I am not sure who to attribute it to, but I think it is Roy Cooper, former NC governor, running to the Senate, who used a slogan I think is potentially as powerful as what Mamdani coined, "affordability," to become the Mayor of New York. It is "cost, chaos, corruption". All of those three words relate to issues that are bothering the other 60%, not in MAGA's 40% camp, and maybe even a few of them, as well. Each one of those words is a catchy heading for sub-issues, rich fodder for campaign speech writers. Those three words permit Democrats to do what they so often fail to do: find slogans that stick to even the most casual person interested in voting, or even staying home.
"Costs" is like "affordability," and right now, it is low-hanging fruit from health care costs, groceries, gas, and utilities, and inflation. Some of those will persist into November, no matter how the Iran conflict turns out. Trump is placing priorities into his blunders over Iran, advocating Medicare to be stuck to the states because war financing is more important, and the price of gas at the pump, or other challenges to a struggling middle class. So much could be resolved by reversing the tax breaks to the rich, but those seem sacred to Trump and are never, ever offered as an alternative. If voters want to fund both their treasured federal social safety nets and military adventures, why not start there? Fiscal conservativism means balancing expenses with the other side of the column, providing offsetting tax income, right?
Chaos refers to the personality of Trump and his enablers, especially those up for election in Congress.. His egomaniacal personality is the only constant. He seems to mean whatever is good for Trump is good for the nation for the moment. It seems temporary, confusing, and raises fears about an unstable future.. That is not making those who feel vulnerable feel secure about financial planning, immigrant worries, and damage to civil rights, not to mention his foreign wars, Iran, Greenland, and Cuba. TACO Trump is more than just a description; it is a condition of his instability. More and more, he appears to be nutty, jumping from position to position, insensitive to all human and US security's adverse fallouts. Our allies no longer take his word, whatever it is today or yesterday, seriously. Sometimes they see it as dangerous. So much depends on what Trump tweeted overnight. The rule of law used to be a standard that provided some element of stability if everyone respected and abided by it, but Trump blatantly ignores it, leaving it up to what he thought was the loyal judicial bench to back him up months later, counting on them to give him a permission slip. That is a large contributor to his reign of chaos.
"Corruption" is not just about bribery: It is a matter of favoring the rich with favors and tax policy to keep them in the political fold...domestic or foreign, and it is all in the open: accumulation of wealth and power by Trump and his family and those whose favor he tries to influence. He has monetized the Oval Office...and the wealth he has accumulated for himself, his families, and cronies is obscene. His crypto adventures raise suspicions that padding his pockets influences so many of his other public and foreign policies. Even if there is no proof of direct bribery, it is worthy of outrage on its own merits.
(If Cooper came up with the phrase, there is some irony here since those three words were once used unsuccessfully by the GOP to attack him years ago. There needs to be substance and an already accepted voter approval and polling agreement among supporters to make it work. However, Trump is well underwater in so may of these public policy issues.)
