Posted on 11/13/2025 4:18:13 AM PST by MtnClimber
If you want to run for office as a Democrat, there is a new catchword that you need to make as your main promise: “Affordability.”
As anybody paying attention knows, the cry of “affordability” was the central theme that carried the Democrats to victory in all the big races this year, most notably those of Zohran Mamdani for Mayor in New York City, Abigail Spanberger for Governor in Virginia, and Mikie Sherrill for Governor in New Jersey. The same theme also carried two Democrats to victory as Public Service Commissioners in Georgia — the first victories by Democrats in statewide elections for state office in Georgia since 2006.
But here is the question: Is the promise of “affordability” by these politicians something that has any prospect of being delivered through their proposed policies? Or are the proposed policies instead more likely to be useless, or even counterproductive, thus making the promise of “affordability” a scam from the outset?
In the campaigns, the theme of “affordability” got applied across multiple areas of household spending, including such areas as housing, healthcare, and transportation. But one spending category was the biggest focus of the campaigns above all others: energy. In a piece at Vox on November 7, Umair Irfan exults at the success of the Democratic candidates’ appeal to affordability as to energy, under the headline “Clean energy could become a huge political winner.” (available outside paywall at MSN here). Excerpts:
This off-year election was a pressure test of Democrats’ broad message on affordability and who voters hold accountable for the rising cost of electricity. . . . In New Jersey, Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, ran on a promise to fight skyrocketing energy bills. She even vowed to declare a state of emergency and freeze utility rates on day one in office. And it worked. . . . In Virginia, Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger also made affordable energy a tentpole of her campaign against republican Winsome Earle-Sears. . . . [In Georgia] Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson defeated two incumbent Republicans [for seats on the Public Service Commission]. . . . Frances Sawyer, founder of Pleiades Strategy, an energy analysis firm, [said] “It is just a huge sign that Georgians are fed up with rate hikes. They’re fed up with high bills. . . .”
So what are the policies that are supposed to deliver “affordable” electricity rates? For Sherrill and the Georgia PSC Commission candidates, number one was a freeze (or opposition to increase) of rates. And for both Sherrill and Spanberger, next came big expansion of wind and solar generation. From Sherrill’s website:
By prioritizing the right investments in new clean power resources, we can reduce our carbon footprint, increase energy independence, and help families across the state save money. . . . Prioritize and support low-cost, in-state clean energy investments and innovations to bring down rates. . . . Increase the use of state properties to host solar projects. . . . Assist New Jerseyans in adopting clean energy solutions, like community solar. . . .
Sherrill appears to be clueless that wind and solar generators require vast additional backup, energy storage, and transmission capacity to make an electricity grid work full time, thus making their end costs to consumers a multiple of those for traditional thermal generation. The same blindspot applies for Spanberger. From the Spanberger for Governor website:
Abigail knows that Virginia has the opportunity to be a national leader in clean energy, including by bringing high-paying clean energy jobs to the Commonwealth through investments in offshore wind, rooftop solar, and other renewable energy sources. In Congress, Abigail supported commonsense incentives for increased deployment of clean energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage. As the next Governor of Virginia, Abigail is committed to making sure Virginia can meet its energy needs while growing its economy and keeping costs low for Virginians.
Back here in New York City, electricity costs are not so much on the Mayor’s agenda, but Mamdani preached “affordability” of everything from housing to groceries to buses. How to deliver that? For housing, how about a rent freeze? For groceries and buses, subsidies from the taxpayers.
Why anyone would ever again build or maintain a rental apartment building in New York under a regime of permanent rent freeze is an issue that apparently has never occurred to Mamdani (or the people who voted for him).
To give you an idea of just how far the fantasy cry of “affordability” has penetrated the ranks of current Democrats, take note that one Jack Schlossberg has just declared that he is running for Congress from New York’s 12th Congressional District. Have you heard of Schlossberg? He is JFK’s grandson, via daughter Caroline. The 12th Congressional District includes much of Midtown Manhattan, plus the Upper East and West Sides (currently represented by the execrable Jerrold Nadler, who is retiring). According to an October 2024 piece here at Yahoo Finance, New York 12 is the third wealthiest district in the country (ranked by median household income), trailing only two Silicon Valley districts in California — although NY12 is second in “mean” household income, and also has more people earning $200,000+ (156,102 households out of 393,204) than either of those two pikers in California.
And of course Schlossberg’s number one issue according to his announcement: the “cost of living crisis.” OK, it’s slightly different messaging from “affordability,” but only slightly. Schlossberg attended the Collegiate School in Manhattan for high school, where the current tuition is about $66,000 per year (it probably was in the range of $45,000/yr 15 years ago when Schlossberg attended). He makes a point in his announcement that he took the cross-town bus each day, from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side, to get to school. In other words, he is a true man of the people.
Schlossberg has not yet addressed what policies he intends to implement to address the “cost of living crisis.” But as we know, there are really only two policies in the Democrats’ playbook to deal with such a thing, namely price controls and taxpayer subsidies. I might suggest to him as a start that he impose price controls on exclusive Manhattan private high schools.
You might think that the voters of NY 12 would have to realize that in any effort to control the “cost of living” via government subsidies, the wealthy like them would have to pay far more in taxes than any benefit they might receive in lower prices. Don’t count on it. The more solidly Democratic is any voting group, the more innumerate it proves to be.
DemocRATs can’t math.
People can learn to budget money.
Then they can afford things they thought they couldn’t.
Cost of Living is a serious issue.
The Democrat solution is going to be higher taxes, more regulations, and bigger government programs. There is parts of the population that will embrace these bad ideas.
Republicans should not scoff at this as a non-issue. We need solutions and they need to be different from the socialism pushed by the Democrats. Re-shore manufacturing jobs to provide plenty of good employment. Deport illegal aliens to open up more jobs for everyone. Lower the tax burden for everyone. Find ways to increase wages, increase housing stock (deporting millions of aliens would help).
Socialism is a boot stomping on your face forever. The Democrat solutions will not make people genuinely happy.
It may not be possible, but if we could get back to stable families with one wage earner and one stay-at-home person, that would make a whole lot of people really happy.
Democrats seem to have no self-control. And they blame their situations on those who do.
This is a hard fact of life that commies never quite grasp, despite an unbroken economic history of failure from which to learn.
“Affordability” is merely “equity” in disguise
:: This is a hard fact of life that commies never quite grasp ::
Until they “grasp” the rental units as their own.
Where was outrage in 2022-3 when the “only transitory” inflation was 9%? Are things more affordable than they were then or not? Having just went through some of the most deceitful, self inflicted bouts of “unaffordability” in history folks who clutch pearls at 3% inflation cannot be taken seriously.
“affordability” Doesthis mean they will steal less of our tax dollars?
Republicans need to focus on the cost of regulations and campaign on making government smaller and less intrusive. Trump’s tax cuts, layoffs and deregulation is a good model.
We have affordability to thank for President Trump’s first term. Biden-era inflation, and Harris’s utter inability to sound concerned, to say the least of serious, about it, was the key difference.
It’s MIND-BOGGLING that Trump is now touting, the form of a 50-year-mortgage, the same kind of wrongness about housing affordability that made Harris a mockery last year (her idea was a give-away subsidy for first-time homebuyers). Anyone with the REMOTEST sense knows that home prices will adjust upward for anything like those things.
It is perfectly plausible to believe that over the next few years close elections will be won, and elections that should be close will be won in blow-outs, by whoever talks best about affordability.
That Democrats have mostly BAD solutions for affordability isn’t the (political) cudgel people seem to think it is. Something beats nothing ALWAYS.
That was a very smart campaign theme for Mamdani.
Affordability is the extension of the equity argument
The many are going to tell the few how to redistribute their wealth so the many can have free stuff
Communists convince voters they are oppressed and need to exact vengeance on the rich oppressors. Tyranny of the majority.
Increasing supply also addresses higher prices
How about “unaffordability” that Xiden caused by printing $2,000,000,000,000 of fake dollars causing the inflation we see today?
Spanburger’s plan is to raise energy costs to make it more affordable.
The people who did vote for him are about to find out the hard way that states and cities in the US cannot print money.
“It may not be possible, but if we could get back to stable families with one wage earner and one stay-at-home person, that would make a whole lot of people really happy.”
It can happen. First things first. Hold the media accountable for their lies and support for leftwing politicians. Democrats will do what Democrats do. It’s the media who runs cover for them. If they told the truth, we wouldn’t have any of these problems.
They cannot cause a problem and then claim they should be in power to solve it.
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