"Hoax." "Con job." "Scam." Those are just a few of the ways that President Donald Trump has described the affordability crisis in the United States. And it's the opposite of how Americans — including those who voted for him three times over the last decade — would describe it.
For all his faults, Trump normally has pretty good instincts on public opinion. He knows which buttons to press to rile up his base and which subjects to feign indifference to, even though he doesn't always follow up.
But his handling of affordability has been off-key from the start. He won a second term by slamming Joe Biden on the issue, then implemented policies such as sweeping tariffs that made it worse, seemingly acknowledged it was still a problem and then reversed himself and called it all fake. It's baffling.
It's hard enough to convince voters that the president isn't to blame for all their problems. But when you ran on the idea that you would be an all-powerful monarch in office, you've only made the problem worse.
While Trump is suffering the loss in voter approval, though, it's Republicans who will pay the price.
This is a preview of Eugene Daniels' latest column. Read the full column here.
