Politics

Trump Is Making the Same Mistake as Biden

Downplaying voters’ economic pain will backfire.

First published in The Atlantic on December 7, 2025.

by David Axelrod, The Atlantic

December 11, 2025 | reading time: 5 Min.

Donald Trump recaptured the White House in part by relentlessly exploiting Joe Biden’s failure to heed widespread concerns about the rising cost of living. Now, bizarrely, President Trump is walking himself—and his party—into the same perilous trap by denying the economic reality that working families are living.