We're going to pre-empt our normal weekly wrap-up this week, because instead we feel the need to rant. We're getting increasingly sick of the way the progressive candidates are being talked about by mainstream political pundits, so we felt the urge to vent.

Plenty of things did happen in the political world this week, with Trump again trying to outdo himself in the idiocy category. He threatened to "bomb the shit" out of a U.S. ally in the war against Iran, delusionally said the Strait of Hormuz was now a "U.S. territory," took the time to introduce two major multi-billion-dollar changes to American aircraft carrier design (neither of which makes the slightest military sense), tried to pull out of joint military exercises with South Korea while sucking up to North Korea's leader once again, and for good measure ridiculed American voters complaining about having "to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline" at a political rally.

We'll just post one commentary on all of this before we get to our rant, because it struck us as being a pretty funny metaphor. It appeared in an article on how Trump is just lashing out randomly on the Iran war:

Alan Eyre, a former diplomat who served on the U.S. negotiating team that secured the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, compared the Trump administration's actions to that of a "thrashing mastodon, slowly sinking into a tar pit" during the Ice Age.

The president's statements this week, Eyre said, are evidence of "frustration that he cannot even achieve the minimal goal of getting traffic in the Strait of Hormuz back to normal levels."

That's pretty good, we have to admit. We're probably going to repeat that one in the future at some point -- that's what we thought when we read it, at least.

Moving right along, though, we thought it was time for a rational look at what has been happening in the Democratic primaries and within the party's ranks. Because while we must admit our bias is tilted in support of the progressives, we also have to caution that change is likely to come a lot more slowly than some of the firebrands want to see happen. But as we said, we were just getting sick of the way the mainstream media refuses to look at any of it in anything other than the most basic "horserace" sense. So here is what we have to say on the issue:

 

The rise of the progressives

Much is being made over the ideological struggle happening within the Democratic Party, with some likening it to a "Democratic Tea Party," or even a civil war among Democrats. Both terms are a bit overblown, but there is indeed a struggle for the soul of the party happening. It didn't spring into existence overnight, or even with the election of New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for that matter. Instead it is a movement that has gradually built up steam to reach the point in Democratic politics where it is now.

The new movement comes from progressives, challenging the entrenched establishment (or centrist) part of the party. Neither label is entirely accurate, in fact. "Establishment" more properly means the party's bigwigs -- the Democratic politicians who have been around for long enough to achieve positions of power within the party machinery. But there are plenty of newbie Democratic politicians who are also described as such, which is a bit of a misnomer. "Centrist" or even "moderate" is an even more loaded term for the establishment side, because the way most people use those labels is to deny the fact that both terms, realistically-speaking, tend to describe what the progressives would call "corporatists." These are the Democrats still enamored with the Bill Clinton (and Barack Obama, to a lesser degree) model of Democrats doing the bidding of Wall Street and the big corporations while either overlooking or actively harming average working-class American families. Or, to be less harsh, some might be called "incrementalists," since that's how they think progress should be made. But for now "establishment" is the best description of this faction, since they do hold the reins of power within the party and they are still largely in charge of the party's public direction.

"Progressive" is also somewhat inadequate to describe the growing faction within the party. Some prefer to use "democratic socialist" or "economic populist," but it's easier to say "progressive," so that seems to be the fallback way to describe the Democrats who want big changes in the party's direction. It's more inclusive anyway, since there are progressives who are indeed democratic socialists (or even "Democratic Socialists" -- full members of the Democratic Socialists of America), but there are also some progressives who either don't agree with the D.S.A. platform or just don't like the label. Pretty much all progressives are economic populists, but some don't like the label "populist" and thus avoid calling themselves that. So "progressive" is the best inclusive term for the insurgents within the Democratic Party.

The political pundits always make a big deal out of calling the progressives "far-left" or "leftist radicals" or other left/right labels, while calling the establishment Democrats "centrist." But this doesn't even begin to capture how average voters usually see the two groups. Neither does focusing in on individual ideological or agenda differences between the two groups. You can talk about support for Israel or Medicare-for-all until you are blue in the face, but again this doesn't really touch on why so many voters are so open to the progressives' message right now. Because other things are in play that figure a lot more prominently in voters' minds when comparing the two.

One big one is age. There is a generational shift happening within the Democratic Party, as the old guard is slowly being ousted by younger faces. This has mostly been happening in very blue districts and states, where any Democrat who wins the nomination is likely to cruise to victory in November. Democrats who have served in Congress for 20 or 30 years or even more are being challenged by much younger candidates -- who are generally a lot more progressive than their elders. But it's not entirely an ideological shift -- there are some establishment challengers who have dethroned much older establishment Democrats in primaries as well. And there are some progressives who are getting up there in age too (more on him in a moment).

The biggest factor in all of this -- and the way to see the entire struggle between the progressives and the establishment Democrats -- is not (to quote a pithy old political adage) the dog in the fight, but instead the fight in the dog. Progressives are winning because voters see them as real fighters for their cause -- the cause of making life easier for average families, even if that means corporations and rich folks have to pay more in taxes. It's that progressives dream big, while the establishment Democrats are content to (at best) tinker around the edges of things.

As mentioned, the rise of the progressives didn't happen overnight. It happened because of one man: Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders began running for president in 2015 and 2016 -- before Trump ever set foot in the White House. He ran after eight years of a Democratic president. Barack Obama, together with his veep Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton as secretary of State, had been in charge of running America for years. Bernie wasn't pushing back against Republican excesses, he was instead pushing back against Democratic timidity.

Bernie came very close to winning, both in 2016 and in 2020, even though the entire weight of the establishment wing of the party was brought into play to defeat him. That showed the power of his ideas. It showed where the excitement in the party was moving to. And as a result, the "Overton window" within the Democratic Party began to shift. Bernie's success and popularity meant that other Democrats wanted to capture some of the same excitement from the voters as Bernie had. So they began slowly getting on board with some of Bernie's proposals. Sometimes this support was halfhearted and sometimes it was full-throated. Not every Democrat who began supporting Bernie on each issue was totally on board with his entire agenda, but his bandwagon did grow.

Bernie-supported politicians began winning some races, too. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of "The Squad," for instance. When Joe Biden did win the presidency, he (more than any other establishment Democrat at the time, to his credit) knew full well that Bernie's agenda commanded a huge amount of support from Democratic voters -- so he worked with Bernie when putting together his own big bills for Congress to consider. The resulting bills were a lot more progressive than the agenda Biden had run on, because Bernie's success made Biden want to bring the whole party together in a big way and also to accomplish great things as president.

Alas for all of us, Democrats had such a small majority in the Senate that all it took was two establishment/centrist/corporatist Democrats to derail much of this agenda. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema blocked all of the most ambitious parts of Biden's "Build Back Better" plan -- which had been heavily influenced by the progressive agenda of Bernie Sanders. If it had passed as written, it would have by now introduced a slew of new programs to the American public -- things like free or income-capped child care and preschool, tuition-free community college, and subsidized elder care as well. These could have been real economic game-changers for tens of millions of families, and those are just three examples among many that fell by the wayside -- due directly to Manchin and Sinema balking. But at least Biden (to his credit) tried to achieve some progressive agenda items.

The big divide between progressives and establishment Democrats boils down to whether to try for big things or not. The progressives believe in shooting for the moon, even if you don't achieve your full agenda right away. Think big! Radical changes can work! They will be popular with the public as well! This all frightens the establishment types, who would much prefer to slowly tinker and incrementally change things in tiny little ways (that the public usually doesn't even notice).

The big fight happening now -- both in the primaries and now the general election campaign -- is whether or not promising to fight for big bold changes is going to scare away moderate or independent voters. The whole debate centers on "electability." This is where the two groups see things completely differently. The establishment types caution that middle-of-the-road non-threatening Democratic candidates are the way to go, because they won't scare people in the suburbs or crossover voters or independents too much. The progressives make the counterargument that playing it safe doesn't always work out, because establishment Democrats can (at times) sound a lot like "Republican-lite," and why would someone vote for that if they have the choice of a real Republican? Instead, the progressives argue, the way to win is to generate an enormous amount of enthusiasm among the voters with far-reaching and impactful ideas -- so much enthusiasm that it spurs a whole lot of people who don't normally vote to turn out on Election Day. The progressives believe that this is the key to victory -- that their candidates are even more electable because they generate so much excitement that the number of new voters (who don't normally vote) more than make up for any votes lost in the suburbs or among independents.

Those are the two competing theories, in a nutshell.

This November, we are quite likely to see a somewhat mixed result. In fact, we've been seeing mixed results all along. Some very progressive candidates have won big races, but plenty of establishment candidates have also won the party's nomination and beaten progressive challengers to do so. How each of them does will feed into the larger argument over electability. The only thing that would avoid post-election intraparty bickering is if the Democrats swept the board, with both establishment and progressives chalking up big wins everywhere.

That's kind of pie-in-the-sky thinking, though. More likely will be some sort of mixed result. But there's an important factor that probably will get lost in the bickering, which is that candidates matter, and their match to their state or district also matters. There are both establishment and progressives who are natural-born orators and politicians, who can fire up a crowd and get people excited. Charisma knows no ideological bounds, to put this another way. And charisma is an often-overlooked reason for a big political win, no matter what the ideology of the charismatic candidate happens to be. Lack of charisma can be a big reason for a loss as well.

The other big factor is the match of the candidate to the state/district. This truth is one that plenty of both progressives and establishment Democrats often soft-pedal. In some places, a boring milquetoast candidate is going to lose. In others, a fire-breathing progressive is going to go down in flames (not to belabor the fire-based metaphors or anything). And the opposite is true -- in both cases. The argument playing out now is precisely which states and districts need which type of candidate. And this will likely be examined in detail after the election is over too -- progressives may win victories in some surprising places, for instance.

What happens after the election will, of course, depend on the results. But one way or another it seems like progressives are going to increase their numbers and influence within the Democratic ranks in Congress next term. So what will this all mean?

Well, it won't mean America suddenly goes communist, for one. Trump and his GOP minions can scaremonger about this dire threat all they want, but it just ain't gonna happen for multiple reasons. The first is that few progressive Democrats want it to happen. The second is that even if they all did, they still only represent one smallish (but growing) faction within the party. They are in no way a majority among Democrats, and far from being a majority in Congress at large. Nobody's going to be introducing bills to have the government seize the means of production in America (which is the textbook definition of "socialism," but is not supported by most democratic socialists). And even if such bills were introduced, they wouldn't have a prayer of passing.

Republican fearmongering aside, the next question the pundits usually turn to is whether progressives are going to act like a "Democratic Tea Party" faction or not. This is a convenient comparison for them to make, since the Tea Party faction did run rampant for about a decade within the Republican ranks in Congress. But progressives probably aren't going to be anywhere near as destructive to the Democratic agenda as the Tea Party was to the Republicans' plans. The big difference between the two is that the Tea Party was content to just nihilistically blow things up, while the progressives truly want to see some positive things get done. Republicans would put together bills that gave the Tea Partiers 90 to 95 percent of what they were demanding, and they'd still vote against them. They were such purists that it wasn't even "half a loaf is better than none" that they rejected, it was "nine-tenths of a loaf is still not good enough for us." Progressives are likely to be a lot more amenable to compromise -- because again, they are highly motivated to get stuff done, as quickly as possible.

There may be battles for Democratic leadership in Congress, especially if they win control of both chambers (which is still a longshot in the Senate, but is a possibility). There may be challenges to Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, and while the progressives may not be able to force one of their own on the rest of the party, they may be strong enough to deny Jeffries and Schumer the chance to lead a Democratic majority and replace them with younger, more dynamic Democrats. That will be high drama for the political press to cover, but it might be a necessary adjustment, since both Schumer and Jeffries are seen as pretty lackluster in fighting back against Trump and the GOP.

There's one big problem with progressives' relative influence in the Senate, as well. As things stand, Democrats need to hold every seat they now control and flip four Republican seats to regain control of the chamber. But having a 51-49 majority might not be enough to get much done. With that balance, all it would take would be for one Democrat to cross the aisle and not support bills or motions for them to fail (with the Republican vice president breaking the 50-50 tie). And Democrats do indeed have a senator who is getting more cranky and contrarian by the day: John Fetterman. Fetterman seems to delight in voting with the Republicans on major bills, much to the consternation of other Democrats. If he knew he was the key vote to everything Democrats wanted to accomplish, he might become precisely as insufferable as Joe Manchin was. Democrats would need to flip five Republican seats to avoid this problem -- which isn't a complete impossibility, but is a lot tougher row to hoe than flipping only four seats.

So, yes, there is indeed a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party taking place. Both sides have won notable victories during the primaries. Some candidates from both sides will probably win, and some will lose. But even if the Democrats totally sweep their way into power, the progressive faction will have increased leverage over the direction of the party -- but they won't exactly be driving the bus. Some of their ideas will make it into bills that pass, and some will either be modified or wind up on the cutting room floor.

As with the Fetterman issue, there is also one other big thing to consider when picturing how Congress is going to look (and what it is going to do) next January, and that is that Donald Trump will still be president. For two more years -- until the next congressional election takes place.

This means that even if the progressives convince their fellow Democrats to pass big ideas, they will probably die when Trump vetoes them. That's pure speculation, since Trump is a very transactional kind of guy, so who knows what he would actually support? He doesn't care one iota for ideology, he just does whatever he wants. Remember Nancy Pelosi bargaining with him? Surprisingly, he agreed to a lot of things she proposed -- things that no other Republican president would have stood for. So it really is an open question what progressive bills Trump would decide to jump on the bandwagon with (and then claim all the credit for himself, of course) and which he would veto (even out of spite). But to some extent or another Trump would be a big check on progressives' ambitions for passing their agenda.

But let's end on a positive note, shall we? Because even with the checks on progressives in Congress from establishment Democrats and a Republican president, their agenda will at least receive an airing and a seat at the Democratic agenda-setting table. Ideas which are too radical and fringe will be rejected, while more-achievable and popular ideas may be adopted by the Democrats as a whole. Defining which ideas are which will probably be a struggle, but that's how the sausage is made. At the very least, progressives will probably have more leverage and more power than they do right now. There may be more progressive senators sitting alongside Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. There may be a bigger progressive caucus within the House. The Overton window is likely to continue to shift, as a result. The Democratic Party and the Democratic agenda is going to start reflecting more and more progressive ideas. This will be a gradual change, as it has been ever since Bernie threw his hat into the presidential ring, but it will become increasingly important after the 2028 election -- if Democrats can manage to put one of their own in the White House.

 

It was a pretty impressive week for a lot of Democrats, we are happy to say. So we've got a bunch of Honorable Mention awards to hand out before the big one.

Honorable Mention awards go out to Senator Jon Ossoff for hitting a nerve with Trump, by making an offhand remark during a speech: "[Donald Trump] doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar." What followed was an avalanche of reporting on Natalie Harp, who has been called Trump's "human printer," since a big part of her job is to follow him around with a portable printer, printing out any article from anywhere that says something nice about Trump.

Democrat Brandon Dukes won a special election for a Pennsylvania statehouse seat, which was remarkable since they hadn't elected a Democrat in decades and the district went for Trump by a whopping 18 points.

Aisha Wahab won a special election (beating another Democrat) for the House seat in California that Eric Swalwell resigned from, which was notable because she beat back a late-breaking flood of money from AIPAC.

Republicans are very worried that Democrat Sherrod Brown might flip a Senate seat in Ohio because he has so successfully tied his opponent to supporting data centers. Other Democrats, please take note (of the power of this issue)!

Zohran Mamdani apparently got a bunch of complaints for photos of him riding around New York City on a bicycle -- without wearing a helmet. So he put out a social media video where he addresses the complaints by admitting: "You're right. I've got to do better," while unboxing a new bike helmet on camera. "I'm listening. I'm learning. Safety first, NYC." That's remarkable for any politician, to just admit: "You're right, I'm wrong, I will do better."

Honorable Mention awards all around!

However, the winner of this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week is Florida's Angie Nixon, who defeated Alex Vindman in the Democratic primary for a Senate race. Nixon, who is a very progressive Democrat in the state legislature, managed a stunning upset in this race, despite being out-raised by a factor of 16-to-1 and outspent on advertising by a factor of almost 37-to-1. Here are the numbers:

Money is usually key to political campaigns in Florida, the nation's third-largest state and home to 10 television markets. Ms. [Angie] Nixon raised only $975,000, compared to Mr. [Alex] Vindman's more than $16.3 million. And she spent just $60,000 on advertising, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm, compared to his $2.2 million.

Mr. Vindman will face questions about why his campaign did not spend more introducing him to voters. But credit Ms. Nixon, a union organizer, for knowing how to harness the enthusiasm of grass-roots Democrats and volunteers -- and deftly using social media -- to inform them about her candidacy.

Nixon won even with that disparity, and she won in the South -- something that progressives just weren't supposed to be able to do. She also completely upset the conventional wisdom over what types of voters would vote for a progressive:

That boost, combined with [Alex] Vindman largely ignoring his primary challenge to focus on the general election, allowed [Angie] Nixon to assemble a winning coalition that looked quite different from those backing progressive statewide candidates in other states, including Michigan and Wisconsin. There, the progressive candidates typically did best in more college-educated and younger areas, and sometimes floundered in lower-income counties and those with more Black residents.

That was not the case in Florida. Nixon, who is Black, won by 30 points in Florida's counties with the most Black residents, as well as its least-college-educated counties.

We wrote about this victory in greater detail earlier this week, where we summed up the other data provided within that article:

This article helpfully provides graphs, showing Nixon winning the counties with the highest percentages of both college-educated voters and Black residents. In counties with under 20 percent college-educated voters, Nixon won 65 percent to Vindman's 35 percent. In counties with over 30 percent Black voters, the percentages were exactly the same, 65-35. Less surprising was Nixon's overwhelming advantage with younger voters, where she also beat Vindman in the highest-percentage younger-voter counties by the same 65-35 split. Also less surprising was that Nixon won in urban core counties by 63 percent to 37 percent, but the surprising part of this breakdown was that she also beat Vindman in suburban counties -- 53 percent to 47 percent -- where progressives have also struggled in other states. Astonishingly, Nixon even beat Vindman in Broward County, which is Vindman's home county. That's pretty impressive right there, you've got to admit.

Pretty impressive indeed. Which is why Angie Nixon is the clear choice for this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Florida state Representative Angie Nixon on her official contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

 

There's a footnote to that California special election race, sadly. Because this week, the F.B.I. seized a phone and computer from former House member Eric Swalwell, at the San Francisco airport. They then executed another search warrant on his house. Because they had warrants, it means they had enough evidence to convince a judge to sign off on the searches, which isn't exactly good news for Swalwell. He still maintains his innocence, and it is certainly possible that this is just more of the weaponized Department of Justice overreaching, but we still felt Swalwell deserves at least a (Dis-)Honorable Mention award.

Even worse, though, was the news that Representative Jimmy Gomez is now being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for sexual assault and sexual harassment. Here's the story:

Lawyers for a woman interviewed as part of the House Ethics Committee probe into Rep. Jimmy Gomez alleged the California Democrat's interactions with their client were not consensual -- rebutting claims by Gomez that his "personal mistakes outside" his marriage were "consensual in nature."

"Contrary to Representative Gomez's assertion in his statement, his actions were not 'consensual in nature' with respect to our client," Lisa Banks and Sarah Nesbitt, attorneys for the woman who spoke with the Ethics Committee "about her experience of sexual harassment and assault by Representative Jimmy Gomez," said in a statement Wednesday.

They added, "We fully expect that the House Committee on Ethics will come to the same conclusion in its investigation."

There's really not much more to say, at this point, other than to hand Gomez this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

[Contact Representative Jimmy Gomez on his House contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Volume 853 (8/21/26)

Every so often we see an article in the mainstream media that just warms the cockles of our heart. This week, we saw just such an article on the subject of Trump's "promises made, promises broken" economic record.

We were enamored of this article for multiple reasons, the first being it is chock-full of graphs which easily show the point the author is making (we are a sucker for a good chart, so an article with a whole bunch of them is always going to catch our eye, we fully admit). The second is that it is wonderfully broad, listing a whole bunch of campaign promises Trump made when running in 2024, together with the hard cold numbers that show how disastrously wrong his promises have turned out to be. And the third reason we loved the article (full disclosure) is that it was a one-stop shopping bonanza for Democratic talking points. In fact, the entire talking point list this week comes directly from this article (that's how impressed we were by it!).

So without further introduction, here is a list of broken promises for Trump, just in time for all Democrats running in the midterms to make the best use out of them all.

 

   Growth down, deficits growing

Let's start with the big picture, shall we?

"When he ran for a second term, Donald Trump promised, and I quote, 'We're going to grow like nobody's ever grown before.' But since he took office, GDP growth has slowed from over 2.7 percent under Joe Biden to less than two percent. The most recent quarter was especially anemic, with only 1.5 percent growth. Trump also promised to 'balance the federal budget,' so let's see how he's doing on that one too, shall we? Whoops! Deficits are up under Trump from where they were when Biden was in office, and they are projected to absolutely go through the roof in the next decade, due to Trump giving yet another gigantic tax cut to the wealthy. So just on the basics of the economy, Trump did exactly the opposite of what he promised everyone he'd do."

 

   Manufacturing jobs way down

This is a big deal too, because it is so personal for those directly affected.

"Trump promised everyone that manufacturing would come roaring back to America and companies would be hiring people like crazy to build stuff here again. He slapped tariffs on every country he could, telling everyone that it would be worth the increase in prices because everyone would be able to get a great job in the manufacturing sector. So how's that going for him? Well, there are now 62,000 fewer Americans working in manufacturing since when Trump took office. Yet another big promise broken."

 

   Huge Medicaid cuts

This one is going to hit rural areas particularly hard, as more and more hospitals have to close their doors.

"Donald Trump promised everyone during the campaign that, quote, 'We're not cutting Medicaid.' And then he turned right around and shoved his 'big ugly bill' through Congress, which cut Medicaid by a whopping trillion dollars over the next decade. Most of the cuts won't kick in until after the midterm elections, but these cuts are going to mean tens of millions of Americans will either be kicked off the program or have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the medical care they need. This one wasn't even an unkept promise, it was just flat-out a big lie. Trump did cut Medicaid -- by one trillion dollars."

 

   Health insurance up 26 percent

This one's already being felt, in a big way, by millions of families.

"Trump also promised, out on the campaign trail, to bring health care costs 'way down.' What happened instead is that his Republicans refused to extend Obamacare subsidies -- even after Democrats shut the government down in an effort to avoid this catastrophe -- which has now caused the price of health insurance to jump a stunning 26 percent just this year alone. It was just another fake promise from Trump -- he never had any intention of caring about what the average family has to pay for health coverage."

 

   Inflation outpacing income

This hits home for everyone.

"Once again, Trump made promises he just could not keep on inflation. Here he is on the campaign trail, two years ago: 'Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.' So how's that been working out? Inflation has gone way up, partly due to Trump's idiotic war with Iran, and now stands at a rate that is higher than wage gains. So even if your boss gives you a decent raise, you will still be falling behind. I really don't even have to explain this one to you, because everyone feels the impact with every trip to the grocery store or gas station, right? Trump bamboozled the people who voted for him to lower prices. They're don't just keep going up, they're doing so faster than ever. Trump lied, period."

 

   Mortage rates still way up

Yet another total lie.

"Trump promised that he was going to bring mortgage rates way down too. Here's how he put it: 'We're going to get them back down to, we think, three percent, maybe even lower than that, saving the average homebuyer thousands of dollars per year.' So let's check the numbers on that, shall we? Mortgage rates are largely unchanged under Trump and now stand at a whopping 6.7 percent. That's a long, long way from three percent, right? Trump's disastrous economic policies are pretty much guaranteed to keep mortgage prices high, too -- there's no end in sight to the high rates. Inflation keeps them high, the growing national debt keeps them high, and Trump has no clue what to do about any of it."

 

   Four bucks a gallon

We saved the biggest punch for last.

"Donald Trump lied to America about gas prices. He promised he'd cut gas prices in half in his first year in office. That would have put the price somewhere around a buck-fifty a gallon, folks. He even bragged about, quote, 'getting gasoline below two dollars a gallon' while campaigning. Gas prices stayed above three dollars a gallon for most of his first year back in office, and then his disastrous decision to go to war with Iran -- a nation that was no threat to us at the time -- caused the price to spike way above four bucks a gallon. That's where it still is -- but I don't have to point this one out to you. You can see it on every street corner, on those giant signs with the sky-high prices on them. Trump swore he was going to provide cheap gas for every American family, and instead we are paying the price at the pump for his foreign policy disaster in Iran. And there's no end in sight for any of it."

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground