What Every Democratic Candidate Should be Saying

Friends,

The midterm elections are already upon us, and every Democrat and Independent running against a Republican should ask voters the question Ronald Reagan asked October 28, 1980, at the end of his televised debate against Jimmy Carter: Are you better off now than you were before this presidency?

Unless you’re very, very rich, the answer is obviously No, I’m worse off.

Start with his tariffs, which are costing every American house­hold an aver­age of $1,100 annually, accord­ing to the Yale Budget Lab. (If you don’t trust Yale, the conservative Tax Found­a­tion estimated last year’s tab to be $1,000 per household.) Cleaning supplies and toilet paper are up at least 5 percent. Household furnishings, up at least 8 percent. Clothing, up at least 14 percent. Trump’s tariffs have also increased the costs of big-ticket items such as cars and made it more expensive to build new homes.

Other studies find that the tariffs have added as much as 0.7 and 0.5 percentage points to the consumer price index and the personal consumption expenditures price index, respectively.

Then there’s Trump’s war in Iran, which is driving up energy and food prices, as oil tankers remain stranded in the Strait of Hormuz. The war is cost­ing every­one more at the gas pump — some $670 more per house­hold since the war began. Americans face what The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers describe as “a worsening utility debt crisis.” The groups wrote in an analysis published last month:

“Energy bills have increased three times faster than the rate of inflation while Trump has been president. The national average monthly utility bill reached $280 in early 2026, a 12% increase since the end of 2024, just before the second Trump administration took office.”

What’s the Republican response to soaring energy utility prices? Kill bil­lions in clean energy sub­sidies and tilt the scales toward cost­lier, dirtier fossil fuels.

Also driving up the cost of electricity are AI data centers. They’re also using up huge amounts of water and creating noise pollution. And who’s been pushing these data centers? Trump and his Republicans.

Because of fertilizer shortages, also related to Trump’s war and the blockage of the strait, food prices have shot upward. Millions of Americans are now struggling to afford groceries.

Meanwhile, Trump’s huge tax cuts — which mostly benefited big corporations and the super-wealthy — are being paid for, in part, by Republican cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. Trump announced last month he is end­ing Medi­care sub­sidies that have kept drug prices low for seni­ors; Repub­lican cuts to the Afford­able Care Act have deprived mil­lions of Amer­ic­ans of health insur­ance.

Hell, even Trump’s executive order to divide the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine into three shots instead of one is adding burdens to the typical American family. As Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said on ABC’s “This Week”: “This is why the president’s poll numbers are down, because you’ve lost sight of affordability for the parent. You’ve lost sight of the convenience for the American family. You’ve lost sight of that which is driving higher costs in healthcare — for example, more doctor’s visits … for something which has no rationale in science.”

Trump’s obsession with gut­ting the Con­sumer Fin­an­cial Pro­tec­tion Bur­eau has already denied Amer­ic­ans bil­lions in fore­gone rebates and set­tle­ments.

The regime spent $464 mil­lion of tax­payer dol­lars in a no-bid con­tract for a spe­cial fleet of jets inten­ded to deport immig­rants. The planes have almost never been used.

On and on it goes.

Trump says the U.S. economy is “doing unbelievably from the standpoint of Wall Street.” Maybe, but most Americans live on Main Street and own few if any shares of stock. The richest 1 percent holds more than half of the value of stocks listed on American stock exchanges; the richest 10 percent, 92 percent. Even including retirement accounts, only 16 percent of adult Americans have assets exceeding $100,000.

The stock market boom reflects a boom in corporate profits. The pharmaceutical industry, Big Oil, and other sectors are posting banner earnings. Second quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are on pace to rise a remarkable 50 percent year over year, the highest growth rate since the second quarter of 2021.

But average working Americans are struggling to keep their heads above water. Trump’s comments about the roaring stock market came the same day that new data showed U.S. consumer sentiment dropped in August. Americans’ outlook on the nation’s economic conditions have worsened among Republicans as well as Democrats.

The July jobs report showed the U.S. economy shedding 23,000 jobs, wage growth slowing, and the unemployment rate falling because more people left the workforce.

My humble advice to Democratic candidates in the midterms: Don’t be distracted. Don’t take the bait and discuss socialism, “woke”ism, or anything else.

Just ask this simple question: Are you better off now than you were before this presidency? And explain how badly Trump and congressional Republicans have screwed average working people.

You’re better off than you were before the start of this presidency only if you’re a major investor in the stock market, a top corporate executive, or a beneficiary of Trump’s largesse to his billionaire backers.

But if you’re an average working American, you’re indubitably worse off. Hopefully, you’ll vote your economic interests November 3 and deposit Trump’s congressional lapdogs into the dustbin of history.

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