People are notoriously bad at correlating data. They personally experience a very limited number of data points, misremember half of them, then draw whatever conclusions they are predisposed to believe.

I know this perfectly well, but it still happens to me too. The difference is that people with a little less self-awareness find it easy to firmly convince themselves that their distorted perceptions represent absolute truth.

There are also areas where the data is open to broad interpretation. For example, the numbers for unemployment have looked surprisingly good for quite a while now. That’s because they don’t account for either the large number of people who have given up on looking or on the downgrading of many of the jobs from middle-class-breadwinner to minimum-wage-without-benefits. The numbers don’t look bad, but the numbers are a drastic oversimplification of the real situation. Similar questions about “the economy” are based on the assumption that what’s good for giant corporations is good for the average citizen, which has not been true for at least the last few decades.

The MAGA Cult strongly encourages people to lie to themselves, but that isn’t really necessary in a lot of cases.

I’ve been lurking on r/Conservative

There’s problem #1. Don’t lurk on conservative. Excessive exposure to conservative has been shown to make you statistically dumber just from the exposure.

to try and figure out why they back Trump so hard, call it research.

Because it gives bigots a convenient excuse to be bigoted.

They say that prices have gone down in stores; I have not seen that, things have remained the same or gotten more expensive in my experience. Gas prices have remained…the same, I haven’t noticed a difference.

Because they gaslight and outright lie to you.

I’ve noticed that companies that perform services are now using Tarrifs to quote insane prices wether or not they were actually affected by it.

This was always going to happen. Tariffs give companies plenty of excuses to price gouge, and the GOP are perfectly OK with that.

I know the main reason is immigrants, the absolutely terrible things we’re doing to them gets thier rocks off.

Ding Ding Ding.

But if they’re so adamant about prices going down and the economy doing well they’d have to be experiencing that themselves? They wouldn’t be saying that so confidently to each other in an echo chamber unless it was happening.

It’s called keeping up the ruse. There’s a saying. “Say something enough times to enough people, and eventually they will start to believe it.” . Say it first, say it most, say it loudest, and shout any dissenters down. Unfortunately, this is a tactic that works very, very effectively, especially over the mid to long term.

There’s also the fact that they’re pretty much forced to say it regardless of their feelings.

Speaking out against Trump has led to credible death threats against multiple politicians, judges, etc. Speaking out against Trump as an elected politician is also a great way to get yourself primaried, as evidenced by the number of former Republican politicians who have spoken out against Trump and then suddenly decided not to run for re-election. Thom Tillis is the latest, but far from the first example of this. And there are plenty of synchphants willing to get in line to be the next to suck Trump’s dick, just waiting for a Republican to speak out so they can be the ones to issue the primary challenge and get Trump’s (personal and financial) backing.

Confidently speaking the Trump mantra is a job requirement now. No, that’s not an exaggeration. These people have to repeat it, even to each other, if they want to keep their jobs.

So where the fuck are prices going down at?

They’re not. Remember those egg prices from a few months ago? When everybody thought that was the ceiling? That’s about to become the floor.

And remember, prices do not go down. Prices only go up. When the economic pressures that cause prices to rise disappears, prices don’t go back down. The new higher price just becomes the new floor. And the reason for this has been ingrained in corporate America for at least as long as I’ve been alive, probably far longer: Corporations charge a price that the market will bear. It doesn’t have to bear that price willingly. If people buy XYZ at a grossly inflated price because they need XYZ (life saving medication, for example), then that means the market will bear XYZ at that price, and that price becomes the new floor. The fact that the market bears that price under heavy duress is completely irrelevant.

I guess my question is what is actually happening? I want a news source thats going to be honest and not exaggerate for rage bait. Because I now don’t trust either sides news.

Yeah, good luck with that. I’ve actually been lucky enough to talk to a couple of the more prolific Youtube ones, and they’ve confirmed something that most people figured out anyway: The hyperbole, over-exaggeration, and rage-bait is pretty much the only way to get noticed at all in today’s media environment. It’s either that, or not get heard at all. American readers love their tabloid journalism. And for what it’s worth, I agree with you: The more clickbait I see in a headline, the less likely I am to trust it or the reporter using it.

There’s numerous forces in play here. First is that the Trump administration and our court system has essentially decided that Freedom of the Press is no longer a thing. We’ve seen news reporters make the pilgrimage to Mar A Lago in order to appease Trump. We just saw CBS cough up tens of millions to Trump and forcing one of their own reporters to apologize for reporting factually correct information that Trump didn’t like. Most major media companies have opted to be much more Trump-friendly in their reporting rather than deal with retribution in the form of frivolous lawsuits, punitive EOs, legislative retribution, etc., and even a lot of independent media has toned down reporting because they literally cannot financially afford to be the next target of the Trump Hate Machine.

Another thing that has come into play: Some time back, Mitch McConnell started the GOP mantra that still exists to this day. No matter what the Democrats are in favor of, the GOP must be against it at all costs. Up to the point where he has torpedoed his own bills because they got Democrat support. This has ultimately led to both sides digging in their heels and taking the “Whatever they are for, you must be against” to ludicrous extremes.

It has led to the extreme political polarization of America. The other side is 100% wrong on all things, forever and for always. “Reaching across the aisle” is now seen as a betrayal to the party. Bipartisanism is all but a racial slur. Even admitting that the other side might have a point worthy of discussion is enough to get you labelled as a R/DINO. Compromise and negotiation are seen as capitulation and weakness. Virtually all significant votes are party-line and can be predicted well in advance, almost down to the vote.

People, on both sides, generally don’t look for objective political discussion on the Internet. People generally don’t like being challenged, even if they don’t want to admit it. What they’re looking for are echo chambers that will repeatedly tell them what they want to hear, how right they are, and how evil the other side is for daring to disagree with you. Conservative openly admits it in their side bar: They are not a “safe space”. They are not objective. They are not interested in hearing points of view that are not their own. They know all of the criticism, and their response is “Yeah, we know. And we like it this way. Now get out.”

But the left does the same thing. It holds true on Reddit’s /politics sub, and it holds just as true here. Post anything that favors the right. Anything. Could be an article, opinion, whatever. Even just a reply to someone else. Be neutral, objective, factual, and cite your sources. Watch as you get downvoted to oblivion and openly mocked and ridiculed. Watch as the words “Fuck off” get voted to the top. Watch as replies that are largely copium with absolutely no basis in reality get upvoted and treated as biblical prophecy because people like hearing it. Feels over reals goes both ways. Because people aren’t looking for information. What they want are echo chambers. And people in echo chambers typically don’t take kindly to someone new coming in and hurting their fee-fees with all of those things like objective facts and reality and stuff. As far as they’re concerned, you can fuck all the way off with that.

It’s just a cult, man. It’s just as true and based in reality as a UFO transporting their souls to heaven.

How Republicans feel about the economy changes depending on who the President is rather than the actual performance of the economy. Its a phenomenon that began picking up a few decades ago but has become very pronounced in recent years. You’re taking the things they say at face value, which is a mistake and the reason you’re confused by them.
What is actually happening is a kind of fascist revolutionary movement has taken over the GOP, Federal government, and many state governments and is now in the process of instantiating their regime. If you’re looking for news sources, AP and Reuters are a starting place but you should be reading as many different sources as you can. I hate to encourage the use of Google but news.google.com can be a useful resource for quickly finding a bunch of different sources covering the same topic.

They are lying liars who repeat a lie to themselves and hear it parroted enough to become “truth”. Remember trump’s “alternative facts” arguments during the first term? Same shit. No evidence or data necessary.

Even the US government is saying consumer prices aren’t going down.

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/

The percentage they’re going up each month has gone down from the inflation bubble we had just recently, but they have still gone up in price every single month for the last 7 years or so.