Democrats want amnesia on inflation



There’s a reason Democrats are focused on affordability: It is a daily reality, and many Democratic policies make it worse.

Democrats have been running on “affordability” since Joe Biden left office and broke the party’s direct political connection to the inflation surge of his presidency.

Yes, affordability is a problem. But you do not solve a problem by putting the people who helped cause it in charge of fixing it.

When Biden took office in January 2021, inflation was 1.4%. By March, it was 2.6%, and by December, it hit 7%. It reached 7.5% in January 2022, topped 8% in March, and hit 9.1% in June — a 40-year high. By December 2022, it was still 6.5%.

Inflation did not fall below 3% until the latter half of 2024, and it never returned to within one percentage point of the rate Biden inherited.

Democrats spent much of the Biden years defending the administration’s economic record. Now they talk constantly about affordability, even though today’s price level still reflects the inflation Americans absorbed during those years.

That distinction is vital. Slower inflation means prices are rising more slowly; it does not reverse increases already built into the economy. Those higher prices remain unless incomes eventually catch up or prices actually fall.

Politically, that creates an opening. Democrats can campaign against high prices after presiding over the period when those prices rose fastest, while hoping voters forget how they got there. Much of the coverage treats affordability as a fresh problem rather than the cumulative result of years of price increases.

Affordability is national, but it is not uniform. Some states are much more expensive than others, and the partisan pattern is difficult to ignore.

RELATED: Trump’s next tax cut should make Americans owners

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According to World Population Review’s 2026 Cost of Living Index by State, blue states dominate the least-affordable end of the rankings.

Hawaii ranks as the nation’s most expensive state. It voted for Kamala Harris 60.6% to 37.5% in 2024 and has had Democratic trifectas in state government for 27 straight years.

The pattern extends beyond Hawaii. Of the 10 least-affordable states, only Alaska voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election. The next Republican-voting state is Arizona at No. 15. Thirteen of the 15 least-affordable states, and 15 of the top 17, voted Democratic in 2024.

At the other end, Oklahoma is the nation’s most affordable state. It voted for Trump 66.2% to 31.9% in 2024 and has had 16 straight years of Republican trifectas in state government. All 10 of the most affordable states voted Republican in 2024.

Partisanship is not the only thing that determines a state’s cost of living. Geography, housing supply, energy, taxes, regulation, and labor costs all play roles. But policy affects several of those variables directly.

Democratic policies often push costs upward through heavier regulation, higher minimum wages, greater public spending, and higher taxes. Businesses pass many of those costs along. Residents pay the rest directly. Either way, affordability suffers.

That is the bind for Democrats. They see a powerful political issue in affordability, but many of their preferred remedies would add costs rather than reduce them. Fixing the problem would require reconsidering policies they have spent years defending.

Worse, they increasingly want to impose those policies nationally, exporting mistakes made in high-cost blue states to places that have so far avoided them.

Yes, affordability is a problem. But you do not solve a problem by putting the people who helped cause it in charge of fixing it.

Nick Freitas says young Americans aren’t ‘asking for too much’ — your grandpa really did have a better deal



Are young Americans expecting too much, or has homeownership genuinely become out of reach? According to BlazeTV host Nick Freitas, the answer is obvious.

While older generations often point to bigger homes and modern amenities to explain rising housing costs, Freitas says the data tells a different story. Even after accounting for those differences, the cost of buying a home has skyrocketed relative to income, leaving many young people feeling frustrated and demoralized.

“When younger people are saying that they have a real problem here, that they’re frustrated, that they’re demoralized, you can’t just dismiss that as, 'Well, they’re being demoralized by TikTok or online or whatnot,'” Freitas says.


“One of the things in this is every time this gets brought up, people will say, ‘Well, yeah, you can't compare a home in 2026 that is 2,500 square feet and four bedrooms and has all these amenities and central heating and air with what your grandpa bought on a single income that was an 800-square-foot, two-bedroom house with no AC,’” he explains.

“That’s all fair, but when you account for all of that, when you account ... for all of these other factors, what you end up finding out is that the median house price is still significantly higher. Not like a little bit. It’s not like it’s gone up 20%. No, it’s significantly higher,” he continues.

“Now all of a sudden, it’s far more difficult to buy that first house, and what everybody is telling you is, ‘Well, you just need to work harder’ or ‘you expect too much,’” he adds.

But, Freitas says, they’re not expecting too much, pointing out that if you want to buy a home close to where you work, depending on where that is, an 800-square-foot home could run you close to a million dollars.

“You’ve got building codes, and you’ve got taxes. You’ve got multiple factors impacting that price,” he says.

“Your income is never catching up with what you actually need to live. And that is a very real and a very genuine concern,” he continues. “And again, if we have people just easily dismissing this, they are missing the point.”

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

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The data center mob wants your property rights too



The war on data centers has intensified to the point that localities across the country are banning them outright or stopping them through targeted zoning and regulation. The concerns are understandable. The political response is not.

Public opposition has jumped 12 percentage points in four months, with 61% now saying they oppose building new data centers, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Opponents held 142 protests in 42 states on July 18, citing water use, noise, electricity demand, outages, pollution, and property values.

There is an obvious alternative for people who do not want a data center built on a particular parcel: Buy the land.

Predictably, politicians are turning against the industry.

On August 18, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) signed an executive order restricting data center construction and boasted that he was imposing “the strictest guardrails in the nation.” He denounced a history of industry “running roughshod over our communities to make a buck” and vowed that Pennsylvania would not be “bullied” or “bulldozed” by developers and their lawyers.

Critics noted that Shapiro, who faces re-election this year, had strongly supported data center construction and even placed projects in a fast-track approval program before the recent grassroots backlash.

The turn is broader than Pennsylvania. Some 210 counties and local governments now have active moratoriums on data center construction. More than 3,000 centers are operating in the United States, with another 1,500 under construction, Pew Research reports. Two-thirds of planned facilities are headed to rural areas, while 87% of existing data centers are urban.

It is reasonable to worry about harm from any large enterprise. Citizens have every right to warn property owners and neighbors about potential costs. They often have a moral responsibility to do so.

But concern does not create a general right to control someone else’s property.

No one can foresee all the consequences, positive or negative, of a novel enterprise. That is one reason we have courts: to hear claims of actual harm, determine responsibility, and order compensation or punishment where warranted. A functioning civil justice system reduces the need for sprawling systems of preemptive command and control.

Governments should not single out data centers with punitive taxes or regulations, nor should they subsidize them. Let them pay for the energy they use, comply with laws that apply generally, receive no privileged access to water or other resources, and answer in court if they injure others.

RELATED: The data center backlash is getting spiritual

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That is a better rule than trying to calculate every hypothetical “social cost” in advance and empowering regulators to decide which enterprises may proceed. Markets reveal costs and benefits imperfectly, but government regulation does too — usually with fewer incentives to admit mistakes.

In a free society, you do not get to decide what other people do with their property merely because you dislike the proposed use. That remains true when “you” becomes “we.” A majority does not acquire a moral right to coerce simply by counting heads.

There is an obvious alternative for people who do not want a data center built on a particular parcel: Buy the land.

If you cannot afford it alone, put together a consortium. If you can afford it but would rather force the owner to accept your preferred use without paying him, then the problem is no longer the data center. It is your claim to control property you do not own.

Buy it, and you may use it as you wish — subject, of course, to the same rule protecting your neighbors from actual harm. Mission accomplished.

The developer will go somewhere else, taking the jobs, local tax revenue, and other economic benefits to a community that wants them more.

That process is not perfect. Nothing involving human beings is. But voluntary exchange does a better job of matching scarce resources with people willing to bear their costs than political systems in which the loudest coalition simply vetoes uses it dislikes.

Unfortunately, that is no longer good enough for a growing number of Americans. The backlash against data centers parallels the rise of democratic socialism in one important respect: Both elevate collective control over individual property rights.

People who want to build data centers should listen seriously to objections. They should pay their own way and answer for the harm they cause. But the reflexive demand to control other people’s property because a project is unpopular reflects a much older political decay.

Restoring property rights is essential to renewing American prosperity and human flourishing. Data centers would be a good place to start.

Suburbs Import Policies That Ruined American Cities And Expect Different Results

Why should America’s most successful suburbs take their cues from cities struggling to preserve the very qualities suburban families value?

Ro-lling in Dough: Khanna’s Personal Money Machine Kicked Into Overdrive in 2025, Trading $165 Million at Breakneck Pace, New Disclosures Show

Centimillionaire Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) seized on a banner year for the U.S. stock market in 2025, with the trusts owned by his wife and children trading at a breakneck pace all year. All told, Khanna, who estimated he was worth no more than $78 million when he entered Congress in 2017, now estimates he's worth as much as $167 million.

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What's Wrong in Canada?

Like many Americans, I have a lot of affection for Canada. My stepmother was a Canadian, and she embodied a lot of what makes Americans fond of our northern neighbors. She was polite, intelligent, cultured, and conscientious.

The post What's Wrong in Canada? appeared first on .

Abdul El-Sayed Says Wealthy Should 'Pay Their Fair Share' But Appears To Take Advantage of Tax 'Loophole' Used by John Edwards, Accountants Say

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed says that, if elected, he will work to "build a tax system that's fair for working people and makes billionaires pay their fair share." Yet his latest financial disclosure and tax return suggest the wealthy candidate, who is in the top 1 percent of Michigan earners, is taking advantage of an obscure tax loophole—derided since then-Democratic vice presidential hopeful John Edwards used it in 2004—in order to lower his own tax burden, accountants told the Washington Free Beacon.

The post Abdul El-Sayed Says Wealthy Should 'Pay Their Fair Share' But Appears To Take Advantage of Tax 'Loophole' Used by John Edwards, Accountants Say appeared first on .

Mamdani gets pie in the face from judge against pied-à-terre tax — and then Trump piles on



The mayor of New York City faced two major roadblocks for his far-left plan to hit certain rentals in the city with a pied-à-terre tax.

The tax scheme from Mayor Zohran Mamdani was temporarily blocked by a Staten Island judge on Monday who sided with a group of homeowners suing against the tax.

'It is pure Amateur Hour, and it’s hard, as President of the United States of America, to sit back and watch it happen, especially to a place I once loved.'

Then President Donald Trump piled on and said he would seek to use the powers of the federal government to oppose the "dangerous" policy in his hometown.

"This dangerous political 'experiment' in New York will destroy what was once a great City and State," the president wrote on Truth Social. "It is pure Amateur Hour, and it’s hard, as President of the United States of America, to sit back and watch it happen, especially to a place I once loved. Financial, and then Social, RUIN, is a 100% certainty."

The tax would impose a penalty for non-primary residences rented out in the city and worth more than $5 million. Mamdani said it would hit larger landlords and help pay for his socialist schemes in the city.

The president went on to say he would seek to oppose the tax himself in order to save the city from certain ruin.

"I am looking to see if the Federal Government has any legal right to avert this disaster, before it is too late," he added, "for the millions of people who cherish New York and want to see it thrive, as opposed to becoming a filthy, crime ridden, decrepit place of mockery and scorn."

The Mamdani administration said i would file an appeal in order to allow the tax to continue.

"The City will continue with the pied-à-terre’s implementation," said Matt Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for Mamdani.

"We disagree with today’s ruling, but we are confident in both the pied-à-terre surcharge and the City’s ability to implement it fairly and effectively," he added.

RELATED: Prominent professor supported Mamdani's socialist scheme — until he became a target

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said he supported the tax but was shocked when he got a notice in the mail demanding he pay it. He says it was a mistake.

"Hopefully they can take a bit of time, take a step back, and say, well, let’s approach this in a more thoughtful way, do a little bit more diligence before we start sending out letters," said Simon Hedley.

The tax would also apply to non-primary co-ops or condominiums worth over $1 million.

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Socialism’s favorite bait-and-switch



The Democratic Socialists of America are no longer hiding the ball.

In July, the organization published a manifesto calling on the United States to "establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people.”

Public ownership does not give power to the people. It gives power to the government — and asks the people to trust that government never to abuse it.

That is not a proposal for higher taxes, tighter regulation, or a larger welfare state. It is a demand to replace private ownership of America’s largest companies with government ownership.

The language is designed to sound appealing. Why should a handful of billionaires control enormous corporations while everyone else gets left behind? Why shouldn’t “the people” own those companies instead?

No more greedy executives collecting fortunes while workers earn far less. No need to nationalize every business — only the “essential” industries deemed too important to operate for profit or remain in private hands.

It sounds reasonable. It sounds as though power would finally be taken from wealthy corporations and returned to society.

But that is nearly how Fidel Castro sold communism to the Cuban people.

History shows that “ownership by the people” usually means control by the government. The public does not acquire power. Politicians and bureaucrats do.

Castro did not introduce himself as a communist promising state control over every part of Cuba’s economy. He said he was fighting corruption, inequality, and concentrated wealth. Private property and capitalism became the villains. The solution was to place the country’s most important industries under the control of “the people.”

The rhetoric sounded fair and humane. Wealthy owners would lose power, and ordinary Cubans would gain it.

The first part happened. The second did not.

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Power was taken from private owners, but it never reached ordinary Cubans. It accumulated in the hands of the state. Today, Cubans live under political repression, chronic scarcity, and widespread poverty.

“Nothing belongs to you. It all belongs to the government,” Rosa Garcia, a survivor of Castro’s Cuba, recalled in an interview with Young Americans Against Socialism.

Garcia watched the transformation firsthand. She remembers Castro assuring Cubans that his revolution was not communist. Many believed him. Some hung signs on their doors reading, “This house is yours, Fidel.”

As government control expanded, private property rights disappeared. So did the ability to obtain goods, build wealth, or make basic economic choices without permission from the state.

When Garcia’s family later applied to leave Cuba, government officials came to their home and inventoried everything they owned to ensure they took nothing with them. Utensils, clothing, and household possessions all belonged to the government.

That is the reality behind the dreamy language of collective ownership. What supposedly belongs to everyone is controlled by the people who run the state.

Public ownership also carries enormous economic costs.

Private property gives people a reason to create, invest, innovate, and serve customers. Every smartphone, laptop, lifesaving medicine, digital platform, and other product we rely on exists because someone had the freedom to take a risk and the opportunity to profit from success.

Before Castro’s revolution, Cuba ranked among Latin America’s more prosperous countries. Today, it is one of the region’s poorest, with nearly 90% of its population living in severe poverty.

Take away private ownership, and you do more than redistribute wealth. You weaken the incentive to build businesses, develop technology, create jobs, and produce the prosperity those activities generate.

Supporters of democratic socialism will reasonably object that modern America is not revolutionary Cuba. The United States has stronger institutions, a different political culture, and constitutional protections Cuba did not preserve. Public ownership of one enterprise does not automatically produce a one-party communist state.

That distinction does not eliminate the underlying danger.

Nationalization begins with the easiest targets: highly profitable companies, billionaires accused of earning too much, and industries politicians label too important to remain privately owned.

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Leon Neal/Getty Images

Once society accepts the principle that government may replace private ownership whenever politicians decide an owner is too rich or a company is too important, no clear limiting principle remains.

Why stop with the largest corporations?

Every industry placed under public ownership gives government officials more authority to decide how resources are used, which services are available, and who receives them.

Cuba’s history shows how quickly control of a few “key industries” can become a broad assault on private property. America would be foolish to assume the same principle could be embraced here without the same temptation to expand it.

Public ownership does not give power to the people. It gives power to the government — and asks the people to trust that government never to abuse it.

America's future is Republican — but not for the reason you may think



America recently turned 250, an impressive achievement for a country that began with an argument over taxes and quickly escalated to gunfire. Americans have been arguing ever since. The more interesting question today isn't whether they'll continue, but which kinds of disagreement a political coalition can actually survive.

A recent analysis by political scientists Jeremy Pope and Michael Barber at Brigham Young University offers a revealing answer. Using data from the Cooperative Election Study, they examined where Republican and Democrat voters agree with one another — and where the coalitions begin to fracture.

One disagreement is ultimately about numbers. The other concerns who people are, what they believe, and what they owe to one another.

Republicans hold together remarkably well on culture. Whether a GOP voter has a doctorate or left school at 16, Republicans tend to land in roughly the same place on immigration, voter ID, and what children should — and shouldn't — be taught in schools. Where they bicker is on old-school economic questions: taxes, tariffs, government spending, and the size of the federal beast. Those gaps are real, but they are also the kind of fiscal scuffles political movements have been negotiating for generations.

Democrats are closer to the inverse. They display considerably more agreement on economic questions, including federal spending on health care and education. But the moment the conversation pivots to race and identity, the coalition begins to fracture. Most interestingly, Pope and Barber found that this split runs heavily along racial and educational lines. Black Democrats are often considerably more moderate than white, college-educated Democrats on issues including voter ID, policing, and regulation of speech online.

That isn't a minor disagreement. It exposes a potentially serious structural weakness inside the Democrat coalition.

Deal-breakers

The reason is cultural long before it is political. A coalition divided over the marginal tax rate can cut a deal. One faction wants 25%, another wants 30%, and eventually some exhausted politician emerges from a conference room with 27.5% and declares victory. Divide that same coalition over identity, however, and there is much less obvious room for compromise. One disagreement is ultimately about numbers. The other concerns who people are, what they believe, and what they owe to one another.

That helps explain why cultural disputes on the left can become so ferocious. Economic disagreement usually has a natural settlement point. Identity has no equivalent dial. Nobody offers half an identity and calls it a successful compromise. When progressive activists define what constitutes racial justice and significant numbers of black voters disagree, the resulting tension is not merely a disagreement over policy. It raises the uncomfortable question of who actually gets to speak for whom.

The BYU data complicates one of the most persistent assumptions in progressive politics: that minority voters naturally share the cultural politics of the highly educated activist left. Black Democrats are not about to start signing up en masse for the Heritage Foundation, but neither do their views reliably resemble those of white progressives who often claim to speak on behalf of marginalized groups. That tension has no easy fix because it runs directly through the question of coalition ownership.

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Dialing it down

Republicans face a different problem. Their voters show greater cohesion on many cultural questions while divisions emerge more clearly over economics. The MAGA populist who wants tariffs and the traditional free-marketeer who hates them may spend years trying to destroy each other's trade policy, but tariffs can ultimately rise or fall.

Money is inherently negotiable. Tax rates are dials. Spending levels are dials. A faction can lose a budget fight and remain part of the coalition.

None of this means the Republican coalition is indestructible or that cultural agreement automatically translates into electoral success. The GOP has plenty of internal battles over foreign policy, entitlement spending, trade, abortion, and the proper role of government. Nor does the data establish that Democrats are destined to fracture. Political parties routinely absorb contradictions that look impossible from the outside.

Disagreeing to agree

But Pope's and Barber's findings suggest something important about the kinds of contradictions each side is being asked to absorb.

And here the difference matters beyond party politics. Of these two styles of disagreement, one offers a more hopeful model for the future of the country.

Republicans may fight bitterly over tariffs, taxes, spending, and the size of government. But those arguments generally take place within a broader cultural consensus. Money is negotiable. A faction can lose a budget fight and still belong to the coalition.

The Democrat divide described by Pope and Barber is harder to resolve because it reaches into identity itself. When members of a coalition disagree over race, speech, policing, and who has the authority to speak for whom, there is no obvious number to split down the middle.The argument becomes not merely what should we do? but who are we?

Common vision

A republic desperately needs citizens who share a common vision of the country while tolerating dissent within their own ranks. Right now, only one side fits that description, however imperfectly. Beneath the shifting GOP platform are tens of millions of Americans who proudly identify as conservative. They might argue until they’re red in the face about the federal deficit, but they agree on the baseline definition of the nation.

That agreement is everything. A country can actually build a future on shared belonging and open arguments about budgets. It cannot build one on a permanent, paranoid quarrel over who is allowed to speak and who must stay quiet. That fight won't end, because by its very nature, it cannot ever be satisfied.

America has survived 250 years not because Americans agreed, but because for most of that history they possessed enough agreement about basic truths to fight over everything else.

If America is to make it another two and a half centuries, it will not be by inventing new divisions, but by rediscovering the unity that made this great experiment possible in the first place.