What’s That About Affordability?
Driving to the county seat or someplace near good to eat is getting less and less likely, as is going anywhere.
How many family vacations shortened or even canceled because or rising prices?
For folks in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, who count on visitors and tourists, this summer is hard.
What is causing inflation to keep rising?
President Trump is right about one thing. Rising energy prices raise costs of manufacturing, shipping and delivery, raising the costs of food and all consumer goods.
What is the cause of rising energy costs? The war of choice in Iran at the insistence of Israel and the consequent disruption of the global oil supply is the absolute cause of hyper energy inflation.
Stockwits, social media for stock traders, paraphrases Pulitzer Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who said: “The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz has caused significant price shocks in petroleum distillates, and related products, affecting both producers and consumers through higher costs….ordinary families bear the brunt of price increases.”
That is one of many reasons no prior president thought it wise to suffer the consequences of war in Iran.
This is a war demanded by Israel’s prime minister, common criminal, now war criminal Bibi Netanyahu.
The New York Times published an entire article laying out the facts of Bibi’s pressure to attack: “President Trump’s embrace of military action in Iran was spurred by Israeli leaders.”
There is also always the frightening possibility of a Mideast war becoming World War 3 as other powerful nations step in to protect their oil supply or divvy up the ruins of a brutal wider war driven by the economies and individual economic interests of the world’s most powerful nations.
Important as it is, the Iran War is not the only driver of American inflation.
The truth is that Trump cares less about our lives and financial struggles than you thought.
Trump is the fundamental, foundational actor raising the prices ruining our lives.
We don’t want to be at war, but Trump pursues it for personal reasons including corruption and covering up his massive sex trafficking and child rape.
It is not just the war.
Every tariff Trump enacts or raises increases the cost of food and consumer goods.
Turning back to Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman: “Trump’s trade war should be seen as part of a package of policies that amounts to class warfare–class warfare against middle and lower-income Americans in favor of the affluent, especially the top 10 percent of the income distribution….trade policy is mostly about income distribution.”
Our traditionally close ally Canada is completely incensed at our president.
Canada’s Prime Minister from the Conservative Party has consistently pushed back on Trump’s tariffs as raising taxes on working families in both countries.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said: “This trade dispute has raised costs for families, particularly in the U.S.” On ABC Prime Minister Carney said: “Canada will do all that is necessary to support our jobs, our workers, our farmers and to make Canada stronger, more independent and more resilient. ”
Both the political right and the left across the spectrum are angered and confused by the seesaw Trump tariffs.
The Manitoba Premier, Wab Kinew, is an indigenous social democrat from the New Democratic Party. He represents deep cultures of care for all people: “These Trump tariffs are terrible, they make no sense whatsoever. They raise the cost of living in America, which is the number one issue for Americans, and they raise the cost of living in Canada, which is the number one issue for Canadians as well.”
Former labor reporter at the New York Times Steven Greenhouse writes in the Guardian: “With the midterm elections less than four months away, it’s a pernicious time for Donald Trump and Republicans: Trump’s war against Iran is going badly, his approval ratings are in the toilet, gas prices are soaring and pushing up inflation.”
The hard truth of this summer is that President Trump is knowingly making everyday life harder for every American.
The number 1 issue in every poll of Americans is affordability. The president is not working to make life more affordable. Instead he is knowingly making everyday life for everyday Americans harder, more expensive and not affordable.
Remember when he said affordability was a “Democrat hoax?”
Finally, now that Senator Shelley Moore Capito has jumped on the Trump-Maga- Governor-Morrissey train to drive data centers come hell or high water all across and over West Virginia’s creation leaves this writer one big question: Why in hell are Republicans working so hard to hurt us all, make us more poor, less secure and distrust our neighbors?
This article was originally published in the Spirit of Jefferson on Aug. 6, 2026.
