By 2024, however, he\u2019d had enough. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just saw more of the bad qualities, more of the ego,\u201d said Mahan, who\u2019s worked for decades as a food server on and off the Las Vegas Strip. \u201cAnd I felt like he was at least partially running to stay out of jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mahan couldn\u2019t bring himself to support Kamala Harris.<\/a> He\u2019s never backed a Democrat for president. So when illness overtook him on election day,<\/a> it was a good excuse to stay in bed and not vote.<\/p>\n He\u2019s no Trump hater, Mahan said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s evil.\u201d Rather, the 52-year-old calls himself \u201ca Trump realist,\u201d seeing the good and the bad.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s Mahan\u2019s reality: A big drop in pay. Depletion of his emergency savings. Stress every time he pulls into a gas station or visits the supermarket.<\/p>\n Mahan used to blithely toss things in his grocery cart. \u201cNow,\u201d he said, \u201cyou have to look at prices, because everything is more expensive.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In short, he\u2019s living through the worst combination of inflation and economic malaise he\u2019s experienced since he began waiting tables after finishing high school.<\/p>\n Views of the 47th president, from the ground up<\/p>\n Las Vegas lives on tourism, the industry irrigated by rivers of disposable income. The decline of both has resulted in a painful downturn that hurts all the more after the pent-up demand and go-go years following the crippling COVID-19 shutdown.<\/a><\/p>\n Over the last 12 months, the number of visitors has dropped significantly and those who do come to Las Vegas are spending less. Passenger arrivals at Harry Reid International Airport,<\/a> a short hop from the Strip, have declined and room nights, a measure of hotel occupancy, have also fallen.<\/p>\n Mahan, who works at the Virgin resort casino just off the Strip, blames the slowdown in large part on Trump\u2019s failure to tame inflation, his tariffs<\/a> and pugnacious immigration and foreign policies that have antagonized people \u2014 and prospective visitors <\/a>\u2014 around the world.<\/p>\n \u201cHis general attitude is, \u2018I\u2019m going to do what I\u2019m going to do, and you\u2019re going to like it or leave it.\u2019 And they\u2019re leaving it,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cThe Canadians aren\u2019t coming. The Mexicans aren\u2019t coming. The Europeans aren\u2019t coming in the way they did. But also the people from Southern California aren\u2019t coming the way they did<\/a> either.\u201d<\/p>\n Mahan has a way of describing the buckling blow to Las Vegas\u2019 economy. He calls it \u201cthe Trump slump.\u201d<\/p>\n ::<\/p>\n Mahan was an Air Force brat who lived throughout the United States and, for a time, in England before his father retired from the military and started looking for a place to settle.<\/p>\n Mahan\u2019s mother grew up in Sacramento and liked the mountains that ring Las Vegas.<\/a> They reminded her of the Sierra Nevada. Mahan\u2019s father had worked intermittently as a bartender. It was a skill of great utility in Nevada\u2019s expansive hospitality industry.<\/p>\n So the desert metropolis it was.<\/p>\n Mahan was 15 when his family landed. After high school, he attended college for a time and started working in the coffee shop at the Barbary Coast hotel and casino. He then moved on to the upscale Gourmet Room. The money was good; Mahan had found his career.<\/p>\n From there he moved to Circus Circus and then, in 2005, the Hard Rock hotel and casino, where he\u2019s been ever since. (In 2018, Virgin Hotels purchased the Hard Rock.)<\/p>\n Mahan, who\u2019s single with no kids, learned to roll with the vicissitudes of the hospitality business. \u201cAs a food server, there\u2019s always going to be slowdowns and takeoffs,\u201d he said over lunch at a dim sum restaurant in a Las Vegas strip mall. <\/p>\n Mahan socked money away during the summer months and hunkered down in the slow times, before things started picking up around the New Year. He weathered the Great Recession,<\/a> from 2007 to 2009, when Nevada led the nation in foreclosures,<\/a> bankruptcies soared and tumbleweeds blew through Las Vegas\u2019 many overbuilt, financially underwater subdivisions.<\/p>\n This economy feels worse.<\/p>\n Over the last 12 months, Las Vegas has drawn fewer visitors and those who have come are spending less.<\/p>\n (David Becker \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n With tourism off, the hotel where Mahan works changed from a full-service coffee shop to a limited-hour buffet. So he\u2019s no longer waiting tables. Instead, he mans a to-go window, making drinks and handing food to guests, which brings him a lot less in tips. He estimates his income has fallen $2,000 a month.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just that his paychecks have grown considerably skinnier. They don\u2019t go nearly as far.<\/p>\n Gasoline. Eggs. Meat. \u201cEverything,\u201d Mahan said, \u201cis costing more.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n An admitted soda addict, he used to guzzle Dr Pepper. \u201cYou\u2019d get three bottles for four bucks,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cNow they\u2019re $3 each.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s cut back as a result.<\/p>\n Worse, his air conditioner broke last month and the $14,000 that Mahan spent replacing it \u2014 along with a costly filter he needs for allergies \u2014 pretty much wiped out his emergency fund.<\/p>\n It feels as though Mahan is just barely getting by and he\u2019s not at all optimistic things will improve anytime soon.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking forward,\u201d he said, to the day Trump leaves office.<\/p>\n ::<\/p>\n Mahan considers himself fairly apolitical. He\u2019d rather knock a tennis ball around than debate the latest goings-on in Washington.<\/p>\n He likes some of the things Trump has accomplished, such as securing the border with Mexico<\/a> \u2014 though Mahan is not a fan of the zealous immigration raids scooping up landscapers and tamale vendors.<\/a> <\/p>\n He\u2019s glad about the no-tax-on-tips provision<\/a> in the massive legislative package passed last spring,<\/a> though, \u201cI\u2019m still being taxed at the same rate and there\u2019s no extra money coming in right now.\u201d He\u2019s waiting to see what happens when he files his tax return next year.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not counting on much. \u201cI\u2019m never convinced of anything,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cUntil I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n Something else is poking around the back of his mind.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n