Trump Flip-Flops on Wages After Sanders Makes a Pass at His Supporters
Donald Trump has apparently changed his mind about economic inequality, lamenting on Twitter Monday that wages are to low. This weekend, Bernie Sanders suggested that he might be able to lift the spell cast over the white, alienated masses who have flocked to Trump’s supremacist banner.
As the Guardian points out, in November, at the fourth Republican debate, Trump said, “[T]axes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave [the minimum wage] the way it is...People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.”
On Monday, however, he appeared to reverse course. “The middle-class has worked so hard, are not getting the kind of jobs that they have long dreamed of - and no effective raise in years. BAD,” he tweeted.
Many of the great jobs that the people of our country want are long gone, shipped to other countries. We now are part time, sad! I WILL FIX!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2015
Speaking on the Sunday talk shows this weekend, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders suggested that much of Trump’s appeal was reliant upon the economic anxiety of an American working class struggling to make ends meet in a globalized economy.
“What Trump has done with some success is taken that anger, taken those fears which are legitimate and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims, and in my view that is not the way we’re going to address the major problems facing our country,” Sanders said.
Trump’s Twitter essay continued:
Wages in are country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders.We need smart and strong leadership now!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2015
Strange, but I see wacko Bernie Sanders allies coming over to me because I'm lowering taxes, while he will double & triple them, a disaster!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2015
Later on Monday, while reading off poll results at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Trump called for the election to be held immediately.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.