Many supporters of former President Donald Trump will sorely regret if he wins, Nobel Prize-winning economist turned political analyst Paul Krugman wrote for The New York Times.
That's because, he said, they'll get hit in the wallet by his proposals, just like everyone else.
One of the biggest and most obvious examples of this, he wrote, is Trump's promise to enact massive new tariffs on all consumer goods, which economists have warned would be a disaster for price stability and economic growth.
It's like the infamous meme from a 2015 tweet, Krugman noted: "'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party."
If Trump wins, he wrote, the leopards will eat your face.
"Many analysts have pointed out that Trump’s proposed tariffs would hurt most Americans, with only high-income individuals gaining enough from his tax cuts to make up the difference," wrote Krugman. "Trump, of course, insists that taxes on imports — which are, essentially, a sales tax — won’t hurt American consumers. But, as The Washington Post reports, corporations are already getting ready to raise prices."
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And that's just the beginning of the pain, wrote Krugman. Trump has also pledged to hire tech billionaire Elon Musk to oversee a new commission that will cut "at least $2 trillion" of supposedly deadweight government spending.
"Those remarks alone tell you two things. First, that Musk doesn’t understand federal spending. Second, a new Trump administration would probably inflict a lot of hardship on millions of Americans, and it’s unlikely that it would be temporary."
Cutting that much money, said Krugman, would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
And all of this is without the promises by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to take another run at gutting the Affordable Care Act, which sent millions of people into panic when Trump tried it last in 2017.
The fact is, Krugman wrote, that despite MAGA supporters' feelings to the contrary, "America’s economic performance under the Biden-Harris administration has been very good, especially compared with that of other countries. We’ve grown much faster than any other major wealthy nation" — and inflation has plunged back to normal levels as well.
"There’s an unusual consensus among economists that Trump would preside over a worse economy, especially higher inflation, than Harris," he wrote.
"If he wins, many Trump voters are likely to experience buyer’s remorse," concluded Krugman — and the only question will be whether America will have a free and fair election in 2028 to hold him accountable.
