William Lindsey :toad:"Few communities in America prospered as much as Texarkana during President Joe Biden’s four years in the White House, and few communities were more ungrateful than the voters of that region, which is anchored around twin cities spread across the Texas-Arkansas border."
~ Thomas B. Edsall
#Trump #MAGA #racism #immigrants #Arkansas #Texas
/1
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/opinion/liberalism-texarkana-economy-democracy.html
William Lindsey :toad:"In 2024, in spite of economic growth under a Democratic president at rates unheard-of in decades, residents of Texarkana turned around and cast a higher percentage of their ballots for Donald Trump than ever before. ...
During the four years from January 2021 to January 2025 — the years of Biden’s presidency — the unemployment rate in the Texarkana metropolitan area fell to 4.2 percent from 6.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
#Trump #MAGA #Arkansas #Texas #economy
/2
William Lindsey :toad:"The metro region’s gross domestic product had experienced sluggish growth from 2010 ($5.04 billion) through 2020 ($5.8 billion). After Biden took office, however, the region’s G.D.P. shot up, reaching $7.2 billion in 2023, the most recent figure available at the Federal Reserve."
#Trump #MAGA #racism #immigrants #Arkansas #Texas #economy
/3
William Lindsey :toad:"In 2020, Texarkana, which is made up of Miller County, Ark., and Bowie County, Texas, voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump — 72.3 percent to 27.7 percent for Biden, a 44.6-point margin. In 2024, despite the growth of green industry and economic improvement during the Biden years, Trump beat Kamala Harris in the Texarkana counties with 75.4 percent of the vote and 24.6 percent for Harris, an immense 50.8-point margin."
#Trump #MAGA #racism #immigrants #Arkansas #Texas #economy
/4
William Lindsey :toad:Racism and xenophobia are powerful drugs and powerfully stupefying ones. The lure of hate, the need to blame someone for our self-created problems, trumps the self-interest of many of us over and over again.
#Trump #MAGA #racism #immigrants #Arkansas #Texas #economy
/5
William Lindsey :toad:The thrill of attacking immigrants and slapping at people of color and mocking and demeaning LGBTQ people is just too satisfying to a lot of us, who are willing to vote away our healthcare benefits, economic prosperity — everything — to get another hit of that powerful drug of hate.
#Trump #MAGA #racism #immigrants #Arkansas #Texas #economy
/6
William Lindsey :toad:"Here’s the real magic trick: while you’re bleeding at the checkout counter, the wealthiest in this country are laughing all the way to the bank. Because tariffs, like most bad policy dressed up as 'America First,' are designed to look like they punish foreign competitors but actually function as a cash funnel to the top."
~ Michael Cohen
#Trump #tariffs #MAGA #taxes #corporations #EconomicElites #economy #groceries #inflation
/7
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/the-real-victims-of-trumps-tariffs