50 Ways to Screw Your Voters

In "Economics, She Wrote, Chapter 2," our resident economist explains how Trump's supporters will pay for the Tariff War.

Check out your pink slip, Flip

We’ll lay off your mom, Tom

Go find a new job, Bob

Just get yourself free

Don’t call in sick, Dick

You don’t need to discuss much

You’re out on the street, Pete

And we’ll let you be.

The Orange Tariff Monster’s sales pitch promised to solve America’s economic problems by resuscitating manufacturing, reshoring good jobs and bringing down prices. So loyal Trumpers, how’s that working out?

Get out of your semi, Remy.

According to Torsten Slok, chief economist for Apollo Global Management there’s a predictable “timeline for empty U.S. ports to slow truck and rail travel across the U.S., and then cause truck traffic to collapse.”

That’s really bad news for the 3.5 million truckers who move 72% of the nation’s freight. While trucking is important to every state’s economy, the 10 states most reliant on the trucking industry are very Trumpy: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Back in the day, before President Jimmy Carter’s massive transportation deregulation, trucking was a reliable path to the economic security associated with a middle class life. To illustrate: In 1980, the typical trucker’s annual income (expressed in 2024 dollars) was around $110K. In contrast, truckers today earn a mere $48K. Between 1977 and 1995, the decline in truck drivers’ average real (inflation adjusted) earnings was four times that of demographically comparable workers in manufacturing. Before deregulation trucking was a profession. Now it’s just another poorly paid, highly stressful, dangerous job. And thanks to Trump’s tariffs, truck drivers in the aforementioned redder than red states are going to find themselves unemployed.

No dinners to serve, Irv. No need to discuss much.

In all ten of the states where the Felon-in-Chief won the largest share of the 2024 vote (Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota, Idaho, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Dakota) food service is either the 3rd or 4th largest industry. According to food service industry analysts, the tariffs are likely to “hit wallets harder than kitchens, leaving restaurants hungry for customers.” That means mass layoffs among the 1.3 million food service workers in those states.

Just don’t cry, GI. Never gonna be free.

Cuts at the Veterans Administration are devastating. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that almost a third of all federal workers are veterans, half of whom are disabled. Because of the concentration of vets in the federal workforce, slashing federal employment hits vets hard.

Even more horrifying stupid — despite the tragic fact that 17.6 vets take their lives every day, this administration set out to shut down the Veteran’s Suicide Hotline. No one bothered to find out that the crisis line handles over 60,000 calls per month. The Trumpers are so unconcerned about vets they failed to realize that without staff, there’d be nobody to make the emergency dispatches that save vets’ lives. The human cost of this would've been intolerable: between 2009 and 2017 the crisis line answered 3 million calls leading to 82,000 emergency call outs that helped prevent self-harm among vets. Only the casually cruel and routinely heartless would attempt such a policy.

Fortunately, the pushback was immediate, loud and forceful. Trump was forced to rescind those job cuts. To say that veterans lean red is an understatement. Indeed, 65% of vets voted for Trump.

Also, about 90% of the VA’s 482,000 workers work in Veterans Health Administration. Thusly, cuts to the VA will reduce access to health care. Before Trump took office, 137 of the 139 VA facilities reported 66,000 job vacancies, creating staffing shortages so severe some clinics were unable to accept new primary care or mental health patients. The VA had been working hard to fill those positions, but now Trump’s calling for cuts of another 83,000 VA workers. So much for supporting the troops.

Can you take that pain, Jane?

Wanna pay that fee, Lee?

Contrary to Trump’s repeated assertions otherwise, tariffs are taxes paid by the consumers purchasing the tariffed goods. Although all consumers face the same price increases, thanks to the extreme income inequality of the US, the impact on lower income folks will be far greater than for those with bigger paychecks and wealth.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic policy estimates that the tariffs (10% on goods from most countries, 25% sector-specific tariffs and a 145% tariff on most goods from China) are equivalent to a 6.2% tax on the poorest fifth of Americans (those with incomes less than $29K in 2026). For the middle fifth of Americans (earning between $55K and $94K in 2026) the tariffs will impose a tax of 5%. In contrast, the richest 1% of households (income above $915K) will face a tax increase of just 1.7%.

Following the November 2024 election, The Financial Times analyzed exit polls and found that “the majority of lower-income white households or those earning less than $50K per year voted for Trump this election.”

And on and on and on. At every turn, Trump’s policies are a slap in the face, a kick in the pants and a sign of utter contempt for the very people who elected him.

Get off the Trump bus, Gus

Throw away that fryer, Myer

Let’s give vet’s care, Blair

Just get yourself free

Time to end that tax, Max

You don’t need to discuss much

Embrace liberty, Bree

So we all get free.

(Apologies to Paul Simon)

Addendum:

As I was putting the finishing touches on this piece, my sister Emily Feiner was getting physically evicted from her Congressman’s Town Hall. She wasn’t loud or shouting or disrespecting anyone on his staff. Nope. She was just asking Rep. Mike Lawler to answer her damn question: “When will you defend the Constitution? You swore an oath!”

In MAGA’s America, greatness flows from the power to shut down those who disagree. Disagree? Not free. No speech in the breech. We will set ourselves free.

Susan Feiner is a Professor Emerita at the University of Southern Maine where she taught economics and women's studies for over twenty years. Susan has written for the Portland Press Herald, Truthout, CommonDreams, Women's Enews and In These Times. She was one of the founding scholars of feminist economics. Susan's research on what today would be called “diversity, equity and inclusion” in economics education was generously supported by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. In retirement, Susan plays pickleball as often as possible.