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Comment by aatarax | Hacker News Reader

My guess: the COVID related inflation was visible, made for a relatable talking point, and our modern day communication technologies made it easy to repeat that talking point over and over.

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This. Even though inflation is just about back to where it was pre-covid, the winning candidate gave his voters the impression that he could lower the prices that had gone up during the earlier inflationary period. The majority of voters don't understand the underlying economic issues: Unless you get a negative inflation rate (deflation) you're not going to see lower prices. And the only way you get deflation is during severe economic downturns - now it could be that his promise will come true and we'll get a severe economic downturn that leads to lower pries, but I don't think the people that voted his way had that in mind.

Of course people don't really want deflation either, and most people don't really believe prices will magically drop 30% back to where they were in 2019.

But it's still reasonable to punish those who presided over the inflation spike if you think their policy choices played a role in causing it.

Except the causes for it are due to multiple elections of people with almost the same policies regarding regulation and taxation, leading to consolidation.

So, punished people by electing people with the same policies, just with more lies. Perverse incentive is to keep the same policies, but lie more.

Except they voted for the guy who arguably started the inflation spike and will stoke inflation again by imposing tariffs on all imports (not to mention increasing deficits faster than the other guys would have).

> and most people don't really believe prices will magically drop 30% back to where they were in 2019

You'd be surprised. Most people don't, but a most of the people who voted for him did seem to that he was going to magically drop prices.

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