WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump would prefer that voters not worry about inflation. But it’s hard for them to ignore.
Filling up a basic Ford F-150 truck now costs about $100, up $30 from a year ago. Mortgage rates have jumped to levels that have depressed home sales. And for the past 12 months, consumer prices have risen faster than paychecks, making the average family poorer.
One week before midterm elections that will serve as a referendum on his second term, Trump is struggling to deliver on his campaign promise to bring down costs, even as he insists the country has entered an economic “golden age.” The same frustration that powered his comeback two years ago could now cost Republicans control of Congress.
“Our nation is doing better now than ever before,” Trump insists while campaigning, vowing that interest rates and oil prices will plunge once the war with Iran — which he started — comes to an end.
What’s interesting to me is that I’m absolutely sure Donald believes everything is a-okay. He is chronically online and consumes nothing but algorithmically-weighted content and Fox News, and someone who does that is living in a different reality than the one that actually exists around them.
That said, let’s all hope the two dozen or so DSA’s get elected. That’s the only shred of change we’re going to get at the national level, because centrists’ record demonstrates that they’re a-okay with price gouging and inflation too.