia to China for 20 years. Stupidest policy ever if you think China is actually a real problem. So yeah, you're right. They're bad on foreign policy and and the Israel issue that's not gaining any young voters either, right? >> Not at all. >> No. >> A massive and and there's a whole brewhahala, right? I mean, I we're kind of seeing I think right now I mean like the conservative movement within the right is is going through a very very interesting dynamic there with with you know the the fallout from Tucker Carlson's interview with Nick Fuentes and Heritage and that's that's a whole that's a whole mess that don't need to go into in any great depth right now. Um but but but but that is the it's a massive generational component to it like this you you cannot ignore um you know there was a little bit of lip service right played to it during the Obama years about how like oh you know these these these you know romantic idealistic millennials are going to come in and and hope and change right and they're going to change things whatever and and whatever you there was you know social media is going to change politics right it was very sort of uh nuts and bolts campaigny sort of stuff there but I I don't think probably ever seen clear class a clear generational economic disconnect quite like we have right now and and that is going to end up being I think the most important force shaping politics in in a variety of different directions. Um, and it's it's going to be very interesting to watch play out. And I think one of the good things, right, is is it required clearing out a lot of the bad status quo ideas of politics of old, right? Allowing for the flourishing of new ideas. Some of those ideas are going to be bad. Some of those ideas might be worse than the status quo, right? There's all sorts of weird stuff out there, right? But it allows for the opportunity for better flowers and better fruit to to come out of this. And and part of that's going to be, you know, we're seeing that the breakdown of political norms. Again, that's that's that's a radicalizing thing. It's a dangerous thing. The big conversation right now is about the filibuster, right? Guarantee you guarantee that the filibuster is going to go away within the next 5 years. Whe whether it's Trump, whether it's the next, you know, you next time the Democrats control you the three branches again, at some point in the next, you know, 5 10 years when it's going to go away. um unless it's codified, it's going to go away because we're seeing this these breakdown of norms, these breakdowns of institutions, these breakdowns of old thinking, and that could lead to even a darker age going forward, but it also it's it's the only opportunity to having something better come up. >> What is the mechanism that has to occur? Sorry, I just got I don't know the answer to this question. [laughter] What's the why can't it just happen tomorrow? what what has to happen for them to get >> the only thing that's keeping it up, right, is is is the the the idea of Senate institutionalism, >> right? And and part of that is a little bit of fear about, oh, well, if we do it, they're going to use it, but that's also, you know, whatever. Um, and but like that's the only thing it's it's tradition and as we've seen tradition and politics, [laughter] we we've already seen the filibuster fall and like, you know, judicial appointees and Supreme Court things and, you know, we we we've already seen that go away. um it just hasn't gone on the on completely um but it's it's inevitable. This is where politics is going right now. This is where the dominoes have been following and have been going for for quite some time >> and and Trump was not the cause of this. He's not the catalyst of this. He's been the beneficiary of this. And I think maybe maybe now there's recognition uh you know when we talk about you know political systems right we're in our sixth political system. It is clear that we are now in transitioning to the seventh political system in terms of these macro trends and what that looks like. get a I'm not promising it's going to be better. It could be terrifying, but it's clear that something fundamental has changed. Um, and again, there's for a number of these topics and many many more. Um, and we'll see see what emerges from that. >> Yeah, it's like a time of a lot of chaos, but there's also a lot of opportunity. And to what you were saying, Ryan, like people are obviously hungry for different answers right now. It's common knowledge out there that like the current system is working uh is not working for most people. Like that's obviously just a a political mantra you hear everywhere, but we're not seeing coherent answers from just about anybody. And you know, of course, I think that's because we're the only ones that are that are right about these about these core questions. But it it's created this situation where it becomes like a game of hot potato where you know people are in power and then they kind of have to own the the affordability crisis because they're the ones in power and then elections come around and like I think that's really I mean Zoh and New York City there may be like some New York City is a very very blue area but generally speaking Trump and the Republicans they won in 2024 because they didn't own the inflation issue in the way uh the Democrats did, but now they do. And so that's going to harm them in the next election. So, we're just going to have this back and forth until a a coherent answer that can actually lead to action comes in. And and you know, we can only uh do our best to you know, get as loud as possible so that the truth wins out. Um and you know, it is like I I agree with what you're saying though. That's a real opportunity and like we should we should utilize it because if we don't that it's just it's dark ahead >> and and not to step on my own point but like this is just one nitpick that I have is like we need to stop pretending like Mandani is some sort of radical change in New York City politics like he's really not that different than Bill Delasio right he's just younger charismatic and and >> there wasn't a capitalist utopia >> like you know yeah on to actual policy I don't see any worse than Delasio [laughter] at all and that guy was awful terrible. >> He was also quoting marks in like radio interviews. So like so we need you know check that just a little bit like just he's just aesthetically a new a new chapter. But >> yeah, >> I think the the only interesting thing about Mandani is just how he captured this these uh these political and economic problems to get elected. I mean I'm more interested in how people react to Mumani than what than Mandani himself which you know he's not that new or interesting. He's just like a younger thinner Bill Delasio. I suppose it's a great this is a good analogy. >> But to the >> implicit >> to the hot potato point like he's at the peak right now. It's as good as it's going to get for him because he's going to be in power soon. I guess January 1st is when he'll be sworn in. His solutions are not going to fix these problems and then he's going to have to own that. So he, you know, he better enjoy this while he can because it's it's not going to get easier. >> And and don't take any plane tickets from the Turkish government. run recommendation. >> Maybe not from any government. That's probably just a >> good crazy. [laughter] >> I have a feeling I know one government. Well, actually, they might offer him a plane ticket. We'll see how that plays out. >> Well, if anybody handed me plane tickets, I'd ask I'd have a lot of questions. I uh I'm amazed at what people are willing to take for free from shady figures and no questions asked. >> Well, but can you how many how many corners can you help cut uh getting uh a building built in your backyard, Ryan? That's the real question. [laughter] >> See, we're the wrong people to ask because we haven't spent our lives conniving to get into positions of political power. So, we just our brains aren't aren't working that way, sadly. Um, well, well, I mean, this is so as a final note, now this isn't really like what we do, but hey, it's nice and early. Let's just do it because everybody else is doing it. Predictions for the 2026 midterm election. Uh, how's that going to go for Trump? I mean, as far as I can tell is now this the the kind of the surface level analysis is like Trump did really bad uh this week. So that means he's going to do very bad. And Trump himself is talking like he expects to get pummeled in 2026. If you look at some of the tweets he's putting out or a truth social or whatever those posts that he's doing, he he sounds a little bit panicky to me. And uh so not the usual 5D chess sort of attitude on this. And though, as you note, right, he was calling for getting rid of the filibuster so he can start to ram through some pieces of of legislation, most of them bad. Uh, so I don't know, is 2026 going to be good? Is, as far as I can tell, my personal opinion is like I see a minor change in the House. I don't know. The Senate seems to be okay for the Republicans. I I don't see like a big revolutionary change here, but I could be totally wrong. I'm I I don't know. So, what do you think? >> The Senate seems safe based off of where the map is. Um there could be actually some opportunities for Republicans to pick up seats possibly. I mean Georgia is going to be an interesting one. I think in terms of you that's the one I may be following the closest on there. Um if the election was held tomorrow, I think that it would be a massive win for Democrats. Um the the one thing that I I you know the question is going to be has the administration learned that it needs to course correct? And there's some rhetoric out there, right? you know, there's there's there's been clear statements from the administration. We're going to focus on affordability for affordability, affordability. Now, what that actually looks like in practice, again, there's not a whole lot of there's not an easy bullet there. I mean, the tariff issue would be one thing that could resolve itself, which probably help right now. Um, but but if you look back at why 24 was successful, it was he was Trump was able to build a coalition of, you know, maha moms and Bitcoiners and libertarians, right? The the Joe Rogan bros, right? It it was a it was a very profound broad coalition. And what Trump has done is he's picked stupid proxy wars with people like Thomas M Thomas Massie who I I get why he's you know I get why Massie is frustrating to the administration right on you know with with some of his votes and things like that. But like you're you're you're stepping on someone who represents a key demographic of your 24 coalition. And is one vote is sending a message worth losing that that coalition? I personally I I think that's a bad trade-off there. Um is there more going to be done on the Bitcoin front? Is is there anything to help rebuild some of those bridges? I mean obviously RFK on the administration there's a little bit of that that he's that that they can still play around with. But you know the question is going to be can they course correct? I mean if using a historical example right Clinton got blown out you know Clinton's Clinton's agenda um first time around got blown out in the midterms. He course corrected you know helped his his eventual legacy. Um, is is this a wakeup call for Trump 2.0? We'll we'll see. But if the election was held tomorrow, I think it'd be a blood bath. >> Connor, what do you think? >> Yeah, I I generally agree. And, you know, that I don't like making predictions. There's so many things that so many news cycles we have to live through, so many factors that we can't even imagine right now. But I I think one key thing that I'm looking for is something I've been harping on um essentially for this entire first well I guess it's not the first year. It's been one year since the election. It's felt like a few years since uh Trump got sworn in, but that like the thing that has been so frustrating is the Republicans have been acting as if they're just going to hold on to power forever now. And I think Republicans are at the worst when they think that they're going to control government for the foreseeable future. And I hope it's too early to tell. I've been looking at some of the reactions and there's been things hinting at uh at both sides, but I hope that there's a realization here that like, oh no, actually all of these, you know, these new government programs that we're building up, all this this expansion of executive authority is in all likelihood going to be handed right over to, you know, President AOC in a few years. And maybe we should factor that into our our calculations as we're, you know, uh, trying to figure out how to govern the country. I think if the Republicans can um get into that much healthier, much realistic mindset, then there's potential for them to to have a good course correct here. I do think it's probably at this point, we're a year out, probably too late for meaningful change in terms of like them coming in and actually meaningfully helping like solve the affordability crisis. I think it's too late for that. But um we can they can definitely pivot in a good direction and a bad direction. And I'm hoping I'm hoping obviously they pivot in the good direction. >> All right. Well, with that we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode of the Power Market podcast. Uh thank you though. Thank you Connor for joining me today and uh we do plan to be back next week. So we will be back next time with more. So we'll see you then. >> [music]
Election Fallout: Is Inflation Radicalizing Our Politics?
Summary
Transcript
[music] Welcome back to the Power and Market podcast. I'm Ryan McMakin, editor-inchief at the Mises Institute. And with me today are two of our contributing editors. We've got Tho Bishop and we've got Connor O'Keefe. And uh hopefully you've seen some of their content, their articles at mises.org. That's mises.org. If you haven't been to the website lately, check it out. you'll see uh a lot of uh the sort of topics we discuss here uh but written in a far more precise way because this is our by far most casual content here on the Power Market podcast where we're just going to talk about some topics that are related to what we usually uh talk about at mises.org or in more detail, but there was an election on Tuesday, so it seems like we should probably mention that and see if it has any implications for the state of the economy and how people view the economy and economic theory and that sort of thing. So, though can you just give us a rundown on what the elections were? These were all local elections for the most part. Uh, well, local in the in the sense of they were state elections or even more local than that. And you know, I I I get the sense you probably know better than me about what the outcomes were of these uh in in beyond just a couple places that I was paying attention to. So, yeah. What happened on Tuesday? >> Oh, yeah. I might have had some gambling props on some of these races. Um I'm not going to tell the audience how I did there. Uh but, uh yeah, the big three were uh obviously the New York City mayor's race that had a lot of attention with Mr. Mandani uh taking that um with over 50% of the vote which is notable because of the concerns there about you know oh well you know if only the Republican got out Cuomo would have you know won and saved us from socialism or whatever the narrative was about that. Um the Virginia race was interesting one definitely Virginia moving firmly towards the the left becoming a a very blue state after uh Ynan had uh won that governorship four years ago. Um the most yeah I don't think any of this is particularly surprising. The one outcome that was a little surprising um and and perhaps horrifying was Jay Jones who was the candidate that had very public bloodlust over killing children um you know became attorney general of the state of Virginia. There was some hope in Republican circles that New Jersey uh was going to elect a Republican governor. Uh that loss with Mickey Cheryl winning that race there. Um, and then there was another notable uh election in California dealing with authorizing the state to redo their congressional districts as we have this massive escalation standoff over the midterms and congressional representation there. Um, and and obviously none of this should be all that surprising, right? You know, these are traditionally blue states anyway. These are states that Trump lost. um you know the Quuomo surprise you know had lost you know was was not you was surprising back in the primary not this um and the Jay Jones one was the one that I I think the betting odds were in favor of the uh incumbent attorney general there but when you combine like the government shutdown in particular with a state like Virginia um that already has been trending to the left for a variety of reasons um in terms of demographics and things like that um again not surprising that you know within the midst of a government shutdown you have massive massive turnout there. Um, so this is being buil by the media as sort of a massive repudiation for Trump, right? It's being sold as like blue tsunami. That's a little bit of hyperbolic there. Um, talking. In fact, in like New Jersey, the uh the Republican candidate there outperformed his previous years like 100,000 votes, which is typically historically uh would be pretty strong as a as a trend, but it was just a massive massive turnout for Democrats there. So we're definitely seeing um you know Trump as a activist energizing force within the left which is what we saw last time around. Um but I I think there's definitely though what I see is is definitely a heightened awareness of you know economic concerns playing a role here that a lot of this which was always kind of silly this notion that you know the Trump 2024 coalition was going to create this unbeatable force. Um you know particularly considering these are state elections. these are not, you know, national presidential aspirations and some of the the changes there um in terms of, you know, voting migration patterns and things like that. So, none of this should have been a big surprise outside of, you know, there's perhaps an element there where we're seeing, I think, you know, a a a Democrat party that doesn't care about the the violent rhetoric component to it, which, you know, typically is a political norm. So, that norm following what does Mandani is the face of the Democratic party, right? What does that mean um in the future there? um and the congressional aspect which will have some sort of national importance um come the midterms. But again, I don't think it's a particularly surprising outcome. But there are some interesting stories here and it does feel like the mood, the narrative mood afterwards, even within kind of heavy Republican, you know, MAGA sort of circles there. Definitely, I think a heightened awareness that, you know, maybe this is not quite such a golden age after all right now. >> Yeah. Well, thanks for mentioning the phrase golden age. Uh they apparently we're in one according to the administration. Uh I I mean the gaslighting is amazing where you had Bessant was on one of the Sunday news shows I I think it was and talking about how the economy is amazing, job growth is just insanely good and we're living through a golden age. And then yesterday Trump go has some sort of press conference where he's talking about how America's never been strong before and we're living through America's golden age. Now, at the same time, first of all, Besson's comment about how great job growth is is straight up BS. Like, uh, he was delivering those remarks days after huge, huge numbers were coming down in terms of layoffs, tens of thousands from a variety of different companies. And then we saw today uh some uh some new data that had tabulated the full year so far and showing that it's the worst year since 2003 in terms of layoffs. So, we're back to like the rec the the very lackluster days following the dot bust. If you were in the job market in 2003, you remember 2003 was not a good time. And some of that stuff doesn't show up on paper after the fact. You look and you see, oh, the economy recovered in 2003 or in 2011 and stuff, but if you actually lived through that stuff, you know that that period shortly after recessions, you still had friends who were losing their jobs in those time periods. And that finding a job was extremely difficult. I was looking for jobs in 2003. If the current job situation is anything like it was in 2003, my condolences to people who are currently looking for jobs because it is a bad situation. And so then of course now since we don't have the BLS job data, we're looking at that's that stuff. We're looking at private stuff now. ADP showed very lackluster gain of about 40,000 jobs. These are tiny numbers. Um and then a different job survey uh this morning came out uh a private uh firm showing that there had actually been job losses. Now unlike the ADP report this other one uh included uh government jobs and those showed actual losses but even without those the government was losing um or the economy was losing manufacturing jobs and losing retail jobs. And a Trump has been telling us for years that we're going to get this manufacturing jobs roaring back, which he still claims in his speeches. And and retail has been one of the few places where he could easily get a job for a lot of people. And that's not even true anymore. And so what's the situation out there with jobs? Uh it's uh it's not looking so good. But I should note by the way that the second report, so the two private reports we're looking at is the ADP report and the Rellio Labs report which which came out today. So looking at that, looking at employment, um the New York Fed came out with a new report uh I believe on Monday or maybe Friday, looking at uh debt and looking at credit card debt and delinquencies on all that. And so delinquencies on automobile loans, on credit cards, these are all up near 15-year highs, at least a 10-year highs, uh basically the worst uh in many cases since the Great Recession. And so why are those numbers going up at the same time? So people are missing payments on their loans. The one thing that didn't look so bad was mortgage uh debt because people they're going to they're going to miss their payments on their credit cards and their cards and their and on their automobiles and and uh on student loans which also has surged in terms of delinquency. All that's looking very bad. Uh and then we find out from the realtors association uh that the firsttime home buyers as a share of all buyers is at the lowest it's ever been as long as the realtors have been keeping track of it. So, uh, young people are getting absolutely pummeled in this economy. Uh, unless you're already owning a bunch of stocks and real estate, those people are doing great. So, if you're a billionaire totally out of touch like Bessant and Trump, maybe you do think honestly that we're in a golden age. If you're a person who doesn't already own three houses, if you don't already have a massive stock portfolio, you are getting worked over by this economy. And I suspect that has something to do with the Mandami victory. Uh because as far as I could tell, now Mandami is clearly the one I followed the closest that race. I paid a little bit attention to Virginia because they elected a literal CIA agent in Abigail Spanberger. Uh that's the Democratic party for you. And uh so I mean that's alarming for sure what's going on down there. But the political dynamic I think was the most interesting in New York in terms of just how hard Mandami hit the uh economic um populist angle on that where look, hey guys, I know everything's unaffordable. I know your life is hard. I know things are expensive. I know you can't afford your rent. I'm going to help you solve all those problems. Now, the solutions he gaves were terrible, economically illiterate. Um but of course, what was the alternative given by the Republicans? more government spending and more taxes in the form of tariffs to make everything more expensive. Oh, and by the way, print trillions more dollars so guys on Wall Street get even richer. That seemed to be the Republican platform. So, I mean, if those are your two choices, hey, why not vote for the guy who's at least going to give you some free stuff. Uh, so that seems to be the the rationale there. So, Connor, what do you think? I mean, uh, I'm only looking at the stuff from afar. I know you actually have relatives in the tri-state area, that sort of thing. Um, maybe you know more about what's happening on the ground there, but I mean, was this really a victory for economic populism? Was was that what got people motivated uh to turn out and vote on this? Was it really was it the economy stupid to use the old uh Bill Clinton phrase? >> I think so. And I think in that area, it's just exaggerated. things are more expensive in that part of the country than they are most other places. But it's just a general trend that has been around for a while. I think it's it was probably the central component in the 2024 election too. It was inflation. Inflation just wrecked the Biden administration and you know Kamla that whole campaign trying to run on the status quo and the population just rejected it. Um and Trump of course ran in part saying he's going to stop inflation and that just hasn't happened. um it it's still above the Fed's uh target, but if you just kind of uh put all the economic data aside, a lot of it is just vibes or things that aren't as easy to calculate um and these elections are good windows into how people are actually feeling. And it's very clear uh from this result, especially in New York City, that the affordability crisis, as people are calling it, is still a central issue, if not the central issue. And that's something I think is important for uh especially those of us who are obsessively following following this stuff all the time to remember is that the the most important component here is what issue matters to the politically apathetic people. It's not really about what people are fighting about on Twitter or the people that are in this world. It's about the people that don't really follow this but that come out to vote when these elections come up. And it just seems obvious that affordability is still the big thing. It's kind of the the thing that's defined the time period we are in right now post pandemic and this this these election results just seem to to back that up. Well, I think it's interesting because obviously again as as you alluded to, you know, the tariff component with Trump has been you like to to me like my base analysis of it is that you know that the tariff argument was big in 2016 when the focal point of that election was reshoring, right? Right? Obviously, we haven't seen the sort of manufacturing gains and yada yada yada that you with Trump trade war 1.0 and all that sort of stuff. But but regardless of the actual outcomes of those policies, right? It was kind of easy to sell the story, right? You know, it's it's it's the rust belt that had you seen all the jobs flee overseas. We're going to increase tariffs. You know, we're we're going to go after China and they're going to come back and this is going to booster the economy thing. But like that was 2016. 2024 was about inflation. Like that was the number one thing after every we everything we saw after co after we saw Biden inflation the r of radical spending things and all that sort of stuff and and inflation was the number one issue politically for the first time in quite some time right as bad as a 2% inflation rate is as bad as the Fed is normally right it became the number one kitchen table issue for everyone and so the priorities of Trump 2.0 I know has been back to 2016, right? It's it's been tariff, tariff, tariff. And I know Connor, you've got an interesting article uh today this week about the the legal component to it and the Supreme Court, which will be very very interesting um to see how that all plays out. Um maybe we can get get a little bit more into that. But but that focus completely ignores the affordability issue. And the problem the larger problem is there is no political solution to this, right? At at the local level, you're going to get I think you're going to see more mandamism, right, from the left. I think you're going to see this next generation of uh you Democrat socialist candidates. I think we saw another one in um in Minnesota, right? Um there there's another interesting component in New York where um I know with in the primary u uh you know economically those New Yorkers without a college degree were in the Cuomo camp whereas Mandani performed particularly well with both college educated and also like kind new arrivals to New York City. So there is a little bit of an interesting class generational component that has not fully bought into right the the Mandani brand of politics or at least in it in the primary. I haven't you see how gone into the details of this week's election there. So there is a little bit of that that component as well but we're going to see a lot of that at the local level. State level stuff you know right now the big battle is trying to get state funds to replace uh SNAP funds with um you know with with the government shutdown going on. But at the local level, there is no there is no push for anything outside of of loose rhetoric about affordability. There's nothing about cutting spending the way that it plays in inflation. There's no there's no attempt to have a fix for Obamacare, which is one of the biggest issues out there right now, and healthcare premiums and things like that. There is no political solution. And so, it's going to be interesting to see how does this period of inflation, right, since we're we're when when again, as we talked about last week, the Fed has completely given up on it. you know, I I think there's a very real possibility that we're going to see increased radicalism. Um, and I don't mean that in a scare away, right, like the way you get it on, you know, CNN or or in Fox News, but a a sign near a a significant breakaway from traditional ideologies because the political apparatus that we have right now has absolutely no solution um on the affordability issue, particularly in the short term. Um, you know, maybe some deregulation here, right? some of the stuff that Trump was even okay with the first time around. Maybe some of that, you know, pays off in certain sort of industries in the future like gas prices, whatever. But in terms of kitchen table, you know, right now sort of issues, there's no political solution to this. And that's going to have a lasting, I think, impact not only broadly in politics, but particularly for Gen Z and and you know, that millennial generation that recognizes they're getting screwed right now. >> Well, the word radical is I was just going to say the word radical is not a slur here at the Meis Institute. I mean, center left, center right here, >> right? I mean, the worst thing you could be is center left or center right. That's who's been running the country to the ground for the last 70 years or more. Uh, so, so yeah, it's going to be more radical rhetoric, but from the wrong side, unfortunately. And I mean, we've got to counter that. And and that's the problem is they're going to be um really pushing this idea that capitalism is what caused the fix we're in. That there was oh too much too much freedom, too much lack of regulation, um not enough government spending. I don't even know how they're going to even make that claim. Uh but but that seems to be I think where we're headed is that just too much of this conventional neoliberal sort of economics and that's why we are where we are. We need a bunch of radical solutions to that. >> Yeah, it's it's this Trump era age of austerity, Ryan. >> Yeah, right. Blame. >> They're just cutting government to the bone and and thanks Doge for for cutting all that those wonderful programs away when in reality, right, nothing's been cut except for some tiny little garbage around the edges, >> nine billion or something, >> right? I mean, and but not that that matters. Not that these people have any they're not keeping up with fiscal policy, so it doesn't doesn't even matter. I mean, but on the issue of tariffs though, Connor, I wanted to I think we could should take a like a little bit uh a little side route, little side adventure here kind of and look at your column that you wrote on this, right? I mean, where is the tariff issue going to end up? It's it's obviously not going to save the economy. It's obviously not going to save people's jobs, uh create this flowering of the economy. Uh but it looks like based on your article that he may be forced by the courts to just give up on it and then what I mean where do you think the whole tariff is going? >> I don't think it's going anywhere. I think that the dynamic will be u and and based on what the justices were saying yesterday over recording this on Thursday. It looks like they're they're pretty skeptical of the administration's arguments. But I think that at the end of the day, they if they strike it down, the administration's just going to try some other way of justifying all this and it'll just turn into this dynamic where for the rest of the term they're trying to scrape together tariffs, maybe the court keeps um you know getting in the way of that and then they kind of frame this as this battle. But I I don't really expect them to just roll over it and give up completely. But I I wanted to write that article because it's kind of an interesting dynamic where the specific problem that the court has with the law that the administration is citing to justify their liberation day uh tariffs is that he's essentially making a huge Trump is making a huge jump in the language that it says that he's you know has the power to put regulations on imports and he's saying okay that that that also includes like tariffs, taxes, duties, whatever. And what's what's interesting about it is the court and in large part the specific justices that Trump put on the court have kind of built up this this doctrine over the last few years of saying like no if if the executive uh the White House or executive agencies are going to take authority over something. It has to be very clearly laid out in the legislation that comes from Congress. And that that was how they really uh stymied a lot of Biden's more blatant kind of power grabs. And so you have this dynamic where Trump sort of help helped build up this court that is knocking all this stuff down and then Trump comes in and tries it himself. And so now the court that he kind of helped build up is potentially uh it's a problem for him now. And I just thought that was kind of an interesting dynamic that I that I wanted to touch on. But no, I don't think that um if these specific uh tariffs get swatted down by the court that um that we're we're not going to that tariffs are going to go away uh yeah for the next few years. Well, I I saw one uh particular anecdote from that. I think Gorsuch was asking um you know, the the representation from the Trump administration about whether or not the Trump administration's interpretation of emergency powers would allow for you know, a [clears throat] future president declare a environmental emergency and you know, massively increase taxes on, you know, gasoline powered cars and you know, all you gas stoves, which was, you know, a big big culture war issue a couple years ago and things like that. And and I think that the position of the Trump administration was basically well yeah um and so I could very easily seeing that like don't don't think that's gonna be a particularly persuasive argument uh for Justice Gorsuch there. I mean it does seem like there might be some indications like uh I like the fentanyl crisis might be like a different sort of thing that they use which obviously has been been used to justify I mean not only you know bombing boats but you know Canada and China and that sort of stuff. So I I kind I do think there'll be some sort of uh um of of growth and and maneuvering no matter how the court um goes as as you suggested. But but the other side of it though is you are there you know the first time around you had a lot of debate within the Trump administration on the validity of tariffs in the first place. You definitely had the pro you know the Peter Navaro types that were were making the intellectual case within the with within the administration. you had a lot of more, you know, normie mainstream um, you know, in this case, you not the worst thing, but like certainly not our people, um, making the the the status quo sort of arguments on trade. I don't know how many of those people are represented or how how much, you know, any sort of defense is represented within the current administration. But if there is with the greater if with the increased political perception particularly after these elections, you know, is it one of those situations where the Trump administration kind of realizes, hey, look, maybe this is not the button we should be pushing. We can we can saber rattle. We can complain about it. We can say we're trying to make America great again and these justices are stopping it. What can we do, though? And and allow that to be an easing off ramp with this. If there is now a perceived recognition that this is a political liability, that affordability is the number one issue, uh that that's probably perhaps wor wishful thinking, but I think that's a political calculation that might alter how the administration sees things now relative to where it would have been like two weeks, you two months ago where, you know, the the perception was at least, you know, that there's still a lot of credibility left on the the economic argument, if you will. Well, if conservatives already lost the economic argument on this, right? Because we all know how this goes. The economy gets worse and worse and then the claim is that um we need more government regulation, more government spending to fix it. That uh and then you even get Republicans up there like George W. Bush saying, "Well, I have to um I have to stop what what is it? I can't. I have to save capitalism from itself by raising taxes, by printing money, by buying up private companies, all of this stuff. And obviously Trump lives that every day. His whole platform is saving capitalism from itself by tariffing the hell out of people by buying up private companies like with the Intel thing, which is just bonkers industrial policy sort of stuff. And then of course all like the Trump lovers come out of the woodwork. They're like, "Quit overreacting. It's no big deal. You only bought like a few billion. It doesn't matter." And and so then it just sets the stage for then the next intervention. And I I can't think of a single thing about this administration that that involves rhetoric along the lines of we just want to leave you alone. We just want to lower taxes. They talk about lowering taxes, but there that's clearly not a priority in the administration. since especially since they're raising taxes on anybody who needs foreign goods to actually manufacture things or deliver services in this country. Small business people are getting worked over uh because they have to pay more for uh for the the materials they need to do stuff. They we pretend like tariffs are all just finished imported goods like toys and sweaters and stuff, but that's not the reality of it. their parts that go into to things that we're trying to build and they just want to slap extra extra cost on all of that stuff. So, there's no talk about relief for the small businessman. There's no talk uh or priority about lower taxes. Nothing about we're way past talking about deregulation anymore. So, I mean, I just can't find anything beyond like, you know, hanging out with billionaires and giving them free money. That seems to be what's going on in this administration. Well, well, there is one point where they talk about, you know, direct subsidies to farmers to offset the cost of terrorists, which, you know, [laughter] like, you know, there is that out there a little bit, which hey, you know, one intervention to leading to another. >> He's going to subsidize farmers and then he's going to import Argentinian beef to save uh his buddy in Argentina and then I guess he'll give more subsidies to the cattle ranchers after screwing them over with more Argentine beef. I mean, it's central planning at its best. I I think Mises has an article on that topic. Um but uh but I mean it's interesting like the one like the uh it's it is kind of interesting and I'm sure it'll come up next April, right? Like something that that does resemble like a working class focused tax cut was like the no tip no tax on tips aspect of the big beautiful bill, right? So that that'll come up a little bit in the future. Um but but yeah, I I think that there there is a a one thing I think is going to be interesting in terms of longer term ramifications. um is that you know for for one like it is worth noting and and Bob Murphy has a has a had a a talk that touched on this right um at the supporter summit where he he he identified how like if if your concern was the is is offshoring and and and trade deficits right if you're concerned with trade deficits he pointed it back to you know our favorite year of the you know American history 1971 and the impact of of the change in monetary policy leading to a lot of the things that the Trump administration or Trump people right broadly complain about. Um but there is to be said about like you know one of the biggest problems that the intellectual defense of capitalism has is that all the major DC institutions dedicated to that effort were always and and and largely still are sycopantic blinded towards the wonders of the Federal Reserve. Right? If you if you ignore the socialization of monetary policy and and the the way that is a complete tool of everything the state is doing, then you're just arguing on the sidelines of these other issues, then you're still going to get massive massive consequences that disproportionately hurt the working class. That's what helped fuel the populist tides that Trump was able to write in on. What I do think is interesting though now is that particularly with Trump 2.0, I know there was a very flamboyant, a very public, a very explicit breakaway um not only with Trump and his campaign rhetoric, but with in this broader intellectual environment of, you know, we're we're embracing a new age of economics, right? We we are we are dismissing these libertarians that have had an outsized influence on economic policy. We're coming in with our new tools and we're going to do stuff the the new way, the real way, what what made America great in the first place, right? Um which is, you know, uh you know, marketism, industrial policy, things like that. And if if and when um and and as it is already failing then it will be interesting to see the re-evaluation of economic policy on the right that you know was default the you know AEI you know sort of brand of uh you know capitalism which is really just you know largely whatever big businesses want. We we now had a little taste of American compass or Cass, you know, neo Hamiltonian, you know, progressive cultural conservative progressivism, right? Um, and now does that lead to an opportunity for something, again, using our favorite word of the day, more radical in a a better position closer to us? I think that's going to be um, you know, going to be an interesting challenge there because if when if and when this fails, there's going to need to be a desire for for new answers. are going to be seeking for new answers if for no other reason than again we're seeing that just how potent inflation and affordability is as a political issue. >> Absolutely. And I think that the core of the problem for all of this, it all comes back to the fact that people think that the status quo is capitalism, that it is free markets, and that, you know, they'll accept that like, okay, we kind of moved away from lazy affair back during the progressive era. But the thinking is that Reagan came in and brought us back to completely unfettered capitalism. I just gave a talk at Cornerstone University on this exact uh this exact topic last week cuz I think I think this is this needs to be our priorities. Tearing down this idea that economic freedom is what is defining you know how the system is working right now and because at the end of the day it's all just a branding choice. They brand all of this as capitalism and as lazair so that when all these economic crises inevitably happen because they always happen the immediate reflex of the population is to conclude that the only reason we're having these crisis is because we the American population have too much economic freedom and so it just ratchets on along and that's how we get into the the mess we are. And you're right though, it's like it is concerning that a lot of a fair amount of people on the right have concluded that okay, well, if this is capitalism, we're against that and what's the only real alternative to that? It's economic leftism. It's been disturbing to see how much this kind of economic leftism, economic progressivism has caught on on parts of the right, but it's understandable based on how um how convinced everybody is that capitalism is, you know, what we have right now and and and we need to move away from it. But I I think for our sort of tribe, our faction within this this broader movement, it needs to be our priority to show people that that is not the case. So that when this inevitably does fall apart, when the next crisis happen, people start to question the kind of the reflex that they've been primed to have. >> Yeah. And we've had many discussions about this over the years is we've just got to keep showing over and over again a the role of the central bank because if your theory of business cycles and the impoverishment of the ordinary man doesn't include the central bank, it's just a worthless analysis because you're missing like the biggest driver of fiscal and monetary policy and overall uh economic policy for the past at least at least 50 years, certainly since 1971, right? And really since probably since the Fed was created in the teens, when you look at just how much of a driver's been for uh financing uh the the huge deficits, for monetizing the debt, for shrinking the ability of the common man to save and invest, and just pushing up asset prices for people who are already rich. I mean that is just the major overwhelming uh factor at work and has been for decades now but you'll just hear constantly people talking about how oh the real problem is too much deregulation or something like that just it's totally irrelevant that is not the major driving factor and so we've been saying that over and over again of course because we know what's going to happen we know that as soon as unemployment goes way up uh there people are going to be blaming capitalism for that and also I've been around long enough to know that actually when the economy does poorly, we get a lot more web traffic at mises.org because people start searching for alternative explanations of why the economy is terrible. They're trying to understand how economic cycles work. And clearly the guys who go on TV and talk about the usual with the usual dumb explanations that they've been saying for decades and oh well why didn't you foresee this happening? Why can't you explain the current cycle? And then they have no answer. uh it'll all just be fixed by more government spending, more debt. Uh the Fed will fix everything with more money printing. And then and then people like, well, this seems like BS. So then they start searching and then they end up in mises.org. But of course, yeah, our traffic's going up a lot. There's a lot more interest. Um but they've already just been so conditioned toward thinking the mainstream thinking on economic policy that we just got a lot of work to do. Well, and this shows I think most explicitly in one of the biggest issues at a generational component, a cultural component. Um, you know, it's the embodiment of everything is the unaffordability of of housing right now. Um, you know, again, I there was a data that came out how I think that the the average age of your home buyer, first-time home buyer right now is 40. Um, you know, that's up like five, seven years from, you know, not that long ago and then, you know, back in the day it was like, you know, 25, whatever. Um, and and housing is the embodiment of of all of this. And obviously and and the problem is is that like you know everyone focuses on mortgage rates, right? It's like oh well you know it's because we it's because the Fed radically jacked up interest rates and that's why we you know we went from two you know 2.75% mortgages to 6 and a half% mortgages and like that's what's broken the entire system. And and for one like the implicit thing is like oh well the solution is just let's just have you two and a half% interest rates and that's going to solve the affordability issue. It's like oh yeah there's there's nothing wrong that can come with that right? It's not like there was there's other forces that end up coresponding with that 2 and a.5% mortgage rate. It's not like that's what drove everything else off the cliff. Um the same the same conditions there. Um but but you they're focusing on the financing side of housing, ignoring the fact that you know the average underlying house cost has you is is has almost doubled relative to income levels. And like if you don't deal with that underlying issue and and there's there's a lot you know there's not a single silver bullet I wish there was right to be say oh if we only abolish you know this thing or we we change this one regulation there's there's a lot you know in terms of zoning regulation and and various aspects that leads to lumber and also you know it's a it's a complicated process the markets are complicated things houses are you know part of a very complex chain of of uh uh you know division of labor and whatever but but until you address these underlying issues simply talking about how we better finance these assets that are just being priced out at their core relative to wages that are disproportionately being affected right now with younger generations. Um yeah, there is no answer. And again, and and what has been the Republican response to this? The one person who's been fantastic on this is Marjorie Taylor Green calling out like again the government shutdown's biggest issue is Obamacare. Obamacare is a Democrat issue, right? But we can't have any sort of meaningful conversation about healthcare reform because there's absolutely no intellectual curiosity to solve any these sort of things. And it's like what do you expect to happen? What what do you expect the outcome of this for for any political coalition? And and the only good thing the Republicans have going for it um and which I don't think is fully baked in with these off-year elections which are all about energy and turnout and whatever the the one good thing that Republicans have going for them is that Democrats have no credibility on these issues either, right? Like nobody's going to say, "Oh, I I'm upset about inflation. Therefore, I'm going to put in the political party that was just in charge, you know, and imply they're going to solve this thing." The only thing that's we have a race to the bottom right now in terms of credibility on the number one issue which is affordability. >> Well, Tom Woods had uh a good talk on this at Mises University this year talking about gee, why have Republicans lost interest in economics, right? It's because they've just come around to all they care about is gaining power and exercising it. And primarily their interest is the culture war. Um but now they're recognized that you can't win all your elections on culture wars. uh they have nothing to say about economics. They've abandoned the idea that leaving people alone to simply uh earn a living on their own is a good thing. They don't even say that anymore. They don't even say, "Oh, we just want to leave you alone so you can support your family. We would just want to help you earn more, keep more of your hard work." No, they're out. They're talking about tax increases and how that's going to make America more competitive. Oh, and then they're absolutely obsessed with China. We have to meddle more in your life every day in every way so that we can fight China. So, you know, screw you and your cost of living. We It's all about China and it's all about higher tariffs. And I mean, it's just an incoherent worthless message and that's all they got. So, of course, if some Dem comes to you and promises to give you free bus tickets and a lower cost of living, that doesn't sound so bad by comparison. So, I it's not like I even blame a lot of those people. >> Well, they're not even properly obsessed with China. Like, if you have Yeah, that position. That's why they're tariffing India and if they make it like they don't even have that to really sell as like a cohesive sort of narrative based on what they're actually doing there. >> Yeah. If they are concerned about China, they're really lousy at it because they're just making enemies of China's natural enemies. Uh so we're pushing people toward China like with Russia, right? We're we've been pushing Russia to China for 20 years. Stupidest policy ever if you think China is actually a real problem. So yeah, you're right. They're bad on foreign policy and and the Israel issue that's not gaining any young voters either, right? >> Not at all. >> No. >> A massive and and there's a whole brewhahala, right? I mean, I we're kind of seeing I think right now I mean like the conservative movement within the right is is going through a very very interesting dynamic there with with you know the the fallout from Tucker Carlson's interview with Nick Fuentes and Heritage and that's that's a whole that's a whole mess that don't need to go into in any great depth right now. Um but but but but that is the it's a massive generational component to it like this you you cannot ignore um you know there was a little bit of lip service right played to it during the Obama years about how like oh you know these these these you know romantic idealistic millennials are going to come in and and hope and change right and they're going to change things whatever and and whatever you there was you know social media is going to change politics right it was very sort of uh nuts and bolts campaigny sort of stuff there but I I don't think probably ever seen clear class a clear generational economic disconnect quite like we have right now and and that is going to end up being I think the most important force shaping politics in in a variety of different directions. Um, and it's it's going to be very interesting to watch play out. And I think one of the good things, right, is is it required clearing out a lot of the bad status quo ideas of politics of old, right? Allowing for the flourishing of new ideas. Some of those ideas are going to be bad. Some of those ideas might be worse than the status quo, right? There's all sorts of weird stuff out there, right? But it allows for the opportunity for better flowers and better fruit to to come out of this. And and part of that's going to be, you know, we're seeing that the breakdown of political norms. Again, that's that's that's a radicalizing thing. It's a dangerous thing. The big conversation right now is about the filibuster, right? Guarantee you guarantee that the filibuster is going to go away within the next 5 years. Whe whether it's Trump, whether it's the next, you know, you next time the Democrats control you the three branches again, at some point in the next, you know, 5 10 years when it's going to go away. um unless it's codified, it's going to go away because we're seeing this these breakdown of norms, these breakdowns of institutions, these breakdowns of old thinking, and that could lead to even a darker age going forward, but it also it's it's the only opportunity to having something better come up. >> What is the mechanism that has to occur? Sorry, I just got I don't know the answer to this question. [laughter] What's the why can't it just happen tomorrow? what what has to happen for them to get >> the only thing that's keeping it up, right, is is is the the the idea of Senate institutionalism, >> right? And and part of that is a little bit of fear about, oh, well, if we do it, they're going to use it, but that's also, you know, whatever. Um, and but like that's the only thing it's it's tradition and as we've seen tradition and politics, [laughter] we we've already seen the filibuster fall and like, you know, judicial appointees and Supreme Court things and, you know, we we we've already seen that go away. um it just hasn't gone on the on completely um but it's it's inevitable. This is where politics is going right now. This is where the dominoes have been following and have been going for for quite some time >> and and Trump was not the cause of this. He's not the catalyst of this. He's been the beneficiary of this. And I think maybe maybe now there's recognition uh you know when we talk about you know political systems right we're in our sixth political system. It is clear that we are now in transitioning to the seventh political system in terms of these macro trends and what that looks like. get a I'm not promising it's going to be better. It could be terrifying, but it's clear that something fundamental has changed. Um, and again, there's for a number of these topics and many many more. Um, and we'll see see what emerges from that. >> Yeah, it's like a time of a lot of chaos, but there's also a lot of opportunity. And to what you were saying, Ryan, like people are obviously hungry for different answers right now. It's common knowledge out there that like the current system is working uh is not working for most people. Like that's obviously just a a political mantra you hear everywhere, but we're not seeing coherent answers from just about anybody. And you know, of course, I think that's because we're the only ones that are that are right about these about these core questions. But it it's created this situation where it becomes like a game of hot potato where you know people are in power and then they kind of have to own the the affordability crisis because they're the ones in power and then elections come around and like I think that's really I mean Zoh and New York City there may be like some New York City is a very very blue area but generally speaking Trump and the Republicans they won in 2024 because they didn't own the inflation issue in the way uh the Democrats did, but now they do. And so that's going to harm them in the next election. So, we're just going to have this back and forth until a a coherent answer that can actually lead to action comes in. And and you know, we can only uh do our best to you know, get as loud as possible so that the truth wins out. Um and you know, it is like I I agree with what you're saying though. That's a real opportunity and like we should we should utilize it because if we don't that it's just it's dark ahead >> and and not to step on my own point but like this is just one nitpick that I have is like we need to stop pretending like Mandani is some sort of radical change in New York City politics like he's really not that different than Bill Delasio right he's just younger charismatic and and >> there wasn't a capitalist utopia >> like you know yeah on to actual policy I don't see any worse than Delasio [laughter] at all and that guy was awful terrible. >> He was also quoting marks in like radio interviews. So like so we need you know check that just a little bit like just he's just aesthetically a new a new chapter. But >> yeah, >> I think the the only interesting thing about Mandani is just how he captured this these uh these political and economic problems to get elected. I mean I'm more interested in how people react to Mumani than what than Mandani himself which you know he's not that new or interesting. He's just like a younger thinner Bill Delasio. I suppose it's a great this is a good analogy. >> But to the >> implicit >> to the hot potato point like he's at the peak right now. It's as good as it's going to get for him because he's going to be in power soon. I guess January 1st is when he'll be sworn in. His solutions are not going to fix these problems and then he's going to have to own that. So he, you know, he better enjoy this while he can because it's it's not going to get easier. >> And and don't take any plane tickets from the Turkish government. run recommendation. >> Maybe not from any government. That's probably just a >> good crazy. [laughter] >> I have a feeling I know one government. Well, actually, they might offer him a plane ticket. We'll see how that plays out. >> Well, if anybody handed me plane tickets, I'd ask I'd have a lot of questions. I uh I'm amazed at what people are willing to take for free from shady figures and no questions asked. >> Well, but can you how many how many corners can you help cut uh getting uh a building built in your backyard, Ryan? That's the real question. [laughter] >> See, we're the wrong people to ask because we haven't spent our lives conniving to get into positions of political power. So, we just our brains aren't aren't working that way, sadly. Um, well, well, I mean, this is so as a final note, now this isn't really like what we do, but hey, it's nice and early. Let's just do it because everybody else is doing it. Predictions for the 2026 midterm election. Uh, how's that going to go for Trump? I mean, as far as I can tell is now this the the kind of the surface level analysis is like Trump did really bad uh this week. So that means he's going to do very bad. And Trump himself is talking like he expects to get pummeled in 2026. If you look at some of the tweets he's putting out or a truth social or whatever those posts that he's doing, he he sounds a little bit panicky to me. And uh so not the usual 5D chess sort of attitude on this. And though, as you note, right, he was calling for getting rid of the filibuster so he can start to ram through some pieces of of legislation, most of them bad. Uh, so I don't know, is 2026 going to be good? Is, as far as I can tell, my personal opinion is like I see a minor change in the House. I don't know. The Senate seems to be okay for the Republicans. I I don't see like a big revolutionary change here, but I could be totally wrong. I'm I I don't know. So, what do you think? >> The Senate seems safe based off of where the map is. Um there could be actually some opportunities for Republicans to pick up seats possibly. I mean Georgia is going to be an interesting one. I think in terms of you that's the one I may be following the closest on there. Um if the election was held tomorrow, I think that it would be a massive win for Democrats. Um the the one thing that I I you know the question is going to be has the administration learned that it needs to course correct? And there's some rhetoric out there, right? you know, there's there's there's been clear statements from the administration. We're going to focus on affordability for affordability, affordability. Now, what that actually looks like in practice, again, there's not a whole lot of there's not an easy bullet there. I mean, the tariff issue would be one thing that could resolve itself, which probably help right now. Um, but but if you look back at why 24 was successful, it was he was Trump was able to build a coalition of, you know, maha moms and Bitcoiners and libertarians, right? The the Joe Rogan bros, right? It it was a it was a very profound broad coalition. And what Trump has done is he's picked stupid proxy wars with people like Thomas M Thomas Massie who I I get why he's you know I get why Massie is frustrating to the administration right on you know with with some of his votes and things like that. But like you're you're you're stepping on someone who represents a key demographic of your 24 coalition. And is one vote is sending a message worth losing that that coalition? I personally I I think that's a bad trade-off there. Um is there more going to be done on the Bitcoin front? Is is there anything to help rebuild some of those bridges? I mean obviously RFK on the administration there's a little bit of that that he's that that they can still play around with. But you know the question is going to be can they course correct? I mean if using a historical example right Clinton got blown out you know Clinton's Clinton's agenda um first time around got blown out in the midterms. He course corrected you know helped his his eventual legacy. Um, is is this a wakeup call for Trump 2.0? We'll we'll see. But if the election was held tomorrow, I think it'd be a blood bath. >> Connor, what do you think? >> Yeah, I I generally agree. And, you know, that I don't like making predictions. There's so many things that so many news cycles we have to live through, so many factors that we can't even imagine right now. But I I think one key thing that I'm looking for is something I've been harping on um essentially for this entire first well I guess it's not the first year. It's been one year since the election. It's felt like a few years since uh Trump got sworn in, but that like the thing that has been so frustrating is the Republicans have been acting as if they're just going to hold on to power forever now. And I think Republicans are at the worst when they think that they're going to control government for the foreseeable future. And I hope it's too early to tell. I've been looking at some of the reactions and there's been things hinting at uh at both sides, but I hope that there's a realization here that like, oh no, actually all of these, you know, these new government programs that we're building up, all this this expansion of executive authority is in all likelihood going to be handed right over to, you know, President AOC in a few years. And maybe we should factor that into our our calculations as we're, you know, uh, trying to figure out how to govern the country. I think if the Republicans can um get into that much healthier, much realistic mindset, then there's potential for them to to have a good course correct here. I do think it's probably at this point, we're a year out, probably too late for meaningful change in terms of like them coming in and actually meaningfully helping like solve the affordability crisis. I think it's too late for that. But um we can they can definitely pivot in a good direction and a bad direction. And I'm hoping I'm hoping obviously they pivot in the good direction. >> All right. Well, with that we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode of the Power Market podcast. Uh thank you though. Thank you Connor for joining me today and uh we do plan to be back next week. So we will be back next time with more. So we'll see you then. >> [music]