America 'hurtling out of control' as Trump’s 'chaos' intensifies: analysis

Over the years, a long list of candidates have used anxiety over the economy to their political advantage in the United States' presidential races — from Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 to Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992. It was during the 1992 race, in fact, that Democratic strategist James Carville made the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid" famous.

Carville's messaging helped doom President George H.W. Bush's reelection hopes. After the Persian Gulf War, Bush's approval ratings were so high that he seemed destined for a massive reelection victory. But Clinton, with Carville's help, hammered Bush relentlessly on the early 1990s recession and defeated him, 370-168, in the Electoral College and by roughly 5.5 percent in the national popular vote.

Carville, 34 years later, is still reminding Americans that "it's the economy, stupid" and encouraging Democrats to bring a strong economic message to the 2026 midterms.

Salon's Heather Digby Parton agrees that Democrats need aggressive economic messaging in the midterms. But in an article published on January 23, she stresses that they also need to tie the economy into a broad argument against the "chaos and fear" that President Donald Trump is generating.

"However Democratic congressional candidates ultimately decide to approach this," Parton argues, "they simply cannot behave as if we are living through a time of politics as usual. A Republican majority that is allowing Trump to use tariffs as a weapon that hurts average Americans, occupy American cities with paramilitary forces, brutalize immigrants, depose foreign leaders, threaten allies, blackmail law firms and universities, defund science and education, and essentially tear up the Constitution — all in order to appease a tyrant — is simply not something they can ignore. Democrats can't pretend the only thing that matters is the economy."

The Salon journalist continues, "All of those are now kitchen table issues. People know that things are hurtling out of control, and they're talking about it. They're taking to the streets to protest in their own neighborhoods and in huge numbers all over the country. If voters aren't laying out that whole panoply of atrocities to pollsters and canvassers, it's not because they aren't feeling it — it's because they're terrified by the apparent impotence of everyone with any power to stop it."

Democrats, Parton stresses, must make the midterms a referendum on Trump's second presidency and show voters why other Republicans are partly to blame for his policies.

"According to the latest CNN poll," Parton explains, "58 percent of Americans say Trump's first year back in office has been an abject failure. The number one job for Democratic candidates is to make it clear to the American people that every single member of the Republican Party is complicit in everything he is doing — and the only way to fix that is to elect a Democratic Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty as a co-equal branch of government. From the looks of the latest polling, that's fundamentally what people want from the Democrats right now — and it shouldn't be too difficult to make the case that they’re prepared and equipped to make that happen."

Heather Digby Parton's full article for Salon is available at this link.