Dave Ramsey's Interview with Former President Trump...
Somehow Didn't Spend One Second on Debt
I like that Dave Ramsey reached out to the two mainstream presidential candidates with an offer for a recorded interview with him. He’s not “media” by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s a smart-enough business owner to understand the need for up-to-date marketing, and as a person who has spent decades offering personal finance advice to Americans, he’s well-positioned to serve as a prompt and counter-voice with both former President Trump and Vice President Harris on behalf of 330 million people, many of whose primary life problems have a good bit to do with money.
In that sense, I think Ramsey’s starting point with the first of the candidates (Trump) to take him up on the offer was a hundred percent correct: how to get prices at the grocery store back down to a reasonable level. Bread and milk. Related, of course, are the costs of housing and insurance premiums and high interest rates used cars, and—no matter how many grand promises get made about renewables—gas. Everyday costs for everyday people. It makes sense that this would mean so much to people, as all you have to do is have a glance at “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” in order to start nodding at the observation that we survive before we actualize.
Politicians in power may dismiss the importance of these costs, particularly around elections, and they may even use fancy words like “inflation” to drive their point home that “things really aren’t that bad!” And they probably aren’t—for individuals who make $80,000 a year or more. Inflation does indicate, in some kind of way, the rising (or falling) of prices, but not everything gets counted, and obviously some prices going up or down affect us more than others. This NBC article does a decent job of visually showing the trends of pricing for some of those basic items, and no, we haven’t imagined it that things like eggs really have risen by more than twice since we, you know, printed all that money and blocked up supply chains in response to Covid. “Twice as much” over and over again adds up.
So the problem with Ramsey’s interview with Trump wasn’t the starting point. It was, instead, that he didn’t push hard enough, that at times it felt like a bit of a gush-fest, and most of all, Ramsey laughably didn’t so much as bring up debt, which is the biggest villain in his teachings. I don’t think it’s any secret that there’s probably some overlap between Ramsey’s primary audience and Trump’s, though my best guess is that Ramsey’s is 1) more religious, 2) more white collar and suburban, and 3) whiter than Trump’s. Again, I’m guessing, so don’t take that as a scientific claim. I’m also sitting from a position of having taken a Ramsey “Financial Peace University” course in the summer of 2016, and mostly feeling pretty damn grateful for how much the knowledge I learned there—when applied in life—has made a significant difference in my finances. Even so, it certainly isn’t any kind of secret that Ramsey seems to have other investments than improving people’s financial situations; he would surely call himself something of a “conservative” and perhaps even a Republican.
And yet, there are different types of conservatives, if Trump even gets to qualify at all. Just as importantly, there are different philosophies within the world of personal finance, and one of the most consequential ones could easily be seen as Ramsey (debt as enslavement) versus Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki (debt as a tool for risk). My own comfort level aligns better with Ramsey’s skepticism toward debt, but in Trump’s personal, business, and political affairs, he has clearly gone more the Kiyosaki route, and surely both he and Ramsey are aware of this blatant difference between them.
If Trump had called in to Ramsey’s radio show as a high earner with high levels of debt, Ramsey would have had a field day. Instead it went unacknowledged, and even Trump acted like he was a big fan of Ramsey’s. For all I know, he is, but if so, it is in more of a “Do as I say and not as I do” kind of way. Trump is the politician, though, courting votes. So I expect the “old pals” act. It’s Ramsey that really seemed out of character.
For what it’s worth, Harris should do the interview with Ramsey, too. Even if it doesn’t turn into the same gush-fest. This is one of the problems with contemporary Democrats that I harp on. They have such a narrow tolerance for people who think differently from them, and so they are ever attempting to create an insular world where they don’t have to be challenged. We’re only weaker for it.