A flurry of pundits, several polls and the president himself have all agreed that the last election came down to the price of eggs and bread.
“Very simple word, groceries. Like almost — you know, who uses the word? I started using the word — the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that,” Donald Trump said on “Meet the Press” in December.
There’s no question a lot of voters were swayed last year by the rising costs of the simple items they needed to live. But if this really was the driving force in the last election, how do we explain how politics is taking shape today?
It’s not only that inflation has quickened or that the administration has appeared indifferent to the impact on prices of a trade war. What defines the politics of this moment is what Trump has focused on instead of the price of eggs.
Earlier in the 2024 campaign, Trump promised his voters that he would be their “retribution.” The way the president has followed through on this commitment is a sharp contrast with his laid-back response to inflation.
Trump hasn’t been shy in choosing targets for retribution, from law firms to political opponents to news organizations. Grievances, both his own personal grievances and those of his base, are still central to his politics. It’s key to the way the federal workers were treated during the DOGE campaign and the way he continued to attack the former administration. It’s not just his personal style. It’s the key to the heart of many of his voters who feel they’ve been shoved out of the way in the 21st Century.
Last week, Trump signed another executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directs Vice President J.D. Vance to remove “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian museums. The National Museum of African American History and Culture gets special attention, and the American Women’s History Museum does not “recognize men as women in any respect.”
Like Trump’s takeover of the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, this reflects Trump’s continuing focus on the cultural and social issues that were the true drivers of his 2024 campaign. Polls conducted after the election show that Trump voters’ concerns about inflation went down almost immediately after he was elected when there was no corresponding drop in real prices. What has remained are the deep cultural divisions.
Every American with an ax to grind has at least some reason to like what Trump has done so far, and the collective power of all those different resentments can be hard to measure in polls. Footage of foreign graduate students being rounded up or stories about the mistreatment of federal employees may stir a lot of public outrage, but privately, they are a form of retribution for others.
At least that appears to be the political calculation the administration is making. The exhibits at the Smithsonian make a handy distraction from the price of an SUV.
Optimism about the economy has waned, and Wall Street has soured on the administration’s economic program as we approach the big reveal of Trump’s tariff plan on Wednesday, or “Liberation Day,” as he has dubbed it. There have been so many tariff switcheroos already that the suspense has been somewhat undercut. If the reaction to the tariffs is catastrophic, much of the market figures Trump will just change them.
The special elections so far this year show there’s unhappiness with the new administration, but there’s no solid indication that if the 2024 election were held again, the outcome would be different. This has nothing to do with the price of eggs and everything to do with the depth of the American divide.
although not useful for the purpose of this article, seems like most ordinary people (rather than pundits), lashed back against the excessive wokeness advocated by the forces that were in charge. No?
Tom, it’s really time for you to retire.