OP-ED: Governing in a post-Trump nation
It’s almost certain Democrats will have a majority in the House of Representatives, and maybe control of the Senate, come January 2027.
All of this as a result of Donald Trump’s unpopularity due largely to the administration’s debacle in Iran and the tie-up of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, with its corresponding pain at the gas pump. And, oh, there’s also the not inconsiderable matter of the untamed cost of groceries.
Fuel and food, there you have it in a nutshell: the elections of 2026.
Nearly across the board Democrats are running on the issue of bringing down the cost of everyday living. In a word, affordability.
As Tim Wu, who served on the Biden administration’s National Economic Council, pointed out recently, the affordability issue helped make democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York City, and helped to usher into their respective state houses moderates Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.
It’s true midterm elections are historically difficult for the party in control of the White House. You can count on a finger or two the number of times the tide of disapproval has not washed over incumbent chief executives at this point in their presidencies.
In addition, there is, let us say, the unique presidency of Donald Trump, which fact drives Democratic animus as much as anything.
To begin with, there’s the colossal and expensive White House ballroom and the equally wasteful Trumpian arch.
In addition, it’s been reported that the president of the United States is far wealthier now than he was when he was sworn into office for a second time in January 2025. Thanks to cryptocurrency alone, in just one year – 2025 – he added to an already hefty bank account some $1.4 billion.
Cashing in as well have been Don Jr. and Eric Trump. Companies the sons of the president are associated with have pocketed over $3 billion in federal contracts, loans, and investments, according to Dan Merica of the Washington Post.
In large measure because of this industrial-scale plundering there will be calls for President Trump’s impeachment once Democrats are back in charge of one or two houses of Congress.
But however justified, and despite pressure from some at the grassroots of the Democratic Party, the urge to impeach must be resisted.
Democrats should focus on what voters overwhelmingly are calling for, and what they themselves campaigned on: a laser focus on pocketbook issues.
By the way, has anyone given serious thought as to how Democrats, working in a divided Congress and facing a devious president with a veto pen, might actually do something about prices, besides the scattering of rather ordinary proposals already on the table?
The old general and the 34th president, Dwight David Eisenhower, once commented that faced with an intractable problem, it was sometimes good strategy to tackle the matter in a larger context.
Here’s one take: A Democratic congressional majority starting in 2027 must prepare the way for a Democratic administration beginning in 2029 to take action to change the stagnant and failing economic status quo. The country’s mal-distribution of wealth is at a crisis point.
The haves have far too much, and the struggling middle class and the poor have far too little of the nation’s tremendous wealth.
This is the issue beyond the affordability issue, and it’s recognized by a bipartisan majority. Wu, writing in the New York Times, reported a recent CBS poll in which 60% of Americans think the economy is “unfair” to them and to others. Some 66% of Republicans told a recent Economist/YouGov poll that the gap between rich and poor was “a big problem” for the country.
Wu writes: “Democrats should cater to this widespread sense of unfairness. The key … promise is to level out the lopsided economy that favors [the] huge concentration of wealth” in the hands of a few, mainly those on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.
What’s needed are policies that “shift economic power away from the big guys” and in the direction of ordinary wage earners and small business owners.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.