Heading into the midterms, the economy should have been President Trump’s and the GOP’s strong point, but it’s not thanks to the self-inflected injury of tariffs and the inflation it continues to stoke.
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it → head → tariffs
Yes, the president was dealt a bad hand that in many ways he made better.
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he → deal → ways
Inflation is down from the insanity of the Biden years, thanks to the White House’s deregulation and tax cuts increasing the supply side of the economy.
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Inflation → increase → economy
That looks really good on paper, with strong growth and low unemployment.
But prices have never gone down, and inflation — a pernicious tax on the working class — remains well above the target rate of 2%.
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inflation → look → %
So what gives?
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what → give → ?
The Iran conflict’s impact on fuel prices doesn’t help but the last time I checked, gas prices on average are not that different than when Biden was throttling drilling; the weakened mullahs will ultimately provide a peace dividend that many Americans favor.
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Americans → help → that
The bigger, more obvious culprit, at least according to my GOP sources who work in businesses both small and large: the president’s obsession with those trade levies, a.k.a. tariffs.
uncertain
who → accord → levies
I know what you’re thinking: Trump imposed all these tariffs, Wall Street freaked, and the stock market rebounded and the economy boomed.
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economy → know → tariffs
The AI build-out has enhanced productivity, while business investment has been jacked by Trump’s tax and regulation policies.
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investment → enhance → policies
Kitchen-table issue
Top line numbers of the economy show amazing resilience.
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numbers → show → resilience
Just last week, we got an awesome GDP reading growth of 3.4% in the last quarter.
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we → get → quarter
Consumer spending isn’t dropping off the cliff.
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spending → drop → cliff
In many sectors, it’s getting stronger.
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it → get → sectors
But that hides the damage tariffs are doing to the average working-class voter who can’t speculate in the stock market to pay for stuff like putting food on the table.
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who → hide → table
I hasten to make election predictions for the simple reason that voting trends tend to be among the most unpredictable of events these days.
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trends → hasten → events
(Otherwise, Bibi Netanyahu would be looking for a job instead of holding on to power after his surprisingly strong showing in the Israeli runoff.)
The prescriptions the Dems are offering are some of the same stuff that doomed the Biden-Harris presidency: Far-leftism in both cultural and economic matters, now with a nasty dose of antisemitism that may yet tilt the various races including those senate contests in Texas and Michigan to the GOP.
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that → look → GOP
That said, there are some generalizations you can draw from polls and public sentiment about the MAGA economic agenda — and they ain’t good for the president and the GOP.
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they → say → president
People have to eat, travel and drive cars even when their paycheck doesn’t stretch as far, so be careful about celebrating the resilient American consumer.
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paycheck → have → consumer
We still have inflation at 3.7%, well above the target rate.
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We → have → rate
And wages aren’t keeping up — they’re growing at just 3.6% year-over-year.
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they → keep → year
We haven’t had the manufacturing tariff boom that the president and his team promised when they began imposing levies on friend and foe alike.
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they → have → friend
It’s one thing to tariff goods from China, but why target Canada and Mexico, two longtime trade partners that have helped grow the US economy through trade?
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that → ’ → trade
A regressive tax
It made no sense, and still doesn’t, for the simple reason that tariffs are a regressive tax on working-class American consumers — the same people who put Trump in office in 2024 and appear to be boycotting the GOP now.
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who → make → GOP
I know the president backed off his most draconian levies when the markets imploded in the spring of 2025.
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markets → know → 2025
But others remain.
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others → remain → ?
Let’s face it: If we tariff Canada, they will tariff us, and our exports will be less attractive, adding downward pressure on paychecks.
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exports → face → paychecks
It’s no coincidence that two Senate races the GOP should really clean up on, in Michigan and Texas, are nail-biters that favor Democrats.
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that → ’ → Democrats
The Dems in these races, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico, embody everything that repulsed voters about Biden and Harris.
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that → embody → Biden
Yet both are said to be winning their states, which went to Trump in 2024.
Maybe the polls are wrong, but this is too close for comfort and the reason is obvious.
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reason → say → comfort
These are border states where the tariffs squeezed the local economies.
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tariffs → squeeze → economies
El-Sayed is no dummy and is a gifted campaigner.
The GOP Senate candidate in Texas, Ken Paxton, has so many blind spots, we don’t have room to print them all, and Talarico has pivoted away from leftism in the race.
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Talarico → have → race
To be sure, El-Sayed and Talarico are fringe leftists, and that should hurt them more than the polls suggest.
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polls → hurt → them
But give them credit: Both have pivoted to the affordability crisis, made worse by those damn tariffs.
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Both → give → tariffs
It didn’t have to happen, were it not for unforced errors that the entire party will likely pay for.
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party → have → that
The Aporia
