The Burrito Food Fight on the Right
“It’s the economy, stupid.” That’s the real message behind the Great Burrito Debate of 2026, which has much less to do with specific stats than the overall picture.
Can you afford a burrito? An argument over the answer to that question took off among conservatives last week, and it might be the defining question of the 2026 election. Republicans are losing ground with voters on the economy. While Democrats caused the inflation problem, they stand to benefit from harping on “affordability” in the midterms.
President Donald Trump was elected to do two things: fix the immigration crisis and stop inflation. Both crises were creations of Joe Biden’s administration, and millions of Americans understood that the solution to both was to say no to Kamala “The Biden Clone” Harris and yes to Donald Trump.
Trump has clearly solved immigration. The border is effectively closed, as there are virtually no illegal alien crossings now. Trump is also deporting many illegals from the interior, and he’s not giving up the fight on birthright citizenship. Overall, I’d give him an A on the issue.
Unfortunately, the economy is another matter. He began a love affair with tariffs, which are taxes that raise the price of goods. And he launched a war in Iran, which caused wide and generally upward fluctuations in oil prices. Both tariffs and the war are meant to achieve arguably necessary objectives, but both have hurt Americans’ budgets, and both could cost Republicans in November.
The burrito argument began, as many things do, on social media. “Grocery prices are insane,” posted The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh. “They’re still rising. Addressing this problem should be the number one priority of every elected leader. End the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It’s one of the main reasons socialists are gaining power.”
TPUSA’s Andrew Kolvet, who has largely become the face of the organization after Charlie Kirk’s murder, responded, “One of our TPUSA college students gave me his take on affordability: ‘A burrito shouldn’t cost $20.’ Yeah, a lot of this is a hangover from Covid and Biden-era inflation, but the lived experience is the same: It just feels like basic things cost too much.”
I know food is expensive, but nobody has to pay $20 for a burrito. As The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro asserted, “If you’re paying $20 for a burrito and you’re not independently wealthy, you’re doing life wrong.”
The same thoughts occurred to many other conservatives, who argued about everything from college meal plans to making your own burritos to noting that groceries represent a smaller portion of most family budgets than they used to — 9.7% today versus 12% in 1985. That’s likely more a function of other budget items than grocery prices.
Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen essentially defended the Trump administration’s economic record, and Vice President JD Vance personally insulted him for it: “If you’ve ever met him in person, it’s quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito.” A lot of Americans could probably do with fewer burritos, but maybe that’s beside the point.
The ones arguing facts are right on the merits, but they’re completely whiffing on the sentiment, which, as Walsh said, is why the Democratic Socialists are winning. Young Americans are coming out of college and struggling to land a decent job — never mind buying a grossly overpriced house with a high interest rate. They are unlikely to be swayed by the “suck it up, Buttercup” argument of the conservatives scoffing about burrito prices.
I’ll readily note what many of you from older generations are thinking: Many young people are struggling precisely because they didn’t grow up hearing “suck it up, Buttercup.” If young people hadn’t been coddled, they’d be tougher and more ready for the world. They’d be happier if they didn’t expect to graduate from college, immediately make six figures, and order gourmet organic food from DoorDash. I’ll also note that even 9.1% inflation under Joe Biden didn’t match what Americans dealt with in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
It’s also true that not everything is guac and salsa right now.
“The typical American’s paycheck has grown faster since 2019 than in any stretch since the early 1980s,” reports CBS News. “But prices climbed nearly as fast. Consumer costs rose 30% over the same seven years, swallowing about 80% of the typical worker’s raise. What survives is roughly $70 more a week to spend in today’s dollars. That’s about 6% over seven years or a gain of less than 1% a year.”
That’s why it just feels like burritos cost too much.
Taco Bell has been in the news for other hilariously undesirable reasons of late, but I’ll use the fast food chain as an example. In 2019, a burrito supreme cost $3.89. That same menu item is now $5.99, or about 53% more expensive. Most Americans haven’t gotten a 53% raise since 2019.
More generally, food is a lot more expensive than it was when Trump left office the first time. There are a lot of reasons for that, virtually all of which are the direct results of Democrat policies. For example, 19 states raised the minimum wage this year, which makes burritos more expensive. But voters blame the party in power, and right now, that’s the GOP.
Republicans have a much harder argument to make, even if it’s correct. Conservatives advocate personal responsibility, as we should, but that’s less attractive than the DSA’s pitch of Free Stuff™. Joe Biden learned that telling voters inflation wasn’t happening was a terrible strategy. Similarly, if Republicans want to win, they better figure out how to connect with voters on their biggest concern — the economy as represented by the price of a burrito.
They can start by hammering home that socialism will lead to burrito lines.
