Trump Broke the Economy — And Now It's Breaking Him
Trump’s lies don’t pay the rent.
Donald Trump’s approval rating has collapsed because of the economy — and the White House knows it. That’s why they’ve got him out on the road tonight in Pennsylvania (at a casino, no less), trying to reassure people about an affordability crisis he still refuses to admit exists.
Trump won’t acknowledge that prices are crushing families. He won’t acknowledge that the job market is getting gutted by AI and his tariffs. He won’t acknowledge that millions of Americans feel like they’re falling behind every single month. Because the minute he acknowledges it, he has to acknowledge something else:
He caused it.
His approval rating isn’t tanking because people suddenly became Democrats. It’s tanking because people know when they’re getting screwed. They can tell the difference between political spin and the number staring back at them when they check their bank account.
I watched Trump at his press conference yesterday announcing the $12 billion bailout for American farmers, where he insisted everything was great. No crisis. No problem. Nothing to see here. The economy is “booming.” We’re in a “golden age.” The problem isn’t just that he’s lying — it’s that the lie is so insulting.
Americans don’t need a lecture about how well they’re doing. They need a president who understands what they’re up against and is going to do something about it.
A functional political party would hear what voters said in Virginia and New Jersey when affordability became the defining issue of those blowout elections. They’d reset. They’d deliver. Hell, at least they’d try. But the Republican Party can’t do any of that because it’s not a party — it’s a dependency. Trump will say “everything is fine” tonight, and everyone else in his party has to pretend the house isn’t on fire. When one man controls the message, the message can’t change — even when the country demands it.
Tens of millions of Americans are struggling, and Trump still talks like the crisis is imaginary. But this isn’t a crisis you can bullshit your way through. People aren’t angry because of vibes — they’re angry because their paychecks no longer cover the basics. Every grocery run, every rent payment, every student loan bill is a reminder that the economy is not what Trump says it is.
This is the first time in his political life — maybe outside the Epstein files — where Trump can’t gaslight his way out. People know what things cost. They know what their wages look like. They know what jobs exist and what jobs don’t. The stock market means nothing to most Americans, especially when all the growth is concentrated in AI and speculative tech. That isn’t prosperity — it’s a bubble.
And bubbles don’t pay the rent.
Let’s talk about the job market he refuses to discuss. AI isn’t some distant threat — it’s hollowing out the entry-level job market right now. Companies are freezing hiring across entire sectors because automation lets them. If you’re 22, 23, 24, fresh out of school trying to start your life, you are facing the weakest job market for young workers in a generation — and Trump has no plan, no policy, not even a sentence acknowledging it.
Instead, he’s doing the opposite. Yesterday, he signed an executive order making it harder for states to regulate AI. He doesn’t understand what AI is doing to the job market—or he doesn’t care. Pick your poison on that one.
Add to that his tariffs — the tax hikes that raise prices on everything from food to appliances to building materials. Tariffs hit consumers, full stop. They drive inflation. Trump knows it — that’s why he’s quietly easing some of them while publicly denying they raise prices. It’s economic hypocrisy in plain sight.
Republican candidates want to run on affordability. They want to talk about real issues. They want to tell voters the truth. They can’t. Telling the truth requires contradicting Trump, and contradicting Trump is forbidden, ask Marjorie Taylor Greene. The entire GOP is trapped in a political physics problem: they can’t fix the economy because they can’t break from the man who broke it.
So instead of solutions, we get theater.
Take yesterday’s $12 billion farmer bailout. Trump sat there listening to executives praise him for “saving” farmers — even though his own tariffs are the reason farmers needed saving in the first place. It’s the same pattern every time: he creates the crisis, then demands applause for handing out a bandage. Like celebrating an arsonist for putting out the fire.
Some farmers may appreciate the bailout, and I get that. But most would rather sell their products at fair prices, at home and abroad, without needing a government rescue.
Trump’s inner circle keeps him insulated and delusional because facing the truth would mean admitting his economic agenda is collapsing — taking his presidency along with it. So no matter what Trump says tonight in Pennsylvania — no matter how hard he insists the economy is thriving — nothing he says actually fixes the problem. The more he talks without acting, the angrier people get. And the angrier people get, the clearer the political consequences become.
Trump built his myth on being the businessman who understood the economy. That myth — and it was always just a myth — is dead. He doesn’t understand this economy. He doesn’t understand what people are living through. He doesn’t understand that denial isn’t a strategy — it’s a confession.
And that’s why I can’t wait for the midterms next year. Because the economy Trump broke is the economy that’s going to break his presidency.
That $12 billion must make American farmers wonder why Argentina is more than 3 x more important to Trump than they are.
From your lips, to God's ears. (And Happy Holidays to all. Better days are ahead --- if we keep working for them!)