President Donald Trump declared, “We have no inflation. Our groceries are down.”
Americans, meanwhile, stared at their receipts and wondered if the commander-in-chief had accidentally shopped in a parallel universe where milk costs a nickel.
This bold pronouncement isn’t just a slip—it’s a rerun of the political blooper reel that tripped up former President Joe Biden. Back then, voters fled the White House like it was a sinking ship, and now Trump risks captaining the same leaky vessel straight into voter revolt.
Details emerged faster than a checkout line at Thanksgiving. Inflation, that sneaky pickpocket of paychecks, climbed to its highest annual rate since January last month, courtesy in part of the president’s tariffs—those economic speed bumps designed to jolt imports but mostly jarring shoppers’ budgets.
Grocery prices? Up 1.4% since Trump settled into the Oval Office, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Eggs, bread, and that elusive affordable avocado: all plotting a price rebellion while Trump’s words tried to negotiate them down with sheer bravado.
Voters aren’t buying the spin—they’re too busy not buying the spinach. A fresh CNN poll reveals 72% of Americans rate the economy as “poor shape,” with 47% dubbing cost-of-living woes their top gripe, like an uninvited guest who overstays and eats all the snacks.
Flashback to Biden’s 2022 prime-time pivot on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”: “We have the fastest growing economy in the world.” CNN fact-checkers called foul, but voters were already tuning out, gas pumps guzzling their savings like a bad habit.
Biden admitted inflation was “the bane of our existence,” yet shrugged it off as mostly food and fuel follies. Affordability topped 2024’s voter hit list, and even as prices slowed their sprint, the cumulative sticker shock left Democrats in the dust.
Trump’s remix? Straight-up fibs, with a side of Biden-blaming. No “greedflation” rants here—just unvarnished untruths that make fact-checkers sweat more than a summer sidewalk.
Yet history whispers warnings. Trump once posed with grocery hauls at rallies, decrying their wallet-wounding weights under Biden. Now, those same carts are his to wrangle, and polls show 61% pinning the economic sour notes on his policies—like blaming the chef after inheriting the kitchen.
Consumers are voting with their feet—or rather, not. Chipotle confessed middle-class meals are skipping the cart; Coke’s fizzing sales flatline among the frugal; Crocs reports fewer feet fancying foam. It’s a footwear fiasco in an economy that’s “robust on paper,” but feels like recycled cardboard to the rank-and-file.
Hiring’s humming along lacklusterly, safety nets fraying like old shoelaces. Loan defaults are spiking among the squeezed, turning “American Dream” into “American Scheme” for too many.
Inflation’s like that houseguest who never leaves: cumulative and clingy. Moody’s Analytics crunched the numbers—households shell out $208 more monthly for the same stuff as September 2024, when Trump was trailblazing tariffs and trail-mixing truths.
Pull back the lens: $1,043 extra per month versus early 2021. That’s a grand-plus vanishing act on groceries alone, leaving families to ponder if “buying the same amount” means rationing ramen.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, ever the straight shooter in a suit, nailed it last week: “Consumers are not interested in that story.” Their beef? Lingering price punches from 2021-2023 inflation jabs that still smart, no matter how gently today’s hikes tiptoe.
Powell promises it’ll “feel better over time,” but time’s a luxury when Tuesdays mean choosing between toothpaste or takeout. Paychecks need to play catch-up, or the rebound could boomerang.
Enter today’s electoral tea leaves: Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City polls. Will Trump’s denial dance doom down-ballot dreams, or will voters shrug and stockpile?
Democratic strategist David Plouffe, in a tell-all tome on Biden’s twilight, issued the edict: “Never again can we as a party suggest to people that what they’re seeing is not true.” Trump, take note—or risk turning “you’re fired” from catchphrase to campaign epitaph.
As shoppers scan aisles with the suspicion of secret agents, one truth endures: in the economy of everyday aches, denial’s not just a river—it’s a flash flood. And nobody’s packing floaties.
Leave a Reply