What Do Costs Got To Do With It?
Ever heard of an earworm? Usually a song or line that repeats in your head over and over again. Ever since I can remember Tina Turner‘s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” gets stuck in my head, and I proceeded to sing it for days.
As we look back at 2024 and ahead at the next few years, I offer “What Do Costs Got To Do With It?” as an earworm worth getting stuck in your head.
Big picture, at a time of full employment, costs are the main concern for most families across America, not jobs. Social media makes the situation worse as folks seek to keep up with their online “neighbors” living fabulous lives—further stretching their budgets.
A brief story to further drive home the point and its political implications. In college, the very first week, I met a nice guy in my dorms named Ben from Detroit. We hit it off and became fast friends because of our shared love of sports and affinity for Michael Vick —before his dog fighting downfall.
From time to time we talked about values and politics, and he seemed like a moderate to slightly liberal guy in my view. Since college, we haven’t kept in touch other than through Facebook. His career got off to a slow start. He got jobs, worked hard, and slowly made progress.
Post-covid, like many around Americans, he got a new job and saw a huge gains in his pay. But like so many, he saw his good fortune as a result of his hard work, not the result of a president’s actions. Since 2021, this has been a huge part of America’s story, with gains for tens of millions who see those gains as evidence of their hard work – which is at least part of the story.
At the same time that many saw big gains in pay, prices spiked and stayed high. Like many Americans, Ben blamed the Biden-Harris administration. His story matches up with so much of the polling before and after the Election.
And for purposes of this story, Ben’s journey ended this fall. When, for the first time in our social media friendship, he posted a political picture of him, his wife, and their child. The picture was of the three of them attending a Donald Trump rally and wearing MAGA gear.
Ben is just one example of the millions of folks of all racial and ethnic backgrounds who switched their vote to Donald Trump in 2024.
Donald Trump has started his administration, imposing tariffs, slowing the flow of immigrants to the United States, and is considering massive tax cuts. His actions are likely to spike inflation, spike interest rates, or both. So while costs are the thing that got the country and Democrats into this political situation, costs may be Donald Trump’s Achilles’ heel. It’s up to Democrats to shape a clear, direct message that holds Trump accountable as costs increase. It's essential that Democrats speak directly to the issue that the swing voters and non-voters care about most.
So what do costs got to do with it? They are the primary reason Democrats lost. But the cost of food, groceries, mortgage payments, and rent could be the key to a unifying message for Democrats and ultimately the key to recapturing Congress in 2026.