As a presidential candidate last year, Donald Trump realized that consumer costs were a priority for voters, so the Republican said what he thought would get him elected: If returned to the White House, he’d quickly lower costs.
A year ago this week, however, Time magazine published a report on a lengthy interview it did with the then-president-elect, in which he seemed to realize he’d struggle to deliver on this misguided promise. “I’d like to bring them down,” Trump said, referring to grocery prices. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”
A year later, amid rising prices and widespread public discontent over his many economic failures, the president has some choices. He could repeat the line he delivered to Time magazine during his transition and tell the public that it’s “very hard” to lower consumer costs, despite his unrealistic assurances to the contrary. He could also ask for Americans’ patience and argue that conditions will improve in the coming months and years.
But Trump prefers a different course: He’s decided that gaslighting is the way to go.
In a newly published interview with Politico, the Republican boasted, “Prices are all coming down,” adding, “Now everything is coming down.”
A day earlier, at a White House event, the president pushed the same line, insisting that consumer prices “are way down.”
This rhetoric dovetailed with Trump’s recent claims that Americans’ concerns about affordability are a “Democrat [sic] hoax,” a “con job by the Democrats” and a “Democrat [sic] scam.”
That the president is the nation’s most prolific liar is nothing new, but there’s a qualitative difference between regular ol’ lying and self-defeating lying. Often, when Trump peddles nonsense, the American mainstream isn’t immediately sure what to believe, and it falls to media fact-checkers to offer the public guidance on what’s true and what’s not.
But when the president tells Americans that prices on “everything” are “coming down,” no one needs a fact-checker; they just need a wallet.
The more the Republican plays make-believe, the more he appears hopelessly out of touch. If he and his team want to know why Trump’s public support has fallen to embarrassing depths, they can start by coming to terms with his failure on affordability. The public knows he’s failing, so brazenly lying about Americans’ own life experiences does more harm than good.
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