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President Donald Trump is nothing if not gifted at crafting politically advantageous alternate realities. Through repetition, force of will and shamelessness, he’s convinced tens of millions of Americans of a host of dubious or outright-false claims – most notably that the 2020 election he lost was somehow “stolen.” But Trump’s latest effort to rewrite reality is brazen and puzzling even by his standards. As inflation has proven stubborn, and even ticked up, and as energy and grocery prices have continued to rise, Trump has set about trying to convince people that this isn’t the case at all. He’s argued that the rising costs people can see and feel are actually down. And now he’s trying to make “affordability” his calling card. Good luck with that. Polls have made clear Americans not only overwhelmingly understand prices are rising, but they strongly link this to Trump’s policies. What’s more, the president has allowed a particularly troublesome perception to fester: that he’s been asleep at the wheel. It’s difficult to see how pretending that inflation doesn’t exist and that his administration has done a great job on this issue is going to change that. If anything, it could exacerbate a perception that the administration is divorced from reality. Trump’s newfound ‘affordability’ focus Trump has responded to Republicans’ poor 2025 election results by suddenly keying like a laser on “affordability.” He might not have much regard for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s democratic socialist policies, but he seems happy to rip a page out of Mamdani’s political playbook. “Why did Zohran Mamdani do so well last night? He relentlessly focused on affordability,” top White House political adviser James Blair told Politico on Wednesday. Trump’s MAGA ally Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for Ohio governor, cut a video on election night urging Republicans to set aside their focus on culture wars in favor of an affordability focus. Trump has posted on social media and spoken repeatedly about affordability in the last few days. “I don’t want to hear about (Democrats winning on affordability), because right now we’re much less,” Trump said Thursday, adding: “We had the worst inflation in the history of our country. Now we have virtually no inflation at all. “The only problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it, and Republicans should start talking about it and use their heads, because we have great numbers.” Trump has also repeatedly pointed to Walmart’s annual Thanksgiving grocery list costing under $40 this year compared to about $55 last year. The talking point is a complete non sequitur, as CNN’s Daniel Dale writes. It’s not apples-to-apples because this year’s list has fewer items. And it’s clear that grocery prices writ large are up. In fact, average prices in September were up 1.4% compared to January and up about 3% since last year, according to a recent Consumer Price Index study. They also just saw their largest one-month year-over-year increase (0.6%) in three years this summer. Few believe in Trump’s alternate reality But it’s not just that prices are up; it’s also that people recognize that, despite Trump’s claims. A CBS News-YouGov poll last week showed just 7% of Americans said prices have been going down recently. Another 62% said they’re going up. A Washington Post-ABC News poll, meanwhile, shows fewer than 10% of Americans say they’re paying less for groceries and utilities compared to a year ago. Conversely, 71% said they’re paying more for groceries, and 59% said they’re paying more for utilities. Americans directly blame Trump for economic problems And more than that, people draw a direct line from these price increases and economic pains to Trump. All of which brings us to perhaps the one economic number that I keep coming back to on this topic. CBS has asked repeatedly during Trump’s second term whether he was focused enough on lowering prices. The percentage who said he’s focused “not enough” on this has risen from 64% in March to 70% in July to 75% in October. That’s three-quarters of Americans who haven’t seen Trump doing enough on this topic. Even a clear majority of Republicans – 57% – say Trump has neglected the issue. The risk of Trump’s new strategy These perceptions are baked-in now, in large part because Trump has neglected the issue, at least until he decided to start saying “affordability” a lot in recent days. If anything, he’s given people a shorthand to tie him to this persistent inflation. That’s in part because he decided to make tariffs, which are often inflationary, his signature economic policy. And he decided to implement them unilaterally, making it clear exactly who is responsible for them. He voluntarily took near-complete ownership of the economy, and now he’s trying to pretend things have gone better than they have. Trump might be able to convince some people that what they see with their own eyes at the grocery stores or on their electric bills isn’t real. Maybe he’ll get some MAGA Republicans to misremember prices being higher a year ago. But when it comes to convincing the rest of the population they’re better off now, it’s really hard to see that working. Trump’s alternate realities often resonate because Americans live in information silos where his claims aren’t fact-checked. That can work well when it comes to complex subjects like voter fraud. But prices are things people can fact-check with their own eyes. They’re facts that are quite literally in people’s faces on a daily basis. And ultimately, what Trump risks is instead convincing people that he’s out of touch with their economic realities.
