One top progressive sounded the alarm over the weekend on a widely read off-the-record email list. The author gave us permission to quote from their missive — “Danger: Inflation Is a Third Rail” — which was ricocheting around lefty circles Sunday night. A couple of things stood out to us:
1. Some progressives now see inflation as an accelerant for both fiscal conservatism and authoritarianism. The former is undoubtedly true: Inflation concerns have already killed President JOE BIDEN’s multitrillion-dollar social welfare proposal and pushed him to embrace deficit reduction. But our anonymous progressive warns of something darker:
“Obviously inflation does not always lead to authoritarianism. But when it is a feature of the political environment, it often compounds the weakness of regimes already under stress. In that environment, the appeal of a strong leader who can ‘just fix it’ becomes considerably more appealing both to the population and leading business interests. … Although Trump has not seized on inflation yet on the campaign trail, that opportunity remains open for him and MAGA.”
2. Inflation is a psychological trauma for many Americans that financial elites don’t understand:
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