No, this won’t be a bait-and-switch: By the end of the column, the Republican Party will have an executable, realistic PR plan that flips the narrative on the so-called “affordability crisis,” turning a liability into a political strength.
And if you’re grumbling because it doesn’t seem fair that President Joe Biden spent four years spiking inflation and crashing the economy, and now it’s somehow all Donald Trump’s fault for not fixing everything in the first 10 months, you’re missing the point.
PR isn’t about reality. (Which is why I love it: Reality sucks! It always gets in the way of my daydreams.) Instead, PR is exclusively limited to how reality is perceived.
With all due respect to Jack Nicholson, it’s not that we “can’t handle the truth.” It’s that the truth doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is how the truth is perceived.
Let the philosophers bicker over what’s ultimately true. If you wanna win a political campaign, you’ve got to meet the voters where they actually are — based on what they really, truly believe.
And right now, by a two-to-one margin, more Americans blame Trump for raising prices than credit him for lowering them. Almost half (47%) blame his tariff policy for rising credit card debt. Two-thirds (66%) believe they lead to higher prices.
That’s the perception.
Furthermore, the Democratic Party will 100% make the 2026 midterms a referendum on affordability. After winning in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia, they’re convinced they’ve finally discovered Trump’s kryptonite — the winning issue that’ll put ‘em back on top. They won’t surrender this issue, come hell or high water.
At this point, they can’t afford to let affordability go.
That’s the backdrop. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and solve this mess:
PR campaigns shouldn’t have ambiguous destinations. So our endpoint can’t be something vague like, “We want people to like Republicans and hate Democrats.”
The more specific we are, the more targeted our plan.
Specifically, we want to remind the American people that inflation exploded under President Biden — and Trump has been working 24/7 to clean up Biden’s historic mess. Additionally, we’ve already achieved so much! In key categories, prices have already dropped!
(Even though the mainstream media tells you the opposite.)
We want the American people to believe:
- Inflation was the fault of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.
- Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s plan to fix the economy is already working. We might not be out of the woods yet, but we’ve made extraordinary progress.
- If we continue the Trump-GOP plan, the economy will roar, wealth will grow, and an age of peace and prosperity will be upon us. The LAST thing we should do is give the economic keys back to the same Dems who crashed the economy in the first place!
That’s where we’re leading our audience: BIDEN was the problem; TRUMP is the solution.
In Sunday’s VIP column, we explored the first steps of this PR plan. (And if you’re not a VIP yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Dude, you’re missing out.) Our mission is to bypass the mainstream media’s blackout on good economic news, communicating DIRECTLY to the American people how far we’ve already come from the Biden disaster.
And to do that, we’re gonna cherry-pick five ordinary household expenditures. (Think: cost of milk, gallon of gas, price of eggs, etc.) Doesn’t really matter which ones, just as long as they skyrocketed in price under Biden and have improved under Trump, and they make sense to the average American.
For PR purposes, the more dramatic the Biden-Trump difference, the better.
Then, we’re gonna track these five items in an irrefutable, transparent “dashboard” that’s updated daily on EVERY federal communications platform — along with all the leading names/sites in conservative media.
And we’ll especially push it hard on social media.
But this is PR, so we need to give it a catchy name. Here’s my idea: If our five items are, say, bread, insulin, diapers, eggs, natural gas… well, well, well, what do you know!
We’ve got the acronym B.I.D.E.N.
So let’s call it the B.I.D.E.N. Pain Index!
Meanwhile, we need to defend Trump’s tariff policy from being scapegoated for inflation. Yet one of the biggest, most obvious benefits of these tariffs is the BILLIONS of dollars we’ve already raised.
We’re gonna give that money a very specific new name: our “trade rebalance unit” (and you’ll see why in just a sec).
Exactly like the B.I.D.E.N. Pain Index, we’re gonna make the “trade rebalance unit” phrase ubiquitous, plastering it on federal websites, conservative media, social media, economic reports, and more.
President Trump has floated the idea of mailing a $2,000 tariff dividend to millions of Americans. Although many conservatives would prefer to pay down the debt, the political benefits of his dividend plan are obvious.
And in a closely divided midterm election, it could be the difference between keeping the House and losing it. I think we should do it.
(Say what you want about bribery, but when you stop and think about it, bribery is actually a great way to pay someone to do what you want ‘em to do!)
So, if President Trump were to announce a “trade rebalance unit” mailed payment…
…we’d have ourselves another acronym: The T.R.U.M.P. dividend.
The B.I.D.E.N. Pain Index was the problem — and the T.R.U.M.P. dividend the solution.
What would you rather have, America: B.I.D.E.N. pain or the T.R.U.M.P. solution?
For millions of Americans, it’d be a no-brainer.
Best of all, in addition to reminding voters that B.I.D.E.N. was the problem and T.R.U.M.P. the solution, it also switches the so-called “affordability crisis” away from what we can’t afford — by shining a bright spotlight on all the items that are getting cheaper and more affordable. It’s as close as we can get to a complete and total 180-degree turnaround.
Not a bad PR message for the midterms, eh?
One Last Thing: The Democrats are on the ropes, but make no mistake: The donkeys are still dangerous. We need your help to succeed!
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Happy Holidays!
