Enough with the Eggs Already
The appeal of taking comfort in narratives about eggs and inflation is obvious, but ultimately it precludes arriving at effective strategies for defeating the fascists.
"To win in 2026 and beyond, Democrats must focus on building an economic message centered on good-paying jobs and revitalizing manufacturing,"
“What you’ve seen in Donald Trump’s first week in office is that he’s siding with cop beaters and tech oligarchs. He’s not doing anything on housing, health care and taxes for the typical American family. We’ve got to drive that cost of living message home.”
“They’re implementing the Project 2025 playbook, which Donald Trump repeatedly disavowed. He said he’d not read it, he didn’t know anything about it, and he ran away from it. He was going to get the price of eggs down. That’s why he won…If you look at any of the studies of what broke through for them, it was about inflation, and it was about the border, immigration. He has no mandate for authoritarianism or fascism in America.”
These are just three of many comments by Democratic leaders suggesting that a battery of inflation, economic issues and egg related challenges are both the cause of Trump’s 2024 election victory and the key to ending the MAGA fascist ascendancy. While Auchincloss has not made much of a name for himself in the House of Representatives, Khanna is understood as a leading progressive voice, and few have distinguished themselves in the fight against Trump’s assaults on the Constitution more than Raskin.
Auchincloss, Khanna and Raskin have articulated a widely held Democratic theory of political change that goes something like: First, inflation continues to rise; then Trump’s supporters begin to feel the impact of his terrible economic policies; then a miracle occurs; then the Democrats win the midterms in 2026 and the presidency in 2028; then democracy is restored. This theory is appealing in its simplicity, logic and modesty. There is also something very comforting about this theory. It suggests that Americans more or less accidentally voted for the fascist, and that we are an election or two away from restoring democracy, and all it will take is expensive eggs.
The problem with this theory is that it is completely wrong, and wildly understates the gravity of the crisis we are facing. Additionally, by radically underestimating the extent and roots of the problem, this flawed theory of change leads Democratic leaders to a kind of magical thinking. That, in turn, precludes them from wrestling with the depth of the fascist threat and the need to think differently than in the past.
The fundamental mistake this thinking reflects is that it suggests both that the primary role of the Democratic Party is simply to win the next few elections, and that winning elections alone will end the MAGA threat. While it is true that it is essential for the future of democracy that the Democratic Party win a few elections, it is also true that defeating an authoritarian or fascist movement requires a broader political approach than that of simply winning a few elections, not least beacuse it is very rare that regimes like the one Trump and Musk are building allow free and fair elections, or respect the outcomes when they lose.
Therefore, the primary problem with the thinking Khanna, Raskin, Auchincloss and so many other in the Democratic Party is that they are trying to solve a problem of regime change through a strategy based on the assumption that this is still a democracy.
As long as leading Democrats think that this is just another Republican administration that we can defeat the same way we eventually defeated the Reagan-Bush administrations, muted the excesses of the George W. Bush administration, and even eventually forced Richard Nixon to resign, they will be playing into the hands of the fascists. Moreover, as long as we refuse to recognize the unpleasant reality that many Americans voted for Donald Trump precisely because of the fascism, we will continue to underestimate the strength of the Trump-Musk regime.
Many of sharper journalists and academics and analysts have recognized that the United States is undergoing a regime change. Some of us have been talking about this for almost a decade now. It seems that the last people to understand this are the leaders of the Democratic Party. That is in substantial part because their training and experience precludes understanding the United States in this way.
Non-democratic regimes intent upon consolidating their rule are not defeated by political parties who come up with a slightly better economic program. They are defeated by omnibus opposition coalitions. Moreover authoritarian regimes are not defeated simply at the ballot box, although elections are one of a panoply of nonviolent strategies that must be employed to bring these regimes down.
Therefore, if we are going to restore or (re)build democracy here in the United States we must begin by recognizing that this is not going to be done simply by coming up with a better program to fight inflation-or reminding people that eggs are still expensive.
We are never going to defeat the Trump/Musk fascist movement and (re)build democracy as long as we continue to live in a denial about the popularity of that movement and insist on telling ourselves stories about the price of eggs. If the Democratic Party wants to lead the fight against fascism and for democracy, the first thing their leadaers must do is eschew comforting platitudes, stop waiting for the miracle and recognize that more inflation and economic downturns are not going to save American democracy.
Since the 2016 election, I've argued that the electoral evidence points to the widespread existence of support for an authoritarian minimalist Nordic state. Not just a Restoration of a pre-New Deal order, but a thoroughgoing Redemption after the alleged wrong turn toward equality of results and pluralism of the Democratic Party since LBJ.