IMO you got some things right and some things wrong in this "election review."
People don't want to "feel more wealthy." People want to "BE more wealthy."
South East US got hit by massive storms a few weeks ago. Georgia Senator Lyndsey Graham said (I paraphrase, but this is close to his actual quote), "Yeah, it sucks what you're going through, but we need to think about Israel right now."
I travel to the US multiple times per year. I visit the places I used to live there decades ago. I have watched them decline over the decades. When you only visit a neighborhood now and then it is easy to see how it has fallen apart.
The average US taxpayer doesn't give a fuck about NATO. I would bet a huge sum of tasty Penguin treats that 95% of all Americans can't name the four Oblasts in Ukraine that have been annexed by Russia since 2022. But they know VERY well that HUGE fucking sums of money are going to Ukraine while their schools have no money, their roads are falling apart, and their paychecks buy 1/2 a much as they did 5 years ago. Those first two are local tax issues, true, but they are GREATLY affected by the national economy.
The national economy is good for those of us in the top 15%, great for those of us in the top 10%, and fantastic for those of us in the top 5%.
The vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. They are one financial emergency away from disaster. They want change.
They wanted change in 2008. Didn't get it. Didn't get it in 2012, but weren't expecting as much by then from Obama. They wanted change in 2016 really badly. Clinton promised nothing but a vagina and status quo politics. So the US rolled the dice on an obvious charlatan, but one who would at least TALK about their problems, which is more than the Dems do.
Trump is lazy, stupid and incompetent, but he WAS a change in 2016. Biden won in 2020 because Covid got people scared of change enough for him to squeak out a victory.
One genocide in Gaza and one new war in Ukraine with the EXPLICIT statement from Harris that she could not think of anything she'd do different than Biden and it is ZERO surprise to me that Trump won, although I'll admit I didn't think he'd win so big.
The US populace DOES NOT WANT the neoliberal-NATO-centric status quo of the last 40 years. Trump sucks, but he is a change from that.
Trump is 90% pro-war instead of 100%. That is the first time for that since the 1970s at least, maybe since Kennedy. That is the main reason (IMO) that the Washington establishment hates him, because the stock market, lobbying and the DC revolving door all rely on 100% war presidents.
Trump is a dim bulb, corrupt, lazy, AND he's tied his wagon to the anti-Choice, pro-genocide movements to get funding and support. So again, the Trump presidency is going to suck.
The US and the western "democracies" are all going to continue to go downhill until real change is implemented from the neo-liberal status quo of the last 40 years. I just hope we don't have to go through WWIII to get there. Right now the odds aren't good.
