But it’s because of Trump’s perceived failure to address Americans’ affordability gripes – one of his central campaign issues – that these kinds of images and motifs are finding a ready audience.
A recent Ipsos poll for ABC News and The Washington Post found 71 per cent of adults said they were paying more for groceries now than last year, and 62 per cent disapproved of how Trump was handling the economy.
Six in 10 people said their utility bills were higher, which is true: they have been climbing at more than four times the general rate of inflation, which sat at 3 per cent in September, up from 2.3 per cent in April.
US grocery prices are up, despite President Trump’s claims.Credit: Bloomberg
So Americans might be a little miffed to hear Trump say, as he did this week, that everything is getting cheaper.
“Our energy costs are way down, groceries are way down, everything is way down – and the press doesn’t report it,” Trump said. “So, I don’t want to hear about the ‘affordability’ because right now, we’re much less.”
Trump was particularly enthused by the fact that Walmart’s traditional Thanksgiving meal bundle costs 25 per cent less than last year. What he didn’t mention was that it contains fewer items (22 instead of 29) and a higher proportion of home brand products. When an NBC News reporter pointed this out on Friday, Trump dismissed it as “fake news”.
Indeed, Trump seemed to use the Walmart bundle as a broader economic indicator, asserting that he had reduced the cost of Thanksgiving overall. “It’s the biggest reduction in cost in the history of that chart for whatever it is they do,” he said.
Zohran Mamdani was also elected on a platform of promising to fix the affordability crisis.Credit: NYT
But wait, there’s more. Trump also wrongly claimed the price of petrol was getting close to $US2 a gallon – the national average is $US3, and even in the cheapest states, it’s $US2.60. And he claimed there was “virtually no inflation at all”.
Trump was elected on a promise to bring down costs. So was New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who knows he has his work cut out for him. It’s not enough just to “diagnose the despair in working people’s lives”, he said on Good Morning America – you have to deliver on it. Good luck with that.
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Both men are likely to receive a harsh lesson in the flipside of populism: in portraying yourself as the answer to people’s grievances – many of which you’re not going to be able to fix – you make a rod for your own back. Polls show Trump is already facing the consequences.
The thing is, he has a decent story to tell on some of this stuff. The price of petrol is steady and lower than in recent years. Tariffs have not caused the inflation spike some feared, though it is trending higher. The sharemarket is on an AI-induced tear.
But by massively over-egging it – or just making stuff up – Trump is alienating the people who voted for him.