The Democrat-media complex has glommed onto a new narrative that joins the ranks of past cliches that they’ve tried to exploit for political purposes. Others that have lost their usefulness to the Democrat Party over the years include “for the children”, “change we can believe in/yes, we can”, the “war on women”, “save our democracy”, and the horrible “defund the police” refrain repeated endlessly by Democrats – including 2024 presidential standard-bearer Kamala Harris – from June 2020 through the 2024 elections.
Their new political narrative is “affordability.” This emerged as a dominant Democratic political messaging strategy in 2025, particularly during last month’s off-year elections. It marked a deliberate pivot from culture-war debates and ideological fights that have dominated Democrat messaging for 30+ years.
Democrats apparently think that the high grocery prices about which most people complain these days afford them an opportunity to set the political narrative in 2026 to help them regain control of Congress by claiming without a shred of evidence of their proposed incoherent policies that they can “do something about that.”
The fact of the matter is this: grocery prices have been inexorably rising with inflation since the US abandoned the gold standard in 1971. This was especially true with the big inflation spike that happened during the Biden regime, which was directly caused by cockamamie Democrat economic and fiscal policies with the predictably disastrous results. Keep in mind that Democrats didn’t talk about “affordability” during all those years!
The graphic below tracks the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for “Food at Home” (grocery store purchases), using 1982-84=100 as the base. Data is annual averages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This shows how grocery prices have evolved, with notable spikes during the 2008 financial crisis, 2020–2022 pandemic/inflation surge (up ~25% from 2019–2022), and the misguided and completely misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” that spiked inflation in 2022-2023. As of September 2025, the index stands at approximately 311.5 (up 2.7% year-over-year). Data was sourced from BLS via FRED and USDA ERS reports.
Note that no presidency – Republican OR Democrat – has ever been able to significantly lower grocery prices for Americans without the fool’s gold of massive federal subsidies and/or artificially low federal interest rates (both of which contribute directly to inflation over time). The chart proves it.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
The wholly manufactured focus on “affordability” was a post-2024 political recalibration after getting shellacked by President Trump. Democrats, burned by inflation critiques that were supported by plenty of direct evidence, shifted from the standard Democrat fare of “incremental change” to voter-centric narratives like affordability that are aimed at boosting turnout among youth, minorities, and suburban women.
The big problem for Democrats is that Biden-era fiscal choices drove cumulative grocery inflation to about 25% from 2019–2022, outpacing wage growth and eroding household purchasing power by roughly 3–4% in real terms during the height of the crisis. The groceries index grew from 261 in January 2020 to 335 in January 2025 – the largest 4-year rise in American history. This is the real reason for the “affordability problem,” and that’s all on the Democrats! They CREATED the affordability problem and are now trying to fool enough voters into believing that only they can “fix the problem”.
Finally, note that through September 2025, year-on-year grocery inflation was 2.7%, down from 2022’s 13.5% peak. Thank the Trump administration and the Republican Congress for that, not congressional Democrats who have voted almost unanimously against every Trump policy initiative since January.
Who in their right mind wants to trust the Democrats on the affordability issue in 2026?
