Trump’s administration is, of course, trying to speedrun Idiocracy. I think too many people won’t care until their daily life is impacted though. When they go to the store and they’re out of beans, or can’t get a new gas guzzling truck because the price doubled. What ICE is doing is terrible, but concentration camps are someone else’s problem, somewhere far away, if you don’t want to care about them.
I’m wondering where we are on that track. When you want to do something you’ve always done, but you just can’t anymore. When even MAGAts can’t pretend that things aren’t worse.
I’m unemployed thanks to the president!
Honestly, almost everyone I know has had layoffs (voluntary or otherwise) at their jobs, with discussions of more to come. This is across many industries – research, medical, technology, communication, manufacturing, etc. A lot of places are also on hiring freezes or restrictions at a minimum.
For the time being, I’m alright. I have lived frugally and saved. I’ve cut back on expenses significantly to conserve what reserves I have. My needs are met for now.
I’m largely perplexed at where things are going.
On the one hand, a lot of the economic indicators seem optimistic. Somehow unemployment numbers are not completely terrible (yes I know the numbers are cooked, but they always have been). Stock market is back up to record highs again. Official inflation numbers are up, but only marginally so. Lots of people are looking around and saying “This is fine. Things are alright.”
Stock market and official numbers aside, though, almost everything is noticeably more expensive at the grocery store than it was even 6 months ago. I’ve cut back to generic brands of almost everything, but I’m paying almost the same prices that I was paying for name brand stuff at the beginning of the year. Coffee, produce, dairy products, and meat are especially more costly. Ironically, egg prices have gone down. People are very nervous about their jobs, cutting back on spending now just in case they get laid off soon. Yet, lots of people are stressed out because all the layoffs that have happened mean more work for the ones left behind, delays due to not having enough help, and ironically, projects going over budget because they have to get new folks ramped up on projects after the ones with that knowledge were let go, lots of stories like that. I’m not even working now and hearing that stuff stresses me out.
Emotionally, I’m definitely fighting demons. There’s just this ingrained aspect of American culture that if you’re not working when you’re working age and otherwise healthy, then you’re less worthy, lazy, mooching, etc. Plus, there’s still so much stigma around getting laid off, and ultimately people tend to presume it was performance related and/or a reflection of poor work ethic. And to top it off, there’s just a certain political segment of the population that has trouble just being empathetic, so when they find out I’m unemployed there’s no sympathy, it’s always some variation of victim blaming and victim shaming (ex: you deserved it because the agencies funding you were rotten, I pay too much in taxes and can’t afford to pay your salary anymore, you should have gotten a real job, etc).