I can hardly believe the possibility mentioned in the headline, but with the 47th president, you never know, as I explained at New York:
Donald Trump’s superpower, if he has one, is to assert wildly counterfactual things over and over and somehow convince people his version of reality is gospel, or at least plausible. His 2024 presidential campaign was a master class in shameless fabrication: He invented a violent crime wave even as crime statistics were falling nearly everywhere; he invented a nationwide crisis of voting by noncitizens despite almost no evidence it was happening at all; he accused his opponents of consciously betraying the country by deliberately herding violent felons across open borders and directing them to rape, kill, and plunder a helpless population of law-abiding Americans, a narrative supported by little more than anecdotes; and he asserted that all his many legal problems, capping a career marked by vast legal problems, were in fact perversions of justice orchestrated by his enemies. Ultimately, his many lies and exaggerations combined to paint a portrait of a nation that had been on the brink of never-before-imagined glory just a few years earlier but was now on its knees and near to total destruction.
This cartoonish version of current affairs was immensely gratifying to his MAGA base of true believers, and didn’t unduly trouble swing voters who were inclined to believe all politicians make stuff up and who mostly just wanted a change of administration. But now that Trump is totally in charge of the federal government and exhibiting every single day his domination of national affairs, he wants the public to acknowledge the astonishingly bright prospects he has given them, and forget all the troubles that led them to vote for him in the first place. That’s the only sensible interpretation of his fury towards the subject of affordability.
Anyone who can read polls or follow off-year election returns is aware that concerns over the steadily rising cost of living, which contributed powerfully to Trump’s 2024 victory, have not at all gone away. There is, in fact, a growing sense of dismay, within and beyond the MAGA ranks, about Trump’s campaign promises that he wouldn’t simply slow down inflation but would actually reduce prices for the most important goods and services. Many voters give him low marks on that front, which is why addressing affordability has emerged already as the Democratic Party’s key message for the 2026 midterms. It was very successfully introduced in this year’s offyear elections, which were a fiasco for Trump and his party.
For a moment, Trump seemed to understand and accept the assignment to look less interested in ending or beginning overseas wars and more interested in “affordability.” He even got chummy with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in claiming a shared focus on the issue during their congenial Oval Office visit on November 23. But as this November 29 Truth Social post indicated, Trump treats the “affordability” crisis as a marketing problem rather than anything he really needs to address in a substantive manner:
“Because I have invoked FAVORED NATIONS STATUS FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, DRUG PRICES ARE FALLING AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, 500%, 600%, 700%, and more. No other President has been able to do this, BUT I HAVE! This is also the answer to much less expensive, and far better, HEALTHCARE! Republicans, remember, this was done by us, and nobody else. This is a revolution in medicine, the biggest and most important event, EVER. If this story is properly told, we should win the Midterm Elections in RECORD NUMBERS. I AM THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT. TALK LOUDLY AND PROUDLY! President DJT”
Americans didn’t need Obamacare subsidies or Medicaid benefits or lower tariffs or regulations on AI to thrive; they just needed to realize how lucky they were to be alive at this time of restored American Greatness, the “story” that needed to be “properly told” to them. As with his fable-making in 2024, Trump wanted to impose his own version of the facts on everyone his voice could reach. But in this case he isn’t talking about overseas threats or large impersonal forces shaping events or elite conspiracies, but the lived experiences of people who won’t easily be convinced their troubles are a figment of their imaginations.
Politically attuned people in Trump’s inner circle must have cringed inwardly during Tuesday’s televised Cabinet meeting when the president denounced affordability concerns as a hoax, as the New York Times reported:
“President Trump on Tuesday downplayed the cost-of-living pains being felt by Americans, declaring that affordability ‘doesn’t mean anything to anybody’ as his political edge on the economy continues to dissipate….
“After ticking off what he claimed were trillions of dollars of investments and other economic accomplishments, Mr. Trump called the issue of affordability a ‘fake narrative’ and ‘con job’ created by Democrats to dupe the public….
“Mr. Trump has tried to claim he has brought down inflation, glossing over the fact that it ticked up slightly in recent months and some of his policies were contributing to high costs, like his tariffs.
“’There is still more to do,’ Mr. Trump acknowledged on Tuesday. ‘There’s always more to do, but we have it down to a very good level. It’s going to go down a little bit further. You want to have a little tiny bit of inflation. Otherwise, that’s not good either. Then you have a thing called deflation, and deflation can be worse than inflation.'”
Trump appears to be making the same mistake his predecessor Joe Biden made: talking trends and macroeconomics to people who just want prices to go back to where they were before the pandemic — conditions for which Trump himself took so much credit. Worse yet, he’s talking down to Americans, accusing them of being dupes by feeling what they’re feeling and seeing what they’re seeing. It’s not a good look for a billionaire president to become visibly impatient with his subjects and their concerns.
Perhaps his advisers will prevail on him to get on the right side of the affordability issue before the midterms. But it’s possible that after years of telling tall tales about conditions in the country, Trump is beginning to believe his own hype, and is spinning himself as well as the media and the country. If that happens, he and his party are in deep trouble.
Just a few comments on the Ohio vote, and the
exurban/small metro issue. It was interesting to read your comment about Kerry not doing as well in the metro areas of Ohio. When reading the analysis I did not notice any comment about the 20 percent reduction in polling places in Lucas, Stark, Cuyahoga, and Franklin counties. This is part of what led to the long voting lines in these areas. Also there were additional voting machines placed in the exurban and rural counties where Bush was strongest. These are external issues that must be taken into consideration when comparing votes to 1996 and 2000.
I am familiar with a lot of exurban voters and I can say that they did not become Republican after they moved to those areas or soley because of 9/11.
The citizens who reside in these counties moved
away from the urban/suburban area because of their families. They were tired of the crime, traffic, constant redistricing of their schools, wanted larger homes for expanding families that were less expensive in the outlying areas, and finally wanted to escape the city property taxes. When looking at the logic behind their concerns, a lot of it is contradictory, like better schools and lower taxes. But the fear used by the Bush campaign from 9/11 resonated with these voters. The Democratic Party must find a common sense message that will resonate with these voters. The Republicans have been far to successful at introducing wedge issues that put Democrats on the defensive. These wedge
issues sometimes do not even fit on the national stage, but our candidates spend time defending these issues. Issues like Gay Marriage, Abortion, Guns, School Prayer etc…. In my opinion we need a candidate ( governor) who has a background in business etc… who understands how middle class Americans live and can develop a message to resonate with the voters. If our candidate has a message and plan to take the country forward, then the wedge issues will not stick. The party cannot rely on Washington insiders who have voted on these issues to lead the party.
By saying this I am not advocating that we change
our postition on issues or tack to the right. It is not necessary to make those changes. Our last two candidates for President have come to the voters with a plan for every problem and end up looking like snake oil salesmen. The emphasis has to be on the direction for the country. The plans can be brought up when necessary, but not in every speech.
Actually, Bush made big gains in NYC, especially Staten Island (which went from 54-46 Gore to 57-43 Bush). In Brooklyn, Bush gained by 9 points (from 16% to 25%). As Ruy said awhile ago, Bush gained a little bit everywhere- but more in some urban communities but exurbs.
As to the broader point: Crewes’s view is supported by the gradual meltdown of GOP support in big cities (which indicates that people who were already Republicans have been moving away). In the first half of the century, even after the New Deal, Republicans were dominant in some big cities (Philadelphia) and competitive in others (St Louis). From the 50s to the 70s or so, Republicans were the minority party in cities but dominated most suburbs. Now, Republicans have lost inner suburbs as well, are are competitive only in outer suburbs (which matter a lot) and rural areas (which have flipped massively to Bush in the past two elections). If rural areas were as Democratic as they had been a decade or two ago, Bush would have been clobbered.
ttcrewes, you might want to look up the series on “The Great Divide” that was done by a couple of writers for the Austin American-Statesman this summer.
Basically, the writers looked at county-level election data going back over the past 30 years or so and found that the percentage of Americans living in “landslide” counties– that is, counties won by either the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate by a margin of 20 points or more– has steadily increased over time. In other words, there seems to be some sort of geographic-level sorting-out of political preferences going on.
Here’s a link to the series:
http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/greatdivide/index.html
I have observed the growth of an exurb (Dutchess and Ulster Counties, NY) over a twenty-year period and I think the idea that Bush carrying such areas has significance is ludicrous.
The people who have moved to the exurbs from the suburbs and the cities are those who can afford the commutation and the 5-acre zoned homes. They are the bedrock of the Republican Party and always have been. The only thing they changed was their zip code.
Furthermore, the areas they moved to were often heavily Republican anyhow. Most rural areas outside of the South always were, and the ones in the South have been turning red for years anyhow in reaction to the civil rights movement. Dutchess County, lifetime home of Franklin Roosevelt, voted 2-1 for his Republican opponent in all four elections.
So to note that a fast-growing exurb county went for Bush is to note that the kind of people who like Republicans haven’t changed their minds. We already knew that. What we NEED to know is why the sons and daughters of the unionized workers of Canton and Youngstown failed to vote for Kerry in sufficient numbers.
So, assuming that the medium sized city hypothesis is correct, then some of the gnashing of the teeth on organizational matters and logistical difficulties of GOTV can be canned to some degree because the population density is still high enough that traditional Democratic GOTV methodologies can stay pay off if we can find the correct message/presentation to appeal to people? Correct?
What is missing from the discussion of the exurban new communities is whether when someone moves, say from Staten Island, which is part of NYC to Orange County, which is 40 miles away, does their political viewpoint actually changed? Were they a democrat in Staten Island and then change to a Republican in Orange County? Or are the Republicans in Staten Island just segmenting out to Orange County so that NYC is now MORE Democratic and there is no net gain for Republicans. Is this just a permutation of the evolutionary phenomenon of the Reagan Democrats, whose parents were Roosevelt Democrats, having Republican children who are who are now clustering in places where they can afford to live? I doubt that the exurban environment is exuding some weird influence on this demograph that morphs them into republicans. They were repubs already. Which is not to say Republicans have not made inroads in the last generation among upwardly mobile state college educated whites. It is just to say that such people, like most Americans, are choosing to live in economically lateral communities, which is no surprise. The problem for Democrats is not the rise of the exurbs. The problem for Democrats is the alienation of socially conservative middle class whites that started in the 1960’s in the South and has gradually moved Northward. On this particular issue, I’m with George Eliot, “Breed tells more than pasture.”