Harris lost because of Gas, Groceries, and Gaza. But the underlying reason was Ukraine

This election was both "It's the economy stupid," and a foreign policy election.

I reconciled myself to Trump winning six weeks ago.

It was the last week in September when Kamala Harris lost. That's when Hurricane Helene hit the Southeast and Israel began its genocidal war against Lebanon with full force.

The right-wing spread memes that billions of dollars were going to Israel while FEMA was bankrupt and not providing relief aid for survivors. Other memes claimed the money was going to immigrants. All the claims were false except money and weapons being lavished on Israel. But the sentiment was true. Americans are being screwed by Democrats while they were sending vast sums overseas for foreign wars creating chaos.

I saw many leftists share these memes on Facebook. I realized Harris was in deep doo-doo if leftists were sharing these fake memes.

Then Netanyahu began another genocidal conflict with full backing from the Biden White House. Which means Harris was in on it as well. Biden knew full well for the last year that Netanyahu’s government was trying to sabotage him so as to elect Trump. And Biden allowed Israel at every turn to continue, deepen, expand its campaign of genocidal warfare that helped drag Democrats down to defeat.

Then there is Ukraine. Under Biden-Harris, staggering sums have been spent on the war. Congress has officially approved $175 billion, but I suspect its significantly higher given all sorts of other aid and weapons transfers not included in these bills. There are also huge amounts of aid to Taiwan and Israel.

The wars and overseas aid hurt Harris in many different ways, and she avoided them because she is the candidate of war and Wall Street.

1) Many people react viscerally to conflict overseas. They fear it could draw in American troops or result in domestic terrorism. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, many people believe it. No one likes war, not even Americans.

2) Most Americans are suffering from inflation, high grocery, gas, and housing costs. People are angry that hundreds of billions of dollars are going overseas while they are being squeezed. They don’t understand most of it is military Keynesianism creating domestic economic activity and jobs. Again, whether it is true or not, they think they are losing economically and foreign nations are benefiting from their tax dollars.

3) There is also rage about Gaza, Palestine, and Lebanon. Millions of voters, whether out of personal ties or principles, refused to vote for the party of genocide. I have been saying for months, “The Democrats care more about genocide than democracy, freedom, abortion, trans rights, climate change, healthcare, you name it.”

The most important effect of war is one almost no one realizes. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed comprehensive sanctions. Biden officials crowed about imposing the toughest sanctions ever, or at least since the 1930s U.S. sanctions on Imperial Japan. The sanctions immediately caused a spike in commodity prices in early 2022 because under Clinton commodity markets were liberalized, allowing Wall Street banks to treat them as speculative instruments rather than as hedging instruments for producers and traders in the sector.

Inflation was running hot in 2021 coming out of the pandemic, but sanctions added fuel to the fire. The sanctions hit Russia and Belarus, which are major producers of natural gas, crude oil, grains, and fertilizer. Plus Ukraine, a major grain and seed oil producer, was impacted by Putin’s criminal invasion. The sanctions failed. But they caused price spikes that led to skyrocketing gas and grocery prices in the U.S. On top of that, the Houthis have disrupted $1 trillion in commercial trade in attacks on cargo ships in solidarity with Gaza. This further disrupted supply chains and added to inflationary pressures.

Inflation hit nearly 10 percent in 2022, leading the Fed to raise interest rates, to engage in "demand destruction," that is, reducing the wages of workers. That led to increases in mortgage payments and car loans, which hurt many consumers.

Say it ain't fair. Blame it on price gouging or the Fed. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Adam Tooze, one of the sharper analysts of the global economy, notes that the inflation from 2021-2022 was worse than price rise caused by the 1973 oil crisis — connected to the 1973 Arab-Israel War — and second only to the 1979 oil crisis resulting from the Iranian Revolution. Notice a pattern between geopolitics and the economy?

The incumbent party always gets the blame for high inflation, and Biden-Harris are tools of the ruling class. Biden was so cozy with the banking industry he was derided as “The senator from MBNA.” As soon as gas and grocery prices started to rise Biden and Harris should have attacked corporations for price-gouging. Biden should have directed the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the Commerce Department to go after food and grocery companies ripping off consumers. He should have attacked the Fed, just like Trump did. But Biden and Harris are such weak-willed creatures of a bankrupt system they were incapable of flexing Bernie-like populist muscles or understanding we live in a post-Trump political world.

Instead Harris enlisted the support of billionaire bankers, billionaire Hollywood moguls, and billionaire tech companies. She campaigned with billionaire celebrities, doubled down on war and genocide, embraced Biden instead of saying she was going to turn the page. Most important she did not provide credible and simple solutions for the economic woes afflicting most Americans. I wouldn’t be surprised if campaigning with Beyonce, Oprah, and the Boss turned off many Americans who were looking for a few more bucks in their pockets and not star power.

Even more appalling, Harris welcomed Dick and Liz Cheney into the fold. I was in Madison Square Garden during Trump’s full-house rally on Oct. 27. Trump and other speakers had a field day ridiculing Harris for joining forces with the architect of the disastrous Iraq War (far more for Iraqis of course). It’s an open question of whether Democrats are that dumb or incompetent to think they could win over a significant number of Republican women from what is a full-blown cult.

It's the same disastrous strategy Clinton pulled in 2016. "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia," Chuck Schumer proclaimed in 2016.

Or maybe this is who the Democrats are. In thrall to their billionaire masters, they are unwilling and unable to offer their base any sense of economic relief.

It’s not like they haven’t done it before, though. Obama electrified voters in 2008 by promising to move past the “war on terror” while providing a helping hand from those knocked down by the Great Recession. They came out in droves, giving him a near-landslide victory.

But you have to deliver, and Obama kicked his base in the face with trillion-dollar bailouts for Wall Street while abandoning Main Street.Black turnout in Wisconsin cratered from around 78 percent in 2012 to the mid-40s in 2016. After Hillary Clinton lost the election, many Black people in Milwaukee told reporters they didn’t vote because they were exhausted and demoralized. They mobilized twice before and in eight years “nothing had changed.”

The same is true for the last year. Black, Latino, and white workers have been quoted as saying they were frustrated and demoralized. They say it doesn’t seem to matter who is in power, nothing seems to change except more pressure from high gas, food, and housing prices. Instead tone-deaf Democrats kept saying the economy is great.

Trump is a fascist, a demagogue, a con man, but he spoke to people's pain. He manipulated their fears. He made wild promises. “No taxes on tips! No taxes on overtime! No taxes on Social Security! No taxes on car loans, if they’re American-made!” People think he is speaking to them directly and he is going to help them and return America to greatness.

The vast majority of Americans have a poor grasp of politics and history. And 80 percent of the population if not more are economically battered and socially alienated. Many if not most have also fallen prey to conspiracies. They want simple solutions to make their lives better. And Trump gives it to them.

For a decade, Trump has successfully racialized class grievances. Workers know they are being screwed over by the rich and powerful, but they lack the words and ideas to understand it. That makes many easy marks for a billionaire demagogue who says, “Blame the immigrants next to you for making your life worse,” and not his plutocratic buddies. Trump also gives them a sense of meaning and belonging in a hyper-atomized society.

Biden and Harris helped Trump’s “blame immigrants” strategy in other ways. They punished Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua with sanctions. They pushed Haiti to collapse, and ignored how U.S. policies have destabilized Central America. These areas plus Mexico account for nearly all immigrants who have entered the U.S. from the Western Hemisphere since Biden took office.

In a particularly cruel moment, a Biden official crowed days after Russia invaded Ukraine that “by design” sanctions “will have an impact on those governments that have economic affiliations with Russia … So Venezuela is going to start to feel that pressure, Nicaragua is going to start to feel that pressure, just like Cuba.”

Trump didn’t win simply because he is a sui generis grifter. Democrats gave him many openings to spread his poison. It was all utterly predictable.

One faction of the ruling class is not going to save us from another faction of the ruling class. Democratic Party elites have spent 30 years paving the way for fascism. They deserve Trump. We don't.