Donald Trump and Washington elites break working-class families

By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit · November 2, 2026

As midterms arrive, Americans face soaring costs and housing precarity while Washington ignores them and billionaires pour hundreds of millions into political campaigns.

The hollow ledger of Wall Street and the empty cupboards of Main Street

Cheerleaders of capital tell us that the numbers look fine, but we live in the wreckage. Consumer confidence is plummeting under Donald Trump. CBC reported that 74% of Americans rate the economy as poor. Gross domestic product expanded, and the stock market sits at an all-time high. None of that pays the rent for working people whose lives inflation crushes.

G1 Globo noted that high-income families hold a significantly larger share of stock market assets. Wealth from artificial intelligence investments lines the pockets of those who own the casino. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that consumer and corporate behavior is solid. That proves people in Washington boardrooms are utterly blind to suffering outside their windows. Bessent praises tax and trade policies while ordinary people drown in bills. The disconnect between macroeconomic indicators like GDP and the lived reality of housing instability and poverty for the working class is the exact same mechanism that defined the Financial Crisis of 2008. Then, as now, cheerleaders pointed to aggregate growth while the floor collapsed beneath ordinary households.

Prices have risen 6.8% since December 2024, according to CNN, while average hourly pay has risen 5.9%. Donald Trump engineered this policy regime. He signed Executive Order 14382, imposing tariffs on nations tied to Iran. On October 23, 2026, he signed Proclamation 11076, slapping 50% tariffs on Canadian products. These actions turbocharged energy price spikes and shattered supply chains. When the Flint Water Crisis forced my hometown to drink lead because officials prioritized cost-cutting over human life, we learned that government choices carry a body count. The same callous calculus drives these tariffs and the war with Iran.

When a paycheck buys less and less and the car becomes the final safety net

The human cost of this policy violence is visible in every zip code that the political class ignores. Jolene Simecek in Cleveland watched her rent surge from $785 to nearly $1,600 over seven years while her income stayed flat. She told CNN, “I didn’t make the right decisions,” blaming herself for a trap set by predatory landlords and stagnant wages. In Tampa, Phebie White saw her rent climb to $1,250 while her Social Security check remained frozen. She keeps her car insurance paid just in case she needs to sleep in her vehicle. She told CNN, “you won’t know that they’re sleeping in their car until they tell you.”

This is the reality for millions in an America where 37% of the population describes themselves as flat-out angry. Elen Trosino, a cancer survivor in Tampa, lived in her car for like a week. Sheila Scarborough, a veteran on a fixed income in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, slept in her car most nights for seven weeks. The city had cut her power. Stu Laird, a tour guide on the Outer Banks, lived in his truck until the battery died in a January storm. That storm left him with frostbite, three hospital stays, and a broken hip.

Defenders of the status quo argue that unemployment remains low at 4.2%, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data. That argument is as insulting as it is dishonest. Having a job that pays poverty wages while diesel exceeds $6 and grocery bills devour half a paycheck is not economic security. Josh Mayo, a Michigan business owner selling legal cannabis products, saw his costs surge because of tariff shocks. He told ABC News that his business can change overnight because of a tweet or an email. Trisha Kosloski, who owns the Hob Nob cafe in Lansing, Michigan, watched her delivery costs soar 50% due to fuel prices after Donald Trump’s blanket tariffs. With zero profit margin remaining, she took a second job, joining the ranks of workers who live on less and less.

Buying elections while families sink

While working people choose between groceries and gas, billionaires buy the midterm elections on November 3. Daily Maverick reported that Elon Musk donated approximately $440-million this election cycle through his own PAC and a Republican Senate fund. When Elon Musk pours hundreds of millions of dollars into political campaigns, he is not participating in democracy. He purchases a protection racket for corporate profits while the social safety net shreds.

Donald Trump promised to bring down prices and end forever wars, yet he delivered punitive trade wars and military escalation. Over 60% of Americans disapprove of his performance due to soaring costs of petrol, fuel, groceries, housing, healthcare, and childcare, according to Daily Maverick. Voters understand the fraud. Sheila Scarborough told CNN, “They’re not listening. We are trying, as citizens, trying to tell you what’s going on, but nobody’s listening.” When asked if policymakers understand her experience, Phebie White answered simply, “No. Because they don’t have the struggle.”

The incoming Congress will refuse to roll back Donald Trump's inflationary tariffs or rein in the war machine. Families like Jolene Simecek and Phebie White will bear the human cost of soaring consumer prices through the end of 2027. Billionaire political spending will successfully insulate vulnerable right-wing incumbents from electoral accountability, preserving corporate subsidies while domestic safety nets fray. Municipal and state authorities will accelerate sweeps and criminalize vehicle-dwelling Americans as visible homelessness expands. Justice requires that we dismantle the tariff regime, break up monopolies, and make billionaires pay taxes at the rate the hardware store does. Until the lights are back on for Sheila Scarborough and every family crushed by this greed, no politician deserves a vote.

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US consumer price index. Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).

Donald Trump and Washington elites break working-class families

The hollow ledger of Wall Street and the empty cupboards of Main Street

When a paycheck buys less and less and the car becomes the final safety net

Buying elections while families sink

Sources