Trump keeps telling voters he doesn’t care much about affordability

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If the midterms were a referendum on whether trans athletes should be barred from women’s sports, or the White House ballroom should be gorgeously renovated, or God should be identified as “nonbinary,” then Republicans would have a clear and confident closing message.

Trump could bring gas prices down before Election Day by seeking a ceasefire with Iran, but he’s choosing to prioritize military victory.

The president is also escalating trade wars, despite their impact on consumer prices.

Unfortunately for the GOP, voters are less concerned with the Christian deity’s preferred pronouns than with their own cost of living. Which is understandable: Diesel fuel prices just hit a record high, mortgage rates are climbing, and groceries keep getting more expensive.

Due partly to these trends, Republicans are poorly positioned to win an argument about inflation — and are only growing more so, as Election Day nears. This was apparent before President Donald Trump convened the first-ever Republican midterm convention in Dallas this week. But the festivities underscored the GOP’s predicament and the many ways that Trump is personally exacerbating it.

Many Republican speakers did address the subject of affordability in Dallas. And the party’s broad narrative is straightforward enough: Democrats created the cost-of-living crisis, Republicans alleviated it by cutting your taxes.

But this is a tough line to sell. Americans might still disdain President Joe Biden’s economic management. Yet they’re far more likely to blame high prices on the current president than the previous one, according to polls.

And not without reason. After all, it was Trump — not Biden — who engineered an oil shock and global trade war. Tellingly, on Wednesday night, all four battleground state Senate candidates — Ken Paxton, Jon Husted, Michael Whatley, and Mike Collins — made no mention of the Iran war or of Trump’s tariffs.

If Republican frontliners are clear-eyed about their party’s liabilities, Trump seems largely indifferent to them. Historically, presidents have often made an effort to limit election-year price increases — and/or, to reduce the salience of their party’s worst issues. Yet Trump has been doing the very opposite.

In recent weeks, the president has escalated his conflict with Iran and his trade war with US allies, driving up Americans’ costs in the process. And he’s been remarkably frank about his refusal to prioritize affordability.