Trump's "affordability hoax" may doom him

[marmar]

Trump’s “affordability hoax” may doom him
A stagnant economy and a crisis in Iran doomed one president. Donald Trump could be next

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published May 7, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump has a difficult relationship with the truth. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that at a time when his approval ratings on the economy are slipping into the 20s, he would double down on his insistence that the economy is actually exploding — and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. On May 4 he made an appearance at The Villages, the community in central Florida restricted to people over 55, where he told his assembled fans, “You know, it’s amazing. I come into office and I say ‘Wow, look how high these prices are,’ and the Democrats start screaming ‘Affordability! Affordability!’ They’re the ones that caused the problem! I’ll tell you one thing: They got one good line of bulls**t. That’s one thing I’ll say about ‘em.”

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Few believe that. The latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll showed that only 23% believe the president is doing a good job on the cost of living, and his approval rating on inflation fell to 27%. These numbers make his overall number on the economy — 34% — look good.

If affordability is a hoax, a whole lot of people seem to have bought into it. Despite the administration’s tiresome habit of saying that everything is Joe Biden’s fault, people have good reason to blame Trump himself for what’s happening today. The president promised to fix the economy on day one. He’s now been in office for 16 months.

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Plenty of people who warned Trump and the GOP. Economists of all stripes said that tariffs would almost certainly raise inflation, and while nobody expected the president would start a war with Iran, everyone knows that shocks and disruptions in the oil markets cause prices to rise. Anyone would have assumed that Trump would move heaven and earth to avoid that in the middle of an already-precarious economic recovery, but hey — he marches to his own drummer. According to the March 2026 consumer price index, overall inflation currently stands at 3.3% — up from 2.4% in March 2025. The price of energy has increased by 12.5%, and gasoline prices are up by a staggering 18.9%. Economists have predicted a rise in the second quarter of 2026. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/05/07/trumps-affordability-hoax-may-doom-him/

[BlueWavePsych]

1. "Ipsos poll showed that only 23% believe the president is doing a good job on the cost of living"