The Trump administration says cheap goods aren’t part of the American dream. They’re wrong.

Amazon boxes during a delivery in New York in 2020. | Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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We live in a consumerist society. But at least speaking for my own social circles, we also live in an anti-consumerist society: We purchase lots of things, and we also feel vaguely guilty about it and brag about all of the ways we do without. (Buy secondhand! Get things off a Buy Nothing group! Reuse!