“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1801)

President Donald Trump launched a multi-state “affordability tour” this week, an effort to regain the high ground on economic messaging and apply credit where due for high prices.

The Trump Team’s approach to this tour is modeled after his MAGA campaign last year, and the focus is “LOWER PRICES — BIGGER PAYCHECKS.”

At his first stop in Pennsylvania, Trump declared: “Democrats talking about affordability is like Bonnie and Clyde preaching about public safety. And they truly are the enemy of the working class. They gave you high prices. They gave you the highest inflation in history, and we’re bringing those prices down rapidly.”

Trump policies are bringing prices down on fuel and pharmaceuticals, and consumers are seeing some price reductions on food and other essentials. Housing mortgage rates are dipping, and rent prices are dropping. And, predictably, the economic bite is not as bad in red states.

But Trump must be cautious about overpromising — the Biden-inflated prices of most consumer goods will not come down — and that is on Biden, not Trump, a case he must make.

So how did Trump, who has made remarkable progress restoring and growing the economy after four years of the Biden/Harris disaster and their 40-year record high inflation, get in this hole?

An unfortunate risk of political offices is that the individuals elected to those offices inevitably end up in a bubble. And the higher the office, the more insulated that bubble becomes, thus the greater the detachment from constituents. The consequences of that detachment, especially when a president fumbles important messaging, can be swift and harsh.

The Patriot Post has always had readers at the White House and many in the Senate and House, regardless of what party was in control — and that is true now. That’s good because we are a grassroots publication far outside the Beltway media echo chambers, and it is important that Republican leaders maintain a connection with, as we say here in Tennessee, those who “brung them to the dance.”

One reason Trump’s approval rating on the economy is flatlining, even among his own voters, despite the fact that his general approval rating is ticking up, is because in that White House bubble, the detached economic messaging has failed to address the most pressing concerns.

A month ago, after the defeat of a few Republicans in Democrat-controlled states (Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia and Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey), apparently the Demos’ Leftmedia publicists decided to blame the defeats on “affordability,” what consumers are experiencing in terms of the cost of basic necessities.

Everyone got the memo, and suddenly “affordability” was in every headline, Demos setting it up as the most important issue for the 2026 midterms. Those headlines were carried by both conservative and leftist media because they all subsist on advertising, which is dependent on endless churn.

Consumer saturation with those headlines is, as noted by the Wall Street Journal’s economic team, a major factor. Joanne Hsu, who directs the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, says: “People are not feeling confident about the economy. We haven’t collectively come to grips that that is behind us.” She says, “Inflation is a smaller problem today than in the 1970s or early 1980s, but people often perceive it to be a bigger problem because they are inundated with more news and headlines about prices.”

Well, “smaller problem today” is a gross understatement.

At the end of Jimmy Carter’s disastrous presidency, inflation had surged to over 13.5%, much as in the middle of Joe Biden’s calamitous tenure, when inflation was testing the 10% mark. It took Ronald Reagan several years to restore economic health, much as it will take Trump years to do so after consumer prices rose 21.5% while Biden was in office.

The price of gas alone rose 31% under Biden, and, as noted previously, Trump’s policies have already resulted in fuel cost reductions that are now at a four-year low nationwide.

But the Bidenflated prices of food and consumer goods, and housing, which Americans feel most viscerally, are not going to deflate like fuel, an unrealistic consumer expectation — unrealistic because the Trump administration has failed to adequately explain that price deflation occurs in a severe economic recession.

Trump’s objective is to grow the economy and wages (BIGGER PAYCHECKS) while containing inflation. But that economic and wage growth takes time.

The current consumer price index is about 3%, and income adjusted for inflation, wages are just starting to get ahead of the inflation curve.

All the negative headlines aside, the biggest reason Trump’s consumer economic confidence numbers are sagging is that he and his team have spent a lot of time telling consumers that high prices were just an illusion.

You can’t tell people their financial concerns are just a perception problem. Middle-class earners know better. Fact is, gaslighting Americans on the impact of Biden-era inflation on their family budgets demonstrates that unfortunate White House “bubble” disconnect.

That was true also when somebody on Trump’s staff advised him to repeatedly claim last month, that, according to Walmart, there was a “25% reduction in costs for Thanksgiving between Biden and me.” In fact, the price reduction was largely the result of either items removed or downsized in this year’s basket. But the administration kept repeating the claim after it had been thoroughly debunked, and consumers knew it was not true.

So, Trump is now trying to flip the script on Democrats and preempt their effort to hijack his “Make America Affordable Again” agenda.

On their Affordability Tour, Trump and JD Vance are pushing back hard to regain consumer confidence. They are hoping to steal some of the Demos’ media bandwidth on the subject.

The first and most important thing they need to accomplish is to ensure that every American knows that it was Joe Biden who inflation-bombed their family budgets, and that the inflated prices they are experiencing are the direct result of Biden/Demo failed economic policies.

Trump can’t get into the weeds on this, but fact is, Biden’s grossly misnamed $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” $2.4 trillion “Build Back Better bumper-sticker boondoggle, and the $800 billion ”Inflation Reduction Act“ were all unmitigated failures. They filled a $300 billion economic hole created by the ChiCom Virus pandemic with $4.8 trillion in excess government spending.

The direct result of that flood of excess money chasing too few goods and services was runaway inflation. Economics 101: Limited supply and/or excess demand result in higher prices. Clearly, this massive spending ranked high among the Biden/Harris list of domestic policy failures, unless it was calculated to push the nation further toward ”democratic socialism,“ which was certainly one of the "accomplishments” of Biden’s Autopen handlers.

The Trump administration has got to get its economic messaging right and do so right now. The crucial 2026 midterms are just around the corner, and voter perceptions are already starting to solidify.

Trump says: “We inherited a mess. Affordability. You can call it affordability or anything you want, but the Democrats caused the affordability problem, and we’re the ones that are fixing it. … They caused it, and we’re fixing it.”

As I noted above, it will take the Trump administration time to undo the colossal economic mess Biden left behind. But he does not have a lot of time to help Americans understand that it was Biden’s mess and not his own, which is precisely the lie Demos are propagating.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has framed the Demos’ “BIG Lie” blame-shift to Trump and Republicans as follows: “Republicans have failed the American people on the economy. The cost of living in the United States of America is completely and totally out of control. Republicans promised to lower the high cost of living on day one. Costs have not gone down, they’ve gone up.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is repeating that mantra at every open mic: “Donald Trump may think affordability is some kind of Democratic ‘con job,’ as he recently called it, but the opposite is true. Americans are fed up with high costs, and they need a lifeline, while Donald Trump is tossing them an anchor.”

Trump has declared that “the word ‘affordability’ is a Democrat scam … a con job by the Democrats.” But Trump can’t keep claiming that the Demos’ “affordability” rhetoric is a “fake narrative” that “doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”

It actually means a lot to just about everybody, regardless of political affiliation.

A case in point would be the landslide election of a Demo mayor in Miami Tuesday over her Trump-endorsed opponent — the first time a Demo has been elected in Miami in 30 years. “Affordability” was the main election issue.

We will see how public opinion shifts on Trump’s job approval with the economy in the coming months, but the bottom line is that shift will only occur if Trump et al. stay out of their White House bubble on this issue.

Finally, on the subject of affordability, Barack Obama’s failed so-called “Affordable Care Act” will be front and center again in the coming weeks, as Republicans seek solutions to spiraling healthcare premiums, including the possibility of conceding to Democrats and extending subsidies.

---

P.S. Patriots, the most cost-effective investment you can make to ensure the future of Liberty is to support The Patriot Post. We are the Web’s most influential grassroots journal promoting freedom and challenging the Leftmedia narrative. We rely 100% on the voluntary financial support of Patriots — people like you. Please support The Patriot Fund’s Year-End Campaign today. Thank you.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

Comment | Share

---

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray for the protection of our uniformed Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Lift up your Patriot Post team and our mission to support and defend our legacy of American Liberty and our Republic’s Founding Principles, in order that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.