Yes, and so is everyone else.

No, people form their opinions about the economy via a combination of propaganda and personal experience. The propaganda easily influences people how and what to think about the things they see around themselves.

How is “voters bought into propaganda that the economy was terrible” equivalent to “poverty doesn’t exist?”

in my academic life I try very hard to remind people that historical actors actually believed things and weren't rational decision-making boxes, but it's still hard to remember sometimes, thanks neoliberalism

Voting. Is. Not. Social. Signaling!

In its purest sense it's about allocating power and the authority to commit state violence

and authority aside, your law breaking leaves the things you are doing vulnerable to legal challenge.

if you want to impose new duties on government officials, you need actual statutory authority. if you want to create new benefits, you need statutory authority.

If cops in the literal Jim Crow south weren’t massacring civil rights protestors (often wrapped in American flags), I highly doubt that cops in 2020s America would do the same.