Yesterday I went out for lunch. By myself. At a local Mexican restaurant. I ordered a burrito and a bottled coke. My bill was $18. Four years ago, that same meal at that same restaurant was $8. My salary has not doubled with inflation, but many of my costs have.
No fancy economics equations can compensate for continual sticker shock at the consumer level.
Same, small town, and the prices keep changing so fast in the last five years that the restaurants went from relatively nice durable menus to cheap little paper plastic flaps, because they kept having to reprint the menus again and again with all the price hikes.
Voters in small town America neither care about nor understand geopolitics. They do understand and care about the price of burritos. Have you seen any recent interviews of voters and their stated concerns? Have you seen the exit polling demographics by education level?
No fancy economics equations can compensate for continual sticker shock at the consumer level.