Millions of Americans will be visiting family over the next few weeks, and we're all familiar with having to deal with an older relative who is prone to grumpiness over aspects of modern life that they don't approve of. "We didn't have that when I was a kid," your cranky grandpa will say, "So why do we need it now?" Other family members, being used to this sort of thing, will humor the old guy rather than launching into an explanation of modern life and why some things get better over time. It's easier just to let grumpy grandpa rant and rave, as you sit across from him at the holiday dinner table.

But there's one grumpy oldster we can't just ignore in this fashion, because he is President Cranky Grandpa and his ranting and raving actually has consequences. Thankfully though, his latest grumpiness is going to help Democrats make their case in next year's midterm elections.

Democrats already have their midterm campaign strategy in place, and it is a single word that covers a whole lot of things people are angry about. "Affordability" encompasses all sorts of unrelated things, from high grocery prices to the cost of housing. And, as Mikie Sherrill proved in her victory in the New Jersey governor's race, this also includes the high price of electricity.

Which is why Donald Trump announcing he is halting five offshore wind farm projects is really nothing short of a political gift to Democrats. Trump doesn't like wind power. He also doesn't like solar power. Perhaps this is because in both cases, there is no "fuel" to buy -- wind and sunshine are free. So billionaires don't make a profit out of selling wind and sunshine to power-generating companies. Or perhaps it is because Trump tried to block a wind farm offshore from a golf course he owns in Scotland -- an effort that ultimately failed. Whatever the reason, President Cranky Grandpa hates wind and solar power. "We didn't have that back when I was a kid," you can almost hear him thinking....

Drawing a line from Trump to the high cost of power bills just got a whole lot easier as a direct result. The political case is pathetically easy to make, in fact:

The price of electricity is soaring, and demand is only going to keep rising as A.I. data centers spring up all over the place. And as anyone who has taken Economics 101 will tell you, when demand goes up and supply fails to increase as well, then prices go through the roof. Which is exactly what is happening to everyone's power bills.

The answer to fixing this -- to bringing those power bills back down to Earth -- is to generate more electricity. But Donald Trump just cancelled a bunch of wind power projects that would have been able to power a whopping two and a half million homes. That's a lot of power, folks! But now this power won't be coming online as long as Trump is president. Which means everyone's power bill is going to keep going up. Cancelling these projects also killed 10,000 jobs, by the way. So Trump is destroying good high-paying jobs while he is making the price of electricity go up. Think about that every time you open your power bill each month.

As I said, it's a pretty easy case to make. Trump equals higher electricity bills for all. This is in addition to how Trump has caused other prices to skyrocket as well. Tariffs are nothing short of a tax on the American people, plain and simple. Rounding up undocumented immigrants has meant shortages of farmworkers are beginning to impact growers. Fewer people to pick produce means some of the crop rots in the fields and less makes it to the market -- where everybody pays more for it. Basic economics, once again.

In fact, this stuff is so basic that everyone already understands it. Trump's tariffs are wildly unpopular already. The price of groceries is a major political issue, no matter how much Trump would like to insist that they aren't. Every time he uses the word groceries, in fact, Trump reminds everyone how out of touch with average people's lives he truly is, since he almost always tosses in: "groceries... it's an old-fashioned word...." It really isn't, unless you have spent your entire life without ever having had the need to enter a grocery store, that is.

Many of the affordability problems people are facing have no easy solution. Getting rid of all of Trump's tariffs would certainly help, but there are other things making prices rise as well. But in the case of electricity, Trump has made it pathetically easy for Democrats to draw a straight line from his policies to high costs.

Cancelling enough wind power to light up 2.5 million homes is pure idiocy, when electricity demand is rising sharply (due at least in part to those A.I. data centers). Who in their right mind would say no to bringing more power online right now? Increasing the supply could indeed lower costs for consumers -- which they fully understand. Which is also, as I said, why the case is so easy for Democrats to make: "President Grumpy Grandpa hates wind power, so he is going to force everyone to pay more each month in their electric bill. This isn't just some cranky-pants relative you are forced to listen to over the holidays, this is an old man who has an irrational hatred of things he doesn't understand. And his crankiness is driving everyone's prices up."

Maybe Trump made this announcement right now as an early Christmas present to the Democratic Party? I have no idea if this was his actual intent, but that is precisely what he has now done. "Trump is raising the price of electricity" is almost surely going to be a centerpiece of the Democratic Party's campaign messaging, and they have President Cranky Grandpa to thank for it.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant