The gospel of affordability will not be daring sufficient to persuade voters that the Democrats care about them. To construct a long-lasting majority, Democrats should embrace populism.
Buyers browse the bread aisle at a grocery retailer on January 23, 2026, in Lenexa, Kansas. Bread costs have elevated by greater than a 3rd since January 2020.
(Chase Castor / Getty Pictures)
Forward of the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats are preaching the affordability gospel. Leaders throughout the celebration—from New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani to centrist Blue Canines like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia—have embraced affordability. Democratic Representatives Mike Thompson (CA-04) and Richard E. Neal (MA-01) even introduced a invoice known as the American Affordability Act, which guarantees to cut back housing, academic, and childcare prices with quite a lot of tax credit. Congressional marketing campaign professionals have been urging candidates from coast to coast to undertake an “affordability agenda.” And—for good purpose—latest polling reveals that the price of dwelling tops the checklist of voters’ considerations.
In some methods this represents a step ahead for the Democrats. It provides the celebration a unifying, constructive, financial message to hammer in opposition to a GOP that appears more and more aloof to the cost-of-living disaster. It’s a a lot better message than the doom-and-gloom democracy-mongering that dominated Kamala Harris’s message towards the tip of her 2024 marketing campaign. Plus, the “affordability agenda” permits liberals to concede that there’s something improper with the economic system with out committing them to the barn-burning rhetoric or egalitarian insurance policies that make donors nervous.
Present Difficulty
That mentioned, the politics of “affordability” are trickier than the phrase may counsel.
First, affordability-washing can’t make up for dangerous social and cultural politics. Think about Aftyn Behn, the progressive candidate for Tennessee’s seventh Congressional District. Behn was a homer for the affordability agenda—her slogan was “Feed youngsters, repair roads, fund hospitals.” Not dangerous. But her opponents tied her marketing campaign to her previous calls to “abolish” and “defund” the police. And although she dialed down her criticisms of the police, Behn refused to vary her thoughts about these points. That damage her skill to succeed in working-class voters exterior of rich Nashville. The lesson from Behn’s marketing campaign is that affordability-maxxing can’t conceal dangerous positions.
Second, making America reasonably priced is far simpler mentioned than achieved. Bear in mind, Trump promised to carry prices down within the face of file inflation. He failed. The annual fee of inflation is now at 3 %, precisely the place it was a yr in the past when Trump took workplace. Consequently, Democrats have one other chunk on the apple. But many liberals appear to assume that every one they should do to ship on the affordability agenda is to scrap Trump’s tariffs, lower some regulation, and throw in a number of new tax credit. This received’t work. For one factor, voter frustrations about grocery payments, utility costs, and housing prices have virtually nothing to do with Trump’s commerce insurance policies—we don’t get our eggs from China, and whereas tariffs could have some adverse impact on homebuilding, many of the boundaries to constructing new items are homegrown.
Alternatively, abundance-brand Democrats will counsel that the important thing to unlocking affordability is to stimulate financial development by slicing regulatory burdens. Latest GDP figures ought to hassle this concept. Financial development “surged” within the third quarter final yr. GDP really grew at 4.3 %. That’s large in our period of worldwide low development charges. And but we hardly felt it.
For many working folks, economy-wide development not interprets to a brand new automotive or a pleasant trip. A red-hot inventory market appears to haven’t any actual impact on the lives of the common working household. That’s not shocking, as the rich now management a record share of shares: More than half of all inventory market shares are owned by the highest 1 % of households; the richest 1 % own around $25 trillion in inventory market wealth, whereas the underside 50 % of households personal lower than a half trillion between them. In the meantime final yr, common wage will increase barely saved tempo with inflation. And the true story is definitely worse, as a result of, in keeping with Financial institution of America’s deposit data, middle-income households benefited from solely a 2.3 % wage improve, which implies they’re underwater in opposition to a 2.7 % fee of inflation. As our “K-shaped” economic system produces extra wealth for the wealthy and fewer prosperity for the remainder, development alone can’t ship the products.
Attaining affordability within the medium time period remains to be doable. Whereas economy-wide decreases in costs are unheard of outdoor of a recession, some fundamental family prices may be curbed. Utility costs, which have risen sooner than basic inflation, may very well be decreased by regulation and large investments within the energy grid. Not surprisingly, Trump and quite a lot of Democratic Celebration governors, together with 2028 presidential hopeful Josh Shapiro, have embraced strikes to power tech giants to pay for surging prices. And for the low finish of the labor market, Democrats have revived the ever-popular concept of regularly rising the minimal wage alongside guarantees to cut back drug costs.
However even these strikes will not be sufficient to essentially change the image. And that brings us to the true downside for Democrats: Affordability simply isn’t large enough. Voters assume one thing is critically improper with the economic system, and they’re proper. Cold requires negotiating down prescribed drugs will not be visceral sufficient to persuade them that the Democrats are taking their considerations critically.
The reality is that affordability discuss too usually serves as a approach to keep away from populism and return to tepid requires cautious centrism. Governor Spanberger, as an example, cited affordability as one purpose she refused to overturn anti-union “proper to work” laws. Whereas Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen’s affordability pitch centered round her cosponsorship of “no taxes on suggestions” laws. For a lot of Democrats, affordability is achieved by means of modest tax refunds and expanded credit that received’t ruffle the feathers of company donors. However nibbling across the edges of the tax code received’t be sufficient to quell what’s shaping as much as be a storm of financial anger.
Even many Democratic pollsters have began to understand this. It’s one purpose Clinton marketing campaign veteran and centrist guru James Carville leaped proper over the affordability agenda to call for the Democratic Celebration to “run on probably the most populist financial platform because the Nice Despair…. a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic and altogether unmistakable platform of pure financial rage.”
Common
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American households are getting squeezed loads tougher than many macroeconomic indications may counsel. Since 2013 or so, economists have acknowledged a world “financial savings glut,” low development charges, a decreased wage share, and extraordinary, accelerating inequality. No much less an skilled on this “secular stagnation” is certainly one of its chief architects: Larry Summers. He together with the remainder of America’s monetary and business elite pushed laborious to fling open commerce boundaries and decontrol the economic system within the identify of development.
They obtained what they needed, and what adopted was that “big sucking sound” of excellent jobs draining out of america, the continued collapse of the trade-union motion, the unfold of low-wage work, the recurrence of mass layoffs, and the profound instability that now characterize the US economic system. For some time, low-cost items from overseas (first from Japan, then Korea, and now China) had been a sop for the downward stress on wages that employees skilled. Not anymore. A technology of suppressed wages has meant an across-the-board stoop in demand, which, in flip, has resulted in extra capability and a dearth of productive funding. These days, Summers, virtually extremely, complains that employees have too little financial energy. Go determine.
Globalism and rule-by-bankers created an financial paradox that has but to be resolved. Hollowing out US trade robbed the economic system of mass buying energy—the financial engine of US development. It additionally closed off productive and worthwhile retailers for funding. At present’s American aristocracy select to avoid wasting their cash or else make investments it within the make-believe economic system (AI, crypto and so on.), as a result of investing within the sorts of enterprises that produce massive numbers of high-wage jobs simply isn’t as worthwhile.
Fixing this implies restructuring the economic system away from the idle wealthy, rewarding employees with simply wages, and restoring some sense of financial sovereignty. Observe that it is a populist story—a narrative about elites, about globalization, and about Massive Tech and excessive finance wrecking the wages of US employees. It’s populism, not affordability, that gives the very best path out of the wilderness for the left.
To tug the economic system down and away from international markets, excessive finance, and central bankers and to place management again into the fingers of the residents, Democrats should be prepared to confront Wall Road and Silicon Valley, tax their wealth, and curb their affect over public coverage. The sorts of insurance policies that might change the sport for American employees—like offering free, or almost free, childcare and healthcare, reshoring manufacturing, large investments in infrastructure, expansions of public service jobs, and ending mass layoffs—go far past the modest goals proposed within the amorphous affordability agenda. And profitable this stuff would require choosing fights with a number of the richest and strongest folks and industries within the nation.
In different phrases, the one approach to actually ship on the promise of affordability is to go far past what proponents counsel. The one approach to win affordability is to embrace populism.
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