Imitation, the old saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery. Democrats, following the lead of Zohran Mamdani, have converged on a single theme and narrative: People can’t afford to live. Now this has become the theme of the entire Democratic Party.
This theme has the virtue of being true, of tapping a key public concern, and of reinforcing progressive ideology. Consider why people can’t afford to live and you encounter the oligarchy, all of its political and economic power, and Trump as its enabler.
People can’t afford to live because monopolies drive up prices, because private equity has taken over industry after industry, because health and education are seen as profit opportunities rather than public goods, because the assault on unions and the shift to gigs rather than jobs has caused wages to lag prices.
Now comes Donald Trump, promising to solve the cost-of-living crisis. This is both hilarious and a gift to Democrats.
It’s one area where lying doesn’t work, because it’s Trump’s story against people’s lived experience. Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?
One critic put it well:“Gaslighting the people and trying to tell them that prices have come down is not helping. It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store. They know what they’re paying for their kids’ clothes and school supplies. They know what they’re paying for their electricity bills.”
Exactly so.
That critic was Marjorie Taylor Greene, speaking on the Sean Spicer podcast.
How have Trump’s own policies spiked inflation? Let us count the ways.
His tariffs have raised the cost of living. Now he is coming to the rescue by cutting some of his own tariffs.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order that removes tariffs on tea, cocoa, spices, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, and certain fertilizers. It somehow escaped his notice that most of these products aren’t produced in the United States, so tariffs could not spur domestic production.
And attempting to cut beef prices by lifting tariffs on beef imported from Brazil and Argentina infuriates American ranchers in red states whose own profits have been squeezed by the power of middlemen.
Some of these price increases have hit consumers hard. The average price of a pound of ground coffee was $9.14 in September, up from $6.47 a year earlier, according to the Labor Department. A substantial cause was Trump’s 50 percent tariff on many exports from Brazil. But the products affected by Trump’s announced cuts—in his own tariffs!—are a small part of the consumer’s typical market basket. (It’s also far from clear that cutting these tariffs will change consumer prices, which typically go up like a rocket and come down like a feather. There’s that oligarchy again.)
Trump is also speaking out of both sides of his mouth, making token cuts in a few minor tariffs while issuing hysterical warnings in the context of the pending Supreme Court case on his tariff authority. Trump declared that an adverse decision could lead to an economic “unwind” exceeding $3 trillion, calling it “an insurmountable National Security Event” that would be “devastating to the future of our Country—possibly non-sustainable.”
Monopoly power is a leading source of price hikes. Joe Biden’s inspired antitrust appointees were beginning to make some headway. Trump reversed all of these gains.
Trump’s vicious deportation policies have raised prices in sectors ranging from agriculture to restaurants by creating shortages of workers. Electricity rates are through the roof, because deregulation failed and because the most promising source of cheaper power—renewables such as solar and wind—have been gutted by Trump.
In short, Trump can’t get real about addressing the cost-of-living crisis without being the anti-Trump.
Meanwhile, the arrival of cost of living as the center-stage political issue strengthens progressives within the Democratic Party. Mamdani launched the theme, and more moderate Democrats like Mikie Sherill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia embraced it.
But if you’re serious about affordability, you need to take on the power of the oligarchy and get serious about public remedy. Bring it on, Don.
