Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans seem to be finally realizing that they might just be in some trouble, heading into the midterm elections. Their policies are unpopular, most Americans think things have gotten worse over the past year, and they don't have any new ideas (unless you count launching a war with Iran for no apparent reason). So the party has seemingly decided to attempt dressing up the ugliness of their agenda by slapping some lipstick on a pig.

Donald Trump was out campaigning today, with the message: "Prices are going to come down real soon now, trust me!" He made appearances in Ohio and Kentucky, in an effort to tout how wonderful the economy is doing. Since Trump can never admit that anything is going wrong on his watch -- and even if it is, it is obviously someone else's fault -- his message was that all the voters should join him in his reality-denying bubble. Everything's great! The Golden Age has begun! Pay no attention to that gas station sign behind the curtain....

It is ironic, since a big part of how Trump got elected for a second term was Joe Biden trying to convince American voters that the economic pain they were feeling somehow wasn't real. Biden was out of touch with the way people were feeling, and it cost him at the ballot box. Now Trump is not just attempting the same thing, but far more forcefully. Biden at least stuck to actual economic figures, but Trump just blatantly lies about stuff -- making it up out of whole cloth. Trump tells voters that beef prices are down, but that's not what people see at their own grocery store. And now Trump is just brushing aside any concerns over high gas prices, essentially saying they are no big deal and everyone should just chill out and wait for the prices to come back down again (at some point).

Voters can't be quite so dismissive, however. Because it's not just the price of gasoline, the war is already starting to have ripple effects elsewhere. It's not just oil that transits through the Straight of Hormuz, there are other crucial supplies that are being bottled up. Fertilizer, for one -- which is a very big deal indeed to farmers heading into the spring planting season. Those farmers also need to buy diesel for their tractors, and diesel prices have skyrocketed even faster than gasoline prices. Other energy supplies are also being affected, from liquid natural gas to jet fuel. The higher costs of all of these will spread across the economy in uncountable ways.

It is worth mentioning that people had soured on Trump's economy even before he started this war. It's still too early to see the effect it is all going to have on voters, but higher inflation on everything and gas prices going through the roof is probably not going to make anyone feel better about the economy in general. And all Trump has to offer is: "Prices will come down again real soon now -- trust me!"

Republicans can't even agree on what they should do legislatively to improve their chances in the midterms. They seem fresh out of ideas, as was evidenced by a recent gathering of House GOP members where they were supposed to agree on an agenda for the year. Trump spoke at the meeting and laid out his own list of legislative demands.

Chief among them: an expanded version of the Save America Act, a bill previously passed by the House that would require Americans to prove they are citizens by showing a passport or a birth certificate when they register to vote and require voters to show photo identification at the polls. Trump has since demanded adding provisions that would restrict voting by mail, bar trans women from participating in women's sports and restrict gender transition care for children.

Trump also encouraged Republicans to: send health care subsidies directly to consumers to buy their own health care; codify an executive order pegging U.S. prescription drug prices to other countries'; and ban Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes.

You will note that none of these things will have the slightest effect on voters' pocketbooks any time soon (meaning: "before the midterms"). Trans women in sports and restricting voting have precisely zero to do with the economy. And Republicans aren't even sure they can get any of their ideas through, because they only have a one-vote margin in the House.

It's not just the economy souring voters on the GOP. Republicans also are being forced to pivot on immigration, since what Trump has been doing is wildly unpopular with voters -- especially Latino voters. This is a big danger signal for Republicans, who were counting on all the Latino voters who voted for Trump to vote GOP in the midterms as well. Republican politicians are now being told to tone down their rhetoric, stop talking about "mass deportations" and instead focus on immigrants accused of violent crimes. When House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed the meeting, he tried to put some more lipstick on this particular pig:

But in the middle of the gathering, Speaker Mike Johnson, a vocal booster of his fractious conference and one who is often publicly sunny about its electoral prospects, acknowledged a vulnerability: President Trump's immigration crackdown has alienated voters, and his party is now in need of a reboot on the issue.

"We've got a little hiccup with some of the Hispanic and Latino voters for certain, because some of the immigration enforcement was viewed to be overzealous," Mr. Johnson said in an interview onstage.

"And, you know, everybody can describe it differently. But here's the good news: We're in a course correction mode right now," Mr. Johnson continued. "We're going to have a new secretary of Homeland Security."

This is not going to be the game-changer Johnson thinks it is, however. D.H.S. is still shut down. Funding for ICE and other immigration agencies will continue to be blocked until Republicans agree to stop all the brutal tactics they have been using. It doesn't matter that someone other than Kristi Noem is going to be in charge, as long as those tactics are still being used. And those tactics are what voters are upset about.

Latino voters are also not just going to forget about the past year in time for the midterms, either. That is wishful thinking that is just not going to become reality for the Republicans.

Getting back to the bigger picture, Trump was already weak on the economy before he started his war of choice. The ripple effects of that war are already souring people even more, as gas prices continue to go up. Even if the price of gas does come down at some point before the election, people are still going to remember the higher prices in November. Trump's reality-defying gaslighting about how everything is wonderful is just not going to work. He can put as much lipstick on the economic malaise pig as he wants, but in the end it's still nothing more than a pig -- and the voters know that.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant