Rolling into 2026, we have a collective task to return our country to a leader in democracy, a force for peace and human rights and for an economy that includes and rewards every worker with a strong sense of the common good and wealth created by work.

Too many politicians, political commentators and leaders have forgotten the break in the economy in the early 1980’s when President Reagan declared war on unions and collective bargaining. Reagan’s National Labor Relations Board helped major corporations break their unions, freeze wages and steal pensions.  He started the the de-industrialization that Clinton followed. Reagan passed a huge tax cut for the rich and corporations while he imposed a tax on the Social Security.

The Economic Policy Institute studied the wages in the 34 years (a generation) from 1979 to 2013: “The hourly wages of middle wage workers were stagnant….The wages of low wage workers falling 5% from 1979 to 2013.”

Trump, of course, has made this historic trend of failure even worse. Exploding inflation caused by his silly nonstrategic tariffs that impose a tax on everyone who buys an imported product.

Trump and Elon Musk destroyed hundreds of thousands of living wage federal jobs with good healthcare coverage and pensions.

Every lost job, every lost dollar costs every small business, local workers, local shops, local farmers, local schools because working class wages drive a nation’s economy.

“Trump has taken to saying the issue of affordability is a hoax”

Donald Trump who’s probably never personally bought anything in a grocery store and has no idea how most of us live, has taken to saying the issue of affordability is a hoax like he screamed every time he was impeached or challenged.

But it ain’t working this time because every family goes to the grocery store every week and fills up one or two vehicles with gas, buys clothes and shoes for growing kids and has to house themselves with skyrocketing mortgages and rents.

We know we are being squeezed. We feel it and see it.

When we connect the inflation Trump is inflating with tariffs with stagnant and falling wages, we have an affordability crisis for all of us.

And the twin crises of the economy: inflation coupled with wage stagnation continues to escalate poverty, squeeze working families and slowly kill the American Dream.

This analysis is the road map to Democratic victory in the 2026 midterm Congressional elections.

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