During the 1992 U.S. presidential election, James Carville, the lead strategist who guided Bill Clinton’s political machine to victory over the incumbent, George H.W. Bush, came up with a conclusion that has since become an immortalized saying.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” Carville repeatedly stated in efforts to keep the focus on the recession and avoid being distracted by less significant issues.
Today, with the escalating prices of groceries, rent, health care, and utilities forcing seniors, single-parent mothers, and millions of other Americans to choose between keeping the lights on and eating a wholesome meal, it’s still the economy that counts as the top concern in America.
But if you listen to the president, “affordability” is something that radical left Democrats, socialists, and outliers have concocted.
In his mind, his MAGA agenda has been so successful that we should all genuflect in allegiance and respect and co-sign his plans to put his name on every building, street corner, and mom-and-pop business located throughout Washington, D.C.’s eight wards.
But while the president remains fixated on securing his legacy – making his dreams come true – we, the people, continue to be victims caught in a nightmare.
Even diehard, blue-eyed, evangelically inspired Republicans are saying things like, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”
But don’t take our word for it. Just stay focused for a moment and listen.
“So, I don’t wanna hear about the affordability,” the commander in chief has said repeatedly to the media and Americans, while arguing that inflation has improved and that his economic record should be celebrated.
Celebrate the Trump administration’s economic record? Celebrate a soaring national debt, persistent inflation, higher living costs, trade disputes, and escalating global conflicts, including the president’s six-month-old war of choice with Iran? No way!
Affordability is not a made-up word, nor is it a theory propagated by con men. In fact, for most African Americans, it’s always been the conversation at the dinner table, at the barber shop, in the beauty salon, and in the pews and pulpits on Sunday mornings.
The difference is, now, many white American families are facing the vicissitudes of Black American life that have been prevalent within African American households for generations.
The promissory note, which was dangled before the noses of voters during the 2024 presidential election, became a check marked insufficient funds. Meanwhile, many of “No. 47’s” policies have either prolonged or exacerbated the economic fortunes of those he promised to help.
Still, Black Americans are hanging on, tying knot after knot, as the old folks used to say, so as not to fall into the abyss.
Tupac Shakur perhaps said it best on his 1993 song “Keep Ya Head Up”: “I’m tryin’ to make a dollar out of 15 cents. It’s hard to be legit and still pay your rent.”
