The Price of Eggs

I posted this abbreviated history lesson in many social media nooks yesterday. It seemed to be greeted with yawns, although I’m an amateur at generating clicks.

2016 - competent white woman lost to disgusting white man

2020-  mediocre white male candidate beat disgusting white man

2024 - competent Black/Asian woman trounced by disgusting white man

Anyone discern a pattern here? The rest of the analyses are useless noise.

The punditsphere is frantically flopping from one explanation to another, often one in direct contradiction with the next. Too much social justice. Too little social justice. Too much support for Israel. Too much sympathy for pro-Palestinian protests. Too much playing up race and gender (she didn’t). Too little focus on the historic nature of her candidacy.

The many plausible and implausible explanations for Trump’s triumph would seem to relegate my abbreviated history to the trash bin of over-simplification. But bear with me and pause your skepticism.

The contradictory flopping I describe helps to make my argument. Ultimately, the factors on the margin simply cancel themselves out. If you scrape away the statistical parsing and partisan pontificating, only one thing remains. 

Clinton lost in 2016 because we weren’t ready to elect a woman and Harris lost by much more in 2024 because we really weren’t ready to elect a Black/Asian woman.

The pattern was identical in Blue and Red states, urban and rural, North, South, East and West. In county after county, state after state, the blue vote ebbed and the red vote rose - by virtually identical proportions. This truth contradicts many or most of the other factors. Economic factors, immigration impacts or any of the other “reasons” people offer for voting for Trump vary enormously from place to place. The proportions I describe were precisely the same in poor rural Georgia as in wealthy suburbs, despite the relevance or irrelevance of bacon prices.

You tell me - what one factor was the same?

Adding strength to that simple truth is that although Trump was a horrible, unqualified candidate in 2016, he was an even more horrible, unqualified and disqualified candidate in 2024. 

I welcome any of this blog’s erudite readers to refute the basic logic offered thus far.

Then it turns to the counter-arguments. If it’s all about gender, why did 44% of white women vote for a misogynist who orchestrated the death of reproductive rights? Beats the hell out of me, but it’s irrelevant. 44% of anything didn’t elect Trump. He was elected on the margins, not by an overwhelming factor of anything except the white men, especially the racist ones (most?all?), who form the center of the cancerous mass on our body politic.

Many of “their” women are in that mass/mess with them. Those women have been anti-feminist for decades and probably account for the seemingly odd fact that many anti-feminists helped pass abortion rights measures while also voting for Trump. Right-wingers and their partners have unwanted pregnancies too, but they sure aren’t going to join up with the libs - who ironically fought to allow them control over their bodies.

The rest of the noise is, to phrase it delicately, mostly bullshit.

I love the rationales offered for Trump votes. The economy is a dandy excuse. How many times have you heard that it’s egg prices? Eggs. As though the price of eggs overrides decency. “You know, I would have voted for the Black woman but damn, egg prices convinced me to vote for a vulgar felon.” 

Combine bacon and eggs and it’s cause to vote for Hitler, or our dumber version thereof. While I don’t casually dismiss the real economic stress on many families, neither Harris nor Trump has any influence on the global dynamics and corporate greed that affect food prices. 

I am not arguing that any particular person was not influenced by other factors. Myriad factors always influence voters. Propaganda and stupidity affect voters. None of that is new, although both propaganda and stupidity are at record highs. 

The graphic above shows the remarkably consistent shift to red across the country. 

Believe me, egg prices didn’t cause that. 

A Black/Asian woman did that all by herself.