.
Here's the bottom line for me. Trump accomplished something pretty significant, before the pandemic hit. Wages and incomes for the working class - including, notably, minorities - were rising relative to inflation. This hadn't happened in a while, and lots of folks felt like they were getting ahead.
Under Biden, inflation has reversed that happy situation, and people are falling behind again. You can see it at the grocery store, at the restaurant when you want to eat out (or allow yourself that sim ple luxury at lunchtime at work, instead of brown-bagging it.). You can see it if you're a first-time homebuyer, or if you want to trade up and can't afford to lose your cheap mortgage. You can see it if you have to replace your car, although gas prices are starting to moderate. (But heck, in 10 years we face the real possibility of never being able to buy a new gas car again, because the government is cracking down on such selfishness.)
This sense of progress has been lost among large numbers of the electorate, including the young. On top of that is the perception of increased crime, which has basis in reality, and in changes in government policy to let those who merely trash the quality of life for everyone else get a pass on punishment.
Life is not good out there. People have isolated themselves by working from home and conducting their social lives mostly on-line, and it is the lucky city that's got a semblance of its pre-pandemic crowds and energy back.
Biden is old and tired. He doesn't recognize the problems that real people face. His is fixated on the priorities of elites, like climate change and progressive social justice - and not those of us who get on the train every day.
Biden covers up his failures by trying to buy votes, forgetting that making taxpayers shoulder the cost of forgiving student loan debt makes a mockery of those of us who took care not to get overextended and paid what we owed.
And the out of control situation on the border has spilled over to our cities and towns with migrants "paroled" into an exploitative underground economy and crowding out local government resources from all the other stuff that needs attention. This is all the result of bad policy, poorly executed.
No, Joe Biden has not earned or deserves my vote, even as a bulwark against Trump.
I want the Republicans to deep-six their megalomaniacal albatross. And I want the Democrats to ditch their own doddering doyen of divisiveness. Both parties need new blood, and new perspective about the people they seek to serve.
