Democrats are the masters of distraction. Here’s my analysis for RealClearPolitics of how they hope to win the midterms with half-truths and scandal.
By FRANK MIELE
It’s already been decided that the 2026 midterm elections will be won or lost on the issue of “affordability.”
Just turn on any political podcast or cable news show – or read the twice-daily ActBlue texts begging for money for the latest cookie-cutter Democrat – and you’ll hear the word on an endless loop.
Apparently we are living through an affordability crisis. In one sense, that means things are more expensive than they used to be. No surprise there. I remember when gasoline cost 29 cents a gallon – but the median family income was barely five grand. Prices rise, wages follow, and they almost never reverse. Anyone waiting for a politician to make groceries cheaper is basically investing with the Tooth Fairy.
But Democrats push “affordability” anyway as the modern-day equivalent of “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage,” the Republican campaign theme in 1928. Of course that didn’t work out too well for Republicans, as the hopeful rhetoric was followed almost immediately by the Great Depression, which opened the door to even more grand promises by Democrats.
Louisiana governor/demagogue Huey Long took it to the limit by guaranteeing not just “a chicken in every pot,” but also “every man a king.”
Ultimately, this kind of manipulation predates American politics by a couple of thousand years. The Romans called it “bread and circuses” – feed the people just enough to survive and distract them with bloodsport in the arena.
Today’s Democrats have perfected the virtual version. No bread. No gladiators. Just slogans, promises, and outrage on demand.
The “affordability” argument is used to convince voters that when Democrats are in power, Americans will not only have more food but also lower rent and bigger houses. Ridiculous on its face, but an easy sell to a population enthralled to social media and fake news.
Truth be told, inflation has slowed for almost all sectors of the American economy compared to the Biden years, so affordability is actually improving. The one most devastating factor hurting affordability is the cost of housing, thanks in part to the failure of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to heed President Trump’s call to lower interest rates. Moreover, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted, it was the Democrats themselves who bear the greatest responsibility for the hike in housing costs. Something called supply and demand.
“Adding 10 to 20 million [illegal aliens] demanding housing … is what caused a great deal of housing inflation for working Americans,” Bessent told Rep. Maxine Waters at a recent hearing. “So you and the Biden administration should be ashamed.”
But the good news for Democrats is that voters are so eager for political sustenance that they will gladly swallow empty promises of a better life – hook, line, and sinker.
As for the circuses, you can take your pick. Of course we are surrounded by media creations that serve the same purpose as Roman circuses, whether it’s UFC combat or the red vs. blue political scrimmage in Washington, D.C. Some would argue for the anti-ICE riots (er, sorry, protests) that have left two people dead so far. And, yes, the Democratic left has been galvanized by the call to action that puts average citizens up against armed government agents, but surely just as many voters have been repelled by the taint of insurrection.
But for bipartisan bloodsport, nothing can surpass the ongoing saga of the Epstein files. Just as Roman citizens were torn between cheering for their favorite gladiators and sheer glee at the prospect of them being ripped to shreds by lions, so too the Epstein files have become a two-faced guilty pleasure.
First of all, the smugly superior thought police of the left can take pride in exposing the misogynistic and nihilistic exploits of the uber-rich. Throwing convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein to the lions is virtue -signaling of the easiest sort, especially since he is long dead. But what really makes the Epstein files the equivalent of the Roman Coliseum is the prurient and unpredictable casualty list that grows with each new release from the Department of Justice.
Of course, the motivation for releasing the files in the first place was the left’s hope that Donald Trump would be exposed as a sex freak because of his known association with Epstein in the early 2000s. That hope has gone unfulfilled, and if anything, Trump comes through the process relatively unscathed, giving some credence to the president’s argument that the demand for the files to be released was little more than a Democratic hoax to attempt to smear Trump based on innuendo rather than facts.
But what has become widely apparent in recent days is that the release of the files has put multiple people on both sides of the political aisle into the arena to await their fate of “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” in the court of public opinion.
The list of people who we now know had some kind of relationship with Epstein grows every day, as more research is done on the 3 million pages of documents. One day it’s Prince Andrew. The next it’s a talk-show host or a tech billionaire. Every document drop produces another celebrity tossed into the ring while the crowd debates guilt or innocence like it’s fantasy football.
Some of it is pretty amusing. Consider Whoopi Goldberg, host of “The View,” who has long tried to link Trump to Epstein without ever revealing her own relationship to the shady financier. Now the latest tranche of documents shows that Goldberg knew Epstein well enough to ask him for the use of his private jet for a quick charity trip to Monaco. Shame.
Or ponder Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, who has long defended his association with Epstein as a simple business relationship, which Gates now says he regrets. No wonder, since Epstein apparently wrote (whether imaginatively or factually) that Gates had acquired a sexually transmitted disease from “Russian girls” and sought medicine he could secretly give his then-wife. Tall tale? Maybe, but perfect fodder to keep the public titillated.
While we argue about grocery bills and pore over Epstein’s guest list, the country sleepwalks past immigration unrest, an AI job shock, and the real possibility of war in the Pacific.
Bread. Circuses. And no one minding the empire.
