Affordability Is Not Enough to Defeat Fascism
Focusing on affordability may be a good short-term electoral strategy, by stopping facism requires a more comprehensive approach.
Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign was, in some respects, relatively straightforward. He promised that if elected he would seek to break with American democracy and replace that system with one that was more fascistic. In the almost one year since taking office Trump has made good on that promise. While he has not yet consolidated a fascist regime, he has moved the US in that direction.
There was another dynamic of Trump’s campaign that was more paradoxical. One of the ways he appealed to voters who were less taken by his promise of regime change was on the issue of inflation, which we now tend to describe as affordability. The paradox was that Trump promised to make consumer goods cheaper while proposing policies, specifically around tariffs, that essentially all economists believed would make inflation worse. Turns out the economists were right.
As Trump’s first year back in office winds down, the affordability crisis has not improved. Moreover, there has been almost no real effort from the administration to address this. This reality, in addition to creating substantial stress and hardship for millions of Americans, has also led to an opportunity for the Democratic Party heading into the midterm elections in 2026. However, that opportunity should not detract from the reality of the crisis we now face. In other words an incumbent party’s mishandling of the economy causing them to face likely defeat in the next election is politics as usual in the US-and we are distinctly not in a moment of politics as usual.
It is important that Democratic campaigns do whatever it takes to win, but there is a risk in focusing too much on the economy, not least because there is a possibility that the economy will get better or that the administration will take steps to address the affordability problem. Trump could announce that he was won all the trade wars and is rolling back all his tariffs. Similarly, Trump could decide to mail liberation checks to millions of Americans during the summer of 2026. It is even possible that the economy, which is cyclical and bigger than even Donald Trump, could pick up for reasons that have nothing to do with Trump, but for which he would take credit.
In other words, if Democratic Party candidates build their campaigns around affordability, and sometime in the next eleven months the issue begins to fade away, they will have a problem. Additionally, it must not be ignored that while the Democrats may be able to win on affordability in 2026, to assume both free and fair elections in 2028 and the regime leaving power if they lose is a mistake.
There is another affordability related issue that should be considered. Focusing on affordability to the preclusion of other issues-or to the extent that it drowns out other issues-implicitly suggests that the Trump regime would be okay if it were handling the economy better. That is obviously not true. While the economy is a major concern, the biggest problem posed by the Trump regime is fascism, not mishandling of the economy.
Even if the economy were in better shape, the Trump regime would still be having masked thugs kidnap people, engaging in extraordinary financial corruption, seeking to remake the US on the basis of white Christian nationalism, committing piracy and extrajudicial killings, ignoring court orders, harassing political opponents and so much more.
The Trump regime, and the MAGA fascist movement more broadly, are not going to be brought down simply by a bad economy. That does not mean that Democrats should not campaign on affordability next year, but the threat and power of the MAGA movement requires a broader strategy. The primary reason for this is that while elections are important, elections alone will not be enough. If they were, then Trump and MAGA would have met their political end in 2020 when Biden and the Democrats won that election.
Putting a definitive end to the Trump experiment with fascism requires a multi-vectored strategy of which elections are an important part, but only one component. Moreover, the coalition necessary to achieve this is greater than that needed to simply win an election. Trump’s economic policies and the state of the American economy as we head into 2026 are clearly assets for the Democratic Party, but they cannot become the whole story.
Building a coalition that is opposed to the fascist intentions of the current regime is difficult. It requires the real work of explaining, educating, speaking with Americans of different backgrounds and envisioning a post-MAGA United States. That is a much bigger task that running a smart campaign aimed at affordability related issues. Moreover, even if inflation gets worse, unless the case is made against the MAGA movement and the American people mobilize and vote against those forces, the MAGA movement will always be lurking in the background ready to seize power again as soon as the economy changes.
The most important task facing the American people-not just the Democratic Party-is to defeat fascism. You cannot defeat fascism by defeating inflation. To truly defeat fascism, you have to fight against fascism.